Influence of the Force
Only one person could think of something as outrageous and different as Stars Wars and still be able to make a huge success out of it. That one person is George Lucas. The stars wars saga has been through a lot over time and it has seen many different characters and places, but none of it would come to transpire if it weren't for George Lucas' original Star Wars movie. This movie has single handedly changed many different aspects of how a movie is made and marketed today, it has inspired legions of fans and conventions, and it has started numerous spin-offs and toy lines throughout the decades since this movie was created. One of the biggest effects that Star Wars has had on the industry today is it's licensing of merchandise. For the first time ever, the merchandise to come out for the movie actually made more money than the movie ifself. If there's one thing that can be said about Star Wars is that once it was here it was going to be around for a very long time. Star Wars has not only influenced the legions of fans that follow the film, but because of the unique ideas of George Lucas, it has also changed the ways that movies are made and marketed today.
George Lucas was a one of a kind at his entrance into the film industry. He was born in Modesto, California on May 14, 1944. George never did very well throughout his younger days at school and he was viewed as “scrawny little devil that would never amount to any good” by his father George Sr. George's father strongly opposed the idea of film school and thought instead that George should go into the office supply business that his father owned a store for. George Lucas believed in his dream and as he left for film school he told his father, “I'm never coming back...I'm going to be a millionaire before I'm thirty”. In the end, this turned out to be true, but while living at home Lucas was instilled with a lifelong anti-authoritarian attitude that would later show throughout his movies. This is seen in his first movie THX 1138 as the main character attempts to escape the rule of the society he's stuck in and throughout the Star Wars saga was Luke battles with the forces of the evil empire. Lucas' ideals as an auteur were heavily enforced during his time in film school as he learned about how to combine the ideas of different forms of filmmaking with a sense of creativity that he would later be able to call his own.
The idea for Star Wars started out in the creative mind of George Lucas. After his first few movies, THX 1138 and American graffiti, did relatively well in theaters Lucas wanted to try something new. Lucas commented on THX 1138 later saying that, “they were cutting off the fingers of [his] baby” and that, “[He got screwed in the beginning and now [he] was able to do it to [the studios]. He decided to try his hand at a movie with a PG rating that people of all ages could enjoy together. Initially aimed at kids from ages ten to twelve the idea spawned from the fact that, as Lucas put it, “Kids today don't have any fantasy in life the way that we had – they don't have any westerns, they don't have any pirate movies”. Lucas wanted to change this. He saw Star Wars as being a “folklorist space fantasy” to inspire generations and he used his own personal flair to make something that was going to be one of a kind. But this journey that Lucas was embarking on wasn't going to be an easy one.
The preparation for the movie took three years alone before it was finally green-lighted by Fox. Within this time Lucas doubted himself immensely. Comments from his peers and comrades only put him into more panic as everyone that read the script couldn't see where he was going with it. No one could follow the story and they all said that it was a waste of time. But Lucas was determined to succeed. With the help of Lucas' own studio Lucasfilm and the sub-studio, Industrial Light and Magic, Lucas was able to accomplish his goal. It was a lot of work and included filming in many different locations such as studios in England and multiple deserts that caused all kinds of trouble for the equipment.
Through all the trouble though stars wars still innovated. It was the first movie to be recorded and released in four-track Dolby stereo sound. This meant that the sound was clearer and different sound effects could now be heard independently from eachother for the first time. This made a huge difference to the audience. In July 1977, a survey conducted one month after the release of Star Wars said that ninety percent of those questioned could easily tell the difference and it mattered to them. The industry saw this change and went with it. There was a mass conversion to Dolby stereo sound systems and by the end of 1979 there were already 1,200 Dolby-equipped movie theaters in the United States alone. This wasn't the only technological advancement by Star Wars though. Traveling matte photography such as those found in 2001:A Space Odyssey were changed forever by the sub-studio Industrial Light and Magic. They used computer controlled cameras to reduce the cost and make the shots more consistent. This in turn made the recorded models along with the live action footage mesh together more seamlessly and believably.
The cost had also lowered significantly, making it more practical for future movies to use the same process. The difference was $2.5 million compared to the $6.5 million for 2001:A Space Odyssey, which used far less traveling matte effects. Industrial Light and Magic has moved on today to pioneer computer animation, becoming the major special effects in the movie industry. Their current work includes the special effects of popular movies such as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean and Dreamworks/Paramounts Transformers.
Something different that occurred with Star Wars, and is still going on today, is the amount of parodies and spin-offs that were inspired by this movie. For some reason there were many impressionable parts in the movie that garnered enough attention to be copied over and over again. This was seen almost immediately after the release of stars wars in the short film Hardware Wars, which is often times considered to be the most successful short film ever. This short used similar looking characters, with similar names to build off the success of the movie. And it worked. Releasing only seven months after the release of the film, Hardware Wars grossed over $1,000,000 as compared to it's budget of $8,000. Events like this were seen as well in later years. Star Wars was parodied again in the Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs. Aside from these different movies, Star Wars parodies are used today in popular television shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Fairly Oddparents, and Robot Chicken. It's often said that copying is the sincerest form of flattering and there was just something about Star Wars that made it the thing to be copied.
At the time that Star Wars was coming out the movie industry was just getting back into different genre movies as a way to make money. Unfortunately, the science fiction genre was chosen as one that just wasn't going to work. It was too small of a category that would only draw in a niche crowd. This brought many doubts down upon Lucas. Lucas' peers and friends said, “George, you should be trying to make more of an artistic statement”. Lucas didn't care. He was making a movie the way he wanted and it was about something that he had a passion to create. The interesting thing about the genre of stars wars though is that it wasn't just a science fiction movie. There were many different genres within it, including western elements, adventure elements, and the Japanese samurai film elements. As Time magazine put it Star Wars was, “a subliminal history of the movies, wrapped in a riveting tale of suspense and adventure”. It was able to keep the attention of the older audiences while still offering new material to the younger generations.
After Star Wars became a huge success the industry changed their tune about the science fiction genre. It was now the genre to be in. Paramount had been debating a movie based on the popular television show, Star Trek, but had decided against it until the release of Star Wars. When they released Star Trek:The Motion Picture, it became a huge success and one of the final blockbusters of the seventies along with another Fox movie, Alien. The sound and visual advances made by Star Wars helped achieve what no other studio was willing to try until this point.
Star Wars started a different path with it's marketing and inspired many other movies to follow in its path. Movies were becoming harder and harder to sell. For the studio to make the movie, it needed to be pre-tested, pre-sold, and easily packaged. Studios started to make all the movies as sequels from popular movie or based on books that were already proven to be popular. The whole purpose of the industry became the fashioning of the blockbuster. During the time when stars wars came out “Hollywood took to selling it's movies like they were the second coming of Christ”. This meant that no matter what the movie was about or how small the movie was going to be, it was going to be heavily marketed like there was never going to be anything like it to ever again. Sure, Star Wars used saturation booking to get at as many people as possible and it had posters and ads, but Star Wars accomplished so much more than that without requiring much help from marketing agencies. The movie literally took on a life of it's own using some of the tag lines from different ads and movie posters to spread what the movie was about without giving too much away. Some of these tag lines included, “In a galaxy far, far away” and “Coming to your galaxy this summer”. These helped to give the movie an unearthly edge that George Lucas could have never guessed would have been this popular once it hit the ground running.
Much of what actually drove the success of Star Wars was the way that the fans reacted to it. Word of how great and new the film was spread by mouth and along with this many more people went to see it. There were so many amazing effects that were never seen before with this kind of quality. The sound design was simply fantastic and was backed by a wonderful score composed by John Williams. Then, on top of that, the sound was in stereo sound which people just weren't used to getting. This is what the audience loved. With Star Wars coming out shortly after movies such as Jaws, the people were hooked on the idea of the spectacle. Lucas was later quoted as saying, “Popcorn movies have always ruled. Why do people go to see them? Why is the public so stupid? That's not my fault”. Later, fans became obsessed with how Star Wars was. People would dress up to go see the movie, they would act out their favorite parts, and start entire international conventions that challenged the idea of how fans should feel about their favorite movies. This opened eyes to how a film could be made and marketed to a large audience that didn't just care about what happened during the movie, but also what could possibly have happened before or after what took place during the movie.
Something unusual that George Lucas did with the Star Wars movies was the idea to ask for the sequel rights, the music rights, and the merchandising rights. This assured that, even though Lucas didn't direct the sequels, he would still have a say in how they were made as the producer. The unique part though was in the music and merchandising rights. As long as movies had been being made, the merchandise never made very much money compared to what the movie itself was going to do. Star Wars was the first movie to change that. Thanks to the frenzy of the fans, merchandise flew off the shelves and made more than the movie itself. Lucas keeping the rights made an impact on the fans, which in turn, changed the idea behind the marketing. The sales became a form of marketing in itself and this tactic is still used today. There were books, games, toys, and clothing all based on the movie Star Wars. The book based on the movie reached the number four spot on the bestseller's list. In the end, Star Wars merchandise sales had reached into the billions. More than the movie itself made. There are many movies today that instead of making toys and games off of the movie, it's the other way around. Movies such as My Pretty Pony were made just in an attempt to sell the toys that the movie was based on.
Star Wars got nominated for ten academy awards and won seven of them. Some of those include art direction, sound, original score, film editing, and visual effects. The impact that Star Wars had on the movie industry and the rest of the world was more than anyone would have ever guessed. New technology implemented in the movie, such as the effects that the sound had on the audience and the new ways that the special effects were rendered has changed the ways that movies will be made and thought of forever. Years after the release of the original movie people are still crazy about it. The new movies have made an impact and drove a newer crowd to go see the originals that George Lucas created so many years ago. George Lucas' vision of the battle between good and evil within the Force has inspired many and changed the movie industry forever.
Bibliography
Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998
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Internet Movie Database. “Star Wars, 1977” 1990-2007. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/
Irwin, William. Star Wars and Philosophy. Carus Publishing Company, 2005
Kline, Sally. George Lucas:Interviews. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1999
Rinzler, J.W. The Making of Star Wars. New York: Ballantine Books, 2007
Titelman, Carol. The Art of Star Wars. Del Rey Publishing, 1997
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