Sometimes it feels pointless for me to provide my thoughts and descriptions for a movie, and never has this enterprise seemed quite so useless as in regard to Star Wars. One of the most popular and best-known films ever made, it’s been dissected, discussed and analyzed relentlessly over the last 29 years, and it seems that there’s little left to say.

But it’s my job to offer thoughts about flicks, so I won’t stop now! Famously set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, we quickly learn that this realm exists in a state of turmoil. The Empire rules the roost with a fascist hand, but a small Rebel Alliance attempts to battle them despite overwhelming odds. They get a boost when they steal the plans to the Empire’s massive “Death Star” space station. It’s essentially just an enormous world-crushing weapon, and with the pilfered blueprints, the Rebels hope to find and exploit a weakness.

Matters go awry when an Imperial Star Destroyer captures the Rebels’ smaller craft and imprisons Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), one of the Alliance’s leaders. Imperial enforcer Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones) attempts to sweat the information out of her, but she resists. She inserted the plans into cylindrical droid R2-D2 (Kenny Baker), who escaped along with his prissy protocol droid companion C-3PO (Anthony Daniels).

They land on a planet called Tatooine, where R2 needs to deliver the plans to an elderly former Jedi named Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). However, before he can complete his mission, scavengers called jawas nab the two druids and sell them to a moisture farmer named Owen Lars (Phil Brown). He gives them to his orphaned nephew Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to clean, and when the youngster does so, he discovers the implanted message from Leia to Obi-Wan that conveys the urgency of their mission.

R2 claims to be Obi-Wan’s property, and he maintains a single-minded devotion to his mission. He escapes during the night and heads toward Obi-Wan’s domain. Worried about getting in trouble with his uncle, Luke and 3PO chase after the little droid. After a scrape with the violent Tusken Raiders, Obi-Wan saves Luke and they get to know each other. The old Jedi tells Luke what happened to the boy’s father and informs him about the Jedi order and way of doing things. He wants to take Luke from Tatooine and educate him in these ways, but even though the lad clearly seeks escape from the barren planet, he hesitates and uses his duty to his uncle as an excuse.

This issue becomes moot when they return to the homestead and see that Imperial stormtroopers slaughtered Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru (Shelagh Fraser) in an attempt to recover the information from the droids. With nothing left at home, Luke agrees to accompany Obi-Wan on his mission, and in the Mos Eisley spaceport, they hire an allegedly speedy escort ship called the Millennium Falcon. Run by arrogant smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his loyal and furry Wookiee first mate Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), the gang narrowly escapes from the stormtroopers.

They head toward a Rebel base on Alderaan, but when they arrive, they find the entire planet destroyed. The Death Star captures them and sucks in the Falcon. From there, the rest of the movie follows their attempts to rescue Leia, get R2’s information to the Rebels, and destroy the Death Star.

Can anyone of my generation approach Star Wars in a remotely objective manner? I doubt it, and I won’t pretend to see it without a serious level of subjectivity. Star Wars has been a significant element of my life for so long that I can barely remember an existence without it. In fact, when I dated a woman born in 1978 - I emerged in 1967 - I reacted negatively to our age difference when I realized that she never knew a world without Darth Vader.

I do remember a time without that character, and I still recall what a huge impact Star Wars had on us kids in 1977. At this point, I have no clue how many times I’ve seen the flick. I know I took it in six or seven times theatrically in 1977-1978; in those days before home video, the film stayed on the big screen for more than a year! I later saw Star Wars again during theatrical reissues as well as on VHS and laserdisc. I’d guess I’ve seen the flick at least 25 times over the last 29 years.

Theoretically, this means I should be able to judge the film’s facets well since I enjoy a high level of familiarity with it. However, in the case of Star Wars, I think my extreme affection for the movie makes it more difficult to see its issues. To be sure, I don’t regard it as a flawless flick, but it’s still so fresh and fun that whatever problems it possesses become inconsequential.

Taken away from the hype and mythology that surround the movie, that sense of spirit and adventure remain the reason Star Wars stays a classic. When Lucas reissued the flick as a "Special Edition" in 1997, it didn’t earn more than $100 million due solely to the presence of aging geeks like me. Star Wars attracted a new generation of youngsters, many of whom were the kids of folks who saw the movie during its initial run. Not a lot of films can remain quite that timeless, and the SE’s success validates its continued appeal.

Sure, Star Wars can veer toward almost campiness at times, and George Lucas’s lack of talent for dialogue remains apparent. Harrison Ford once commented something along the lines of “you can write this stuff but you can’t say it”, and some aspects of the movie come across as stilted and awkward. These seem especially true during its first act, which sets up matters well but can seem somewhat slow at times.

However, once Han and Chewie enter the picture, Star Wars begins to kick into high gear, and it rarely lets go after that. The second and third acts fill the film come chock full of great action pieces, with one excellent sequence after another. This culminates in the dramatic and exciting attack on the Death Star, a segment that remains possibly the most thrilling part of the entire trilogy. No matter how many times I watch it, the scene still involves me.

The actors all fill their roles exceedingly well. Hamill occasionally gets knocked for his whininess as Luke, and I suppose he could have made our hero less annoying. However, Hamill brings sufficient spark to the role and demonstrates Luke’s development well. Could the film have featured someone better? Maybe, but I have no complaints about his work.

The other actors fare better, with Ford the strongest element. It’s not a surprise he enjoyed by far the most success as a performer after Star Wars, as he’s the only actor other than Guinness whose name doesn’t automatically bring the trilogy to mind. Despite his complaints about the dialogue, he brings spark and wit to Han and makes a stock character sly, rascally and endearing. Fisher also adds zip and zing to Leia, while Guinness contributes depth to the movie with his Obi-Wan.

Since I initially indicated that Star Wars needs no comment, I’ve probably rambled for too long. Suffice it to say that the movie played an important role in my life and continues to entertain and delight me. This is one flick that clearly deserves its status as a classic.

Note that this DVD of Star Wars presents an updated version of the flick. Many of the changes came with the 1997 “Special Edition” but Lucas continues to tinker with the movie, so some additional alterations appear here.

If you want a detailed examination of the changes, throw a stick anywhere on the Internet and you’ll find 100. I won’t get into that, as instead I’d prefer to provide my general impressions of the changes. Of the three flicks, the alterations here bother me the most. Perhaps that’s because Star Wars includes the most significant changes, with one long, entirely-new segment between Han and Jabba and many other notable differences.

Some of the changes found in the the other two flicks work, but many of the alterations in Star Wars fall into the "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" category. The most annoying switch comes from the infamous scene in which Greedo shoots first at Han. Lucas has always explained that he wanted to change this since the original sequence makes Han look cold-blooded. To whom? Over the 20 years between the initial release of Star Wars and the "Greedo shoots first" special edition, Han Solo became one of cinema’s most beloved heroes. Did anyone ever criticize the character as "cold-blooded" because he iced a malicious alien who clearly intended to do harm to him? Not as far as I can tell, so Lucas’s concern always appeared radically unwarranted. I think the change robs the scene of its flow and simply seems pointless.

Actually, most of the bothersome changes come from the scenes on Tatooine. The new version adds lots of not-too-convincing CG characters to the Mos Eisley bit, and these give the sequence an awkward cartoony feel. The Jabba scene should have stayed on the cutting room floor. It’s fun to see, or it would be as a supplement. Unfortunately, it’s not a great clip, and the awkward integration of real Harrison Ford and CG Jabba makes it tough to watch.

Outside of Tatooine, the movie’s changes mostly revolve around altered visual effects. We get more fighters during the attack on the Death Star, and a mix of other variations occurs. I don’t think these add anything, but they don’t really detract either. The short scene in which old pals Biggs and Luke reunite prior to the Death Star assault is inoffensive but may be confusing for the average fan. Die-hards know about Biggs - whose scenes from the film’s first act were cut - and Luke does refer to him during the final battle, but the restored sequence doesn’t do much to explain his significance in Luke’s life. If you don’t already know who he is, this segment won’t help you much.

As I mentioned already, I don’t care for a lot of the changes made for the updated edition of Star Wars, and I’d love to lose the alterations made on Tatooine. However, these don’t even remotely start to “ruin” the movie for me. Would I rather see the original flick? Definitely. Will I cry and pout while I watch this one? Nope. Star Wars remains a thoroughly winning adventure.

Star Wars appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Alterations like extra scenes and new effects weren’t the only changes made for the new edition of Star Wars, as Lucas et al. tampered with many visual and auditory elements of the movie. These made the film a different experience than the one originally presented in 1977, but whether or not that harms that experience will remain up to the individual.

For the most part, my comments on picture and audio will concentrate on my reactions to what I saw and heard, not on my reactions to what went missing or what was altered. A few notable exceptions will arise, particularly in the auditory section, but the folks behind these DVDs never claimed they would accurately represent the original presentation of the movie. On the contrary, they’ve gone out of their way to let us know not to anticipate the same Star Wars seen 29 years ago.

Because of that, it seems pointless to criticize the quality of the product because it’s different. Do I dislike a lot of the changes and prefer the original flick? Definitely, but it’s my role to evaluate the current DVD as objectively as possible. In that realm, criticizing it for changes becomes pointless. I’ll leave my editorial comments about the alterations to the body of the review and only remark on what I interpret as mistakes here, though even that area turns controversial; Lucasfilm has already pooh-poohed what I and other fans discern as errors to be “choices” on their part. I get the feeling that the DVDs could have accidentally come with no audio whatsoever and Lucas would claim that this represents his original vision and was a “choice” for this release. (“I always meant for Star Wars to be an homage to the days of silent cinema.”)

In any case, matters never seemed remotely that grim, particularly in regard to the absolutely splendid picture quality on display for Star Wars. Whatever one thinks of the alterations, the extremely attractive visuals came as a revelation. From start to finish, sharpness remained rock solid. Not a smidgen of softness crept up during the movie. Instead, it always looked wonderfully concise and well-defined. I noticed no jagged edges or shimmering, and edge enhancement failed to cause any distractions. Even though one might expect source flaws from a 29-year-old movie, this one lacked them, as it consistently came without specks, spots or other defects.

Colors fared marvelously well. This was one visual area that represented the most obvious non-effects-related changes from the original movie. The DVD depicted a notably altered color scheme at times. At least one of these elements had to be a mistake; our first look at Luke’s lightsaber in the training sequence on the Falcon showed it to be green, but it quickly reverted to its normal white. (GL’s probable excuse: “I always meant for the lightsaber to be a chameleon-like character.”) Others came as clear alterations, such as the look of the sunset when a solo R2 wandered through the jawas’ barren domain.

Whether altered or original, the hues came across as terrific. They always presented lively and vivid tones and never depicted a hint of problems. Even the red lighting in the trash compactor appeared clear and tight. Blacks also looked terrifically deep and firm, while low-light shots brought us smooth and neatly delineated images. I liked this transfer so much that I almost gave it an “A+”. It just slightly fell short of that level as it easily earned an “A”.

More substantial concerns affected the Dolby Digital EX 5.1 soundtrack of Star Wars, though it remained very good for a movie from 1977. Actually, one can quibble with my decision to grade it compared to other flicks from its era, since it received a substantial overhaul for modern editions of the film. Nonetheless, more than enough of the original audio remained for me to look at it in the context of the Seventies.

A lot of the soundtrack presented erratic audio. Speech exemplified these traits. Most of the dialogue resembled the kind of elements expected from a 1977 recording. These pieces were more than intelligible but usually a little flat, and occasional examples of edginess manifested themselves.

However, some of the lines came across as so distinctive that they appeared unnatural. These parts contrasted noticeably with other bits to make the former sound very odd and canned. Examine the scene between Han and Leia after they’ve escaped from the Death Star. Some of her lines sounded substantially livelier than the others and his, which left the clean pieces as the distracting ones.

Another instance has received a lot of attention on other Internet sources. When Tarkin pressured Leia for the location of the Rebel base, many fans have noted that parts of his dialogue suffered a dramatic drop in quality. I re-examined this spot three times and I didn’t discern any radical change. Based on what I’d read, I expected it to sound garbled, but the element in question was consistent with much of the rest of the movie’s speech. Why fans picked out this particular line was a mystery to me, as so much of the dialogue manifested obvious highs and lows.

This may seem like an odd sentiment, but I honestly think they should have gone with the apparently lower quality dialogue for the entire movie. Even at its worst, the lines were always fine for their age, and they never demonstrated significant problems. The inconsistency caused distractions that seemed unnecessary.

John Williams’ score has also received a lot of attention from fans, but I better understand their concerns in that realm. The score demonstrated good stereo imaging across the forward spectrum, but the problem came from the use of the surrounds. For the music, the rear speakers reverse the channels. In other words, if brass emanated from the front right speaker, it should have come from the rear right channel but instead poured out of the rear left.

Lucas may call this issue a “choice” and not a defect, but that’s a lot of hooey. This clearly was an unintentional mistake, as there’s absolutely no sane reason to do it on purpose. The question becomes how much this will affect the individual viewer. I’ll admit that I would never have noticed the switch if I’d not read about it in advance, and even then, I was hard-pressed to discern the problem from my normal listening position. When I focused more on the surrounds, I could hear it, but as I watched the movie, I didn’t notice the flip-flopping at all. The front speakers did the heavy lifting in regard to the score, so the rear channels really didn’t feature the music terribly prominently. At least as I have my speakers balanced, I didn’t encounter any distractions due to the channel-swapping, but clearly other listeners felt differently.

One other commonly-offered complaint did become obvious to me. As the Rebels swooped down on the Death Star, Williams’ fanfare subsided to almost nothing. During this moment of excitement and anticipation, the music should have bolstered the sequence. Instead, it vanished for a few moments and played no role in the proceedings. The score kicked back in reasonably quickly, but for a few moments, its absence distracted me.

Some may chalk up this problem as one that will go noticed only by fans with intimate knowledge of the soundtrack. I disagree. The music dropped off so quickly and radically that it seemed likely to distract most listeners. It wasn’t a subtle change, though it didn’t last for too long.

Despite the various issues connected to the score’s use in the soundfield, the music consistently sounded quite good. Quality varied somewhat, mostly due to the prominence of the score in the movie. When it got placed in the forefront, it seemed bold and dynamic, while sections with lowered volume levels lacked the same punch. Nonetheless, I didn’t encounter any notable problems connected to the quality of the music.

For the effects, the situation reversed itself. The movie used these in a vivid way through its soundfield. While one shouldn’t expect the effects to zoom and dazzle as they would from a modern movie, the soundscape definitely utilized them much more interactively than usual for a film from the Seventies. Since most flicks from that era remained monaural, this wasn’t much of a challenge, but the soundfield still managed to create a distinctive environment.

Not surprisingly, scenes with vehicles fared the best, as ships flew convincingly around the room. General atmospheric elements also helped turn the setting into a vibrant and involving place. At times the bits appeared a little “speaker specific”, but they mostly blended together nicely and got us into the action. The surrounds supported the elements well and added a lot of verve to the proceedings, with occasional stereo imaging in the rears to add some punch.

The effects lost some points for audio quality, however. I felt too much distortion crept into the action, as more than a few bits displayed mildly harsh and rough tones. General clarity was quite good, however. Sometimes the elements came across as mildly flat and thin, but the effects mainly were well-defined. Bass response tried to overcompensate, as low-end tended to be somewhat too loud and boomy. Many scenes packed a nice bass punch, but some rattled my subwoofer to an exaggerated degree, such as when the jawas shot R2 and he fell; his collapse didn’t seem substantial enough to warrant such a massive eruption of the LFE.

Ultimately, despite the mix of flaws, I liked the audio of Star Wars. Could it sound better than it did? Yeah, I thought so, but not due to the state of the original elements. Some of my complaints connected to “improvements” wrought for the new edition of the film, as I doubt the original didn’t present such overemphasized bass. In any case, the soundtrack worked well for the most part and merited a “B+”.

One final auditory footnote: when fans discuss what’s “correct” and not for Star Wars, one must remember that even during its initial release, it boasted a few different sound mixes. Ben Burtt discusses this in the DVD’s commentary, but the fact remains that there never was one “true” soundtrack to Star Wars, and matters didn’t get any less complicated with all the touch-ups applied over the years. Again, I thought some of this DVD’s “choices” were mistakes, but it wasn’t as simple an area as the alterations made to the image, which can more easily be compared to the original product from 1977.

Note that this presentation of Star Wars exactly duplicates what we found on the 2004 DVD release. Disc One of this package is identical to that set’s Star Wars DVD. Lucasfilm could have corrected those audio errors, but instead, they just slapped the same transfer into a new package. Whee! Ain’t commerce fun?

That also means it includes all of the same extras, starting with an audio commentary with writer/director George Lucas, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren, and actor Carrie Fisher. All four were taped separately for this edited track.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Lucas dominates the discussion, as he provides a great deal of information about the Star Wars universe and this film in particular. He gets into the roots of the project, its growth and influences, the mythology, and many elements connected to its specific creation. As always, one must take his comments on the subject with a grain of salt; he’s changed his story about Star Wars so many times that I don’t think he even knows the truth about some of its issues. Nonetheless, I think he mostly gets to the heart of things and gives us a nice look at the movie.

The other three help flesh out the piece well. As one might expect, Burtt and Muren focus almost exclusively on sound design and special effects, respectively. They prove to offer useful insight into their work as they relate various facets of what they did for the movie. We hear too little of the always entertaining Fisher. She lets us know a little about her casting and initial interest in the movie as well as her approach to the role and the general mood on the set. Fisher adds some intriguing notes and I hope she chimes in more frequently for the two subsequent commentaries. In any case, this one remains nicely informative and enjoyable; even though I already knew a lot about Star Wars, I learned a fair amount here.

Star Wars also features the THX Optimizer. Also found on many other DVDs, this purports to help you set up your system for the best reproduction of both picture and sound, ala stand-alone programs such as Video Essentials.

Lastly, the disc touts a DVD-ROM weblink. This promises “exclusive Star Wars content”. Unfortunately, this disc acted funky in my drive and I couldn’t access it. Hope you have better luck!

Since DVD One simply duplicated the original set’s presentation, all of the changes come on DVD Two. There we find a trailer and an XBox Demo for Lego Star Wars II. Since I don’t have an XBox, I can’t try out the game, but it looks like a lot of fun – I’ll have to grab it for my PS2.

Of much greater interest to fans – and the only reason most people will buy this release – is the original theatrical version of Star Wars. That’s right – we get the flick as presented in 1977. It ain’t Episode IV and it ain’t even A New Hope - it’s just Star Wars like we kids remember it from 1977!

Since I already went over the changes made for the special edition, I won’t detail those alterations here. Instead I’ll focus on the quality of the presentation. Star Wars appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2,35:1 on this single-sided, dual-layered disc; as most folks already know, it hasn’t been enhanced for anamorphic TVs.

And therein lies the main complaint about this release of the original theatrical edition. It’s the same transfer created for the 1993 laserdisc boxed set and hasn’t aged particularly well. On the positive side, sharpness usually looked pretty good. I thought it was considerably softer than it’d be if granted an anamorphic transfer, but it wasn’t terribly ill-defined. Sharpness was consistently fair and often seemed quite positive. Colors also appeared pretty lively and dynamic, while blacks were acceptably dark and dense. Shadows could be a little thick, but low-light shots usually demonstrated good clarity.

On the negative side, the lack of anamorphic enhancement didn’t just bring a moderate lack of definition with it. We also got lots of examples of shimmering and jagged edges. These were quite prominent throughout the film and created many distractions. Edge enhancement was surprisingly absent, but the movie still looked rough.

Plenty of source flaws also manifested themselves. Some parts of the film were clean, but others came across as messy. I saw many examples of specks, marks, blotches and nicks. These meant that the movie offered a much less than ideal presentation. While consistently watchable, this transfer needed a lot of work it didn't receive. I thought the original theatrical version of Star Wars only merited a “C-“ for picture quality.

On the other hand, the Dolby Surround 2.0 soundtrack of Star Wars was more successful. It demonstrated many inconsistencies but seemed like an acceptable representation of the audio. The soundfield was noticeably less ambitious than the mix for the special edition. The forward spectrum demonstrated pretty solid localization and panning, but the surrounds offered less life. Still, they gave us a good feel for things and clearly surpassed what was typical for 1977.

Audio quality suffered from some of the same concerns found in the SE remix. Speech was awfully inconsistent. Some lines were nice and crisp, while others were brittle and muddy. I guess the dialogue remained intelligible, but since I’ve seen the movie so many times, it’s hard to know how much I fill in mentally. In any case, I thought speech was up and down and presented the weakest aspect of the mix.

Music was erratic but more consistent. The score occasionally seemed somewhat too flat and subdued. However, it also showed good life and times and boasted some pretty nice low-end. Effects demonstrated similarly up and down elements. Some of them were dynamic and impressive, while others suffered from distortion and tinniness. Again, the age of the material meant that these pieces were acceptable for their era. The audio wasn’t as good as the SE’s remix, but I still thought it earned a “B” when compared to other flicks from its era. The soundfield was more ambitious than the usual 1977 film but the erratic audio quality created concerns.

I adored Star Wars as a kid and I’ve yet to find any reason to change that opinion. The “Special Edition” of the film presents more than a few alterations to the original movie, but it still provides the same excitement and freshness that made it a winner 29 years ago. The DVD offers excellent visuals with erratic but mostly positive audio. We also get a very entertaining and informative audio commentary along with the original theatrical cut of Star Wars.

This package stands as the third DVD release of Star Wars but it’s the first time the movie is available on its own. For folks who want to own it and not its sequels, I can recommend this release. Otherwise the boxed sets – either the deluxe 2004 edition or the more bare-bones 2005 package – are the way to go.

Die-hard fans will probably want to grab this release simply because it presents the original theatrical cut of the film. Unfortunately, it does so via a tired old transfer that sounds okay but doesn’t look too hot. Since I’m a nearly life-long fan, I’m glad to have that cut on DVD, but I’m still disappointed that Lucasfilm took the easy way out and didn’t give the original version of Star Wars a fresh transfer. Leave this one to obsessed archivists like me, though even I will likely watch the Special Edition version in the future; it just presents the movie in a vastly superior fashion.

To rate this film visit the original review of STAR WARS: EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE