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'Star Wars' reviews: What critics thought of the 1977 film when it was first released

Christian Holub is a writer covering comics and other geeky pop culture. He's still mad about 'Firefly' getting canceled.

People outside of Disney have finally seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens; if you're not holed up in a bunker keeping out all news and plot details until Friday, you can check out our compilation of initial reviews here . At a time like this, it's also fascinating to go back and see what critics said about the original Star Wars when it was released in 1977.

Many reviewers were overwhelmed by Star Wars' charms, lavishing particular praise on C3PO, R2-D2, and the iconic Tatooine cantina scene. Others, though, were more skeptical. Joy Gould Boyum of The Wall Street Journal even described it as "a comic book movie." Little did they know what was to come.

See below for more critics' takes on the first trip to the Star Wars galaxy.

Pauline Kael , The New Yorker : " Star Wars is like getting a box of Cracker Jack which is all prizes. This is the writer-director George Lucas's own film, subject to no business interference, yet it's a film that's totally uninterested in anything that doesn't connect with the mass audience. There's no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It's enjoyable on its own terms, but it's exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. An hour into it, children say that they're ready to see it again; that's because it's an assemblage of spare parts—it has no emotional grip. Star Wars may be the only movie in which the first time around the surprises are reassuring…. It's an epic without a dream. But it's probably the absence of wonder that accounts for the film's special, huge success. The excitement of those who call it the film of the year goes way past nostalgia to the feeling that now is the time to return to childhood."

Roger Ebert , The Chicago Sun-Times : " Star Wars is a fairy tale, a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions. The golden robot, lion-faced space pilot, and insecure little computer on wheels must have been suggested by the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz … The hardware is from Flash Gordon out of 2001: A Space Odyssey , the chivalry is from Robin Hood, the heroes are from Westerns and the villains are a cross between Nazis and sorcerers. Star Wars taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it's done so brilliantly, it reactivates old thrills, fears, and exhilarations we thought we'd abandoned when we read our last copy of Amazing Stories ."

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Vincent Canby , The New York Times : " Star Wars , which opened yesterday at the Astor Plaza, Orpheum and other theaters, is the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made. It's both an apotheosis of Flash Gordon serials and a witty critique that makes associations with a variety of literature that is nothing if not eclectic: Quo Vadis? , Buck Rogers, Ivanhoe , Superman, The Wizard of Oz , The Gospel According to St. Matthew , the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table … The way definitely not to approach "Star Wars," though, is to expect a film of cosmic implications or to footnote it with so many references that one anticipates it as if it were a literary duty. It's fun and funny."

John Simon , New York Magazine : "Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its high-falutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a 'future' cast to them. Human beings, anthropoids, or robots, you could probably find them all, more or less like that, in downtown Los Angeles today. Certainly the mentality and values of the movie can be duplicated in third-rate non-science fiction of any place or period. O dull new world!"

Time Magazine : "A universe of plenty—as audiences can discover beginning this week in Star Wars , a grand and glorious film that may well be the smash hit of 1977, and certainly is the best movie of the year so far. Star Wars is a combination of Flash Gordon, The Wizard of Oz , the Errol Flynn swashbucklers of the '30s and '40s and almost every western ever screened—not to mention the Hardy Boys, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Faerie Queene . The result is a remarkable confection: a subliminal history of the movies, wrapped in a riveting tale of suspense and adventure, ornamented with some of the most ingenious special effects ever contrived for film. It has no message, no sex and only the merest dollop of blood shed here and there. It's aimed at kids—the kid in everybody."

Gene Siskel , The Chicago Tribune : " Star Wars is not a great movie in that it describes the human condition. It simply is a fun picture that will appeal to those who enjoy Buck Rogers-style adventures. What places it a sizable cut about the routine is its spectacular visual effects, the best since Stanley Kubrick's 2001 … Star Wars is a battle between good and evil. The bad guys (led by Peter Cushing and an assistant who looks like a black vinyl-coated frog) control the universe with their dreaded Death Star."

Derek Malcolm , The Guardian : "Viewed dispassionately—and of course that's desperately difficult at this point in time— Star Wars is not an improvement on Mr Lucas' previous work, except in box-office terms. It isn't the best film of the year, it isn't the best science fiction ever to be translated to the screen, it isn't a number of other things either that sweating critics have tried to turn it into when faced with finding some plausible explanation for its huge and slightly sinister success considering a contracting market. But it is, on the other hand, enormous and exhilarating fun for those who are prepared to settle down in their seats and let it all wash over them."

Charles Champlin , The Los Angeles Times : "George Lucas has been conducting a lifelong double affair, embracing the comic strips on the one hand (or with one arm) and the movies on and with the other. Now he has united his loves in Star Wars , the year's most razzle-dazzling family movie, an exuberant and technically astonishing space adventure in which the galactic tomorrows of Flash Gordon are the setting for conflicts and events that carry the suspiciously but splendidly familiar ring of yesterday's westerns, as well as yesterday's Flash Gordon serials. The sidekicks are salty squatty robots instead of leathery old cowpokes who scratch their whiskers and "Aw, shucks" a lot, and the gunfighters square off with laser swords instead of Colt revolvers. But it is all and gloriously one, the mythic and simple world of the good guys vs. the bad guys (identifiable without a scorecard or footnotes), the rustlers and the land grabbers, the old generation saving the young with a last heroic gesture which drives home the messages of courage and conviction."

Joy Gould Boyum , The Wall Street Journal : "There's something depressing about seeing all these impressive cinematic gifts and all this extraordinary technological skills lavished on such puerile materials. Perhaps more important is what this seems to accomplish: the canonization of comic book culture which in turn becomes the triumph of the standardized, the simplistic, mass-produced commercial artifacts of our time. It's the triumph of camp—that sentiment which takes delight in the awful simply because it's awful. We enjoyed such stuff as children, but one would think there would come a time when we might put away childish things."

Gary Arnold , The Washington Post : "The movie's irresistible stylistic charm derives from the fact that Lucas can draw upon a variety of action-movie sources with unfailing deftness and humor. He is in superlative command of his own movie-nurtured fantasy life. In American Graffiti Lucas created the illusion of compressing a time of life and a period of American social history into a single night. In Star Wars he has refurbished stock scenes, conventions and spare parts acquired from a variety of action movie genres, which assume an affectionately parodistic and miraculously fresh configuration."

9 Original ‘Star Wars’ Reviews

On May 25, 1977, moviegoers and film critics alike got their first glimpse into the ‘Star Wars’ universe. Not everyone was impressed.

Not everyone was originally onboard ‘Star Wars.’

A long time ago in a galaxy just like this one, George Lucas was about to make cinematic history—whether he knew it or not.

“The Golden Robot”

“not a great movie”, “a box of cracker jack which is all prizes”, “unexceptional”, “most beautiful movie serial ever made”, “enormous and exhilarating fun”, “high-falutin scientific jargon”, “hopelessly infantile dialogue,”.

On May 25, 1977, moviegoers got their first glimpse of Star Wars , Lucas’s long-simmering space opera that would help define the concept of the Hollywood “ blockbuster .” While we're still talking about the film today—plus its many sequels, spinoffs, and TV series—not every film critic would have guessed just how ingrained into the pop culture fabric Star Wars would become. While it charmed plenty of critics, some of the movie’s original reviews were less than glowing. Here are a few of our favorites (the good, the bad, and the Wookiee).

“ Star Wars is a fairy tale, a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions. The golden robot, lion-faced space pilot, and insecure little computer on wheels must have been suggested by the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz . The journey from one end of the galaxy to another is out of countless thousands of space operas. The hardware is from Flash Gordon out of 2001: A Space Odyssey , the chivalry is from Robin Hood, the heroes are from Westerns and the villains are a cross between Nazis and sorcerers. Star Wars taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it's done so brilliantly, it reactivates old thrills, fears, and exhilarations we thought we'd abandoned when we read our last copy of Amazing Stories .” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“ Star Wars is not a great movie in that it describes the human condition. It simply is a fun picture that will appeal to those who enjoy Buck Rogers-style adventures. What places it a sizable cut about the routine is its spectacular visual effects, the best since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 … Star Wars is a battle between good and evil. The bad guys (led by Peter Cushing and an assistant who looks like a black vinyl-coated frog) control the universe with their dreaded Death Star.” —Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“ Star Wars is like getting a box of Cracker Jack which is all prizes. This is the writer-director George Lucas’s own film, subject to no business interference, yet it’s a film that’s totally uninterested in anything that doesn’t connect with the mass audience. There’s no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It’s enjoyable on its own terms, but it’s exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. An hour into it, children say that they’re ready to see it again; that’s because it’s an assemblage of spare parts—it has no emotional grip. “Star Wars” may be the only movie in which the first time around the surprises are reassuring…. It’s an epic without a dream. But it’s probably the absence of wonder that accounts for the film’s special, huge success. The excitement of those who call it the film of the year goes way past nostalgia to the feeling that now is the time to return to childhood.” —Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

“The only way that Star Wars could have been interesting was through its visual imagination and special effects. Both are unexceptional ... I kept looking for an 'edge,' to peer around the corny, solemn comic-book strophes; he was facing them frontally and full. This picture was made for those (particularly males) who carry a portable shrine within them of their adolescence, a chalice of a Self that was Better Then, before the world's affairs or—in any complex way—sex intruded.” —Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

“There’s something depressing about seeing all these impressive cinematic gifts and all this extraordinary technological skills lavished on such puerile materials. Perhaps more important is what this seems to accomplish: the canonization of comic book culture which in turn becomes the triumph of the standardized, the simplistic, mass-produced commercial artifacts of our time. It’s the triumph of camp—that sentiment which takes delight in the awful simply because it’s awful. We enjoyed such stuff as children, but one would think there would come a time when we might put away childish things.” —Joy Gould Boyum, The Wall Street Journal

“ Star Wars … is the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made. It’s both an apotheosis of Flash Gordon serials and a witty critique that makes associations with a variety of literature that is nothing if not eclectic: Quo Vadis? , Buck Rogers, Ivanhoe , Superman, The Wizard of Oz , The Gospel According to St. Matthew , the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table … The way definitely not to approach Star Wars , though, is to expect a film of cosmic implications or to footnote it with so many references that one anticipates it as if it were a literary duty. It’s fun and funny.” —Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“Viewed dispassionately—and of course that’s desperately difficult at this point in time— Star Wars is not an improvement on Mr Lucas’ previous work, except in box-office terms. It isn’t the best film of the year, it isn’t the best science fiction ever to be translated to the screen, it isn’t a number of other things either that sweating critics have tried to turn it into when faced with finding some plausible explanation for its huge and slightly sinister success considering a contracting market. But it is, on the other hand, enormous and exhilarating fun for those who are prepared to settle down in their seats and let it all wash over them.” —Derek Malcolm, The Guardian

“Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its high-falutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a ‘future’ cast to them. Human beings, anthropoids, or robots, you could probably find them all, more or less like that, in downtown Los Angeles today. Certainly the mentality and values of the movie can be duplicated in third-rate non-science fiction of any place or period. O dull new world!” —John Simon, New York Magazine

“ Star Wars is somewhat grounded by a malfunctioning script and hopelessly infantile dialogue, but from a technical standpoint, it is an absolutely breathtaking achievement. The special effects experts who put Lucas' far-out fantasies on film—everything from a gigantic galactic war machine to a stunningly spectacular World War II imitation dogfight—are Oscar-worthy wizards of the first order. And, for his own part, Lucas displays an incredibly fertile imagination—an almost Fellini-like fascination with bizarre creatures.” —Kathleen Carroll, New York Daily News

Spellbinding or dull? How critics reviewed 'Star Wars' in 1977

What did movie critics make of the first Star Wars? As the sci-fi franchise turns 40, we revisit the reviews.

Luke Skywalker feels the force of 1977's movie critics.

Wanna go see a movie? There's this new flick called " Star Wars "...

George Lucas's space opera exploded into movie theatres 40 years ago, on 25 May 1977. It was an instant smash with fans queueing around the block to see it -- before coming back to line up again. Today, we recognise the film's groundbreaking special effects, the foundations of a vast mythical story universe, and the launch of a multimedia empire that transformed moviemaking. But what did the critics of the day think?

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave it the thumbs-up, while famously acerbic critic Pauline Kael was less impressed. Many reviewers noted similarities with the classic tales that inspired writer and director George Lucas, from westerns and samurai tales to " 2001: A Space Odyssey ". And several noted that the resonant, thought-provoking cinema of the 1970s was about to be swept away by something rather more escapist...

Time Magazine

"A grand and glorious film that may well be the smash hit of 1977, and certainly is the best movie of the year so far. 'Star Wars' is a combination of 'Flash Gordon', 'The Wizard of Oz', the Errol Flynn swashbucklers of the '30s and '40s and almost every western ever screened--not to mention the Hardy Boys, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Faerie Queene. The result is a remarkable confection: a subliminal history of the movies, wrapped in a riveting tale of suspense and adventure, ornamented with some of the most ingenious special effects ever contrived for film. It has no message, no sex and only the merest dollop of bloodshed here and there. It's aimed at kids -- the kid in everybody."

The New Yorker

Pauline Kael: "'Star Wars' is like getting a box of Cracker Jacks which is all prizes... There's no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It's enjoyable on its own terms, but it's exhausting, too: Like taking a pack of kids to the circus. An hour into it, children say that they're ready to see it again; that's because it's an assemblage of spare parts -- it has no emotional grip.

It's an epic without a dream. But it's probably the absence of wonder that accounts for the film's special, huge success. The excitement of those who call it the film of the year goes way past nostalgia to the feeling that now is the time to return to childhood."

Click for full coverage.

The Chicago Sun-Times

Roger Ebert: "'Star Wars' is a fairy tale, a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions... [It] taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it's done so brilliantly, it reactivates old thrills, fears, and exhilarations we thought we'd abandoned when we read our last copy of Amazing Stories.

The most fascinating single scene, for me, was the one set in the bizarre saloon on the planet Tatooine. As that incredible collection of extraterrestrial alcoholics and bug-eyed martini drinkers lined up at the bar, and as Lucas so slyly let them exhibit characteristics that were universally human, I found myself feeling a combination of admiration and delight. 'Star Wars' had placed me in the presence of really magical movie invention."

Chicago Tribune

Gene Siskel: "Following a recent preview of 'Star Wars', the audience applauded the names of its special effects artists. The applause is deserved. Whenever the inanity of the entire enterprise begins to surface, director George Lucas pulls out a striking visual trick.

'Star Wars' is expected to be a big hit. If that turns out to be the case, then coupled with the success of 'Rocky,' a message will have been sent by filmgoers to Hollywood: Give us old-fashioned escapist movies with upbeat endings."

The Guardian

Derek Malcolm: "It isn't the best film of the year, it isn't the best science fiction ever to be translated to the screen... But it is, on the other hand, enormous and exhilarating fun for those who are prepared to settle down in their seats and let it all wash over them. Which, I firmly believe, with the extra benefit of hindsight, is more or less exactly what the vast majority of the cinema-going public want just now."

Star Wars in photos: 40 years of the Force

Charles Champlin: "'Star Wars' is Buck Rogers with a doctoral degree but not a trace of neuroticism or cynicism, a slam-bang, rip-roaring gallop through a distantly future world... What happens and how it all ends hardly matters. The narrative space is jet-propelled or rocket-thrust and the invention is continuous, the crafts and sets and space complexes genuinely amazing in their minute detailing and believability."

The Wall Street Journal

Joy Gould Boyum: "There's something depressing about seeing all these impressive cinematic gifts and all this extraordinary technological skills lavished on such puerile materials. Perhaps more important is what this seems to accomplish: the canonization of comic book culture which in turn becomes the triumph of the standardized, the simplistic, mass-produced commercial artifacts of our time. It's the triumph of camp -- that sentiment which takes delight in the awful simply because it's awful. We enjoyed such stuff as children, but one would think there would come a time when we might put away childish things."

"Star Wars" in 1977: "a slam-bang, rip-roaring gallop through a distantly future world..."

The Washington Post

Gary Arnold: "Han Solo is the film's most flamboyant human role, and Harrison Ford has a splendid time capitalizing on its irresistible style of cynical heroism. It would be professionally criminal to flub such an ingratiating, star-making assignment, and although Ford plays in a relaxed, drawing style, reminiscent of Jack Nicholson at his foxiest, he maintains a firm grip on this golden opportunity.

Parents who suffered dutifully through 'Logan's Run' in guest of a decent attraction for juveniles may now claim their reward. George Lucas has made the kind of sci-fi adventure movie you dream about finding, for your own pleasure as well as your kids' pleasure."

The Telegraph

Adrian Berry: "The scriptwriter (George Lucas) wrote five separate drafts before he was satisfied (imagine one of those B-feature fellows doing that!), and the effect is to persuade us that there is little in this film which may not one day happen in real life.

Those who have not booked their seats already will find it about as easy to see 'Star Wars' early in the New Year as to fly through hyperspace. People aged between seven and 70 will be jamming the box office."

See the stellar visuals that brought Star Wars to life

New York Magazine

John Simon: "I don't read science fiction, of which this may, for all I know, be a prime example... But is equalling sci-fi and comic strips worthy of the talented director of 'American Graffiti', and worth spending all that time and money on? Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its high-falutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a "future" cast to them... O dull new world!

Kudos are due, no doubt, to each member of the production staff... But what you ultimately have is a set of giant baubles manipulated by an infant mind."

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The Hollywood Reporter

Ron Pennington: "Lucas combines excellent comedy and drama and progresses it with exciting action on tremendously effective space battles... The result is spellbinding and totally captivating on all levels.

John Williams has composed a rich, luxuriant score that engulfs the ear as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The Dolby Sound is also a major asset in that it is sparkling clear and, in the battle sequences, achieves an enveloping, thunderous pitch with any hint of distortion."

"Like a breath or fresh air, 'Star Wars' sweeps away the cynicism that has in recent years obscured the concepts of valor, dedication and honor. Make no mistake -- this is by no means a "children's film," with all the derogatory overtones that go with that description. This is instead a superior example of what only the screen can achieve, and closer to home, it is another affirmation of what only Hollywood can put on a screen."

San Francisco Chronicle

"Every dollar is on the screen, and if 'Star Wars' doesn't get at least half a dozen Oscar nominations, I will eat my Wookiee."

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Star Wars at 40 : Join us in celebrating the many ways the Force-filled sci-fi saga has impacted our lives.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, star wars (episode iv: a new hope).

Now streaming on:

Like "Birth of a Nation" and " Citizen Kane ," “Star Wars'' was a technical watershed that influenced many of the movies that came after. These films have little in common, except for the way they came along at a crucial moment in cinema history, when new methods were ripe for synthesis. “Birth of a Nation'' brought together the developing language of shots and editing. “Citizen Kane'' married special effects, advanced sound, a new photographic style and a freedom from linear storytelling. “Star Wars'' melded a new generation of special effects with the high-energy action picture; it linked space opera and soap opera, fairy tales and legend, and packaged them as a wild visual ride.

“Star Wars'' effectively brought to an end the golden era of early-1970s personal filmmaking and focused the industry on big-budget special-effects blockbusters, blasting off a trend we are still living through. But you can't blame it for what it did, you can only observe how well it did it. In one way or another all the big studios have been trying to make another “Star Wars'' ever since (pictures like " Raiders of the Lost Ark ," " Jurassic Park " and " Independence Day " are its heirs). It located Hollywood's center of gravity at the intellectual and emotional level of a bright teenager.

It's possible, however, that as we grow older we retain within the tastes of our earlier selves. How else to explain how much fun “Star Wars'' is, even for those who think they don't care for science fiction? It's a good-hearted film in every single frame, and shining through is the gift of a man who knew how to link state of the art technology with a deceptively simple, really very powerful, story. It was not by accident that George Lucas worked with Joseph Campbell, an expert on the world's basic myths, in fashioning a screenplay that owes much to man's oldest stories.

By now the ritual of classic film revival is well established: An older classic is brought out from the studio vaults, restored frame by frame, re-released in the best theaters, and then re-launched on home video. With this “special edition'' of the “Star Wars'' trilogy (which includes new versions of " Return of the Jedi " and " The Empire Strikes Back "), Lucas has gone one step beyond. His special effects were so advanced in 1977 that they spun off an industry, including his own Industrial Light & Magic Co., the computer wizards who do many of today's best special effects.

Now Lucas has put ILM to work touching up the effects, including some that his limited 1977 budget left him unsatisfied with. Most of the changes are subtle; you'd need a side-by-side comparison to see that a new shot is a little better. There are about five minutes of new material, including a meeting between Han Solo and Jabba the Hut that was shot for the first version but not used. (We learn that Jabba is not immobile, but sloshes along in a kind of spongy undulation.) There's also an improved look to the city of Mos Eisley (“a wretched hive of scum and villainy,'' says Obi-Wan Kenobi). And the climactic battle scene against the Death Star has been rehabbed.

The improvements are well done, but they point up how well the effects were done to begin with: If the changes are not obvious, that's because “Star Wars'' got the look of the film so right in the first place. The obvious comparison is with Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" made almost 10 years earlier, in 1968, which also holds up perfectly well today. (One difference is that Kubrick went for realism, trying to imagine how his future world would really look, while Lucas cheerfully plundered the past; Han Solo's Millennium Falcon has a gun turret with a hand-operated weapon that would be at home on a World War II bomber, but too slow to hit anything at space velocities.)

Two Lucas inspirations started the story with a tease: He set the action not in the future but “long ago,'' and jumped into the middle of it with “Chapter 4: A New Hope.'' These seemingly innocent touches were actually rather powerful; they gave the saga the aura of an ancient tale, and an ongoing one.

As if those two shocks were not enough for the movie's first moments, I learn from a review by Mark R. Leeper that this was the first film to pan the camera across a star field: “Space scenes had always been done with a fixed camera, and for a very good reason. It was more economical not to create a background of stars large enough to pan through.'' As the camera tilts up, a vast spaceship appears from the top of the screen and moves overhead, an effect reinforced by the surround sound. It is such a dramatic opening that it's no wonder Lucas paid a fine and resigned from the Directors Guild rather than obey its demand that he begin with conventional opening credits.

The film has simple, well-defined characters, beginning with the robots C-3PO (fastidious, a little effete) and R2D2 (childlike, easily hurt). The evil Empire has all but triumphed in the galaxy, but rebel forces are preparing an assault on the Death Star. Princess Leia (pert, sassy Carrie Fisher ) has information pinpointing the Death Star's vulnerable point and feeds it into R2-D2's computer; when her ship is captured, the robots escape from the Death Star and find themselves on Luke Skywalker's planet, where soon Luke ( Mark Hamill as an idealistic youngster) meets the wise, old, mysterious Kenobi ( Alec Guinness ) and they hire the free-lance space jockey Han Solo ( Harrison Ford , already laconic) to carry them to Leia's rescue.

The story is advanced with spectacularly effective art design, set decoration and effects. Although the scene in the intergalactic bar is famous for its menagerie of alien drunks, there is another scene -- when the two robots are thrown into a hold with other used droids -- which equally fills the screen with fascinating throwaway details. And a scene in the Death Star's garbage bin (inhabited by a snake with a head curiously shaped like E.T.'s) also is well done.

Many of the planetscapes are startlingly beautiful, and owe something to fantasy artist Chesley Bonestell's imaginary drawings of other worlds. The final assault on the Death Star, when the fighter rockets speed between parallel walls, is a nod in the direction of “2001,'' with its light trip into another dimension: Kubrick showed, and Lucas learned, how to make the audience feel it is hurtling headlong through space.

Lucas fills his screen with loving touches. There are little alien rats hopping around the desert, and a chess game played with living creatures. Luke's weather-worn “Speeder'' vehicle, which hovers over the sand, reminds me uncannily of a 1965 Mustang. And consider the details creating the presence, look and sound of Darth Vader, whose fanged face mask, black cape and hollow breathing are the setting for James Earl Jones' cold voice of doom.

Seeing the film the first time, I was swept away, and have remained swept ever since. Seeing this restored version, I tried to be more objective and noted that the gun battles on board the spaceships go on a bit too long; it is remarkable that the Empire marksmen never hit anyone important; and the fighter raid on the enemy ship now plays like the computer games it predicted. I wonder, too, if Lucas could have come up with a more challenging philosophy behind the Force. As Kenobi explains it, it's basically just going with the flow. What if Lucas had pushed a little further, to include elements of nonviolence or ideas about intergalactic conservation? (It's a great waste of resources to blow up star systems.)

The film philosophies that will live forever are the simplest-seeming ones. They may have profound depths, but their surfaces are as clear to an audience as a beloved old story. The way I know this is because the stories that seem immortal -- ”The Odyssey,'' “Don Quixote,'' “ David Copperfield ,'' “Huckleberry Finn'' -- are all the same: A brave but flawed hero, a quest, colorful people and places, sidekicks, the discovery of life's underlying truths. If I were asked to say with certainty which movies will still be widely-known a century or two from now, I would list “2001: A Space Odyssey,'' and "The Wizard" of Oz and Keaton and Chaplin, and Astaire and Rogers, and probably "Casablanca". . . and “Star Wars," for sure.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Star Wars (1977)

121 minutes

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia

Harrison Ford as Han Solo

Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi

David Prowse as Darth Vader

James Earl Jones as Vader's Voice

Kenny Baker as R2D2

Anthony Daniels as C3PO

Directed by

George Lucas

Produced by

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Looking Back at New York ’s Critical 1977 Review of Star Wars

To commemorate the forthcoming release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we present the vaguely bemused but mostly belittling review that New York Magazine ran after the release of the original Star Wars , now annotated by its author, John Simon, based on a 2015 conversation we had with him about blockbuster cinema.

Star Wars is an impeccable technical achievement: a quantum — or maybe quasar — leap beyond 2001 . Yet Kubrick, the pioneer , had to be there to make it possible for young George Lucas to forge ahead in that direction, though we might well ask ourselves to what end. I don’t read science fiction, of which this may, for all I know, be a prime example; some light years ago I did read Flash Gordon , of which Star Wars is in most respects the equal. But is equaling sci-fi and comic strips, or even outstripping them, worthy of the talented director of American Graffiti , and worth spending all that time and money on?

I sincerely hope that science and scientists differ from science fiction and its practitioners. Heaven help us if they don’t: We may be headed for a very boring world indeed. Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its highfalutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a “future” cast to them: Human beings, anthropoids, or robots, you could probably find them all, more or less like that, in downtown Los Angeles today. Certainly the mentality and values of the movie can be duplicated in third-rate non -science of any place or period.

O dull new world! We are treated to a galactic civil war, assorted heroes and villains, a princely maiden in distress, a splendid old man surviving from an extinct order of knights who possessed a mysterious power called “the Force,” and it is all as exciting as last year’s weather reports. Rather more can be said for the two robots that steal the show: one humanoid, British-accented, and with an Edward Everett Horton persona; the other, a kind of mobile electronic trash can, all nervous beeps and hearty bloops, waddling along in vintage Mickey Rooney style. There are glimpses, too, of interesting new animals and peculiar hybrids, but they don’t do or say anything novel. For a while, this is funny, as it is doubtless meant to be; finally, though, we do yearn for something really new. Why, even the best fight is just an old-fashioned duel, for all that the swords have laser beams for blades.

The film doesn’t even provide the good-looking hero and heroine of the old Flash Gordon strip; it has nowhere near the romantic invention of, say, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Martian novels, featuring that dashing Virginia gentleman, John Carter, and the lovely shocking-pink princess, Dejah Thoris. Here it is all trite characters and paltry verbiage, handled adequately by Harrison Ford as a blockade-running starship pilot, uninspiredly by Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker (Luke for George Lucas, the author-director; Skywalker for his Icarus complex), and wretchedly by Carrie Fisher, who is not even appealing as Princess Leia Organa (an organic lay). The one exception is Alec Guinness as the grand old man Ben Kenobi (Ben for the Hebrew ben , to make him sound biblical and good; Kenobi probably from cannabis, i.e. hashish, for reasons you can guess). Sir Alec has a wistful yet weighty dignity of tone and aspect that is all his own; why he should waste it on the likes of Luke, whom he befriends, protects, and bequeathes the Force to, remains the film’s one mystery.

John Barry’s set design is compelling, as are John Mollo’s costumes; John Williams’s music is good when it does not heave too much; the cinematography is striking, as Gilbert Taylor’s work always is. Kudos are due, no doubt, to each member of the production staff, which extends to an unprecedented four mimeographed pages. But what you ultimately have is a set of giant baubles manipulated by an infant mind.

And then there is that distressing thing called the Force, which is not a flat-footed allusion to New York’s finest but Lucas’s tribute to something beyond science: imagination, the soul, God in man. It is what Ben Kenobi passes on to Luke, making the receiver invulnerable, though it hardly protected the giver’s skin. It appears in various contradictory and finally nonsensical guises, a facile and perfunctory bow to metaphysics. I wish that Lucas had had the courage of his materialistic convictions, instead dragging in a sop to a spiritual force the main thrust of the movie so cheerfully ignores. Still, Star Wars will do very nicely for those lucky enough to be children or unlucky enough never to have grown up.

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Film Review: ‘Star Wars’

By A.D. Murphy

A.D. Murphy

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“ Star Wars ” is a magnificent film. George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure fantasy out of his memories of serials and older action epics, and he succeeded brilliantly. Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz assembled an enormous technical crew, drawn from the entire Hollywood production pool of talent, and the results equal the genius of Walt Disney, Willis O’Brien and other justifiably famous practitioners of what Irwin Allen calls “movie magic.” The 20th-Fox release is also loaded with box office magic, with potent appeal across the entire audience spectrum.

The story is an engaging space adventure which takes itself seriously while occasionally admitting an affectionate poke at the genre. The most immediate frame of reference is Flash Gordon, but it’s more than that; it’s an Errol Flynn escapist adventure, and befitting that, composer John Williams and orchestrator Herbert W. Spencer have supplied a rousing score worthy of Korngold and Steiner.

Popular on Variety

In casting his principals, Lucas chose three not-so-familiar faces, all young, talented and designed to make the story one of people, not of garish gadgetry. The superb balance of technology and human drama is one of the many achievements: one identifies with the characters and accepts, as do they, the intriguing intergalactic world in which they live.

Carrie Fisher , previously in a small role in “Shampoo,” is delightful as the regal, but spunky princess on a rebel planet who has been kidnapped by Peter Cushing, would-be ruler of the universe. Mark Hamill , previously a TV player, is excellent as a farm boy who sets out to rescue Fisher in league with Alec Guinness, last survivor of a band of noble knights. Harrison Ford , previously in Lucas’ “American Graffiti” and Francis Coppola’s “The Conversation,” is outstanding as a likeable mercenary pilot who joins our friends with his pal Peter Mayhew, a quassi-monkey creature with blue eyes whom Fisher calls “a walking rug.”

Both Guinness and Cushing bring the right measure of majesty to their opposite characters. One of Cushing’s key aides is played by David Prowse, destined to a fatal duel with Guinness, with whom he shares mystical powers. Prowse’s face is concealed behind frightening black armor. James Earl Jones, unbilled, provides a note of sonorous menace as Prowse’s voice. Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker play a Mutt-and-Jeff team of kooky robots.

The heroes and the heavies joust through an exciting series of confrontations, replete with laser guns and other futuristic equipment, building suspense towards the climactic destruction of Cushing’s war-mongering planet. Several chase and escape sequences are likely to stimulate spontaneous audience applause.

Lucas is no credit hog, and all contributions are acknowledged on the end titles, bearing all the names listed above as well as assistants in various categories. The film opens, after the 20th logo, with the type of receding crawl that Flash Gordon fans will recognize. Locations in Tunisia, Death Valley, Guatemala and Africa were utilized, and interiors were shot at EMI’s British studios where the terrific score was also recorded. But the technical effects were all done here. Technicolor did the production color work, and DeLuxe the prints. Use of Dolby sound enhances the overall impact.

Lucas’ first feature, “THX-1138,” was also futuristic in tone, but there the story emphasis was on machines controlling man. In “Star Wars” the people remain the masters of the hardware, thereby striking a more resonant note of empathy and hope. This is the kind of film in which an audience, first entertained, can later walk out feeling good all over.

Related reviews: “The Empire Strikes Back” “Return of the Jedi” “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones” “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith”

1977: Best Art Direction, Sound, Original Score, Editing, Costume Design, Visual Effects, Special Achievement Award (sound effects)

Nominations: Best Picture, Supp. Actor (Alec Guinness), Original Screenplay

[In January 1997 an “improved” version was released theatrically in the U.S., with remixed sound, added digital effects and some brief extra scenes, including one showing Jabba the Hutt.]

Production: 20th Century-Fox. Director George Lucas; Producer Gary Kurtz; Screenplay George Lucas; Camera Gilbert Taylor; Editor Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew; Music John Williams; Art Director John Barry. Reviewed at 20th-Fox Studios, L.A., May 19, 1977 (MPAA rating: PG).
Crew: (Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Original review text from 1977. Running time: 121 MIN.
With: Luke Skywalker - Mark Hamill Han Solo - Harrison Ford Princess Organa - Carrie Fisher Grand Moff Tarkin - Peter Cushing Ben Kenobi - Alec Guinness C3PO - Anthony Daniels R2D2 - Kenny Baker Chewbacca - Peter Mayhew Lord Darth Vader - David Prowse Uncle Owen Lars - Phil Brown Aunt Beru Lars - Shelagh Fraser Chief Jawa - Jack Purvis Rebel Generals - Alex McCrindle, Eddie Byrne

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Here's what critics thought about the original 'Star Wars' movie when it came out in 1977

As "The Force Awakens" hits theaters, rave reviews are pouring in for the latest installment in the "Star Wars" series.

People's reactions are no doubt being colored by 38 years of "Star Wars" being an integral part of pop culture, and it might make you wonder: how did people react to the first movie in 1977, when it basically spawned an entire new genre of mainstream, blockbuster sci-fi films?

Keep reading to see reviews of 1977's "Star Wars" — later rechristened "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope" — from The New Yorker, the LA Times, and more.

"Star Wars is magnificent you'll pant for more" - The Toronto Star

Yup, that was the headline.

The review itself, by Clyde Gilmour, manages to perfectly distill the original trilogy's magic into a single paragraph:

Lucas himself says his new film is not really science-fiction but a live-action comic strip, "a shoot-em-up with ray guns." It distills the joys he cherished as a youngster while watching movies and TV shows and soaking up the adventures of Flash Gordon. There are touches of The Wizard of Oz in it, along with the Hardy Boys and Arthurian romances and a thousand half-forgotten westerns.

Of course, none of these characteristics would be found in the prequels that started hitting theaters in 1999, but reviewers now are saying that "The Force Awakens" retains the magic of the original trilogy.

Click here to read the full 1977 Toronto Star review.

"'Star Wars' hails the once and future space western" - Los Angeles Times

Charles Champlin's L.A. Times review drew parallels between "Star Wars" and Georges Melies' films from the 1900s, and Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," which came out in 1968. Like the Toronto Star's reviewer, Champlin also name-checked "The Wizard of Oz," which was apparently still looming incredibly large over pop culture after its 1939 debut.

Champlin also took some time to credit the technical crews with bringing "Star Wars" to life. All in all, it was a rave review that focused especially on the comic books and westerns Lucas loves.

"It is," Champlin concludes, "all in all, hard to think of a place or an age group that would not respond to the enthusiastic inventiveness with which Lucas has enshrined his early loves."

Click here to read the full 1977 L.A. Times review.

"A Trip to a Far Galaxy That's Fun and Funny" - The New York Times

Here's another review, this time by Vincent Canby, that focuses on the feel-good, comedic side of "Star Wars."

And funnily enough, it uses Lucas's prior film, "American Graffiti," to introduce readers to the director. Imagine someone today saying, "You know, George Lucas — he directed 'American Graffiti.'" That would never happen!

This review, too, was a rave. Here's an excerpt:

"Star Wars," which opened yesterday at the Astor Plaza, Orpheum and other theaters, is the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made. It's both an apotheosis of "Flash Gordon" serials and a witty critique that makes associations with a variety of literature that is nothing if not eclectic: "Quo Vadis?", "Buck Rogers," "Ivanhoe," "Superman," "The Wizard of Oz," "The Gospel According to St. Matthew," the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

Canby does acknowledge that "A New Hope" is a teeny bit thin on plot, though:

The story of "Star Wars" could be written on the head of a pin and still leave room for the Bible. It is, rather, a breathless succession of escapes, pursuits, dangerous missions, unexpected encounters, with each one ending in some kind of defeat until the final one.

Click here to read the entire 1977 New York Times review.

"Star Wars" - The Chicago Sun-Times

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert reviewed "Star Wars" for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1977, and said it was one of the few films besides "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Taxi Driver" to give him an "out of body experience."

Ebert noted that the movie's special effects were spectacularly impressive, but said its success as a film all came down to story.

All of the best tales we remember from our childhoods had to do with heroes setting out to travel down roads filled with danger, and hoping to find treasure or heroism at the journey's end. In "Star Wars," George Lucas takes this simple and powerful framework into outer space, and that is an inspired thing to do, because we no longer have maps on Earth that warn, "Here there be dragons." We can't fall off the edge of the map, as Columbus could, and we can't hope to find new continents of prehistoric monsters or lost tribes ruled by immortal goddesses. Not on Earth, anyway, but anything is possible in space, and Lucas goes right ahead and shows us very nearly everything. We get involved quickly, because the characters in "Star Wars" are so strongly and simply drawn and have so many small foibles and large, futile hopes for us to identify with.

Ebert's favorite scene was the cantina, which he referred to as "the bizarre saloon on the planet Tatooine," but noted "one weakness" — the final battle with the Death Star "is allowed to go on too long," he wrote.

Click here to read the ful 1977 Ebert Chicago Sun-Times review.

"U.F.O. - Ultra Far Out" - NPR

Tom Shales of NPR also couldn't help but draw a comparison between "Star Wars" and "The Wizard of Oz," and raved about the film to the extent that he needed to make up new words.

"It is unquestionably splendibulous," he said. "It's the kind of movie for which movies were invented. Star Wars is casually profound ... [and] a movie newcomer named Harrison Fordi s especially impressive."

Prescient, as Ford was definitely the breakout star of the original film, going on to become a bona fide A-lister.

Click here to listen to NPR's 1977 review.

"STAR DUST" - New York Magazine

This was one of the most ruthless reviews of the original "Star Wars" movie.

Reviewer John Simon acknowledged that the movie was "an impeccable technical achievement," but that was about it. He went on to call it "boring," "dull," and "facile."

Here's perhaps the most eviscerating excerpt:

Strip "Star Wars" of its often striking images and its high-falutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a "future" cast to them: Human beings, anthropoids, or robots, you could probably find them all, more or less like that, in downtown Los Angeles today.

Simon even disses the Force.

To its credit, New York Magazine isn't trying to hide the super-critical review. They even highlighted as part of its "Star Wars Countdown" yesterday .

To read the full 1977 New York Magazine review, click here.

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Encore: Tom Shales' 1977 review of the new movie 'Star Wars'

On this May the 4th, now known as Star Wars Day, we listen back to an original NPR review of the now beloved classic. In 1977, Tom Shales reviewed the new film Star Wars for NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Watch CBS News

Read the original 1977 reviews of "Star Wars"

December 11, 2015 / 5:17 PM EST / AP

When George Lucas' "Star Wars" first landed in 1977, some critics were swept away, while others resisted the tide. A sampling:

"'Star Wars' is like getting a box of Cracker Jacks which is all prizes. This is the writer-director George Lucas's own film, subject to no business interference, yet it's a film that's totally uninterested in anything that doesn't connect with the mass audience. There's no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It's enjoyable on its own terms, but it's exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. ... It's an epic without a dream." - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker.

"'Star Wars' taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it's done so brilliantly, it reactivates old thrills, fears, and exhilarations we thought we'd abandoned when we read our last copy of Amazing Stories." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

OVERWHELMING BANALITY

"Strip 'Star Wars' of its often striking images and its high-falutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a "future" cast to them. Human beings, anthropoids, or robots, you could probably find them all, more or less like, that, in downtown Los Angeles today... O dull new world!" - John Simon, New York magazine.

"'Star Wars' ... is the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made. It's both an apotheosis of 'Flash Gordon' serials and a witty critique that makes associations with a variety of literature that is nothing if not eclectic: 'Quo Vadis?' 'Buck Rogers,' 'Ivanhoe,' 'Superman,' 'The Wizard of Oz,' 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew,' the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. ... One of Mr. Lucas's particular achievements is the manner in which he is able to recall the tackiness of the old comic strips and serials he loves without making a movie that is, itself, tacky." - Vincent Canby, New York Times.

UNEXCEPTIONAL

"The only way that 'Star Wars' could have been interesting was through its visual imagination and special effects. Both are unexceptional. ... I kept looking for an 'edge,' to peer around the corny, solemn comic-book strophes; he was facing them frontally and full. This picture was made for those (particularly males) who carry a portable shrine within them of their adolescence, a chalice of a Self that was Better Then, before the world's affairs or - in any complex way - sex intruded." - Stanley Kauffmann, the New Republic.

RIP-ROARING GALLOP

"'Star Wars' is Buck Rogers with a doctoral degree but not a trace of neuroticism or cynicism, a slam-bang, rip-roaring gallop through a distantly future world full of exotic vocabularies, creatures and customs, existing cheek by cowl with the boy and girl next door and a couple of friendly leftovers from the planet of the apes and possibly one from Oz (a Tin Woodman robot who may have got a gold-plating as a graduation present)." - Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times.

Here's How Critics Felt About The Original 'Star Wars' In 1977

Senior Entertainment Reporter, HuffPost

At last, the big week is here. After more than a year's worth of teasers , magazine covers and cryptic plot hints , "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is mere days from being unleashed upon the globe. Some pundits say it could become the highest-grossing movie of all time -- a fate no one would have predicted in the early blockbuster days of 1977, even after the first installment surpassed "Jaws" to set its own box-office record. And before it was subtitled "Episode IV: A New Hope" (that didn't occur until its 1981 re-release, a year after "The Empire Strikes Back" opened), the original " Star Wars " was the subject of unprecedented frenzy. Critics, for the most part, adored the film, calling it "spellbinding" and "quietly sophisticated." While George Lucas' space opera was not without detractors (hiya, Pauline Kael), the Oscars followed suit with 10 nominations , including Best Picture.

Will the Force be as strong when it awakens in theaters on Thursday night? While you wait to find out, here's what critics said about the original "Star Wars."

• "The true stars of 'Star Wars' are John Barry, who was responsible for the production design, and the people who were responsible for the incredible special effects -- space ships, explosions of stars, space battles, hand-to-hand combat with what appear to be lethal neon swords. I have a particular fondness for the look of the interior of a gigantic satellite called the Death Star, a place full of the kind of waste space one finds today only in old Fifth Avenue mansions and public libraries." -- Vincent Canby, The New York Times

• "The most fascinating single scene, for me, was the one set in the bizarre saloon on the planet Tatooine. As that incredible collection of extraterrestrial alcoholics and bug-eyed martini drinkers lined up at the bar, and as Lucas so slyly let them exhibit characteristics that were universally human, I found myself feeling a combination of admiration and delight. 'Star Wars' had placed me in the presence of really magical movie invention: Here, all mixed together, were whimsy and fantasy, simple wonderment and quietly sophisticated storytelling." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

• "There’s no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It’s enjoyable on its own terms, but it’s exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. An hour into it, children say that they’re ready to see it again; that’s because it’s an assemblage of spare parts -- it has no emotional grip." -- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

• "Lucas combines excellent comedy and drama and progresses it with exciting action on tremendously effective space battles. Likeable heroes on noble missions and despicable villains capable of the most dastardly deeds are all wrapped up in some of the most spectacular special effects ever to illuminate a motion picture screen. The result is spellbinding and totally captivating on all levels." -- Ron Pennington, The Hollywood Reporter

• “'Star Wars' is not a great movie in the sense that it describes the human condition. It simply is a fun picture that will appeal to those who enjoy Buck Rogers-style adventures. What places it a sizable cut above the routine it is spectacular visual effects, the best since Stanley Kubrick’s '2001.'" -- Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

• “'Star Wars' is dense, compressed like good poetry, without any wasted sound or motion. It is utterly simplistic and at the same time totally sophisticated.” -- Joseph Gelmis, Newsday

• "Above all, there is Alec Guinness as an ancient sage, looking like a monk who has walked a long way; dressed in a brown habit, he seems to have come to us from the Bible. In the end, he dies that we should live. He knows the power of the Force, which is the film’s word for what is sometimes called 'the life force.' When the power is used for moral ends, it seems to be the power of belief and devoutness in the face of unbelief and evil. The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep." -- Penelope Gilliatt, The New Yorker

• "Surrounded by these fascinating creatures, the actors barely hold their own. To be sure, Mark Hamill has a bland-faced innocence as Skywalker, and Carrie Fisher is comically plucky as the distressed Princess Leia, but Harrison Ford hams it up terribly as Han Solo, a cynical space pirate who has 'flown from one side of this galaxy to another and seen a lot of stuff.'" -- Kathleen Carroll, New York Daily News

• "'Star Wars' is not without content, but reaches as well for an area as embraceable by children or teenagers as by us older folks. With the opening declaration, it stakes out its turf: It will be a wonderful adventure, a fairy tale, a contemporary 'Star Trek,' a stylish 'Space: 1999' that will whisk us on the magic carpet of our imagination and Lucas' vision to a time and space where spaceships exceeding the speed of light are flown by anthropoids, where slavers deal in hot robots and where chess games are played with mini monsters instead of rooks and pawns. -- John Wasserman, The San Francisco Chronicle

• "Carrie Fisher, previously in a small role in 'Shampoo,' is delightful as the regal, but spunky princess on a rebel planet who has been kidnapped by Peter Cushing, would-be ruler of the universe. Mark Hamill, previously a TV player, is excellent as a farm boy who sets out to rescue Fisher in league with Alec Guinness, last survivor of a band of noble knights. Harrison Ford , previously in Lucas’ 'American Graffiti' and Francis Coppola’s 'The Conversation,' is outstanding as a likeable mercenary pilot who joins our friends with his pal Peter Mayhew, a quassi-monkey creature with blue eyes whom Fisher calls 'a walking rug.'" -- A.D. Murphy, Variety

• “Strip ‘Star Wars’ of its often striking images and its highfalutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality, without even a ‘future’ cast to them: Human beings, anthropoids, or robots, you could probably find them all, more or less like that, in downtown Los Angeles today. Certainly the mentality and values of the movie can be duplicated in third-rate non -science fiction of any place or period. … ‘Star Wars’ will do very nicely for those lucky enough to be children or unlucky enough never to have grown up.” -- John Simon, New York magazine

• "'Star Wars' is Buck Rogers with a doctoral degree but not a trace of neuroticism or cynicism, a slam-bang, rip-roaring gallop through a distantly future world full of exotic vocabularies, creatures and customs, existing cheek by cowl with the boy and girl next door and a couple of friendly leftovers from the planet of the apes and possibly one from Oz (a Tin Woodman robot who may have got a gold-plating as a graduation present). -- Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

• "The special effects in this film may be something the screen has never seen before. The spaceship battles are imaginatively extrapolated from World War II, and the film team travelled to remote parts of the world to find convincing settings for alien planets. ... The scriptwriter (George Lucas) wrote five separate drafts before he was satisfied (imagine one of those B-feature fellows doing that!), and the effect is to persuade us that there is little in this film which may not one day happen in real life." -- Adrian Berry, The Telegraph

• "There's something depressing about seeing all these impressive cinematic gifts and all this extraordinary technological skills lavished on such puerile materials. Perhaps more important is what this seems to accomplish: the canonization of comic book culture which in turn becomes the triumph of the standardized, the simplistic, mass-produced commercial artifacts of our time." -- Joy Gould Boyum, The Wall Street Journal

• "It remains the most appealing film in the subgenre it launched, with its finger on something basic and satisfying." -- Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Also on HuffPost:

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What critics said about the original ‘Star Wars’ movie back in 1977

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens

is just one day away from hitting theaters and the bulk of early reviews we’ve seen thus far have not only been encouraging, but overwhelmingly positive. Apparently, this J.J. Abrams character knows what he’s doing.

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Now seeing as how the original Star Wars film was released all the way back in 1977, it’s only natural to wonder how the world’s first reacted to Star Wars upon its release. Sure, there are no shortage of stories from people who can fondly recall going to see the movie in theaters as kids and teenagers. That’s all well and good, but how did movie critics at the time take to the film?

The Hollywood Reporter

“The film, written and directed by George Lucas and produced by Gary Kurtz, is magnificent in scope, but the script and the engaging performances also add an effective human element to the totally believable technological aspects. Lucas combines excellent comedy and drama and progresses it with exciting action on tremendously effective space battles. Likeable heroes on noble missions and despicable villains capable of the most dastardly deeds are all wrapped up in some of the most spectacular special effects ever to illuminate a motion picture screen. The result is spellbinding and totally captivating on all levels.”

“Star Wars is a magnificent film. George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure fantasy out of his memories of serials and older action epics, and he succeeded brilliantly. Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz assembled an enormous technical crew, drawn from the entire Hollywood production pool of talent, and the results equal the genius of Walt Disney, Willis O’Brien and other justifiably famous practitioners of what Irwin Allen calls “movie magic.” The 20th-Fox release is also loaded with boxoffice magic, with potent appeal across the entire audience spectrum.”

The Guardian

But it is, on the other hand, enormous and exhilarating fun for those who are prepared to settle down in their seats and let it all wash over them. Which, I firmly believe, with the extra benefit of hindsight, is more or less exactly what the vast majority of the cinema-going public want just now.”

Roger Ebert

The movie relies on the strength of pure narrative, in the most basic storytelling form known to man, the Journey. All of the best tales we remember from our childhoods had to do with heroes setting out to travel down roads filled with danger, and hoping to find treasure or heroism at the journey’s end. In “Star Wars,” George Lucas takes this simple and powerful framework into outer space, and that is an inspired thing to do…”

“Not an animated movie, to be sure, but a movie inspired by comics and the old serials which were the comic strips of the cinema. That’s precisely what George Lucas’ currently released “Star Wars” is: a gigantic, lavish, brilliantly executive old-time movie comic strip.

The New Yorker

“‘ Star Wars is like getting a box of Cracker Jacks which is all prizes. This is the writer-director George Lucas’s own film, subject to no business interference, yet it’s a film that’s totally uninterested in anything that doesn’t connect with the mass audience. There’s no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It’s enjoyable on its own terms, but it’s exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. … It’s an epic without a dream.”

In “Star Wars,” the young filmmaker has brought all of the spectacle, humor, fun, adventure and innocence we found in classics ranging from the “Flash Gordon” sci-fi excitement, to “The Wizard of Oz” crowd and the chase scenes and predicaments of “Tom Jones.” And for the frosting on the cake, Lucas has assembled the most brilliant special effects and futuristic characters this side of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

If I sound excited, it is only because I am. “Star Wars” sweeps you off your feet, defies all sense of gravity, and takes you onto the most enjoyable, brilliant intergalactic journey ever.

New York Times

Star Wars , which opened yesterday at the Astor Plaza, Orpheum and other theaters, is the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made. It’s both an apotheosis of “Flash Gordon” serials and a witty critique that makes associations with a variety of literature that is nothing if not eclectic: “Quo Vadis?”, “Buck Rogers,” “Ivanhoe,” “Superman,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Gospel According to St. Matthew,” the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

It’s difficult to judge the performances in a film like this. I suspect that much of the time the actors had to perform with special effects that were later added in the laboratory. Yet everyone treats his material with the proper combination of solemnity and good humor that avoids condescension. One of Mr. Lucas’s particular achievements is the manner in which he is able to recall the tackiness of the old comic strips and serials he loves without making a movie that is, itself, tacky. “Star Wars” is good enough to convince the most skeptical 8-year-old sci-fi buff, who is the toughest critic.

Chicago Reader

San Francisco Chronicle

“Star Wars is not without content, but reaches as well for an area as embraceable by children or teenagers as by us older folks. With the opening declaration, it stakes out its turf: It will be a wonderful adventure, a fairy tale, a contemporary “Star Trek,” a stylish “Space: 1999” that will whisk us on the magic carpet of our imagination and Lucas’ vision to a time and space where spaceships exceeding the speed of light are flown by anthropoids, where slavers deal in hot robots and where chess games are played with mini monsters instead of rooks and pawns.

The shooting schedule of the $8.5 million production was a relatively brief 12 weeks in locations like Tunisia, Guatemala and Death Valley, but the special effects work took a year and a half. Every dollar and every hour is on the screen, and if “Star Wars” doesn’t get at least half a dozen Oscar nominations, I will eat my Wookiee.”

The Telegraph

The special effects in this film may be something the screen has never seen before. The spaceship battles are imaginatively extrapolated from World War II, and the film team travelled to remote parts of the world to find convincing settings for alien planets.

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Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the tech industry at large with over 15 years of experience. A life long expert Mac user and Apple expert, his writing has appeared in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK, and TUAW.

When not analyzing the latest happenings with Apple, Yoni enjoys catching Improv shows in Chicago, playing soccer, and cultivating new TV show addictions.

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Every single L.A. Times ‘Star Wars’ movie review from 1977 to 2005

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Prepping a “Star Wars” binge this weekend? We’ve got you covered. Here is every single Los Angeles Times review of every single “Star Wars” movie. Some we liked, others not so much.

We decided to present each review in the series’ chronological order, plotwise.

Liam Neeson, Jake Lloyd and Ewan McGregor in “Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.”

“Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace” (1999)

Current L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan -- who actually reviewed all three prequel films and will also be writing the review of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (full circle) -- didn’t love “The Phantom Menace.” His review said it was obvious that the new addition to the franchise was “aimed at younger audiences” and that it “delivers lots of spectacle but is noticeably lacking in warmth and humor.”

Read the review: The prequel has landed

“Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones” (2002)

Turan was not feeling newcomer Hayden Christensen and his sulky take on Anakin Skywalker: “Judging by his performance here (perhaps not a wise thing to do), young Canadian actor Hayden Christensen was picked for Anakin strictly on his ability to radiate sullen teen rebellion, something he does a lot. Anakin chafes like a grounded adolescent at the restrictions Obi-Wan places on him, grousing that the master is “overly critical. He never listens. He just doesn’t understand. It’s not fair.”

Turan dubs the relationship between Anakin and his beloved Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) “High School Confidential in Outer Space” and states that two are less troubled by their forbidden love and more “burdened by a formidable lack of chemistry.”

Read the review: “When we last saw our heroes ...”

Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Turan comes in with a stunner of a pun: “‘Revenge of the Sith’ is a visual stunner, but beware of the talk side.” Ha.

Read the review: It looks hot ...

Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope (1977)

The first ever “Star Wars” film from director George Lucas was heralded by Charles Champlin (who reviewed all the original films) as, “the year’s most razzle-dazzling family movie, an exuberant and technically astonishing space adventure in which the galactic tomorrows of ‘Flash Gordon’ are the setting for conflicts and events that carry the suspiciously but splendidly familiar ring of yesterday’s westerns, as well as yesterday’s ‘Flash Gordon’ serials.”

Read the review: ‘Star Wars’ hails the once and future space western

Star Wars: Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Champlin really got into the spirit of the Force, praising both films for their optimism and more: “‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ like all superior fantasies, have the quality of parable, not only on good and evil but on attitudes toward life and personal deportment and there is something very like a moral imperative in the films’ view of hard work, determination, self-improvement, concentration and idealism. It does not take a savant to see that this uplifting tone only a little less than the plot and effects is a central ingredient of the wide outreach of the films.”

Read the review: In the ‘Star Wars’ saga, ‘Empire’ strikes forward

Star Wars: Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi (1983)

We found someone who loves the Ewoks! Sheila Benson called the final film in the original trilogy “frankly irresistible” and heaped tons of praise on the furry fiends known as the Ewoks.

Read the review: ‘Star Wars’ continues with an inventive ‘Jedi’

------------

For the record, 3:25 p.m. Dec. 15, 2015: An earlier version of this post said that Charles Champlin had called the final film “frankly irresistible.” Sheila Benson called it that.

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1977 review called 'Star Wars' epic, mentioned potential sequel

Jack garner's original 1977 review calls the first "star wars" movie "an epic film of adventure.".

Editor's note: On May 25, 1977, "Star Wars" opened in a limited number of theaters. The film, now called "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope," didn't arrive in Rochester until a month later. This review was originally published on June 23, 1977, with the headline, "An epic film of adventure."

"Science fiction is okay, but it gets so involved with science that it forgets the sense of adventure." So says moviemaker George Lucas, who most certainly did not forget the sense of adventure when he made Star Wars .

The epic fantasy film — which Time magazine and others have already called the movie of the year — opened yesterday at the Lowes III in Pittsford.

A nearly full house of about 600 persons caught the first of yesterday's six showings of the film — and were obviously caught up in the adventure. They cheered the heroic deeds and hissed the awesome villains.

Adventure is what Star Wars is all about. Sure, it's set in a futuristic format, but it's closer to The Knights of the Round Table, Treasure Island, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Dawn Patrol , than it is to 2001 .

More: The 40 best movie characters in 40 years of 'Star Wars'

It's one slam-bang adventure film that pits a young and brave boy, a wise old man and a lovely princess against the terror and might of The Empire, personified by Lord Darth Vader, a giant of evil dressed in black and hiding unspeakable horror behind a permanent black mask and helmet.

What we are dealing with here is escape — you forget your cares and worry whether Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), old Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness) and Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) can help the honorable, courageous and incredibly out-numbered rebels defeat the all-powerful, all-evil Empire.

Once you understand Star Wars deals not in serious issues of today or in thought-provoking subtleties, but in basic good and evil, and the tingling adventure of the two in combat. If you understand this and it's about what you're ready for, you'll love Star Wars . It's everything they say it is.

The special effects and technical achievement are the greatest ever. Lucas and company have created an unusual and diverse universe and put it before our eyes.Not once is there a feeling of unnaturalness or fakery.

The space gear, living quarters, weapons and other equipment all have the worn look of being used, and the writing and acting all convey a strong sense of reality to the fantasy unfolding.

The acting is uniformly strong, with a special nod to the wonderfully talented Alec Guinness, whose Ben Kenobi is a wise, merlin-like character to Hamill's young King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table also come to mind in the battles against Darth Vader, a black knight if ever there was one. To make the analogy complete, Ben and Luke battle Vader and his crew with swords employing laser blades.

The western adventure story gets its treatment in a wonderful scene at a remote spacecraft freight station when Luke and Ben seek help in a rough-and-tumble bar — a futuristic Long Branch Saloon. The bar is peopled (created?) by a vast array of unusual lifeforms. The peculiar monster of your own fantasy is no doubt having a drink in this sequence.

A barroom fight ensues, and later a rat-like creature is gunned down.

The final sequences — a long and thrilling dog fight involving a rebel fighter rockets versus those of the Empire — is as good as any air fight sequence in any World War I or II film. Actually it's probably better because the vast difference between the two types of aircraft make it quite clear who is fighting whom.

Star Wars also makes charming use of its more comic characters — two loyal robots that must have been programmed for wit as well as courage, a gigantic Wookie creature who co-pilots the space craft used by our heroes in the film. The Wookie communicates through a limited series of grunts — and many are timed for comic effect throughout the film.

It's evident Star Wars will be the movie of the summer — if not the whole year. Yesterday's crowd, while not door-busting, was quite large considering it was 12:30 p.m. on a weekday when most schools are still in session. I suspect it'll be jammed on weekends and at night when school ends.

Another sign that — is a big deal is the hawking of a souvenir program in the lobby (it's grossly overpriced, for what it is, at $1.50. Add just a few cents to that and you can go elsewhere and buy the paperback version of the story George Lucas first wrote).

And, oh yes, need I tell you that the door to a film sequel is left open at the end of Star Wars .

George Lucas paid brilliant homage to his teenage years, to the 1950s lifestyle and music, in American Graffiti . He has said that his goal in Star Wars was "to make an action movie— a movie in outer space like 'Flash Gordon ' used to be."

What finally emerged through many drafts of the script has obviously been influenced by science fiction and action adventure I've read and seen. And I've seen a lot of it.

"I'm trying to make a classic sort of genre picture, a classic space fantasy in which all the influences are working together."

You did it, George, you did it. Now, everybody else, go see it.

Why Finding the Original 1977 'Star Wars' Verges on the Impossible

A short time ago in a galaxy very, very near to here, I set out on a mission to find a movie classic.

It’s a scene etched into every Star Wars fan’s mind. The roguish anti-hero Han Solo sits alone at bare table in the Mos Eisley cantina. An alien bounty hunter pulls up a chair to confront him. After some tense chit-chat, the amphibian-looking barfly pulls a gun and fires a laser blast inches from Solo’s head. Without batting an eye, Han fires a return blast under the table, killing the bounty hunter and sauntering away from the grisly yet PG-rated scene. Everybody’s seen it. Except not.

That impromptu shootout in the first Star Wars is but one of the sequences that diverges from what audiences saw when the movie was originally released in 1977, and it’s perhaps the most infamous of writer/director George Lucas’s endless tinkering with his beloved space saga. This means that a whole generation of supposedly passionate fans have been living a lie. The galaxy far, far away that fans like me fell in love with is a different film entirely.

I confess that I love Star Wars far too much. It’s a cultural artifact that permeates my whole being. I couldn’t count how many Star Wars birthdays I’ve had, how many toys I’ve bought, and how many home video editions of the original trilogy I owned. I’ve even made some of my best friends by challenging them to exceedingly nerdy Star Wars trivia (Q: What was the number of the garbage compactor that nearly killed Han, Luke, and Leia in the first movie? A: If you don’t know it, we aren’t best friends.)

And yet I’ve never seen the original version of Star Wars — a crime that should be punishable by freezing me in Carbonite and shipping me off to an uncertain fate with Boba Fett. But in 2015, it requires nothing shy of an actual quest if you want to find Lucas’s 1977 original, the ur- Star Wars from which the subsequent multi-multi-billion-dollar cultural empire sprang. Lucas has ensured the “original” is a tampered-with version he now sells riven with edits and festooned with computerized effects. To see his original vision, one must dig.

The first version of the iconic movie I saw on the big screen was as a wide-eyed scamp in 1997, when Sith Lord Lucas spiffed up the original trilogy to commemorate their 20th anniversary. He packaged the revamped versions of Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , and The Return of the Jedi under the heading “Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition.” He tweaked the films throughout — mostly souping up the quantity and purported quality of the special effects — as a dry run for the impending prequel trilogy that Lucas would begin inflicting on despondent audiences two years later.

Perhaps the most egregious changes were to the 1977 original itself, which, because of Lucas’s prequel plans, would later be re-labeled as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , an inelegant heresy. Some changes were cosmetic, polishing up little details. Others were far more substantial. As he spruced up some scenes with CGI, and blatantly overhauled others, Lucas made mad bank while claiming the updates fulfilled an old artistic vision that movie-making tech in the ‘70s forced him to defer.

Kids like me embraced it without any qualms whatsoever — seeing Star Wars was, after all, a turning point in my life, as it will be for 10-year-olds who see Rogue One in December. But older viewers, long-versed in the language of that universe, had plenty to gripe about.

Eventually, I wised up to Lucas’s changes. The movie’s impact somehow ebbed. What I’d seen wasn’t Star Wars . It was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Special Edition . But am I taking this too seriously? Maybe Lucas had a point. Anybody familiar with the history of the original movie knows he was undercut by the studio at nearly every angle, forcing him to make quick, potentially regrettable decisions that could have compromised the vision of his space epic. Compared to the changes made to those originals, the compromises seem trivial.

Take, for example, one awful addition to the Special Edition in a scene cut from the 1977 release. Han Solo confronts a human version of Jabba the Hutt in Docking Bay 94. The Falstaffian human actor portraying Jabba in 1977 was replaced by a laughably obvious CGI creation in 1997, worsened only by an even crappier-looking computer enhanced Solo stepping on CG-Jabba’s tail. Lucas also added an understated introduction of Empire Strikes Back fan-favorite Boba Fett, who now can be seen silently lurking in the background before turning and staring straight into the camera. Fans couldn’t believe what they were seeing. What was this hackneyed pandering in their prized Star Wars ?

The greatest affront came in that Mos Eisley cantina scene. The version I first saw had Solo defending himself, returning fire after that first errant blast. The original version, I later learned, had Solo straight-up blasting this marble-eyed Greedo customer (who, let’s face it, was probably going to kill Solo eventually anyway) and swing out of the cantina like the John Wayne gunslinger his character is set up to be.

The abhorrent CG-Jabba is one thing. Han returning fire was another. No other addition to the original films pissed fans off more. The rallying cry of “Han shot first” became shorthand for fans everywhere who felt betrayed by art that was toned down to be more marketable to parents. George Lucas, one of the richest men in the world, sold out the very people who made him so wealthy.

The rejiggered scene prompts Star Wars geeks to lose their collective shit, because it fundamentally changes Solo. Through the chintzy reconfiguring that has the bounty hunter shoot at Han first, Lucas removed the moral ambiguity of the morally ambiguous Han Solo. To audiences, and to the character’s personality, it just made no damn sense.

Lucas would defend his addition years later, but he undercut the outcry by basically saying fans were wrong from the get-go. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV , what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo (who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original) to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t,” he told The Hollywood Reporter . “It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.”

That scene came to represent the failures of the Special Editions. The needless additions seemed only to address Lucas’s personal hangups with his own work — and, not coincidentally, line his pockets anew. Star Wars fanatics loved the movie already, so why would Lucas endorse a repackaging that undercut the scrappy, DIY charm that made the original adventure a worldwide phenomenon?

“To me, the Special Edition ones are the films I wanted to make,” Lucas explained when the original trilogy was released in a DVD boxset in 2004. “Anybody that makes films knows the film is never finished. It’s abandoned or it’s ripped out of your hands, and it’s thrown into the marketplace, never finished.”

This notion of the original Star Wars as an incomplete draft made me wonder. Unaltered versions of the original trilogy are available — but, because they’re out of production, they’re not available through official channels. Why is it so difficult for a fan, like me, who doesn’t want to suss out shady Deep Web torrents or to hunt down bootlegs of the 1977 version? We should be in a world where we can have both, but because Lucas is as stubborn as he is, whatever new version we get of the perpetually updated movies are the 100 percent official canonical versions.

It’s a bitch to find the originals. But still, I couldn’t shake the question: Am I a Star Wars fraud for having never seen them?

As I set out on my geeky quest, I considered first editions. What compels us to exhume originals, as if whatever it was about that purest precedent somehow represents an ideal version? Lucas himself hinted at this before the Special Edition release: “There will only be one [version of the films]. And it won’t be what I would call the ‘rough cut,’ it’ll be the ‘final cut.’ The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, ‘There was an earlier draft of this.’ The same thing happens with plays and earlier drafts of books. In essence, films never get finished, they get abandoned.”

When people sit down this summer to take in a Shakespeare in the Park performance, they can’t expect the play, any play, will be the exact iteration of the play from when it was first performed 400 years ago. People may have a notion of Hamlet , but the play has evolved across many different forms and configurations. First editions of books, like movies, feel like a set medium. But they, too, take on new additions and subtractions through different releases.

Take the 50th anniversary edition of perennial high school syllabus classic On the Road . It was a bound printing of author Jack Kerouac’s masterpiece taken from the one continuous scroll on which he wrote the manuscript in the early ‘50s — closer to the original source material, perhaps it was more holy to Kerouac devotees. And earlier this year, reclusive author Harper Lee’s second novel Go Set a Watchman ended up being a repackaged early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird , released more than a half-century earlier. Lee’s story, too, morphed along the way, decidedly for the better.

Why, then, don’t audiences accept an updated Star Wars like a new Macbeth , a new edition of a book, or a remastering of your favorite album? Are Star Wars fans really more captivated by the 1977 original, or are they simply fetishizing their nostalgia? The only way to find out was to get ahold of Lucas’s discarded early cut.

Let’s get this out of the way: Unless you’re a filthy rich collector or an outrageously lucky fanboy who owns an original projector, there’s no way to see Star Wars on actual film. Even if they’re somehow shown in public, Lucasfilm reportedly confiscates the reels when they surface. When theaters do show the movies, they’re undoubtedly the Special Editions or another iteration after that, and they’re most likely not on film.

It seemed like my Holy Grail, my white whale, but that also my destiny was a failure before I even began to look for it. Even in previous interviews , George Lucas was there to taunt me. “I’m not going to spend […] the money and the time to refurbish [the original], because to me,” he said, “it doesn’t really exist anymore.” If I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted without emptying out my entire savings account or finding a time machine, I figured the best way to go about it was to find something commercially available that I could legitimately watch in 2015.

Screenings of the actual films are so limited that when the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinematek wanted to show Return of the Jedi during a series last year highlighting puppets on film , they were forced to project a copy of the movie on Blu-ray. Try looking for celluloid on eBay, and you’d be lucky to merely find cut up film strips, not an entire 35mm reel.

The DVDs are similarly messed with and full of additional post-Special Edition tinkering that borders on the completely inconsequential. For instance, the scream that Obi-Wan Kenobi uses to scare away the Tusken Raiders that attack Luke — affectionately known to Star Wars geeks as the “Krayt Dragon Call” — has been increasingly pitched up and changed from what it had been before.

I couldn’t do laserdiscs because no sane person has a laserdisc player these days. The same goes for a VHS player, which I surprisingly do have, but the most widely available versions of the movie on VHS are the Special Editions anyway.

They’ve even committed the cardinal sin of having some of the worst parts of the prequel trilogy intrude on the original trilogy, like inserting Hayden Christensen in for actor Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker at the end of Return of the Jedi . Any young Padawan would know that this little turn of the knife in our geeky backs makes absolutely no sense considering they’ve kept Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan instead of replacing him with the prequel’s Ewan McGregor … but I digress.

The most widely available versions of the movies are on Blu-ray, but those are counted out because they’ve also been mercilessly altered based on Lucas’s whims. Here we get even more prequel intrusion with Vader’s widely despised “NOOOOO!” from Revenge of the Sith added to the end of Return of the Jedi for puzzling effect. If you asked George Lucas, “Why? the only answer he’d muster would be, “Why not?”

The home video options seemed like a dead end until I realized a 2006 limited edition DVD could be exactly what I was looking for.

After years of pressure from nitpicky fans like me, Lucas released limited edition DVDs in 2006 of the exact same versions of the individual movies previously released in 2004. Buried on a second disc of those releases were what was billed as the “theatrical versions” of the original movies, allegedly untouched and unscathed.

To my surprise, they were widely available on everywhere from Amazon to eBay and even accessible via the DVD plan from Netflix. But when I finally got my hands on a copy of the first movie, I would be sadly disappointed.

The 2006 DVD theatrical editions are a relatively intact example of the early versions of the movies, and they’re missing the changes/vandalism of the Special Edition onwards, but instead of simply taking the movies from the original film negatives and slapping them onto a DVD, these theatrical editions were actually taken from the so-called LaserDisc Definitive Collection first released in 1993. The irony here was that these definitive editions were anything but and included remastered changes that were basically another dry run from Lucas for the Special Editions that launched this whole mess four years later.

Close would have to do. The thrill of popping in a DVD of something resembling the original 1977 version still had me jazzed, until I saw the famous, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” splayed in a grainy haze in the middle of my (humblebrag) relatively big flatscreen TV. The theatrical versions included on the 2006 DVDs are a non-anamorphic letterboxed transfer with a 4:3 aspect ratio, meaning there are huge back boxes on all four sides of the screen if you’re watching it on a widescreen.

It was another disappointment piled on top of a series of disappointments produced by Lucas passive-aggressively putting ugly transfers on the second discs of a release to prove his own point that they’re somehow inferior. But I kept on watching. I did do because for one, I was realizing a childhood dream. For another, fuck George Lucas.

I had searched out the closest thing to the original Star Wars I could possibly see, and what I got was something close to what I first experienced in 1997. It’s a downright fun movie, a scrappy sci-fi throwback that makes you forget the relative shittiness of the world for two hours and puts you into a huge galactic battle between good and evil with a hero, a damsel in distress, and their friends all just having a rollicking good time. It also looks like something crafted by human hands.

This theatrical version wasn’t the Platonic ideal I’d hoped for. But it showed the terrible updates to the Special Edition, and that the endless tinkering wasn’t justified. Star Wars is and always was an evolving thing, and people will just need to accept that it will grow as we grow with it.

When news of Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm went through, rumors ran rampant that the original versions would finally be packaged and sold. Finally, the Mouse could override Lucasfilm’s intransigence! Alas, Disney still doesn’t own Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , or Return of the Jedi — 20th Century Fox does. Until Fox decides to give fans a glimpse of the spark that started the fire, we’ll just have to enjoy the galaxy far, far away in whatever way we can.

Entertainment | May 27, 1977: Original ‘Star Wars’ review from…

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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew's Jude Law Knows Who Shot First

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"Who shot first?" has long been a topic of contention amongst Star Wars fans, but Star Wars: Skeleton Crew 's Jude Law knows the answer.

" Han! I have no qualms in that. Han killed him, cold blood ," Law told Entertainment Weekly about George Lucas' controversial alteration to Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope 's Han Solo-Greedo shootout in Mos Eisley Cantina. While the theatrical Star Wars scene saw Han casually blast Greedo, the 1997 Special Edition reframed that confrontation by having the Rodian bounty hunter shoot at Han and miss, with Han killing Greedo in turn. That scene would be updated several times over the years, though Law still prefers the original one, stating, " that was the way it was always meant to be. Han all the way. And that's why we love him. "

Han all the way. And that's why we love him.

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Law will adopt a similar Han-inspired persona in Skeleton Crew , playing a Force wielder named Jod Na Nawood who aids the show's four kids traverse the galaxy in hopes of getting them back home. The show's trailer concluded with Nawood using the Force to retrieve the key to a cell holding all five of them, with Law describing his character as someone "known by many names. He is contradictory. The children meet him, and he promises to help them find their way home, but not all of them trust him . And some of them really worship him. So he becomes a kind of barometer almost for their sense of security under an adult's wing in this world ."

So he becomes a kind of barometer almost for their sense of security under an adult's wing in this world.

Law's on-set relationship with child actors Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Robert Timothy Smith, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Kyriana Kratter was equally praised by showrunners Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, with Watts revealing, "Because he's with the kids all the time, he's also kind of felt like the co-director, co-producer with us and he's co-acting coach, you know, giving the kids tips, and they would look to him."

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Other members of Skeleton Crew 's cast include a droid named SM 33 (voiced by Nick Frost), the returning Mandalorian pirate Vane, and a still-unknown character played by Jaleel White. The show's tone, meanwhile will draw from Amblin Entertainment-inspired productions like The Goonies , as well as utilize stop-motion animation designed by Industrial Light & Magic legend Phil Tippett. Its director lineup, meanwhile, includes returning Star Wars filmmakers like Lee Isaac Chung and Bryce Dallas Howard -- who both worked on The Mandalorian -- and newcomers like The Daniels, whose 2022 multiverse film Everything Everywhere All At Once won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

Four kids make a mysterious discovery on their home planet that leads them to get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy.

Disney Replaces ‘Star Wars’ Main Theme, Removes Iconic Score From Future Projects

in Star Wars

Many unique ingredients helped Star Wars (later given the subtitle Episode IV — A New Hope ) become a global sensation when it opened in theaters in 1977 — those unique Star Wars characters , impressive fictitious landscapes, and jaw-dropping battles are just a few.

We instantly fell in love with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) , Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), R2-D2 (Kenny Baker), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), and even Darth Vader (James Earl Jones).

The faraway galaxy and its striking set pieces, from Tatooine’s Mos Eisley to the Galactic Empire’s Death Star, swept audiences away to another world. And the compelling plot about good versus evil — or the Force versus the dark side — hooked viewers from start to finish.

Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in 'A New Hope'

Then there’s the pulse-pounding action– whether it’s a lightsaber duel or a galactic dogfight, the film knows how to immerse you into its world. But it grabs hold of you from the moment the opening text crawl appears — which would be nothing without the main theme tune.

Composed and conducted by the legendary John Williams ( Indiana Jones , Superman , Jaws , Jurassic Park , and several other classics), with the original 1977 recording performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, “Star Wars (Main Title)” also became an instant classic.

During the fall of that year, the now-iconic theme tune peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 13 in Canada’s RPM Top Singles.

The track’s B-side features another classic from the 1977 film: “Cantina Band.” A New Hope features many memorable scores, with “Imperial March” and “Binary Sunset” among them.

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) smiling at the end of 'Star Wars: A New Hope'

Related: Disney Officially Reboots ‘Star Wars’ After String of Disasters, Removes Sequels From Canon

Other Iconic Themes From the Faraway Galaxy

47 years later, the franchise now has an arsenal of iconic tracks at its disposal, from “Duel of the Fates” by John Williams ( The Phantom Menace ) to “The Mandalorian” by Ludwig Göransson ( The Mandalorian ).

“Rey’s Theme” by John Williams ( The Force Awakens ) is another fan-favorite score.

But let’s not forget the likes of “Ahsoka’s Theme” and “Burying the Dead” by Kevin Kiner ( The Clone Wars ).

There are so many beautiful pieces of music from the galaxy far, far away that you’d have no trouble compiling your own Star Wars soundtrack for the annual May 4th celebrations .

But with all that said, the main theme tune has been ubiquitous throughout the franchise. The bombastic melody is as recognizable as any quote from the original trilogy, as nostalgia-inducing as any frame from those three films, and as synonymous with the overall franchise — films and beyond — as a lightsaber, a stormtrooper, or Wookiee.

TOP Star Wars playlist; best songs for May the 4th

Where Does the Main Theme Feature?

Star wars movies.

“Star Wars (Main Title)” is almost like a signature on the Skywalker Saga films , of which there are currently nine. It appears in every single one of those entries, which are:

Original trilogy: Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (1983).

Prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2003), and Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (2005).

Sequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi (2017), and Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

However, the main theme tune plays during the end credits of the anthology movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and elsewhere throughout the franchise outside the films. Even the reviled short film The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) uses it!

A New Main Theme Has Been Created

Now, a brand-new main theme has been composed and created by Wilbert Roget II, Jon Everist, and Kazuma Jinnouchi. As we’ve already said, the franchise is constantly creating thrilling new pieces of music, so why is this one any different?

The main theme tune in question appears in the upcoming open-world video game “Star Wars Outlaws” (2024), which is the first of its kind for the franchise.

“Risk it all as Kay Vess, a scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix,” the official synopsis for the game reads. “Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you join the galaxy’s most wanted.”

But the fact that “Outlaws” is the first open-world game for the IP isn’t the only thing that makes its main score special — it’s the fact that the game takes place between during the original trilogy timeline, between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi .

The new theme tune replaces the original one, which will not be used in the game.

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker screaming in 'A New Hope'

“I was satisfied and happy to move on from doing that John Williams sound,” Wilbert Roget II recently told NME .

“But when ‘Outlaws’ showed up, the team said, ‘No, we don’t necessarily want that. There are no Jedi or Sith. It’s all about the scoundrel experience. This is something different from what we’ve had in Star Wars in the past, and we don’t want that same sound from the movies, we want something new.’ So I decided to test that.”

The upcoming game has been the talk of the town within the fandom since it was announced over three years ago. In recent months, however, it has garnered a fair bit of controversy due to its hefty price tags and the alleged “uglification” of its main female protagonist, Kay Vess , who looks nothing like her real-life motion capture counterpart, Humberly González .

Recent gameplay reveals have also led to backlash from fans , with many criticizing the “outdated” graphics and “janky” gameplay mechanics. But the “Outlaws” main theme tune is nothing short of brilliant . Watch the trailer below and listen from the 1:50 mark:

While it doesn’t hold a candle to the original main theme tune, it certainly stands on its own and feels instantly iconic. It will undoubtedly help give “Outlaws” its own identity, separating it from what is now an ocean of content, whether Star Wars video games or otherwise.

But fans will have to get used to not hearing that beloved original score going forward. While recent years have already seen Disney essentially split the franchise in two — keeping the pre-Disney era and the post-Disney era separate — future installments will be no exception.

In fact, we’ll be moving even further away from John Williams’ beautiful masterpiece. But this actually started a long time ago…

Kay Vess and Nix running in 'Star Wars Outlaws'

Related: Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser’s Replacement Already Available at Disney Park

Star Wars TV Shows and Movies That Abandoned the Main Theme

Though the main theme tune plays during the end credits of Rogue One , it failed to appear at any point during the second anthology film, Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

Star Wars TV Shows

The animated shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars (along with the 2008 animated movie of the same name) and Star Wars: Rebels (2014 — 2018) only feature a variation of the original main theme, this time composed by Kevin Kiner.

However, many other Star Wars animated series have their own scores, like Star Wars: Visions (2021), Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021), and Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (2022).

So far, none of the Disney+ live-action shows have used the franchise’s main theme. The Mandalorian (2019), The Book of Boba Fett (2021), Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022), Andor (2022), Ahsoka (2023), and The Acolyte (2024) each have their own unique theme (they also each use the same opening helmet/droid-centric sequence and accompanying theme).

As such, there’s no doubt that future shows, such as the upcoming Skeleton Crew (2024) starring Jude Law, will also abandon John Williams’ score.

With all that said, there’s plenty of pre-Disney era content that didn’t utilize the main theme, either, like the ’80s animated shows Ewoks (1985 — 1986) and Droids (1985 — 1986).

Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu kneel by a ship in Season 1 of 'The Mandalorian'

Upcoming Star Wars Movies

There are several new Star Wars movies in development , although it’s unclear as to whether or not some will harken back to the George Lucas era with their scores.

The most highly anticipated is The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026), the big-screen adaption of Disney+’s flagship live-action series The Mandalorian , which is unlikely to use the franchise’s original main theme tune. The film is due for release in May, 2026.

One of the more interesting projects, however, is the sequel-era film rumored to be titled New Jedi Order , which will take place 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker , focusing on Rey Skywalker (Daisy Ridley will reprise her role) rebuilding the Jedi Order.

However, while Rey will be the star of the film (which technically makes it a Skywalker Saga entry), it’s unknown whether it will be called Episode X in conjunction with whatever the subtitle is. It may end up being a completely standalone installment, and, as such, could abandon the main theme tune, perhaps giving us a newer version of “Rey’s Theme” instead.

But while “Outlaws” also ignores John Williams’ score, the new one does have riffs of his masterful melody from 1977. But here’s to hoping the game itself will transport us back to the golden age of this beloved franchise in more ways than one.

“Outlaws” will be released on August 30, 2024, for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.

Are you excited about the upcoming game? What do you think of the main theme? Let Inside the Magic know whether you’ll even be playing the game!

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47 years later, mark hamill celebrates the "effortless feminism" of a new hope.

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10 Things You Somehow Missed In A New Hope

10 movies & tv shows you didn't know glen powell was in, naruto live-action movie gets encouraging update from original writer.

Mark Hamill praised Princess Leia's feminist arc in A New Hope, which introduced her as a powerful, take-charge hero in the Star Wars universe.
Leia's role in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi proved essential to the Rebellion and the future of the Jedi, showing her strength.
Despite decades of new characters, Leia remains one of the most impressive and beloved figures in Star Wars history, influencing the franchise deeply.

At Fan Expo Chicago, Star Wars legend Mark Hamill had very high praise for A New Hope , specifically pertaining to the representation of Princess Leia and the movie's feminist story arc. A New Hope remains one of the most beloved additions to Star Wars movies and TV shows . In fact, despite the nearly 50 years since the original trilogy debuted, A New Hope , The Empire Strikes Back , and Return of the Jedi are still frequently regarded as being Star Wars' best movies . Now, Hamill has specifically called out the arc of one of Star Wars' best characters , Princess Leia.

In his Fan Expo Chicago panel, "Mark Hamill Live," Hamill highlighted the "effortless feminism" of A New Hope . Specifically, as revealed in a video posted by va.va.vera on TikTok, Hamill joked about how Princess Leia made chumps of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and had no fear whatsoever when she faced off against Darth Vader.

Although this perspective will undoubtedly be controversial to some, as even the term 'feminism' has become loaded in this fandom and beyond, Mark Hamill's assessment of both A New Hope and Princess Leia's role in the movie is absolutely perfect .

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and C-3PO standing next to each other with Greedo holding a blaster in A New Hope

A New Hope has inspired countless Star Wars stories for decades, but there are still some parts of the classic movie that are easy to miss.

Princess Leia Blazed The Trail For Sci-Fi

Leia organa.

As Mark Hamill correctly pointed out, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia was a brand-new type of hero for movies like Star Wars —and this was in part because it was such a massive deviation from how women were typically depicted in stories of this kind. Specifically, Hamill identified Leia not as a damsel-in-distress stereotype but rather as a take-charge hero in her own right, willing to mock Tarkin to his face in front of the terrifying Darth Vader. This was clearly quite different from the role many women characters had played in science fiction thus far.

In The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi , Leia proved to be absolutely essential to both the Rebellion and the future of the Jedi.

Leia's incredible arc only continued from there. In The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi , Leia proved to be absolutely essential to both the Rebellion and the future of the Jedi, as she not only served as a leader in the fight against the Empire but also consistently helped (and at times saved) Luke. The sequel trilogy then proved that even after the Empire fell, Leia remained a major player in the galaxy. Ultimately, she was also a huge reason the First Order was able to be defeated as well.

Truly, there are very few characters as impressive, influential, and beloved as Princess Leia, despite decades of new characters being introduced. Again, while Hamill's choice of words might sadly stir the pot, his description of Leia's role throughout the Star Wars franchise was entirely accurate. A New Hope really was a beautiful representation of a feminist story arc, and that comes down to how brilliant a character Princess Leia was.

Source: va.va.vera

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

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The film that began the Star Wars franchise, Episode IV - A New Hope tells the story of wistful Force-sensitive Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who longs to leave his home planet of Tatooine to fight the evil Empire. After inheriting his Jedi father's weapon, a lightsaber, Luke sets off under the tutelage of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) with smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) to join the Rebellion and face the evil Darth Vader.

Star Wars Outlaws – The Cheapest Australian Pre-Orders And Deals

The Crush House Review – XOXO

Here’s When You Can Read Our Star Wars Outlaws Review

It's not far, far away!

The launch of Ubisoft’s huge new open-world Star Wars experience, Star Wars Outlaws, is less than two weeks away on August 30th for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and that means we’re gearing up to bring you our full review of the game along with plenty of other in-depth coverage.

The good news, for anyone hoping to read up on how Massive Entertainment has fared in bringing the Star Wars scoundrel fantasy to life well ahead of picking up the game for themselves, is that reviews will drop quite a few days before the standard edition launch (and just before the Gold/Ultimate Edition early access). With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about when you’ll be able to read our own review, what we’ve thought of the game so far, and where to get the best deal.

When Can You Read Our Star Wars Outlaws Review?

The review embargo for Star Wars Outlaws lifts on August 26th at 10PM AEST, which is when you’ll be able to head straight to the Press Start Australia home page and find our full, scored review ready and waiting.

What Are Our Impressions So Far?

We’ve also had plenty of opportunities to go hands-on with Star Wars Outlaws ahead of launch, including playing nearly five hours of the game at a recent preview event . After playing the game and chatting to the team from Massive, Harry came away suitably impressed so far, writing :

“Even though I got to play almost five hours of Star Wars Outlaws, I’ve come away from my hands-on feeling like I’ve barely scratched the surface. There are still many planets to explore, Experts to uncover, and Intel Chains to reach the end of. There are many other elements of the game I haven’t touched on here. It feels ambitious in every sense of the word, fuelled by a passion and love for the IP that isn’t dissimilar to what Respawn have done with the Jedi games. It’s carving out its own identity amidst a plethora of unique takes on this galaxy, and I can’t wait to jump back in for more.”

Where Can I Get The Game Cheapest In Australia?

The best price for the standard/limited edition of Star Wars Outlaws is currently at MightyApe for $79 , or Amazon/Big W/JB for the Gold Edition at $169 . Here are the prices around various physical and digital retailers:

Amazon – $89 Limited Edition | $169 Gold Edition
Big W – $89 Standard Edition | $169 Gold Edition
JB Hi-Fi – $89 Limited Edition | $169 Gold Edition
EB Games – $109.95 Special Edition | $169.95 Gold Edition
MightyApe – $79 Limited Edition | $179 Gold Edition
Gamesmen – $99.95 Standard Edition | $169.95 Gold Edition
Harvey Norman – $88 Standard Edition
PlayStation Store – $109.95 Standard Edition | $169.95 Gold Edition | $199.95 Gold Edition
Xbox Store – $109.95 Standard Edition | $169.95 Gold Edition | $199.95 Gold Edition
Epic Games – $99.95 Standard Edition | $159.95 Gold Edition | $189.95 Gold Edition
Ubisoft Store – $99.95 Standard Edition | $159.95 Gold Edition | $189.95 Gold Edition (Included in Ubisoft+)

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Original 1977 Star Wars Movie Poster
Film Classic 1977 Star Wars Movie Poster by Chantrell “7 Academy Awards
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