35. Star Wars: A New Hope
Before I say anything about this movie I will state that I full acknowledge Empire to be the best of the trilogy. That being said, I love A New Hope. There’s something charming about the low-budget film that no one knew what to expect from. The effects don’t hold up sometimes (but still look better than any addition CGI bullshit) and as you grow up you realize Luke is SUPER whiny it doesn’t make the movie any less impressive or important.
However more than any other reason I love this movie for nostalgia sake. The film reminds me of spending time with my dad. This was one of the few films that we both equally loved. Being that my dad was quite the athlete while I was not we rarely had things to bond over. But I remember the day he showed me Star Wars.
When I was very young (about 4) we were at my aunt and uncle’s house. Everyone was watching Spaceballs. I wandered upstairs and started watching it, suddenly there was an alien exploding out of a guys stomach. Yes this was a PG-13 comedy making fun of the infamous and gory sequence from Alien, but to 4 year old me it was some of the scariest shit I’d ever seen. I immediately ran from the room crying.
A few months later my dad decided he wanted to show me Star Wars, at first I wanted nothing to do with the movie. The second I saw Darth Vader I thought I was going to see an alien explode out of someone’s stomach. He promised me that doesn’t happen and I sat and watched it.
The next week, we watched it again. And the following week, again. Every Friday night my dad and I would cook some burgers, make a milkshake and watch Star Wars. Eventually I watched the whole series and he’d tell me the stories of ‘how Vader got burnt up’ and lots of other backstories. To this day I don’t know how he knew these things because my dad isn’t the kind of person to read or do research, however he would have been 18 when A New Hope came out... I’d love to hear his story of seeing it for the first time.
It’s these moments of childhood nostalgia, the fairy tale quality of the film, the charm, the moral and overwhelming good triumphs over evil aspect that makes me love this film. Future films got darker, with better dialogue and more elaborate special effects and creatures but A New Hope will always hold a special place in my heart.
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