Evaluating performances

Evaluating live, recorded, or filmed performances of people in sports, dance, drama, debate, public meetings or lectures, and music may involve practical criteria, such as the prices of tickets to sports events or rock concerts, but there are also aesthetic criteria related to people and their performances. In film evaluations, for example, the usual criteria are good acting and directing, entertaining or believable story or I plot, memorable characters, dramatic special effects, and so forth. In the following paragraphs from her review of Star Wars, critic Judith Crist both describes and evaluates this classic space adventure.

«Feel Good» Film

The era of the "feel good" movie, launched by Cousin, Cousine and Rocky, is upon us — with Star Wars to offer lavish, glittering, and nostalgic confirmation thereof.

It is fitting that Star Wars is the creation of George Lucas, whose last film, in 1973, was that utterly charming re-creation of an adolescent yesterday, American Graffiti. This time the thirty-two-year-old writer-director has recreated the fantasies of a childhood soaked in adventure fictions, ranging from the respectability of Camelot and Oz to the trash-ery of comic strips and Saturday-afternoon serials. The last have provided the format for his chivalric science-fiction tale: he is giving us that very special Saturday when the printed prologue (appropriately moving off screen into the vast beyond) brings us up to date on the rebellion against the evil Galactic Empire and plunks us down into the final series of misadventures that will precede the breathtaking triumph of good over evil and the comforting assurance that the good will flourish happily ever after. Do children of all ages ask for anything more?

The plot is simply a series of chases, captures, and escapes as the good guys set out to rescue the princess — yes, it is Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), the sweet-faced, lush-figured, feisty leader of the rebellion, who has fallen into the hands of the vile, fuhrer-like Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Gashing) and his black knight, Lord Darth Vader (David Prowse behind the armor, given voice by James Earl Jones), aboard their super-Pentagonish space station, Death Star. As familiar-but-gussied-up as the villains are the good guys: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a blond, blue-eyed farm boy and crack pilot recruited by Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi (Alec Guinness), a hermit, last of the Jedi Knights, who believed in "the force" (as in "may the force be with you"), a belief that constituted "the old religion"; Han Solo (Harrison Ford), a hotshot pilot and mercenary who proves himself trueblue; Chewbacca, Solo's first mate, a gigantic, monkeylike creature who purrs and growls and bears a striking resemblance to the Cowardly Lion; and two Mutt-and-Jeff-like robots, See Threepio (C3PO), a gold-plated Tin Man programmed for diplomatic missions and therefore British-accented and prissy, and Artoo-Detoo (R2D2), a round little machine stuffed with data and given to chirps and burbles.

There are memorable moments along the way and a simply whiz-bang dazzle of battling space ships for a climax, with the happy ending all it should be. The joy of it all is that everyone is playing it straight, no bogging down in messages or monoliths on the one hand, no camping it up on the other. It is simply a triumph of creativity and technology by masters thereof, people who very obviously delight in doing what only the medium of film can do in the creation of magic. They are all listed at the end of the film and well deserve the applause you'll find yourself giving them — before you exit with that satisfied Saturday-afternoon-at-the-movies smile that feels so good.