Welcome back to my old movie reviews, as I promised you from the December Update that I’m going to give you a really classic trilogy review. As Star Wars: The Force Awakens is coming out in Hong Kong, December 17th (This Thursday ^^) I feel like it is necessary to review the movie, that is possibly not only important for the world of cinema, it is very important to me. Without further ado, now I bring you 1977’s Star Wars. (And yes, I’m still calling it Star Wars. I’m not calling it A New Hope. I’m calling it what it was called back then, and it’s Star Wars.) And yes, this review will contain spoilers. You’ve been warned.
Film Synopsis - The Imperial Forces -- under orders from cruel Darth Vader (David Prowse) -- hold Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) hostage, in their efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), captain of the Millennium Falcon, work together with the companionable droid duo R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) to rescue the beautiful princess, help the Rebel Alliance, and restore freedom and justice to the Galaxy.
Before the review, let me tell you something...
Here is what you should have known by now: Star Wars revolutionized cinema. It revolutionized all movies in general. From that point onward, film-making itself has never been the same. At that time, nobody knew what that movie is about. Nobody anticipated this science fiction movie to ever come out. They knew nothing about it, yet. The audience was blown away, from a lot of aspects of this movie, including the special effects and the visual storytelling. After that, Star Wars have remained as one of the world’s most important aspect of pop culture. Countless other movies have tried to mimic what Star Wars has done, and none of them has really got to how important or how far this movie has given to the use of film-making technology.
Before I was really mature to watch
action movies, I used to watch a lot of Pixar movies, who were great films, but
of course, appropriate for my age. After that, I’ve grown quite tired of
animated movies. I want to see something more real. It was at the age of 4, I
guess, when I went to a shopping mall with my father, and there was a large
Star Wars Cosplay going on. My dad dragged me over to that side, and I
obviously had no interest in those kind of stuff, and he would point
everywhere, saying things like: “Look, there’s Darth Vader! He’s the evilest
man in the universe! Look, there’s Yoda! He is the wisest man in the universe!”
And I slowly and slowly grew more and more interest with these characters. When
the original Star Wars Trilogy came out on TV, I watched every single one of
them, and of course, starting with Star Wars.
You cannot tell how much I was blown
away, knowing that I jumped from good animated movies to movies that featured
so much amazing and mind-blowing special effects, and also, some of the
greatest characters introduced in cinematic history. The only shame I had at
first with this movie, was the fact that I really wanted to meet Yoda. My dad
talked a lot about him, and since he didn’t appear in the first one, or was
even mentioned at all, I feel slightly disappointed. Hey, it’s something I got
over with later, because I watched The Empire Strikes back a few days after
this movie.
When I asked my father about when the
movie was released, you cannot imagine my reaction. I gaped at him, pointing at
the TV, screaming: “1977! It must be as old as the dinosaurs!” Unfortunately,
the dinosaur thing was me being dumb, but it’s mindset of a 5 year old. It’s
fine.
Star Wars was the movie that really
sucked me into the world of film-making. It was at that point, I finally had a
good hobby in life. It brought me over to the side of film-making, thanks to
this movie. I was thankful for what Star Wars have done for me.
So, instead of listening to me moan and
drone over my experiences with Star Wars, I’m going to give you some of the
Pros and Cons… of Star Wars.
The Pros
A good, developing story - The story is probably one of the most basic of a good story. It’s
just a story of heroes, and princess (Princess Leia, just to tell you she
exists. I won’t mention her that much in this review though), and gun-to-gun
combat, sword fight, flying ship battles, action and adventure. If you view it
as a movie from 1977, it can be quite new, as after that there are countless
imitators that have tried to be the diet coke of Star Wars.
The story is learned to be quite simple,
but then you start to see the story grow as it goes along, giving you the
expanding universe of the world of Star Wars. See, what the movies of Star Wars
has done that made it great was the fact that they keep expanding the world,
and they did exactly that already starting from the first movie. It kept going,
and growing, giving you all new worlds and creatures from a thousand planets.
It was a well-crafted universe, with a lot of creativity used to make a world
like this. The movie itself kept growing and improving, giving you more
characters, not just throwing it all off into a heap of a mess, but slowly
building up, carefully constructing a world with characters. It is a perfect
way of storytelling. This movie was perfectly calculated, not improvised.
The special effects - Starting from the opening scene of this movie, at that one moment in time, imagine yourself watching a small ship getting chased by a gigantic star destroyer, with laser beams streaking everywhere. Just imagine, for one moment, seeing this for the first time, as you've never seen it before. Every time I watch that scene, just gazing in awe at the sheer scope of that view. Loved that photography. And then you have a showdown of Rebels and Stormtroopers firing lasers.
The special effects - Starting from the opening scene of this movie, at that one moment in time, imagine yourself watching a small ship getting chased by a gigantic star destroyer, with laser beams streaking everywhere. Just imagine, for one moment, seeing this for the first time, as you've never seen it before. Every time I watch that scene, just gazing in awe at the sheer scope of that view. Loved that photography. And then you have a showdown of Rebels and Stormtroopers firing lasers.
You can never, for once in your life,
look at this movie, and look at scenes and then you say: “That looks fake, I’m
not buying it.” Absolutely impossible. This movie succeeded into using practical
models, dykstraflex, 3D computer animation, and Go Motion way before any other
film had fully develop that sort of technique. Those special effects will be
timeless forever, and they still hold up, to this day, in 2015, the time I am
making this review. It's been 38 years, folks. It hasn’t aged one bit.
(0_0)
The movie kept giving you extremely good
special effects, starting from just simply everywhere. You see the world as
some sort of future for our world today, and the movie kept expanding on the
technology the Star Wars universe had used. It is creatively amazing. The
Special Effects gave this movie an immediate boost of the positivism.
Visual Storytelling - This point is really the combination of both the first two point I said from above. Yes, the story is being used loads of times after Star Wars, and as a person living in a world like today, you can judge the fact that Star Wars has now became quite unoriginal. It is, for its time, but not now. But Star Wars wasn’t aiming only for a rich story, it is visualizing the story in front of your eyes. We truly wanted this world to exist.
That was what George Lucas did so well in
this movie, was the fact that he recreated what he wanted to tell us in his
head, through the visual aspect of it. It gave you Show Not Tell, formula,
giving you a wide expansive world made by special effects, giving you the view
right in front of the audience, instead of telling most of what’s going on.
That has made the movie unique in many ways.
The scene with Luke Skywalker, the main
protagonist of this movie, was staring at the twin sun, it was a perfect
moment. It was obviously George Lucas’ old self before an alien abducted him
and gave us another George, who made some terrible prequels. It was then he
knew that you don’t have to say something to convey an emotion, and he did the
scene really well, and we all get what the scene is going on. He hoped for a future.
It was an emotional scene, and with John Williams’ music playing with it is
great.
The way the movie didn't tell you everything at first benefited the movie by simply having the story flow, without telling
you anything about it at first, as they kept expanding the world. It doesn’t
give away what the story is going to be about, and all you see and meet for
most of the time was an Oscar and a blue Trash Can. No, I’m kidding, it’s C-3P0
and R2-D2.
(The Oscar and the Trash Can)
Star Wars Musical Score - Composed by Legendary composer John Williams. If I didn’t even
bother mentioning this, then there is something wrong with me. I am also a very
musical person myself, and I loved John Williams’ score, and of course my
all-time favorite were from Star Wars. The force theme, the battle of Yavin
theme, the original theme of Star Wars… those were legendary music, not just
for Star Wars, but for almost everything else in the musical industry. You can imagine George Lucas,
looking at his scenes with and without music, just tearing up for how much John
Williams has captivated the mood of Star Wars. The music of Star Wars clearly
showed signs of adventure, action, and bravery, and heroism from all these
characters we are with.
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker - The character you are going to be with, from the start of this
classic trilogy, and all the way to the end. You see his character from being
whiny and slightly annoying at first, but you can see exactly why. He is a boy
with no future. You have to feel kind of sorry for him. If you still find him
annoying though, then I am going to introduce you to a character arc: You see
the character, from one beginning of something, then got to the end, having him
develop and change his character. Luke started out as a character that acts a
little bit like a child, and at the end of the film, he grew more mature. He
developed as a human being, and was bettered as a human being, and stopped
whining from that moment.
(Use the force Luke...)
Harrison Ford as Han Solo - Do I still need to explain what a badass should be like? Well, Han
Solo is one of them. He’s one of the coolest characters in the entirety of Star
Wars. He clearly did some extremely badass and awesome things in this movie. At
first, you view his character as a cold-hearted smuggler who cares all about
the money. He looks like the type of person who doesn’t give a damn about
anything that is going on around him. All he knows is the fact that there is a
bounty above him, and he would rather get rid of it than help the conflict between
the Rebellion and the Empire. After that, a short character arc ensues, at the
end not only saving Luke’s life during the Battle of Yavin, but in the end,
showed that there is more to his character than money.
The fact that George Lucas edited a scene
where Han shot Greedo, another smuggler from under the table, making Greedo
shoot first. George Lucas wanted to tell us that Han should not have been as
cold-blooded as he should have been. However, there is a problem mainly because
that happened early on in the trilogy. At the end of the trilogy, you can see
his character has changed; he’s not cold-blooded anymore. He is a character
with a heart, a character that is now so loyal to the rebellion, as we knew
from the third movie that money doesn’t really matter as much since his boss is
dead. That shooting incident really reflected Han’s character as a whole.
Darth Vader - When you see this villain walk into the scene for the first time,
the first thing that comes to your mind is: that’s the evilest man in the
entirety of the universe, standing right in front of us.
Darth Vader is one of the greatest
villains in cinematic history. He is voiced by James Earl Jones, the voice of
Mufasa from The Lion King. He is more than just being there as a bad guy,
because you can already tell from within a few seconds, that he is smart. He is
methodical and precise. He is a clever man. He knows his shit, and that it is
completely wrong to mess with him. He can choke you with his mind, and that’s
not good. You see more of the bad side of him from The Empire Strikes Back,
Star Wars’ Sequel. He is simply too evil, even from first glance. He is the
greatest villain in cinematic history. You at first don’t feel that from Star
Wars, even though you got the basis of his character. You know more about him
in the next movie.
Adventure Action Sequences - Quite a few exciting scenes and chases in the hallway of the Death
Star, a powerful space station built by the Empire that had so much power to
destroy a single planet. They were great as you see more blaster beams flying
by, chasing the heroes around. It’s a fun scene to look at. The other scene
where the Millennium Falcon fought against four TIE fighters with Luke and Han
as the Falcon’s gunner was a really cool scene too.
The Lightsaber Duel between Ben Kenobi
and Darth Vader - This scene
introduced us to lightsaber duels. This scene is monumental in a lot of
aspects. Firstly, lightsabers are awesome. We’ve always wanted one in our
lives, thanks to its cool laser beams, and its greatest use. Even when the
blades clash, you love seeing the screen flash, and make crackling noise, and
you know lightsabers are dangerous weapons. The way the scene was edited, and
the lack of dialogue, made the scene very entertaining, though the choreography
doesn’t hold up as well, but I thought it was fine for two old dudes to fight
with sticks.
Another aspect of this scene is great,
because at this point all you know is the fact that Darth Vader was a pupil of
Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Ben, for short. “When I left you, I was but the learner.
Now, I am the master.” You see the master and the pupil just fighting each
other, and you knew this battle isn’t forced. If only enough time were allowed,
I feel like Obi-Wan could have won that battle. However, when Obi-Wan looked at
Luke, who ran for the Millennium Falcon, the ship owned by Han, he looked back
at Vader, and knew exactly that this is not his battle. This is actually
Luke’s. And you can clearly see why if you look at the sequel to this movie.
Obi-Wan is simply awesome as a character. I hated how the prequels destroyed
his character from the Original Trilogy. Wise old men are the greatest.
The Battle of Yavin - Now we reach the climax of the film, where lots of airships, the
X-Wings and Y-Wings attack the space station. It is a satisfying way to send
off the entire movie. It is simply that brilliant. That is when more of the
special effect shined and still showed it held up, and John William’s music
shined again. You see the Death Star about to blow up the planet the Rebel Base
is in, you see the torpedoes enter the exhaust port of the Death Star… it is
incredibly and insanely intense. It was extremely exciting. This scene was the
best of the entire movie. I loved it to this day, and the scene I will recognize
as the best in my life.
Neutral
Throne Room Ending - I loved the throne sequence. It is a good scene, showing off a good
ending to such a great movie. The only issue I had with that scene was the fact
that only Luke and Han got a medal. How about Chewbacca? How about Wedge?
Come on… give them an award. They did pretty well. It kind of bugged me, to be
honest. Don’t worry, I won’t take this into account as a negative. It's all
fine. Just a teeny bit of an issue.
(Come on. Where's Wedge? What about Chewie's Medal?)
Conclusion
Star Wars was absolutely iconic film-making. It gave the film-making technology such an important leap, while
still managing to maintain such a good story. Just take this to account: George
Lucas and his team didn’t even know if they are going to pull this movie well.
They also had a limited budget. They don’t know if people are going to like it,
and that some of the people in the production doesn’t get it what George is
trying to do. They are afraid they don’t have the special effect to pull this
movie off. George Lucas had to convince to others that he was doing something
good. Of course, all the hard work they have done for this movie was finally
redeemed, and gave the world such an iconic pop culture reference in our
everyday lives.
It remains as an impactful film, and it
was one of the most important movies ever made. It also impacted me as well.
See how much a movie can do to a person.
The Pros - 10
Neutral - 1
The Cons - 0
Rating: CINEMATASTIC (6/6)
I have one very important request in my
future life. If one day I’m going to get married, I want the Throne Room theme
to be played as I walked down the hallway in the church. I mean, come on now.
I'm loving it.
The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the
Jedi review will come soon. Oh lord almighty, just a few more days to wait!
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