Star Wars was released in the year 1977, a film doomed to fail. So little faith was put into the production of the film, it was over budget, weeks behind schedule, the cast and crew thought the concept was ridiculous and even 20th Century Fox were happy to hand over all the rights for sequels and merchandise to George Lucas to wash their hands of such a failure. However, against all the odds, when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Star Wars was not only the highest grossing film of 1977 and most critically acclaimed: winning 6 Academy Awards. Star Wars revolutionised cinema and pop culture altogether for the foreseeable future.
The most extraordinary aspect of Star Wars apart from it’s proud and charming creativity, is the fact it wasn’t just a film that was popular, much like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy it was genuinely filmmaking at it’s highest standard. While many great films can go under the radar box office wise, Star Wars captured the minds of every human of every age worldwide. John Williams’ iconic soundtrack would be hummed by many for decades to come, arguably still the most iconic film soundtrack ever created alongside Jaws, Indiana Jones and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, invigorating every part of the emotional spectrum adding to an already great film. George Lucas’ screenplay was nothing to marvel at, but it’s pure sense of wonder and technically well crafted, memorable characters were everything a film screenplay should be about, overflowing with emotion, depth and humour, sending a message to children that imagination is most certainly valid. The editing throughout is slick and seamless, but most importantly the visual effects are timeless and were absolutely groundbreaking. Even to this day Star Wars still holds up, while so many films of recent years are known for bad CGI. Star Wars created a whole new approach to the idea, space battles look realistic and not for a moment can you look a the screen and say ‘Nope, that doesn’t look convincing.’ It’s combination of practical and CGI was a game changer just as much as Avatar was for 3D and motion capture in 2008. Finally the last thing I should touch on are the brilliant sound effects and design that made vehicles, aircraft and weapons sound so damn convincing. Everyone knows the sound of a lightsaber, Chwebacca’s growl or Darth Vader’s cyborg lungs.
Now Star Wars isn’t an all perfect film, it does suffer from minor flaws like pacing, there’s a sizeable chunk in the first half before we meet our main character Luke Skywalker that does move quite slow. Which I could imagine bores a lot of today’s viewers.
Star Wars (1977) may not be the best Star Wars film, but it’s creators like the audiences who experienced the film for the first time were stepping into a realm of the unknown, using the force to aggressively (or passively if you’re a jedi) push the evolution of cinema and pop culture forward through the astounding belief and imagination of one passionate man named George Lucas. A true accomplishment in terms of film and art. With memorable characters, memorable quotes, memorable music and even a memorable sound, Star Wars is a great film everyone should enjoy. By no means is it one of the best films ever made, but it’s by far one of the most important.
Rating: 9.5/10
Words by Levi Aluede