In 1977, a film called Star Wars revolutionized visual storytelling in a new and fresh way: through the combination of stunning visual effects with a brisk yet efficient direction and both likable and relatable characters. With its technical innovations came its unprecedented financial and critical success and the numerous attempts to recapture the same cultural phenomena and box office records. Some of the more successful examples in the modern-day that reached similar heights at the box office include James Cameron's Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009), and Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame (2019). However, the classic Hollywood trend of guaranteed blockbuster hits (dating back to the days of Gone with the Wind (1939), The Ten Commandments (1956), and The Sound of Music (1965)), is now questioned by box office analysts, especially with the number of high-profile flops in recent years. Disney's The Lone Ranger (2013) and A Wrinkle in Time (2018), and Mortal Engines (2018) from Universal (the last of which lost up to $174.8 million ($178 million when adjusted for inflation, making it the biggest box office bomb of all time)) come to mind. These instances of major financial disappointments have led to numerous debates within the filmmakers' community over whether popular movies like those from the Star Wars franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have artistic value. One notable comment came from director Martin Scorsese, who referred to the Marvel films not as cinema, but as the equivalent of "theme parks." One can assume that Scorsese may have been sharing the ideas expressed by film theorist Walter Benjamin in his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". In the article, Benjamin discussed pale imitations of art masterpieces, which reads as follows:
By making many reproductions, it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition, which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind. Both processes are intimately connected with the contemporary mass movements. Their most powerful agent is the film. Its social significance, particularly in its most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic aspect, that is, the liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage.
Scorsese's comments did have some truth, such as implying the films' perceived lack of visual authenticity and identity. However, he was widely criticized by movie fans and film directors like George Miller, who stated that cinema is all part of "one big mosaic and each bit of work fits into it." Ironically, a similar discussion about popular movies and their place in cinema had occurred in the 1970s and '80s when John Simon, a film critic for the National Review, referred to the Star Wars films as "completely dehumanizing," "for children or for childish adults," and "malodorous offal." Said comments led to a televised debate on ABC News in 1983 between Simon and At the Movies hosts Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, during which Ebert defended Return of the Jedi (1983), the third film in the Star Wars Original Trilogy, claiming:
"I think all movies are special effects. Movies are not real. They are two-dimensional. A film goes through the camera, the projector throws the light onto the screen, and that makes a special effect. It's a dream. It's an imagination. So, as to whether [Jedi] is good or not, it excited me. It made me laugh. It made me thrilled. And that's what a movie like this is for."
Enjoyment factor aside, it was undeniable that everyone in the world of cinema felt the impact of Star Wars' monumental success and popularity. From its garnering of seven Academy Awards for its achievements in production design, costuming, editing, sound mixing, sound effects design, and John Williams' iconic score, its loyal fans have cemented the film into popular culture the world had never seen anything quite like it. Yet, Star Wars' influence on the film industry and Hollywood carved a new path for the trajectory of visual effects and its portrayal of and subversion of expectations for gender roles traditionally depicted on film.
In Donna Haraway's essay "A Cyborg Manifesto", she describes a cyborg from both science fiction-centric and feminist-centric perspectives: "Contemporary science fiction is full of cyborgs–creatures simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted," and "The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience that changes what counts as women's experience in the late twentieth century. This is a struggle over life and death, but the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion."
The kind of cyborg that closely relates to Haraway's descriptions is the Maschinenmensch (translated to English as "machine-person"), a golden humanoid robot from Fritz Lang's silent classic Metropolis (1927). In the film, the Maschinenmensch is created by a mad scientist named Rotwang (played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge) in the likeness of Maria (played by Brigitte Helm), the main protagonist's love interest, and a figure of hope for uniting the oppressed working class individuals with the wealthy ruling class, to not only sow discord among the workers by tearing each other apart but to also serve as the wealthy's idol of sexual lust and hedonistic partying. Not only does the fake Maria succeed in manipulating the workers into violently destroying the machines running the city of Metropolis, but the wealthy end up murdering each other over her. After the town floods due to the mechanical systems' collapse, the workers eventually turn on the fake Maria upon realizing that their children had been left behind in their village. They burn it at the stake until its metal undercoat is revealed. Soon, they understand what they had done and the machine's true intentions. Not only did this plotline reflect the underlying misogynistic views towards women at the time (as blank-slate figures that could be molded to serve as either angelic role models that helped the poor and children or evil, seductive and manipulative temptresses that wreak havoc among men), the film's implied notion that society needs to be distrustful of women, is harmful to human relationships, thus making the workers look in the process, no better than the actual villains.
Star Wars' Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher) goes against the princess and damsel in distress archetypes by fighting, shooting blasters, and talking back towards the male heroes while maintaining her sense of independence, leadership, and spirit. This kind of strong-willed and confident female role would be instrumental in creating iconic movie characters such as Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor from the Alien and Terminator franchises. On a Metropolis-related side note, the Maschinenmensch's otherworldly physique would inspire that for C-3PO (played by Anthony Daniels)'s. Unlike the villainously deceptive clone of Maria, C-3PO is a male instead of a female, and he serves as one of the film's two comic reliefs alongside a beeping droid named R2-D2 (played by Kenny Baker). According to director George Lucas, these two characters were mainly inspired by the two bumbling peasants from Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (1958). Lucas' subverting of traditional cinematic iconography and their original thematic implications proved to be not only revolutionary but profoundly innovative in terms of the way popular movies were perceived from then on. From mindless popcorn flicks for children to intelligent yet emotionally fulfilling features for everyone to enjoy, this method would carry on into future generations, as exemplified by filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Rian Johnson. Spielberg, who with his masterful direction, aided in bringing his friend Lucas' vision of a modern spin on 1930s serial adventure films to life through the Indiana Jones series (1981 to present), and Johnson with his unique take on the murder-mystery genre's characters and thematic tropes in Knives Out (2019).
Besides the iconic Maschinenmensch design, Star Wars shares a lot in common with Metropolis on a thematic level. For instance, Metropolis tackled broad subjects like the wealthy oppressing the everyday man into keeping their society running, the fundamental flaws within capitalist societies, and the effect of the powerful using technology as a social and political tool to turn ordinary people against each other. According to Haraway:
The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of "Western" science and politics—the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other—the relation between organism and machine has been a border war.
In contrast, the world of Star Wars is set in a galaxy under imperial rule, where commoners like Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill) feel helpless in standing a chance against resisting the far-reaching power of the Galatic Empire. In Metropolis, Freder (played by Gustav Fröhlich) is the son of the most influential person in the city but breaks away from his father and sides with the workers out of both the kindness of his heart and disillusionment with his father's status quo attitude towards the working class. However, one fundamental similarity between the two films is their emphasis on the sympathetic protagonist who finds himself swept up into siding with and saving the powerless from evil forces and showcases the hero's journey of following their bliss and never giving up on the people they love. Not only did Star Wars support the traditional hero's journey as described by writer Joseph Campbell, but it was also something that heavily influenced Lucas when developing the film:
"I came to the conclusion after American Graffiti (1973) that what's valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is...around the period of this realization...it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology..."
There is a modern sensibility about Star Wars that does not try to talk down to its audience for all its reverence towards tradition, even if its intended audience was for children. For instance, Lucas' unique terminologies for his world are easy to remember (i.e., the Clone Wars, Jedi Knights, the Force, the Dark Side, etc.) and filled with (at the time) yet-to-be explored story ideas (most of which would be featured in Lucas' Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1999-2005)). Additionally, at the end of both Metropolis and Star Wars, the main protagonists are recognized as heroes and rewarded for uniting society. However, one is from a futuristic yet dystopian society, while the other is from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
To some extent, the idea of Star Wars and its financial success did indeed serve as a commercial and marketing blueprint for filmmakers everywhere to imitate and sometimes build off. However, with its knee-jerk reaction to success, Hollywood tends to exploit the talk of the town like actors or genres associated with certain movies or film franchises and update them for contemporary times (two prime examples are the RoboCop and Predator franchises). When an actor's independent ventures have little to offer besides name recognition (i.e., Dolittle (2020), Robert Downey Jr.'s first post-Avengers: Endgame role), it sometimes leads to said individual returning to their iconic franchises to generate income. Simultaneously, it is easy for Hollywood producers and studio executives to fall into the trap of relying on people's nostalgia for beloved or successful film properties as a means for easy money. The number of recent entries from the Jurassic Park (1993 to present), Pirates of the Caribbean (2003 to present), and Michael Bay's Transformers (2007-2017) franchises are prime examples of the said trap put into practice. This scenario adds credibility to the argument that the auteur's approach to cinema (i.e., the works of Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut, Stanley Kubrick, etc.) is fading away from box office profitability. However, one notable exception in recent memory is Christopher Nolan, who made a successful transition from independent filmmaking with Memento (2000) and Insomnia (2002) to blockbuster status with The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-2012) and Inception (2010), while retaining his signature storytelling methods. Movies like Blade Runner (1982) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994) expressed and showcased ingenious ideas and remarkable technical achievements yet flopped at the box office. However, contemporary critics have since re-evaluated them as modern masterpieces for their artistic and cultural significance, which have added to their relevance despite being initially lost in the seas of blockbuster season.
In conclusion, there is no definitive answer as to whether a film like Star Wars was a blessing or a curse to future Hollywood blockbusters, but one sure thing is: it was both. Star Wars set an unbelievably high bar for future films to top both technically and creatively. Still, had it been released ten to twenty years later than it did, it would have been tough for films from the likes of Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, and Edgar Wright to break out the way they did. On the other hand, Hollywood's trend of trying to imitate or even top its vision by becoming grander in terms of scale, visual effects, and worldbuilding, or selections of the source material was inevitable regardless of the hypothetical question about the fate of Star Wars had it been released during Christmas of 1977 instead of its May 25th, 1977 release date. As Mortal Engines and its disastrous box office performance proved to Universal, not every available intellectual property (IP for short) is always worth the studio's investment in franchise potential. The entertainment landscape has evolved to the point that the saturation of blockbusters has become overwhelming.
Nevertheless, Hollywood's exploitation of famous artists and film IPs until they are deemed worthless is unavoidable regardless of where or when the movies are released. With that said, humanity needs movies like the original Star Wars to periodically make a splash in the seas of generic imitations, knockoffs, and other masterpieces' retreads. For better and for worse, they will leave an impression on and usher in a new generation of admirers, groundbreakers, and, yes, copycats. As the filmmaking technology and methods advance, the bar for the next big thing will continually be raised. Until then, the filmmakers' community and their continued passion for making and preserving art that will not only leave an indelible mark on the public consciousness but create a new phenomenon are our new hope for communal and societal growth.
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