Star Wars: A New Hope…A Cappella!

The greatest version since the original.

I was originally going to go through my usual spiel saying something marginally clever about Star Wars and post some interesting vids about the movie I’m about to review…but then I stumbled upon this by a dude name Corey Vidal…I bow to his a-cappellaness:

Then I started to come to the conclusion as I sifted through all of the videos that are devoted to Star Wars…from the Lego Star Wars Symphony to the Star Wars Dance-Off to a hilarious Star Wars Gangsta Rap to actual bloopers from the first movie…the list is endless…when I realized this was my favourite one.

Some Star Wars: A New Hope stats:

• Released in 1977, directed and written by George Lucas.
• Was the original blockbuster summer movie. It set the scene for what we take for granted today over the summer months.
• Nominated for 10 Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Alec Guinness) and won 7.
• The original name for Luke Skywalker was Luke Starkiller…glad they changed that.
• Lucas didn’t want Harrison Ford as Hans Solo…they almost went with Kurt Russell, Nick Nolte, Christopher Walken (SNL spoofed this with Kevin Spacey…I’ll wait for your brain to wrap itself around this), or Sylvester Stallone (yo! Darth!)
• Lucas based Chewbacca on his Alaskan malamute dog.
• Sissy Spacek almost ended up being Princess Leia over Carrie Fisher. Who’s Sissy Spacek? This is Sissy Spacek.
• Orson Welles was originally slated to be the voice of Darth Vader but Lucas thought his voice was too recognizable and went with an unknown at the time…James Earl Jones.
• The opening scene was a nod to the scene of Discovery One flying in space in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Became the highest grossing film of all-time until ET: The Extra Terrestrial in 1982.
• Was on movie screens for over a year in some theatres around the world.
• Lucas had bet Spielberg that Close Encounters of the Third Kind would outperform Star Wars at the box office. The loser had to pay the winner 2.5% of the proceeds from each film. Lucas lost the bet and Spielberg receives money from Star Wars to this day.
• At its height, the atrocity known as The Star Wars Holiday Special was released. It was terrible. I’ve seen it. It’s worse than a train wreck. It actually boggles the mind on how bad this is. So bad, Lucas refuses to acknowledge its existence. Here’s the entire thing if you’ve got 2 hours of your life you don’t really care about.
• Star Wars influenced James Cameron (Avatar), Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings trilogy), Ridley Scott (Alien movies), Kevin Smith (Clerks, SModcast) and countless other directors to go into film.
• Darth Vader was voted as the #3 villain of all-time by AFI (behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates)
• #2 Sci-Fi movie of all time behind 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So the critics, the influence and the general public all praised this flick that revolutionized the movie industry.

Will The Rankatron be so friendly? Will The Rankatron be a Jedi or a Sith? While you dwell on that, one last video by Bill Murray serenading you on SNL: