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Unfortunately, his dreams stretch no further than the macho ideals that his culture glorifies, and here the filmmaker undertakes a quiet but persistent strain of social criticism. Luke's great ambition in life is to attend fighter-pilot school to become a "top gun" and then go off to war. But he doesn't even have much hope for that because his uncle wants to keep him, quite literally, "down on the farm" for at least another year. Lucas deftly dramatizes Luke's unrest in a couple of brief scenes; most effective, though, is the wordless shot of Luke simply gazing at the horizon, yearning for who knows what as John Williams's music of plaintive longing adds texture and depth to the boy's frustrated desires.

Then comes this chance, out of nowhere, for more adventure and life than Luke ever imagined.

Continued: Part 2

Reprinted from Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies (Eerdmans). Used by permission. To purchase a copy of Catching Light, click here.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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