Encore: Tom Shales' 1977 review of the new movie 'Star Wars'

Encore: Tom Shales¹' 1977 review of the new movie 'Star Wars'

Transcript²

On this May the 4th, now known as Star Wars Day, we listen back to an original NPR review of the now beloved classic. In 1977, Tom Shales reviewed the new film Star Wars for NPR.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

The year was 1977. A new science fiction movie was making its debut³ - "Star Wars." On this May the 4th, now also known as Star Wars Day, we listen back to an original NPR review of the now beloved classic. Here's Tom Shales.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TOM SHALES: It is unquestionably splendibulous (ph). It is indubitably fantasmical (ph). It is the greatest kid's picture for adults since "The Wizard Of Oz." "Star Wars" is eye-popping, mind-spinning, ear-piercing, bubble-blowing adventure. It isn't the film of the future; it's the film of the future of the past. It takes place eons ago in another galaxy⁴, and it has few, if any, moral pronouncements to make, allegories to mount or sermonettes to preach. "Star Wars" also offers us a tale in which good challenges and triumphs over evil. In that, it is a celebration of all wish-fulfillment literature. But the film is as unpretentious as it is elaborate. "Flash Gordon" meets "2001" in "Star Wars," and the science fiction is back, though not with a vengeance⁵. It is "Gulliver's Travels," Homer's "Odyssey," "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's really the kind of movie for which movies were invented.

George Lucas, who wrote and directed "Star Wars," told an interviewer while making the film, I wanted to do a modern fairy tale, a myth. And he's done it. He's made a sci-fi film without a lot of nuisance-redeeming social value. That's something of a triumph for Lucas, who previously⁶ made the message-laden and Orwellian "THX 1138." There is a reference to that film in "Star Wars." Someone says into a radio, call back 1138. "Star Wars" took $8 million and several years to bring off, but it's been brought off grandly. Perhaps the most affecting profundities⁷ are accidental ones, just as natural symbolism can be so much more pungent⁸ than intentional⁹.

"Star Wars" is casually¹⁰ profound. In an atmosphere of seemingly groundless escapism, it worships the air we hang in. Without ever stopping for a breath, much less the making of a statement, "Star Wars" celebrates that portion of the human brain that is shared by the brilliant and the stupid. It is the imagination, which in recent years, American movies have not given much of a workout. "Star Wars" puts us back on a direct course to reckless conjecture¹¹ - the very best kind. It turns the icy cold universe into a setting as romantic as Sherwood Forest, Atlantis, the Emerald City and Hollywood of the 1930s. Against an army of bedazzling visual spectacles, actors would seem to stand little chance, but the forces of decency¹² embodied¹³ in this film by Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness emerge through the skillful manipulations of Lucas as warm-blooded and dimensional and funny. And a movie newcomer named Harrison Ford¹⁴ is especially impressive.

Together, they search hyperspace for the monstrous¹⁵ black Death Star, piloted by Peter Cushing. And helping¹⁶ in this expedition are an Edward Everett Horton-esque robot and a slightly too-cute walking midget computer, the C-3PO and the R2-D2, or vice¹⁷ versa, as well as a shaggy and ornery Chewbacca, who is virtually all bark. Other than with an anticlimactic¹⁸ climactic explosion, "Star Wars" never lets its audience down. It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for, an action-splash route without any depressing violence and a close encounter of the best kind. We now return control of your radio to the military industrial establishment.

This is Tom Shales.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "STAR WARS MAIN THEME")

MARTINEZ: Yeah, wonder how things worked out for that movie newcomer Harrison Ford. May the 4th be with you always.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "STAR WARS MAIN THEME")

1 shales   

n.页岩( shale的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Sandstones are, as a rule, interbedded with shales. 砂岩通常都与页岩互层。 来自辞典例句
• Oil-yielding organic matter is contained in the shales. 在这些页岩里有产油的有机物质。 来自辞典例句

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

4 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

5 vengeance   

n.报复，报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• He swore vengeance against the men who murdered his father.他发誓要向那些杀害他父亲的人报仇。
• For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。

6 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

7 profundities   

n.深奥，深刻，深厚( profundity的名词复数 )；堂奥

参考例句：

• Bessie's mind was not quite in tune with the profundities of that learned journal. 蓓西的头脑理解不了这本深奥的学术性杂志。 来自互联网

8 pungent   

adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a pungent style.文章写得泼辣。
• Its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hideouts.它的刺激性气味会令恐怖分子窒息，迫使他们从藏身地点逃脱出来。

9 intentional   

adj.故意的，有意（识）的

参考例句：

• Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
• His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。

10 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

11 conjecture   

n./v.推测，猜测

参考例句：

• She felt it no use to conjecture his motives.她觉得猜想他的动机是没有用的。
• This conjecture is not supported by any real evidence.这种推测未被任何确切的证据所证实。

12 decency   

n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重

参考例句：

• His sense of decency and fair play made him refuse the offer.他的正直感和公平竞争意识使他拒绝了这一提议。
• Your behaviour is an affront to public decency.你的行为有伤风化。

13 embodied   

v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
• The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

15 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

16 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

17 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

18 anticlimactic   

adj. 渐降法的, 虎头蛇尾的

参考例句：

• Everything after the discovery of the murderer was anticlimactic. 找到谋杀者之后，人们对所有事情的兴趣都突减了。
• The conclusion of the movie was anticlimactic. 电影的结局真没劲。