Star Wars (1977) - film review

In a distant galaxy, the Rebel Alliance has stolen the plans to the Galactic Empire’s secret weapon, a space station named the Death Star that can destroy entire worlds.  Just before her spaceship is attacked by Imperial Stormtroopers, Princess Leia manages to hide the plans, along with a holographic message, in the droid, R2-D2.  The latter escapes in a space pod with another droid, C-3PO, and they land on the desert planet Tatooine.   Here, the robots are captured by scrap merchants, the Jawas, and sold to farmer Owen Lars and his nephew Luke Skywalker.  Luke resents beings stuck on this backwater planet and dreams of joining his friends at an off-world academy.  Whilst cleaning R2-D2, Luke activates Leia’s holograph, an appeal for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Luke is curious but his uncle insists that Kenobi, like Luke’s father, is dead.   When R2-D2 goes missing, Luke hastily sets out to look for him and finds him with an old hermit, Ben Kenobi, who reveals that he was once known as Obi-Wan.  After hearing Leia’s message, Kenobi insists that they must take the stolen plans to Alderaan where they can be examined by the Rebels.  When he learns that his home and family have been destroyed by Imperial Stormtroopers, Luke agrees, and they head off to the spaceport to find a pilot who will help them in their mission.  Han Solo is to be their man, a smuggler who, it seems, will do anything for money.  Together with Solo’s co-pilot, a Wookiee named Chewbacca, the party leaves Tatooine in Solo’s souped-up old freighter, the Millennium Falcon and heads for Alderaan.  Whilst Ben Kenobi trains Luke to be a Jedi knight, instructing him in the use of the powerful energy field known as the Force, Princess Leia is taken to the Death Star.  There, she is interrogated by the station’s commander, the Grand Moff Tarkin, and his black-clad aide, Darth Vader.  When Leia refuses to reveal the location of the rebel base, Tarkin gives the order for Alderaan to be destroyed.   Luke’s adventure really begins when the Millenium Falcon is caught in a tractor beam and drawn down into the Death Star...

Love it or hate it, there has never been another film quite like Star Wars.  This is the film that changed American cinema overnight, creating a voracious appetite for blockbuster, effects-driven spectacles that continues to this day.  Some would argue that this is the film which destroyed American cinema, sending Hollywood off on an ever-declining trajectory towards mindless money-grubbing mediocrity.  Equally it can be said that Star Wars marked the rebirth of cinema as a mass entertainment art form, a return to basic principles, offering pure escapism in the from of a fast-moving action-packed adventure.  No one disputes, however, that this is a film that made a mark.  After Star Wars cinema would never be the same again, and science-fiction movies in particular would change beyond all recognition.

More than anything, what made Star Wars such a hit phenomenon was the quality of its special effects, which are still impressive by today’s standards and which were literally out-of-this world back in 1977.   When he learned that Twentieth Century Fox had closed down its effects department, director George Lucas founded his own effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, and would perfect the kind of visual effects that would become de rigueur for the next twenty years.  It is the effects, along with the imaginative set and costume design, that gives Star Wars its iconic feel, setting it apart from any other film at the time.  It is hard not be seduced by this film, just because it is so visually enticing, being unlike anything that had gone before.

It is just as well that the effects and design are so good, because in virtually every other department Star Wars falls down.  This is one of those films where you really have to resist the temptation to look too closely beneath the surface.  If you do, the magic evaporates in an instant.  The story, a trite juvenile fantasy, barely holds together.  The sci-fi concepts are of the most rudimentary kind (the kind a twelve-year-old would employ in a school essay).  The characters are shallow plot ciphers who spout the most appalling dialogue.  And the performances aren’t much to write home about either.  Mark Hamill appears to be auditioning for the part of the colour beige in an interior design catalogue; Carrie Fisher’s stroppy princess soon becomes wearying (Leia’s reaction to every crisis is to beat it to death with her tongue); and it is clear that Harrison Ford would rather be doing something else than deliver lines that appear to be lacerating his mouth.  And as for that camp weirdo in the black cloak with a bucket over his head... just what is he supposed to be, a walking advertisement for S&M?   The only character with anything approaching a personality is C-3PO.  You may whinge and wince at what the other B-listers get up to as they try and save/enslave the universe, but the cute tin man who has more neuroses than an inner city primary school teacher will always make you smile.

Georges Lucas claims that, in conceiving Star Wars, he was inspired by the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s, but this evidently is not the only influence to make its way into the film.  From Kurosawa to The Wizard of Oz, from the Errol Flynn swashbucklers to The Dam Busters, and just about every film since 1905, Star Wars raids them one and all, making this the most derivative film ever made.  To give him credit, Lucas had a knack for knowing what would appeal to a mass audience.  He saw what had worked in the past and had no qualms about reworking the tried and tested concepts into a new and exciting adventure film.  Superficial, infantile and contrived it may be, but Star Wars was exactly what the cinema-going public wanted, and Lucas gave it to them.  For a teenager growing up in the 1970s, there was no better gift than a ticket to the original Star Wars movie.  

When the film was released in May 1977, it struck with no less an impact than a tsunami on Brighton beach.  Star Wars was an instant hit, first in America, and then across the globe.  Although it was made relatively cheaply (with a budget of around 11 million dollars) it would gross around 800 million dollars on its first release alone, which, allowing for inflation, made it the greatest box office hit since Gone With the Wind (1939).   An avalanche of merchandising quickly ensued, consisting of books, comics, toys, games, clothes, toiletries – in fact just about anything that could sport the Star Wars logo.  No film had ever been so hyped, no film had ever made such a global impact and no film had ever engendered so much hysteria and fan devotion.  Star Wars is a film that created its own legend, becoming one of the great cultural phenomena of the Twentieth Century, and the brand is still doing well today.  

The enormous success of Star Wars meant that a sequel was inevitable.  The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980, followed by Return of the Jedi in 1983, completing a trilogy featuring the characters of the original film.  George Lucas contributed the screenplay on both of these films, but handed over the job of direction to someone else, as he found directing Star Wars too demanding and stressful for him to want to repeat the experience.  Lucas would however return to direct the three lesser regarded prequels: The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005).  He would also script the spin-off TV series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which began transmission in 2008.

As often happens with popular genre films, critical reaction to Star Wars was very mixed.  Some reviewers appeared to be drowning in a sea of superlatives, rating it as the most important film in the history of American cinema and a land-mark sci-fi movie that would change audience’s expectations for forever.  Others were far less complimentary and lambasted it for its narrative flaws and perceived artistic vacuity.  What cannot be denied is that Star Wars is one of the most successful films of all time, and one that did have an enormous impact on the future direction of Hollywood. 

What the weird and wonderful adventures of Skywalker and company showed is that blockbuster adventure movies made serious money, something that greedy executives would be quick to capitalise on.  It would be unfair to say that Star Wars single-handedly destroyed the artistic integrity of Hollywood, but it certainly changed the face of the American film industry, ushering in an era where the profit motive would gain supremacy over any artistic imperative.  But will the men in designer black suits prevail?  Is it not possible that the rebels will one day return and instill in Hollywood a new ethos, where content is at least as important as concept?  Perhaps the fight has already begun.  May the force be with them.

© James Travers 2009

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