Star Wars: A New Hope

Star Wars doesn't gently introduce its universe.

It throws us straight into the middle of it.

The Rebel Alliance has stolen plans for the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, and Princess Leia Organa is desperately trying to keep those plans away from Darth Vader.

Her ship is captured.

Leia is taken prisoner.

But before the Empire can recover what it wants, she hides the stolen plans inside a small astromech droid named R2-D2.

R2-D2 escapes alongside C-3PO.

Their destination is Tatooine.

And somewhere on that desert world is a young man who has absolutely no idea that the galaxy is about to arrive on his doorstep.

Luke Skywalker dreams of somewhere else.

He lives with his aunt and uncle on a moisture farm on Tatooine, watching his friends leave while he remains behind.

He wants adventure.

He wants to become a pilot.

Mostly, he wants something to happen.

Then his uncle buys two droids.

One of them carries a message.

A hologram appears.

Princess Leia asks for the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Luke doesn't know Obi-Wan Kenobi.

But he does know an old hermit named Ben Kenobi.

And suddenly Tatooine starts feeling considerably smaller.

Ben Kenobi knows exactly who Luke's father was.

He also knows about the Jedi Knights.

About the Clone Wars.

And about something called the Force.

Luke receives his father's lightsaber and hears about a forgotten age when Jedi Knights served as guardians of peace and justice.

But Obi-Wan also tells him that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father.

For Luke, it's the first glimpse of a history much larger than the moisture farm where he grew up.

He initially refuses Obi-Wan's invitation to travel to Alderaan.

Then he returns home.

The Empire has already been there.

There is nothing left keeping Luke on Tatooine.

Luke and Obi-Wan need a ship.

Mos Eisley has plenty of them.

Unfortunately, it also has almost everything else.

The cantina sequence opens the doors to the wider Star Wars galaxy. Strange creatures drink beside smugglers, musicians play in the corner and trouble can start over practically nothing.

Then Obi-Wan finds their pilot.

Han Solo.

Captain of the Millennium Falcon.

Smuggler.

Professional sceptic.

And a man who is considerably more interested in getting paid than joining anybody's rebellion.

Alongside his towering co-pilot Chewbacca, Han agrees to take Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids to Alderaan.

At least that's the plan.

The Millennium Falcon doesn't make the greatest first impression.

Luke certainly isn't impressed.

Han is.

And once Imperial stormtroopers start firing, the old freighter proves exactly why Han has so much confidence in her.

The Falcon blasts away from Tatooine and enters hyperspace.

Luke has finally left home.

He begins training with Obi-Wan, learning that fighting with a lightsaber isn't simply about what he can see.

The Force requires something else.

Trust.

Luke is only beginning to understand what that means.

When the Millennium Falcon reaches Alderaan, there is no Alderaan.

The planet has been destroyed.

In its place is what initially appears to be a small moon.

It isn't.

The Death Star is the Empire's ultimate weapon: a battle station capable of destroying an entire planet.

And the Falcon is being pulled directly toward it.

What began as a mission to deliver two droids has now placed Luke, Han, Chewbacca and Obi-Wan inside the most dangerous installation in the galaxy.

Then they discover something else.

Princess Leia is aboard.

Luke has a plan.

Han thinks the plan is ridiculous.

Chewbacca gets handcuffed.

And the rescue begins.

Luke arrives expecting to rescue a helpless prisoner.

Instead, he meets Leia Organa.

Leia takes one look at the rescue attempt and quickly realises she may have to rescue herself.

She grabs a blaster.

She takes control.

And when the group becomes trapped in a corridor, she's the one who creates an escape route.

Unfortunately, that escape route leads into a garbage compactor.

Leia is a rebel leader long before Luke becomes a rebel hero.

She stands up to Darth Vader.

She refuses to betray the Rebel Alliance.

And even after witnessing the destruction of Alderaan, she keeps fighting.

The breathing does most of the work.

Towering, black-armoured and almost completely unreadable behind his mask, Vader represents something Luke doesn't yet understand.

Obi-Wan does.

Their paths have crossed before.

When the two finally meet aboard the Death Star, the lightsabers ignite.

Luke watches from a distance as his mentor confronts his former pupil.

Obi-Wan knows he isn't leaving.

He lowers his weapon.

Vader strikes.

And Luke loses the man who had opened the door to an entirely new world.

But Obi-Wan isn't completely gone.

R2-D2 carries the information the Rebel Alliance desperately needs.

The stolen plans reveal a weakness in the Death Star.

A small thermal exhaust port leads toward the station's main reactor.

Hit it correctly and the entire battle station can be destroyed.

There is one slight problem.

The target is tiny.

The Death Star is enormous.

Darth Vader is personally leading Imperial fighters against the Rebel attack.

And the station is moving into position to destroy the Rebel base.

There won't be a second attempt.

Luke finally gets the opportunity he dreamed about on Tatooine.

He's a pilot.

But this isn't an adventure anymore.

His fellow Rebel pilots are being destroyed around him.

The Death Star is getting closer.

Vader is closing in.

Luke begins his attack run with the targeting computer guiding him toward the exhaust port.

Then he hears Obi-Wan's voice.

Trust the Force.

Luke switches off the targeting computer.

From the command centre, everyone thinks he's lost his mind.

Vader prepares to fire.

And then the Millennium Falcon comes screaming back into the battle.

Han got his money.

He could have left.

In fact, he did leave.

Luke is disappointed, but Han has always insisted this isn't his fight.

Then Vader lines up behind Luke's X-wing.

The Falcon appears.

Han has come back.

His attack sends Vader spinning away from the battle and gives Luke the opportunity he needs.

Luke fires.

The torpedoes enter the exhaust port.

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then the Death Star explodes.

Han Solo may not believe in the Force yet.

But he has chosen a side.

Luke doesn't defeat the Death Star because he has become a Jedi.

He hasn't.

He barely understands the Force.

He wins because, for the first time, he trusts it.

That's the real beginning of Luke Skywalker's journey.

The farm boy who stared toward the horizon on Tatooine has stepped into something far larger than himself.

He has lost his home.

He has lost Obi-Wan.

But he has found Leia, Han, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO.

And he has discovered that the stories Obi-Wan told him weren't simply stories.

The Force is real.

When audiences first saw the movie in May 1977, there was no Episode IV in the opening crawl.

There was no subtitle A New Hope.

It was simply Star Wars.

The Episode IV designation and A New Hope subtitle were added to the opening crawl for the film's 1981 theatrical re-release, by which point The Empire Strikes Back had transformed George Lucas's adventure into an expanding saga.

That makes the original film unique within the franchise.

Audiences in 1977 weren't watching the fourth chapter of an established mythology.

They were watching the beginning.

Everything else came later.

It's difficult to look at Star Wars now and imagine a world where none of this existed.

No Darth Vader.

No Luke Skywalker.

No Princess Leia.

No Han Solo.

No Chewbacca.

No R2-D2 or C-3PO.

No Death Star.

No Millennium Falcon.

No lightsabers.

No Jedi.

For audiences walking into cinemas in 1977, all of it was new.

George Lucas combined science fiction, fantasy, mythology, westerns, war movies and old adventure serials into something that felt both strangely familiar and completely different.

The visual effects pushed what audiences expected from science-fiction cinema.

John Williams' music gave the adventure the scale of modern mythology.

And the characters made the enormous galaxy feel personal.

At its centre was still a simple story.

A young man looks toward the horizon and dreams of another life.

Then one day adventure arrives.

He meets a princess.

He befriends a smuggler.

He learns about the Force.

And he helps destroy a Death Star.

The movie ends with a celebration.

The story, however, had barely begun.

A galaxy far, far away was now open.

Cinema would never be quite the same again.