First up, the one that started it all:A New Hope.
WasStar Warsever better than Tatooine?
Tatooine is the bland life Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) wants to escape.
Everett Collection
Not another farming season, Uncle, no more haggling over the binary language of moisture vaporators!
Farm kids can grow up hard, dawn wakeups and sunburnt harvests.
And then Tatooine is also danger everywhere.
A drive away from home are nomads on the hunt, and itinerant merchants kidnapping loose tech.
Just where is Tatooine, relative to whatever this civilization is?
The bright center of the universe, Luke explains, is pretty far off.
Any explicit talk of a frontier belongs tothe otherStarfranchise.
Still, in 1977 audiences could suss some Wild West coding: sweet-faced white farmers adjacent to screechy killtribes.
And any 2019 citizen will gag over the phrase sand people.
This first planetscape runs on fairy-tale logic, like forests of old.
Meanwhile, Mos Eisley is a high-tech town, too populated to be just any old backwater.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) promises, Youll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
We will find out, in later-earlier movies, that Obi-Wan is a dedicated soldier-monk, probably celibate.
Wise, no doubt, but a priest will warn you away from Vegas.
And Obi-Wan claims that the local cantina could be a little rough.
Is this what rough feels like?
The jazz swoons danceworthy.
Theres the quality of a sketchbook, of anything-goes creativity.Be Weird As Hellwas maybe the one directive.
The Cantinas dangerous, sure.
I dont like youeither.
But have you ever really thought aboutwhythey dont like Luke?
The Mos Eisley Cantina is beyond all that, somehow.
Lukes left home at last, out on an adventure in the universe.
Hes seeing all new kinds of people.
He has escaped the comforts of home.
And its freaking him out.
Forty-two years sinceStar Warsarrived, the saga is with us and upon us.
There will be a new movie in December.A TV spin-offlaunches earlier, flagshipping the Disney+ streaming service.
The latest videogame hits around then.Star Warsis nowa place it’s possible for you to visit at Disneyland.
There are release dates penciled into the next decade.
Half a century beforeStar Wars, cinema was black and white, and sound was new.
Half a century afterStar Wars, Hollywood will be making moreStar Wars.
Lucas famously tinkered with his first trilogy, unveiling ever-less-special editions for theatrical reruns and home viewing.
This is troubling, not just because all his additions are terrible.
I wanted this journey to be chronological, tracking the saga from 1977 through today.
The special editions represent Lucas middle-aged instincts.
The firstStar Warsis ayouthmovie longhairs vs. baldies, parental figures obliviated.
There must still be many ways for the industrious viewer to track down the originals, legally or otherwise.
The theatrical trilogy DVD is available for resale on Amazon.
I watched the trilogy on futzy VHS, the Salacious Crumb of home entertainment options.
And my mother still has the tapes.
Did George Lucas hate videotape?
Kids today will never know motion pictures like this.
Televisions widen, camera eyes sharpen, the tiniest screens offer vibrant color tones.
And I had a hot explanation for watchingStar Warsthis way, really.
These tapes have been places.
They have a history.
And some sense of history mattered to Lucas.
Therell be no escape for the Princess this time, C-3PO worries.
Therell be no one to stop us this time!
exults Darth Vader (David Prowse with James Earl Jones voice).
Did it require more imagination to watch these movies on tape?
(I do not understand technology, probably another demerit in the eyes of Lucas the tinkerer.)
And George Lucas writes bad dialogue is precisely the kind of statement you will hopefullynotbe reading here each week.
Generations of fandom fully digested the trilogy before the internet arrived to deconstruct every ambient piece ofStar Warslore.
The prequel saga released from 1999 to 2005 was disemboweled and, more recently, staunchly defended.
There has already been more conversation aboutthe latestRise of Skywalkertrailerthan most feature films will ever get.
Is there anything new to say aboutStar Wars?
Maybe not, but I would like to watch this franchise with fresh eyes.
There are things you notice more as an adult.
And I surely didnt appreciate how thrillingly brutal the carefree mood can be.
Princess Leia leaves the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, and Luke can barely contain himself.
So, what do you think of her, huh?
But Princess Leia watches her entire planet blow up and gets over it.
Arent you a little short for a stormtrooper?
is her first line after the Death Star kabooms Alderaan.
Treasure Fishers over-it delivery, like she left the party hours before you arrived.
We have no time for our sorrows, Commander, she explains later.
Im never coming back to this planet again, Luke says, and he means it.
Lucas would occasionally claim some master plan for the franchise.
He leaves Tatooine, he learns magic from a swamp mystic, and then he returns to Tatooine.
Respectfully, friend of yore: Bull.
And after, I think, the Cantina, the movie loses the feeling of infinite possibilities.
The Death Star is a wonderful pile of effects.
But the sets are dull, and the Empire seems composed of swaggerless middle managers.
The Imperials arent marching yet.
Even Vaders part of the furniture for now, a cool helmet in a movie full of headgear.
Lucas was a control freak, so its striking that best human moments are the most chaotic.
Theres Hans famous improvvy How are you?
I laughed harder at the centerpiece dialogue of the trash compactor scene.
Lukes encircled by the tentacled dianoga, and he begs Han to fire his blaster.
Logical answer: ANYWHERE!!!!!
The actor actually was British, and at times I swear hes imitating Slim Pickens fromDr.
His steady monotone delivery rope-a-dopes you into his shocking deathscream.
There will be more to say about the characters inEmpire Strikes BackandReturn of the Jedi.
In this first film inevitably, but sincerely what jumps off the screen are the machines.
There would be much animosity between Lucas and Dykstra, and they never worked together again.
(Imagine every Obi-Wan line with maaaaan added on at the end.)
Theres something secretly lame about the Rebellion, I think, in this first movie and always.
You want some feeling of revolution, or counterculture.
In this firstStar Wars, theyre just a nicer military peddling more colorful uniformity.
A message kids and parents can enjoy!
I didnt get emotional this go-round, and then I suddenly started weeping.
It happened when Obi-Wan whispers from beyond, telling Luke to turn off his targeting system.
Letgo, the dead man says.
Theres a modern tangibility to this moment, and maybe a touch of aspirational autobiography.
[Next:The Empire Strikes Back]
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