And Gene was so wrong when he said, "I hope Hollywood doesn't forget there are some people who like to see serious pictures too..." Of course- those are the Oscar nominees every year that nobody ever goes to see with their $3 million total box office numbers or garbage streaming views and are why nobody cares about the pathetic Oscars anymore.
@@dsscam yeah because the Oscars rather nominate movies based on quality rather than box office gross? Yeah I'm down with that. I don't want movies nominated because ppl went to see them. Movies should be nominated based on quality
@@dsscam Are you saying this like it’s a good thing? you like that people would rather Consoom corporate slop content instead of watching intellectual art films?
@@adamcraig919 A lot of pretentious crap wins Oscars, and also a lot of good films. They do have a bad history with science fiction and fantasy films, snubbing them countless ties and only awarding them when it's painfully obvious, like with LOTR. Star Wars lost to...Annie Hall? Wtf? How many people outside of a certain age group have seen that movie? I haven't. Woody Allen beat George Lucas, who is not a great director but really went above and beyond for Star Wars. And I'm not trashing intellectual art films either, Amadeus is one of my favourite films, the Thin Red Line, The Remains of the Day, Howard's End... But time is the ultimate test of whether a film is good or not, and people forget about awards. Dune lost to...Nomadland? Denis Villeneuve wasn't even nominated? Rarely do films win both the technical awards and Best Picture and Best Director. Ok, rant over.
I was 6 years old and I remember crying because my brother wouldn't take me to see The Island of Doctor Moreau because he wanted to see something called Star Wars, we sat through it three times. it was a life changing moment as a kid. I can't tell you what a great time it was to be a kid growing up in late 70s to mid 80s because of the movies, music (MTV) and Saturday morning cartoons.
Completely agree...I was 9 years old at the time, and my friends and I rode our bikes to the local theater, and stood in the lines that wrapped around the building to see the movie 6 times over a single weekend. Used the money I earned from doing chores to buy the tickets. Man...I consider myself very lucky to have experienced that in the theater during the original release. I wouldn't trade the memories of growing up in the late 70's through the mid 80's for anything. What a time to be a kid and a teenager!
I remember Siskel & Ebert's show being so new and cutting edge! It's so strange to see it now as a very old video clip. Folks, the years do go by fast...
John Williams is the unsung hero of all blockbuster films ; Imagine JAWS, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.t. , and all the others. When we think of those movies, if you're like me, the first thing my brain recalls is the music.
How true! I had such a high opinion of John Williams, that for years I took it for granted that the classical guitarist of the same name was also the famous composer. Imagine how stupid I felt when I discovered they were two different people!
I was 9 when Star Wars came out. It blew my mind wide open. We went to pick apples later that evening, and as I looked up at the stars coming out, something was different. Some new curiosity was awakened in me. I saw it 36 times that Summer, because my mom was working at the theater. 🙂
I always thought the music for this and Superman is what made the movie even more than the actual acting or action. You had a full orchestra doing the opening and closing theme songs.
Yeah, especially the buildup. The sequence of shots of them getting ready for the fight would be borderline boring, if not for Williams ramping up the tension the whole time.
"I hope Hollywood doesn't forget that there are people who like to see serious pictures too" what a line from Siskel. This was a time of huge change in Hollywood and that's exactly what happened...
That stuff still exists. Unfortunately it just isn’t really being made by major studios anymore. But independent companies like A24 and foreign countries supply some genuinely great films.
Another thing I found fascinating was that Siskel compared the film's action scenes to a pinball machine. Nowadays people would compare it to a video game--except in 1977 video games basically didn't exist yet (I think Pong had been invented already, but certainly the age of arcades and video game machines were still to come, and the average American didn't know what they were), so the closest analogue was pinball, in many ways the biggest precursor to video games.
This was just a condescending line. Oh they made a fun movie, now all of us who like serious(?) pictures are not gonna get serious pictures. I remember Siskel or Elbert gave a a bad review to Aliens. A movie does not get more serious than Aliens.
My dad worked for a large Japanese electronics manufacturer back in the mid 70s. One of his accounts gave him a black market copy of SW while it was still in the theaters, probably what we call a “screener” today. Friends would come over and I would say “wanna watch Star Wars?” And they would reply “yeah right”. Then I would show them the video and their jaw would drop and of course we watched it!
We had friends of my familly in 77-78 who had a huge movie library in their upstairs TV/game room, with a pinball machine, and we were visiting one night for whatever reason, and their dad said I've got a surprise for ya and somehow whipped out a black market Betamax copy of Star Wars and let me watch most of it on their large console TV. It was a trip seeing it back then on a home VHS or Beta setup.
The only BetaMax I've ever seen was The Empire Strikes Back, and this was in summer of 2000, right as DVD was ascending the throne of home video; I was STUNNED by the quality of BetaMax; it was widescreen, and it felt like it was DVD quality already. It blew my mind that the format failed, but when I learned that the tapes could only hold an hour of video at maximum, it started to make sense to me that the cheaper and longer duration format ultimately won out. That, and the fact that VHS was "chosen" by the porn industry.@@thiscorrosion900
I was 8 years old in 1976. We went to the drive in with my parents to see "The Outlaw Josie Whales" and the second feature for that night was "Bite the Bullet" Well, between the two movies they showed the previews of upcoming movies, as they usually do. All of a sudden, this movie preview came on with robots, a man with a light sword of some kind, lasers shooting and a man in a scary black mask with an ominous voice. At the end, they showed a girl kissing the man on the cheek, wished him good luck, and they swung across a cavern while these guys with laser guns and white masks shot at them. My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. Star Wars? Oh man I want to see THAT!! Little did I know how that moment right there was going to change my life. My friends parents owned a store in the mall right next to the Cine Capri, which was the only place in town that had Star wars. We saw Star Wars maybe 22 times that summer. We were lucky because everyone worked during the day and stood in line for the movie at night so we were able to see it without the lines and such. What a fun time that was.
I was 21 and all I knew about the movie SW was an ad in the newspaper (no tv ads or internet in those days). It turned out to be nothing like I expected as there wasn't anything like Star Wars at the time. It was amazing. Seeing in on a tv doesn't give any movie justice but for SW you just have to see it that way. I love Josie and Bite the Bullet (I have both movies but saw both movies at the theater).
I was 11 at the time and I have never had an experience like that again. Seen a lot of great movies, but Star Wars was literally a life altering experience.
I was sold in the opening scene when that battle cruiser came onscreen from seemingly right over your head. Set the standard for special effects for 20 years.
I remember watching the Princess's ship and being wowed. But wait, there's another ship firing on her ship, and it is big, bigger, it's still coming, holy XXX, that thing is GIGANTIC! It was a truly incredible start to the movie!
I saw this in the spring of 1977 with my old man at the UPTOWN Theater in Washington DC. I was 11 years old and was working with my dad who was an electrical contractor working on a big job at the National Zoo which was right across the street. We took a long lunch and went to see the movie. When it was over and we were walking back to the Zoo my dad said "that was actually pretty good huh?" Little did we know. Wonderful memory.
Great comment! Same age as you- I saw it Saturday, June 7, 1977 at the Oakbrook theater Oak Brook, Illinois. I was sleeping over at my friends house afterward and had my pillow in pajamas in the trunk of the car. I will never forget that day or that movie!!
I ventured to the Uptown too. Because it was the only theater in the area playing the movie at first. Not many theaters wanted to show it because they thought is was going to be another ''2001 space bore".
I saw it at Loews Astor Plaza in NYC a few days after my 12th birthday. My late uncle took me past the line that went around the block - straight to the box office - and we went right in.
yep sadly nowadays its - political influence > gender equality > character chemistry > special effects > storyline, the storylines get rewritten to provide the pointless previous "must have or it wont be made" influences, but the story lines shold be kept as is written by the writer, ignoring all that, again sadly, doesnt happen
@@BolofromAvlis I was working in the Baton Rouge theatre when it opened. My sister had just given birth to my niece and it was a difficult birth. I was working 12 hours a day because the movie was sold out for every showing and going to the hospital afterwards, so I didn't get a chance to see it for the first 3 weeks of it's run, but even then I loved it. I never worked so hard in my life but it remains a happy memory.
Agreed.... this & Superman the Movie where my introduction to movies... at 4..5 years old. Man did these movies set a hardline tone in my life. Never quit.. always fight against oppression.. be willing to defend those who can’t defend themselves.. and probably the most important.. even evil starts with a wholesome idea. For those of us who remember.... what a fantastic time to be alive !!!
The first day Star Wars hit theaters my best friend and I hid out in the theater and watched it four times. The second day I went back by myself and watched it three more times. I was 10 years old at the time and the movie literally changed the course of my life. Thank you, George Lucas!
Technically though back then before wide use of home video it was common for movies to play in theaters for years. Even Saturday Night Fever was recut to get a PG rating in its second year and kept playing.
My mother I had the opportunity to meet Mark Hamill at Toronto Fan Expo. I told him that my mother took me to see him in Star Wars seven times. It was a big deal because she had to drive me into the city. He stood up, and gave her a big hug.
And now, Mark Hamill's a scary old man that, along with his wife and son, tried to threaten and harass his son's girlfriend into aborting his grand-daughter. The girlfriend tricked them though and the kid was born just fine. X D
Im so glad that I was 13 years old when I saw this at the theater when it came out. There's nothing like being a kid a seeing Star Wars for the first time.
I saw all three of the films during their initial theatrical releases. That six year span, 1977-1983, gave us more deserved hype than I've ever seen. I loved every second.
I saw the first one at least ten times. Waited around the block in Times Square to do so. Ten fucking times I did that. All the while knowing that a parsec was a unit of distance, not time. That was the most painful part...
@@MaximumCarne _Soylo_ bastardized the explanation that was provided in the Expanded Universe decades before that travesty of a film was even conceived.
And all the great extras like toys, play sets and Burger King coke drinking glasses. Oh how I wanted those drinking glasses so much but my parents insisted they "cost too much". Fast forward forty years, I finally have them all on display in my living room. 😆
I remember that there was so much demand for the second one, Empire Strikes Back. My friends and I waited three hours in line to see it, and it was worth it.
@@Music--ng8cd That's such a reductionist delegation of intellectual property. I've heard people say that Star Wars ripped off Star Trek. When I ask them their reason, they say "It's because it's in space"
This episode of S&E must have been exhilarating for the viewers back then. After watching a movie in the 70's, there wasn't the option to rent it a few months later (unless you were ultra rich I suppose) so waiting for it to appear on TV could take a year if not longer. I'm surprised that S&E were allowed to show this length of a scene. People at home were likely thrilled to see this again.
Took five years for the original Star Wars film to be released on home video in 1982. Another two years before it premiered on CBS in 1984. I remember watching the network TV premiere broadcast with my brother and our parents gathered in the living room. I was 17 and my brother was 19 at the time. Mom made popcorn and dad picked up maple bars and soda at the store. Good times.
The market was nowhere what it was in the mid-80s/late 90s. Star Wars wasn't for rent till sometime early in 1982. It didn't even make its cable debut till the Summer of 82 with ON Tv. I didn't show on Showtime till March of '83.
It was even more than that for Star Wars. Most movies came out on HBO or Cinemax in 6 months to a year after their theater runs. Star Wars didn't make it to HBO until 1983. The VHS was released in 1982. We didn't have much money and I was still pretty young so my first time watching Star Wars was actually on HBO in '83
Star Wars wasn’t even available on HBO until January 1, 1980 at 12:00 am. I came home high as a kite, turned on my tv and was like holy shit, STAR WARS!
The Han/Leia dynamic in the first movie is awesome. He’s a sarcastic wiseass but so’s she, so when they meet and interact it becomes a comedic battle of wills. It occurs to me that a bitchy and powerful character like Leia would probably be hated by audiences in most movies, but somehow Carrie Fisher and Lucas made it work; we loved her!
I saw Star Wars on it's first opening weekend ( May 28th, 1977 ) , with seven other friends, in Westwood, CA , and none of us were remotely prepared for the spectacle that we were about to see and experience. I will never forget that day, and nor will my friends.
You're extremely lucky to have been in Westwood, CA to see the opening weekend of Star Wars. I lived in Westwood in the early 90's and it's a great place to live - the movie theatres, the night life with excellent restaurants, the college town vibe, and close enough to Hollywood to see the occasional movie star on a regular basis. I will never forget the night my wife and walked from our little bungalow and through the neighborhood one glorious summer night to see "Fields of Dreams". It was a fantastic movie made all the more memorable having spent the night strolling through Westwood. Made the movie experience a little more special.
Watching Siskel and Ebert brought me back memories. They were magnificent in their show and I miss them deeply. Rest in peace both of them! Two very high thumbs up!
That theatre in Brooklyn was transformed into an amazing stage of adventure in a nine year old’s mind. On our way back home, I still remember trying to make Chewbacca sounds as dad pressed the gas pedal on Atlantic Ave. as he yelled out that we were going into hyperspace. Mom and my sister just laughed and enjoyed our silliness. Great memories.
44 years later we're seeing a review that's been lost to time for way too long. Their observations were really good both on what inspired the movie and what it would itself inspire later. The pinball comparison was amusing considering how much the whole video game industry was later inspired by Star Wars.
SW was so innovative, Ebert missed half of what made it so great: the sound! The music and especially the sound effects were just as remarkable as the visual effects.
And yet death WAS handled seriously in at least one scene - the burned corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle in front of their destroyed homestead. Luke's horrified expression was one of the best moments in the film.
The light saber was key, especially to the first episode. It was like an old civilization far more advanced than ours with some archaic weapons still extent, yet far past anything we could develop. And it brings to mind dueling which wasn't that far in humanity's past.
“I think I figured it out...that looks like what happens at a pinball game, that kids love...we’re seeing things blow up” Not sure he’s ever played pinball.
My pinball machine gives you the opportunity to blow up a character in a fighter jet. I can totally get the reference. Even though my pinball machine is a 1986 Williams, F-14 Tomcat and this is from 1977/78
I use to watch movies with these guys between 1994-1996 when I lived in Chicago. They became good friends of mine. I miss them. Thanks for posting this review.
My best friend from High School got me to start watching them in the late 70's. I remained a viewer of their program whether it was on PBS or in syndication up until the end. I can't think of any movie critic nowadays that's adequately filling their shoes.
What a coincidence, I used to watch movies with these guys too. I would bring the popcorn and they brought the beer. Sometimes Scorsese would come by and bring some candy. We would have sleep overs and watch Baby's Day Out which was Roger's favorite film.
I was 12 when Star Wars came out. I was absolutely mesmerized by it. Saw it 50x, not counting all the times we stayed in the theater and sat through it again. I would cut grade school with my friend, take the bus to the end of the line, then we had to walk another mile to the theater... we didn't care, it was STAR WARS! The ushers who worked in the theater got to know us and let us sit through the movie 2-3x, we were in the theater all day long eating popcorn, hots dogs and candy. Kids will never have this type of movie experience today. The 70's were certainly a great time to be a kid.
When I was 11 years old, there was something handed out to us in our classroom to read, sort of like a newsletter or something. In it, it had an article about a new movie about to come out, called Star Wars. When it hit theaters, I asked my mom & dad to take me to see it. We saw it together, at a drive-in theater. I instantly loved it and was in love with Luke Skywalker. Soon I had a big Chewbacca doll on my dresser, I had necklaces of Darth Vader, C3PO, & R2D2, etc. It was really special being one of the original Star Wars fans.
WOW! Gene’s warning (fear) about Hollywood replacing good writing and acting with mindless special effects just for the sake of special effects and quick editing designed to distract was truly prophetic! Did he just timestamp the trigger point in the demise of Hollywood?
Exactly! Star Wars was at once the culmination and the endpoint of the Hollywood Renaissance. The brainchild of a passionate young independent filmmaker became the new template that still dominates corporate movie groupthink today.
@@Fool3SufferingFools This is a ridiculous take. Ridiculous. Every good filmmaker knows STORY is key. Characters are key. FX are extra to make the story work. Of course there will always be SOME mindless movies with poor character development but to characterize the whole business as going down the tubes because of this? It's truly stupid and embarrassing. It's very "get off my lawn"
I had the same thought, but they did mention that this review was for the re-release at Christmas 1977. So maybe they figured that most of the viewers had already seen the movie, anyway, or at the very least, there wasn't much left to spoil.
Johnny Carson had Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher on to promote the re-release; and he stated that there were probably only “two amoebas living in China somewhere” who had not seen the movie by then. 🤣. They showed that same clip (which is pan & scanned from the 2.35:1 aspect ratio) on his show as well.
@@PlainsPup It wasn't that they had longer attention spans, it was that this was the only way for people to see bits of the film without going to a movie theater again. The home video cassette didn't come out until 1982. As Stephen Kershaw said in his comment, people would have tuned into the TV show just to see clips of the movie they loved.
Ebert and Siskel were both quite forward thinking in their analysis. “It’s a movie that will last for years.” “It’s so successful I hope Hollywood doesn’t forget about making serious movies too.”
What this movie did wasn't so much a fun escape from reality movie as it was about the battle between good and evil. It also brought hope back to a nation that was still reeling from Vietnam and protests. We needed a reason to feel good about ourselves and Star Wars brought that.
@@jblack9371 Only the first part is true. Hollywood (and even moreso Indie studios) have still been making "serious" movies every year since, and shower them with awards. They rarely are as popular or receive billions in ticket sales, but they are absolutely still being made.
I was nine years old when Star Wars came out. Walked out of the theater gobsmacked. Saw it 12 more times. Mind BLOWN. Never experienced anything like it since.
I was 11 in 77 and yeah, wasn't it the most incredible thing in a cinema? People today just can't understand what a game changer Star Wars really was! It was in theatres for over a year and I saw it 20 times....every time, I plotted and planned to see it again.....and again!
It was such a cultural thing. Back when they had large theatres, I had waited a few weeks. I got there for the Matinee, the line went all the way around the building! I drove all the way around. Decided for another day..
I wish i I saw this I the cinema back in 77. “Unfortunately” I’m born in 86. But I saw the 3 movies at home on VHS as a 7 year old, and every time I was blown back over the action. To day I watch it with my 2 boys and tell them all about the characters, planets and space ships. I can safely say that Star Wars is a big part of my life
I was 31 when this film made its debut. The opening scene of the huge Imperial ship going overhead and the rumbling of the whole theater was one of the greatest movie experiences to be had. No matter that sound doesn't travel through space, this was entertainment. That is what most of us go to the movies for. My kids still remember it. I loved watching Siskel and Ebert on PBS. Great reviewers who occasionally forgot about the fun of movies.
I remember that moment in the theater too. When that giant ship went over, shooting at the small one. It was breathtaking. Nobody had ever seen anything like that. Just that instant changed everything.l, as far as what a movie could be. I dont think younger people will ever get as thrilled as we were by that, theyre used to that kind of movie magic.
This former 4 and a half year old totally agrees. That opening scene was breathtaking. And quickly turned me from being upset because I couldn't read the words fast enough, to in awe!
@@k.e.anderson3485 Nah, only someone who actually saw it in 1977 would note the rumbling of the spaceship "overhead." That kind of thing is too common to bother with now, but back then, it was entirely novel.
one of the reasons the effect shot footage of the battles felt real is they were based on actual gun camera footage from fighters and bombers that flew in WW2.
I thought that was what Siskel was going to say, that the scene was right out of "Flying Leathernecks," with tailgunners shooting down Zeroes over Guadalcanal. Instead he comes up with exploding pinball.
They were also based on movies about WW1 and WW2 air combat. The Death Star attack sequence is almost entirely copied from the Dam Busters and 633 Squadron. Of course the idea that spaceships flying in a vacuum would fly and maneuver like fixed-wing prop planes is pretty ludicrous, but that's the beauty of these films, they look and sound so damned fantastic you completely forget about any concept of realism or plausibility.
Growing up a movie lover in Chicago was a TREAT watching these two bring their perspectives every week on what was coming to the theatre and such a loss when we ended up losing both.
I was 6 when this came out. I hounded my parents to take me to see it again and again and again. My mom told me, years later, that we saw it every weekend for the first 6 weeks lol
@@kevting4512 it's a here today gone tomorrow movie that no one will remember in a month. i've been watching these vids of this kid Michael Jordan too and he's a flashy young kid with no real skills that won't last long in the NBA for sure.
He also put it on his ten best of 1977 list, so, yeah, he enjoyed it. It was more of his statement that there is still an audience for serious movies and hopes that the box office success of escapism wouldn’t overshadow that. Apparently, he was right.
Both very idiotic. Shame, as Scorsese is certainly not an idiot, but nobody is perfect. He, of course, being a friend of Lucas, made also certain to clarify that his comments were not reflective of Star Wars or of Spielberg movies.
No matter how you slice it, moviemaking is just storytelling. Scorsese is just jealous that he can’t come up with stories that are as interesting to the majority of people as Marvel can. That’s it. Marvel tells better stories.
I miss Siskel and Ebert. I remember watching their show Sneak Previews on PBS in the 70s and I never missed the different iterations of their show through the 90s.
I was 12 when I saw Star Wars with my dad on August 12, 1977. I will never forget that day - my dad didn’t like sci-fi but he knew how much I wanted to see this movie so he took me.
Not just a great movie, but the start of a dream run of great movies. Empire, ROTJ, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Back to the Future, ET, Alien/s, Beverly Hills Cop, Terminator 1&2, Karate Kid, Top Gun, Blade Runner, Escape from New York, Highlander, Big Trouble in Little China, Mad Max series, Tron, Crocodile Dundee, Wargames, and so many others. It was and always will be an awesome time to be growing up.
Conan The Barbarian, Dawn Of The Dead, Return Of The Living Dead, Goonies, Stand By Me, Stripes, National Lampoon's Vacation series......glad I was born in that generation
@@insideoutsideupsidedown2218 what I remember about Tron was seeing it at a drive-in theater outside Chicago, eating Planter's cheese balls in the back of our AMC Pacer.
With exception of Highlander, I made my kids watch all of those with me, and my youngest (now 20) said he thinks the 80s was a great time for films. My oldest son went to Emerson film school and now works in Hollywood.
After seeing my first Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi in 1983, I would stare up at the stars at night and wonder if those adventures were really going on somewhere out there. I somehow believed the movies were real even if I knew they couldn't be.
So many of us felt that same exact way. Samuel Jackson said of watching it the first time "it wasn't just a movie, it felt real. I was living it along with the characters on that screen"
My Dad was a movie projectionist for Jaws and Star Wars . I saw them so many times as a teen that I could recite them the way a minister recites a sermon .
I always thought that often Siskel took himself too seriously. But darned if he wasn't on to something. All these years later and the box office (USA at least) is dominated by movies that are more about dazzling you with visuals than the writing and characters.
'Star Wars," whatever its effect on Hollywood, was still an intelligent movie with a story and characters worth caring about. 'The Empire Strikes Back' was more so.
What surprised me was that Gene said he'd seen Star Wars three times already. It was so different from any movie ever done before and must've really wowed him and captured his imagination.
At the same time, it's got "throwback" written all over it. It's like, "What if they made a 1940s SF B-movie with an A-movie budget and an A-movie sensibility and A-movie quality tailored to the people of 1977, who were rather different people, what with the '60s and all?"
3:53 It's funny to hear Siskel compare the space battle scene to a pinball machine, "that kids love", I do remember playing a couple video games back then at the skating rink, but there was no Space Invaders yet which would be to video games what Star Wars would be to the movies.
Yeah. Those scene were taken directly from WWII movies like 12 O'Clock High. I wish their original review was posted somewhere. I'll bet they weren't so generous before they knew it would be a smash.
Were I grew up we had a roller rink to! And the pinball area had my favorite video game "asteroids", the late 70s were fun. We still played outside, bicycles, skateboards, playing war in the woods and as teenagers we got our first dirt bikes. As a teenage boy if I had the choice of video games or blasting through the woods on my beat up old DT175, you can bet I was reaching for my helmet.
@@henryj.8528 - Knowing both of their review tastes, I'd be very surprised if they didn't both enjoy it from the get go. Even for people that aren't into action or sci-fi or fantasy, it's a hard movie to insult.
@@kruks You are probably right. I just remember reading the first reviews of various now-classic films (and even the Beatles) and many early reviews were critical. So I think it would be instructive to see what they said before the movie became an all-time classic smash.
And Asteroids! I could never get good at asteroids. My favorites were: Donkey Kong, Tempest and my all time favorite- GALAGA! I laugh at the very end when Siskel says "I hope Hollywood remembers that we like to see serious movies too". What a snob.
Start with the FAR superior soft re-boot, from 2015. It has everything this one has, but without all the woke prooaganda, identity politics and crappy Mary Sue protagonist... 🥴
I don't know about it I heard it was just a remake of a Japanese film They've done that before with westerns ....some movie with Yul Brenner with some nobody actors ....I think named McQueen, Coburn and Bronson Oh yeah they also made that other Japanese film into some foreign western with some TV actor named....I think his name was .......Eastwood? I wonder if any of them became big name stars? Same with this Star Wars They've got some actor named Harrison Ford Can't imagine this film will help his career.......😉 I
@@steviesevieria1868 Screw Gene Siskel - he was the reason Aliens didn't have a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not everyone wants to watch "The Autumn of my Discontent".
My late uncle took me to see “Star Wars“ when it first came out in the theaters. I was nine years old back then. Him taking me to that movie is probably one of the fondest memories I have from my childhood. I’ve seen it hundreds of times since. What a great era for Hollywood film-making that was!
Prophetic words from Siskel. Today’s theaters are waist deep in mindless entertainment and blockbuster action films. Thankfully, there are just enough serious films to please others.
I was 5 yrs old when I went to see this in '77...my senses were blown to smithereens when that main title blasted on screen with that heroic & powerful John Williams score, then the story scrolling up to the stars and the shot of that Star Destroyer chasing that tiny Rebel fighter ship. It was the boyhood equivalent of a first orgasm....captured the imagination of every little Luke Skywalker in the world!
That opening chord, really an opening musical BLAST followed by a glorious fanfare, was the most powerful chord written or recorded since the Tristan Chord over 100 years earlier.
Seeing the gritty specks and dust on the Star Wars clip is so nostalgic for me. It's like listening to your favorite all time song on a vinyl record, I love it!
I saw this the first time in Plattsburgh NY at a drive in. I was almost 5 and we watched it from the roof of the RV in sleeping bags. This movie blew my little mind. The music, the story and the characters. My favorite of all the Star Wars movies.
I saw Star Wars as a kid and had all the toys. At 54 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the original. I have teenage kids now and I’ve seen it probably dozens of times with them, at least 5 times in 2020-21 alone.
"It's so successful and so mindless fun that I hope Hollywood doesn't forget that there are people who like to watch serious pictures too. " Micheal Bay: "Haha nice one" Marvel: "I know right?"
@@aldowilliams4765 No. "Taxi driver", "Raging bull" and "The Godfather" are serious "Star Wars is a rollercoaster ride, a movie made forvthe sake if escapismo and fun. And theres us not Amy problem about It.
Martin Scorsese was right. The Marvel/Disney/Transformers movies aren't terrible, but they've taken over and sucked the wind out of the great dramas and action films that we used to have.
Yeah, that gave me a laugh. Video games were starting to take off, but they were still too new for Gene to catch up with the terminology. I guess he could only express it based on the arcades of his youth...hence "pinball."
"That's the one thing Star Wars has in common with Close Encounters. Real magic..." I believe this is what modern movies are missing. Practical effects are far superior to CGI.
CGI lets you do things not possible with practical FX. On the other hand some movies use CGI to the exclusion of practical FX. The Star Wars prequels showed that.
10 years old, and my Dad took me to see Star Wars. First Dolby Sound movie I'd ever seen, also. I loved it, and I'm so glad my Dad was cool enough to takee to it. He was also a Star Trek Fan. What a great moment in my life!
Great clip. Gene Siskel came to our high school once to talk. Kids asked him what his favorite movie was. He turned the tables and asked us what movie we liked. One kid said _Risky Business,_ which had recently come out and was shot in the area. Siskel agreed and went on to talk about why that movie was good. Basically, he said it was about teenagers, but had a more serious adult storyline with a good antagonist (I guess Guido, “a mad killer pimp?”). I think we might have asked him about _Star Wars_ too, but by then (early 80s), he knew better than to mention the pinball analogy. Star Wars changed the movie landscape forever and definitely changed these guys’ work on _Sneak Previews._ Interesting to see them come to terms with its significance here. If they only knew how long.
I remember at one point they did a "guilty pleasures" episode of movies they knew were bad, but enjoyed watching. One of Siskel's was the 1981 Tarzan because...Bo Derek.
I'm in my 70's and I never listen to people telling what I should or shouldn't watch or where to eat or not eat at 😠 I can decide for myself 🤦 I absolutely love Star Wars🥰
One Saturday, right around my 7th birthday, my dad told me he and I would go to a matinee show at the movie theater. I had no idea what "Star Wars" was but it sounded like a nice way to spend a winter afternoon. I remember him quietly reading the opening scroll and then it was lights out for my brain. I walked out of there a changed person. Every stick on the ground became a light sabre or a laser gun. Someone can watch the movie for the first time today and appreciate it, but they'll never, ever be able to understand how it felt to young kids of that era.
Wow...this is brilliant for the time. “A movie that will last a long time.” That quote has aged like a fine wine. But... “I hope Hollywood doesn’t forget that people like serious movies too” is equally as great of a quote. As good as Star Wars is it inspired a lot of mindless movies many people are sick of even to this day. (Even Star Wars started to become that). The fact that these two could see the outcome of the the movie into the future at the time of its release is astounding.
Some directors, including big name ones (read: big box office) just dont seem to know how to choreograph an action sequence without everything being ultra quick shots. Especially fight sequences. And they need the shaky-cam. Seems more cluttered than dizzying.
I was 10 years old when Star Wars came out. The first thing I ever saw regarding Star Wars, not knowing anything about it, was a small black and white picture of the Stormtrooper on the giant lizard in Scholastic News magazine. I was already a sci fi/fantasy fan and all I remember thinking when I first saw that picture was "Cool. Looks like Planet of the Apes. I'll have to see that" and I did.
Not only special effects being groundbreaking, but when you see the camera angles coupled with that great John Williams score, you feel like you are right there with them!
1977: Star Wars succeeds because it's mindless fun. 2007: Star Wars succeeded because it is the ur-myth, the hero's journey, the tale as old as time, etc, etc, etc,... When my movie turned 40, I was amazed at how profound it became.
Saw this movie three times with my younger brother who died from leukemia in 78. It was his favorite movie and I am so glad we enjoyed it together.
Ebert: “This movie will last for years.”
Oh Roger, if you only knew….
And Gene was so wrong when he said, "I hope Hollywood doesn't forget there are some people who like to see serious pictures too..." Of course- those are the Oscar nominees every year that nobody ever goes to see with their $3 million total box office numbers or garbage streaming views and are why nobody cares about the pathetic Oscars anymore.
@@dsscam yeah because the Oscars rather nominate movies based on quality rather than box office gross? Yeah I'm down with that. I don't want movies nominated because ppl went to see them. Movies should be nominated based on quality
@@dsscam Are you saying this like it’s a good thing? you like that people would rather Consoom corporate slop content instead of watching intellectual art films?
@@dsscam You say so much about yourself with this ignorant comment.
@@adamcraig919 A lot of pretentious crap wins Oscars, and also a lot of good films. They do have a bad history with science fiction and fantasy films, snubbing them countless ties and only awarding them when it's painfully obvious, like with LOTR. Star Wars lost to...Annie Hall? Wtf? How many people outside of a certain age group have seen that movie? I haven't. Woody Allen beat George Lucas, who is not a great director but really went above and beyond for Star Wars.
And I'm not trashing intellectual art films either, Amadeus is one of my favourite films, the Thin Red Line, The Remains of the Day, Howard's End...
But time is the ultimate test of whether a film is good or not, and people forget about awards. Dune lost to...Nomadland? Denis Villeneuve wasn't even nominated? Rarely do films win both the technical awards and Best Picture and Best Director.
Ok, rant over.
Seeing this on the big screen for the first time in 1977 was a life changing experience.
Yes it was!!!
Yep
I was 6 years old and I remember crying because my brother wouldn't take me to see The Island of Doctor Moreau because he wanted to see something called Star Wars, we sat through it three times. it was a life changing moment as a kid. I can't tell you what a great time it was to be a kid growing up in late 70s to mid 80s because of the movies, music (MTV) and Saturday morning cartoons.
Completely agree...I was 9 years old at the time, and my friends and I rode our bikes to the local theater, and stood in the lines that wrapped around the building to see the movie 6 times over a single weekend. Used the money I earned from doing chores to buy the tickets. Man...I consider myself very lucky to have experienced that in the theater during the original release. I wouldn't trade the memories of growing up in the late 70's through the mid 80's for anything. What a time to be a kid and a teenager!
@@jimbojumbo5805 Were you into R/C cars at all? Tamiya has been on a tear the past 10 years re-releasing their 1980s catalog.
It was the only Star Wars movie that my dad took me to. He hasn't any other Star Wars since then. For me, I have seen all of them in the theaters.
The Island of Dr Moreau?!.. At 6 years old?..
I was born in 1970 I agree great time to be a kid
I remember Siskel & Ebert's show being so new and cutting edge! It's so strange to see it now as a very old video clip. Folks, the years do go by fast...
John Williams is the unsung hero of all blockbuster films ; Imagine JAWS, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.t. , and all the others. When we think of those movies, if you're like me, the first thing my brain recalls is the music.
How true! I had such a high opinion of John Williams, that for years I took it for granted that the classical guitarist of the same name was also the famous composer. Imagine how stupid I felt when I discovered they were two different people!
um holst that thought.
I was 9 when Star Wars came out. It blew my mind wide open. We went to pick apples later that evening, and as I looked up at the stars coming out, something was different. Some new curiosity was awakened in me. I saw it 36 times that Summer, because my mom was working at the theater. 🙂
They didn't give nearly enough credit to the MUSIC. I could listen to the music from that scene they used OVER and OVER again. Williams is a genius.
The music is the only thing Lucas said he was completely satisfied with after making the movies in their initial release.
I always thought the music for this and Superman is what made the movie even more than the actual acting or action. You had a full orchestra doing the opening and closing theme songs.
Williams _was_ a genius. After _Return of the Jedi,_ most of his scores sound like rehashes of his previous work.
@@frocat5163 Jurassic park score is one of his best, same with the Harry Potter score
@@mania4270 Home Alone and Schindler's List as well.
You can tell from this review that even then these guys knew that their industry was never going to be the same.
What makes the space battle scene so thrilling is the magical music of John Williams.
Wrong! You mean *PINBALL*
Yeah, especially the buildup. The sequence of shots of them getting ready for the fight would be borderline boring, if not for Williams ramping up the tension the whole time.
Yeah. Williams is a genius.
And the models, cinematography and editing.
@@StephenKershaw1 Opinions vary, and there's lots of lunatics in the world today, like yourself...lol
"I hope Hollywood doesn't forget that there are people who like to see serious pictures too" what a line from Siskel. This was a time of huge change in Hollywood and that's exactly what happened...
That stuff still exists. Unfortunately it just isn’t really being made by major studios anymore. But independent companies like A24 and foreign countries supply some genuinely great films.
Another thing I found fascinating was that Siskel compared the film's action scenes to a pinball machine. Nowadays people would compare it to a video game--except in 1977 video games basically didn't exist yet (I think Pong had been invented already, but certainly the age of arcades and video game machines were still to come, and the average American didn't know what they were), so the closest analogue was pinball, in many ways the biggest precursor to video games.
"I hope Hollywood doesn't forget that there are people who like to see serious pictures too"
Narrator voice: "They did."
@@AmyASpaceOdyssey They make serious streaming series now, just not theatrical releases
This was just a condescending line. Oh they made a fun movie, now all of us who like serious(?) pictures are not gonna get serious pictures. I remember Siskel or Elbert gave a a bad review to Aliens. A movie does not get more serious than Aliens.
My dad worked for a large Japanese electronics manufacturer back in the mid 70s. One of his accounts gave him a black market copy of SW while it was still in the theaters, probably what we call a “screener” today. Friends would come over and I would say “wanna watch Star Wars?” And they would reply “yeah right”. Then I would show them the video and their jaw would drop and of course we watched it!
We had friends of my familly in 77-78 who had a huge movie library in their upstairs TV/game room, with a pinball machine,
and we were visiting one night for whatever reason, and their dad said I've got a surprise for ya and somehow whipped out a
black market Betamax copy of Star Wars and let me watch most of it on their large console TV. It was a trip seeing it back then on a home VHS or Beta setup.
The only BetaMax I've ever seen was The Empire Strikes Back, and this was in summer of 2000, right as DVD was ascending the throne of home video; I was STUNNED by the quality of BetaMax; it was widescreen, and it felt like it was DVD quality already. It blew my mind that the format failed, but when I learned that the tapes could only hold an hour of video at maximum, it started to make sense to me that the cheaper and longer duration format ultimately won out. That, and the fact that VHS was "chosen" by the porn industry.@@thiscorrosion900
A screener in 1977? What format did you see it on?
I was 8 years old in 1976. We went to the drive in with my parents to see "The Outlaw Josie Whales" and the second feature for that night was "Bite the Bullet" Well, between the two movies they showed the previews of upcoming movies, as they usually do. All of a sudden, this movie preview came on with robots, a man with a light sword of some kind, lasers shooting and a man in a scary black mask with an ominous voice. At the end, they showed a girl kissing the man on the cheek, wished him good luck, and they swung across a cavern while these guys with laser guns and white masks shot at them.
My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. Star Wars? Oh man I want to see THAT!! Little did I know how that moment right there was going to change my life. My friends parents owned a store in the mall right next to the Cine Capri, which was the only place in town that had Star wars. We saw Star Wars maybe 22 times that summer. We were lucky because everyone worked during the day and stood in line for the movie at night so we were able to see it without the lines and such.
What a fun time that was.
Outlaw Josey Wales is still a great movie too;)
I was 21 and all I knew about the movie SW was an ad in the newspaper (no tv ads or internet in those days). It turned out to be nothing like I expected as there wasn't anything like Star Wars at the time. It was amazing. Seeing in on a tv doesn't give any movie justice but for SW you just have to see it that way. I love Josie and Bite the Bullet (I have both movies but saw both movies at the theater).
I was 11 at the time and I have never had an experience like that again. Seen a lot of great movies, but Star Wars was literally a life altering experience.
It came out in 1977. Not 1976.
Seems like a lifetime ago. I liked all the movies, nostalgia
I was sold in the opening scene when that battle cruiser came onscreen from seemingly right over your head. Set the standard for special effects for 20 years.
Best opening of a movie ever.
@@kenhernandez8128 Agreed. SO. GOOD.
Memorial Day weekend 1977. That opening. Jawdropping.
I remember watching the Princess's ship and being wowed. But wait, there's another ship firing on her ship, and it is big, bigger, it's still coming, holy XXX, that thing is GIGANTIC! It was a truly incredible start to the movie!
Exactly the same for me. As an eight-year-old it was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen!
Pretty much still is!
I saw this in the spring of 1977 with my old man at the UPTOWN Theater in Washington DC. I was 11 years old and was working with my dad who was an electrical contractor working on a big job at the National Zoo which was right across the street. We took a long lunch and went to see the movie. When it was over and we were walking back to the Zoo my dad said "that was actually pretty good huh?" Little did we know. Wonderful memory.
The Uptown is where I saw it as well, though as a Junior at Georgetown. Life would never be the same.
I saw the rerelease of this at the Uptown Theater. In 1977 I saw it in Imperial Nebraska all 3 nights it was there.
Great comment! Same age as you- I saw it Saturday, June 7, 1977 at the Oakbrook theater Oak Brook, Illinois. I was sleeping over at my friends house afterward and had my pillow in pajamas in the trunk of the car. I will never forget that day or that movie!!
I ventured to the Uptown too. Because it was the only theater in the area playing the movie at first. Not many theaters wanted to show it because they thought is was going to be another ''2001 space bore".
I saw it at Loews Astor Plaza in NYC a few days after my 12th birthday. My late uncle took me past the line that went around the block - straight to the box office - and we went right in.
When storyline, character chemistry and special effects came together. It was magical. Very rare nowadays
yep sadly nowadays its - political influence > gender equality > character chemistry > special effects > storyline, the storylines get rewritten to provide the pointless previous "must have or it wont be made" influences, but the story lines shold be kept as is written by the writer, ignoring all that, again sadly, doesnt happen
It was rare then too, but people always forget or never knew about the huge amount of drivel and crap which was also available to see, just like today
I was just 12 years old when Star Wars came out and I'll never forget how it blew my mind. This truly was a game changer!
It was indeed. I was 7 and still remember seeing it with my dad for the first time.
I was 9 when I saw Star Wars, my aunt had to leave the theater during the Death Star attack because of motion sickness.
I was thirteen that summer. People today just can't understand what we mean when we say it changed everything. It really did.
@@BolofromAvlis I was working in the Baton Rouge theatre when it opened. My sister had just given birth to my niece and it was a difficult birth. I was working 12 hours a day because the movie was sold out for every showing and going to the hospital afterwards, so I didn't get a chance to see it for the first 3 weeks of it's run, but even then I loved it. I never worked so hard in my life but it remains a happy memory.
Agreed.... this & Superman the Movie where my introduction to movies... at 4..5 years old. Man did these movies set a hardline tone in my life. Never quit.. always fight against oppression.. be willing to defend those who can’t defend themselves.. and probably the most important.. even evil starts with a wholesome idea. For those of us who remember.... what a fantastic time to be alive !!!
“It’s a movie that will last for years” - he got that right.
Well, it lasted until Di$ney bought it.
Little did they, or the rest of us, know...
Who would have thought such a wonderful start would end from terminal wokeness. PC destroys everything it touches.
I would suggest, watching Rogue One, then STAR WARS...then nothing else and you will basically have the story.
His closing line hits home as well.
The first day Star Wars hit theaters my best friend and I hid out in the theater and watched it four times. The second day I went back by myself and watched it three more times. I was 10 years old at the time and the movie literally changed the course of my life. Thank you, George Lucas!
So… you committed fraud
How did it change the course of your life?
Imagine watching a movie four times the same day now. You'd pay >$80 without treats. A long time ago indeed.
" a movie that would last for years" boy that's the understatement of the century
Agreed. I heard this movie was watched by literally hundreds of people as well!
@@colinmacarthur5249 I'd say it was accurate.
Seriously. Now it's morphed into Frankenstein's monster.
Lol “ years “
More like many decades!
@@colinmacarthur5249 it was played continuously in theatres up until the early 80’s, that’s how popular it was!
"... it will be around for years." An atypical observation for a film review that turned out to be spot on.
Technically though back then before wide use of home video it was common for movies to play in theaters for years. Even Saturday Night Fever was recut to get a PG rating in its second year and kept playing.
This was actually after it was a big success: it's said so at the very beginning.
@@StephenKershaw1 in what is universe did people stop watching star wars in the late 80s?
A very typical observation for a movie that has just broken the all time box office record....
@@StephenKershaw1 there are No Sequels for Gone With Wind, Wizard of Oz, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, etc. They are remembered.
My mother I had the opportunity to meet Mark Hamill at Toronto Fan Expo. I told him that my mother took me to see him in Star Wars seven times. It was a big deal because she had to drive me into the city. He stood up, and gave her a big hug.
And now, Mark Hamill's a scary old man that, along with his wife and son, tried to threaten and harass his son's girlfriend into aborting his grand-daughter. The girlfriend tricked them though and the kid was born just fine. X D
To bad mark is a crazy douche
@@JinzoCrash I forgot about that story
Im so glad that I was 13 years old when I saw this at the theater when it came out. There's nothing like being a kid a seeing Star Wars for the first time.
Especially during that time. Nobody had ever seen anything like that.
George Lucas: “I wasn't supposed to say it then, but this is a film for 12-year-olds.”
Missed you by a year. 😉
Ebert was 35 and Siskel was 31 in this review. Mind blowing.
Whoa!
I saw all three of the films during their initial theatrical releases. That six year span, 1977-1983, gave us more deserved hype than I've ever seen. I loved every second.
I saw the first one at least ten times. Waited around the block in Times Square to do so. Ten fucking times I did that. All the while knowing that a parsec was a unit of distance, not time. That was the most painful part...
@@DrFoofyMan Solo fixed it for you
@@MaximumCarne _Soylo_ bastardized the explanation that was provided in the Expanded Universe decades before that travesty of a film was even conceived.
And all the great extras like toys, play sets and Burger King coke drinking glasses. Oh how I wanted those drinking glasses so much but my parents insisted they "cost too much". Fast forward forty years, I finally have them all on display in my living room. 😆
I remember that there was so much demand for the second one, Empire Strikes Back. My friends and I waited three hours in line to see it, and it was worth it.
"What's the meaning of it all? Who knows and who cares?!" needs to be the tagline on every Star Wars movie from now on.
For real though. Star Wars is a campy Space Opera first and foremost
@@Danbo22987 Actually its mostly taken from Dune and Joseph Campbell's ideas about mythology. But a campy Space Opera second.
Or the inscription on What's her name Kennedy's tombstone.
@@Music--ng8cd That's such a reductionist delegation of intellectual property.
I've heard people say that Star Wars ripped off Star Trek. When I ask them their reason, they say "It's because it's in space"
Maybe not if Jon Favreau is involved.
This episode of S&E must have been exhilarating for the viewers back then. After watching a movie in the 70's, there wasn't the option to rent it a few months later (unless you were ultra rich I suppose) so waiting for it to appear on TV could take a year if not longer. I'm surprised that S&E were allowed to show this length of a scene. People at home were likely thrilled to see this again.
Took five years for the original Star Wars film to be released on home video in 1982. Another two years before it premiered on CBS in 1984. I remember watching the network TV premiere broadcast with my brother and our parents gathered in the living room. I was 17 and my brother was 19 at the time. Mom made popcorn and dad picked up maple bars and soda at the store. Good times.
Sneak Previews
The market was nowhere what it was in the mid-80s/late 90s. Star Wars wasn't for rent till sometime early in 1982. It didn't even make its cable debut till the Summer of 82 with ON Tv. I didn't show on Showtime till March of '83.
It was even more than that for Star Wars. Most movies came out on HBO or Cinemax in 6 months to a year after their theater runs. Star Wars didn't make it to HBO until 1983. The VHS was released in 1982.
We didn't have much money and I was still pretty young so my first time watching Star Wars was actually on HBO in '83
Star Wars wasn’t even available on HBO until January 1, 1980 at 12:00 am. I came home high as a kite, turned on my tv and was like holy shit, STAR WARS!
"Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?!" "No reward is worth this." Best dialogue exchange in the entire series.
The Han/Leia dynamic in the first movie is awesome. He’s a sarcastic wiseass but so’s she, so when they meet and interact it becomes a comedic battle of wills. It occurs to me that a bitchy and powerful character like Leia would probably be hated by audiences in most movies, but somehow Carrie Fisher and Lucas made it work; we loved her!
Come on!
"I love you!"
"I know."
My girlfriend refers to me as a walking carpet
I saw Star Wars on it's first opening weekend ( May 28th, 1977 ) , with seven other friends, in Westwood, CA , and none of us were remotely prepared for the spectacle that we were about to see and experience. I will never forget that day, and nor will my friends.
You're extremely lucky to have been in Westwood, CA to see the opening weekend of Star Wars. I lived in Westwood in the early 90's and it's a great place to live - the movie theatres, the night life with excellent restaurants, the college town vibe, and close enough to Hollywood to see the occasional movie star on a regular basis. I will never forget the night my wife and walked from our little bungalow and through the neighborhood one glorious summer night to see "Fields of Dreams". It was a fantastic movie made all the more memorable having spent the night strolling through Westwood. Made the movie experience a little more special.
Hey John P, similar, saw it at the Avco theater on Wilshire that weekend in 1977, what a great time it was!
I was 10 when Star Wars came out. I went and watched it. Changed my life forever. The opening scene blew my mind. And Darth Vader WOW.
Watching Siskel and Ebert brought me back memories. They were magnificent in their show and I miss them deeply. Rest in peace both of them! Two very high thumbs up!
Each person only has one voting thumb.
Ebert was an overinflated bag of hot air.
Seeing it in it’s original grit really highlights how ahead of it’s time this movie was
That theatre in Brooklyn was transformed into an amazing stage of adventure in a nine year old’s mind. On our way back home, I still remember trying to make Chewbacca sounds as dad pressed the gas pedal on Atlantic Ave. as he yelled out that we were going into hyperspace. Mom and my sister just laughed and enjoyed our silliness. Great memories.
"Get us outta here chewy"....."raaaar". I use that one at work a lot.
@@troyc4841 great name btw!! Yeah that's a good one.
44 years later we're seeing a review that's been lost to time for way too long. Their observations were really good both on what inspired the movie and what it would itself inspire later. The pinball comparison was amusing considering how much the whole video game industry was later inspired by Star Wars.
gene in this clip pretty much predicted the appeal of modern video games.
You outta watch the siskel Ebert defend starwars that interview was pure gold
SW was so innovative, Ebert missed half of what made it so great: the sound! The music and especially the sound effects were just as remarkable as the visual effects.
And yet death WAS handled seriously in at least one scene - the burned corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle in front of their destroyed homestead. Luke's horrified expression was one of the best moments in the film.
@@primal2020 exactly what I thought when the red grid populated on the guncamera screen
I miss Siskle and Ebert. Loved watching them
The light saber was key, especially to the first episode. It was like an old civilization far more advanced than ours with some archaic weapons still extent, yet far past anything we could develop. And it brings to mind dueling which wasn't that far in humanity's past.
I think you'll find jar-jar was the key to all of this
@@jj80808Jar-jar: undercover Sith lord.
“I think I figured it out...that looks like what happens at a pinball game, that kids love...we’re seeing things blow up”
Not sure he’s ever played pinball.
siskel was an idiot imho.
🤣😂🤣 I think you might be on to something.
Remember this was before video games. Pinball with the sounds and lights was the only thing he had to compare it with
My pinball machine gives you the opportunity to blow up a character in a fighter jet. I can totally get the reference. Even though my pinball machine is a 1986 Williams, F-14 Tomcat and this is from 1977/78
They made lots of money talking out of their butts.
I use to watch movies with these guys between 1994-1996 when I lived in Chicago. They became good friends of mine. I miss them. Thanks for posting this review.
That's interesting. Tell us more, please.
Were you their age or younger/older? How did you meet them? What did they really think of each other?
My best friend from High School got me to start watching them in the late 70's. I remained a viewer of their program whether it was on PBS or in syndication up until the end. I can't think of any movie critic nowadays that's adequately filling their shoes.
What a coincidence, I used to watch movies with these guys too. I would bring the popcorn and they brought the beer. Sometimes Scorsese would come by and bring some candy. We would have sleep overs and watch Baby's Day Out which was Roger's favorite film.
Did they ever spring for popcorn and Twizzlers?
I was 12 when Star Wars came out. I was absolutely mesmerized by it. Saw it 50x, not counting all the times we stayed in the theater and sat through it again. I would cut grade school with my friend, take the bus to the end of the line, then we had to walk another mile to the theater... we didn't care, it was STAR WARS! The ushers who worked in the theater got to know us and let us sit through the movie 2-3x, we were in the theater all day long eating popcorn, hots dogs and candy. Kids will never have this type of movie experience today. The 70's were certainly a great time to be a kid.
❤❤
" Kids will never have this type of movie experience today." They call it ensh!tification. Everything goes to crap at some point.
When I was 11 years old, there was something handed out to us in our classroom to read, sort of like a newsletter or something. In it, it had an article about a new movie about to come out, called Star Wars. When it hit theaters, I asked my mom & dad to take me to see it. We saw it together, at a drive-in theater. I instantly loved it and was in love with Luke Skywalker. Soon I had a big Chewbacca doll on my dresser, I had necklaces of Darth Vader, C3PO, & R2D2, etc. It was really special being one of the original Star Wars fans.
WOW! Gene’s warning (fear) about Hollywood replacing good writing and acting with mindless special effects just for the sake of special effects and quick editing designed to distract was truly prophetic! Did he just timestamp the trigger point in the demise of Hollywood?
Exactly! Star Wars was at once the culmination and the endpoint of the Hollywood Renaissance. The brainchild of a passionate young independent filmmaker became the new template that still dominates corporate movie groupthink today.
Special Effects were the rage before Star Wars and we would be where we are with or without Star Wars
There are plenty of good movies out there, it's just that people's patience to watch a complex plot develop in a two hour movie is no longer there.
@@Fool3SufferingFools This is a ridiculous take. Ridiculous. Every good filmmaker knows STORY is key. Characters are key. FX are extra to make the story work. Of course there will always be SOME mindless movies with poor character development but to characterize the whole business as going down the tubes because of this? It's truly stupid and embarrassing. It's very "get off my lawn"
He did!
“Take a look at this battle scene in outer space” ..., proceeds to show the entire film.
I had the same thought, but they did mention that this review was for the re-release at Christmas 1977. So maybe they figured that most of the viewers had already seen the movie, anyway, or at the very least, there wasn't much left to spoil.
That was a loooooonnnnngggg clip.
People had longer attention spans back then.
Johnny Carson had Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher on to promote the re-release; and he stated that there were probably only “two amoebas living in China somewhere” who had not seen the movie by then. 🤣. They showed that same clip (which is pan & scanned from the 2.35:1 aspect ratio) on his show as well.
@@PlainsPup It wasn't that they had longer attention spans, it was that this was the only way for people to see bits of the film without going to a movie theater again. The home video cassette didn't come out until 1982. As Stephen Kershaw said in his comment, people would have tuned into the TV show just to see clips of the movie they loved.
Ebert and Siskel were both quite forward thinking in their analysis. “It’s a movie that will last for years.” “It’s so successful I hope Hollywood doesn’t forget about making serious movies too.”
And sadly it came true....
Prophetic to be honest. These guys really knew their stuff.
What this movie did wasn't so much a fun escape from reality movie as it was about the battle between good and evil. It also brought hope back to a nation that was still reeling from Vietnam and protests. We needed a reason to feel good about ourselves and Star Wars brought that.
@@jblack9371 Only the first part is true. Hollywood (and even moreso Indie studios) have still been making "serious" movies every year since, and shower them with awards. They rarely are as popular or receive billions in ticket sales, but they are absolutely still being made.
Watching Roger Ebert struggle to say "R2D2 and C3PO" gives me *all* the feels.
I was nine years old when Star Wars came out. Walked out of the theater gobsmacked. Saw it 12 more times. Mind BLOWN. Never experienced anything like it since.
I was 11 in 77 and yeah, wasn't it the most incredible thing in a cinema? People today just can't understand what a game changer Star Wars really was! It was in theatres for over a year and I saw it 20 times....every time, I plotted and planned to see it again.....and again!
It was such a cultural thing. Back when they had large theatres, I had waited a few weeks. I got there for the Matinee, the line went all the way around the building! I drove all the way around. Decided for another day..
@@athenassigil5820 Agreed. I was the same age. Unless you were there, people just don't get how incredibly special it was.
First movie I ever saw in a theater. I was 4.
I wish i I saw this I the cinema back in 77. “Unfortunately” I’m born in 86. But I saw the 3 movies at home on VHS as a 7 year old, and every time I was blown back over the action.
To day I watch it with my 2 boys and tell them all about the characters, planets and space ships. I can safely say that Star Wars is a big part of my life
I was 5 in 1977. It's one of my most vivid childhood memories. 1980 was even better.
Well Disney ruined it for us.
I use to love watching these guys review movies,they will never be replaced.
I used to hate watching these guys because they were always putting down movies I enjoyed. 😁
I was 31 when this film made its debut. The opening scene of the huge Imperial ship going overhead and the rumbling of the whole theater was one of the greatest movie experiences to be had. No matter that sound doesn't travel through space, this was entertainment. That is what most of us go to the movies for. My kids still remember it. I loved watching Siskel and Ebert on PBS. Great reviewers who occasionally forgot about the fun of movies.
You are actually a 16 year old aren't you
I remember that moment in the theater too. When that giant ship went over, shooting at the small one. It was breathtaking. Nobody had ever seen anything like that. Just that instant changed everything.l, as far as what a movie could be. I dont think younger people will ever get as thrilled as we were by that, theyre used to that kind of movie magic.
This former 4 and a half year old totally agrees. That opening scene was breathtaking. And quickly turned me from being upset because I couldn't read the words fast enough, to in awe!
@@k.e.anderson3485 Nah, only someone who actually saw it in 1977 would note the rumbling of the spaceship "overhead." That kind of thing is too common to bother with now, but back then, it was entirely novel.
I was 30 years old when this came out. It was OK if you like that sort of movie.@@k.e.anderson3485
one of the reasons the effect shot footage of the battles felt real is they were based on actual gun camera footage from fighters and bombers that flew in WW2.
I thought that was what Siskel was going to say, that the scene was right out of "Flying Leathernecks," with tailgunners shooting down Zeroes over Guadalcanal. Instead he comes up with exploding pinball.
They were also based on movies about WW1 and WW2 air combat. The Death Star attack sequence is almost entirely copied from the Dam Busters and 633 Squadron.
Of course the idea that spaceships flying in a vacuum would fly and maneuver like fixed-wing prop planes is pretty ludicrous, but that's the beauty of these films, they look and sound so damned fantastic you completely forget about any concept of realism or plausibility.
Growing up a movie lover in Chicago was a TREAT watching these two bring their perspectives every week on what was coming to the theatre and such a loss when we ended up losing both.
Yeah, they were excellent. Gene used to frequent the Jewel food store where I was employed over at Division and Clark; he was tall.
I was 6 when this came out. I hounded my parents to take me to see it again and again and again.
My mom told me, years later, that we saw it every weekend for the first 6 weeks lol
Man, that looks like a great film.
Hope it became successful that they expanded the story more.
@@kevting4512 it's a here today gone tomorrow movie that no one will remember in a month. i've been watching these vids of this kid Michael Jordan too and he's a flashy young kid with no real skills that won't last long in the NBA for sure.
It is a great film.
I've heard of it. Can you still find it out there? I think I saw it in the dollar bin at WallMart.
No way they’ll do a sequel. What else can possibly be done??
Siskel's remark about "serious movies" reminds me of what Martin Scorsese said about the Marvel franchise: "It isn't cinema."
Exactly what I just said to myself.
He also put it on his ten best of 1977 list, so, yeah, he enjoyed it.
It was more of his statement that there is still an audience for serious movies and hopes that the box office success of escapism wouldn’t overshadow that.
Apparently, he was right.
Both very idiotic. Shame, as Scorsese is certainly not an idiot, but nobody is perfect. He, of course, being a friend of Lucas, made also certain to clarify that his comments were not reflective of Star Wars or of Spielberg movies.
@@Dacre1000 ur the idiot
No matter how you slice it, moviemaking is just storytelling. Scorsese is just jealous that he can’t come up with stories that are as interesting to the majority of people as Marvel can. That’s it. Marvel tells better stories.
I miss Siskel and Ebert. I remember watching their show Sneak Previews on PBS in the 70s and I never missed the different iterations of their show through the 90s.
I was 12 when I saw Star Wars with my dad on August 12, 1977. I will never forget that day - my dad didn’t like sci-fi but he knew how much I wanted to see this movie so he took me.
Not just a great movie, but the start of a dream run of great movies. Empire, ROTJ, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Back to the Future, ET, Alien/s, Beverly Hills Cop, Terminator 1&2, Karate Kid, Top Gun, Blade Runner, Escape from New York, Highlander, Big Trouble in Little China, Mad Max series, Tron, Crocodile Dundee, Wargames, and so many others.
It was and always will be an awesome time to be growing up.
Did you really list TRON?! Seriously.....
Conan The Barbarian, Dawn Of The Dead, Return Of The Living Dead, Goonies, Stand By Me, Stripes, National Lampoon's Vacation series......glad I was born in that generation
The 80s were magic, I swear.
@@insideoutsideupsidedown2218 what I remember about Tron was seeing it at a drive-in theater outside Chicago, eating Planter's cheese balls in the back of our AMC Pacer.
With exception of Highlander, I made my kids watch all of those with me, and my youngest (now 20) said he thinks the 80s was a great time for films. My oldest son went to Emerson film school and now works in Hollywood.
After seeing my first Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi in 1983, I would stare up at the stars at night and wonder if those adventures were really going on somewhere out there. I somehow believed the movies were real even if I knew they couldn't be.
So many of us felt that same exact way. Samuel Jackson said of watching it the first time "it wasn't just a movie, it felt real. I was living it along with the characters on that screen"
2 trillion galaxies out there so maybe
But they could...
I miss Siskell and Ebert.
My Dad was a movie projectionist for Jaws and Star Wars . I saw them so many times as a teen that I could recite them the way a minister recites a sermon .
I love Siskel throwing out the “serious movies” line. Lol
I always thought that often Siskel took himself too seriously. But darned if he wasn't on to something. All these years later and the box office (USA at least) is dominated by movies that are more about dazzling you with visuals than the writing and characters.
They weren't fans of Sci-Fi or Horror !!
Chicago Elites !!!!
'Star Wars," whatever its effect on Hollywood, was still an intelligent movie with a story and characters worth caring about. 'The Empire Strikes Back' was more so.
*laughs in Blockbuster Age*
If anything it was scarily prescient.
What surprised me was that Gene said he'd seen Star Wars three times already. It was so different from any movie ever done before and must've really wowed him and captured his imagination.
At the same time, it's got "throwback" written all over it. It's like, "What if they made a 1940s SF B-movie with an A-movie budget and an A-movie sensibility and A-movie quality tailored to the people of 1977, who were rather different people, what with the '60s and all?"
He paid to watch movies! With everyone and their mother going multiple times its his job.
3:53 It's funny to hear Siskel compare the space battle scene to a pinball machine, "that kids love", I do remember playing a couple video games back then at the skating rink, but there was no Space Invaders yet which would be to video games what Star Wars would be to the movies.
Yeah. Those scene were taken directly from WWII movies like 12 O'Clock High. I wish their original review was posted somewhere. I'll bet they weren't so generous before they knew it would be a smash.
Were I grew up we had a roller rink to! And the pinball area had my favorite video game "asteroids", the late 70s were fun. We still played outside, bicycles, skateboards, playing war in the woods and as teenagers we got our first dirt bikes. As a teenage boy if I had the choice of video games or blasting through the woods on my beat up old DT175, you can bet I was reaching for my helmet.
@@henryj.8528 - Knowing both of their review tastes, I'd be very surprised if they didn't both enjoy it from the get go. Even for people that aren't into action or sci-fi or fantasy, it's a hard movie to insult.
@@kruks You are probably right. I just remember reading the first reviews of various now-classic films (and even the Beatles) and many early reviews were critical. So I think it would be instructive to see what they said before the movie became an all-time classic smash.
And Asteroids! I could never get good at asteroids. My favorites were: Donkey Kong, Tempest and my all time favorite- GALAGA!
I laugh at the very end when Siskel says "I hope Hollywood remembers that we like to see serious movies too". What a snob.
I was 7 when this came out and my dad took me. It was a great night and he & I shared that story until he passed.
Haven’t heard of this one but if Ebert says it’s great then I guess I gotta check it out
Okay but if you do see it, just make sure you don’t forget the art of *SERIOUS* pictures.
Lolol
Start with the FAR superior soft re-boot, from 2015. It has everything this one has, but without all the woke prooaganda, identity politics and crappy Mary Sue protagonist... 🥴
I don't know about it
I heard it was just a remake of a Japanese film
They've done that before with westerns
....some movie with Yul Brenner with some nobody actors ....I think named McQueen, Coburn and Bronson
Oh yeah they also made that other Japanese film into some foreign western with some TV actor named....I think his name was .......Eastwood?
I wonder if any of them became big name stars?
Same with this Star Wars
They've got some actor named Harrison Ford
Can't imagine this film will help his career.......😉
I
Ebert hated An American Werewolf in London
Not a lot of people realize how smart, thoughtful, gracious and humble Roger Ebert was as well as a great writer. RIP
He was the dumb one. Siskel had the brains.
@@steviesevieria1868 Screw Gene Siskel - he was the reason Aliens didn't have a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Not everyone wants to watch "The Autumn of my Discontent".
@anim8trix Thanks it was obviously a typo.
My late uncle took me to see “Star Wars“ when it first came out in the theaters. I was nine years old back then. Him taking me to that movie is probably one of the fondest memories I have from my childhood. I’ve seen it hundreds of times since. What a great era for Hollywood film-making that was!
Prophetic words from Siskel. Today’s theaters are waist deep in mindless entertainment and blockbuster action films. Thankfully, there are just enough serious films to please others.
I'll always remember seeing it in the theater and what a big laugh the "Don't get cocky!" line got.
Peter Griffin "dont get penisy"
I was 5 yrs old when I went to see this in '77...my senses were blown to smithereens when that main title blasted on screen with that heroic & powerful John Williams score, then the story scrolling up to the stars and the shot of that Star Destroyer chasing that tiny Rebel fighter ship. It was the boyhood equivalent of a first orgasm....captured the imagination of every little Luke Skywalker in the world!
That opening chord, really an opening musical BLAST followed by a glorious fanfare, was the most powerful chord written or recorded since the Tristan Chord over 100 years earlier.
Seeing the gritty specks and dust on the Star Wars clip is so nostalgic for me. It's like listening to your favorite all time song on a vinyl record, I love it!
I saw this the first time in Plattsburgh NY at a drive in. I was almost 5 and we watched it from the roof of the RV in sleeping bags. This movie blew my little mind. The music, the story and the characters. My favorite of all the Star Wars movies.
I saw Star Wars as a kid and had all the toys. At 54 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the original. I have teenage kids now and I’ve seen it probably dozens of times with them, at least 5 times in 2020-21 alone.
in 1977 seeing this for the first time, I have only one thing to say: MIND BLOWN!
Great movie. It's too bad they didn't make a sequel.
"It's so successful and so mindless fun that I hope Hollywood doesn't forget that there are people who like to watch serious pictures too. "
Micheal Bay: "Haha nice one"
Marvel: "I know right?"
But Star Wars is serious
Siskel's comment highlights how disconnected professional movie critics are from the general movie going public.
@@aldowilliams4765 No. "Taxi driver", "Raging bull" and "The Godfather" are serious "Star Wars is a rollercoaster ride, a movie made forvthe sake if escapismo and fun. And theres us not Amy problem about It.
Martin Scorsese was right. The Marvel/Disney/Transformers movies aren't terrible, but they've taken over and sucked the wind out of the great dramas and action films that we used to have.
Lucas in the editing room, with pot of glue: "Hear me, baby? Hold together."
That scene. It's just like pinball where things blow up.
Got it, Gene.
Yeah, that gave me a laugh. Video games were starting to take off, but they were still too new for Gene to catch up with the terminology. I guess he could only express it based on the arcades of his youth...hence "pinball."
Gene put a stick of dynamite on his pinball machines. POW!
Blew the hair off his head.
It's illegal now. We had more fun back then.
@@davidf1985 Pinball was ruined when they replaced the explosive deterrents with a tilt alarm.
Pinball was a lot more dangerous in Gene's neighborhood
@@davidf1985 Almost as much as driving a burning car off a cliff
"That's the one thing Star Wars has in common with Close Encounters. Real magic..." I believe this is what modern movies are missing. Practical effects are far superior to CGI.
CGI lets you do things not possible with practical FX. On the other hand some movies use CGI to the exclusion of practical FX. The Star Wars prequels showed that.
That is not in the least what he was talking about. I agree about practical effects but his quote has nothing to do with CGI.
I miss these two guys loved watching their show.
I really miss those guys.. May they rest in peace.... And a great POV.. Before anyone knew it would take over Hollywood.
I truly believe if we had more like them such crappy movies wouldn't be made
i love siskel & ebert, were the best. the summer of '77 was a great time to be a kid going to the movies.
10 years old, and my Dad took me to see Star Wars. First Dolby Sound movie I'd ever seen, also. I loved it, and I'm so glad my Dad was cool enough to takee to it. He was also a Star Trek Fan. What a great moment in my life!
Watching this with my 5 year old nephew yesterday and him reacting the same way I did when I was five. Not many movies can do that.
Great clip. Gene Siskel came to our high school once to talk. Kids asked him what his favorite movie was. He turned the tables and asked us what movie we liked. One kid said _Risky Business,_ which had recently come out and was shot in the area. Siskel agreed and went on to talk about why that movie was good. Basically, he said it was about teenagers, but had a more serious adult storyline with a good antagonist (I guess Guido, “a mad killer pimp?”). I think we might have asked him about _Star Wars_ too, but by then (early 80s), he knew better than to mention the pinball analogy.
Star Wars changed the movie landscape forever and definitely changed these guys’ work on _Sneak Previews._ Interesting to see them come to terms with its significance here. If they only knew how long.
I remember at one point they did a "guilty pleasures" episode of movies they knew were bad, but enjoyed watching. One of Siskel's was the 1981 Tarzan because...Bo Derek.
This came out when I was 10. I'm 54 and still rewatch it...May the force be with you...Always
Brothers in time... I was 17 went it came out and I'm now 60 and still watching it! May the force be with you always too!
I'm in my 70's and I never listen to people telling what I should or shouldn't watch or where to eat or not eat at 😠 I can decide for myself 🤦 I absolutely love Star Wars🥰
Never noticed how many cuts it took to make this fight scene look "lively".
Well done, Editor.
It was pure escapism. And after Vietnam and Watergate, it was precisely what we needed.
oooh
@more 1500 And you have been escaping ever since. Reality will recapture you shortly.
After Jimmy Carter also.
@@GotoHere and the bicentennial celebrations.
We could do with some escapism now, between COVID and all the identity politics stuff running rampant.
I’m so glad I was a kid when this movie came out, I was 12 y/o and movies like this fueled so many dreams.
One Saturday, right around my 7th birthday, my dad told me he and I would go to a matinee show at the movie theater. I had no idea what "Star Wars" was but it sounded like a nice way to spend a winter afternoon. I remember him quietly reading the opening scroll and then it was lights out for my brain. I walked out of there a changed person. Every stick on the ground became a light sabre or a laser gun. Someone can watch the movie for the first time today and appreciate it, but they'll never, ever be able to understand how it felt to young kids of that era.
Wow...this is brilliant for the time. “A movie that will last a long time.” That quote has aged like a fine wine. But... “I hope Hollywood doesn’t forget that people like serious movies too” is equally as great of a quote. As good as Star Wars is it inspired a lot of mindless movies many people are sick of even to this day. (Even Star Wars started to become that). The fact that these two could see the outcome of the the movie into the future at the time of its release is astounding.
The funny thing is them talking about the fast-paced editing: by 1977 standards the cuts were dizzying, today it seems glacial for an action sequence.
Some directors, including big name ones (read: big box office) just dont seem to know how to choreograph an action sequence without everything being ultra quick shots. Especially fight sequences. And they need the shaky-cam. Seems more cluttered than dizzying.
I was 10 years old when Star Wars came out. The first thing I ever saw regarding Star Wars, not knowing anything about it, was a small black and white picture of the Stormtrooper on the giant lizard in Scholastic News magazine. I was already a sci fi/fantasy fan and all I remember thinking when I first saw that picture was "Cool. Looks like Planet of the Apes. I'll have to see that" and I did.
lol, I think I read that same article in my classroom. I remember it got me amped up to see the movie.
I was five. What a year. Kindergarten, broken leg- (skiing accident), & Star Wars. Would gladly break my leg again to go back.
Not only special effects being groundbreaking, but when you see the camera angles coupled with that great John Williams score, you feel like you are right there with them!
"It's a movie that will last for years." He was sure right!
1977: Star Wars succeeds because it's mindless fun.
2007: Star Wars succeeded because it is the ur-myth, the hero's journey, the tale as old as time, etc, etc, etc,...
When my movie turned 40, I was amazed at how profound it became.
I must have seen Star Wars in the movie theaters at least 25 times as a kid. Perfect time to be alive and see it when it changed the world.
Watching Star Wars at 9 yrs old in 1977 was life!