PREGAME THOUGHTS

I’ve never voluntarily watched a Star Wars movie in my life. Honest to God. Honest to Satan, too.

I’ve seen at least three of them back in the day. I’m pretty sure I saw Episode I and Episode VI during a high school science fiction class (seriously). I had to see Episode II during a friend’s party and I was bored to tears.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen the original. Now with my subscription to Disney+, which I begrudgingly subscribe to on account of havin’ kids, the whole world of Star Wars is right in front of me. Never too late, I guess, although I’m 99% sure that enjoyment of Star Wars is heavily rooted in how young one was when they first got into it. Almost all (if not all) of my friends got really obsessed during the 1997 theatrical re-releases. I’m talking endless trips to the movie theater to see them again and again. I couldn’t have been less interested in any of it at the time. 1997 would’ve put me at nine years old. A perfect time to get into it, probably. Oh well.

So I’m 35 now, and it would be completely irresponsible for the nerd in me to put off watching the Star Wars movies any longer. Plus, I want to read the comic books, so I need the working knowledge. Here are things I currently know about Episode IV specifically:

-The Death Star blows up.

That’s it.

Since every single frame from this movie has been screenshotted to death, I’m going to have fun with this one and only snap some unflattering shots. Mark Hamill has never looked so tired.

THE 650(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

It’s fucking Star Wars, man! Don’t you already know the plot? Oh well. I’m gonna be really basic about this since my knowledge of the intricacies of Star Wars is limited to this movie and Baby Yoda.

The Death Star is this incredible whiz-bang space station that looks like a giant moon with a big circle on it. It has the capability to destroy entire planets, which is fucked up. The Rebellion are the good guys. The Empire are the bad guys. Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), one of the good guys, stole Death Star plans from the bad guys. Before she gets ambushed and kidnapped from her spaceship by Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones, who I keep thinking is dead in real life but, as of this writing, he most certainly is not), Leia pulls out her USB cord and hides the Death Star plans in the garbage can-looking droid R2-D2. R2-D2 and his flamboyant droid companion C-3PO escape from the ship in a pod and land on Tatooine, where they amble around for 600 minutes of the movie. They get captured and sold to a farm where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) works with his aunt and uncle.

While Luke cleans R2-D2, a clipped holographic message pops out showing Princess Leia begging Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) for help. Luke must be really into Leia’s Cinnabon hair, because he comments on her beauty. He becomes obsessed with seeing the rest of the message and finding out who this “Obi-Wan” Kenobi is. Surely his friend Ben Kenobi would know!

R2-D2 runs away and Luke goes looking for him, where he is eventually attacked by *looks it up* Tusken Raiders. Ben Kenobi rescues Luke, and when Luke mentions the name “Obi-Wan”, Ben admits that it’s him. He’s not not the Obi-Wan they’re looking for! He used to be a Jedi Knight, which is like a space ninja sorcerer magician who channels the Force to get shit done. The Empire pretty much wiped them all away, and it is with this story that Luke learns his father was a Jedi Knight. I wonder who his father could be! Anyway, Obi-Wan kept his pops’ lightsaber around for the last three decades. Luke can have it, I guess.

Smacking R2-D2 around with a space wrench gets him to playback Princess Leia’s full message: get the Death Star plans to her father on Planet Alderaan. Obi-Wan wants Luke to come with him, but he says “NO!” Then he learns that stormtroopers killed his uncle and aunt and destroyed the farm, so he changes his answer to “YES!” This is the part where they find Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his buddy Chewbacca (Chewbacca), a couple of smugglers who don’t answer to anyone but themselves, and convince Han Solo to transport them to Alderaan with his decrepit Millennium Falcon ship. For those keeping track, that’s Luke, Han, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan, R2-D2, C-3PO, and Shaq.

As they head toward the Death Star by accident, the Millennium Falcon gets pulled in by a tractor beam. The group leaves the ship to rescue Princess Leia and disable the tractor beam. Two birds with one stone, y’know. Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam and gets into a lightsaber fight with Darth Vader, the rest rescue Princess Leia and the humans get stuck in a trash compactor. The droids save them. Obi-Wan dies during his fight.

With Darth Vader adequately distracted, the group escapes the Death Star. The Death Star plans reveal its weakness: if one is able to strike the core of the Death Star through its exhaust port, they can blow that shit up. Banana in the tailpipe.

Han Solo collects his bounty for saving Princess Leia and fucks off while the Rebellion prepares to strike Death Star. Luke joins them in this pursuit, and ends up being the last one alive during a harried mission and battle sequence. Long story short: Han Solo shows up to assist, Luke blows up the Death Star, they both get congressional medals of honor, everyone smiles, and the movie is over!

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Better Late Than Never?

As mentioned earlier, I was stubbornly resistant to involve myself with all things Star Wars well into adulthood. It’s not even a Star Trek vs. Star Wars loyalty, either. I didn’t get into Star Trek until I was 22 years old, and even then it was only The Next Generation. I hated sci-fi as a kid, but my gateway into it was The X-Files during college. It didn’t take long for this to expand into fantasy books and space operas, but Star Wars was still very repugnant.

Wanna know what the problem was? Star Wars is the Beatles of movies. It’s everywhere, steeped in pop culture for decades, directly and indirectly referenced in just about everything. From Ralph Wiggum displaying Star Wars action figures in his school diorama, to Sally Struthers represented as Jabba the Hut in South Park, to Spaceballs, to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, to Weird Al’s “American Pie” parody, to millions of other media I was exposed to, I pretty much pieced together the mythology over the course of my entire life. That doesn’t mean, however, that I would get Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi mixed up constantly and unapologetically! At least those days are over. The bottom-line being, my brain was so waterlogged with Star Wars references that I was already sick and tired of it. No need to watch any of the movies, I’ve had enough thanks.

But here I am now! I’ve gotten over myself, and we’re all happier for it.

TOPIC 2 — That Was It, Huh?

Is A New Hope considered a favorite among the original trilogy? I can say for certain that it didn’t live up to decades of hype. In fact, I was underwhelmed while I was watching it, and, once it was over, I didn’t even know if I liked it!

I was immediately floored that this, this, was the movie. I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps this sweeping epic tale with dozens of characters, years upon years of lore, complicated character relationships, and a whole galaxy full of varied planets. What I got was a story about a kid who wanted to save a beautiful princess and stop the bad guy. The plot was extremely easy to follow and the acting wasn’t superlative. The action scenes got tiresome. The alien costumes looked shitty. There were only two women in the whole movie.

And, by god, in spite of all that, in retrospect, etc. etc., A New Hope really burrowed into my brain. In the following days, I found myself going over the scenes. I found myself charmed by Luke Skywalker. I found myself appreciating the endearing crankiness of Han Solo. I dwelled on the badassery of gun-toting Princess Leia. I even smirked as I recalled the one-sided bickering of C-3PO. I started to understand why hardcore fans would want to watch this over and over.

But that Obi-Wan Kenobi guy can go suck a lemon. A real who-cares character if I’ve ever seen one.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Harrison Ford didn’t learn his lines for the intercom conversation in the cell block so that it would sound spontaneous.
This is such a Harrison Ford thing to do. All kinds of “fuck off, I’m doing things my way you dumb bitches”. Han Solo would be proud.

The actors found George Lucas to be very uncommunicative towards them, with his only directions generally being either “faster” or “more intense”. At one point, when he temporarily lost his voice, the crew provided him with a board with just those two phrases written on it.
The billionaire director is bad at directing! His fat neck probably didn’t have a sense of humor about it either. I heard that when we was provided with the board, he stepped into the Millennium Falcon and took a big dump on the floor.

Mark Hamill held his breath for so long during the trash compactor scene that he broke a blood vessel in his face. Subsequent shots are from one side only.
Sounds like a wuss to me. Can’t handle 45 seconds underwater? Fire the guy, let’s get Eric Stoltz in that white karate suit that Luke Skywalker wears. I don’t care if he was only 16 years old at the time.

According to Mark Hamill, studio executives were unhappy that Chewbacca has no clothes and attempted to have the costume redesigned with shorts.
Bermuda shorts would’ve been great. And a fucking surfboard to carry around.

The Chewbacca suit retained a bad smell for the duration of filming after the trash compactor scene.
Lucky for Peter Mayhew, who had to be crammed into that suit for hours upon hours a day. The smell never left his body. He never bedded a woman again.

During production, the cast attempted to make George Lucas laugh or smile, as he often appeared depressed.
I LOVE this kind of trivia. I came across this with The 40-Year-Old Virgin too, where half the trivia was like “the success of the movie never even crossed Judd Apatow’s mind” or “Judd Apatow nearly slit his wrists after spending dozens of sleepless nights festering in misery”.

Carrie Fisher confirmed in her autobiography that she disliked the “bagel bun” hairstyle she wore as Princess Leia. However, prior to filming, the studio had requested that she lose some weight first, which she hadn’t. Out of fear of being fired for it, she was eager to comply with everything that writer and director George Lucas suggested, which included the hairstyle.
You mean to tell me that having a couple of bagel buns on the side of your head isn’t worth it after all? But… but… think of the deliciousness!

The pulsating engine sound of the Star Destroyer is a manipulated recording of a broken air conditioner.
*George Lucas kicks his bothersome appliance* “ALL MY SHIT IS BREAKING! THIS IS WHY I LOOK MISERABLE ON SET, YOU TALENTLESS HACKS!”

In 2017, Mark Hamill admitted that he and Carrie Fisher were attracted to each other, and often made out. He claimed however, that they mutually decided (at the last minute) to not consummate their affair.
Of course, of course, OF COURSE he would say this after Carrie Fisher died! NOBODY AROUND TO CORROBARATE THE STORY! TAKE “HONEST MARK” FOR HIS WORD. HER TONGUE RIGHT DOWN HIS THROAT! SQUEEZIN’ HER BAGEL BUNS! FISHER LIKED IT, HE SWEARS TO GOD!

Carrie Fisher claimed that she warned Harrison Ford in advance that her 2016 memoir The Princess Diarist would reveal their three-month love affair during production.
Exactly. Fuck off, Mark Hamill.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Speaking as a 35-year-old who has no thread of nostalgia whatsoever for Star Wars of any kind… yes. This movie was 100% worth the watch, and I’m glad I finally did it, and I look forward to digging into the rest of the movies, the many TV series, and the endless supply of comic books. The novels? Screw novels. LEGO sets? Maybe.

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