RECOMMENDATIONS

Star Wars

FAITH HAYDEN, C&EN WASHINGTON

At 13, I was older than most when I first saw "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope," which celebrates its 30th anniversary this month. It was 1995, and special-effects blockbusters such as "Jurassic Park" and "Terminator 2" caused me to set my visual entertainment standard high. So it was surprising that I fell for the motion-control photography-based space opera. Not that it didn't come with a giant bonus; being a girl with knowledge of Death Stars and lightsabers scored me a ton of dates.

In 1973, writer and director George Lucas pitched his outline for what was then titled "The Star Wars." The film was flat-out rejected by both Universal Studios and United Artists. When it was finally picked up by 20th Century Fox, Lucas later admitted the company invested in him, not the movie.

There were many rewrites of "Star Wars." Had any of those become the basis of the movies, pop-culture history would have vastly altered. Luke Skywalker (Hamill) was originally a 60-year-old general, then a dwarf; Han Solo (Ford) had been described as a green creature with gills; and for a while, the young Jedi hero of the story was named Anakin Starkiller.

Once filming began, budget cuts forced Lucas to change the story considerably. Before filming was even two weeks in, the C-3PO suit began falling apart as the actor wore it. While filming in the North African Tunisian desert, shooting fell behind schedule due to a freak rainstorm that destroyed set pieces and left props�and the trucks brought in to salvage them�stuck in the mud. Five months before the film's release, Hamill was involved in a car accident on the way to the set and severely damaged his face, making reshoots impossible.

Additional snafus caused the production of "Star Wars" to run two weeks over schedule, and 20th Century Fox threatened to shut the entire project down. Lucas became increasingly depressed about the slow, arduous process. In fact, during an initial screening of the film, Steven Spielberg is quoted as saying, "The reaction was not a good one; I was probably the only one who liked it."

To say that "Star Wars" was a surprise hit would be a gross understatement. The acting is choppy; many of the lines are awkward; and although the special effects were revolutionary at the time, the reliance on "the Force," with traits akin to divine intervention, left science in the dust. Despite my most valiant attempts, I'm still unable to corral the power of the Force to move much of anything (not even a paperclip!).

Lucky for me, my love of the film had little to do with realism. Rather, my infatuation had everything to do with the character development�the teenage farmer's desperate longing for adventure; the sassy princess and her take-charge attitude; and the handsome, sarcastic outlaw's resistance to his inner altruistic motivations.

There was a little bit of each of them inside me. I, too, was looking for adventure and excitement and was wanting to rebel against authority and leave an important mark on the world. Perhaps it's the character portrayals that caused "Star Wars" to be so widely popular. They were just like all of us, wide-eyed and geared up for adventure, just in a galaxy far, far away.