You know how reviewers always say this film or that film is the “Star Wars of this generation”. Of course they usually say that about films that suck.
But the question is, when do you think some new series of films will become the next “next film of this generation”? The benchmark by which future scifi films are judged?
Of course with six new Star Wars films beling released between 2015 and 2020, probably a long time.
Well, I never really thought of Star Wars as a “benchmark science fiction film” to start out with, regardless of how much I liked it. To me, 2001 was the benchmark science fiction film.
It takes a long time. Long after Buck Rogers had ceased to bemeaningful to most people, spaceship and ray gun stiuff was caklled “Buck Rogers”. I recall it from my own childhood (where, being of the SF geek bent, I knew what it was even then). “Star Wars” became the standard naming for Spaceship and ray gun stuff after it came out, as Ben Bova noted in his book on Reagan’s “Star Wars”. he observed that he and his generation would’ve called it “Buck Rogers” stuff, but the paradigm had passed by.*
So it’s not the Science Fiction film benchmark, but the “Scifi” film benchmark (as your title actually says, and Harlan Ellison would put it). You’d need something that had a similar cultural impact, and ideally after Star Wars had faded from the public mind as long as Buck Rogers had. Fat chance of that while Lucas is living and Disney can still milk buck from it. Also, it’s hard to imagine something like iyt not being seen as an imitator and having the same impact.
For the record, Buck Rogers wasn’t the first “Planetary Romance”, but it was the first to make a hit outside the pulps and specialized ;literature – Buck Rogers was a comic-strip phenmenon, in an era when comic strips were BIG. I think they also gained something from changing the character’s name from the pulp’s “Anthony Rogers” to the more addressable “Back”.
In the wake of Buck’s success we got Brick Bradford and Flash Gordon 9which became bigger than Buck, ;largely because of Alex Raymond’s superior artwork), and then the serials of both Buck and Flash.
But these things were denigrated by science fiction writers. Heinlein, in The Rolling Stones has the family writing episodes of a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon-esque serial that had sword fighting and a galactic emperor. So did Arthur C. Clarke in Takes from the White Hart. They could’ve been writing about Star Wars.
*It wasn’t until after Star Wars had become a big hit that Glen Larson tried to revive “Buck Rogers”, completely changing the story and imagery. But it was clearly a knockoff of a knockoff – Larsenn had previously done the Star Wars ripoff Battlestar Galactica in its first incarnation. To me it was pretty funny that Disney got Gil Gerard – Larson’s “Buck Rogers” – to appear in the intro to the Star Tours ride at the Disney parks.
Star Wars was a phenomenon that’s not likely to be repeated, because of the difference in the movie industry these days. Still, comparing films to earlier films … that happens all the time.
Oh, and let me (try to) be the first to say it, Stars Wars isn’t scifi.
Star Wars is the Beatles of movies. It changed how they were made, how they were marketed, and what visual effects were capable of. There will never be another, and I am kind of annoyed at the (increasingly rarer) claims of a new movie being potentially “the next Star Wars.”
More recent game-changers, for different reasons, include Jurassic Park (changing the viability of CGI); Avatar (3D and virtual worlds); and Lord of the Rings (making multiple movies back-to-back).
Star Wars changed the entire movie industry, as well as several other industries. It’s not likely to happen again.
I guess the Star Wars of its own generation was the start of a hugely successful scifi/fantasy movie series. There were few quality productions in that genre previously, and it was done well (the original anyway). So it will take a somewhat different genre not yet well represented that captures the imagination of a new generation to become the next Star Wars. I’d say it won’t take that much longer since those are old movies now, and as new ones are made they become progressively less attractive to anyone not already in love with the series.
When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. Then it will be so, and not before.
When they do a remake of Fireball XL5 in “Ultrasupermarionation”.
It won’t happen as long as every SF film of note uses the vast resources on the FX company (ILM) that was spawned by Star Wars. It can only happen when some upstart director figures out how to make a more realistic and compelling SF film that doesn’t somehow stand on the shoulders of Star Wars.
Too late.
Although Ellison would say that, while Star Wars isn’t Science Fiction, it’s definitely SciFi
In terms of movies and overall sci-fi tropes that crossover to the mainstream, The Matrix has cast a large shadow, as has Blade Runner.
A single, significant event could change it though. In a different genre, my mother abruptly stopped calling all fantasy “that Dungeons and Dragons stuff” and started calling it “that Harry Potter stuff” about the time the books became popular.
I think if James Cameron could get someone to take over the scripts for Avatar 2 and 3, they have the potential to make a long-lasting impact. The first movie had a terrible plot - but it created a pretty amazing world. The money that Cameron pours into new technology is impressive, and really does have a large influence.
I want to agree with and emphasize the point that a few other people have made–it is wrong to think of Star Wars as a benchmark **scifi **movie. Star Wars was a sea change in the entire film-making industry. It is impossible to predict when the next such game-changer will arise, but I disagree with those people saying it will never happen–it will happen, and after it happens we will all agree that it was obvious and inevitable. There is no reason to believe it will be a scifi movie, though.
Also, I think Harry Potter as a benchmark is probably a later generation’s equivalent of Star Wars. I don’t see book publishing changing in response to Harry Potter in quite the same way that movies changed with Star Wars, but technology is effecting books right now more that it effected movies in the 70’s.
Okay, I’ll bite. What is Star Wars if not “scifi”? I’m not really interested in making a distinction between “science fantasy”, “hard science fiction”, “space opera” or whatever term. I think for 99% of the world “scifi” is an appropriate broad descriptor of any artistic work containing spaceships and laser blasters and aliens and whatnot.
Maybe Lord of The Rings would be an equivalent in terms of fantasy (again…not looking for a pedantic debate on terminology. “Psuedo-medievil magic dragon shit” if you prefer).
Also true. As well as Alien, Star Trek, Avatar and a few others.
Matrix came pretty close IMHO. It’s not the new “Star Wars”, but any suitably “mind-blowing” “reality-twisting” cyberpunkish film might earn the title of “a Matrix for a new generation” (like Inception for example).
For just a minute there, it looked like The Blair Witch Project was going to usher in a whole new way of doing business instead of being sui generis.
I’m going to go a step further and suggest that the real point is still being missed. Star Wars is not the benchmark it is just because it changed the filmmaking industry. It is the benchmark it is because it was the first truly successful pop culture franchise that stepped outside of the motion picture industry itself.
Obviously, Star Wars was a huge, huge success in film; people lined up to see it. What made it different, though, was that its influence stretched out of the movie theatre and into toy stores, arcades, and other forms of media to an extent never seen before. I cannot think of any movie prior to Star Wars with the enormous ancillary merchandising empire that accompanied it. People were literally buying action figures in advance - MONTHS in advance - because the toy industry had no idea every kid in the world would want a Luke Skywalker action figure, because that isn’t something that had ever happened before.
We now take it for granted that a successful family movie will spawn books, toys, video games, straight-to-video shorts and sequels, tie-in Crayola stuff, and all that crap, but before Star Wars that had never happened. We now take it for granted that any successful fiction franchise has a “canon,” a universe of history, rules, characterizations and themes that are spelled out not only in the movies but also in the other stories in other media, usually with some sort of semi-official pyramid of authenticity - but that didn’t happen before Star Wars (or if it did it was very small niche stuff.)
Here’s a stunning fact; Pixar makes more money from merchandising their movies than they make from the movies themselves. In fact, according to most sources, Pixar has made more money from “Cars” merchandise than the box office take of all their movies combined. If you ever wondered why they made a sequel to Cars, that’s why; the box office take is a sideshow. But few people are awareof that, of much care about it, because it just seems normal. Well, sure, they say, of course they make lots of money, my kid’s got Cars and Toy Story shit all over his room. Hell, my hipster friend has an Incredibles T-shirt, so what?
That NEVER happened before Star Wars. Star Wars did that. Star Wars made merchandising the point of a family movie. Star Wars made the idea of a franchise “canon” real. Star Wars made it so that they’ve got the books, the video games, and the Lego sets ready on opening night.
It’s NOT about moviemaking skill or innovation - which is not a shot against Star Wars, which is an excellent film and was brilliantly innovative. But as others have pointed out, movies since have set equally impressive benchmarks. In terms of influence on moviemarking, the most influential film since Star Wars is - by a wide margin, and I do not believe there is any reasonable argument against this - “Toy Story.” No contest. But nobody asks what the next Toy Story’s gonna be, because while it changed the movie industry in terms of MOVIES, in terms of its cultural impact, in terms of drawing in new media, it just did the same things Star Wars did.
So when you ask what the next Star Wars is, you’ve got to ask; what cultural penetration, what media barriers, what commercial milestones are yet to be surpassed?
June 17, 2023 at 7:08 pm EDT.
This is quite true. There were many earlier attempts at secondary marketing, but nothing came close to the success of Star Wars merchandise. The incredible value of first run Star Wars merchandise is in part due to the small amount of merchandise ordered and made. No one predicted the demand, the licensing rights were shopped to all the toy companies, and most of them didn’t think they were worth anything.
I do not think it will be the last such sea change in the ever broadening connection between movies, media, and pop culture though. The world of virtual reality and reality-show reality is rich with potential.
If I recall correctly, there were licensed products before Star Wars – Sharks from Jaws, stuff from TV shows like Star Trek and Davy Crockett, but none had the kind of success that really changed the economic structure of the movie business.