‘Star Wars’: a magic ride
With the opening today at the Coronet of “Star Wars,” writer-directed George Lucas makes a spectacular return to the screen.
If anybody wondered where Lucas has been since the release nearly four years ago of “American Graffiti,” the answer is at hand. “Star Wars,” set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” is the most exciting picture to be released this year — exciting as theater and exciting as cinema. It is the most visually awesome such work to appear since “2001: A Space Odyssey,” yet is intriguingly human in its scope and boundaries.
The major science-fiction films of the last few years — the Russian “Solaris,” the French “Hu-Man,” the English “Man Who Fell to Earth,” as well as “2001” — have all been exceptional, but all have displayed pretensions of one kind or another; generally cosmic.
“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 — “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” — 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 which can exceed the speed of light are flown by anthropoids, where slavers deal in hot robots and where chess games are played with minimonsters instead of rooks and pawns.
The only audible preaching by Lucas — in a whisper, to be sure — suggests that man is man and creatures are creatures, and it doesn’t really matter how far forward or back you go to check it out. God is here The Force, feelings defeat the calculation, good conquers evil — but not without sacrifice — and love will keep us together. Like that. The story is an old one, even here on earth: As he did in “THX 1138” (1971), Lucas sets his story in a milieu of rebellion by the oppressed against Authority, in this case, the Galactic Empire. Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) has obtained the structural plans of the Death Star, the Empire’s chief instrument of terror, and, with the help of an idealistic youth, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the lovably smug mercenary, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, last of the noble Jedi Knights (Alec Guinness), sets about trying to save her galaxy from destruction.
In this context, Lucas creates a universe that combines the breathtaking visual wonder of “2001” with the bloodless battles of “Flash Gordon” and a droll, mischievous sense of humor reminiscent of Woody Allen’s “Sleeper.” The humans are human (“You can play with your friends, only when the chores are done,” Luke Skywalker’s uncle admonishes), spaceships are beat-up and dirty (the nearest garage is lightyears away?), accuracy in the laser-beam gunfights is sensationally bad and the nonhuman characters — two costarring robots, the golden See-Three-pio and cute little Artoo-Detoo (who all but steals the picture), plus the wonderful Chewbacca, the Wookie, the Sand People, the Jawas and the most delightful set of weirdoes ever seen in the corner saloon — fulfill our wildest dreams.
The actors, while being generally upstaged by Wookies and Jawas, are fine (the cadaverous Peter Cushing, as the evil Grand Moff Tarkin, and David Prowse, as the ominous, masked Lord Darth Vader, also have major roles) but, inevitably, the star of “Star Wars” is special effects.
The shooting schedule of the $8.5 million (exclusive of overhead, print and other costs) production was a relatively brief 12 weeks in locations like Tunisia, Guatemala and Death Valley, but the special effects work took a year ad a half. Every dollar and every hour is on the screen, and if “Star Wars” doesn’t garner at least half a dozen Academy Award nominations, I will eat my Wookie.
In addition to being a superbly crafted film, “Star Wars” is that rarest of creatures: The work of art with universal (excuse the pun) appeal. There is in all of us the child who dreams of magical beings and fantastical adventures. On a street level, “Rocky” fulfilled that need last year. “Star Wars” takes us beyond the heavens.
There is in all of us the child who dreams of magical beings and fantastical adventures.