My favorite movie is Star Wars. Star Wars: A New Hope, to be precise. I chose this favorite movie at some point during high school, and it stuck.
Now, some people will argue that The Empire Strikes Back is a superior movie, and I don’t disagree with this. However, high school me had a copy of Star Wars on VHS (without commercials, even, which was a big score) that I could watch over and over again. High school me did not have a copy of The Empire Strikes Back. (And when I eventually got one, it DID have commercials.) So Star Wars has the nostalgia win there. Also, The Empire Strikes Back has that cliffhanger ending, which means you don’t get a complete viewing experience unless you then watch Return of the Jedi, and Return of the Jedi is definitely NOT my favorite movie. Whereas Star Wars has a complete story arc contained in its two hours.
Star Wars has a lot of things going for it. Light sabers. Comic relief droids. Space ships. The neat blue lines that signal a jump to lightspeed. A kick ass princess with a sharp tongue (although alas, she is the only female character, which I consider to be one of the movie’s worst flaws). A walking carpet. An iconic bad guy who can be identified by sound, not just sight. High stakes. Guts, glory, and scoundrels.
But the reason Star Wars is my favorite movie? The emotions it evokes in me and the way I feel after I watch it. When Luke succeeds against all odds, blowing up the Deathstar and saving the entire Rebel Alliance, it reminds me of what is possible. It pumps me up and makes me feel ready to tackle my own life, my own goals, and my own problems. This feeling was valuable back when I was eleven and has continued to be inspiring ever since.
I love that Luke is just some guy, and nobody really thinks he has what it takes to make such a difference. (Well, no one except Obi Wan, anyway.) But through hard work (we don’t get to see it, but it’s implied that he’s spent large amounts of time on flying and target practice before the movie starts), courage, and belief in himself, he is able to rise above other people’s expectations of him and do his true best.
We all receive negative messages about our capabilities at some point. There are always the naysayers who think (and sometimes tell us) that we don’t have what it takes to accomplish our goals. Sometimes the loudest naysayer of all is inside our own heads. What I love about Star Wars is that it reminds me to ignore these naysayers. It reminds me that I won’t know my capabilities unless I fully commit. It encourages me to dream and strive and achieve my own personal best.
What about you? What movie inspires you? What movie makes you feel like you can take on the world?
Loved this post, Amy.
Oddly enough, one film that helps me bounce back is THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, about Robert E. Howard and his only true love Novalyn Price. While Howard’s sad demise makes it a difficult watch, his challenges, his hang ups, and his successes and failures as he deals with being a writer who all of a sudden finds himself in love is always compelling. Great performances, too.
I’m not much of a movie fan because as a kid we just didn’t go to the movies at all as we lived in a rural area but I will watch Uncle Buck over and over again with my son!
“Blade Runner”. But “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” comes in a close second, and “The Princess Bride” is right on their heels taking the bronze.
Love your reasoning on why A New Hope is your favourite.
Mine is a near-tie, to the extent that I don’t think I could ever separate which to place first.
The Princess Bride (except for Buttercup, who needs a lot more characterization, and annoys me more after every viewing. But at least she nearly killed Roberts, so she does show some fire . . .). This one is certainly the most entertaining of my favourites, the most simply heartwarming, the one with the sword fights that inspired me to become a fencer, and the one that I go back to when I need to think about how conviction and romance can trump villainy, frailty and self-doubt every time.
Dead Poet’s Society. Though I watch it so rarely, and it is not an amazingly made film. Most scenes are only so-so. The younger characters can be, at times, quite wooden. All that aside, Dead Poet’s Society taught me at a very important age the most important thing anyone can do to truly live: Find a way to sound one’s loud barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world. That’s been a very important lesson for someone like me, who finds it a very difficult proposition but knows intuitively how crucial it is to manage.
Gattaca, V for Vendetta, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Star Trek movies, except for a couple … it mostly depends on what mood I’m in when I watch the movie on what I get out of it though.
Another oldie but…have to say I really like To Kill A Mockingbird with Gregory Peck…(now you’ve got me thinking…..)
Star Wars (A New Hope) is definitely one of my favorites.
I used to make my parents rent it every time we rented a movie from the Library. This was in the days when you had to rent the VCR and the movie because only the rich folks had VCRs.
Luke was always my favorite (I didn’t learn until later that he was “whiny”). The original trilogy had so much heart. Those were characters you cared about so much and you hated and feared Darth Vader right up until he aided Luke in his time of need. Then you wished Mr. Vader wouldn’t die.
It makes me so sad that the prequels have none of this heart, and I don’t care for any of the characters at all. I could have forgiven Jar Jar being in there, but I can’t forgive them not making me like Anakin at all.
Very inspirational! Thank you lady. 🙂
Excellent. I now have a list of movies to go watch when I need some extra oomph. 🙂