This post come with a heavy heart, as I am STAR WARS fan, spent my life pretending an empty roll of wrapping paper is a lightsaber and my unwitting sisters are the Sith of the household. I’m also aware that this is going to cause a lot of trouble and drama if any original trilogy fans read this, if anyone reads this. Enough dancing around the subject, STAR WARS: Episode IV: A New Hope is just sort of boring.
Now, I know the that it is a film that created a phenomenon of a franchise that grew to have multiple films, tv shows, animations, novels, comics, video game, toothbrushes, etc. And don’t get me wrong, as a trilogy, the original trilogy is definitely that galaxy’s best outing. Having the prequels be known for its downfalls, except the expert depiction of Obi Wan by Ewan McGregor. And the sequels dividing fans with Last Jedi and publicly not having a smooth run for Episode 9: Rise and Angry Fans.
But A New Hope, although the first part of one of cinema’s most iconic trilogy, at the time of the release there was no certainty that it was going to go any further than the one film. This is clear as its is its own film while the other films clearly leave things open for the rest of the franchise. And so this look at the film will be in this context, as if it was the only film this franchise got to have hit the big screen.
Now, the main faults with this film, aren’t to do with visuals, as at the time of filming Lucas’s use of practical effects was able to transport those in their cinema seats to a universe previously thought to be unreachable for film. This itself is a huge achievement for any filmmaker to have under their belt, but it’s the story I have an issue with. As viewing the film in the first time in years, able to look passed the fact we’re now in a world where space travel on screen is a norm. The whole film is rushed, it starts and everything goes from A-Z and everything in between as quickly as they can, resulting in the story spanning over, possibly 4 days.
It’s this rushed storytelling that causes the character development of the film slack and feel forced, these people consisting of a Princess, a Pauper, and a Pirate (really wanted three Ps). These people have never met before this movie and after having one daring escape from the Death Star they then talk to one another like old friends, Luke telling the Leia how he thought Han would help more than he says he’s willing to. Luke has known this main for three days and is talking about knowing him like an old friend. At this point, all the information he has on Han at the time consists of he is a good pilot, doesn’t believe in the force, prefers a face to face fight and travels space with the big cuddly Chewie.
Not only this rushed character development but once the Death Star is destroyed they walk around the Rebel base arms wrapped around like one another like they’ve been friends since childhood. Now, to compare this film to the other films would be unfair, even though the easiest comparison would be to Force Awakens which was discredited for being so similar. Even though the character development in FA made a lot more sense and is much more believable.
Instead, I would like to look at 2019’s STAR WARS: Jedi: Fallen Order, a single player action adventure that no one thought EA would allow to be released after them stating how they felt single player games were dying. This was proved wrong and now I’ll be eagerly awaiting Fallen Order 2 whenever they decide to bless us with it. However, there is once again a trio of heroes, four if you include BD-1 the cutest droid of the franchise. The three protagonists of this story have the benefit of not being limited to two hours to tell the story but instead an entire game to go through all the development they need to.
Yet, the game has its shining gem hidden in the first mission of the game, Prauf, the scrapper who works with Cal, also who Cal saves revealing him as a hidden Jedi. Prauf then goes on to stand up to Second Sister, which is ultimately his biggest mistake as he’s murdered by her, and then causes Cal to attack the Sith in a fit of rage beginning the story of the game. Now the reason I bring this up is because in the game’s first 10 minutes it was able to create more of a reaction out of me than the entirety of A New Hope. And this is all down to the writing, it continues throughout the game, with the main trio bonding over their fight against evil but with it being a natural progression, you’re able to see these people go from strangers to friends.
Again, I love STAR WARS, have spent years trying to get the TV remote to fly across the room using the force and will continue to do so for years to come. But I have had to come to the realisation that the origin of the world’s best known franchise is nothing more than mediocre, when it comes to the plot. With all the fans fighting over which of the new films are the worst or the best and separating themselves to which trilogy is the best even though all the best outings belong off the big screen, with Mandolorian, Clone Wars, Jedi Knight games, and original Battlefront 2 being what a lot think of as its best.
The Nerdy Bartender 