Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Year: 1977
Director: George Lucas

Notable Actors/Actresses
Mark Hamill
Harrison Ford
Carrie Fisher
Chewbacca
James Earl Jones - voice of Darth Vader

Last Viewed: 7/1/11
Number of views: 25 maybe

It can be suspected that this would be the first Star Wars film that I saw and anyone reading this would be wrong. I did not see this film until many years after I saw Return of the Jedi.

This episode starts out the next three movies in a time period where the Empire has become the dictacting government in the galaxy and squashing any hopes of democracy to return. The droids R2-D2 and C-3PO find their way into Luke's possession and during a cleaning session, a mysterious portion of a message is played by R2 with a lovely, young lady seeking Obi-Wan Kenobi's help. This sparks Luke's curiousity and he begins his quest to locate Obi-Wan, discover his identity, and learn what he is really capable of and meant to do.

When we are introduced to Han Solo for the first time, he brings a very laid back yet irresponsible personality to the table. As a viewer, we somehow hate and like this individual because despite his own issues that he has with Jabba the Hutt, he risks even more to make sure Luke is looked after and kept out of harm's way to be sucessful with his Jedi quest. Their first mission as a group is to rescue Princess Leia from an Imperial holding cell. This is met with success and defeat. Obi-Wan has to face off with Darth Vader as a diversion and then he takes his leap into immortality.

The final battle sequence is to destroy the Death Star. This is of course left up to Jedi rookie Luke Skywalker to take the 1 in 7 trillion chance shot to directly hit the power source with precision shooting. Of course with his premature understanding of the force, he somehow makes the shot and Luke and Han are the heros allied with the Rebel Alliance in the remaining episodes.

Overall, we learn that droids are connected to both generations of Skywalkers and support their quests any way that they can, Luke and Leia don't know of their connection to each other yet so meanwhile there is a 3-way romance/jealousy triangle going on with Han included, and these Rebels need to hide as they did successfully destroy the main headquarters and space station of the Empire.