Star Wars (1977) Review: The Myth That Remade Hollywood

Is Star Wars worth watching?

Yes, without reservation. Star Wars is one of the most influential films ever made, and it remains a thrilling, funny, perfectly paced adventure that has not lost its spark. George Lucas fused myth, Westerns, war films and Saturday-matinee serials into something that felt entirely new, and nearly five decades of imitators have not dulled it. If there is a quibble, it is that some of the dialogue creaks and the versions most widely available today carry later digital alterations.

What is Star Wars about?

On the desert planet Tatooine, farm boy Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) dreams of escaping to a bigger life. When two droids carrying a secret message from Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) fall into his hands, he is drawn into the rebellion against the Galactic Empire, guided by the ageing hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), who introduces him to the mystical Force. Along the way the group hires a cynical smuggler, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and his co-pilot Chewbacca, and sets out on a rescue mission against the Empire and its enforcer, Darth Vader.

Star Wars was written and directed by George Lucas and opened in the United States in 1977. It is an American production in English, running 121 minutes, and was later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope when the saga expanded.

A fairy tale built from movie history

Lucas’s genius was synthesis. The film takes the hero’s journey of myth, the dogfights of Second World War movies, the frontier towns of Westerns and the cliffhanger energy of old serials, and assembles them so smoothly that the seams disappear. The opening shot, a vast Imperial ship sliding overhead and seeming never to end, announces a new kind of scale in a single image, and the film rarely lets up after that.

What still surprises is its economy. For all its world-building, the story moves with the lightness of a children’s adventure, trusting audiences to pick up the history of its galaxy from glimpses: battered ships, strange creatures in the corners of a cantina, references to wars that are never explained. That lived-in, used-future look, dusty and scuffed rather than gleaming, was one of the film’s most influential ideas.

The cast and the music make it human

The three young leads give the myth its warmth. Hamill plays Luke’s eagerness without embarrassment, Fisher makes Leia sharp-tongued and commanding rather than a damsel, and Ford’s sardonic Han Solo became a template for the reluctant hero. Their bickering turns a quest into a hang-out movie. Alec Guinness brings gravitas that lends the mysticism credibility, and Peter Cushing is chillingly polite as an Imperial commander.

Then there is John Williams’s score, which revived the grand symphonic film score for a generation. It tells the audience how to feel without ever seeming manipulative, and its themes are now part of popular culture. The film won Academy Awards for its score, visual effects, sound, editing, art direction and costume design, and each of those crafts is visible on screen.

What has aged, and what has not

Some elements show their age. The dialogue can be stiff, the first stretch on Tatooine is slower than modern audiences may expect, and the Empire’s officers beyond Vader and Cushing’s commander are little more than uniforms. The pioneering model and optical effects occasionally look their age, although they have a tactile charm that newer effects often lack.

The bigger issue is which film you actually get. Lucas revised Star Wars more than once, adding digital shots and altering scenes, and the versions most viewers can easily find today include those changes. Some are harmless; a few alter the character of moments that fans remember from the original. None of this dents the film’s power, but it is worth knowing.

Who should watch Star Wars?

It is for nearly everyone: families introducing children to the saga, science fiction and adventure fans who have somehow never seen it, and anyone interested in how modern blockbusters came to look the way they do. At 121 minutes it is a brisk watch, and its violence, mostly laser battles with a couple of brief grisly moments, is mild enough for most children of primary-school age. Watch it first; everything else in the saga builds on it, starting with The Empire Strikes Back.

Other adventures with a similar spirit:

• Superman, James Gunn’s 2025 blockbuster, for a modern franchise film that shares its earnest belief in heroism.
• Project Hail Mary, for a recent space adventure that mixes wonder with humour.
• More from our science fiction and adventure shelves.

The verdict

Star Wars is a landmark that is also simply a great time at the movies: fast, funny, sincere and bursting with invention. Its dialogue creaks here and there, and later tinkering has muddied which version to watch, but its sense of wonder is as potent as ever.

Rating: 5/5