‘Star Wars’ (1977): The Original Blockbuster

Directed by: George Lucas || Produced by: Gary Kurtz

Screenplay by: George Lucas || Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, David Prowse, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew

Music by: John Williams || Cinematography: Gilbert Taylor || Edited by: Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew || Country: United States || Language: English

Running Time: 121 minutes

After almost two and a half years of blogging on Express Elevator to Hell, at last we’ve come to this; when I first started this site in 2013, I rattled off several reviews of my favorite films that I considered the best and/or most entertaining I’d ever seen, but unfortunately those early choices were geared solely toward films I’d seen later in my adolescence and early “adulthood.” My blogging habits gained steam and I moved to new release film reviews and coverage of foreign films I discovered at the time; many of my early childhood favorites were ignored until recently, and now we’ve come to one of the most influential films in American pop culture and the history of cinema worldwide, one of the biggest movies that changed my life forever: Star Wars.

There’s only one other film that arguably influenced me more than the original Star Wars trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983), but we’ll touch that at a later time. I saw this trilogy when I was very, very young —- so young it’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t know the Force, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo, and the Millennium Falcon. The film’s canonical universe is so ingrained into my brain and larger persona that it’s impossible to think of my life or greater American pop culture without it. Even those who haven’t seen or fully appreciated Star Wars yet are affected by it every day, both directly and indirectly, in the annual pop culture pastiche they consume; Star Wars not only changed the American film industry overnight, it changed cinema history forever and has become a pop culture phenomenon for decades, a creative milestone that continues to shape Hollywood to this day. Trust me —- they still hold up.

Top: Perhaps the best use of stock characters in 20th century filmmaking. Bottom: Welcome to the Force, Luke. It will always be with you…

It’s been said many times and in many different ways that George Lucas, the franchise’s “creative Godfather,” gets far too much credit for single-handedly “creating” Star Wars. “He can be thanked for that initial spark,” but the man has always been more of an abstract, brainstorming “idea-machine” rather than any sort of coherent screenwriter or actors’ director. We can all respect him for the shit he went through making the first Star Wars (the 1977 film was plagued by production problems), but the fact of the matter is that Star Wars as a whole was an artistic project conceived through compromise and collaboration with many artists — not just George Lucas. The man didn’t even write or direct The Empire Strikes Back (1980) or direct or principally write Return of the Jedi (1983); and do I really need to remind everyone how the prequels (1999, 2002, 2005) turned out?

The original Star Wars (later renamed and “Episode-numbered” to IV: A New Hope) was rewritten numerous times from George’s incoherent first drafts, virtually saved in editing by Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew, and producer Gary Kurtz, and was in many ways enhanced by the limitations of the then groundbreaking special effects by Lucas’ recently founded Industrial Light and Magic. Again, I got nothing against Lucas, personally, and he did lead a great effort to bring the vision of Star Wars to the big screen, but let’s admit the original Star Wars trilogy is not the best example of the auteur theory. Hell, if anything, Star Wars (along with Steven Spielberg’s earlier film, Jaws [1975]), destroyed the mainstream American auteur of the 1960s-1970s… and established the dominance of Hollywood blockbusters ever since.

Star Wars itself, though, in its original, unaltered form, is a great film regardless whoever gets the most “credit” for creating it. While it essentially destroyed the American New Wave, its recalling of grand, classical Hollywood storytelling and adventure serials, its way of blending them into a sort of new age, science-fantasy-western, is the height of surrealist creativity and cinematic originality. Compared to the generally heavy and boring (according to some) and avant-garde (according to others) science-fiction films of the time (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968], The Andromeda Strain [1971], Solaris [1972]), Star Wars was a radical game-changer that struck the movie-going world (and especially its native United States) at the perfect time. The Vietnam War had been raging for over a decade and was coming to a close, Watergate had disillusioned our political climate, and people needed an escape. Enter Star Wars, “a good ole-fashioned, simple story that the general public could connect with.“

Though high-concept proto-blockbusters had existed in some form before 1977 (e.g. D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation [1915], Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind [1939]), Star Wars broke Hollywood and established the wide-release mainstream film as America’s cinematic bread and butter. Every single mass-audience pandering blockbuster released since owes a debt to Star Wars in some way. Star Wars wasn’t just an influential blockbuster, it remains the original, definitive American blockbuster experience.

Like I said, it recalled conventional Hollywood storytelling and invisible editing. It follows a relatable everyman protagonist (Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker) and his wise older mentor (Alec Guiness’ Obi-Wan Kenobi), a “damsel-in-distress” (Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia), an adventurous rogue (Harrison Ford’s Han Solo), a straightforward villain (David Prowse’s Darth Vader), and of course, gay robots (Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO and Kenny Baker’s R2-D2). Its cinematography embraces the narrative flow and character emotions of the moment, emphasizing grand scale and a never-ending sense of adventure rather than the existential, self-reflexive filmmaking style that Lucas’ and Spielberg’s movie-brat peers had popularized at the time.

Another way of putting it is that Star Wars is vintage monomyth, the “The Hero’s Journey” that Joseph Campbell recognized in his 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Exploitation of this universal archetypal story-structure is how Hollywood has made its billions, and Star Wars is the epitome of that. You can follow Campbell’s monomyth beat-for-beat and explain Star Wars‘ narrative structure. In many ways, the blueprint is hopelessly derivative, but then again, the vast majority of human storytelling is unconsciously, subconsciously, or consciously based on this formula, and Star Wars is commendable based on its flawless execution of that formula, alone. To that end, the genre-blend flavor of Star Wars is so unique and its execution, so effective, that criticism of its rejection of New Hollywood filmmaking comes across as hopeless arthouse-butthurt. Star Wars as a whole holds up after nearly forty years and endless waves of CGI-revolutions despite some special FX with a few rough edges, indicative of how Lucas was forced direct his story around the technological limitations of filmmaking at the time.

Star Wars: Just too many iconic moments to list!

To summarize: If you haven’t seen Star Wars and don’t consider yourself the kind of person who lives under a rock, go see it immediately. What the hell’s wrong with you? I don’t care if you’re not American or are a first-generation American or don’t even like movies —- if there’s one single American pop cultural milestone you should see (and appreciate!) from the entire 20th century, it should be this. Everyone should appreciate, if not like, the masterpiece that is Star Wars. Go and see it now if you haven’t, or rewatch it if you already have —- and then watch Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). And never, ever, ever, ever, ever watch the prequels!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Star Wars molds its archetypal journey and characters in a creative explosion of genre-fusion that hasn’t been beaten since. It’s science-fiction, it’s fantasy, it’s western, and it’s pure cinema. The film’s groundbreaking special effects and iconic score amaze to this day. Harrison Ford’s performance remains a contemporary benchmark for male movie-stars.

— However… Hamill and Fischer’s dialogue leaves much to be desired. Some special effects show their age.

—> Star Wars, in case there was ever any doubt, comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

? Make sure they’re the original, unaltered versions of the original trilogy! Stay away from any and all “special editions”…