Star Wars: A New Hope

"May the Force be with you."

Star Wars: A New Hope is the most successful film in history (in my opinion) because it launched a Saga that is nearly 50 years old and is still going and created a fanbase that is the biggest in the world and became a beating heart of Pop Culture.

The film may not be the best ever made, but it is one of the most important ever made in regards to its impact on the industry. A New Hope reimagined visual and sound effects and established a brand new way of narrative storytelling. The music itself invented the name "Space Opera" with its incredible John Williams score that turns the film into an epic adventure through the stars that everyone will love and remember.

It was a huge success and I want to share my thoughts on the film and the franchise, seeing as this is a film blog, and show you why you should watch this film again and again to discover what makes it such a fantastic film.

A New Hope was a film unlike any other created in its time, it introduced a universe where magic and science fiction come together in a fight of good and evil. Sounds simple enough, apart from the concept of space wizards and an intergalactic war and a roaring fur-man.

It was ahead of its time and the younger crowd fell in love with A New Hope, it appealed to the younger audience as an imaginative space adventure and they couldn't get enough of it. It was an instant hit and spawned a saga that has carried on for nearly 50 years and created the biggest fanbase ever.

A New Hope changed visual and sound technology in cinema forever with its creative TIE fighters and lightsaber designs and created a narrative that many studios have tried to replicate. It changed the way films were made and designed to make them more epic and cinematic and became known for its experimental techniques and how it revolutionised filmmaking.

A New Hope introduces some of the most iconic characters ever made, such as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo and Princess Leia, whom were played by fairly small actors whose big break was playing these characters. This was one of Harrison Fords first big roles and it skyrocketed his career and led to him portraying Indiana Jones and other famous roles.

Darth Vader became one of the most imposing villains in film history, I still get chills down my spine whenever I watch him walk out of that smoke at the beginning of the film and his brute force and ruthless nature led his character to be iconic and terrifying. He had to be played by two actors, the voice was played by James Earl Jones and the physical acting by David Prowse, because George Lucas wanted his character to be unlike any villain, he wanted him to be towering over his minions and have the voice of a powerful overlord and that spawned his creation.

The film perfectly establishes our heroes motives and arcs that will be played out throughout the film and introduces us to their side of the story. Han Solo has one of the best arcs by being introduced as a space smuggler who is in it for himself and develops from his relationship with Luke to becoming a Rebel hero.

He was so well written in this film and was played incredibly well by Ford that he is more famous than Luke is, who is the hero of the story, and Princess Leia also changed how women are viewed in film by how well her character was written. She wasn't written as a damsel in distress, she was shown as a born leader who isn't afraid to stand up for herself and fight for what she believes in.

This inspired women to see that there can be female heroes in stories like this and ushered in a new age of equality and diversity in the film industry, all because Lucas wrote a character who basically fought for the freedom of her people.

One of the most infamous scenes in the entire saga was the opening scene of the film when we see a small Tantive VI race away from an attacking Star Destroyer. We were thrust straight into the action without any introduction into where exactly we are in the narrative and that brought the audience straight into the action and the might of the Galactic Empire. As we see the Star Destroyer surge through our screen as a massive object hurtling across the stars, we begin to see how big this film is and completely brings the action into the film.

The Death Star was introduced as an unbelievable machine, capable of immense destruction and the Trench Run itself, as the X Wings race to destroy the planet destroying monster, brings intense and thrilling action to an ambitious climax, and all this was done with props, little computer imagery of any kind.

The scale of the production design in this film was immense, every ship had a minimum of five scaled models that were attached to cranes in front of a blue screen (green screen in the old days) and new camera techniques were created to capture the visuals needed to create this masterpiece.

The overall execution of the film was very thought out, Lucas knew what he wanted in the film and how to get it, the most difficult thing he knew he had to get was the sound for the film. Obviously this is a space opera, so he had a perfectly well trained orchestra and the composing god John Williams at the ready, but he needed some authentic sounds for the ships and the lightsabres. He wanted something futuristic and mechanical that would differentiate this film from other sci fi films, the sound crew went above and beyond to capture the famous sound for the Millennium Falcon and the TIE fighters and the swooshing sounds of the lightsabres.

They used sounds from jet engines, car engines and electric wires to create sounds that were never heard of before and that is what made the film so famous. The screeching noise of the TIE fighters filled the audience with dread while the thrill of the sound of an epic lightsabre battle combined medieval sword battles with the future. The crew was so experimental with the sound that it not only received awards, but reshaped the sound department into being more experimental with their sound as well.

There are some flaws with the film that make it the second best in the saga (in my opinion) such as the visuals itself, the lack of proper CGI continuity that leads to the footage looking out of flow and easier to spot what the filmmakers are doing. They rectified a lot of this in further films, but you have to bear in mind that this was made in 1977 when film technology was extremely limited.

The exposure of light in the cameras on the Tatooine locations affect the colour of the dunes and the sky in the background and that ruins the whole desert planet look, you want the sand to look pale yellow like a proper desert (which the filmmakers were in when they shot the footage) but the faulty exposure led to the sands having an alien orange tint and that threw me off a little.

It is easy to spot the technical flaws in this film, mainly because of the time it was made and how constricted the resources were to make this film look like a typical Marvel film. Nowadays, its easy to make a Star Wars film on a budget but in 1977, A New Hope had limited resources to make it look as epic as possible and you have to give it the benefit of a doubt that they tried their absolute best to make a brilliant film.

Despite these flaws, Lucas and the filmmakers made what is, in my opinion, the most successful film ever made and purely because of the impact this film alone had on the audience and the industry. It brought imagination to children and wonder to adults and reshaped film departments with how well the film was put together and all the new techniques that was used to create it.

If you went to a Star Wars fan and asked him what his favourite film is, its either this one, Empire Strikes Back or Revenge of the Sith because those films are so integral to the Star Wars universe, but this one is one of their favourites because it is the first one. It brought Star Wars to life and made Darth Vader, The Millennium Falcon, The Force and lightsabres a core heart of pop culture.

This film is not the best ever made, but its impact on the industry makes it one of the best and its why I love Star Wars so much. I love how thought out this film was and the depths the filmmakers went to to create a film that is unlike any other ever made.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is available on DVD, Digital and Disney +