FLASHBACK: Tom Shales and his NPR interviewer try to make sense of a new movie called Star Wars, this strange new “complete science fiction fantasy with absolutely no redeeming moral values or moralistic values either” that’s “taking the country by proverbial storm.”

Are the special effects any good?, Shales is asked at one point. “Gee, it’s kind of hard to describe the whole universe blowing up in your face.”