That’s the perfect response to the meaning pf the OP.
Whenever a “present” group of people try to define why something from the past was either great or bad, unless they were living at that time, they can only speculate.
I was 16 years old when Star Wars opened on the big screens. As a fan of comic books, science fiction, etc… this was right up my alley. Not only because I was a fan of the genre but up to that point, seeing action adventure/science fiction new releases was a rarity, at best.
In 1968 “2001: A Space Odyssey” was released
Beginning in 1968 the “Planet of the Apes” franchise started
In 1972 “Silent Running” was released
and in 1976 “Logan’s Run” was released.
That’s it.
A hand full of science fiction films that were, for the most part aimed at adults. (2001, the first POTA and SR were definitely not for kids. They dealt with more mature, not sexual, subjects.
During my childhood, until Star Wars, those were the only SF type films we had to see first run on the screens.
Then Star Wars was released, and Hollywood saw there was money to be made BIG time with SF related films. The flood gates opened!
Also, for those of you who weren’t around back then, up until the 1980’s Hollywood still catered largely to adults. They skewed the bulk of their output for adult related movies leaving Disney to handle family and kids. In the late 70’s and especially in the 80’s they discovered there was a lot f money to be made catering to teenagers and changed their marketing and aiming the bulk of their films to teens. (thus the rise of the late John Hughes.)
Yeah, but circa late 70’s, how easily could a Sci Fi enthusiast, particularly a younger one, manage to see these classics?
And for that matter, you count of classics is still on two hands give or take, so its not like your average sci fi enthusiast of the day was awash in good sci fi, much less good big screen sci fi.
Oh, and Silent Running (a fave of mine). The FX effects were decent, but boring for the most part. They werent so crappy they detracted from the story but I don’t think they added much. And Logan’s Run? They sucked.
Interesting that the modified version removes even that level of “gray”, as if Lucas thinks modern audiences, even kids the same age as the kids who flocked to the 1977 version, couldn’t handle it.
As to the first, so what? Neither I, nor anyone I knew, had ever seen either of those movies before SW, but that didn’t affect our enjoyment of SW one bit. (And don’t forget 633 Squadron while you’re listing influences). It’s not like any of them were household names in those days. And “stealing” from other, better, movies doesn’t guarantee you a good film - witness Barb Wire.
As to the second point - that’s not only untrue, it’s stupid. And racist. They didn’t get “a black male”; they got James Freakin’ Earl Jones, the best baritone of the 70s! They got the perfect actor for the role. Your comment shows more racism in you than it supposedly shows in the movie.
Yes, some of these were great films. But visually, all of them were CHEESY! CHEESY as HELL!!! LOOK at them with your EYES! They just didn’t have “it.” Star Wars had “it” visually speaking, and was the first film to put it all together.
Let me put it differently: Star Wars was the first galactic empire space opera movie worthy of the name. And that has always been the one of the pinnacles of SF writing. When I see all those scenes on the Jedi’s base world, I’m thinking “That’s Trantor, baby. Trantor.”
I saw Star Wars seven times in the theater the summer it was released. Why was it so enjoyable?
Great soundtrack
Thrilling special effects
Simple good vs. evil story
It’s been downhill ever since. As the Star Wars universe has gotten more baroque and the stories have gotten grittier, the giddy joy of the original has been smothered under the ponderous weight of canon.
Pretty easy. They showed up on TV all the time. I was watching all of these on independent TV stations (which were always starved for content), along with reruns of Outer Limits, Star Trek, and The Twilight Zone throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Star Wars didn’t present an entirely new market, IMHO, it tapped into a market already sensitized to this material through science fiction novels, comic books*, TV series, and the odd movie**, but put it together with a big-screen budget and conviction.
*SF writers wrote for the comics. Otto Binder and Gardner Fox and Edmund Hamilton had long written for DC. By the seventies you had Harlan Ellison contributing to Marvel, along with others. And Marvel published adaptations of stories by Theodore Sturgeon and others. Both Marvel and DC had done Edgar Rice Burroughs by then, as well as imitators and predecessors.
** My movie list earlier is by no means exhaustive of pre-Star Wars SF film.
I think the original film is pap. I enjoyed it in the theater when I was fourteen, but, then again, I was fourteen. How grown men and women remain attached to this silliness is beyond me. Adolescence used to end in one’s twenties. Now it seems to extend into one’s forties and even fifties. Zombies, vampires, spaceships, scary monsters. Good grief.
n+1) It didn’t feel the need to explain everything.
The Empire was simply just evil. Blowing up planets for no good reason. Torturing princesses. These guys had to be stopped. Period. We don’t need moral ambiguity and we certainly didn’t need to hear about trade federations and blockades.
The Force was an arcane mysterious religion but it could be taught to an apprentice. The force was not simply tiny midichlorians flowing through one’s bloodstream.
Not everything needs to be explained. Certainly not in this kind of movie. Besides slowing down the story, excessive exposition kills any sense of wonder and mystery.
I’ve made this exact point to people who weren’t alive (or were very young) during the 1970s. Logan’s Run represents the standard Hollywood approach to science fiction at the time. To see how truly innovative a creative work is, you must compare it to something typical of that period, and Logan’s Run is a catalog of SF moviemaking clichés: obvious miniatures, absurd costumes, use of existing “modernistic” locations (like office building lobbies), and plot points that make no sense. I actually like Logan’s Run, but watching it makes you realize why everyone in Hollywood assumed that Star Wars was going to be a flop.
Star Wars also defied the conventional wisdom that great movies had to be deadly serious. That was the era of gritty, downbeat movies like Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Although Star Wars enjoyed widespread critical acclaim, there were some naysayers who disliked it simply because it wasn’t a grim drama and didn’t tackle any serious social issues.
Lucas also disdained the notion of building a film around big stars. The idea of a big-budget film with unknowns in the leading roles probably seemed suicidal to people in the film industry at the time. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a perfect representation of how films were packaged around famous names and faces; it’s a fun movie but there’s never a moment where you are not aware that you’re looking at Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
I generally agree with this, but I think Forbidden Planet also showed knowledge of concepts and tropes from literary and pulp SF. For example, the weapons in Forbidden Planet are called “blasters” (just as in Star Wars), and Robby the Robot apparently functions according to Asimov’s laws.
Certainly it does – that’s its attraction. I never said that it wasn’t tthe result of good pulp SF, so I don’t understand why you’re disagreeing with me.
I was in the minority at the time and the minority still but I thought Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a better film than Star Wars. They were out the same summer.
When I saw Star Wars it did not come close to living up to the hype. The plot was simple, the dialogue was weak at times as was some of the acting. I thought it was only good and not the greatest thing ever like many of my friends. On top of that the Science Fiction was barely there, I thought it was more like a fantasy. Nothing wrong with that but as a Trekkie and Heinlein and etc fan I took some offense for some reason to this being declared the greatest Sci-Fi thing. At the time I did not agree and I still don’t of course.
I was living in England when the first movie came out and didn’t hear of it until I got back to the States in mid-June.
I finally got to see it with some friends a couple of weeks later after hearing a great deal of hype. We made a whole evening of it, smuggling in Cokes and snacks and picking the best seats in the balcony.
When the lights went out and the movie started, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The opening shots of the blockade runner and Imperial destroyer were overpowering! I got wrapped up in the story immediately. And near the end, when Han comes back to save the day, the whole theater erupted in cheers.
When the movie was over, we stayed in our seats for the second screening, which you could do in those days without paying again. (Damn you, cineplex owners! :mad: ) It was almost as good as the first time, and at least as good as the other ten times I saw it before Empire came out.
I have never had as much fun watching a movie, and I’m unlikely to ever again.
One of the things George Lucas openly acknowledged was using a lot of material and characters from movies like Captain Blood and the Buck Rodgers/Flash Gordon serials of his youth.
I tend to agree that the prequels were probably a little too dark ( and had Jar Jar Binks), but I really did enjoy The Phantom Menace nearly as much as the first movie but SW really was unlike anything else that was available at the time.
This is the biggest factor for me. The sets, costumes, props, miniatures, and special effects are all top notch and more importantly work together really well to create a consistent and convincing alternate galaxy. Whoever was in charge of art direction (or whatever is the proper term) really knocked it out of the park.
But how good was the original Star Wars? The first time I saw it was in a regular theater with an audience full of grown ups. When the Millenium Falcon jumped into hyperspace, the entire audience went “OOOOOOHHHHH!!!” and broke into applause. Respectful, sincere applause for having just seen The Greatest Freakin’ Special Effect Ever In A Movie.
And then we cheered and whooped like kids when Luke blew up the Death Star.
