Frunz AlexandruBim,an II,grupa IV

Star Wars: A Cultural Phenomenon

The originalStar Warsfilms remain some of the most popular movies ever made, having achieved a level of recognition in American and worldwide culture rivaled only by such classics asThe Wizard of Oz(1939) andGone With the Wind(1939). Indeed, the similarities between these two particular films and theStar Warstrilogy go beyond simple popularity.The Wizard of Ozwas the special-effects masterpiece of its era, showing new ways to bring fantastic vistas to the screen.Gone With the Windwas the original blockbuster production, famously over-the-top in its design, scale, and sheer visual sweep. It was, in fact, the box office record holder until the originalStar Warsdethroned it. In a way, theStar Warsfilms were throwbacks to this earlier era of resplendent production values, epic scope, and the pursuit of sheer entertainment.After the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period during which the studio system that had made Hollywood into the entertainment capital of the world was in steep decline, George Lucas, along with his friends Francis Ford Coppola and Stephen Spielberg, gave the old studios a new reason for being. No independent production, no matter how dedicated, could produce the kind of effects-laden, flashy, bright, exciting, and simply spectacular creation that Lucas, and Spielberg especially, wanted to create. AfterStar Warscame SpielbergsClose Encounters of the Third Kind(1977) and the Lucas-Spielberg co-productionRaiders of the Lost Ark(1981), starring Harrison Ford, both effects-heavy spectaculars that became international megahits. The race was on: every summer brought the studios latest attempts to manufacture some of the blockbuster magicthat quality that makes people pay to see a movie again and againconjured up byStar Warsback in 1977.Another remarkable aspect of theStar Warsphenomenon that continues to influence the movie business today is the aggressiveness and pervasiveness with which the films were marketed. Today it is commonplace for every summer film to have its merchandising tie-ins, such as cups emblazoned with a films characters, for sale in store and fast-food chains. Such marketing schemes had been around beforeStar Wars, such as with the Beatles craze and the 1960sBatmantelevision show, butStar Warsturned such tie-ins into a major aspect of a blockbuster films profitability. TheStar Warsline of toys, especially, remained popular even in the three years that separated each of the episodes of the trilogy, a highly unusual circumstance. Even today, originalStar Warstoys sell at a premium among collectors. Anyone who was a child in America in the years between 1977 and 1983 can tell you, for example, that the snow monster that attacks Luke on Hoth is called a wampa and that the giant lizards the Imperial troopers ride on Tatooine are dewbacks, even though these terms are never used in the films and dont even appear in the creditsall thanks to the toys and the omnipresent marketing of these films.Many other examples of the penetration of theStar Warsworld into our culture spring to mind. When President Ronald Reagan proposed a space-based missile defense program in the 1980s, it was officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDIbut the program was universally known, to friend and foe alike, as the Star Wars program. Reagan also made a famous speech at the height of the cold war in which he identified the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire, and even if he wasnt thinking of Darth Vader and stormtroopers at the time, everybody else was. Darth Vader became an instant synonym for an evil boss or high school principal. Many of Yodas catchphrases (Do or do not; there is no try) remain easy laugh-lines after all these years.With cultural phenomena come cultural myths. The famous line Luke, I am your father does not actually existthe actual line is No,Iam your father, and is perhaps the most misheard movie line since the nonexistent Play it again, Sam fromCasablanca(1942).