Star Wars

There's no getting rid of "Star Wars"; ever since it debuted in the summer of 1977, it has stayed with us. We've seen it through merchandising, television specials, fan fiction, and of course those infamous prequels who's mere mention would cause an internet revolution among those loyalists known as fanboys. Yet despite this over exposure throughout pop culture, the original "Star Wars", remains an inventive and exciting acheivment in popular movie making.

It's easy to be cynical about "Star Wars", perhaps in the long run it has caused more harm than good. It's primarily responsible for ending the era in the 1970s that focused on personal film making, and ushered in a more special effects, blockbuster driven Hollywood, where franchise has become a bit of a dirty word. The copycats it spawned are too many to count, everyone wants there own "Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away..."but can we hold all that against it? Revisiting the original "Star Wars" again after many years of staying away from it, I admit the same old magic worked for me, it's an imaginative movie owing a debt to everything from Saturday matinee cliffhangers, westerns, and Akira Kurosawa samurai films.

George Lucas, the creator and lord over this universe concocted a story as simple and straight forward to follow as any young boy's adventure saga. Borrowing the character archetypes described by Joseph Campbell in his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", Lucas created his own mythology as we follow the story of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a farm boy from Tatooine with dreams of adventure, getting caught up with a band of rebels who fight for freedom in the galaxy against the evil Galactic Empire.

Luke is taken under the wing of an old Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), where he starts learning the ancient religion known as the force. Together with a space smuggler named Han Solo (Harrison Ford), his co-pilot Chewbacca (a large furry creature) and two odd couple droids (C3P0 and R2D2), they must go save Princess Leia (Carrie Fischer) from the clutches of the notorious villain Darth Vader (Voiced by James Earl Jones). There is also a giant space station the Empire has created known as the Death Star which can obliterate entire planets, that the rebels must destroy before it's too late.

So what is "Star Wars"? It's hard not to talk about it as a film without bringing up the phenomenon that comes with it. It began as a modestly budgeted space opera, it was in severe "b-movie" territory which meant no one really took it seriously. But this was also a film unlike anything else that came before it; this was to be a state of the art entertainment. Lucas and his creative team implemented new special effects techniques that still look impressive today, the excitement one gets from looking at Han Solo's ship the Millinium Falcon docking on the the giant death star, or the climactic tie fighter dog fight at the end can still capture our imagination. There is also careful detail made in art direction, such as the Mos Eisley space port where we see various species from throughout the galaxy inhabiting the local tavern; Lucas makes his universe look very lived in.

But obviously, the story has something to do with this film's longevity. It's a simple story of heroes and villains, going on a quest, and good ultimately triumphing over evil, but it's in the way it's executed that makes it so memorable. Lucas fills the film with a lot of good will and optimism, despite the many obstacles our heroes face, we know they're going to get out of it eventually, we're here to have fun, and Lucas takes advantage of that. Take the famous scene in the garbage compactor where Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewbacca are at the mercy of walls that are closing in on them, a scenario that seems to have been used since the dawn of film, yet Lucas knows this, he's winking at the audience with this scene, and we know with Han Solo's wise cracks ("One thing's for sure, we're all gonna be a lot thinner), that our heroes are gonna be just fine.

The actors are also key in making this film work, and I found their performances very fun despite their reputations. As Luke, Mark Hamill embodies the young hero on a quest, he seems caught up in the excitement and the wonder of it all. Carrie Fischer brings a lot of sass to the role of Leia, despite some awkward moments where she seems to slip into an English accent, perhaps to make her Princess sound more stately. Then there is Harrison Ford as Han Solo, I've actually forgotten just how good he is here. Save for Indiana Jones, Ford has never looked more off his leash than playing this swashbuckling, devil-may-care character. He shows off his charm, humor, and roguish heroism so well, it's no wonder he was the one who came out the star.

"Star Wars" soon came out as a phenomenon, spawning the successful sequel "The Empire Strikes Back", a darker toned film with our heroes in real danger (the image of Han encased in carbonite looks rather unsettling in a blockbuster), and of course there's that famous reveal of who Darth Vader really is (A great twist that has never been equaled in a popular movie). The trilogy ended in crowd pleasing fashion with "Return of the Jedi", as Han is rescued from the clutches of vicious slimy gangster Jabba the Hut, and Luke fulfills his destiny in a final showdown with Vader; Ewoks were in it too, and they were cute.

Perhaps, Lucas should've ended it there with a nice cap to his story, but by then, it seemed that "Star Wars"had become the sort of Empire it was rallying against in its own movies. The controversial decision was made to reissue "Star Wars" in a special edition that added new scenes, and new computer generated special effects. The idea of whether the films really needed an update can be disputed, but it says a lot to the originals that the effects haven't really dated, and of course the "Han shot first" debate will go on forever more than any law waiting to be passed in state legislature.

Then came the prequels, that unforgivable trilogy that introduced mediclorines, digital technology, and Jar Jar Binks. True, these films aren't perfect, they are hindered greatly by Lucas' wooden dialogue; and too many awkward love scenes between Anikan Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Padme (Natalie Portman). However I found the films filling the same spirit of the cliffhanger as the previous ones, just not as successfully. Christensen, Portman, and Ewan McGregor never become as engaging as Hamill, Ford, and Fischer were, probably because the perquels didn't carry the same sense of adventure and fun (A Han Solo character probably would've helped the stuffy self-importance the films sometimes had).

With talk of a new trilogy on the horizon, "Star Wars" will be with us forever; which I think says more to the original films than whatever came after them. I feel with every new "Star Wars" film, it's more a vein attempt to re-capture that type of feeling people had when the first one attacked our movie screens. But with a phenomenon like "Star Wars", a new cynicism can form; copycats are adopted, and the heart and spirit that were there can be diluted. What we have left are the original films, still full of invention and imagination, they can take us back to when we were kids, they can get us excited about going to the movies and still make us wonder at all the possibilities that are still out there for us, and what's still left to dream up.