And with those immortal words on the big screen, a new era in cinema was born!
George Lucas' epic space adventure would set a new standard for sci-fi movies and capture the imaginations of millions of youngsters and oldsters alike.
True, his script-writing left much to be desired ("I have a bad feeling about this.") but in a strange way, that line and many others from A New Hope are entrenched in Star Wars lexicon and quoted left, right and centre by fans and non-fans. :)
I was about twelve at that time and this movie blew me away!
What was not to love??
Brilliant space battles which kept me on the edge of my seat, a simple story about rescuing a Princess (with the most fascinating earphone-buns hair!), cute robots, the Force and omg...I was petrified by Darth Vader!
He who breathed so menacingly and looked so malevolent in his black mask, cape and boots.
And he 'killed' Ben Kenobi...*nooooooo* but the lightsabres were (and still are!) waaay cool weapons, aren't they? ;)
John Williams' awesome score was another integral part of the movie and to this day, the main theme and Imperial March (amongst numerous other themes) are immediately recognisable and hummed all over the world, I dare say.
The picture on top is the novelisation of the movie. I found it in a bookshop in London in 1978 when I had the good fortune to be there on holiday and added it to my burgeoning collection of movie books. Note how the yellow tab across the cover confidently proclaims this as 'The Greatest Film Of The Century'....lol!
Indeed, A New Hope did mark a milestone in movies, thanks to George Lucas' vision and determination to produce amazing special effects to enhance the story.
The sequel, The Empire Strikes Back was even better in terms of storyline development and that was the movie where (as mentioned in my first post) my love affair with Harrison Ford began....that will be a story for another post. :))
Sadly, I did not enjoy Return of the Jedi as much as these two movies, mainly because Han Solo was so idiotic in it, no thanks to bad lines. After his heroics in Empire, it was extremely disappointing to see his character become such a joke. :(
It must be said, however, that Harrison Ford was feeling quite disillusioned with the franchise by that time and as such, was not putting his heart and soul into his acting....and it showed. :(
It is, however, notable that he was the only actor amongst the three main leads (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher) to find further (wild) success in his career which would last until the present....no mean feat indeed!
As for Episodes 1, 2 and 3 which George finally decided to make much later, I just could not recapture the same magical feeling which Episodes 4 and 5 gave me. Mostly due to the poor scripts, confusing plotlines and by then, waay too many special effects!
I only liked Revenge of the Sith a little more, and that was mainly due to a much-improved looking Ewan McGregor as Obiwan Kenobi.
NB: Ewan is another of my favourite guys and will be mentioned in another post another time.
My sons, however, enjoyed those three episodes much more than I did. The CGI fascinated them and it was with much pleasure that my hubby and I then introduced Episodes 4, 5 and 6 to them.
Star Wars will live on...my sons know the movies as well as me and my hubby and for that, I'm really glad it has transcended time and generations for the whole family to enjoy together.
May The Force Be With You!
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