The original Star Wars, from 1977, before it was even called "A New Hope," is one of the top five movies ever made. The script is nearly perfect, the acting is superb, the editing is superb, the music is just so breathtakingly perfect it shouldn't even be possible. And the special effects? I still love them.

The thing about the original Star Wars – and which no other Star Wars project ever recaptured, in my opinion – is an innocence. That's really the first word which comes to my mind when I think of this film: innocence. Technically, there's nothing innocent about a war film which contains scenes of mass slaughter, yet there it is. (The large scale of death in the film – the destruction of an entire populated planet – is softened by the fact that it's firmly entrenched in the realm of fantasy. There's nothing real-world about it which could hit too close to home.) Somehow, innocence is the undeniable feeling I associate with this movie.

Is it because I was seven when I first saw it? Maybe. There's a beautiful innocence to being a child and enjoying heroic exotic adventure stories with happy endings, whether it's westerns, or Flash Gordon comic strips, or Doc Savage tales in far-away places, or fighting mythical dragons, or going under the surface of the ocean with Captain Nemo, or superheroes from outer space.

But I don't think that's the full reason. I think the innocence of this film has more to do with the fact that the story depicts clear-cut good and evil, and you don't get much more child-like than that. It's the ultimate fairy tale. In a way, with its archetypes, it's every fairy tale that ever was.

It's swords and sorcery in outer freakin' space! It's wizards and warriors with laser pistols on spaceships! It's a hero with a sword rescuing a princess from the villains' castle, except the sword is a lightsaber and the castle is a space station! There are no words to describe how amazing and awesome that is.

It's a boy and a princess in danger. It's the hero's journey. It's the old man who guides the hero. It's the revelation that there's a long history of events among these characters.

It's the fact that even though we have spaceships and laser swords, it's the mystical energy field which is more important. I mean, who does that?

It's the flashy, loveable rogue pilot who gets caught up in events.

It's the funny droids with their constant comments and reactions.

It's the princess who turns out to be as un-princess-like as you can imagine.

It's the fact that the bad guys, with their green uniforms with tight collars, are modeled so much after Nazis that there is no question whatsoever how evil they are.

It's the hive of scum and villainy, and all the different races in the cantina, and the bounty hunter who reveals that Han has a past, too. And it's the band playing that cool music! (The band is called Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, by the way. Seriously.)

It's the moments of humor at just the right places.

It's the fact that every character, including the droids, is interesting, with a clearly-defined personality from the beginning.

It's Luke staring wistfully into a double-sunset while John Williams's beautiful music soars.

It's Luke and Leia swinging across the chasm on the rope.

It's "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

It's the fact that Darth Vader lives to fight another day, and everyone wondered if that meant there would be a sequel. Remember, in 1977, science fiction sequels – and any sequel at all in which the villain was the same person continuing the fight – were not really a thing.

And it's the special effects. If you didn't witness first-hand the cinematic revolution this film caused, and the way it made everyone's heads spin with awe, you can't truly appreciate it.

As one promo put it, "It's a boy, a girl, and a galaxy."

If you could take the imagination of every child who ever enjoyed a comic book, an adventure, a sword, a spaceship, a wizard, and a toy ray gun, and distill that group imagination into a perfect story on the silver screen which encapsulates all of those things, it would be this one.

The opening frame contains a title which is bigger than the screen, accompanied by a single note of explosive orchestra which is bigger than the speakers. Each of these things alone tells the audience from the first nanosecond, This movie is bigger than this screen can hold, but we're proceeding anyway, so buckle up!

The final scene has no dialogue, and leaves you grinning.

A good friend of mine once pointed out that the movie, metaphorically, is actually filmed in black and white, and I think he has a point.

And how lucky are you when you get Peter Cushing, Sir Alec Guinness, and Harrison Ford in your film?

And I don't mean to sound grumpy when I say this, because I don't want to be, but the later versions with the updated special effects somehow impede this magical innocence. (I won't go so far as to say that they "ruin the movie," because that's nonsense.) Why do the updated, snazzier special effects make it feel like less of the movie I saw when I was a child? I don't know! Really, I don't. All I know is that somehow, those '70s special effects go hand-in-hand with that childlike innocence. I don't know how or why, they just do.