A New Hope
Look at the story up until there escape from the Death Star; it's one huge cliché. You have the evil empire, the black night, an old wizard, the rogue, the farm boy who dreams of adventure, parents murdered (well surrogate parents) by the evil empire, faceless mooks, the mentor who dies and a princes who needs saving, A.K.A. the basic heroic fantasy story.
After the escape from the Death Star it becomes less cliché but still cliché. The dog fighting is just WW2 dog fighting IN SPACE, Luke meets and old friend (trillions of humans in the galaxy and the friend he grew up in just happened to be in the rebellion and on that base) destined to die, and Han runs away only to have a change of heart and come back to help save the day.
Going back to the first part; the town on Tatooine and bar in the town is the cliché western town and saloon just with aliens. The whole confrontation between Han and Greedo would be right at home in virtually any western.
Out of all the characters in A New Hope Chewbacca and Leia are the only ones who are not walking clichés. Luke is the cliché hero who starts in meager cercomstances but rises up to save the princes and beat some big evil. Han is the is the cliché western "I only care about my self" cowboy rogue. Obi Wan is the mentor destined to die "so the hero can come into his own" (the mentor does not have to die for the heros to come into his own). Lukes aunt and uncle are cliché parents who want their son to continue doing what they have allays done. Vader is the cliché black knight.
Han while not the most cliché character of A New Hope he is too cliché. Luke was more clichéd but it realy works for Lukes character. Now I know fans of Han are going to vehemently disagree with me but It didn't work so well for Han. While his introductory scene were he shot Greedo first works, in the rest of the movie he is too cliché. The Han from The Empire Strikes Back is a better character, while still the rogue he wasn't the overly clichéd "I only care about my self" rogue and thats the character Han should have been from the beginning; a rogue who doesn't always respect authority, who doesn't care about the law, is out to for himself, is willing to do immoral things (coning, smuggling, etc) but his overall intentions are good, he cares about other people and has a selfless side too him.
Leia is far from the damsel in distress whose sole purpose is to be saved by the knight in shining armer, instead she took that cliché, shoots it full of blaster holes then finished it off with a few shells from a shotblaster. She is strong, independent, smart, can kick ass and is a competent rebel leader hell she didn't even ask to be saves and was probably panning her escape when Luke and Han got to her. Chewbacca is not cliché because we don't know what he is saying, if we did, who knows how the characters could have turned out.
The deaths of the Owens was done very poorly. They're killed off screen and Luke showen more emotion when Obi Wan died then when he found them dead. Leia didn't show much emotion after Alderaan was destroyed but it makes sense in her case; she was a senator and a rebel leader, she has to keep a stiff upper lip when dealing with the Empire regardless of her emotional state and we don't know how long she was in that cell, she could have spent five hours crying her eyes out. Luke was a farm boy, his surrogate parents who raised him from infancy were murdered he doesn't even shed a tear and they are never mentioned again. Of course I don't want him to act like the whiny bitch who claimed to be Anakin Skywalker but he should have at least acted like he gave a shit about them.
Overall A New Hope is a good movie, it is overly cliché but good. While the characters (except for a few) are walking clichés but they are still good and interesting characters.
You get a real sense of danger as the planet destroying battle station approaches the moon the resistance is based on. The Death Star slowly comes into range as the fighters are picked off, The Death Star comes into range, Vader has targeted Luke, the order to fire is given, the switches are flipped and as it looks like all is lost Han comes in shoots Vader's fighter, Luke fire, hits and the Death Star is destroyed.
The use of Leia as a strong rebel leader who just happened to be female and a princes was a brilliant move. They took a character archetype who's soul purpose is to be a living macguffin and turned it into a character that that is smart, Independent, well developed and is not defined by her damselness. While I don't think Lucas could have broken Luke out of his cliché the movie would have been better if Han and Obi Wan had broken out of their Clichés as Leia did.
