As Star Wars’ “Skywalker Saga” nears its end, we reexamine the movie that started it all, one that everyone thought would bomb.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
No one knew what to expect when those words first appeared across theater screens on May 25, 1977. Not the audience, driven to curiosity about this “outer space movie.” Definitely not Hollywood, where the conventional wisdom was that science fiction was “too smart” for average moviegoers, and therefore non-profitable. Even George Lucas didn’t know. He thought the sci-fi adventure he spent the last six years getting made would fail. He didn’t even attend the première.
No one could have foreseen what Star Wars would eventually become. As film critic Leonard Maltin once said, “[Star Wars] changed the way movies were made, perceived, and marketed.” It literally created an industry, along with a merchandising empire that earns over $260 billion every year. It developed two expanded universes of books, comics, video games, cartoons, toys, and even theme park rides. It also, arguably, gave birth to modern fan culture. Lines from the movie have become part of our collective language. It even spawned a religion and became synonymous with US foreign policy at the peak of the Cold War.
…what gets lost in all the discussion about the first Star Wars…is that, to put it simply, it’s just a movie. A very great movie, yes, but a movie all the same.
Star Wars has been talked about extensively, too. Essays, documentaries, thesis papers, philosophical treatises, and scientific journals have devoted millions upon millions of words to all things Star Wars. Adding my words to those millions of words is admittedly daunting. Talk about a lone voice crying out in the wilderness.
Yet what gets lost in all the discussion about the first Star Wars (or, as it’s known by its subtitle, A New Hope) is that, to put it simply, it’s just a movie. A very great movie, yes, but a movie all the same. And it’s also a movie which, by all accounts, was extremely difficult to make on almost every level.
For one thing, Lucas originally set out to adapt Flash Gordon. It’s only when he failed to purchase the copyrights that he decided to “invent [his] own [version].” Another obstacle was almost all the major film studios (including Disney) weren’t interested. Even Universal Pictures, which produced Lucas’ American Graffiti, turned him down. The reason 20th Century Fox and producer Alan Ladd Jr. greenlight Star Wars was because of Lucas’ previous success with American Graffiti (1973). It was also obvious from the start that, given the scope of the project, Star Wars would be costly by 1970s standards. A $150,000 advance would balloon into a budget of $11 million (over $46 million when adjusted for inflation).
There was one other problem with making Star Wars that’s been de-emphasized over the years: Lucas, by his own admission, isn’t that good of a screenwriter. As he was far more interested in the technical aspects of filmmaking, he considered the writing process a chore. One of the reasons Star Wars took so long to make was that Lucas spent three years writing the screenplay, coming up with four radically different drafts. Most of the plot and characters he simply lifted straight from Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (1958), to the point that some consider Star Wars an uncredited remake.
Other movies Lucas heavily borrowed from included Casablanca (1942), The Searchers (1956), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Dam Busters (1955), and the Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will (1935). Along with Flash Gordon, Lucas also found inspiration from Buck Rogers comic strips, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and notably the writings of Joseph Campbell. Lucas openly admits that Luke Skywalker’s character arc explicitly follows “The Hero’s Journey” from Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
The more you learn about the making of Star Wars, and how almost everyone behind it thought it would be a disaster, it’s still pretty amazing it turned out the way it did.
The dialogue isn’t all that great, either. Some lines were rewritten or ad-libbed during filming. Director Brian de Palma helped Lucas rewrite the famous opening text crawl. Watching the movie, it’s quite amusing hearing the actors say stuff like, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” or “I recognized your foul stench when I entered the room” with a straight face. As Harrison Ford infamously told Lucas, “You can type this s***, but you sure can’t say it!”
On top of all this, there were the usual filmmaking pitfalls and then some. Costumes would fall apart. Robotics would malfunction. As detailed in the Lucasfilm approved documentary, Empire of Dreams, a sudden rainstorm postponed the first weeks of shooting in Tunisia. Lucas would constantly clash with the cinematographer, Gilbert Taylor, who thought the director was too young and inexperienced. The studio canceled the original Christmas 1976 release date after the entire movie needed to be recut and (due to Mark Hamill’s car accident) have little reshoots done. Half the original budget was spent on only four effects shots. The stress became so much that Lucas ended up hospitalized from “hypertension and exhaustion.”
The more you learn about the making of Star Wars, and how almost everyone behind it thought it would be a disaster, it’s still pretty amazing it turned out the way it did. Even more amazing is that it first opened on only forty screens nationwide. How then did this movie not only go on to become one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, win seven out of ten academy awards (its nominations include best picture, best director, and best original screenplay) and be beloved by generations?
The special effects obviously first come to mind. Industrial Light and Magic was specifically created for Star Wars, inventing many of the techniques still used by filmmakers today. More than forty years later, the original models of the Millennium Falcon, TIE fighters, Star Destroyers, X-Wings, and the Death Star look just as impressive as they did in 1977. Ironically, it’s the “Special Edition” version of the movie, with its plethora of CGI inserts, which date the movie more than the theatrical cut with its “dated” practical effects.
Moreover, thanks to editors Paul Hirsch, Richard Chew, and Lucas’ then-wife, Marica, almost every single shot and sequence in Star Wars is perfectly framed, paced, and composed. From the moment we see the Imperial Star Destroyer move–and keeps moving–into the frame, our attention never wavers. After that, it’s one great set-piece after another. The Stormtroopers breaching the Rebel ship and the arrival of Darth Vader; the Jawas and their transport filled with broken droids; R2’s hologram of Princess Leia; Luke Skywalker looking out over the twin sunsets of Tatooine; The Mos Eisley cantina; the Falcon jumping into hyperspace; the Death Star’s trash compactor; the first lightsaber duel; the X-Wing fighter trench run… and more.
…with all its visual splendor and technical marvels, Star Wars wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if not for the characters and the actors who portrayed them.
The sound is also just as important as the visuals, if not more so. Thanks to Ben Burtt’s sound library, R2-D2’s beeps and whistles, Chewbacca’s growls, and especially Vader’s mechanical breathing are just as character-defining as their appearances. The laser blasts, starship engine roars, and lightsaber crackles have remained unchanged. And of course, there’s John Williams’ musical score. Like his main themes for Jaws (1975), Superman the Movie (1978), E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and the Indiana Jones movies, the moment you hear the “Main Title Theme” for Star Wars, your mind instantly flashes back to that movie.
Yet with all its visual splendor and technical marvels, Star Wars wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if not for the characters and the actors who portrayed them. Since Lucas crafted these characters as deliberate archetypes found in fairy tales and folklore, they are identifiable and relatable regardless of time and culture. What’s more, each character is visually distinctive. One look at C-3P0, R2, Chewie, Vader, the Stormtroopers, even Kenobi are instantly recognizable.
The cast also helped define the heroes and villains of Star Wars as much as Lucas did. For instance, Harrison Ford wasn’t considered for the part of Han Solo. Instead, Lucas brought him in to read Solo’s lines during auditions for the other actors. He did so well that Lucas decided to cast him anyway. Likewise, while Anthony Daniels performed as C-3PO, Lucas didn’t want to use his voice until one of the voice actors auditioning convinced him otherwise. Even the voice of Vader almost went to Orson Wells instead of James Earl Jones.
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And whether it’s because of good casting, the actors throwing themselves into their roles, or because of repeated viewings, it’s almost impossible separating the performer from the performance. Thus, Mark Hamill is Luke Skywalker. Carrie Fisher is Princess Leia. Harrison Ford is Han Solo. Peter Cushing is Governor Tarkin. And of course, Sir Alec Guinness is Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi. Although he lost the award for Best Supporting Actor to Jason Robards during the 50th Academy Awards, there’s no question of how great Guinness is playing the old Jedi Master who teaches Luke the ways of the Force.
Yes, Star Wars isn’t devoid of problems and gaffs. There’s some obvious dubbing, like the alien who harasses Luke. Or when Vader gestures to Tarkin as if he’s still talking, even though he isn’t speaking. Jabba the Hutt’s scene in the “Special Edition” is completely unnecessary. And don’t get me started on the “who shot first” debate. At least the Stormtrooper who accidentally bonks his head on the door frame has a sound effect to go with it.
Yet we don’t mind these mistakes. For there’s one other reason behind Star Wars’ success, the most important one of all. It’s fun. After all, who wouldn’t enjoy a rousing fairy tale about a young farm boy, a wizard, a dashing rogue, his furry sidekick, and two droids off to rescue a not-so helpless damsel in distress from an evil empire? Who wouldn’t want to see sword fights and magic alongside spaceships, lasers, and aliens? All great fantasy should delight and offer brief escapism. Star Wars provides more than enough of both.
Even so, despite all the praise and accolades it received, despite catapulting Hamill, Fisher, and Ford into superstar status, and despite defying all expectations, everyone still regarded Star Wars as just a movie. It wasn’t until three years later that Star Wars would become so much more… for better and for worse.