Note from the critic: Hello and welcome to the first movie in my reviewing blog. Enjoy this and future reviews. Also, please feel free to give ideas for future reviews, whether they are video games, movies, comics, books, etc. List them after giving your feedback on this review.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

That’s right! I’m doing the Star Wars movies! Now I’m not going to do them all right away – that would tip my hand far too early. So I’m going to start here and work my way through all six over time.

SPOILERS!!!

It would feel really odd to give a summary of the plot here, because I know that ALL OF YOU READING THIS HAVE SEEN THE MOVIES. If not, slap yourself and go rent it or get it off Netflix. Therefore, I won’t summarize any of the Star Wars movies. Rather, I’ll just give my opinions.

I’m just gonna say it: I am not in love with this movie. Seriously, I don’t care for it very much. I know that’s a shock but this is not my favorite movie of all time and it’s certainly not my favorite Star Wars movie. Not to say that it’s bad, but… well let’s just dive into it:

George Lucas is not a good writer. He isn’t. The plot of this movie is extremely simple, predictable, linear, and has been done countless times. It is basically every step of the literary concept known as “the hero’s journey” (look it up) and really doesn’t deviate from the main focal points very much. This movie is somewhat unique in concept, but really, replace the lightsabers and guns with swords, the Jedi/Sith with sorcerers, and this is just another fairy tale story among countless others.

This movie also goes against the idea that Lucas actually had everything planned out from the beginning. Clearly Leia was originally meant to be Luke’s love interest and not his sister. You could say “he wanted you to think that.” Well here’s the thing: George Lucas is anything but subtle. I honestly and whole heartedly believe that what we see is what we get with the man. I don’t see a lot of hidden meanings, especially with this movie. Sometimes there are hints and underlying themes and factors in other movies (and Lucas probably didn’t have to do with those), but really, as I said this movie is very straight forward. The ending also wraps up quite cleanly, indicating that he wasn’t so confident that it would continue from here.

What makes this movie really unique? Well let’s go to the next category:

The special effects.

For the time in which this was made (screw you, Blu-Ray), the movie had extremely good special effects. Even by today’s standards they look nice. Yeah, the lightsabers look weird and all, but take it for what it is: a step in the right direction. This movie paved the way for countless other Sci-Fi movies and really showed people how to do special effects. It’s truly a sight to behold.

While I don’t usually mention music, I feel it would be a crime not to mention John William’s score, which is absolutely amazing. I personally love every Star Wars soundtrack there is. While I might be hanged for it, I dare say that the soundtrack almost got better with each movie, and yes I am including the prequels (what can I say? I’m a sucker for that kind of music)

Final category: acting performance.

Let’s be honest: almost everyone in this movie was a nobody at this point in their careers, the veteran primarily being Alec Guinness. Even so, nobody was outright bad, just… inexperienced. And they really did get better as the trilogy went on.

So despite the hate mail I’ll get, A New Hope just doesn’t do it for me usually. The story is incredibly unoriginal and, frankly, overrated by many. I typically watch it out of nostalgia, given that it was the first Star Wars movie I saw. It was truly a work of film given the revolutionary effects and outstanding visuals, and it is the first movie in a great saga that spawned an even better expanded universe (there, I said it: books and comics > the movies), and for that, it should and deserves to be held in high esteem.