STAR WARS

   Film (1977). 20th Century-Fox. Dir George LUCAS, starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing. Screenplay Lucas. 121 mins. Colour.

   One of the most financially successful sf films to date, SW is an entertaining pastiche that draws upon comic strips, old serials, Westerns, James Bond stories, The Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Errol Flynn swashbucklers and movies about WWII - the ending, for instance, islifted from The Dam Busters (1955). Lucas may not have succeeded in unifying these diverse elements into a seamless whole, but SW is always visually interesting. The gratifyingly spectacular special effects and martial music hypnotize the audience into uncritical acceptance of the basically absurd, deliberately PULP-MAGAZINE-style conflict between Good and Evil. Young Luke Skywalker (Hamill) becomes involved in a mission to rescue a princess (Fisher) from the evil head of a decadent GALACTIC EMPIRE.The Empire's military headquarters is the Death Star, the size of asmall moon and capable of destroying whole planets. With the help of an old man who possesses supernatural powers (Guinness), a human mercenary (Ford) and his alien sidekick Chewbacca, plus 2 cute ROBOTS, Luke rescuesthe princess and secures information that enables a group of rebel fighters to destroy the Death Star. He is assisted by a power of good, the "Force", left vaguely ecumenical enough to be equally inoffensive to all.The plot is almost precisely that of a fairy tale. The villainous hit of the film was the Emperor's associate, the asthmatically breathing, masked, black-clad giant, Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones). The film received a HUGO.The special effects are very sophisticated. John Dykstra, in charge of SW's miniature photography, used an automatic matteing system with the help of such technical innovations as a computer-linked effects camera. While the model work was created by US effects men, the live-action settings and effects were created by UK technicians, such as John Barry, production designer, and John Stears, physical effects.SW'sinfluence was great, and not just within the CINEMA. As a direct consequence of its success, many paperback PUBLISHING houses switched their sf lines strongly toward juvenile SPACE OPERA. The novelization, attributed to Lucas but rumoured to be by Alan Dean FOSTER, is Star Wars * (1976). The two sequels are The EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and The RETURNOF THE JEDI (1983).

   JB/PN

   See also: GAMES AND TOYS; HISTORY OF SF; SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; SWORD AND SORCERY; TABOOS; UFOS.