Star Wars: I Had Hope

I have a confession to make. I’ve seen tons of movies. Ones most kids my age haven’t heard of. I’ve seen a British movie about three friends who fall in love with the same girl without knowing it; I’ve seen a French movie about a teacher trying to help his troubled students; the Spanish version and it’s sequel of the horror film, Quarantine. I’ve even seen a movie where Barbie wins the lottery and is sent to a princess charm school. With all of these under my belt you would think that I’ve also seen all the classics, but I haven’t. My confession being: I haven’t seen any of the Star Wars.

Watching A New Hope now, I can understand why it’s held in a high place in movie history. The graphics, for the 1970s, are revolutionary. You have to ignore the obviously green-screened backgrounds and the awful costumes and look deeper. The plot holds the audience captive like Darth Vader does to Princess Leia. I’m won over by Harrison Ford’s Han Solo (or as my mom likes to call him, “Han So-hot”).

But…I don’t quite know what’s missing from this movie. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to do other homework or because I’m on Facebook, but now, like how Leia was taken by Han and Luke, I’ve been taken by my internet connection and school work. The movie has allowed for me to escape.

Maybe I need to be more focused (as a teenage girl, I don’t hold the attention span to stare at a screen for one hundred and twenty-two minutes). Maybe it’s because I’m a generation off for this movie. Or maybe I just know the events too well. I know the major rises and falls of the characters and the relationships between them.

And now, as the first of the six movies reaches its end, I realize that the only reason I stayed till the end was because of the movie’s notoriety, and for the grade.

But still, when people will ask me if I liked it, I’ll say yes. Even if my attention was lost during it, the movie was revolutionary in every way, and that I can respect.