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Star Wars (1977)
Star Wars (1977), (aka Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope) is
one of the most popular, profitable, entertaining, and
successful science fiction/action - adventure/fantasy films of
all time. The film, shot mostly on location in Tunisia,
Guatemala and Death Valley (California), advanced
special-effects technology to a degree unseen before, with
computerized and digitally-timed special effects. It ultimately
helped to resurrect the financial viability of the
science-fiction genre, a category of films that was considered
frivolous and unprofitable, and brought the phrase "May the
Force be with you" into common usage.
Pre-Star Wars director and writer George Lucas had begun his
career as director of the science-fiction film THX 1138 (1971),
an expanded version of a prize-winning feature film he made
while studying at USC. It was produced by American Zoetrope and
executive-produced by Francis Ford Coppola. He went on to direct
and co-write the immensely popular American Graffiti (1973), a
nostalgic story about California teenagers in the early 60s. It
took four years for Lucas to develop his next film - this
astounding cult film about "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far
away..." from 20th Century Fox.
The modestly-budgeted production (of about $11 million) from the
TCF/LucasFilm production company, made in Britain, was based
upon Lucas' recollections of Saturday afternoon matinees,
serials, and comic strips, usually with cliff-hanging endings.
The archetypal plot was influenced by a varied anthology of
sources and eclectic references:
legendary Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon comic-book heroes and
films [Lucas had originally wanted to remake the 1930's Flash
Gordon movie serials, but the rights to the comic book character
were snapped up first by Dino Di Laurentiis]
previous science fiction films (such as Forbidden Planet (1956)
and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968))
the saloon setting of westerns (as a model for the
inter-galactic watering hole)
Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces
medieval knights (King Arthur and Camelot) [Camelot's story also
told of a young Prince, who with the help of a sorcerer/Merlin,
a Sword and 'the Force' saves a Queen and defeats the Black
Knight with the help of his Roundtable aides.]
sorcerers' tales and stories about magic (Tolkien's Lord of the
Rings and Carlos Castaneda tales)
warrior legends, myths, fairy tales
Western good-guy vs. bad-guy stories
elements of other classic films or tales (e.g., The Wizard of Oz
(1939), John Ford's The Searchers (1956), TV's Star Trek, Fritz
Lang's Metropolis (1926), Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will
(1936), and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (1958) and Yojimbo
(1961))
swashbucklers
dogfight-filled WWII war films, such as 633 Squadron (1964)
The mythological tale of space-age heroism (fighting Evil for
the sake of Good) featured memorable characters - a benevolent
ex-Jedi Knight (Guinness), an imprisoned Princess Leia (Fisher)
of the peace-loving Rebel Alliance, two comical robotic droids
(R2D2, named after a piece of film editor's jargon - Reel 2
Dialog 2, and C3PO), a smuggler/mercenary space-pilot (Ford), a
beastly creature named Chewbacca (a Wookie), and an idealistic
young boy (Hamill) who becomes trained in the righteous ways of
the Force in order to rescue the captured Princess from the evil
Empire's Death Star and the dark forces of the Empire, led by
evil Darth Vader (voice of James Earl Jones/David Prowse).
Lucas wisely combined three basically-unknown young American
actors in the lead roles (Hamill, Fisher, and Ford acting like a
screwball comedy threesome) with the acting talents of the great
British actor Alec Guinness, and then added a pair of cute
robotic droids and a Sesame Street-style creature (Chewbacca) to
the mix. [Note that the film's hero, Luke Skywalker or Luke S.
(pronounced "Luc-as"), was a way for director Lucas to get his
name mentioned, subliminally.]
The blockbuster film left itself open for sequels (and prequels)
- originally nine in total but really six, and soon spawned
other equally popular films to complete a trilogy. Two prequels
were released in 1999 and 2002, with a third expected a couple
of years later. The prequels focused on how the father of Luke
Skywalker (Anakin Skywalker) succumbed to the dark side of the
Force and became the evil Darth Vader:
Film Titles
(chronological order) Director Facts
Star Wars (1977) - Episode IV George Lucas Grossed $780 million;
nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning six (in technical
categories); and winner of Special Achievement award
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - Episode V Irvin Kershner
Nominated for 3 Academy Awards, winning one (Best Sound); winner
of Special Achievement award; grossed $290 million; famous for
Darth Vader's line: "I am your father"; set 4 years after the
events in the 1977 film
The Return of the Jedi (1983) - Episode VI Richard Marquand
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, winning none; winner of Special
Achievement Oscar; grossed $309 million
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prequels
Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) George Lucas
(22 years after his original directorial effort) Nominated for 3
Academy Awards, winning none; set 32 years before the original
Star Wars films; the young Darth Vader is a 9 year old boy named
Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd)
Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) George Lucas
Nominated for 1 Academy Award, without a win; set 10 years after
Episode 1, with Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) now a 19
year old Padawan to Obi Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor); shot on
Digital Video using a new 24-frame, High-Definition, Progressive
scan camera
Star Wars - Episode III: (TITLE UNKNOWN) (2005) Expected release
May 25, 2005, the 28th anniversary of the release of Star Wars
The impact of the first film in the series was enormous -
tremendous profits helped to generate funding for Lucas'
state-of-the-art special effects factory known as Industrial
Light and Magic (built in Marin County north of San Francisco),
and merchandising associated with the film encouraged an entire
marketing industry of Star Wars-related items (i.e., toys, video
games, novelty items at fast food restaurants, etc.).
The 20th Century Fox film set box-office records and was a
critical success. However, this appealing film encouraged the
boom in spectacular, special-effects laden blockbusters (with
thin plot lines) for decades after. It soon became the most
commercially-successful film ever made (and held the record for
many years). Prophetically, a few years later, the Soviet Union
became the 'Evil Empire' during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan,
and the media actually dubbed Reagan's proposed space-defense
program Star Wars (or SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative).
It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won in six (mostly
technical) categories: Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best
Sound, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Film Editing,
Best Costume Design, and Best Visual Effects. Its other four
nominations were for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Alec
Guinness), Best Director, and Best Screenplay Written Directly
for the Screen. The film was also awarded with a Special
Achievement Award for Sound Effects for the creation of the
alien, creature, and robot voices (Benjamin Burtt, Jr.).
The memorable, adventure film saga begins with an opening title
card, setting the film's time frame in the distant past:
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Then, an inventive scrolling of text crawls (or "rolls up") into
the black background of space to describe the war, in a "far
away" galaxy, between good and evil archetypal forces:
Episode IV, A NEW HOPE It is a period of civil war. Rebel
spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first
victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle,
Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with
enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the
Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people
and restore freedom to the galaxy....
The Rebel Alliance has attacked the tyrannical evil Galactic
Empire, daringly stealing secret plans to the Empire's new
battle station, the Death Star. In the opening view, the small
Rebel ship belonging to Princess Leia, who possesses the secret
plans, is chased across the screen by a large, wedge-shaped
Imperial Star Destroyer cruiser of the evil Galactic Empire.
Turbolasers strike the Rebel ship's shields and cause its
passengers to be buffeted around in a corridor, including two
robot droids, a tiny, round barrel-shaped, whistling and
bleeping computer robot named R2-D2 (Artoo) (Kenny Baker), and
its robotic pal, the constantly talking, tall gold-plated C-3PO
(See Threepio) (Anthony Daniels). [C-3PO is clearly modeled
after the female robot in Lang's Metropolis (1927).] Armed
soldiers run down the hallway. Nervous as explosions rock the
ship, C-3PO is pessimistic about their escape from the
Imperialistic Forces, because their main reactor has been shut
down: "We're doomed. There'll be no escape for the Princess this
time." R2-D2 whistles a response. Their ship is sucked into the
underbelly of the huge, armored space vehicle by a magnetic
tracker beam.
Rebel soldiers take their positions at the end of the corridor,
preparing to defend the door from an assault. The crippled
transport Rebel ship is boarded by an advance guard of white,
ceramic-like, space-armored stormtroopers, the Emperor's elite
soldiers. A fierce laser-gun battle is fought in the hallway,
quickly lost by the Rebel defenders as more and more Imperials
charge into the smoking corridor. When control is secured, the
leader of the cruel and villainous forces appears -
black-garbed, helmeted and faceless Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth
Vader (David Prowse, with a deep, breathy voice supplied by
James Earl Jones). The two robots escape the crossfire by
running across the hallway.
Fighting back against the Evil Empire is slim, white-robed
Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), the leader of galactic
Rebel Alliance forces. C-3PO hides from the invading troopers
and loses sight of R2-D2. Turning a corner, the golden droid
notices a young woman dressed in white - Princess Leia -
transmitting the blueprints or plans for the Death Star
battleship along with an S.O.S. plea, into the data system face
plate of her computer robot R2-D2. When R2-D2 is located, C-3PO
worries that they will be sent to "the spice mines of Kessel or
smashed into who-knows-what!"
After a valiant and brave fight, the Rebel ship is brought under
Imperial control. On the bridge of the captured ship, Darth
Vader confronts the Rebel officers, searching for the
intercepted transmissions of the Death Star's plans, but he
fails to find them in the transport ship's main computer system.
He ruthlessly holds one of the unresponsive Rebel officers by
the throat and lifts him with one hand, crushing his throat and
tossing him to the side. Vader orders his troops to find the
plans and bring him the passengers: "I want them alive." Soon
after, the Princess is confronted and refuses to surrender. She
fires her blaster at the stormtroopers, but is apprehended and
taken captive prisoner by Vader's forces.
R2-D2 insists that the two robots enter a restricted area and
escape in a lifepod from the ship, bleeping about a "secret
mission" and "plans." Threepio refuses to join his droid pal in
the cramped spaceship pod, worrying about deactivation for
disobedience until an explosion changes his mind. Regretting his
decision to follow R2-D2 into the escape module, the two are
permitted to jettison away from the stricken Imperial cruiser by
Imperial navigators because no "life-forms" are scanned aboard.
The two robots escape without harm.
Darth Vader, the Dark Lord, confronts the Princess and demands
the plans. The Princess denies knowledge of the blueprints
(transmissions beamed by Rebel spies to her ship) and refuses to
cooperate, insisting that they have attacked a diplomatic
consular ship:
Princess: I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic
mission to Alderaan.
Darth Vader: You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor.
Take her away!
Vader's Assistant: Holding her is dangerous. If word of this
gets out, it could generate sympathy for the rebellion in the
Senate.
Vader: I have traced the Rebel spies to her. Now she is my only
link to finding their secret base.
Assistant: She'll die before she'll tell you anything.
Vader: Leave that to me.
Lord Vader orders one of his troops to generate a fake distress
signal from the Rebel ship, and then broadcast to the Senate
that all the Rebels aboard were killed. Vader is informed that
the stolen battle station plans are not aboard the Rebel ship,
and that no transmissions were made from the ship. Vader deduces
that the plans were hidden somehow by the Princess aboard the
jettisoned pod during the battle. He sends a detachment to
retrieve the escaped pod and recover the plans: "There'll be no
one to stop us this time!"
The two robots crash land their lifepod on Tatooine, a
backwater, arid, desert-like planet. There, they wander away
from the space pod, lost on the planet's rolling sand dune
surface. With a comical "Laurel-and-Hardy" type friendship,
C-3PO tells his pal, "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot
in life." Then he mutters: "What a desolate place this is."
C-3PO stubbornly decides to split off from his partner after
admonishing his pal's beeps: "Don't get technical with me." They
go off in different directions, R2-D2 toward a low lying range
of rocky mountains in the distance, and C-3PO across miles of
hot desert toward the horizon in the opposite direction.
C-3PO blames his misfortune and being lost on his partner: "That
malfunctioning little twerp. He tricked me into going this way,
but he'll do no better." He spies a reflective piece of metal, a
transport, and he summons it, believing it will save him.
Meanwhile, traversing through the desolate, hilly terrain, R2-D2
is spied upon by pairs of eyes from the inner darkness of a
cave. When a minor rock slide is noticed, R2-D2 whimpers with a
child-like sound. Then, the robot is stunned by the blue
magnetic rays of a gun, fired by some "Jawas," small, short,
yellow-eyed, brown-cloaked, gremlin-like scavengers and
scrap/junk collectors of the planet. With a groan, R2-D2 topples
over onto the ground, short-circuited by the electrical bolt.
Immobilized, R2-D2 is deactivated and deposited at a tank-sized
vehicle called a sandcrawler, a gigantic rolling factory. A
restraining bolt is attached to his outer shell to keep him from
escaping. An enormous suction device swallows him up,
magnetically lifts him up and dumps him in the holding area in
the interior of the sandcrawler. There, as he recovers from the
paralyzing effects of the beam, he is reunited with C-3PO in the
large junkpile. Stormtroopers quickly track the lifepod and find
tracks going off in different directions. They discover a
fragment of metal plating in the sand: "Look sir, droids."
The traveling, hooded auctioneers stop at a lonely homestead in
the desert. They line up the most suitable robots at their sale
- a motley collection of droids. A local moisture farmer Owen
Lars (Phil Brown) and his young nephew Luke Skywalker (Mark
Hamill) survey the droids and barter with the Jawas. Owen asks
C-3PO if he understands the binary language of moisture
evaporators:
Owen: Can you speak Bocce?
C-3PO: Of course I can, sir..It's like a second language to me.
I'm as fluent in...
Having heard enough, Owen shouts: "All right, shut up!" and he
agrees to buy C-3PO. A whining R2-D2 is abandoned when Uncle
Owen chooses a different, smaller red droid along with C-3PO. To
R2's delight, the droid short-circuits as it is led away, a
faulty unit with a "bad motivator." C-3PO recommends the "prime
condition" of the blue R2 unit, a "real bargain." And so, the
two droids are bought together. Humorously, C-3PO tells his pal:
"Now, don't you forget this! Why I should stick my neck out for
you is quite beyond my capacity."
In his uncle's garage, Luke cleans up his two new droids by
giving them a decontamination bath, although he dreams and longs
to be in other distant worlds: "It just isn't fair...I'm never
gonna get out of here!" C-3PO asks if he may offer assistance to
his new owner. Luke replies: "Not unless you can alter time,
speed up the harvest, or teleport me off this rock!" The young
boy describes how far they are from the center of everything:
"Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the
planet that it's farthest from." While cleaning R2-D2, Luke
notices the droid's carbon scoring: "It looks like you boys have
seen a lot of action." C-3PO agrees: "With all we've been
through, sometimes I'm amazed we're in as good condition as we
are, what with the Rebellion and all."
Luke is intrigued by the droid's knowledge and experiences in
the Rebellion: "You know of the Rebellion against the Empire?"
While Luke is cleaning, polishing and repairing R2-D2, he
accidentally trips one of his switches, and the mechanical robot
projects a three-dimensional hologram into the middle of the
room - a miniature image of a beautiful girl, the Princess. In a
recording that plays over and over, Princess Leia pleads for
help from wise and noble Jedi warrior/mentor Ben "Obi-Wan"
Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness):
Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.
R2-D2 bleeps and squeaks, trying to mislead Luke into thinking
the image is nothing but a malfunction and a display of old
data. Luke wonders about the miniature lady and her message:
"Who is she? She's beautiful." C-3PO translates the beeps and
blips of R2-D2 for Luke when the droids decide that they can
trust their new master: "He says that he's the property of
Obi-Wan Kenobi, a resident of these parts. And it's a private
message for him." Luke has actually heard of a strange hermit
with a similar name, Old Ben Kenobi who lives out beyond the
Dune Sea. Luke considers listening to the entire message: "It
sounds like she's in trouble. I'd better play back the whole
thing." But the message cannot be played in its entirety, as
C-3PO interprets: "...the restraining bolt has short-circuited
his recording system. He suggests that if you remove the bolt,
he might be able to play back the entire recording."
Deciding that the droid is too small to run away, the
restraining bolt placed on R2-D2 by the Jawas is removed.
Instantly, the message and the lady disappear. R2-D2 stubbornly
refuses to play it again - the message will only be played for
Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke is interrupted, called to dinner by his
aunt. C-3PO scolds his companion: "Just you reconsider playing
that message for him." During the dinner conversation, Luke
tells his uncle: "I think that R2 unit we bought might have been
stolen...I stumbled across a recording while I was cleaning it.
He says he belongs to someone called Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought
he might have meant Old Ben." Both of Luke's relatives turn
silent. Luke's uncle, believing "that wizard's just a crazy old
man," instructs Luke to erase the memory of the robot the next
day because the droid now belongs to them. Luke worries that
Obi-Wan may come looking for his robot, but his father answers:
"He won't. I don't think he exists anymore. He died about the
same time as your father." [Luke is an orphan, cared for by his
aunt and uncle.] Luke excitedly asks: "He knew my father?" Owen
refuses to answer and wishes the subject dropped: "I told you to
forget it."
Luke wisely changes the subject, mentioning his intention to
transmit his application to the Academy in the present year if
the droids work out satisfactorily. Owen objects, wishing him to
apply the next year after another harvest season: "Harvest is
when I need you the most. It's only one season more." After Luke
stalks out frustrated, his Aunt Beru (Shelagh Fraser) shows some
understanding of the boy: "Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He
has too much of his father in him." Owen agrees: "That's what
I'm afraid of."
Outside, white-robed Luke stands on a small rise, watching
Tatooine's twin suns setting near the horizon. He believes he
may never fulfill his dream of piloting a starship to distant
worlds, never escaping from the dry arid desert of Tatooine.
Returning to the robots in the garage, Luke finds C-3PO hiding
and scared: "It wasn't my fault, sir! Please don't de-activate
me!" According to C-3PO, R2-D2 is "faulty, malfunctioning. He
kept babbling on about his mission" and then wandered off into
the desert night. Luke scans the horizon with a pair of
electro-binoculars equipped with night-vision, but R2-D2 is
nowhere to be seen. Luke decides they must wait until morning to
search for him: "It's too dangerous with all the Sand People
around...That little droid's gonna cause me a lot of trouble."
C-3PO concurs: "Oh, he excels at that, sir."
The next morning, without telling his uncle, Luke and C-3PO give
chase into the desert after runaway R2-D2 in a jet-propelled
landspeeder, a vehicle which skims a foot off the ground. They
are watched from high on a ridge by two dangerous, nomadic
warriors called Tusken Raiders (Sand People), riding on shaggy,
elephant-like creatures. The landspeeder quickly catches up to
R2-D2, who immediately senses and urgently warns them that there
are "several creatures approaching from the southeast." Luke
guesses Sand People are attacking. He grabs his laser rifle and
binoculars and runs to a nearby hill to look for them. As he
scans the land, one of the Sand People rises up in front of him
with a battle-axe. Luke blocks some of the blows, but is knocked
to the ground as the Raider shrieks and raises his axe. Luke
faints and is dragged down to the landspeeder where a group of
Sand People plan to ransack his vehicle. R2-D2 hides in a small
crevice in the rocks.
A terrifying howling is heard from up in the canyon as a
mysterious stranger in a brown-hooded cloak approaches. The Sand
People immediately scatter and flee in fear. The figure removes
the hood from his face to reveal an older man with white hair, a
gray beard and kindly face. He greets R2-D2 who peers out of his
hiding place: "Hello there. Come here my little friend. Don't be
afraid." Luke slowly regains consciousness and recognizes the
old hermit: "Ben? Ben Kenobi? Boy, am I glad to see you." Ben is
told that the droid was searching for his former master, the
property of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke asks Ben: "Is he a relative of
yours?" This news brings back memories for him, because Ben's
alias is Obi-Wan:
Ben: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan. Now that's a name I've not heard
in a long time. A long time.
Luke: I think my uncle knows him. He said he was dead.
Ben (smiling): Oh, he's not dead. Not yet.
Luke: You know him?
Ben: Well, of course I know him. He's me. I haven't gone by the
name of Obi-Wan since, oh, before you were born.
Luke: Well then, the droid does belong to you.
Ben: I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid. Very
interesting.
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