History Film / ANewHope

** In the extended universe of the Han Solo trilogy its told that he did so due to flying a tad too close to the black hole cluster of Maw, thereby using the gravity wells. Due to the fact that a black hole is related to a wormhole that transfers matter instantaneously by bending space time its possible the falcon used a similar trick.

* {{Homage}}: To AkiraKurosawa's ''TheHiddenFortress'', with the droids being the focus for much of the film, and also to ''{{Yojimbo}}'', with the scene of the two braggarts at the cantina. Lucas' heavy use of frame wipes is also indebted to Kurosawa. The heart-wrenching scene where Luke [[spoiler:rushes to the farm, only to find it already raided and his relatives dead]] harkens to an equally distressing scene in ''TheSearchers''.

* [[CantBelieveISaidThat Can't Believe I Said That]]: Han Solo over the intercom: "How are you?" Cringes.

* DeletedScene: Loads were cut due to Lucas feeling they dragged the pace of the film (and it did get the film the best editing AcademyAward). These include:
** Luke fixing a moisture vaporator. He observed the space battle between the Star Destroyer and Leia's rebel ship.
** Luke meeting his friends to tell them about the space battle, but no one but Biggs believed him. This scene happened between the droids escaping in the escape pod and Leia confronting Vader.
** Biggs telling Luke he's defecting to the Rebellion. This happened between C-3PO catching sight of the Sandcrawler and R2 getting captured by Jawas.
** Two deleted scenes -- Han talking to Jabba the Hutt, and Luke meeting up with Biggs in the Rebel hangar -- were restored in the Special Edition.

* MoodWhiplash: Only applicable if you watch the films in chronological order: ''RevengeOfTheSith'' is a dark tragedy in which an already-tainted hero turns evil, kills children and is mutilated by his former best friend while this film is a straight-up action adventure with wisecracking heroes. Going from the former to the latter is a bit jarring.

* OpenTheDoorAndSeeAllThePeople: han Solo running towards a room full of stormtroopers in the Special Edition.

* ThrowItIn: The SugarWiki/{{Funny|Moments}} scene of Han trying to talk the Stormtroopers out of investigating the shootout they've just had. Depending on who you talk to, Harrison Ford forgot his lines, never read them at all, or just learned them shortly before shooting.
** The Stormtrooper who hits his head on a door.

* TrollingCreator: "Greedo always shot first."
* TroubledProduction

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: During initial drafts, Darth Vader's iconic suit would have been a spacesuit as he needed to board the Tantive IV through space. It ended up since rewritten to being a permanent life-support system.
** The role of [[TheObiWan Obi-Wan Kenobi]] was originally written with ToshiroMifune in mind. Depending on who you talk to, either 20th Century Fox wasn't keen on giving Mifune another whirl (although Mifune could speak English, all productions where he was speaking English ended up dubbing over his voice due to his thick Japanese accent) or Mifune wasn't available. Either way, the role went instead to Alec Guinness.

* CommanderContrarian: General Tagge for the Empire ("Until this battle station is fully operational, we are vulnerable.") Unusually he's [[OnlySaneMan entirely right]] and the Empire would have been a lot better off listening to him.

* FollowTheLeader (Inspired so many)

** The film itself drew from many sources. The ''[[TheHiddenFortress Hidden Fortress]]'' connection is well known. The ''{{Dune}}''-Tatooine inspiration is pretty obvious. You can tell GeorgeLucas must have seen at least ''SpaceBattleshipYamato'' episodes 26, 1, and 8, in that order, so we can probably pin his famous trip to Japan down to early 1975, when the series went into reruns. IsaacAsimov noticed some similarity to his ''{{Foundation}}'' series but didn't take it personally. As [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Mizner Wilson Mizner]] observed, stealing from ''everybody'' is just called "research."

-->'''Luke''': You don't believe in the Force, do you?

* IJustWantToBeSpecial: ''A New Hope'' begins with Luke saying that he wants to leave home to join the Rebellion. It's bittersweet when he gets his wish.

* {{Leitmotif}}: All over the place. JohnWilliams held nothing back.

** TheLancer: Han

* WatchingTroyBurn: Alderaan.

* WeldTheLock: Luke shoots the control panel lock in order to keep the Stormtroopers from getting in. It turns out that the panel also controls the bridge. His makeshift lock doesn't hold for too long, either.

* BigWhat: Leia, after finding out that despite her (feigned) cooperation, Tarkin intends to destroy Alderaan anyway.

** There is also [[http://i2.listal.com/image/136158/936full-star-wars%3A-episode-iv----a-new-hope-poster.jpg this]] poster as well as a similar one showing a much more muscular Mark Hamil, a sexier Carrie Fischer, the implication that they are lovers, and Luke raising a lightsaber as if he used it in battle. As it stands, Luke only uses a lightsaber during a training scene and doesn't pick it up again until the next movie.

* ILied: Tarkin threatens to destroy Alderaan unless Leia gives up the location of the Rebel base. When Leia tells him, he has Alderaan destroyed anyway. Leia lied about it being on Dantooine.
** Actually there ''was'' a Rebel base there. She was telling the truth...FromACertainPointOfView.

* AscendedExtra: Just about every kriffing character gets his/her/its own story in later works.
** Particularly the ones in the [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tales_from_the_mos_eisley_cantina cantina]].

* ChekhovsSkill: The development of Luke's Force sensitivity functions as this, as he increasingly learns to [[DontThinkFeel fight by instinct rather than by conscious thought]]. The culmination, of course, is his destruction of the Death Star.

* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: Princess Leia of course! She even blasts a few stormtroopers, thus making her an ActionGirl.

* HollywoodAtheist / FlatEarthAtheist: Admiral Motti is pretty much the RecycledINSPACE equivalent of this, as far as expressed contempt for religion goes. He even [[TooDumbToLive openly ridicules Vader's belief in the force, and gets (albeit temporarily) force-choked for it]].

* ILied: Tarkin threatens to destroy Alderaan unless Leia gives up the location of the Rebel base. When Leia tells him, he has Alderaan destroyed anyway. Of course, Leia lied about it being on Dantooine.

* SmugSnake: While not as obvious an example as [[ReturnOfTheJedi Jabba]], (who in this installment is actually more along the lines of AffablyEvil) Admiral Motti's ''"any attack made by the Rebels would be a useless gesture"'' remark comes across as fairly presumptuous in any context, [[spoiler:but especially in light of what happened near the end of the movie]]. Also, his attitude towards Vader's belief in the Force is pretty much a {{D|oesThisRemindYouOfAnything}}TRYOA of {{Hollywood atheis|t}}m, of the RecycledINSPACE variety.

* ActorAllusion: "''I knew your father ...''" Early in ''DoctorZhivago'', Alec Guinness had said those same exact words to Rita Tushingham.

* FridgeBrilliance: "Vader" is actually dutch for [[spoiler:"father."]]

* MemeticMutation: Perhaps one of the most notable examples of this. Admiral Motti's statement of "This station is the ultimate power in the universe" was taken and used by so many radio stations without the actor seeing a dime, that he now refuses to give unpaid interviews.

** TheMentor: Obi-Wan

* DamselInDistress: Princess Leia, but the trope is massively subverted for the genre George Lucas was drawing from. True, Leia doesn't try to escape herself, but that's because she's completely outnumbered and then imprisoned in a moon-sized battlestation. When an opportunity does arise, she seizes it with both hands and [[ActionGirl takes charge of matters]] once it's obvious her so-called rescuers don't have a clue what they're doing.
-->"''Somebody'' has to save our skins!"

** [[FamilyGuy "There's two suns and no women. What the hell am I supposed to do?"]]

* HollywoodAtheist / FlatEarthAtheist: Admiral Motti is pretty much the RecycledInSpace equivalent of this, as far as expressed contempt for religion goes. He even [[TooDumbToLive openly ridicules Vader's belief in the force, and gets (albeit temporarily) force-choked for it]].

** Han shooting first? An homage to the scene where Angel Eyes is introduced in ''TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly''.

* JerkAss: Han Solo, although he has a HiddenHeartOfGold.

* [[FiveManBand Seven Man Band]]

* ShurFineGuns: Luke's gun jams when the dianoga attacks him.

* SmugSnake: While not as obvious an example as [[ReturnOfTheJedi Jabba]], (who in this installment is actually more along the lines of AffablyEvil) Admiral Motti's ''"any attack made by the Rebels would be a useless gesture"'' remark comes across as fairly presumptuous in any context, [[spoiler:but especially in light of what happened near the end of the movie]]. Also, his attitude towards Vader's belief in the Force is pretty much a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything DTRYOA]] of [[HollywoodAtheist Hollywood atheism]], of the RecycledInSpace variety.

* TechMarchesOn: As was [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by ''IrregularWebcomic'' [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/67.html here]], "We have the ability to destroy a planet and ''tape'' is the best backup medium we have?"

* ThrowItIn: The {{Crowning Moment Of Funny}} scene of Han trying to talk the Stormtroopers out of investigating the shootout they've just had. Depending on who you talk to, Harrison Ford forgot his lines, never read them at all, or just learned them shortly before shooting.

* TheWallsAreClosingIn: The trash compactor scene is a ShoutOut to the [[DeathTrap Death Traps]] from [[FilmSerial cliffhanger serials]] that GeorgeLucas grew up with.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: [[SmugSnake Admiral Motti]]'s expressed attitudes about Vader's belief in the force seem pretty reminiscent of the HollywoodAtheist, except RecycledInSpace.

* DamselInDistress: Princess Leia, but the trope is massively subverted for the genre George Lucas was drawing from. True Leia doesn't try to escape herself, but that's because she's completely outnumbered and then imprisoned in a moon-sized battlestation. When an opportunity does arise, she seizes it with both hands and [[ActionGirl takes charge of matters]] once it's obvious her so-called rescuers don't have a clue what they're doing.

** Together with ''{{Jaws}}'' it ''[[GenrePopularizer popularized the]] [[SummerBlockbuster Blockbuster movie]]''.

* ATwinkleInTheSky: Variation: After Han's BigDamnHeroes moment, Darth Vader's TIE Advanced is knocked into deep space flying by his surviving TIE wingman in a panic, apparently being knocked back far enough to evade the shockwave of the Death Star's explosion.

* TeamRocketsBlastingOffAgain: After Han's BigDamnHeroes moment, Darth Vader's TIE Advanced is knocked into deep space flying by his surviving TIE wingman in a panic, apparently being knocked back far enough to evade the shockwave of the Death Star's explosion.

* GreenEggs: The blue milk.