ANH: A New Hope

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Chapter I: A New Hope

Opening Crawl

 * EPISODE IV


 * A NEW HOPE


 * It is a period of civil war.
 * Rebel spaceships, striking
 * from a hidden base, have won
 * their first victory against
 * the evil Galactic Empire.


 * During the battle, Rebel
 * spies managed to steal secret
 * plans to the Empire's
 * ultimate weapon, the DEATH
 * STAR, an armored space
 * station with enough power
 * to destroy an entire planet.


 * Pursued by the Empire's
 * sinister agents, Princess
 * Leia races home aboard her
 * starship, custodian of the
 * stolen plans that can save
 * her people and restore
 * freedom to the galaxy....

A New Hope
The film was originally released in 1977 as simply "Star Wars", as although further films were planned, the success of the film was not assured. It was only after the release of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back that George Lucas decided to add the Episode IV: A New Hope subtitle for the film's 1981 re-release.

The opening crawl was inspired by a similar rollup in the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s. Lucas drew on such matinee serials while writing the script for Star Wars.

The first victory of the Rebel Alliance has been chronicled as the Battle of Topwara, first appearing in Marvel Star Wars 12: Doomworld and later in other sources such as the Episode IV radio drama and Rebel Dawn. Havet Storm sent the plans of the Death Star's superlaser to Bria Tharen's Red Hand Squadron, which managed to beam them aboard the Tantive IV.

Other sources have given their own versions of the capture of the Death Star plans, and most have been reconciled as disparate missions that saw the various schematics combined to form the complete layout later given to R2-D2. Kyle Katarn steals a supplemental set of plans from an Imperial facility on Dantua in Dark Forces; another set of plans are stolen during a prison break onboard the near-finished Death Star, and ultimately beamed aboard Tantive IV by way of Polis Massa, as seen in Star Wars Battlefront II; finally, the Twi'lek Rianna Saren also had a hand in obtaining the Dantua plans as revealed in Star Wars: Lethal Alliance.

Since the previous battle was the Alliance's first victory against the Empire, it can be assumed the Rebellion is still relatively young. In fact, while various rebel cells and movements had been established at least as early as the meetings of the Delegation of 2,000 during the Clone Wars, the Alliance to Restore the Republic was only formally created less than two years prior to the start of the film. The Delcaration of Rebellion was created with the signing of the Corellian Treaty, to which the signatures of Mon Mothma, Bail Organa and Garm Bel Iblis were added.

Music
"Star Wars Main Title" opens the film, segueing into "Rebel Blockade Runner"

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