My introduction to Star Wars came in 1996 with this VHS tape. It was released in 1995 and marketed as the last opportunity to own the original version of the Star Wars Trilogy on VHS (and Laserdisc) before the Special Edition came out in 1997. Before this my only contact with Star Wars came from the Droids and Ewoks cartoons, a single comic book, and a handful of toys passed on to me by a nurse I had at CHEO when I was a kid. I'd never seen the movies before as for whatever reason my parents didn't think to rent them for me, we didn't own a copy and I never watched them at the hospital. But then my dad got the 1995 Trilogy VHS box set for Christmas in 1995 and it wasn't too long before I sat down to watch this movie for the very first time. Though now that I think about it, I might've watched Return of the Jedi first because it had the Ewoks in it and I knew them from the cartoon.
Regardless, I fell in love with this movie when I watched it for the first time. The spaceships were more interesting than the starships I was used to seeing on Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, the characters looked cooler and the villain looked more frightening than any Klingon did in Star Trek. Plus you had space wizards, laser swords, and funny robots who weren't trying to be funny all the time. Also the story was exciting. I mean it was an ordinary boy who had to rescue a princess from an evil being and then save the galaxy. How could a nine year old boy not get excited about seeing that? I mean George Lucas himself has stated numerous times that he made Star Wars for nine year old boys because he was watching the Flash Gordon movie serials starring Buster Crabbe when he was nine years old. Naturally I was the perfect age when I first watched Star Wars 24 years ago.
One of the things that I love about this movie is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. One of the things that I found with the '90s incarnations of Star Trek is that each one took itself more seriously than the previous series did. Which was fine for Star Trek. But as a nine year old boy, and now as a 33 year old adult, sometimes I found myself just wanting to have fun, without having to think about things while watching a movie. And that's what Star Wars is. It's a fun movie. Every time I watch it, I have fun watching it. As journalist Bill Moyers once said in an interview in the documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, "It's a lot of fun to watch Star Wars". I agree with that statement 100%.
My favourite character has changed a lot over the years. When I first saw the movie, I liked Darth Vader a lot. Then as a teenager, I found myself drawn to Luke Skywalker, because I could relate to that character. Now as an adult, I find myself drawn to both Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Han, because in this movie he's approximately the same age as I am now, plus or minus a year or two, and Obi-Wan because he's the wise old mentor, who has to explain a lot to Luke in such a short amount of time, as well as find a way to tell Luke about Darth Vader, without revealing who Vader actually is. Also, one thing I was wondering during my viewing of this movie last night, is whether Obi-Wan knew he was going to have to face Vader on the Death Star when he volunteered to shut the tractor beam holding the Millennium Falcon in the hangar bay. I mean obviously he could sense Vader's presence, just as Vader could sense his, and there were two shots where Obi-Wan pulled out his Lightsaber as if he was expecting Vader to appear, knowing he couldn't just use the Force to cloud Vader's mind into not seeing him as he'd been doing with the Stormtroopers the whole time he'd been on the Death Star.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall Star Wars is one of those movies that I can go back and watch over and over again and never get tired of it. It's fun, it's exciting and it's the reason I love movies so much. There are so many ways to watch it too. All of the Star Wars movies are on Disney+ now, and there's dozens of VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray editions out there for you to watch too. I'm giving Star Wars 9.9/10 stars with it losing half a star because the Stormtroopers are lousy shots against our heroes anyway, and Greedo was dumb enough to try to take Han Solo on his own.
To Be Continued in The Empire Strikes Back...
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
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