by Liz Spencer
Movie: Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope
Rated:
Director: George Lucas
Writer: George Lucas
Rated: PG for sci-fi violence and mild language
Recommended: Recommended to anyone who answers yes to the following questions: Do you sometimes walk through an automatic door in a store and pretend you opened it with your mind? Yes. Do you sometimes wish you can make anyone do what you want just by the wave of you hand? Yes. When you are holding an empty wrapping paper tube, do you wave it around like a lightsaber? Yes. If you said yes to all the questions, you are either a Jedi or this movie is just for you.
Cast:
Mark Hamill- Luke Skywalker
Harrison Ford- Han Solo
Carrie Fisher- Princess Leia
Alec Guinness- Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi
Peter Mayhew-Chewbacca
Anthony Daniels- C-3PO
Kenny Baker- R2-D2
James Earl Jones- Darth Vader (voice)
Peter Cushing- Grand Moff Tarkin
We are going to go back to the 70s this week in Liz’s Flick Picks with a movie that changed storytelling and moviemaking. Since the thirty-fifth anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope is on May 25 Liz’s Flick Picks is going into hyperspace to a galaxy far from our own.
Star Wars takes place in a galaxy far, far away where there is a galactic civil war between a powerful empire and a struggling rebel alliance. After his uncle bought two troublesome droids, Luke Skywalker (Hamill), just your everyday normal teenager, gets caught up with secret plans, rescuing a princess and saving the entire galaxy.
For starters this is a great coming of age story. Luke is considered a loser to all the other teenagers around his town. The audience relates to Luke because we’ve all been there where we seem to be stuck, and we just want to leave home and go out into the world. Luke has to prove himself to everyone. Luke transforms from nobody from a boring town to a well-known hero of the rebellion.
During the 70s they didn’t have CGI, so making a movie like Star Wars where you have lightsaber fights, ships and crazy aliens and robots, it would have been impossible. The special effects for this film were awesome, especially the ships. All the spaceships from the X-wing fighters to the Death Star look believable.
The Death Star Battle is the best battle of any other battle in the Star Wars saga. This dogfight felt like something from an old war movie. Star Wars is technically a war movie (It’s in the title, duh, it’s going to be about war!) only it’s set in the future. It was very impressive how they filmed this sequence and all of the space fight shots in 1977 without CGI.
Star Wars: A New Hope has everything a good story needs; an evil empire, heroes, villains, damsels that can take care of themselves, talking robots and good vs. evil. That’s what makes this Star Wars so memorable; it wasn’t the technology or the actors. It was the story, and that’s only what matters in the end. Stay tune for next week’s Flick Pick to talk about The Empire Strikes Back.
