Cinema history - Star Wars = ?

Brown posted this in the Star Wars thread in the Multiplex, and I thought it was worthy of it's own thread in this section.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/18/what-if-star-wars-never-existed

I can tell you some consequences.

The article mentioned BLADE RUNNER starring Dustin Hoffman or Burt Reynolds. How about BLADE RUNNER not directed by Ridley Scott? To my knowledge, what got ALIEN made (or at least made the way it was made) was the success of STAR WARS.

So no STAR WARS. No late 70's SF boom? You did have CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, but would that have been enough to greenlight a film like ALIEN? So ALIEN becomes a Roger Corman movie, Sigourney Weaver's career may not have taken off, and Ridley Scott is making smaller films or commercials. Maybe.

Maybe we'd have another film take the place of STAR WARS in terms of significance? I don't quite see onefilm doing what STAR WARS did, but maybe several films having a combined influence akin to it. What exact film started the American New Wave, or was it several? Maybe just two.

James Bond would have returned in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Likely a very different version, however.

Star Trek? When STAR WARS was released, the second live-action Trek series, STAR TREK: PHASE II, was in development to begin airing in 1978. But the success of STAR WARS lead instead to STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. A film with a huge budget and huge flaws. Not the first time that would happen. But it's box office success lead Paramount to gamble on a cheaper sequel, and the line of dominos lead to THE NEXT GENERATION and beyond. But without STAR WARS? PHASE II boldly goes on the air in 1978, and from then on nobody can know if would have been a success or failure.

Well, that's all I got right now.

Interesting alternative history. Before the authorities closed down 'Two or three things I know about film', Lord Brown wrote a fine essay on how the Star Wars machine became a game-changer for everyone else in Hollywood.

I'm firmly of the opinion that the cinema would have been a better place if Star Wars had never been made.

ambler wrote:

I'm firmly of the opinion that the cinema would have been a better place if Star Wars had never been made.

I do agree. At least studio films would be better.

But I do wonder if cinema (at least big budget cinema) ever recovered from the introduction of television. All thing considered, it had a bigger impact than STAR WARS.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

I do wonder if cinema (at least big budget cinema) ever recovered from the introduction of television.

Or the collapse of the studio system. Or was that related?

Plus, cinema had the arrival of VHS to deal with as well, come the early 1980s. Films as well-made as Star Wars, Empire and Jedi were such a cut-above technically and entertainment-wise that they just begged to be seen at the cinema as opposed to on a grubby pirate copy or on TV. The films not only brought more people to many cinemas, they sowed a seed which kept those people going. Just look at the wave of arthouse/independent cinemas which collapsed on the back of TV and, worse still, VHS. Without films as big as Star Wars, cinema would have likely struggled, with just the odd big money-maker here and there such as The Godfather, Gone With The Wind or Jaws; And Star Wars encouraged people to get into cinema on a far more substantial level than any of those three films did. Heck, even for many people who now slam Star Wars, there's a likelihood it may have been the very stepping-stone which got them into cinema, or at least played some part in the genesis of the film which did get them going to the cinema.

Trek might have played out differently, but maybe not as you suggest. There was a Trek feature to be directed by Phil Kaufman (with vfx by Jordan Belson, miniatures by Derek Meddings and production design by Ken Adam) in development up until about 2 weeks prior to the SW release. The story is that Paramount realized even before SW hit that they had squandered their feature opportunity (which they had ... I'm of the opinion that ANY ST feature at all that opened in 1976 -- the height of trek madness -- would have done record-breaking business.)

So if SW didn't happen, we get a TREK movie -- a fun, more lowbrow one than TMP -- opening in 78, and probably doing very well indeed, since it wouldn't have cost an arm and leg.

STAR WARS non-existence wouldnt have made HEAVEN'S GATE a hit. Thus, New Hollywood would still have died.

A tangent to this exploration might be, 'what if SW happened, but happened differently?' I mean, Lucas wanted the movie to look diffused like LUCKY LADY (think Margot Kidder/Susannah York closeups in Superman 2, but for a whole feature ... DATE WITH AN ANGEL might be another horrifying example) ... I think that alone would have kept SW from catching on.

This is a case of Fox interfering withe the creative vision (telling the DP to shoot it in his own safe fashion), but in so doing, keeping the whole thing viable.

If it gone out in its original cut, I doubt it would have caught fire either.

And of course, the genius of De Palma made the opening crawl the most awesome thing in the film. :)

FourDot wrote:

If it gone out in its original cut, I doubt it would have caught fire either.

And of course, the genius of De Palma made the opening crawl the most awesome thing in the film. :)

It's funny you mention the DMan (depraved, deplorable ... ), because the movie I was trying to remember that also had that LUCKY LADY look was CARRIE -- which I find succeeds in spite of the look, but the look is why I only watch it every 15 years or so.

Didn't Unsworth do that a lot, though? Tess has quite a bit of it, IIRC. Unless I'm thinking of something else.

A Bridge too Far and Murder on the Orient Express also come to mind.

BRIDGE has some of that softness, but it looks more like an overcast day than an exaggerated effect.

MURDER has a grotesque amount of diffusion, and even at age 13, I was tearing at my eyeballs during that seemingly endless movie. Not one of Sidney Lumet's best by a long shot IMO.

Unsworth did a lot of wonderful work, but I don't make a blanket assessment of greatness about ANY cinematographer or director. I'd say GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY also has a bit much, but that it works for that film.

Imagine SW cutting from ILMsharp imagery to diffused foggy live-action -- or worse, diffuse foggy foregrounds with ILMsharp backgrounds (not that you could shoot bluescreen well, if at all, with diffusion.)

Pretty crazy to think how different it might have been. I'm not sure exactly how though, something else (or as suggested a group of films) might have changed the industry, or perhaps not.

I know without Star Wars multiplexes would not have boomed like they did.

ambler wrote:

Interesting alternative history. Before the authorities closed down 'Two or three things I know about film', Lord Brown wrote a fine essay on how the Star Wars machine became a game-changer for everyone else in Hollywood.

I'm firmly of the opinion that the cinema would have been a better place if Star Wars had never been made.

Many agree with you about that period in cinema history, though they put most of the blame with a movie that came a few years later: E.T.

The STAR WARS machine might have changed a lot--it certainly reinforced the idea of the "blockbuster," though that was arguably around long before then--but it was a mega-franchise unlike any other.

But I recently read an article that blamed a lot of our current issues with American studio cinema not on STAR WARS, but on TOP GUN.

Top Gun and the road to ruination, eh? Is the article online?

ambler wrote:

Top Gun and the road to ruination, eh? Is the article online?

The Day the Movies Died by Mark Harris. (And that's a link.)

Thanks, harms. I'll take a look and report back later.

ambler wrote:

Thanks, harms. I'll take a look and report back later.

You might not like the films he uses as hallmarks for "good" and "bad" (he thinks THE DARK KNIGHT, INCEPTION, THERE WILL BE BLOOD and Pixar are generally positive contributions, so I know he's lost you right there), but his points about the failure of the system and the grim future of Hollwyood are more or less dead-on. I'm fond of this section, in particular:

The good news is that the four-quadrant theory of marketing may now be eroding. The bad news is that it's giving way to something worse—a new classification that encompasses all ages and both genders: the "I won't grow up" demographic. As recently as 1993, three kid-oriented genres—animated movies, movies based on comic books, and movies based on children's books—represented a relatively small percentage of the overall film marketplace; that year they grossed about $400 million combined (thanks mostly to Mrs. Doubtfire) and owned just a single spot in the year's top ten. In 2010, those same three genres took in more than $3 billion and by December represented eight of the year's top nine grossers.

Let me posit something: That's bad. We can all acknowledge that the world of American movies is an infinitely richer place because of Pixar and that the very best comic-book movies, from Iron Man to The Dark Knight, are pretty terrific, but the degree to which children's genres have colonized the entire movie industry goes beyond overkill. More often than not, these collectively infantilizing movies are breeding an audience—not to mention a generation of future filmmakers and studio executives—who will grow up believing that movies aimed at adults should be considered a peculiar and antique art. Like books. Or plays.

I read it.

In addition to Harm's bit, I thought this was telling:

Quote :

Which brings us to the embarrassing part. Blaming the studios for everything lets another culprit off too easily: us. We can complain until we're hoarse that Hollywood abandoned us by ceasing to make the kinds of movies we want to see, but it's just as true that we abandoned Hollywood. Studios make movies for people who go to the movies, and the fact is, we don't go anymore—and by we, I mean the complaining class, of which, if you've read this far, you are absolutely a member. We stay home, and we do it for countless reasons: A trip to the multiplex means paying for parking, a babysitter, and overpriced unhealthy food in order to be trapped in a room with people who refuse to pay for a babysitter, as well as psychos, talkers, line repeaters, texters, cell-phone users, and bedbugs. We can see the movie later, and "later" is pretty soon—on a customized home-theater system or, forget that, just a nice big wide-screen TV, via Netflix, or Amazon streaming, or on-demand, or iPad. The urgency of seeing movies the way they're presumably intended to be seen has given way to the primacy of privacy and the security of knowing that there's really almost no risk of missing a movie you want to see and never having another opportunity to see it. Put simply, we'd rather stay home, and movies are made for people who'd rather go out.

Lack of interest in the movies is one thing, but often even when I've got a movie I want to see I'm put off by the multiplex crowd. I avoided the first weekend for HARRY POTTER 6 and ended up missing it because all my friends went that wekend. And I havent been to the movies since December. I'd rather just wait for the DVD. And going by the reviews of the people here, I dont think I'm alone. ;)

I take Harris' point. There's hardly anything showing at my local that i want to see, which means I end up bingeing on films when I'm in London, which is hardly ideal. In the UK it's becoming increasingly difficult to see films aimed at adults outside the arthouses.

A similar thing has happened to British television. BBC2 always used to show foreign (non-English language) films at weekends, but it's allowed all that content to migrate to pay-to-view channels. B-movies seem to have disappeared altogether; Hammer films are hardly ever shown yet used to be staples of late-night programming.

On a more basic level, Star Wars did so much for special effects and animation...

Without Star Wars, there would be no Pixar.

lalala2004 wrote:

Without Star Wars, there would be no Pixar.

Pixar started as a Lucas company, so, yeah...

I'm sure Sharky will posit that the eradication of Pixar would be a good thing.

The TOP GUN wrecked everything piece has some valid points, and I've often thought the calculated dumbed-downedness of that POS is as offensive as anything else in it.

I remember reading an interview with the screenwriters a long time ago, and being amazed that they were actually thinking coherent people instead of brain-dead lackeys ... their preferred draft had the Michael Ironside and Tom Skerritt characters as the same guy, but I guess that would have constituted something approaching an actual character with depth, and that would have put the movie out of whack with every other phony thing it was presenting. And they rolled with it, same as they rolled with how LEGAL EAGLES got changed (apparently from a Newman/Redford to a Redford/Debra Winger) and how they tolerated dumbing down of their DICK TRACY as well. I guess it was being a team player and being happy to cash the checks, but geez!