The year was 1977; 33-year old California born filmmaker
George Lucas, who had just recently set up his own production company Lucasfilm
Ltd. due to his frustration with the studio system, was set to release his
newest film, a sci-fi space opera by the name of ‘Star Wars’, on May 25, 1977.
The film’s production faced a series of problems ranging from technical issues
to poor weather conditions, making it seem quite doubtful that the film was
going to be anything but a disaster. But of course, as we all know, that wasn’t
what happened. At the time of its release, it became the highest-grossing film
of all time until ‘E.T.’ in 1982. But nowadays, when adjusted for inflation,
it’s currently the second-highest grossing film of all time domestically and
the third-highest grossing worldwide. It’s led to the creation of one of the
most iconic media franchises in all of pop culture, immediately spawning two
equally successful sequels in 1980 and 1983. And today on May 4th (or,
as we ‘Star Wars’ fans like to honor it as, ‘Star Wars Day’), as Rhode Island
Movie Corner begins its celebration of ‘Star Wars Month’ in anticipation for
the upcoming ‘Episode VII: The Force Awakens’ this December, we’ll be looking
back upon this highly revered film trilogy. It’s a trilogy that’s easily one of
the best film trilogies of all time as all three films are truly excellent, a
rarity when it comes to film trilogies.
STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977)
Honestly, I don’t know what else can be said about this film
that hasn’t been said before. What started out as just a small-budget sci-fi
film plagued by numerous production problems ended up becoming arguably the
most beloved sci-fi film of all time. And even today, nearly four decades since
its release, it still holds up incredibly well. That’s probably because of how
Lucas took inspiration from both classic sci-fi stories like ‘Flash Gordon’ and
‘Buck Rogers’ and the mythological writing of Joseph Campbell. The characters
were based around the common archetypes of the genre; the young hero, the
rogue, the damsel, the wise old wizard, etc. And even with all of the films
that have come out in the years since ‘Star Wars’ that have utilized these same
archetypes, the main characters in this film; Luke Skywalker, Han Solo,
Princess Leia Organa, Obi-Wan ‘Ben’ Kenobi, Darth Vader, and so on and so on,
still stand as some of the most iconic film characters of all time thanks to
Lucas’ solid writing. Despite all of the changes that George Lucas has made to
this film, namely numerous CGI additions, a lot of the film’s non-modern CGI
effects are still very impressive for the time, resulting in a number of
memorable action sequences from the Battle of Yavin at the end to the fight
between the Millennium Falcon and a group of TIE Fighters. The bottom line is
that ‘A New Hope’ is just a great movie anyway you look at it. There’s a reason
why this franchise is still running strong today and ‘A New Hope’ is the one to
thank for that. Quite simply it’s one of the best sci-fi films of all time and
a hard one to top…
Rating: 5/5!
STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)
…But that’s exactly what its sequel did. Yes, ‘The Empire
Strikes Back’, this entry directed by Lucas’ former film professor at USC,
Irvin Kershner, ultimately stands as not only the best entry in the ‘Star Wars’
film franchise but also one of the best, if not the best, sequels ever made.
And it’s one of those cases where that esteem grew over time because it
actually received mixed reviews when it first came out. Of course, like all
good sequels, ‘Empire’ does a great job of continuing the story from where ‘A
New Hope’ left out while also upping the scale in just the right ways. But at
the same time, it also goes one step further by also going a much darker route
than its predecessor. Now by ‘dark’ I don’t mean dark in tone and atmosphere;
this is still a ‘Star Wars’ movie after all and there’s still a whole lot of
fun action sequences and light-hearted humor. It’s more a case of a darker
story, namely the fact that this one actually doesn’t end on a ‘happy’ ending.
Seriously, in this one the Empire ends up winning the day. They defeat the
Rebel Alliance on Hoth, Luke, Han, Leia and the rest of the gang stumble into a
trap in Cloud City, and Han ends up frozen in carbonite and sent off to Jabba
the Hutt. In fact, in regards to the latter, they were even considering the
possibility of permanently killing off Han and Harrison Ford was in favor of
it; but of course, that wasn’t what happened. But suffice it to say, ‘The
Empire Strikes Back’ is the current high mark of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. The
original ‘Star Wars’ is still a classic, but this one just takes it one step
further.
Rating: 5/5!
STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983)
British director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) was chosen to direct the final entry in the
trilogy, ‘Return of the Jedi’, after Lucas was unable to get his friend Steven Spielberg
to direct the film. This was because of a controversy involving the Writers and
Directors Guilds of America over ‘Empire’ due to the decision to have the
credits play at the end of the film rather than the beginning. For the record,
end credits weren’t very common at the time and Lucas was only allowed to do it
for ‘A New Hope’ because he was directing it and his production company bears
his name. It even got to the point where the Guilds threatened to pull ‘Empire’
from theaters, but Lucas paid the fines, ultimately dropping out of both guilds
as well as the MPAA. David Lynch and David Cronenberg were also approached as
well but both declined the offer due to scheduling conflicts with other
projects. It would’ve been very, very interesting to see what each of these
three directors would’ve brought to the table but as is, ‘Return of the Jedi’
still delivers the same great ‘Star Wars’ that we’ve come to expect from the
last two films. But ‘Return of the Jedi’ is also something else… incredibly underrated.
I guess you can say that the film keeps up with the tradition of ‘the threequel
curse’ as ‘Return of the Jedi’ is the least successful film in the trilogy in
terms of critical reception. In fact, ‘Episode III’, one of the prequels, has a
better RT score than ‘Return of the Jedi’. Let that sink in for a moment… Despite
this, I still really enjoy ‘Return of the Jedi’ and think that it is, if not
exactly better than either Episode IV or V, is at least ‘as good’ as those two
films.
So why is this one not as popular as the previous two? Well,
the main reason for that seems to be due to the Ewoks, the teddy bear-like
creatures that Luke and co. meet while on the Forest Moon of Endor. More
specifically, the backlash towards them comes from the fact that during the
final battle, this primitive race is able to defeat the armed ‘best troops’ of
the Empire. Personally, I’m not too bothered by any of this, though I recognize
that this might’ve been a case of Lucas thinking more about merchandising than
the actual story, which may very well explain the downgrade in quality of the
prequels (more on those later this month). However, I still think ‘Return of
the Jedi’ succeeds in closing out this trilogy. After the darker turns of ‘Empire’,
this film lightens things up (in some cases, maybe a little too much (e.g.
Ewoks) but that’s beside the point) while also effectively tying up the loose
ends of the trilogy, namely in the wake of the big reveal in ‘Empire’ that
Darth Vader is Luke’s father Anakin Skywalker. The finale sequence involving
Luke, Vader, and the latter’s master, Emperor Palpatine, is one of the best
finales that I’ve ever seen in film. The emotions are running high throughout,
with Luke nearly turned to the Dark Side by the Emperor and Vader making the
heroic sacrifice to save his son. For now, we’ll ignore the fact that in the
Blu-Ray this sacrifice was basically ruined by one of Lucas’ ‘changes’. Still,
despite that and the whole thing with the Ewoks, I still love ‘Return of the
Jedi’; in fact, for a while it was my personal favorite film of the series.
While nowadays I concur that ‘Empire’ is the best of the trilogy, I still think
‘Return of the Jedi’ is pretty great as well.
Rating: 5/5!
‘Star Wars Month’ is just beginning; Check back Next Friday
for Post #2 in which I discuss some of the controversial changes made to the
original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.
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