Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1977 (riff of the 2004 DVD edition)
Genre:  Fantasy, Science Fiction
Director:  George Lucas
Starring:  Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew
Rifftrax Year:  2008
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Here it is folks, the blockbuster that changed the world.  With the one-two punch of Jaws and Star Wars Hollywood began to shift into crowd pleasing big budget spectacles of which we are still enjoying today.  This original Star Wars (I shall refer to it as "A New Hope" as little as possible, because it's a shit title) tells the story of Luke Skywalker, who finds two droids attempting to deliver a message from Princess Leia begging an elderly Jedi Obi Wan Kenobi for assistance in destroying a galactic Empire's latest weapon, the Death Star, which has the power to destroy planets.

Influenced by the serialized science fiction of the past as well as the Akira Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress (which for the record I think more highly of than Star Wars, to be honest), Star Wars struck a chord with viewers of all ages when it was first released in 1977.  Imaginations were sparked, spectacle kept viewers thrilled and coming back for more, and special effects techniques took a massive leap forward.

I'm already on record saying I like the movie but don't love it.  I find the adventure fun, though the pacing somewhat sluggish and padded.  I find that very little happens in the movie especially in comparison to other Star Wars movies.  Granted this probably isn't a valid complaint, since in 1977 we didn't have other Star Wars movies to compare it to.  The finale areal dogfight is a winner, though a lot of the action throughout sometimes feels stunted.  The fantasy tales of Jedi mixed in with space dystopia doesn't always work for me in this film since the former aspect feels underdeveloped in favor of emphasizing the latter as the main premise, leading to a finale of Luke "using the Force" that really makes me shrug because it seems like an unnecessary cheat.  One could argue that this fleshes out the galaxy far, far away, though my counterpoint is that they fleshed the idea of the Jedi out far more in the sequels than they did in this film.  Taking this movie by itself it has always seemed awkward to me.

I understand why people like it, and for anybody who enjoys spectacle filmmaking has to at least respect Star Wars.  I just don't love it.  It's fun, but I find it more fun in a pop it in on a Saturday afternoon if nothing else is on kind of fun.  I don't really have an argument against it though other than I don't quite gel with it the way so many others do.

The Trax

Well we're into the nitty gritty with Rifftrax taking on what is considered to be a GOOD Star Wars movie for once.  I profess optimism in the face of that, as the last two Star Wars riffs were vast improvements over the first two.

This original Star Wars film proves to a bit wavy, with joke quality varying based upon what patch of the film we're in.  This could be a fault of the film itself, as it tends to run sequences quite long and some segments are more interesting than others.  As the film started I wasn't too impressed as we meet C-3PO and R2-D2 and we're given similar jokes to the previous times we've bumped into these characters (of the 3PO is gay and R2 has a foul mouth type).  Once we meet up with Luke Skywalker there is a bit more enthusiasm for the whiny character and riff inspiration skyrockets.  There is quite a bit more creativity here, with some of my favorite gags coming at the expense of the prequel trilogy (I laughed quite a while when Mike translated R2 as "I stood next to your dying mother.").

From that point I it dwindles before running hot and cold throughout the rest of the film.  All told it's overall not too dissimilar an experience than the Attack of the Clones riff.  My conclusion as to whether or not it's worth purchasing is pretty much the same.  When I was laughing I was laughing really hard, and even the lesser moments usually amused.  If you have this movie in your collection this might be fun to listen to at least once.

Note:  The original Star Wars trilogy has been edited to shit since 1997.  The Rifftrax was created around the 2004 DVD editions of the film.  The current blu-ray editions have been altered from these versions, though it doesn't appear to be too drastic in terms of runtime.  The blu-ray runs six seconds longer than the DVD, but as always if one wants the purest syncing experience then you would want to use the DVD.

Good