With all the endless movies, sequel, tv shows, theme parks, etc. built around Star Wars it can be easy to forget just how great the original 1977 film is. I think that with every addition to the Star Wars “franchise” the original vision is diminished a little more. If Star Wars was the only “Star Wars” movie I think it’s appreciation as a piece of art would be considerably higher.
People forget that that although this created or least cemented the idea of the blockbuster that Star Wars was almost an indie film at the time. The ingenuity to create a world of endless spaceships, creatures, etc with a low budget and with no book or graphic novel or comic to work from is pretty incredible. Everything was created from the ingenuity of having limitations and it is so much better for that. People say that the first movie is simple but I find it really complex. It introduces all of these crazy ideas like the force, the history of the Jedi and the empire and complex back stories for each character. There is so much going on “off screen” that it feels like an epic fantasy novel. Unfortunately all the movies and shows that came after slowly took away the amazing open world feeling of the original by over showing and explaining all this fascinating history. This one movie creates all the world we need in such a natural way. There never feels like exposition, things are just introduced seamlessly with the direction of the story and the actors are just as natural at bringing it all to life. They feel way more like real people that almost any modern action movie.
Although the basic idea of adventure and good vs evil may be simple, the plot and direction of the movie is actually pretty complex. It has the plot mechanics of a really good western in a way that borrows ideas from the work of Kurosawa and Leone. The idea of starting with the two droids wandering around the desert arguing feels very surreal and more of a risk than almost any action adventure movie out out today. The cinematography is fantastic from beginning to end. George Lucas definitely went too far with certain things but he clearly knows how to direct a film. Anyway, I think it’s important to realize that the reason Star Wars became such a huge phenomenon is because of the masterpiece that started it all.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/sfsh2y/star_wars_1977_is_a_masterpiece/
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