Rate/Discuss: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. . .
It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...
Directed by George Lucas
Starring Peter Cushing, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Alec Guiness and Mark Hammil
Winner for Best Art Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound
Nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Alec Guinness), Best Director (George Lucas), Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture
Special Achievement Awarded to Sound Technician Ben Burtt
Rate the one that started it all and discuss it below!
Star Wars, Disney World and Philmont are very similar things in my world. I've been to Disney World around 30 times and plan on working there next year. It's my favorite vacation spot and I love it, but I went there for the first time when I was only months old. I never got to experience it for the first time. None of you here know Philmont, but it's the same way. I don't remember my first time seeing God's Country.
Star Wars is like that. I can't remember the first time I saw it, or even the first time I was aware of it. I remember growing up and seeing it on TV a couple times a year, especially around Christmas. Back then, A New Hope was always my least favorite, and by a long margin. I pretty much suffered through it just to get to Empire and Jedi. It was the little brother that had to exist just for the big ones. As time went on, though, that changed.
In '95 when the enhanced versions came out I was 10. My father bought the trilogy and that's when the obsession began. During the next 2 years I litterally watched the movies a couple times a week. I began to steadily appreciate ANH more and more.
As I've gotten older I've come to love Episode 4 more and more. It's now definately on par with Empire in my book. And part of that is the reverence that goes with this movie. It's not the best made, it's not the most dramatic, it's not the most perfect, but doggonit it's the one that started it all. It's the godfather, and it has it's rightful place as one of the most important movies ever made.
there was one movie that defined my childhood. star wars.
i was ten and it was the biggest birthday event in my life at that time. a full-day deal with all my friends. star wars was everything to me that lucas wanted it to be. a fairytale for a generation growing up without them. and market to.
i ended up watching it like 15 times that summer.
it became my mythology. my obsession. i made comic books in school about star wars. i drew tie fighters on all of my book covers. i made costumes and shot home star wars movies with my dad's super 8 camera. i dressed up as r2-d2 for halloween one year, and darth vader the next. i built all of the models. i launched my x-wing estes rocket in the schoolyard. i traded all of the bubblegum cards and action figures with my friends.
star wars was my life.
it still is, in some ways. i get all geeked up about star wars stuff, to the point of not hating the two prequel movies like i'm supposed to, because i see them as part of a whole, as flawed as they are. and i suppose i can do that because, in all honesty, the original three are pretty flawed too. they've got horrible dialogue. cardboard performances. oversimplification of plot issues. in other words, they're perfect kids movies.
i'll never be able to appreciate star wars the same way i did as a wide-eyed kid, without adult sensibilities and a mature understanding of storytelling and filmmaking and all of the trappings that come along with being a grown up. but i can still enjoy them for what they are. partly because of the history i have with them, and partly because they are pure and simple. i think that's something that got lost in the pre-story, perhaps because the legions of star wars fans aren't kids anymore.
star wars will always, for me, be the first movie. as good as empire is, and as bad as jedi is, as miserable as the prequels are, and as redeeming as sith might be, star wars will always be a new hope. about being introduced to a brand new space-world with robots and armies in white plastic armor and laser swords and spaceship dogfights and big walking dogs and a kid who discovers his destiny when he least expects it, but needs it the most.
A big part of what made this movie so great was the mix of characters. It was the perfect ensemble of heros, villains, scoundrels, sidekicks and droids. To boot, all of their interactions were dead on.
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Actually, I was talking about the battle over Tatooine, not the opening crawl.
The way the camera is extremely tight as this huge ship flies over head... firing furiously behind itself.... only to be followed by an INSANELY MASSIVE SHIP blowing the hell out of it, and then capturing it.
Cool as hell.
None of the current Star Wars movies have done ships right, have captured the scale like that. Not even Revenge of the Sith, though it does a lot better.
Originally posted by Josh Actually, I was talking about the battle over Tatooine, not the opening crawl.
The way the camera is extremely tight as this huge ship flies over head... firing furiously behind itself.... only to be followed by an INSANELY MASSIVE SHIP blowing the hell out of it, and then capturing it.
Cool as hell.
None of the current Star Wars movies have done ships right, have captured the scale like that. Not even Revenge of the Sith, though it does a lot better.
agreed. If you have never seen the death star going after the Tantive IV on the big screen, you haven't lived
Originally posted by Josh None of the current Star Wars movies have done ships right, have captured the scale like that. Not even Revenge of the Sith, though it does a lot better.
I agree...and it's not just the new Star Wars. Part of that is everything is CGI instead of models. I loved the old Star Trek episodes where they used models...it made for great looking space shots. The CG stuff doesn't look nearly as detailed or have the same level of depth.
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"Protect your chicken from Dokken"
Originally posted by Josh Actually, I was talking about the battle over Tatooine, not the opening crawl.
The way the camera is extremely tight as this huge ship flies over head... firing furiously behind itself.... only to be followed by an INSANELY MASSIVE SHIP blowing the hell out of it, and then capturing it.
Cool as hell.
None of the current Star Wars movies have done ships right, have captured the scale like that. Not even Revenge of the Sith, though it does a lot better.
Oh, ok. Whoops. Yeah, that's usually considered the most memorable part for most people.
I think I suffer, though, from having never lived in a world where that was the most amazing thing seen to that point, or having seen Star Wars on the screen until I had already seen it a couple hundred times. So it's just never had the effect on me it has on other people, and I'm actually kind've sad about that.
As far as openings go, though, I would be hard pressed to think of better.
I love the way they used the Executor in episode V. You'd already seen Imperial Star Destroyers and become wowed by their size. Then, in Empire, you see one of them flying along and suddenly eclipsed by something MUCH larger. Smart cinema.
Originally posted by Witch King of Angmar I liked the beginning of Clones, too. The Naboo ships streaking down was pretty cool, but it was basically a poor man's version of ANH.
AOTC and Phantom don't have enough ship battles to fill a thimble.
Till Sith the best the prequels had to offer was Jango Fett chasing Obi Wan.... and that is just a pale shadow of the asteroid chase in Empire.
Originally posted by Witch King of Angmar Yeah, you're right. Never thought about that.
'Course, until Jedi, there was never a capital ship-scale battle in the OT, either.
Originally posted by Deus Ex Machina I agree...and it's not just the new Star Wars. Part of that is everything is CGI instead of models. I loved the old Star Trek episodes where they used models...it made for great looking space shots. The CG stuff doesn't look nearly as detailed or have the same level of depth.
What better to motivate an actor than having fugly props actually attacking him?
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