Ranking The First 30 Minutes Of EVERY Star Wars Movie From Worst To Best

The movie that started it all.

Tasked with having to introduce audiences to not just a bunch of brand new characters and technology, but an entire galaxy far, far away and a history to go along with it, George Lucas managed to pull off the impossible with 1977's first Star Wars. And he does a lot of that heavy lifting in the opening half-hour.

After the now-legendary opening crawl had gotten folks somewhat up to speed on recent events, an utterly hypnotic opening shot of a star destroyer chasing down a Rebel ship told you all you needed to know about what was coming your way: a story unlike anything you'd seen before.

Cue arguably the greatest villain introduction of all time as Darth Vader roams onto his secret daughter's spacecraft, the iconic image of the aforementioned Leia placing the Death Star plans and an important message within R2-D2, and both that droid and their protocol partner in crime C-3PO being blasted off to the desert world of Tatooine.

And that's just the first ten minutes!

In the stellar 20 that follow, Lucas, through some unmatched creature, set and costume design, then made you well and truly believe there was a place out there in the universe where droids were being sold off by Jawas, farmboys were dreaming of bigger things (to the sound of the always moving 'Binary Sunset'), and space wizards were never that far away should you run into some trouble.

After saying "hello there" to this opening half-hour, you can see why so many refused to ever say goodbye.