Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)

Getting ready for the new Star Wars Episode VII, I am reminded what made the original a classic.  I always loved the description of Star Wars as a space opera.  It is truly a soap opera playing out in the wonders of outer space.  George Lucas created his own universe where aliens and droids mingle with humans, where there is a dying religion based on The Force, and where you could travel at light speed.  This year, Lucas received a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement and an enormous contribution to the pantheon of American culture.  Consider just the sheer number of iconic characters that have emerged from this film: Darth Vader, R2D2, C3PO, Chewbacca, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, all well known to all American households.  This film produced iconic visuals: the two moons of Tatooine, the X-Wing Fighter flying in the Death Star, the Millennium Falcon reaching light speed, the Mos Eisly Cantina.  This is a film so ingrained in American culture that it has become an American rite of passage.

My favorite part of Star Wars is John Williams's legendary score.  It is immediately identifiable, readily hummable, and utterly unforgettable from the moment you see the opening titles scrolling up the screen.  Star Wars was a pioneer in special effects, culminating in the explosion of the Death Star. The visual effects were unprecedented for their time and I expect the new Star Wars sequel trilogy to continue extend the bounds of what we know as special effects.  And this new trilogy will introduce Star Wars to the next generation--after all, isn't that why we wait so long between trilogies?

Fantasia (1940) & Fantasia 2000 (1999)

Walt Disney's experimental classic still plays well 75 years after its premiere and is better than Roy Disney's follow up in 2000.  It is a novel idea to compile a series of unrelated short films into one much-needed introduction to classical music, excellent for young children and adults alike.  The only things connecting short films are the orchestra and the animation. Fantasia 2000 tried to update the look with computer animation,  such as the strange looking whales in Respighi's Pines of Rome.  But not veering too far from the original,  2000 brings back Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice,  perhaps the most iconic sequence from the original and perhaps from the entire Disney canon.   The movie reinforces the idea that good storytelling does not require words or even actors.   It displays the power of music to convey a story and showcases some of the greatest pieces humanity has produced. My personal favorites are Stravinsky's Firebird and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, both from the 2000 version.  I greatly appreciate the look of hand drawn animation.  Both show complete storytelling, even with complex intertwining stories in a Depression era New York, really embodying Gershwin.  There are some weaker shorts, in which the animation is made up mostly of dancing lines and shapes, which compared to the other shorts comes off as a little lazy.