The Force has always been strong in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh has been one with the Force since “Star Wars” first debutedin theaters on May 25, 1977.
On the day of the film’s release, Post-Gazette film critic George Andersonraved about the movie — which would later be christened “Episode IV: A New Hope” — declaring that it “may be the greatest comic book movie ever made,” comparing it to so-bad-it’s-good scifiadventure “Flash Gordon.”
“The movie opening today at the Showcase Cinema is distinguished by great imagination, astonishing technical wizardry and an almost childlike sense of real fun,” Mr. Andersongushed.
He singled out Princess Leia, played by the late Carrie Fisher, as a sign of the film’s “contemporary flavor,” admiring that she “is not a damselin distress, but a spunky, resourceful,independent woman.”
Mr. Anderson did criticize the
film’s plot, calling it a “distillation of every simplistic goodguys-vs.-bad-guys cliché.” He was willing to overlook that, however, because of the sheer cinematic exhilaration “A NewHope” provided.
“See it,” he commanded. “Take every kid you know and find out how much kid stilllives in you.”
“A New Hope” went on to become a bona fide phenomenon in the summer of 1977, though it was not without its critics.
One such critic — Howard H. Hobaugh, a Pittsburgh native who continued to read his hometown paper eight years after moving to Vero Beach, Fla. — wrote a scathing note to Mr. Anderson questioning his review, which was published in the July 12, 1977, editionof the Post-Gazette.
“The plot was trite; the dialogue could have been written by an eighth-grade student and the robots acted and mouthed the dialogue as well as the live actors,” Mr. Hobaughwrote.
The Post-Gazette published a more positive reader review of “A New Hope” in the same issue, with Gary Anthony Surmacz writing in with a simple expression of his love forthe film: “WOW!”
Mr. Surmacz and every other “A New Hope” fan who was wowed by the film’s outer space scenes have a Pittsburgher to thank for that sense of wonder. Joseph Paul Roth of Beaver Falls served as the movie’s optical photography coordinator, supervising a team of 16 people tasked with creating iconic scenes involving X-wings, star destroyers andthe Death Star.
Mr. Anderson profiled the 1965 Art Institute of Pittsburgh graduate in the Aug. 11, 1977, edition of the Post-Gazette, and Mr. Roth wowed him with his mastery of the then-groundbreaking special effectsused in “Star Wars.”
“Visual effects, commonly referred to by laymen as ‘trick photography,’ constitute one of the true mysteries of moviemaking and, therefore, are authentic magic as far as I’m concerned,”he wrote.