What’s perpetual copyright?
I had a good few friends excited about seeing the rediscovered extended cut of Metropolis, none of whom are media students. My friends are, admittedly, more geeky than average, but I see no reason to think that a rerelease of Star Wars wouldn’t generate similar excitement in 100 years. A niche market, obviously, but a sizeable one. To use your figures, and assuming a population of 10 billion in 100 years, that’s a million people interested enough to know the plot in detail. Certainly enough to keep it remembered.
I suspect we may actually be saying similar things from an opposite perspective here…
The original trilogy will be forgotten. It’s already showing its age. I must have missed the corny the first time around. Entertainment likely will have evolved far beyond 2-D grainy films in 1 or 5 hundred years.
The mythos may keep rolling for centuries – it is super appealing to kids. Yoda is my 5 yr old son’s favorite fictional being, and I haven’t even shown him the films yet. He’s nonplussed when I tell him that the story in 2nd trilogy ends up being about Anakin and Obi-wan. I haven’t broken the news that the first trilogy features gay robots and accidental incest.
Typical question: If Yoda fought Spiderman, who would win?
Answer: Yoda because he’s magic.
Follow-up (always, always a follow-up): Could Yoda beat up any superhero?
Answer: Not Superman.
Elaboration: Superman is essentially Jesus in blue tights, and we all know Jesus can (and will soon) kick anyone’s ass.
My Pentecostal wife is not amused.
I can’t name any from the 15th century off the top of my head, but about half of Shakespeare’s work is from the 16th century, and many of his Elizabethan contemporaries’ plays (like The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and *The Duchess of Malfi) *are also performed today, though not quite so often as Shakespeare. Don Quixote is still a relevant cultural figure, and plays from around 1600 by Cervantes, de Vega, de Molina, and de la Barca are still performed on professional stages today, both in Spanish and in translation. Moliere’s work is still a staple of the theatrical canon, again both in French and in translation. Greek classics like the Oedipus cycle and the Orestia are still read, performed, and referenced to today, and they’re all from the fifth century B.C.E.
That’s just looking at theatre, too. Milton’s Paradise Lost from the 17th century and is still known to people today. Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy is still read and referenced to today, and that’s about seven hundred years old. The Odyssey is about twenty-five hundred years old, and is still read and adapted for the stage and screen today.
While certainly the vast majority of our cultural references will be almost entirely forgotten by the ends of our lifetimes, I do not think it’s impossible that some works will remain relevant at least in reference. Twain’s snarky quote about how a classic is “a book which people praise and don’t read.” will probably remain true, but I do think it’s possible that the Star Wars universe will remain a piece of popular culture five hundred years hence. I’m not saying that Star Wars itself will necessarily be relevant (it might as easily be Superman, or Oz, or WOW for that matter) but I don’t discount the possibility that our culture has created something that has some real staying power.
Second Life RP has put ALL other media “in perspective” as far as I’m concerned. I still watch TV shows in the background while I RP or do other things, but they are no longer all that interesting … which is why I mostly watch news programming. Movies? Passe. Of course you have to have a good imagination and creativity to RP well, even in a virtual environment, so I’m sure the appeal is limited. Still, after you spend a couple of hours BEING a warrior in an appealing fantasy world, every other form of entertainment seems pale and shadowy … weaksauce, in a word. It seems QUITE plausible to me that some new tech will come along that will have that same effect on everyone, in which case, movies will be about as popular in the general culture as old-time radio plays.
Le Morte d’Arthur, aka King Arthur, but maybe it doesn’t count since Sir Thomas Malory didn’t actually write it, he just compiled and translated older stories.
The Robin Hood stories started in the fifteenth century too.
So (a) how do you feel about The Wizard Of Oz, and (b) do kids still miss its corniness the first time around?
Adoration. Judy Garland was an earth angel. It’s like choppin onions when she sings Over The Rainbow. Haven’t sprung it on the kids because it’s scary as hell. I was a) mentally scarred when Dorothy was locked up with the hourglass and b) revolted when the flying monkeys fucked up the Scarecrow.
It isn’t corny. Musicals are exempt from the cornymeter.
Not sure what you’re getting at. The two movies are not similar. TWOO is universally heralded. Star Wars has camps.
Nah, they’re pretty much equal. Most people my age in my country (UK, 35) will have seen both at least once - it’s surprising when someone hasn’t. SW has more vocal fans though.
Not if Lucas has anything to say about it.
Star Wars is the Santa Claus Conquers the Martians of its generation, and is at least as important*.
(*if not more! Harrison Ford is a bigger name now than Pia Zadora. And even though my friends quote SCCtM more, I’m sure “Use the Force” or “I find your lack of faith disturbing” is more recognizable than “You’ll never get away with this, you Martian!” or “No time for the red lever now, Billy!”)
Seriously, a local theater showed it (SW, not SCCtM) on the big screen a while ago, and my cynical kids (who grew up on much better movies) proclaimed it a classic.
There you go. Both good examples.
I don’t think copyright will be an issue, because plenty of shitty films from 70s and 80s have already been remade. Maybe the first couple remakes will be by Lucas’s heirs or estate, or maybe they’ll end up being like most heirs, and take a boatload of money and run.
I hope they get remade, to decrease the shame our own heirs will feel about the cultural “heights” our own era rose to. 
Peter Pan has perpetual copyright in the UK due to a special act of Parliament. I think JM Barrie gave the copyright to a children’s hospital, - parliament was touched by the idea and passed an act declaring that the copyright would continue forever.
As far as I know it’s a unique situation.
Yup; Great Ormond St Hospital; I’ve been a patient there myself.
When we abandon technology and revert to a medieval-style life, the philosphers of the time will puzzle over DVDs and reels of film that survive-of course, with no electrcity to run them, nobdoy will be able to watch them.
I suspect that printed books will survice, leading or non-technological descendents to conclude that it was all magic.
Nobody seen Reign of Fire, then?
Well, even if that happened, there’s novelizations left to survive, along with comic adaptations, and the whole EU thing.
The first time that someone constructs a planet-destroying space station, Star Wars will no doubt be referenced to show how the idiotic people of the distant past thought planet-destroying space stations would look. And a good laugh will be had by all the robots.