Star Wars (aka: Star Wars: A New Hope aka Episode IV)
Director: George Lucas
Writer: George Lucas
Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, James Earl Jones
Seen on: 4./5.11.2025

Plot:
As the galactic empire is en route to stamp out the last of the resistance against it, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) receives a message for help from Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) by chance. The message is addressed to Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) and Luke decides to deliver it. But Obi-Wan is not the only one interested in the message, and Luke is quickly swept up in the rebellion’s biggest plot against the empire yet.

Having recently finished Andor (which was so freaking good), it promted a re-watch of Rogue One for me, and then I decided to continue and re-watch the original trilogy as well since I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid. A New Hope has some issues, but it also has some very fine filmmaking. I enjoyed seeing it again.

Watching this film was a bit of a disorienting experience for me, I have to admit. For one, I had never seen the English language version before, only German, and while I didn’t really remember the German, it still took some readjusting for me to adapt to the English. And secondly, more importantly, it covers actually the entire plot that I remember for the entire trilogy, prompting me to think that maybe, MAYBE, I had never actually seen the entire trilogy? Only Episode IV (and Episode I)? And that was a weird thing to contend with, too, because I could and would have sworn I had seen IV through VI as a matter of course. (Spoiler, having finished my supposed re-watch: I had really not.)

So, as I watched, there was this inner monologue on the meta level constantly happening for me which was kind of distracting. But at the same time, I did enjoy A New Hope, especially R2D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), the real MVPs. They brought a lot of emotional stakes to the film for me.

Not that I didn’t care for Luke, Han (Harrison Ford), Chewie (Peter Mayhew) or Leia (especially the latter), but the film has some issues with them that it doesn’t have with C-3PO and R2D2. The character dynamic is a little difficult, as is Ford’s scenery chewing (he is usually better than the performance he gives here, that is for sure).

The film’s biggest issue is that it tries to cram so much into its runtime that the pacing just doesn’t really come together. Instead of exploring the different creatures a little more or doing actual character work beyond Luke (and even there, it is pretty basic stuff), it is way too preoccupied with the space battles, always my least favorite part. That being said, the special effects are really good, especially considering that they’re 50 years old now. And the fact that there is so much hinted it just makes you curious to explore more of that world, so that’s not really a bad thing.

Summarizing: Not a great movie per se, but understandable that we got so much more of Star Wars.