(courtesy IMP Awards)
It’s always a fascinating exercise diving back into a film as an adult that, in your youth, defined how you see movies.
You either love it all over again, not simply wrapped in a cosy cocoon of nostalgia but in awe of how good the story is and why it was, and remains, so engaging, or you recoil in horror a little bit, a little sad that what you thought was the best thing since sliced bread at the time, now looks like an embarrassingly mouldering loaf.
Thankfully, firing up Star Wars: A New Hope, or as I knew back in 1977 when I saw it as a small wooden one-screen cinema in Ballina, northern NSW, Star Wars, is an unalloyed joy of exercise which more than holds up almost 50 years later as a fine escapist piece of filmmaking.
In fact, watching it last night, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that while the special effects might be a little, thought not fatally to full enjoyment of the film, frayed at the edges, that the film as a whole is still proof positive that if you pay attention to a carefully cohesive story, fulsomely-realised characters and dialogue that is both heartfelt and funny, that you can’t go wrong in telling a space operatic story.
A space Western of sorts that draws from a wide range of influences, including says George Lucas, the creator of the film and the franchise that it spawned, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Star Wars works because it keeps thing, narrative-wise at least, deliciously and beguilingly simple.
A New Hope is the tale of a young man, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on a backwater desert planet named Tatooine, who finds himself embroiled drawn into a David vs. Goliath battle between the Rebels and the evil Galactic Empire – the language of the iconically famous yellow-on-black scroll harkens back to the breathlessly sensationalist stakes of 1950s cinema serials – when two droids he buys off unscrupulous Jawas, R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) lead him to a recluse named Ben Kenobi aka Obi-Wan Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness) who it turns out is a Jedi Knight with a long history with the Big Bad of the movie, Darth Vader (David Prowse, with voice by James Earl Jones) and whose help has been begged for by Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) who is captured and taken to the planet-destroying Death Star.
Later Luke joins Obi-Wan on a quest to help Leia and get the plans for the Death Star to her home planet of Alderaan, done with the help of Millenium Falcon-flying Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his right-hand Wookiee (Peter Mayhew) who is a rogue-turned-reluctantly enthusiastic rebel.
It’s a tale as old as time which is good since the film commences with that now immortal and portentous phrase, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” and Lucas prosecutes it well, taking the much-used and well-worn idea of a Chosen One and making it into a rollicking adventure which keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time.
While it is very much a diversionary piece of popcorn-chomping cinema, with bad guys and gals and good guys and gals duking it out for the heart and soul of the galaxy, it’s also got some real emotional and politically insightful layers to it which Lucas weaves into its fast-moving story with an elegance that belies what many of these elements will come to mean as the series progresses on.
Of course, at the time the film came out, you’ll only had the one film as a reference point and so all of the filling in and expanding of the mythos that has occurred in the five decades since wasn’t available to you then.
Even so, there are hints aplenty and allusions by the score of much of the in-depth storytelling that was to come and while they weren’t as apparent then – you got the sense that a much wider and bigger story was out there somewhere but it was all hints and references without context and accepted as simply part of a wholly engaging plot with no need for any further rumination at the time – it’s fun watching A New Hope now you know what you know about Luke and Leia, Darth Vader and even how they obtained the plans for the Death Star in the first place.
What is impressive about A New Hope all these years later than even though we’ve had countless TV shows and movies to fill in the blanks and expand on many of the narrative allusions to something bigger like Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor, that the original film still very much stands on its two narrative feet.
It is richer watching the movie with everything you know from all the later additions to a now complex and sprawling franchise?
Quite possibly, but do they necessarily add to the experience of watching the film overall?
Not really, and that’s not a criticism of them in any way but rather underscores how simply but powerfully A New Hope tells its story, a relatively stripped-down tale that wonderfully prosecutes a straightforward good vs. evil story with then-uncomplicated heroes who work hard to make sure justice is done, even in the face of terrifying militaristic authoritarianism.
All those later extras are fun and they wee certainly fun to refer to when watching A New Hope all over again, but the movie doesn’t need them to spin its tale and to keep you engaged and nor does it need nostalgia to carry you forward because 47 years later it’s every bit as good it was when I saw it as an eager space-loving 11-year-old.
They say you can’t go back but sometimes you can, and sometimes it can be every bit as good a you remember it, and that’s most definitely the case with A New Hope which is superbly simple, well-executed storytelling coupled with brilliantly rich characterisation, sparkling dialogue and exposition which sits lightly but effectively on a story that still has powerful resonance today in a world where there seem to be far more Darth Vaders than any of us are particular comfortable with.