The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Star Wars (1977/USA/dir. George Lucas)
appeared at #17 on my original list.
What it is • Every touchstone of pop mythology has been thrown into the pot and brought to a boil: a poetic/kitschy opening ("A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."), spaceships rumbling overhead, lasers blasting against a starfield, a trek through the desert, an isolated farm, a princess, robots, aliens, a bar crowded with outlandish characters, a black-masked/cowled supervillain, a shrewd old mentor, a wisecracking outlaw, a republic transformed into a ruthless empire, aerial dogfights, shootouts, sword fights, a sneaky rescue operation, heroes disguised as villains, a daring swing across a chasm, a descent into a monster-haunted pit, a fearsome weapon, a noble ragtag resistance, a mystical religious code. The pleasure of
Star Wars derives from two sources: the delightful eclecticism with which it gathers together its diverse inspirations, and the awesome clarity and precision with which these disparate elements are coalesced into a unified whole.
Star Wars fuses the spirit of backyard play with careful craftsmanship and the result is unlike anything before or since - despite how often its accomplishment has been imitated (most recently by a new
Star Wars film, shorne of its creator but still in the thrall of his creation). The story? Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) lives on the spot "furthest from the bright center of the universe," the desert planet Tatooine, but the war between the Empire and the Rebellion comes to him in the form of two droids, C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) who arrive with a secret message from Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) for the nearby mysterious recluse Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Escaping his home in the Millennium Falcon, piloted by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), Luke will attempt to rescue Leia from the Death Star, while Obi-Wan must face his former pupil turned dark lord, Darth Vader (David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones). But you probably already knew that. The context? That you certainly know: Lucas, fresh from the popular rock'n'roll nostalgia of
American Graffiti and the dystopian sci-fi nightmare of
THX-1138, wrote an ambitious, nearly incomprehensible story outline and dedicated himself to realizing its sprawling vision with a makeshift special effects operation and a troubled British production tepidly supported by Twentieth Century Fox. Nothing much was expected (except perhaps a dangerous flop) before the film debuted in 1977 and changed movie history forever, following the lead of
The Exorcist and
Jaws by cementing box-office blockbusters as Hollywood's mainstay - and identifying the blockbuster with fantastical content, an action-oriented tempo, and a very youthful audience. The legacy? Beyond that broader impact, the film spawned a vast universe of narrative spin-offs, playful merchandise, and three phases of film franchises. First, the two sequels (1980 and 1983) continued this film's story, deepening and darkening until it became an Oedipal struggle between father and son. Second, the three prequels (1999 to 2005), further darkened and expanded the universe while revolutionizing digital effects; this trilogy alienated many fans of the original series from Lucas until the filmmaker was a pariah within the community he himself had invented. Third, an open-ended series of films (2015 to, well, as long as Disney can make money), probably one a year, will continue the story but also expand around its margins with stories taking place in between existing films, focusing on tangents and side characters until no one narrative can define
Star Wars anymore. The world of
Star Wars has escaped the bounds of its creator, its original audience, the cultural moment that gave it birth, and the very first film phenomenon that initially seemed like a
sui generis standalone marvel, not the kickoff of something much bigger. That
Star Wars - not
Episode IV: A New Hope but simply "
Star Wars" - can become obscured by its own legacy, but
that's the
Star Wars I am here to celebrate. Part Pop Art, part pulp fiction, very much an auteurist project,
Star Wars remains startlingly original if you can see through the haze: the home movie as big-screen epic.
Why I like it •
