Star Wars movie review

Here's what you need to know; young Luke Skywalker lives a comfortable life on the desert planet of Tatooine, but aspires to do more with his life. His opportunity comes when he is swept up in an intergalactic civil war between the rebels and the sinister galactic empire, and joins the mission to destroy the empire's latest and most devastating weapon, the Death Star.
Yes, I finally got round to watching Star Wars, it took long enough, but as The Force Awakens approaches, I really have no excuse. Also, for this review I will be reviewing the original 1977 theatrical version of the film, I just thought that was worth noting.

I must be honest, I felt a similar feeling going into this than when I first saw Lord of the Rings, after hearing so much praise and seeing how famous and popular the franchise became, I wasn't sure if the film would actually live up to the hype, fortunately just like Lord of the Rings, I wasn't disappointed by Star Wars. The film opens with a very cool scene where a rebel ship is captured by a Star Destroyer, where we are introduced to a few of the characters, mainly the 2 droids R2D2 and C3PO, and Darth Vader. Darth Vader was really cool in this film, but I don't really need to explain there. What I liked about this film is that they treated the Force like some kind of religion, a Religion that Han Solo thinks is nonsense, I didn't expect that, and the Force stuff they show is really cool, like of course Darth Vader's Force choke, and Obi-wan's various little tricks. But I did think that it was brought up an unnecessary amount of times, it's not exactly a criticism, but I'd have thought something as literally nebulous as the Force would be something a bit more subtle, and there are times where it gets kind of cheesy. I thought the empire was really cool, with their star destroyers and tie fighters, but just the scenes where they're all around a table talking really interested me. The line up of characters is really good, there's Han Solo, the badass space pirate, Princess Leia, the leader of the resistance who is a good shot with a blaster, Chewbacca, he's an Ape, aside from how he 'talks' I don't really understand the fuss. And then there's the droids, who are awesome, R2D2 and C3PO are 2 characters I loved in this film, they were hilarious. Luke is a cool main character, he comes from a small beginning, but is driven to join the rebellion in a way I didn't expect, I mean, the film's a U, I didn't expect charred corpses, but his want to do more is very relatable. The film's plot is also really fun, as it doesn't really stop moving once it starts, which does take a bit of a while, I must admit, after the opening scene with the star destroyer, I thought the film really slowed down on Tatooine, I didn't think it was bad, and I wasn't bored, but it did drag a bit in my opinion. What the film does really well is world building, the world of Star Wars is interesting, with the war between the rebels and the empire.

I must say, the design of the film was awesome, and by that I mean literally the design, one of the first things you see is a star destroyer, and they look awesome, the X wings look awesome, same with the Tie fighters, everything from the massive ships to the tiny droids look really cool, and that again adds to the film's brilliant world building. It being a sci fi film from the 70's the effects are something that is rather important, but I must say, for a film that's 38 years old, the effects hold up really well, in a pre CG world everything was models, puppets and robots, and this film is a great example of old effects still being good. While some of the effects, mostly on ships look a bit off, others still look really good, maybe it's just growing up watching Gerry Anderson shows, but I love these older effects when they're done well, and for the most part Star Wars has aged impressively. These effects are most important when the rebels and empire are in battle, and the action is pretty cool. Action really breaks down to shootouts and dogfights, while the dogfights lack that Ace Combat ferocity, that's to be expected of a 38 year old film, meanwhile, the shootouts are really cool, each one is just a cluster fuck of lasers and smoke that's a joy to watch. Back up in the air the dogfights still are very enjoyable, particularly the final battle on the Death Star, and an escape on the Millennium Falcon. Just as if not More important though are character scenes, and again, Star Wars has it covered. Every scene with the droids is gold, but when Han Solo shoots a bounty hunter under the table is awesome, when Obi-wan feels a disturbance in the force and is physically effected, that was awesome, Leia being broken out of prison and immediately grabbing a blaster, that's cool, and a scene with Obi-wan, Vader and Luke that I'm not going to spoil, even in Star Wars, movie spoilers are to be avoided, but I will say that I didn't get it at first, but as the film carried on it made more sense.

I'm happy to say I really enjoyed Star Wars, I did think it had some flaws, I personally thought that some parts were a bit cheesy, and the film slows down after the first scene and takes a while to get moving again, I had fun with the battles, I liked the characters and story, and I thought the world was really cool, the effects have held up really well and it made the effects heavy scenes really cool, even if some effects look better than others. I suppose I don't really need to recommend Star Wars since it's so well known, but I would recommend it.