Subject: REVIEW: STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (SPECIAL EDITION) (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Christopher E. Meadows)
Date: 3 Feb 1997 15:49:15 GMT

STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (SPECIAL EDITION)
                       A film review by Christopher E. Meadows
                        Copyright 1997 Christopher E. Meadows

           MPAA: PG (sci-fi violence, brief strong language)
      Written and Directed by George Lucas, Produced by Gary Kurtz
 Starring Mark Hamil, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Cushing, Alec
                    Guinness, Anthony Daniels, et al
                   Rating: 10/10 (***** out of *****)

What can you say about a legend?

Books could be, and indeed have been written about the Star Wars
trilogy, and rightfully so.  This is a set of movies that shattered all
expectations of what science fiction could be in the late 70s/early 80s,
inspiring literally dozens of clones, from Battlestar Galactica all the
way up to Stargate and Independance Day, and one could argue
revitalizing the whole science fiction genre.  The special effects were
groundbreaking, revolutionary for their day and still eminently
watchable well into twenty years later.  Literally millions of people
have seen the Star Wars trilogy and been touched by it.  And now, George
Lucas brings it back for a new audience to enjoy. 

Much has been and is still being made of the fact that Mr. Lucas has
gone back and revised his trilogy for rerelease now.  Some fans are
angry that he has dared to meddle with what they consider perfection,
while others are thrilled by the idea of seeing yesterday's Star Wars
updated with today's special effects wizardry.  Either way, the Special
Edition release means that Star Wars is back on the big screen, where
it rightfully deserves to be seen.

Can there be anyone in the world who doesn't know what Star Wars is
about?  In a way, Star Wars is so much a part of our cultural heritage
that it feels silly and almost artificial to try to summarize it.  It's
a story about a young man's coming of age, a fight for freedom against
an oppressive empire, a tale of swashbuckling and derring-do the likes
of which haven't been seen on the silver screen in decades, strange new
worlds with strange alien creatures and weird surprises around every
turn, and the yearning within each of us to realize our dreams and make
a difference in the world.  It's high adventure, incredible special
effects, and...well, it's just an _experience_.  Something about this
movie sparked the imagination of a generation...and it's about to do so
again. 

This new release of Star Wars comes as no surprise to many of the film's
devoted fans, who have been trading rumors and bits of information about
it for quite some time now.  Interviews, trailers, leaks from within
Lucasfilm...all of these have been collected, collated, and placed on
webpages for people to see (pages such as
http://www.islandnet.com/~corona/films/details/sw4.html or, my personal
favorite, http://leopard.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~koukoula/).  Pictures of
before and after have been placed side by side...even months before the
movies were released, fans were making comparisons. 

In some cases, the changes were nothing less than phenomenal, and this
can be seen from the comparison shots even before you go into the movie
theater.  The digital matte effects that were little more than a toy in
Forrest Gump are put to excellent use here, unnoticeably sprucing up
scenes that that George Lucas was unsatisfied with in the original.  For
instance, in my personal favorite example, the ancient temple on Yavin
that was formerly a flat stone edifice now has deep, moss-covered
carvings and etchings.  And Mos Eisley Spaceport is now a bustling,
booming city, with more surprises and things going on in the background
than you can notice on the first viewing.  

All the starships and fighters are now computer-animated, getting rid of
glitches and artifacts of the special effects processes used when the
film was originally made--and they look _fantastic_.  Four and a half
minutes of new or missing footage have been added, including a scene
with Jabba the Hutt that had originally been shelved because the state
of special effects in 1977 simply couldn't do it justice. 

However, much of the ten million dollars that was spent on the Star Wars
Special Edition restoration went into restoring the quality of the film
itself.  The negatives, badly damaged by the ravages of time, were
brightened and returned to their original splendor.  The audio tracks
were remixed and reprocessed, with reworked sound effects by effects
maven Ben Burtt, into glorious, booming, theater-shaking full-THX Dolby
digital stereo.  And _that_, more than the added scenes or new special
effects, is where the real value of this new version lies.  It's really
true what they say in the commercials: Star Wars loses _so much_ on the
small screen.  Even letterboxing doesn't make up for the decrease in
size and definition. 

In regard to the Star Wars Special Edition, and to the other two films
of the trilogy which have yet to be released, I'll make this final
recommendation: Go and see it.  Go and see it more than once...it may be
another twenty years before it comes back to the big screen after it's
gone this time.  Take along the youngsters who've never had the
big-screen Star Wars experience--you'll enjoy seeing it through their
eyes as much as they will enjoy it for the first time.  There's magic in
this movie--Special Edition or no, there can be no denying that it's
still Star Wars, and still has the power to thrill and enthrall children
of all ages, from four to four hundred.  Let's all return to that time
long ago, and that galaxy far, far away... 

Rating: 10 out of 10.  A _must-see_.

This review is copyright 1997 by Christopher E. Meadows.  Permission
granted for not-for-profit Usenet distribution via rec.arts.movies
reviews and associated archival; permission granted for inclusion in
Internet Movie Database and associated archival.  All other
distribution, including CD-ROM, requires permission from the author. 
-- 
Chris Meadows aka  | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co.
Robotech_Master    | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy)
[email-masked] | With a World Wide Web homepage located at
[email-masked] | http://www.jurai.net/~robotech/index.html