Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977): I don’t think I need to write the synopsys here…

This is a true classic that everybody has seen many times. I don’t even remember when I watched it for the first time, I just know that as a kid I would watch it whenever it was on TV. I never caught it on the big screen, so when the special edition was re-released in 1997 I jumped at the chance to watch this movie in the theater.

I hadn’t watched it as an “adult”, so I didn’t remember this story too well and I certainly wasn’t that big of a fan to remember all the names of the planets or the ships. And you know what? I was bored. For some reason I fell asleep during that viewing, and the story didn’t captivate me.

However, I just finished watching the 2004 DVD release, and I wasn’t bored this time. It’s still a great story, with some hockey dialogs and some needless CGI additions. But the characters are still interesting, and it’s still a great introduction to this wonderful new world.

The part on the desert planet was a good background on the character of Luke, but it was also a little boring. Also his family and whole life were completely destroyed in a few minutes, and he doesn’t seem too shook up by it. Same can be said of Leia when her entire planet with his family and her whole population was destroyed in a split second. I do like Leia, she is not the classic damsel in distress, she is strong both physically and mentally. If this were an R rated movie, she would be swearing more than Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

The Han Solo character is also a charming one, complete with sidekick monster. His relationship with Leia is already starting to develop in this first movie, which will bring to a natural progression in the sequels.

The clumsiness comes from the dialogs and some of the characters’ reactions to disturbing deaths. In particular the comedic roles of the droids don’t always work. Yes sometimes they’re funny, but sometimes they just feel out of place, and I felt they were shoved into the scenes just because Lucas liked them. The ceremony at the end is also awkward, I understand that Lucas needed to end on a high note, but that scene was a little bit too cheesy for me.

In terms of the special edition, for the most part it works. The remastered version looks perfect, and it doesn’t feel like an old movie at all, it feels like it was filmed this year. Some of the CGI was fine, for example the creatures on Mos Isle looked good. However some other scenes looked horrible, they looked so out of place. The Jabba scene was one of these. I do not think it adds anything to the story. It was added simply as an exercise in CGI, just to prove that they could do it. Unfortunately Jabba just look too weird and different from the one we know. Another really bad scene is the Greedo scene. Yes, it is now much closer on who shoots first, but it is clear that at a certain point we cut to CGI characters. Unbelievably bad.

Another sore point is the attack on the Death Star. Everything was perfect until they fighters get ready to fire into the hole. They are chased by Vader, and the only thing they do is just fly in front of them and be fired on. Why weren’t any fighters behind Vader? Or even coming to them from the front? That was just dumb.

Overall the story is still charming and I still enjoyed watching this movie. I imagine I will watch it again in the future, especially when my kids grow up. Not my favorite, but still a great and important movie.

Rating: 4 Stars