Passing the Saber: Introducing My Gen Alpha Son to 'STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE'

STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE was a sci-fi fantasy adventure film that was released in 1977, written and directed by George Lucas, and starring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker as well as Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and David Prowse as Darth Vader... and it’s basically about this farm kid stuck on a dusty desert planet who gets dragged into a galactic war after buying two secondhand droids carrying stolen space-station plans. He hooks up with an old hermit space wizard and a shady smuggler with a Wookiee partner, and they fly across the galaxy to rescue a kidnapped princess, learn how to use a mystical force field, and blow up a giant planet-killing death machine run by an evil guy in a black suit who breathes way too loud.

Leading up to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, my oldest son and I had a marathon spanning between a year and a half to two years watching roughly 65 Marvel movies. It became such an experience and tradition that he was like, “After these Marvel movies… what are we going to do? It’ll be weird just suddenly having nothing.” I was like, “Man, there are so many massive franchises you have yet to dip your toes in.”

So, we ultimately decided to watch the Star Wars series for his first time. Now, there was some consideration on how to do this. Do we watch it in chronological order and watch The Phantom Menace first? Do we watch in release order? Do we do the Machete order? There are so many different ways you can legitimately watch Star Wars, and every version is valid in its own right… but I don’t think it’s ever as impactful unless you do what everyone originally had to do, and watch in release order. Plus, thematically, watching the prequel trilogy before the OG might give you the wrong idea. You’d get a ton of action and choreography and “fun” moments, and then the original trilogy, which began nearly 50 years ago, would immediately feel dated and slow. I think it’s much more of a gradual incline, so we began where it all started in 1977 with Star Wars: A New Hope, originally titled simply: Star Wars.

Going into this film for the umpteenth time, I was excited for myself… because I love Star Wars, but I was petrified for my son, who grew up with all of the modern expectations you can possibly have as a Gen Alpha kid. He lives by tablet screens and YouTube Shorts. What he watches on a day-by-day basis is far different from what Star Wars was like a half century ago. My biggest fear was that he would walk out of this movie thinking it was the most bland, boring piece of crap he’s ever seen. I was about 80% positive my heart would break this day. Yet, my son came out of the movie not necessarily hating it… but enjoying it enough to give it a score of 4 out of 5. His only real comment on it was that it could have been better, but he liked it. You know what, that’s about as perfect and as concise of a review as I can come up with. I agree with him. I do like Star Wars, admittedly probably more than him, but A New Hope could undoubtedly be better… in a couple of areas.

First of all, the pacing of the film is admittedly all over the place, especially in comparison to something released in today’s day and age. You start off with an orphan living with his aunt and uncle, à la Spider-Man, right... and he gets to be an orphan all over again when they get scorched. So the idea from there on out is, let’s make this Luke Skywalker guy a Jedi, like his father before him. To do that, they head for Alderaan, but on the way, Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star, and their entire mission is upended when the Death Star pulls them in. So they have to go on a side quest to turn off that beam so they can leave, and the whole movie becomes about escaping the Death Star. In the process, they run into Princess Leia, who tells them once they get out of there that they have to destroy the Death Star, and so the movie then becomes all about destroying the Death Star. By the end of the movie, you kind of forget that Luke was supposed to become a Jedi… and it’s entirely ignored until they bring it up again in the sequels. It’s a weird narrative that seems to be playing hopscotch or leapfrog a bit. I feel like a big reason why I love it regardless has much more to do with the nostalgia and the fact that I’ve seen it a million times and can recite the entire film from heart. It’s just so classic and fun and thrilling, even right there at the start.

The other problem I feel like the movie has, or at least I’ve historically said as much, is that the lightsaber duel towards the end of the second act in this movie… is the weakest lightsaber fight out of every single movie. In a big way, the fight is just a couple of old senile geezers waving sticks at each other... there’s very little choreography going on. However, I will admit… every time I watch it, it feels like it gets better and I appreciate it more. This fight isn’t so much about choreography and stance and framework. It’s much more about tension. You haven’t seen this lightsaber do… pretty much anything throughout the movie. However, you do know that it can cut off an alien’s arm without a second thought. So it’s hot. It’s dangerous… and there are two people with lightsabers getting those dangerous weapons very close to each other’s face. In 1977… that had to be… just out of this world.

Past those very small, trivial complaints, I really do love this movie. John Williams probably has his best musical score here. The long list of characters are endlessly memorable. I have said my entire life that I think the best villainous character ever written was Darth Vader. There’s been a lot that kind of match him in certain ways, but Darth is on another level entirely. The worldbuilding is probably what I would consider the best worldbuilding in a sci-fi film. The stormtroopers are great, the lines are classic, the force choking is thrilling. I really do believe every time I watch the movie, it just gets better and better.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 45/50 (90%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 47/50 (94%)

• Total Combined Score: 92/100 (92% or 4.5/5 on Letterboxd)