Review of Star Wars (1977) by Shayan S — 03 Dec 2017

In anticipation for the next installment of Star Wars coming out: Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi, I figured i'd look back on both the prequels, original trilogy, and sequels and content Disney released after George Lucas departed from Lucasfilm. And for this film in particular no proper introduction is needed, you know this film. You most likely grew up with it, It defined every young child and filmmakers imagination, It was a cultural milestone for audiences in '77, It won 7 Oscars for visuals and editing. It's 'Star Wars' (or if you want to be picky: Episode IV - A New Hope.) And looking back on my thoughts on this film, since fairly speaking here when I did really get into Star Wars back in 2015 in preparation for The Force Awakens, I let my somewhat 'bias' outlook of the series take ahold of me. And really re-watching this film again, I start to realize how much I still enjoy this film to death but also realize how flawed it can be.

But before I get into any of that stuff, I thought i'd kind of want to talk about the struggles that came to making this film real quick. To put it short, Geroge Lucas & producer Gary Kurtz, after winning it big with American Graffiti, wanted to make a film that payed homage to both the cheezy sci-fi shows of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. During the script stage, when it was just called 'The Adventures of Luke Skywalker Taken From The Journal of the Whills Episode I: The Star Wars', George had a...fairly ludicrous direction approaching the story and had ludicrous that never made it into the film (Such as Han being a frog, Luke as a old aged wizard, and C-3PO as a used car salesman). But as the film got its budget from Alan Ladd Taylor Jr. (who was the president of Fox at the time), when making the film the whole thing went through a production nightmare. The actors thought the film sounded ludicrous and never took it seriously, the budget was almost waisted and the production caused many accidents on set, and the first cut of the film was quoted as being: "An unmitigated disaster." But soon after, Kurtz, Ben Burtt (the sound designer of the film) John Williams, and the editors of the film Paul Hersh, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew came in to fix the film. And thus, as a result of all of this we have the popular pop culture icon we have today.

What can I say about this film that hasn't been said? Well, looking back on the film and marathoning the whole original trilogy I can see where a lot of the flaws come in. But not necessarily flaws that break the film. Despite a very noticeable lack of budget, underwritten and very standard characters (come on let's be real they are), George's dialogue and especially directing often being bland or really cheesy, the script filled with too many coincidences and conveniences,and a story that's about as standard when it comes to hero's journeys as it gets, that doesn't mean the film is bad. Oh dear, far from it. Because really, it doesn't break nor distract the film. Because for me, and I think most others, I was invested enough in the likable and well acted characters, outstanding and well implemented practical effects and action sequences (noticed I didn't say the CGI special edition changes), well executed editing, very grand score by John Williams, fantastic sound design by Ben Burtt, and fun toned pace that Star Wars just ends up being forgivable for it's shortcomings. So in short, Star Wars does enough of a good job standing well on it's own and being simple and easy to follow that despite its flaws is enough for you to not be invested in it. Which that and especially Force Awakens in my opinion, definitely share the most in common. And a film i'm gonna keep going back to for influence for years to come.

Score: 8.5 / 10.