Continuation from earlier discussions.
I don’t know the percentage but it’s massive in numbers obviously. Star Wars and comic book fandom has to be the two most “make it my entire personality” movies fandoms by far. My general hated of these is less about the films but more about how people treat them. If everyone was “they are fun little kids movies” I would be fine. It is when people are arguing they belong in best of the decade lists. That’s where it annoys me.
I also hate how they have crowded out space in the industry for actually innovative and good adult films.
TLDR. It’s not so much the films I hate. It’s the debased culture around them.
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These movies are perfectly fine on a list of favorite movies that isn’t about what is objectively best.
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Someone convince me there would be a marvel takeover without Star Wars?
?? There was a marvel takeover because of the immaculate 2008 film Iron Man starring dreamboat Robert Downey Jr. If that film tanks, the Marvel experiment likely goes down in flames. Fairly certain Iron Man gets made whether or not Star Wars exists.
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I am not so sure. The one two punch of jaws and then Star Wars reconfigured the movie industry for the worse causing everyone to constantly chase the blockbuster by pandering to the lowest common denominator that would appeal to the most people.
iron man specifically kick stared marvel, not blockbuster obsession.
Comic book movies exist because of comic books. If the Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc…movies didn’t make money, then Iron Man doesn’t get made. Once Iron Man becomes a hit, it opened the door for other Marvel properties.
Not sure how Star Wars affected any of that.
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Marvel took over because they had a solid crew of extremely, generationally charismatic actors and a couple of fun popcorn action movies.
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Exactly this. If you want to blame Star Wars in particular for anything, it’d be expanding the swords-and-sorcery fantasy genre beyond Tolkeinian quasi-medieval settings and thus spurring a bunch of creative juices flowing towards swords-and-sorcery-BUT-IN-SPACE works.
Hollywood went nuts with comic book movies because studios are lazy and risk averse, and thus they’d rather adapt existing, successful IP rather than try to make something new. Comic books offered a huge array of already-loved heroes, villains, and storylines, and the successes of Superman, Batman, the X-Men and Spider-Man got Marvel thinking they could do that with the characters they hadn’t already sold off. And, I think we have to grant that designing an interconnected storyline spanning dozens of movies was legitimately innovative and risk-taking for a generally risk-averse industry.
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Jaws was the movie that changed how films were marketed, with a wide release and a nationalized ad campaign that led to a summer blockbuster in a season that used to be where weaker films were dumped. I think this a formula that someone would have figured out eventually.
The invention of the PG-13 rating gave movies a better target to pursue. Instead of having to choose between being R-rated or a more family friendly PG, studios now had an option that led them to go after teens. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is often credited with spurring this innovation.
The opening up of China to more foreign films led to Hollywood being more interested in movies that could appeal there as well as here. That began in 1994 with The Fugitive. There’s some sort of quota system that I haven’t bothered to figure out completely, but it means that US-based studios should care more about films that can do well in China and other overseas places.
With all this, it feels like a mistake to say the current film industry was created by Jaws and Star Wars. It seems more likely to me that we would still be where we are now without those movies. If we didn’t have Marvel, we’d just have something else in its place.
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There’s an argument that Star Wars didn’t just change Hollywood it ended the 1970s era of film experimentation.
Before 1977, the biggest hits in America were often ambitious, director-driven films: The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Jaws, Apocalypse Now, Rocky, Taxi Driver, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
These weren’t niche arthouse projects. they were massive mainstream hits built around adult themes, complex characters, and strong directors.
Then Star Wars arrived and changed the economics of Hollywood. Studios realized the real money was in effects-driven spectacle, merchandising, and films aimed at younger audiences.
Within a few years the industry pivoted toward the modern blockbuster model of franchises, sequels, and McDonald’s tie ins.
Star Wars drew the line between two eras of Hollywood imo.
There exists no possible reality where people dont enjoy familiar characters and nostalgia though. Or that good special effects dont become popular.
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What do you actually think the movie industry would look like now if there had been no Star Wars?
This whole thread is like someone trying out the shit they tell people in bars but then when that cool theory gets stress tested it “(post deleted by author)”
Yes.
I think cinema has followed a familiar arc traveled by every other prior adaptation of new media. Early movies were adaptations of well-known books or folk tales. Early books were transcriptions of oral histories and stories. All of those struggled to resolve an inevitable appetite for nostalgic spectacles of larger than life heroes.
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there are tons of articles online making the same points I’m making. As usual, you don’t know what you are talking about.
To be fair, some conversations really do play better when you’re drunk at a pub at 2am.
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Ouch.
But to be clear, you’re saying that it if wasn’t for Star Wars, movies would be hella good now?