Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope (1977). Star Wars. Nothing but Star Wars.

#starwars #70s #70smovies #maythe4thbewithyou #maythefourthbewithyou
Stam Fine Reviews looks at a little film from 1977, that turned out to a phenomenon spawning, well, you name it. Star Wars was Director George Lucas' Magnum Opus, even though there are no ice creams or, indeed, a single octopus in it.
Star Wars follows a young lad as he leaves behind his drab existence on an unnamed desert planet (yes, we know it's Tatooine, but watch the vid) and goes on an adventure we he rescues a princess and destroys a deadly space station. That's pretty much my ideal Sunday.
Stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Cushing, Sir Alec Guiness, Anthony Daniels, Dave Prowse, Peter Mayhew, James Earl Jones, Kenny Baker, Denis Lawson.
0:00 Introduction
1:56 Quick Recap
3:30 George Lucas
5:53 The Star Wars
8:56 Industrial Light and Magic
14:00 Casting and Characters
21:00 Music and Sound
22:37 Sets, Costumes, Creatures, Props
26.22 Production Difficulties
28:38 ILM and the Hamburger
29:45 The Edit
31:50 Pickups, Inserts, Previews
33:56 Release
36:42 Merchandise
37:04 The Special That Dare Not Speak Its Name
37:27 Re-releases, Sequels, Prequels and Special Editions
39:04 The Smells, The Names, The Continuity, The Fans
You watched the whole thing? May the Force Be With You.
Happy Star Wars Day!

[@StamFine]

CORRECTIONS HERE: Correction 1: Tractor Beam. Not Shield Generator. Tractor Beam. Just like in Empire when the Imperials tried to knock out (checks notes) Shield Generator. In this film, Ben deactivates the tractor beam. Meanwhile, I have a tractor beam aimed at that drone that keeps trying to take photos of my backyard nude sunbathing sessions. Correction 2: Expanded Universe, not Extended.

[@ryklatortuga4146]

"Look at the size of that thing..." - Luke "Put it away, Chewie!" - Han (Dialogue redacted)

[@l.a.gothro3999]

I can sincerely declare it's not me.

[@johnruddick686]

I have an original example of the comic book made for the first star wars in hardback, it was created before the movie came out so all the illustrations look more like a Flash Gordon comic. It's a great piece of memorabilia. One day I will flog it for loads of cash lol 😂

[@DaveSCameron]

So you are saying that you missed the first Clash of the Titans movie and also Battlestar Galactica too on release, I’m going to have to reassess my decision to subscribe to this channel after this information, they always say not to expect too much of your heroes and so on but all I can say is that you have made a happy man very sad…

[@atariboy9084]

On May 25th 1977 I was 5 years old and my mother took me to see Star Wars at the NYC Loews Astor Plaza Movie theater. Saw the rest of the trilogy there but sadly the movie theater is closed down.

[@DavyDredd14]

Between the years 1977 to 1981 this Film was known as : STAR WARS

[@sexobscura]

correct - and a stand-alone film ... regardless of what Lucas says

[@lonjohnson5161]

Forget A New Hope. I remember it when it was just Star Wars. I'd give almost anything to experience the feeling of seeing that movie for the first time again.

[@damc8415]

I didn’t see the original Star Wars on the big screen until the 20th-anniversary Special Edition, and I sat on the front row. It was a totally different experience from watching the movie on home video: the Imperial Star Destroyer in the opening scene looked like it was flying directly overhead, and like it was 10 miles long; in Darth Vader’s first appearance, he looked HUGE, and like he paused to glare down at the audience before interrogating the Rebels; and the Cantina and Death Star scenes had rich details that I had never noticed before on a smaller screen.

[@lorenzo.pastore]

You can search for Despecialized version: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy%27s_Despecialized_Edition

[@Aaron-qg8fo]

You should give 4k77 a watch. Especially if you have a larger tv. Lights off and volume cranked. It was a magical experience.

[@davecrowson448]

I was nine in 1977, and everything definitely changed for me after seeing it. My head exploded, and I must have seen it at least ten or more times before Empire came out. And believe me, if I could have seen it more, I would have. I’d have gone to see it daily! I was slightly obsessed. Like others have said, there was nothing else like it.

[@GrimGalore]

The first time I saw this in a theater, it was just called Star Wars.

[@MattMcIrvin]

Every time I see the words "Episode IV: A New Hope" in the crawl I have to go yell at a cloud.

[@GrimGalore]

@@MattMcIrvin It was the first of many of George's OCD changes.

[@BTScriviner]

​@@MattMcIrvinI remember seeing it for when it was first released and it always started with the EPISODE IV A New Hope crawl.

[@DarranSims]

@@BTScriviner Only after 1981.

[@BTScriviner]

@@DarranSims I definitely saw it for the first time in 1977, so I guess I got a case of the Mandela effect and assumed it was always there based on later viewings.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

I’m still fascinated by the making & behind the scenes of Star Wars 77. It’s such an achievement & vision by George Lucas to make it! And boy what he had to create in order to make it. It’s just amazing that he pulled it off! Super cool stuff! 🤯🤯🤯😎😎😎👍👍👍

[@stujm84]

The multipart docu on disney+ about Industrial Liight and Magic is a great insight into how they made the effects for the Star Wars Trilogy, well worth a watch if you have access (or can find it elsewhere)

[@stephendavis5530]

@@stujm84 I was just going to mention this. The making of Star Wars would make a great little film on its own. In fact, it's a wonder it actually got made at all. The special effects team have been labelled as pretty lazy and running the place like a frat house because of how little they'd done when the truth was they had to build all the motion control stuff from scratch. It took that long, they only got round to making two effects shots.

[@MattMcIrvin]

@@stephendavis5530 There was literally a TV special called "The Making of Star Wars" that was, in its own way, a landmark--it led to a boom in behind-the-scenes documentaries about movie effects and was the ancestor of every DVD featurette to please the nerds. Of course, it *wasn't* the tell-all you're looking for. But it is the reason every fan knew about the Jabba scene before Lucas pasted some CGI effects on it and put it in the movie, because "The Making of Star Wars" happened to concentrate on the filming of it as an example of shooting the movie. Some of the other shots in this video are taken from it as well.

[@RighteousBrother]

Literally building computers and equipment that didn't exist incredible!

[@DaveSCameron]

Did you buy any of the figurines?

[@keithmacintyre1889]

A long time ago in the summer of 1977, I was a 10 year old kid who, one day, walked into a movie theatre to see "some far-out space movie" that was rapidly becoming "the talk of the town" on the schoolyard playground... I walked in an innocent, naive little child, only interested in Mad Libs, Duncan Yo-yos, Marshall Brodien TV Magic Cards, and Evel Knievel toys... I walked out CHANGED FOREVER. On that glorious day, I had seen the greatest movie that would EVER be made... STAR WARS... This groundbreaking film from writer/director George Lucas TOTALLY changed my life... It absolutely blew me away, filling my heart with joy, stimulating my imagination, and kick-starting my love for cinema... That day was so momentous for me, and I would never be the same again... I will never forget it... From the moment the 20th Century Fox fanfare and John Williams' theme blasted through the theatre speaker system, and "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" and that "Flash Gordon inspired" opening crawl came on the screen, and that gigantic Star Destroyer appeared, flying over my head, towering above me as I sat in my theatre seat... and kept going... and going...and going... and as the entire audience gasped with amazement... at that very moment, I was instantaneously mesmerized, transfixed, and transformed... and I was only 5 minutes into the movie... I still had 2 more hours to go! As I sat In amazement, I was terrified by a helmeted figure in black, Darth Vader... In fact, the whole audience "booed" him as he made his entrance.. .We knew NOTHING about the story yet, but just KNEW that this guy deserved a collective "booing"!... It was like we were watching a SILENT MOVIE!... And as the movie continued, I was thrilled by the heroic exploits of the dashing smuggler Han Solo and the feisty Princess Leia, and emboldened by the brave, heroic, idealistic actions of the farm boy turned hero of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker! And by the film's spectacular climax of the rebel assault on the Death Star (the greatest ending ever committed to celluloid, BTW), my heart was pounding, and my spirit was soaring... And I will NEVER forget the standing ovation of applause that erupted as the credits rolled... Everyone in that audience didn't know it yet, but we had all just been first-hand witnesses to cinematic HISTORY! This was NOT The Apple Dumpling Gang, Herbie Rides Again, Benji, The Bad News Bears, or any of the other 70's kiddie "dreck" that I was being subjected to at that time... No, this was something VERY DIFFERENT... Now, thankfully, it wasn't ALL awful "dreck"... Even at that young age, I had managed to see a very small handful of very good and (for their time) very impressive big-screen spectacles in the theatre, such as: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), Return of the Pink Panther (1975), At the Earth's Core (1976), Logan's Run (1976), and King Kong (1976)... but NOTHING could have prepared me (or the rest of the world) for the earth-shattering phenomenon that was STAR WARS and the change it would bring... the film that would propel a 1970's audience far beyond their wildest film-going expectations, and revolutionize the motion picture industry FOREVER. Words can never fully describe what it was like to be alive in the summer of 1977 during the peak height of "Star Wars Mania"... except to say that it was pure MAGIC. Now, I had ALWAYS loved Sci-fi/Fantasy films, Television, and comics before Star Wars, watching reruns of Star Trek and Batman on TV, watching the Planet of the Apes and James Bond movies on TV, and reading the Amazing Spider-Man comics... but Star Wars took things to a whole new level... This was on the BIG SCREEN, and on such a grand scale that I (or ANYONE) had never seen before. Plus, unlike most Sci-fi around that time (which was very dystopian), this was FUN! I will never forget the day that I went to see Star Wars for the first time... May 25th, 1977... My father took my younger brother and me... I remember we went in my father's company truck (my brother and I rode in the bed of the truck), I remember that we stopped at Burger Chef first to have dinner, and I got one of the four SW promotional posters that they were selling there (I got the one with C-3PO and R2-D2... the first time that I ever laid eyes on ANY characters from SW!)... I remember that the ticket line went on for what seemed like forever... I remember my father bought us both a Hershey bar, and he got a bucket of popcorn with extra butter for us all to share... How do I remember THAT?!?... And when the movie was over, I remember the audience erupting into insane thunderous cheers and applause that I had never experienced before! Naturally, my brother loved the movie, too... but the amazing thing was that even my father (who probably just thought he was taking his children to see some "dumb kid's film") was crazy about it as well!... My mother didn't go that night, and she always regretted it... She told me much later in life that if she had known that it was to be such an important moment in my life, she would have loved to experience my VERY FIRST viewing of SW!... Of course, she did take my brother and I to see it many times after my first viewing ...And she loved it too! I became an instant fanatic... I saw the film eleven times in the movie theatre during its initial run (which wasn't hard to do, as it stayed at our local theatre for an entire year!)... I sneaked my portable tape recorder into the theatre and audio-recorded the entire film so that I could listen to the adventure over and over in the comfort of my own bedroom... I dressed up in a make-shift Darth Vader costume for Halloween... I filled many sketchbooks with countless drawings of the creatures and spaceships... I collected the action figures, trading cards, posters, books, and model kits (and I STILL have all of that "stuff") ... I always wore my Star Wars T-shirt... I always drank out of my Star Wars cup... I listened to John Williams' Star Wars soundtrack album constantly, becoming a fan of symphonic and film score music... I watched "The Making of Star Wars" TV special, becoming fascinated by the way movies were made, even making a few myself with my Super-8 camera... I watched the Academy Awards for the very first time to see my favorite movie sweep the Oscars with 10 nominations and 7 wins... I watched the "infamous" Holiday Special in 1978 ... Lumpy... Itchy... Harvey Korman... Bea Arthur... Wookiee-ookiees... And I LOVED it... ("Hey, I was 11 when it aired in 1978!"). I can't believe how many Slushies that I drank so that I could collect EVERY plastic Star Wars cup, and how many rock-hard sticks of pink gum that I chewed so that I could complete the Topps trading card set... The mind boggles... How did my stomach EVER survive that? An amusing aside: I will NEVER forget when my parents took me to the record store to get the STAR WARS soundtrack by John Williams... We were driving home, and I was in the back seat of the car, looking at the LP... "Something is WRONG here", I said to myself... Well, it turned out that my parents had accidentally purchased the MECO DISCO VERSION! ... What did they know, after all? Obviously, we had to turn around and go back to the store to exchange it! (Of course, I''ve bought the Meco version again since that time). And after 47 years, I continue to love STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE more and more... It has aged like fine wine... It is my #1 favorite movie of all time, followed by my 2nd favorite movie of all time: The Empire Strikes Back, and my 3rd favorite movie of all time: Return of the Jedi...These 3 movies are flawless and perfect, collectively making up not only the greatest cinematic trilogy ever made, but the three greatest films of any kind ever made, and the greatest cinematic story ever told... PERIOD. I love ALL of Star Wars (unlike some SW fans, I absolutely adore the Prequels and the Sequels, I love the changes to the Special Editions, the Spin-offs are great as well)), but it all comes back to that first film... It is the perfect story... The perfect film... A phenomenon... A bona fide classic.. A MASTERPIECE.. I've had the great privilege of seeing (and in a few cases, actually meeting) many STAR WARS legends over the past years: George Lucas. Gary Kurtz, Irvin Kershner, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mathew, David Prowse, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid, Hayden Christensen, Jake Lloyd, John Williams, Ralph McQuarrie, Dennis Muren, Ben Burtt, and many other cast and crew members... The three biggest events that I was fortunate enough to attend were the 10th anniversary Star Wars Convention in Los Angeles (1987), the 35th anniversary Star Wars Celebration in Orlando (2012), and the 40th anniversary Star Wars Celebration in Orlando (2017)... Some of the happiest and most thrilling experiences of my life that I'll always cherish and not forget. I will always be thankful to George Lucas for taking me to his galaxy far, far away... Words can never express the utter joy and happiness that his six STAR WARS films have given me... and continue to give me to this very day... And in particular, I would thank him for that life-altering day in the summer of 1977 when I walked into that movie theatre to see "that far-out space movie", aka: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE, for the very 1st time... It's odd to think a that a mere film could have that kind of power to change one's life in such a profoundly positive way.... And just think, things could have gone VERY DIFFERENTLY and HORRIBLY WRONG that day if I had instead gone to see some "awful piece of dreck" that was also playing in theatres at the same time... like Tentacles ("Yikes!")... or Viva Knievel ("Ouch!")... or Pete's Dragon ("Uhg!").

[@richardvinsen2385]

What did you wear when you went to see Star Wars the first time? What row of the theater were your seats? It took me longer to read your comment than to watch this video.

[@TalentedLMT]

Omg. Longest comment EVER. You couldn’t have edited down a bit???

[@bensneb360]

Han Solo: Everything’s perfectly all right now. We're Stam Fine. We're all Stam Fine here now, thank you. How are you?

[@tremorist]

The so called "Despecialized Edition" is where it's at.

[@TheRadioAteMyTV]

I have seen the "updated" Star Trek the original series videos and same thing. We fell in love with the originals, it never needed to be made more special, it was special from the beginning.

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

Awesome behind the scenes stuff. Before the re-edit, the light sabers in 'A New Hope' looked terrible -- I'm glad that they changed them as they did. Though Han definitely shot first.

[@aaronleverton4221]

None of my friends saw Star Wars in the cinema, we were just a couple of years too young. Our parents took us to see Superman, The Muppets and then The Empire Strikes Back. So we saw Star Wars on VHS and a couple of things stood out. Vader wasn't as big, black and impressive/imposing in Star Wars as he was in Empire, the Falcon worked properly and the lihgtsabres didn't look right. It's funny that of those three it's really Vader's presence and the lightsabres that seem to linger. During Empire Kirshner did a lot more "hero shots" of Vader filming him from below centre with an up angle that made him feel even taller/more imposing than Dave Prowse was (and he wasn't short to begin with).

[@permiek]

Brave to take on this review. Good thing no-one else has ever reviewed it. 🤣

[@StamFine]

It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

[@6581punk]

Faith no more....

[@blissmaster71]

@@StamFine being shown the unremastered footage was valuable in itself: you see how primitive it was compared to today, but how it was still way better looking than Star Crash, Star Odyssey, etc.

[@agl1138]

To take on this review, brave you are...

[@alphawoolf5981]

On my 4th viewing of Star Wars I took my Mom's small tape recorder into the cinema. Though I couldn't see when to properly change the tapes, I captured most of the film. I listened to those recordings a million times. The film is indelibly recorded in my brain. Star Wars is easily the best of the first three movies (haven't seen the others). By the time the 3rd movie was made, I had done a fair bit of growing up and wanted more from my movies (I mean, teddy bears against a galactic empire, what?)

[@MrWhipple42]

I was 8 years old when Star Wars came out. I saw it seven times in the theater. It deeply affected my life in ways that are hard to describe. Those of you who were alive before 1977 know what I'm talking about.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

Well, small children are the ideal viewership for such a film. But when we grow up, we put away childish things.

[@Strugen.]

@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx Enjoying a 2 hour film as an adult that you watched in your youth is hardly childish. You don't speak for me and millions of fans around the world who can still enjoy this ground breaking movie that changed cinema when you say "we"

[@luvz2reed]

It led me to a successful 20 year career in Hollywood.

[@bronxbomber2150]

@Rebecca You sound like a sociable person.

[@Monkee3000]

​@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx Read the full quotation. I don't think you understood it. Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up C.S. Lewis

[@ludwik7326]

As someone who grew up with the prequels, I believe the Original Star Wars is still the best, and that it always will be, it's a pure, unpretentious film that never tries to be anything that it isn't It was the right elements at the right time, and you just can't duplicate that Thank you for this wonderful video

[@MattMcIrvin]

9:56 Watching "2001" now, you can actually spot that in a significant number of scenes the spacecraft are 2D photographs of the model being slid around against the background. It worked well enough for the kinds of shots Kubrick needed, but obviously that wasn't going to cut it with the space dogfights Lucas wanted. Trumbull used early forms of motion control to do things like the Star Gate sequence, but at the time, he was limited to simple analog controls rather than a programmable computer.

[@mikeshirleyforever]

This will always be my favourite Star Wars film of them all. Just as a standalone film, and back before the whole Episode marketing, it is still a wonderful experience and it will always be pure Star Wars to me. It all felt like a lucky accident that totally crept up on people at the right place and time.

[@intrograted792]

Ep 4 is my favourite of all Star Wars media. Empire is a better film, but New Hope has the stronger nostalgia factor for me.

[@M.E.plusminus]

For me it will always be just Star Wars Episode 1 (no `New Hope´), I really don´t care for the official lore. The prequels are okay-ish fan fiction to me and the sequels are a lame joke.

[@jonbradley4789]

Another delightful episode. Your writing (script), is remarkably fresh. Not easy. I applaud your production.

[@fenderfetish]

+1 to this comment. I never miss a Stam FIne review =^)

[@DaveSCameron]

Top comment here 👍

[@RealDukeOfEdinburgh]

Please do Sapphire and Steel

[@MattMcIrvin]

As much as the fans love "The Empire Strikes Back" for the way it expanded "Star Wars" into STAR WARS, the gigantic mythical cycle... I still love this movie, in its original kind of janky 1977 cut, the best of the whole franchise. It was lightning in a bottle. As you say, it wasn't quite the same universe, but the one this film presented was the one I initially grew up with. I can't not be amazed and thrilled whenever I watch the climactic Death Star battle.

[@spjewkes]

The references to read-along books is strong with this one

[@robertridley-fj8zz]

When I saw Star Wars for the first time, I thought it was the most incredible, exciting, and emotionally moving film ever made; because I was 12..

[@l.a.gothro3999]

An absolutely great book about George Lucas is "Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas", by John Baxter. It's very well-written and goes back to GL's childhood, which much informed the content of the SW films. Well, the ones *he* wrote, anyway. The father-son dynamic in his films made more sense to me after reading the book.

[@thanksfernuthin]

This was the best one for me. It changed everything.

[@jameswalker5796]

I was 10 years old when my father dragged the whole family to see a movie that we had no idea about. My mother wondered why he'd want to take the kids to a war movie. I can't describe what it was like, as a kid, seeing this on the big screen for the first time.

[@GrandAdmThrawn]

I still remember the day I first watched this movie. Easter Monday 1990, I was 7. Man, good old days.

[@Malvito]

I was one of those kids (12, at the time) who lined up at a movie theater that only played one movie at a time and where one paid in cash, at the box office; I still have the theatre-style program that was handed out with the movie. So I have a deep and unabiding love for this one. That having been said, I love it as STAR WARS, and, given the multiple iterations of, and changes to, the script and the number of rewriters/ghostwriters involved, I don't buy into the notion that this movie was intended to be part 4 all the time. I had to laugh at the description of George Lucas's battles with the English DP and work crew, as this sounds almost identical to James Cameron's battles with an English DP and work crew, on ALIENS. Based on the description in the ALIENS doc, I understand that Mr Cameron's reaction was somewhat more volatile. There is a terrific documentary about the Holiday special, A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE; worth a look. AND there are prints of the Holiday Special on KZbin, in much better condition than the multiply-duped VHS/DVD copies. Having a clearer picture does not improve the Holiday Special, but it does make it easier on the eyes.

[@timothybarnett1006]

My favourite bit of _Star Wars_ trivia is that Ben Burt used John Wayne dialogue (Put through a synthesizer) for the Imperial spy on Tatooine who snitches on Luke and Ben.

[@ryklatortuga4146]

Get off your speeder... and drink your blue milk

[@daverobson3084]

"He's annoying and annoyed at the same time." Perhaps the most succinct description of C3-PO ever

[@necrotoaster94]

I learned some new things about a movie I've seen dozens of times, which is a rare treat. Thank you!

[@BarefootPeasant]

After all this time, the original 1977 Star Wars remains my favourite. There's a magic in its vibe and aesthetic that none of the others quite capture.

[@SonicAlpha]

That listen and read along reference hit me right in the nostalgia bone. That was my Empire Strikes Back experience for YEARS.

[@jerry2357]

I remember that when this first came out, there was a big dispute among my friends about whether Star Wars or Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a better film. Star Wars was a western in space, but Close Encounters was a real science fiction film.

[@robd9413]

"They were the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They couldn't help but be heroes."

[@atariboy9084]

On May 25th 1977 I was 5 years old and my mother took me to see Star Wars at the NYC Loews Astor Plaza Movie theater. Saw the rest of the trilogy there but sadly the movie theater is closed down.

[@captcomps]

I'm always very impressed by the depth of your reading in these reviews and this is no exception. Come for the hilarious satirical throwaway lines, stay for the masterclass in cinema and TV history!

[@thechrisandmikeshow]

My brother and I are part of the generation that were originally entertained and influenced by this film from a galaxy far, far away...and I wouldn't change that for anything. - Chris

[@nutherefurlong]

Good to see multiple versions used for your footage :) First saw it in one of the last drive-ins when I was probably too young for it. Became a major part of my life for the longest time (and it still is). Have the same problem, it's so fully remembered it takes some effort to notice things at times, but that whole Death Star attack is a real work of art that still gets to me after seeing it countless times myself. I've been fascinated to watch reactions of people who never watched the original three, even if they often watch the paved-over editions now. It's a tough topic to tackle, but I did learn about the TIE pilot helmets being part rebel helmet for the first time watching your review, so I guess there's still more to learn. And yeah, they never say the planet's name in the first one, wow. I guess Dantooine + secondary media mentioning it was enough to cement it in my mind. I do remember that they had the big GI Joe scale dolls for some Star Wars figures but I never went in on those. We may have actually had the "cardboard box," I'm not sure When reading Lucas's notes on where he wanted to take the story after the first film was done there were a lot of cool ideas and themes that I wish they'd kept, especially a de-emphasis on heritability of Force sensitivity. At times the whole thing seems like a happy accident, but I think there were enough people who cared who came together and created something great

[@THEOUTCASTSCREATIVE]

Great video Stam, on the film that led me onto the path (for better or worse, often worse) to become a filmmaker...

[@KJ-of6lf]

I was 14, saw it 9 times in the theater that summer, including once on a 70mm screen. Carrie Fisher jump-started my puberty that year!

[@shakestheclone1995]

That was great. Gimme some more!

[@thehighlander8407]

Brilliant as ever 🤩🤩

[@shakestheclone1995]

Dude! I’m seriously pumped for this.

[@6581punk]

A great summary, with stuff I didn't know. Star Wars is largely about nostalgia for me. I grew up with it being on TV. The prequels are now old enough for me to get some nostalgia but more about how disappointed we were when going to the cinema to see Episode 1 (needless to say, I didn't go to the cinema to see the other two).

[@TheRadioAteMyTV]

Episode 1 was good, but underwhelming, 2 is awful, I have never made it to the end awake, regardless of how many times I try, and 3 was just shy of brilliant, but it would have been peak movie had his ex-wife come back to edit this one too. Oh well.

[@xiaoka]

I think I've heard of this one...

[@andersdenkend]

Finally, a movie I know!

[@amarcellus1714]

Probably need to watch more movies to recognize more things

[@ELEKTROSKANSEN]

There are hundreds of reviews of this movie out there, but I still watched yours because I enjoy your style very much. Thanks, Stam! Obligatory memberberries: my first viewing happened when I was around 6 years old and watched it on a VHS on a 20-something CRT TV in 1990 or so. Not the best viewing arrangements, but it still blew my mind and made a lasting impression. Also, my mum spoiled Vader for me right there during the movie so I was robbed from the TESB plot twist by my own family!

[@bluewinds10]

I have a film for Stam to watch/review 'The Final Countdown' - I hadn't seen it for about 40 years and then suddenly it's on SBS

[@TheRadioAteMyTV]

That movie and The Philadelphia Experiment, make a great double feature!

[@jokerz7936]

I really did click on this thinking it would be Bill Murray singing Nothing But Star Wars.

[@powerbomb4833]

After I saw this upload I decided to binge all your videos on Star Wars and I'm finally here. What a blast.

[@jauregi2726]

Technically speaking, I´ve seen Star Wars more than once.

[@Sabocat]

I'd never heard of this movie before today. It looks like it's worth checking out.

[@GIBKEL]

You never forget your first time. Oh man it was a grand feeling, coming out of the theater. You nearly floated.

[@TheBeird]

A great video. I’ve long since fallen out of love with Star Wars but one thing is certain to me now; George Lucas ain’t no hack who got lucky. Post prequel trilogy I foolishly thought so but while he may lack in writing and directing, he is an amazing producer. And if nobody thinks delegation of tasks isn’t a talent in and of itself, then . . . they’ve never made Star Wars eh?

[@rpgober3048]

Happy Day!!!!!😅

[@Yxalitis]

Happy DayS FTFY

[@MattMcIrvin]

May the Thirdst Be With You

[@reillyboy1977]

Absolutely loved this video Stam, loads of great nuggets about the director and his early career. Keep up the stellar work it's much appreciated 👍

[@joh2434]

7:13 broke me 🤣

[@duncancurtis5108]

The hilarious Family Guy version, Quagmire and Cleveland high on weed😅

[@Cre80s]

This is great, funny as well, too.

[@billfrantz1638]

There it is! There… it is! The truck with the three wheels per axle! I’ve been thinking about that vehicle for decades trying to remember what television or movie it was used in. Without access to everything, it’s been difficult. You have given me a clue to finding, and possibly building, the 12 wheel RV. 😅

[@MattMcIrvin]

It was called the "Landmaster", to make the Googling easier. It was built for "Damnation Alley" as a full-sized custom vehicle but frequently re-used later, so you see it a lot.

[@greyareaRK1]

You say Tatoine? In Canada, we say Tatoine-eh. Starlog had a big picture spread of Star Wars about a year (?) before its release. My friend bought the magazine before we boarded a train for an elementary school class trip to Quebec City. We devoured the pictures all the way there and back. It blew our tiny little minds. Watched it in theatre about 11 times, with line-ups a mile long (it seemed). That hush before the Star Wars title still makes me catch my breath. I went to film school as a result, though NOBODY there wanted to hear about science fiction or special FX. Later went into 3D animation when that was a thing.

[@KarlWitsman]

Another great program.

[@davehandelman2832]

The entirely of filmmaking came together to create the most amazing experience anyone would EVER have in front of the big screen. Goddamn. Talk about vision.

[@stevedickson5853]

Darth Vader in 1977 with his dull black helmet and red lensed eyes never looked better

[@cyberprompt]

If I see the sound guy tapping on that support cable for high voltage towers... oh never mind, there he is. Haha, yah I see the resemblance of Han's vest with a Vegas dealer..."I suggest you HIT, sir".. I also like to live dangerously.

[@johncambridge554]

Excellent review - as always. You are one talented dude. Btw Your audio engineer is also jolly talented; but his persistent failure over several years to warn you that the volume on your videos was too low means you've given him a very apt surname-pseudonym.

[@uniktbrukernavn]

As someone who isn't a particularly big fan of Star Wars the continuity issues doesn't matter. I had to watch youtube to find out they're sisters. Only the first three movies are any good, I of course stopped watching after the sequel trilogy to preserve my sanity. You can see the future for the franchise with 'Return of the Jedi'. Good video on a topic that has been done to death more than a billion times. It was inspirational to see Lucas overcome the production process and how much of a perfectionist he was, even tho he perfected things I didn't like he stayed true to his vision blah-blah and heroes journey etc. Fade to black. Joking aside I see George Lucas in a slightly different light after this video 👍

[@TheNightBadger]

You prefaced this with the notion that there isn't much new that can be said about Star Wars, but you did a good job anyway! There was a sweet simplicity to the original movie which connected to the Saturday morning Sci-Fi serial inspiration for the film. Something which became increasingly lacking in later movies weighed down with turgid dialogue and heavily, humourless portentiousness. The comments from people reminiscing about their first time seeing the movie are great.

[@SusanShortland]

Brilliant review and brilliant timing for its release - May the 4th be with you !

[@ahhamartin]

There WAS a book before the film (not counting the storybook), a novel written by Lucas and released to build up the film. I've still got mine, and yes it's better (Chewy gets his medal, which Leia has to stretch to put on him).

[@AgharGrin]

"push the envelope..." you sir, are a monster.

[@mikeb8674]

I was not quite six when this hit the local second-run theater. The marquee looked like it was wrapped in eight-foot-high aluminum foil, with giant black lettering. I let out a shriek in the back seat of the family car, nearly causing my dad to spin out in the intersection. So long before this franchise became a ten-car wreck, it nearly caused one on the streets of my home town.

[@MrCCDV]

I used to have all those little record books back in the 80s. R2D2 squeaking was the prompt to turn the page.😂

[@Trilaan]

If you so wish, you can forget that there's any Star Wars movie other than this one. It's a complete story in itself.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Nice variant on the "push the envelope" running gag. Good old bullshit restocking fee. You got some great archive footage here. I've seen a lot of it in other documentaries, but not quite all of it! In general I'm always pleased with your archive footage. The musical gag for the hotel, and the CG recreation of the multi-exposure motion-capture process, were both really well done too. Honestly, I commend you for doing this. It's been talked-about so much that it's hard to know where to begin. And I know you must've faced that challenge too, given the intro, but you did a great job. I actually didn't know Lucas had already planned for the volcanic final battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin... that certainly does make those lines weird. I always thought it was remnants of an earlier plan where they were separate people. In fact I always thought Lucas' claim he'd planned it all in advance was total bollocks. But I guess there was, in fact, something to it. I'm also glad my school library happened to have the DVD edition with the non-remastered films on the second disc. It's not quite the laserdisc edition everyone lusts after, but it's apparently the second-best thing. I don't care about it that much to seek out more copies now, but I am glad I got to see the original VFX for the lightsabers (especially in the first film) compared to the 90s touch-up they got on the main discs.

[@tomsenior7405]

I didn't go see Star Wars when it first came out in cinemas, because my brothers were kind enough to warn me that is was a sequel to Ben Hur. I was so lucky to have brothers who took care of me and shielded me from long, boring epics about a bloke called Ben. I still haven't seen "Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men", "The Ben Carson Story" or "Bend in the River". I wish I was 6 years old again, my brothers had my best interests at heart... The lying gits.

[@MattMcIrvin]

"Ben", "Gentle Ben", "Young Benjamin Franklin"...

[@tomsenior7405]

@@MattMcIrvin That's the one about a giant bear that eats children. No thank you. It is scarier than The Monkees and more frightening than Scooby Doo Meets The Addams Family. My brothers warned me about TV Shows as well.

[@herbcraven7146]

I saw Star Wars for the first time at a drive-in. Not a nostalgic modern day drive in where the sound comes from your car stereo, but a genuine hang the crummy speaker on the driver's window and try to stay awake and see the film from the back of the station wagon over your parents' heads drive in at around midnight after sitting through Dino DeLaurentis' King Kong and having to run half a country mile to the snack bar to use the facillities and missing some crucial scene. I saw it once more in original release at a theater after that; a much better experience despite uncomfortable plastic seats and dried soda and gum on the floor. Ah, the seventies.

[@ZeusAmun-pt9dc]

I actually believe that what Obi-Wan said to Luke in this movie was the right thing to say as well as what an old man who reflects on their life would say because they don't go into detail they say it as they want to remember it. If a 19 year old boy hasn't been told the truth about his own father from his uncle who has been raising him then it's not your place as a man to tell him certain things. However once his uncle was dead there was nothing to hold him back from telling Luke other than the fact that you don't really want to tell a random 19 year old boy that his father is that evil genocidal maniac that everyone knows about.

[@Homeschoolsw6]

rad.

[@grayj7441]

My first movie

[@troubadour723]

It's a pity that something like Star Wars will never happen again. The general public today is simply not open-minded enough to support a new, original film not based around a familiar franchise, in such comparably large numbers. Regardless of how Star Wars is viewed today, the movie was not in sync with what was already popular in that era; so much so that everyone including Lucas himself thought it was going to flop (the one exception was Lucas' friend Steven Spielberg -- he still gets a cut to this day). And yet, a huge number of us went out and supported something we had never heard of before. Alas, today, nostalgia has replaced novelty.

[@MartinGalway]

Request: do Starship Troopers - plenty to talk about/ridicule on that one

[@toddnolastname4485]

I always pronounced it Tat two knee, until I saw Empire.

[@stellarmonk]

Hey Stam Fine, another banger video! My minor criticism as a fellow person from straya! Where is the shout out to all the Australian actors in this classic movie?

[@jeffnettleton3858]

I remember seeing the teaser trailer, before some movie, like Silver Streak or The Pink Panther Strikes Again (I think it was that one). It looked like nothing else at the time. The closest thing I could compare it to was a Ray Harryhausen film, like Sinbad. In fact, I thought Vader was a giant, or turned into one, based on the quick shot of him looming over the room, in Leia's cell. I thought the shots on the Death Star and Mos Eisley were some city, on some world or in some ancient past. It seemed more like a fantasy epic. Then, you started to get more, in Starlog magazine, then the Marvel comic adaptation and the Making of special, on tv (hosted by C3P0 and R2D2). A friend, at school had the novelization and I read the back copy, with talk of Luke taking up his father's laser sword. I had in my head a scene of him taking it down from a wall, like a scene in the tv movie version of The Mark of Zorro, from a couple of years before. Movies were a luxury, for my family, so I didn't get to see the film until late in the summer, after reading 3 of 6 Marvel issues. Nothing prepares you for the awesome sight of the Star Destroyer looming across the screen, seeming to go on forever, or the breathing sound, as Vader steps through the hatch. It sent chills down the spine. Empire may be the best film; but Star Wars was the best film experience, because everything was fresh, exciting and imaginative. With Empire, we had expectations; with Star Wars, we were blank slates and ate it up.

[@xiaoka]

Damnation Alley = Big screen premiere of the CyberTruck

[@6581punk]

Haha. Except the truck in that was pretty rugged and could overcome obstacles. It's a film with some good moments but mostly really awful special FX. I caught it on TV late one night and only watched it for a while due to Jan Michael Vincent (I was a huge Airwolf fan).

[@EugenioFilippi]

a Damn Fine Video!

[@doctorlolchicken7478]

Star Wars? This channel never fails to amaze me with these old sci fi shows I’ve never heard of. Next you’ll be telling me it has some decidedly non-sci fi actor in it like Andy Griffith or Alec Guinness.

[@akshaytrayner1960]

Great overview

[@torchwood00]

A New 7 Days

[@georgedrury2976]

This topic has been done to death. I almost didn't watch just for that reason. However, you added a nice fresh spin. Great job!

[@AlucardNoir]

HEI! What do you mean the holiday special was ALL AWFUL!? That Goodnight but not Goodbye song was great! GREAT I tell you!

[@inkermoy]

Yeah, I'm on of those Star Wars fans who thinks that so much bad Star Wars has come from Vader being Luke's father that I only rewatch Star Wars (1977). May 4K77 live forever! Even when I saw ROTJ in theaters at the age of 13, I thought Ben's line "from a certain point of view," was BS! So Yoda and Ben concoct a plot to raise Anakin's son to eventually fight and possibly kill his father? Uh what? With the timeline changes to fit Vader being Luke's father, it's like trying to fit a memory foam mattress back in it's shipping box. I do have thoughts how Ben's description of Vader killing Anakin could work and join up with Lucas' version of The Wills. But that's a story for another time. Thanks for this lengthy review. This fan even learned a bit of BTS trivia I wasn't aware of.

[@Water_Rabbit]

Prince Andrew's girlfriend Koo Stark with the binoculars at 30:27. The saucy royal has always liked them young.

[@chelmrtz]

Obi Wan to R2: I don’t know her Brilliant

[@l.a.gothro3999]

Han shot first!

[@alexfletcher5192]

It's been said that America in the late 1970s was basically Disco and Star Wars. And that is how I remember it as a child. Suddenly it was no longer cool or profitable to be grounded. Maybe the problem with it is that there is a political dimension that no longer appreciates reality today.

[@fenwickc2274]

here is something little known and not often said but a lot of the star wars story was inspired by the The Ramayana, which translated from Sanskrit means roughly, “Rama’s Journey” an ancient Indian epic

[@zorglubmagnus455]

"He's annoying and annoyed at the same time". I can reuse that.

[@joshpinchuk7061]

I can't believe in nearly 5 decades on this planet I've never heard of this movie. Is it any good?

[@scockery]

According to recent generations with no attentions spans, no, not really.