STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (SPECIAL EDITION)
A film review by Christopher E. Meadows
Copyright 1997 Christopher E. Meadows
MPAA: PG (sci-fi violence, brief strong language)
Written and Directed by George Lucas, Produced by Gary Kurtz
Starring Mark Hamil, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Cushing, Alec
Guinness, Anthony Daniels, et al
Rating: 10/10 (***** out of *****)
What can you say about a legend?
Books could be, and indeed have been written about the Star Wars trilogy, and rightfully so. This is a set of movies that shattered all expectations of what science fiction could be in the late 70s/early 80s, inspiring literally dozens of clones, from Battlestar Galactica all the way up to Stargate and Independance Day, and one could argue revitalizing the whole science fiction genre. The special effects were groundbreaking, revolutionary for their day and still eminently watchable well into twenty years later. Literally millions of people have seen the Star Wars trilogy and been touched by it. And now, George Lucas brings it back for a new audience to enjoy.
Much has been and is still being made of the fact that Mr. Lucas has gone back and revised his trilogy for rerelease now. Some fans are angry that he has dared to meddle with what they consider perfection, while others are thrilled by the idea of seeing yesterday's Star Wars updated with today's special effects wizardry. Either way, the Special Edition release means that Star Wars is back on the big screen, where it rightfully deserves to be seen.
Can there be anyone in the world who doesn't know what Star Wars is about? In a way, Star Wars is so much a part of our cultural heritage that it feels silly and almost artificial to try to summarize it. It's a story about a young man's coming of age, a fight for freedom against an oppressive empire, a tale of swashbuckling and derring-do the likes of which haven't been seen on the silver screen in decades, strange new worlds with strange alien creatures and weird surprises around every turn, and the yearning within each of us to realize our dreams and make a difference in the world. It's high adventure, incredible special effects, and...well, it's just an _experience_. Something about this movie sparked the imagination of a generation...and it's about to do so again.
This new release of Star Wars comes as no surprise to many of the film's devoted fans, who have been trading rumors and bits of information about it for quite some time now. Interviews, trailers, leaks from within Lucasfilm...all of these have been collected, collated, and placed on webpages for people to see (pages such as http://www.islandnet.com/~corona/films/details/sw4.html or, my personal favorite, http://leopard.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~koukoula/). Pictures of before and after have been placed side by side...even months before the movies were released, fans were making comparisons.
In some cases, the changes were nothing less than phenomenal, and this can be seen from the comparison shots even before you go into the movie theater. The digital matte effects that were little more than a toy in Forrest Gump are put to excellent use here, unnoticeably sprucing up scenes that that George Lucas was unsatisfied with in the original. For instance, in my personal favorite example, the ancient temple on Yavin that was formerly a flat stone edifice now has deep, moss-covered carvings and etchings. And Mos Eisley Spaceport is now a bustling, booming city, with more surprises and things going on in the background than you can notice on the first viewing.
All the starships and fighters are now computer-animated, getting rid of glitches and artifacts of the special effects processes used when the film was originally made--and they look _fantastic_. Four and a half minutes of new or missing footage have been added, including a scene with Jabba the Hutt that had originally been shelved because the state of special effects in 1977 simply couldn't do it justice.
However, much of the ten million dollars that was spent on the Star Wars Special Edition restoration went into restoring the quality of the film itself. The negatives, badly damaged by the ravages of time, were brightened and returned to their original splendor. The audio tracks were remixed and reprocessed, with reworked sound effects by effects maven Ben Burtt, into glorious, booming, theater-shaking full-THX Dolby digital stereo. And _that_, more than the added scenes or new special effects, is where the real value of this new version lies. It's really true what they say in the commercials: Star Wars loses _so much_ on the small screen. Even letterboxing doesn't make up for the decrease in size and definition.
In regard to the Star Wars Special Edition, and to the other two films of the trilogy which have yet to be released, I'll make this final recommendation: Go and see it. Go and see it more than once...it may be another twenty years before it comes back to the big screen after it's gone this time. Take along the youngsters who've never had the big-screen Star Wars experience--you'll enjoy seeing it through their eyes as much as they will enjoy it for the first time. There's magic in this movie--Special Edition or no, there can be no denying that it's still Star Wars, and still has the power to thrill and enthrall children of all ages, from four to four hundred. Let's all return to that time long ago, and that galaxy far, far away...
Rating: 10 out of 10. A _must-see_.
This review is copyright 1997 by Christopher E. Meadows. Permission granted for not-for-profit Usenet distribution via rec.arts.movies reviews and associated archival; permission granted for inclusion in Internet Movie Database and associated archival. All other distribution, including CD-ROM, requires permission from the author. -- Chris Meadows aka | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co. Robotech_Master | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy) robotech@jurai.net | With a World Wide Web homepage located at robotech@eyrie.org | http://www.jurai.net/~robotech/index.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews