Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

by Robbo

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Posted on 20 April 2021

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Rating -

Star Wars (retroactively titled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is a 1977 American epic space-opera film in the vein of Flash Gordon, written and directed by George Lucas.

It stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker and Peter Mayhew.

It is the first installment of the original Star Wars trilogy, the first of the franchise to be produced, and the fourth episode of the “Skywalker saga”.

Set a long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away; Star Wars focuses on the journey of young farm boy, Luke Skywalker (Hamill), who along with the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness), smuggler Han Solo (Ford), and his Wookiee companion Chewbacca (Mayhew), attempt to free Princess Leia (Fisher) from the clutches of the tyrannical Galactic Empire.

At the same time, the heroes try to deliver the plans for the Empire’s planet-destroying space station, the Death Star, which are carried by the droids R2-D2 (Baker) and C-3PO (Daniels), to the Rebel Alliance, but face opposition from the Sith Lord Darth Vader (Prowse, voiced by Jones).

Luke trains to be a Jedi Knight, the former peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic who drew mystical abilities from a metaphysical energy field known as “the Force”, but were ultimately hunted to near-extinction by the Empire.

Luke learns that his father fought alongside Obi-Wan as a Jedi Knight during the Clone Wars until Vader, Obi-Wan’s former pupil, turned to the dark side of the Force and murdered him.

Obi-Wan presents Luke with his father’s old lightsaber, the signature weapon of Jedi Knights.

Star Wars really did set the standard for Science Fiction films to come. The dialogue is a bit stilted, Harrison Ford famously stating, “George, you can type this shit, but you can’t say it!”.

You just become immersed in the narrative with characters that you really care about with Alec Guiness once stating that when he read it he found the dialogue awful but just had to turn the page to see what happens.

The special effects were groundbreaking, many of the techniques having to be invented for the film which really are comparable to, or even ecplipse 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But what really does complete the film is John William’s rousing score which is exhilarating and emotional in equal measure.

This was a defining film of my generation and certainly one of my favourites.

If you are one of the few who has never seen Star Wars I would urge you to watch this film as soon as you can.

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