The film "Star Wars" starts with one space ship attacking another. The bad guys, confusingly, wear white and move like ballerinas in white plastic leotards.

Central characters:

• Princess Lea - not quite sure what she is princess of but she has 'the plan' which must be kept from Darth Vadar.
• Darth Vadar - tall chap -- reassuringly black -- with severe asthma, who is frightened of no-one and can strangle you telepathically, yet still takes orders from Baron Frankenstein (sorry Peter Cushing).
• Luke Skywalker - bit of a mummy's boy but descended from a great warrior.
• R2D2 - self-propelled computer, able to understand speech but, for some reason, unable to synthesise a voice. Leads Master Skywalker to Audrey Wantobe.
• Audrey Wantobe - teaches young Skywalker the ways of the Jedae (why-aye). Teaches him to deflect a flying metal grapefruit with a hand-held laser beam, a skill which L.S. makes no further use of in the rest of the film.
• Han Solo - maverick space pilot with bad debts owed to an out-sized slug and his Yeti-like assistant whose main feature is an inability to speak and an excess of body hair.
• Gold Robot - has Woody Allen's mannerisms and mainly functions as an interpreter for R2D2.

Plot

In common with very many modern films, the plot is thin. The baddies live in a spherical, artificial planetoid which, despite its obvious mass, can get from here to there in the blink of an eye-lid (except when it is essential to the plot that it takes 15 minutes, of course). It is never explained where it was made or where it docks when the paintwork needs tarting up.

Anyway, Lea entrusts “the plan” to R2D2 who journeys with Gold Robot to a desert where they are sold into slavery.
R2D2 wanders off: L.S. goes off in pursuit, accompanied  by goldie, and meets the Audrey one. Meanwhile the bad guys raze L.S.’s settlement, killing all his known relations.

“Oh, dear me; How sad; Well, never mind!” 

Thus L.S. has no choice but to become a Jedae Knight and sally forth in search of adventure.

That’s basically it. After many special effects and much interaction with people with heads on stalks and more white ballerinas, good essentially destroys bad. The odd planet gets blown up in the meantime but, hey, you have to accept a little collateral damage.

The film does have some humour. The gold robot is displayed as having emotions – such as skulking, tiredness, impatience – but always acknowledges being a robot and the servant of mankind. It can evidently tell friend from foe so it must also have an ‘ethical chip’.

The film is apparently well rated – give me Red Dwarf anyday.