"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together." On paper, that reads pretty silly. Out of the mouth of Ben 'Obi-Wan' Kenobi, in the silver-haired guise of Alec Guinness (whose voice could varnish wood), it sounded like holy liturgy. For all the special effects, space cowboys, arch villains and comedy droids, it was Kenobi who gave Star Wars conviction. It was Guinness who made us believers.

George Lucas had, of course, been boning up on his archetypes, and here was a classic mentor figure cut from the Merlin/Gandalf cloth - the givers of wisdom. Putting him in the hands of a classically trained British thesp who could quote Shakespeare at 'will' was assuredly building on rock. Hooded in mystery, vaguely priest-like, the strange hermit out beyond the Dune Sea gave the concept of Jedi Knights a mysticism and authority no amount of blather about "midi-chlorians" could undo.

Yet the two best performances in the whole saga arguably came from the two actors most resistant to Lucas' dreamy mythos - Harrison Ford's Han Solo being the other. Perhaps their distance from the script actually left room for depth.

There are endless stories of Guinness' distrust of fandom; Star Wars remained a burden to the actor until his death. How he loathed being hailed as "Obi-Wan" in the street. One poor moppet was supposed to have tapped him on the arm to boast, "I've seen Star Wars 100 times!" before imploring his hero for an autograph. Guinness nodded sagely, Jedi-like in every supple movement, before agreeing if the small child promised never to watch it again.

There were undoubtedly tears before bedtime. Even during production he was tiring of this science-fiction nonsense: "I'd had enough of the mumbo-jumbo," he sighed in interviews. Yet, such mumbo-jumbo was to land him an Oscar nomination, make him adored by millions and also very, very rich (he was wise enough to also have points). IAN NATHAN