Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

Written by:

George Lucas

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Directed by:

George Lucas

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Release Date:

1977

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I've been writing about science fiction for just over a year now, but this week on Sci-Fi Adventures I face my greatest challenge yet: trying to find something even slightly original to say about Rogue One 2: The Star Wars, also known as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Or just Star Wars.

The 'Episode IV - A New Hope' bit was added in a theatrical re-release later, but then everyone knows that already. Everyone already knows everything about this bloody movie! There's been essential guides and technical manuals and visual dictionaries and Wookiepedias and Plinketts and podcasts analysing every minute of it, every frame of it, for 40 years now (happy birthday Star Wars!) So it wouldn't come as a huge shock to me if you know more about the movie than I do.

I'm definitely a Star Wars fan, but I've never been obsessed with it to the level that some people are. I've never bought action figures or gone to conventions. I didn't even watch the films in the right order! My introduction to the series was Return of the Jedi, then I watched (some of) Empire Strikes Back, and then Spaceballs. In fact I was probably playing the games before I saw the movie itself. I've put more hours into TIE Fighter and the Jedi Knight series than any of the films.

Though I'm sure I must have seen A New Hope at least of three times by this point. First I rented it on VHS, then I saw the Special Edition in widescreen at the cinema in '97, then I watched the 2004 DVD version a year or so back. So the movie keeps changing every time I see it and that's just weird.

Alright, this is a two hour movie so I'm going to be showing off an absurd amount of screencaps and providing my dumb commentary under each one as I go through the film. Here's something I've noticed already: the Star Wars logo text isn't hollow, the letters are filled in black. Man if I can demonstrate this level of startling insight all the way through maybe there's a chance I can pull this off!

It should be fairly obvious that this will be filled with SPOILERS for Star Wars: Episode IV, but it might come as a surprise that I won't be spoiling anything made after it. So no spoilers for Empire, the prequels, or Rogue One. Some people think that insanely popular 37 year old movies are fair game for spoilers, but that's not how I do things.

Stargate: Director's Cut

Written by:

Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin

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Directed by:

Roland Emmerich

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Release Date:

1994

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Welcome to Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures, review number, uh, 70 I think. Wow, that's a lot higher than I thought it'd be, seeing as I took the last 6 weeks off. I should apologise for that by the way... but I won't. Because vanishing for months after a season finale is the most sci-fi thing in the world.

It's April 1st by the way, unless you're reading this in the future, which means that my little science fiction blog is a year old today! So this is basically the start of Sci-Fi Adventures Season Two, where the writing gets more confident, the ideas get less dumb, and the protagonist (me) grows a beard. Or maybe the production values will go to shit, the gimmicks will get more desperate, it'll end on clip show and then get cancelled.

I was trying to think of something special to watch for my season premiere, but then I remembered that I already announced my next review back in February, so instead I'm stuck watching the original 1994 Stargate movie! I'm saying it's the 'original' movie because it kicked the franchise off, and because I'm worried that someday Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin are finally going to get their sequel off the ground and we shall all bear witness to what the Stargate equivalent of Independence Day: Resurgence looks like. I'm not hyped.

I've only seen this film the once, back when it existed on its own without even a single spin-off series, and I don't remember being impressed. I don't remember disliking it either though. In fact I barely remember it at all, so I'm curious to rediscover what actually happens in this movie. Unfortunately I don't have the Blu-ray version, so I can't offer you the greatest of screencaps to go along with my commentary, but on the plus side I do have a cardboard DVD box that folds out into a pyramid! I'd show you a photo, but that means bending the flaps to slot it together and I don't really want to.

The following text will contain epic SPOILERS for the entirety of this movie, but I'm considering the TV series to be off-limits. Well I might mention some characters and drop terms like 'Jaffa' but nothing worse than that.

RoboCop: Director's Cut

Written by:

Edward Neumeier & Michael Miner

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Directed by:

Paul Verhoeven

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Release Date:

1987

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, a low-budget science fiction movie with a silly title! I mean seriously, three vowels and all of them Os? It's ridiculous.

The writers tried to come up with something a bit less goofy and off-putting, but I'm glad they failed as personally I think the title's perfect, considering it's meant to be a brand name. I doubt that's a controversial opinion at this point though, as we've had three decades to get used to it. It's actually RoboCop's 30th anniversary later this very year and I wish I'd known this before telling everyone this was going to be the next thing I reviewed as I could've held onto it for a few more months and put it up on the day!

I love that logo they've got flying over future Detroit here as well, and I appreciate that they've made it obvious that the C is supposed to be capitalised so I know how I'm meant to type it. No space, big C, got it. Here's a fun fact for you: this is apparently the only shot in the movie that was filmed in actual Detroit and it's stock footage. The rest of the film was shot in Dallas (and a little bit in Pittsburgh) because it had a better skyline.

Okay, I'm going to recap this whole damn movie and share my thoughts as I go, so there will be SPOILERS ahead. I should mention that I've seen the film before, and the sequels, and the remake, and even a bit of one of the TV series, but I won't be spoiling anything that comes after this. Though I bought the trilogy on disc for a dollar (well, a pound) so I expect you'll get your spoilers someday.