Star Wars at 40: A New Hope

Working out a reliable account of where George Lucas got his ideas for Star Wars from is a task fraught with peril. Just as Lucas has ill-advisedly revisited his earlier movies to sprinkle them with more CGI and unnecessary musical numbers, so he has revised his stories over the years about how Star Wars came about and how much of a "master plan" there was before he shot a frame of footage. Untangling this mess is not easy, but I will make the attempt.

 George Lucas and Anthony Daniels filming Star Wars in Tunisia, March 1976.

What is known is that George Lucas's first theatrical release, THX 1138, was science fiction and it was a genre he seemed fascinated by, although he was not really a hardcore fan. His early interest in speed, cars and high-tech aircraft coincided with the Space Race, which likely played a role. He also watched the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers movie serials starring Buster Crabbe. Although their original release was before Lucas was born, in the early 1950s the serials were edited into feature films and re-released in cinemas, which is where Lucas caught them. Lucas seemed more intrigued by Flash Gordon, which takes place on the fictional planet of Mongo with relative few elements from Earth (other than the visiting human characters). He not only went on to read many of the Flash Gordon comics but also some of the inspirational material, including the Barsoom (aka John Carter of Mars) novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Lucas's decision to make a second SF movie seems to have been made in 1970 or 1971, around the time THX 1138 was being shown to distributors and then its final release. The movie was critically well-received but general audiences seemed to find it too depressing and bleak. Lucas resolved to make another SF movie which was fun and colourful. He had been planning to make Apocalypse Now for his friend Francis Ford Coppola, but had second thoughts due the ongoing Vietnam War. Although critical of the war, Lucas was hesitant about being too on-the-nose in criticising it as he didn't want to be polemical. He felt that an SF project could tackle some of those ideas in an allegorical or metaphorical way instead which was less heavy-handed. Combined with legal problems, Lucas was happy to hand back Apocalypse Now to Coppola.

Lucas decided to make a bid for the Flash Gordon rights, with Coppola potentially signing on as a producer to help entice distributors on board. Prior to the release of The Godfather in 1972, Coppola's name wasn't quite the powerful force it was to become and Lucas found his pitch rejected. Dispirited, he turned his attention to American Graffiti. During the course of making that film, he discussed his ideas with co-producer Gary Kurtz and resolved to simply create his own SF mythology to back up a story.

Work on the project began in January 1973, after post-production on American Graffiti had wrapped, with Lucas working "full-time" for four months on a treatment. The first treatment focused on CJ Thorpe, a trainee "Jedi-Bendu space commando" studying under legendary warrior Mace Windy (later Windu). This treatment, under the name Journal of the Whills, did the rounds of several studios, but they were either baffled by it or concerned about the budget. Lucas produced another treatment, called The Star Wars, and began considering the problem that his story was simply far too big to fit comfortably in one movie.

To deal with the complexity, Lucas hit on an idea established by Akira Kurosawa in The Hidden Fortress, the notion of using the two most modest, least-powerful characters in the story as a window into the events and a way of commenting on the bigger epic going on (Kurosawa himself was probably influenced by Shakespeare's use of similar characters in his plays). Lucas was also inspired to pare down the complexity of the movie into a much more straightforward battle between the good Rebels and the evil Empire, with a central maguffin in the film of a huge space station and superweapon.

After having the project rejected several times, Lucas met with Alan Ladd, Jr., the head of 20th Century Fox, in June 1973. To Lucas's surprise, Ladd seemed much more enthusiastic. Aware of the building positive buzz over American Graffiti and having studied Lucas's career, Ladd decided he wanted to invest in the young film-maker. The sponsorship of Francis Ford Coppola and the fact Lucas had a ready-made team from American Graffiti, including Gary Kurtz, ready to go also didn't hurt. Ladd wasn't entirely sure what to make of the new project but decided he wanted to be on board, especially as Lucas had budgeted the film at a fairly modest $8 million and demanded a fairly low fee in return for the ludicrous idea of retaining the merchandise and sequel rights. In a move he later regretted, Ladd bought the treatment and gave Lucas the green light in return for these modest demands.

The script proceed over the next year and a half through four very tough drafts. Lucas was now on board with the idea of focusing the story on the two droids and using them to explain much of the backstory. His first full draft introduced Han Solo (originally a tall, green-skinned alien), Chewbacca (based on Lucas's pet dog, Indiana), the Death Star, Darth Vader, the Force (originally a magical energy field generated by the khyber or kyber crystals) and developed a new protagonist, Annikin Starkiller. Starkiller was originally a 60-year-old war veteran and general reluctantly dragged out of retirement to help the Rebellion. However, Lucas realised the film might be popular with children and they might want a younger character to relate to, so he revisited his original treatment concept of the hero being a young man trained in the ways of the Force under an older mentor. Annikin Starkiller became Luke Starkiller and the mentor became his father, and later his father's friend.

The second draft moved more dramatically towards the final film, although some major differences remained. Most notably, Luke's father Annikin (eventually spelt Anakin) was still alive and Luke had several brothers. For the third draft - given the title The Star Wars: From the Journals of Luke Starkiller - Lucas decided to have Anakin already dead at the start of the film, killed by the evil Darth Vader, and combined elements of the father and mentor characters into the new character of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Also by this time Lucas had started working with artist Ralph McQuarrie and begun considering the issue of visual effects.

To his surprise, Lucas discovered that the 20th Century Fox effects team had been disbanded. Rather hurriedly, he set up his own company, Industrial Light and Magic, in 1975 to begin working on the film. Thanks to McQuarrie's paintings, which established a coherent visual look for the movie early on even as the scripts changed rapidly, the effects team had some clear ideas about what Lucas wanted to do. Unfortunately, some of Lucas's demands, such as the epic space dogfights which had to feel like WW2 movies (which had often been shot simply using real fighters), seemed completely unachievable. This led to a lot of experimentation and hard work before they stumbled on the technique of motion control, keeping the models still and moving the camera around them in computer-controlled movements. Although the concept was not new - 2001: A Space Odyssey had used an earlier version for several model shots - increasing computer power allowed it to be better applied and more cheaply at scale for the first time.

Peter Cushing, George Lucas and Carrie Fisher on the set of Star Wars. Not pictured: Cushing's comfortable slippers, which he insisted on wearing on set.

Lucas delivered the fourth and final draft on New Year's Day 1976, under the somewhat overly cumbersome title: The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. This draft had been worked on by Lucas's American Graffiti collaborators, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, who had introduced much of the humorous dialogue and banter, particularly between Luke, Han and Leia. This draft also included the movie's opening crawl, which was huge and incomprehensible. Director Brian De Palma assisted Lucas in paring it down to the bare essentials of the plot.

Pre-production and casting was already underway, with the film resting heavily on the shoulders of an inexperienced trio of (relative) newcomers: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford (the latter rehired from American Graffiti after a stalled acting career and a side-gig as a carpenter). Veteran screen actors Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness were hired to play Grand Moff Tarkin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, respectively. The very tall David Prowse, then best-known for appearing in road safety educational films in the UK, was hired to play the role of Darth Vader. Prowse was under the impression that the final film would use his voice and was disappointed to learn that he would be dubbed over. Lucas first considered Orson Welles for the voice of Vader, but later settled on the much less well-known but equally theatrical tones of James Earl Jones.

Filming began in March 1976, with the shooting script mercifully shortened to The Star Wars. One of the last changes made was altering Luke's surname to "Skywalker" instead of the more dramatic (and, given the changes to the story, now slightly nonsensical) "Starkiller". Filming lasted approximately four months, concluding in July. Lucas found the shoot highly stressful, facing criticism of the script and his dialogue from his young actors (Harrison Ford famously quipping, "You can type this shit, George, but you can't say it,") and criticism of his shooting decisions from the English crew. Although Lucas was annoyed by the crew giving him far less leeway than he was used to from American teams, some of their choices turned out correct, particularly how they lit the Death Star sets. Lucas's vision had been darker and more threatening, but he conceded the antiseptic and clinical look fit the Empire much better.

Both cast and crew were confused by the script, not understanding how much of the movie would be put together in the editing room, but  Alec Guinness was instrumental in maintaining a professional demeanour on set. Although not thinking much of his dialogue or characterisation, Guinness was impressed at Lucas's willingness to kill off his character when he realised there was no role for him in the movie's denouement and even agreed to a minor pay cut in return for a percentage of the film's profits (a movie Guiness's agent described as mad, but Guinness noted worked out "very well" in the long run). Despite hating the increased fame that came from the role, Guinness retained a lot of respect for Lucas's technical skills and even - surprisingly - agreed to return for two cameos in the later films.

Industrial Light and Magic technicians working on the iconic Star Destroyer model for the opening shot of the film.

After shooting wrapped, Lucas had to start post-production. Due to time pressures, Industrial Light and Magic had been instructed to work on the effects whilst live-action filming was underway. Upon returning from the UK, Lucas found that relatively little had been accomplished, the effects team having instead spent half the budget on just getting the technology to work. Lucas had been stressed and depressed from the shoot and now had added pressure from overseeing the effects work. He was also dismayed by the movie's first edit, which was terrible. Editor John Jympson had picked some of the bafflingly weaker takes for many scenes and put them together in a very traditional, limp way. Lucas fired him and replaced him with Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew. They ended up throwing out almost half of Jympson's scene choices and replacing them with more dynamic, higher-energy takes. They also introduced the old-fashioned idea of using wipes to switch from one scene to the next, which improved pacing and structure.

In the 1970s, post-production on a film typically lasted a few weeks - maybe a month or two at the outside - and then the film was ready for release. The idea of a post-production schedule lasting months was bizarre to the studio. They'd already negotiated a budget hike during shooting to complete production (from $8 million to $9.9 million) and now they were faced with a six-month delay to release. They initially deemed this unacceptable and asked Lucas to screen what he had for them. Lucas complied, also inviting a group of fellow film-makers including Di Palma, John Milius and Steven Spielberg along. An edit of the film was show with the wipes in place but only a few model effects sequences, the missing scenes instead featuring WWII dogfight material. At the end of the screening the other directors were unenthused apart from Spielberg, who (already planning his own epic SF movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) had grasped what Lucas was trying to do. Much to Lucas's surprise, the 20th Century Fox executives were extremely enthusiastic, noted uber-agent and studio executive Gareth Wigan (who later worked on Ridley Scott's Alien) going so far as to burst into tears and declare it "the greatest film I've ever seen".

Not only did the executives give Lucas the extension, they also approved budget overruns which took the movie to $11 million. The movie gave Lucas a great deal of confidence and renewed conviction which he needed to get the film finished. There were still creative problems ahead, however. Lucas had been unable to get his animatronic Jabba the Hutt concept to work and had to ditch a scene featuring the gangster. He instead used a different version of the Greedo scene which shared some of the same material (shot with this contingency in mind). Oddly, when he created the 1997 Special Edition of the movie, Lucas included both scenes despite them sharing word-for-word repetition of the same dialogue. Lucas also dumped other scenes from the start of the film featuring Luke witnessing the space battle overhead and discussing it with his friends, feeling it slowed down the movie too much.

Tragedy nearly struck the project when, on 11 January 1977, Mark Hamill flipped his car whilst trying to reach an exit on the freeway too fast (whilst listening to the 1812 Overture, of all things). He broke both cheekbones and his nose. When he woke up in the hospital he was convinced his career was over. Doctors worked a miracle in repairing the damage, but his appearance had been noticeably altered to the point that the opening of Empire Strikes Back included a sequence where Luke was mauled by an ice creature to explain Luke's corresponding change of appearance. Showing the resilience that would later define his career, Hamill bounced back to record dialogue and voiceover loops for the film before its final release.

Marketing for the film initially relied on the usual T-shirts, posters and some appearances by Lucas and Hamill at science fiction conventions. However, the film gained a huge boost from its novelisation. Alan Dean Foster wrote the novel of the film, using the final script draft, in the summer of 1976 (whilst filming was going on) and it was rushed out late in the year to meet the original film release deadline of Christmas. When the film was dropped back six months, no-one bothered to change the book's release date to match. As a result, the novel - containing the entire film's storyline, plot and ending - was on the shelves six months before the film was released. Judy-Lynn and Lester Del Rey, in the middle of launching their own SFF imprint, quickly mobilised to snatch up the paperback release rights for a couple of months later. The book was well-reviewed and its description of lengthy space battle sequences whetted appetites, as well as scepticism from those who didn't believe the film would live up to them. The book shifted a million copies within a year and did an enormous amount to build up pre-release hype.

The film was released, under the mercifully concise title Star Wars, on 25 May 1977. It changed the face of film-making and science fiction forever.

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Star Wars at 40: George Lucas

On 25 May 1977, the face of popular culture and the forward direction of film, particularly American cinema, changed in an instant. A B-movie science fiction film was released by 20^th Century Fox, who were expecting a modest return. Instead the film rapidly became the highest-grossing movie of all time, spawning a franchise now worth over $40 billion dollars in box office and merchandising sales. Hollywood has arguably never recovered from its release, with film-makers and studios constantly searching for “the next Star Wars.”

George Lucas on the set of THX 1138 in 1970.

Understanding the Star Wars phenomenon requires understanding its creator, George Lucas. George Lucas grew up as a speed-freak and gadget fan who then became deeply fascinated by avant-garde cinema and esoteric editing techniques who ended up creating the greatest piece of mass-market entertainment in human history, sometimes to his dismay. Lucas’s attitude to his creation has shifted many times over his career, from pride to loathing to ambivalence to regret, leading eventually – thirty-five years later - to him selling his creation to Disney Studios.

George Lucas was born in Modesto, California on 14 May 1944.  The son of a stationery store owner growing up at the time of the Space Race and great strides being made in aircraft and automobile technology, Lucas became fascinated with racing cars. As a teenager he learned how to drive and was soon taking part in underground races, clocking up an impressive number of speeding tickets in the process (enough so that they later disqualified him from serving in the US Air Force). At the age of eighteen he was nearly killed in a collision whilst racing, causing him to lose interest in taking part in the sport. However, he developed an interest in filming races instead, using an 8mm camera.

Lucas became intrigued with film-making and soon developed a fascination with European arthouse cinema. He started studying film at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, where he met a number of other rising talents including John Milius, Steven Spielberg, Hal Barwood, Randal Kleiser and Walter Murch. Lucas’s interests tended to the more experimental and esoteric, such as non-narrative forms and motion rather than writing, dialogue or performance. Lucas also became fascinated by how it was possible to completely shift the meaning of narratives and themes through clever use of editing techniques. Lucas came to describe himself as a film-maker rather than a director, preferring to explore the experimental possibilities offered by editing, sound and visuals rather than telling a story by focusing on actors and performance.

Lucas graduated in 1967 as a bachelor of the fine arts in film. He was rebuffed from joining the US Air Force and was later turned down for the draft to fight in Vietnam, due to a diagnosis with diabetes. He re-enrolled at USC as a graduate student in film production, which gave him the opportunity to teach and also work on full-fledged film productions. Whilst assisting on Finian’s Rainbow in 1968 he met and befriended director Francis Ford Coppola. A year later, he and Coppola founded the studio American Zoetrope, with the goal of creating more interesting and experimental cinema outside of the limiting Hollywood system.

This led Lucas to create his first film. He’d already directed a short SF movie called Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB and in 1970 expanded this to a full-length dystopian feature film, THX 1138, released the following year. The film attracted mixed reviews and made only a modest profit. In the wake of the film’s release Lucas created his own production company, Lucasfilm, and started looking for a new project.

Coppola had foreseen that THX 1138 only had limited widespread appeal, so challenged Lucas to make a much warmer and human film which larger audiences would relate to. Lucas rose to the challenge, deciding to use his experiences growing up and racing cars to create a nostalgia piece. This was slightly risky, but fortunately Lucas channelled the same wellspring of goodwill for the period (the late 1950s/early 1960s) that the musical Grease had also tapped into and had led to its own successful film adaptation (helmed by Lucas’s friend Randal Kleiser). The script, American Graffiti, was developed by Lucas and co-written with Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, who were credited with adding a lot of the inter-character banter and humour.

It took Lucas some time to sell the American Graffiti script: during this time he also worked on an early version of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, although he eventually passed on the project so Coppola directed it himself. Whilst working on American Graffiti Lucas also began developing his first ideas for a science fiction film, at one point offering United Artists a two-picture deal consisting of American Graffiti and the SF film. They turned him down.

George Lucas filming on location for American Graffiti in 1972.

Universal Pictures signed up for American Graffiti once Coppola signed on as producer, as that allowed them to leverage Coppola’s fame from the success of The Godfather (1972). However, they insisted on a very low budget. With a budget not much higher than that of THX 1138, Lucas had to direct lots of cars and races, along with a relatively large cast.

Lucas cast a mixture of unknowns and established faces in his film. Particularly notable were former child actors Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard, who both had break-out roles in the film. Ron Howard was cast in a similar role in the nostalgic sitcom Happy Days shortly after American Graffiti’s release. Lucas also cast an actor named Harrison Ford, who had classic leading man looks but had not had a breakout role, instead increasingly focusing on a side-career in carpentry.

The production of American Graffiti was chaotic with the young cast not always behaving (several hotel rooms were damaged) and equipment not working, but Lucas, helped by producer Gary Kurtz, remarkably kept the project on time and on budget. Once shooting was over, Lucas cut the film but to his horror discovered it was over three hours long. Solving the problem – knocking it down to 112 minutes – required some fancy footwork in the editing suite and completely rebuilding the narrative structure without the ability to shoot new material.

Universal dithered over releasing the film, at one stage considering making it a TV movie instead, but Francis Ford Coppola, fresh from winning an Oscar for The Godfather, leveraged his influence to ensure the film was released properly. The movie attracted rave reviews and grossed over $55 million, making it a massive hit completely against the expectation of the studio.

With the movie a bona fide hit, Lucas would be able to make whatever he wanted next. And what he wanted to make next was his pulp science fiction movie.

Gratuitous Lists: The Star Wars Movies Ranked

The philosophy of the Gratuitous Lists feature was to have lists of stuff that are unranked, because frankly if you're talking about the 12th best thing of all time or the 9th best thing of all time, the differences are going to be pretty minor. In the case of a Star Wars movie list, however, that's kind of pointless because there's too few things to put on the list. So for these ones I'm ranking them and people can argue away to their heart's content. So let us proceed.

For the record, Lucasfilm have seemingly ruled both Caravan of Courage (1984) and The Battle for Endor (1985) - which were both released in cinemas in Europe - as non-canon, so I'm going with the nine Star Wars movies theatrically released since 1977.

Released 15 August 2008 • Directed by Dave Filoni • Written by Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching and Scott Murphy

Over the course of five-and-a-half seasons, The Clone Wars evolved into a fantastic, gripping and fun pulp SF adventure show. However, it took a while to get there. The first few episodes were made on a limited budget with very few CG assets, whilst producer Dave Filoni and his team were still finding their feet with pacing and characterisation. George Lucas was a little bit too impressed by what the guys at Lucasfilm Animation had achieved when he decided it was good enough quality to go on the big screen. Coming in the same year as Wall-E and with a juvenile tone that turned off adult Star Wars fans, The Clone Wars just couldn't cut it.

If some of the later, much better arcs and episodes had been made into an animated film, the results may have been different.

 

Released 16 May 2002 • Directed by George Lucas • Written by George Lucas & Jonathan Hales

Well, where to start? The worst live-action Star Wars movie has the most risible performances, dialogue (including the epic "hatred of sand" speech), execrable plotting and confused structural tics out of all of them. It's embarrassing to see actors of the calibre of Natalie Portman and Christopher Lee working with scripts this awful and the hyper-polished CGI sheen over the effects is sterile and uninvolving. Hayden Christensen isn't quite as bad as is often said (given that even Samuel L. Jackson and Ewan McGregor are struggling with the material, Christensen doesn't really disgrace himself) but is still an uninteresting protagonist. Even John Williams is feeling uninspired, only rising to the occasion in his score when he revisits themes from previous movies.

Released 19 May 2005 • Directed by George Lucas • Written by George Lucas

Revenge of the Sith and The Phantom Menace are at a very similar level of quality and you could swap their positions quite easily. Sith, for me, falls short for several reasons. The first is that the utterly pointless CG overload of Attack of the Clones is pursued and doubled down on in Revenge of the Sith, making the film feel even more artificial and sterile. The next is that the dialogue has somehow even gotten worse, along with the performances. Natalie Portman's cringe-inducing "You're breaking my heart!" and Ewan McGregor's completely flummoxed reaction to Anakin murdering children are both awful pieces of acting.

There are some good moments in Sith - the dialogue-less moment where Anakin decides to betray the Republic and the execution of Order 66 - and John Williams remembers to show up with a couple of excellent scoring moments, but the long-awaited Obi-Wan/Anakin lightsabre showdown is awful and the conclusion of the Clone Wars is bitty and unsatisfying. Revenge of the Sith had the potential for greatness and wastes it thanks to George Lucas's ego.

Released 19 May 1999 • Directed by George Lucas • Written by George Lucas

Enjoying The Phantom Menace is possible, especially if you cheat and watch The Phantom Edit (which cuts out the majority of Jar-Jar scenes and dramatically reduces the "endearing" antics of little Anakin). But even the original edit is fine if you can simply ignore Jar-Jar. The Phantom Menace emerges as (marginally) the best film of the prequel trilogy thanks to its absolutely stellar soundtrack (a never-better John Williams), the grounded, inspiring presence of Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and the use of real sets and models for many of the effects. It also helps that our main villain Darth Maul almost never speaks, so retains some menace rather than losing it by uttering inanely awful dialogue. Some CG overload is still present, but it's nothing as bad as the latter two prequel movies. There's also a pacier feel to events, with the shifts in location and plot meaning that weaker scenes don't drag on as long as they do in the two other prequels, and the movie may feature the prequel trilogy's best set-piece with the pod racing sequence.

It's still an enormously flawed film with plot holes you can drive a Star Destroyer through, of course, but not quite as awful as its reputation suggests.

Released 16 December 2016 • Directed by Gareth Edwards • Written by John Knoll, Gary Whitta, Chris Weitz & Tony Gilroy

The gap in quality between #6 and #5 on this list may be the biggest such gap in the history of gratuitous lists. Rogue One is a fine movie with some fantastic performances, action sequences and individually powerful scenes. CG overload is mostly avoided and the film feels punchy, almost nailing The Dirty Dozen in Space vibe it is shooting for. The movie also, and rather surprisingly, justifies its existence by mostly avoiding continuity problems and fixing a couple of niggling problems in the original Star Wars.

On the negative side of things, characterisation can be a little variable (Jyn's motivations seem to have gotten lost in the edit) and the way the film ends is structurally messy, whilst the score is forgettable. But congratulations to Lucasfilm for having the resolve to end the film in the only manner that makes sense. It's all good from hereon up.

Released 18 December 2015 • Directed by J.J. Abrams • Written by Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams

The Force Awakens is two movies sitting on top of one another. The first is the struggle of the Resistance to avoid the destruction of their hidden base by the First Order's planet-destroying superweapon, which is ludicrously powerful but has a rather-easily-exposed weakness. This plot is less than satisfying, since it's a retread of Star Wars (A New Hope). However, the second is the family drama of Han Solo and Princess Leia having a son strong in the Force who brutally betrays them, murders his way into a position of power in the First Order and embraces the Dark Side, but is constantly tempted by the lure of good. New character Rey has the chance to take his place as the new champion of the Force, but only if she can overcome her own limitations in the process.

This latter story is far more interesting and provides The Force Awakens with its real dramatic meat. Excellent performances by newcomers and old hands alike (Carrie Fisher may have considered a couple of remedial catch-up acting lessons, but she doesn't have too much to do so that's not too much of a problem), excellent effects and John Williams dropping an awesome musical score combine to make a movie that couldn't feel any more Star Wars if it tried. Far from a perfect movie, the main problem with The Force Awakens is that it sometimes tries a little too hard to be Star Wars rather than going with the flow. But as franchise-resurrecting reboots go, this is impressive. Some may even say...most impressive.

Released 25 May 1983 • Directed by Richard Marquand • Written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan

Return of the Jedi always comes last from the original trilogy when these lists are written, which feels a little unfair. It's got the best space battle of the entire saga, it has a fantastic three-way showdown between Luke, Vader and the Emperor, it has awesome music and also some very fine dramatic moments (Luke and Vader's conversation at the docking platform may be the most underrated scene of the saga). Mark Hamill also gives arguably his best performance in this movie (although it's close between this one and Empire).

It's also a bit of a structurally weak film. Spending so much time at Jabba's palace doesn't quite work, since Jabba is a secondary villain not really worth the screentime he eats up. Also, and this is far more prevalent on marathons when you don't have three years between films, Han Solo's entire kidnap storyline feels like a waste of time given how easily it is resolved. Han and Lando's morally dubious sides have also been eroded away with both now straight-up good guys and white hats, which makes them a bit less interesting. And of course, Ewoks (although I've never had that big a problem with them).

But it's still a fine capstone to the first six films in the saga which earns its (mostly) happy ending.

Released 25 May 1977 • Directed by George Lucas • Written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz (uncredited) and Willard Huyck (uncredited)

This is where the fun begins. Released in 1977 and made on a modest budget, Star Wars (reluctantly aka A New Hope) utterly transformed cinema in a way not seen before or since. Watching it today, it's clearly the cheapest Star Wars movie but this also means it has to focus more on story, character and dialogue. It's also pacy and energetic, steered by a never-better George Lucas clearly realising he has the chance to reinvent the wheel here. A brilliant space battle, a tremendous musical score and some very effective Tunisian location filming all give the film a sense of scale and scope that goes beyond its meagre resources. Thrown in tremendous performances from Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness and a star-making turn by Harrison Ford, and the original Star Wars is still a brilliantly-conceived piece of entertainment.

Released 21 May 1980 • Directed by Irvin Kershner • Written by George Lucas, Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan

The Empire Strikes Back being the best Star Wars movie has been clear for years, but it's still remarkable just how good it is. It goes dark compared to the original movie, but its power comes more from how invested the audience is in the relationships from the first movie and how effectively this sequel messes around with those relationships (Han and Leia hooking up wrong-foots the audience expecting her to get together with Luke). The film also feels more naturalistic, with director Irvin Kershner letting his actors breathe, discussing character motivation and improvise dialogue in manner that George Lucas was incapable of doing. Most importantly, new characters such as Yoda and Lando grab hold of the imagination and are just as strong as the returning characters, which is quite a feat for a sequel.

The film also has arguably the Star Wars saga's greatest effects set piece as the Millennium Falcon swoops balletically through an asteroid field with John Williams' soundtrack framing events perfectly, with the Battle of Hoth not far behind it in quality.

But of course the real reason the film emerges as the best in the saga is down to that climactic confrontation between Luke and Vader which turns what was supposed to be a disposable popcorn series into an epic, generation-spanning family tragedy. This remains the Star Wars bar of quality that needs to be beaten.