Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

2h 1m / PG / Sci-Fi, Adventure

We at Tampa Theatre had been trying to get permission to screen Star Wars (now known as Star Wars: A New Hope) since Grand Admiral Thrawn was still just a twinkle in Timothy Zahn’s typewriter ribbon. For about two decades, our president and CEO has had a business card in his Rolodex with a phone number for Skywalker Ranch. But the rat-king of mergers and acquisitions in the film industry finally paid dividends in 2022, and we lifted our curtain on that famous golden text crawl for the very first time.

Since then, we’ve expanded our own universe to include the rest of the original trilogy of films, and that means an encore of the one that started it all — almost literally.

Construction is complete on the Death Star, a massive space weapon capable of destroying an entire planet. After Princess Leia Organa, a leader in the nascent rebellion opposing the terrifying Galactic Empire, is kidnapped in possession of the Death Star’s plans, she must hide them away in her droid, R2-D2, and hope he and his compatriot C-3PO can find their way to safety. Meanwhile, a young moisture farmer on the isolated desert planet of Tatooine, Luke Skywalker, dreams of growing up and being a starship pilot. He comes to own the droids, but the search conducted by the Empire leads directly to the home of his uncle Owen and aunt Beru. Luke must find the reclusive Obi-Wan Kenobi, entrust his fate to the smuggler Han Solo and his copilot Chewbacca, and learn the ways of the mysterious Force that moves and motivates the entire universe if he is to have any hope of rescuing Leia from the clutches of the dread Darth Vader.

This screening is sponsored by SouthEast Personnel Leasing