Latest ‘Star Wars’ film offers a new hope to the uninitiated
Everyone has seen “Star Wars.”
Like “The Wizard of Oz” or “Casablanca” or “E.T.,” the 1977 blockbuster is one of those cinematic touchstones that simply can’t be avoided, even if you actively tried. Watching it is like a rite passage, the kind of important pop culture hurdle everybody clears at some point.
At least that’s what I assumed. And you know what happens when you assume.
Anticipation for “The Force Awakens,” the seventh entry in the ongoing “Star Wars” saga, has been running feverishly high in The Spokesman-Review features department, and it’s resulted in a number of lengthy discussions regarding our lofty (perhaps too lofty) expectations for the upcoming film. It was during one of those afternoon conversations that my colleague and desk neighbor Pia Hallenberg ever-so-casually mentioned that she hadn’t seen any of the “Star Wars” films – not in the theater, not on video, not ever.
The revelation could have been accompanied by one of those record scratch sound effects, because we all seemed incredulous that such a thing was even possible.
So Hallenberg agreed to be something of a test subject for my goofy little experiment: How does the original “Star Wars” hold up today, and how does it play for someone who’s unfamiliar with the world? Last Wednesday afternoon I screened the film for her, asking her a few questions about the film before she had seen it. (My questions and reactions are in bold.)
Where were you when “Star Wars” came out?
I was 11. I was living in Denmark because that’s where I was born, on a small farm out in the middle of nowhere. We did know that “Star Wars” had opened, and many of the stores had the little collectible plastic figures. I just didn’t know who they were. It was a weird American thing. Some of my friends went to see it. … Did I feel deprived? No. It was a little irritating that people made “Star Wars” references and I didn’t know who the characters were. But I don’t know – I don’t remember feeling excluded or anything like that.
Did you go to the movies a lot generally?
Frequently. Going to the movies required some travel because of where we lived. But I also spent a lot of time in Copenhagen, and we would go in the afternoon.
It just seems insane to me that you could have missed it, because there must have been a theater near you playing “Star Wars” all the time.
Yes, and I remember huge posters everywhere. I knew it was showing, but I would have gone to see a new James Bond movie instead. It was totally a conscious choice. It wasn’t like, “I don’t know where to find it.” It was more like, “That’s not for me.” It didn’t appeal to me.
What did you know about it before watching it?
I knew there was a cute little robot. I don’t know what he did. I knew the other guy, the golden guy, the one who complained about everything?
C-3PO.
See, I still don’t know his name. And there was some princess with weird hair.
And you knew about light sabers?
Yes, because I’ve seen kids running around with those and I’m like, “What is that annoying stuff?” And somebody explained that it was from “Star Wars.” I guess I was just never curious enough. There are other movies that I was curious enough to see… what’s the Christmas one? “It’s a Beautiful Life?”
“It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Oh, dear Lord, save me. I can’t do it. … And what’s the one with the Yellow Brick Road?
Uh, “The Wizard of Oz.”
See, this is embarrassing.
Yeah, a little bit.
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When he began writing “Star Wars” in the mid-’70s, George Lucas had just two feature films under his belt: The low-budget dystopian thriller “THX 1138” (expanded from a short he made while attending the University of Southern California) and the ’50s-set coming-of-age comedy “American Graffiti,” which was a surprise box office hit and netted Lucas two Oscar nominations when he was only 29.
The space saga was borne of Lucas’ desire to marry simple, old-fashioned storytelling with state-of-the-art special effects, liberally borrowing elements from John Ford Westerns, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ adventure novels, Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epics and “Flash Gordon” serials. The film’s universe was to be massive, the story a simple swashbuckler: A young man of modest means discovers he’s descended from what is essentially intergalactic royalty, and he teams up with a ragtag group of rebels to stop a megalomaniacal overlord.
It’s odd to think now, but Hollywood initially balked at Lucas’ vision for “Star Wars,” believing that audiences would reject anything resembling science fiction. After United Artists, Disney and Universal all rejected Lucas’ script treatment, 20th Century Fox agreed to finance it solely on the merit of Lucas’ first two films.
“Star Wars” was shot on an unremarkable budget of $11 million (that’s roughly $44 million in 2015 dollars) and was released on May 25, 1977, in a handful of theaters around the country. Lucas was almost certain the movie would flop. To avoid any critical drubbing, he boarded a plane the day after the movie opened to hang out with Steven Spielberg in Hawaii. (According to Spielberg, he and Lucas first discussed “Raiders of the Lost Ark” during that vacation.) It wasn’t until he saw a Walter Cronkite news report about the unexpected phenomenon of “Star Wars” several days later that Lucas realized he had a hit on his hands.
The movie was a smash. By August, it was playing in more than 1,000 theaters; in some markets, it played for well over a year. “Star Wars” ended up grossing $265 million in its initial theatrical run – that’s more than $1 billion adjusted for inflation – surpassing Spielberg’s “Jaws” as the highest-grossing film of all time up to that point.
“Star Wars” merchandise – action figures, trading cards, novelty records, bed sheets and lunchboxes – started popping up everywhere. Low-budget rip-offs – “Starcrash,” “Battle Beyond the Stars,” “Message from Space” – began filling mall megaplexes. The film’s mostly unknown actors were suddenly household names. The runaway success of “Star Wars” irrevocably changed the way movies are made, marketed and released.
It was nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, and won six. It was followed by two sequels and three prequels, and it’s estimated that the franchise has accrued $4 billion at the box office thus far. The American Film Institute’s most recent poll of the all-time greatest movies ranked “Star Wars” at No. 13. Not bad for a little space movie that nobody but Lucas had any faith in.
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I wanted to find more than just one “Star Wars” “virgin,” so I sent out a call on Facebook. Not many people responded, either because so few people have never seen it or because nobody wanted to admit they’d never seen it.
My friend Celia Darrough, a writer and editor for the website Bustle, was one of the first to admit it.
“There was never a certain reason I particularly avoided seeing ‘Star Wars,’ ” she said. “I just never got around to it, no one ever sat me down and had me watch it and now it seems like such a big time commitment.”
Also among the uninitiated is Ryan Tucker, one of the hosts of KSPS’ “Saturday Night Cinema” series. I was honestly surprised when he admitted he hadn’t seen a single “Star Wars” film, though the original trilogy is part of his massive VHS collection.
“I used to keep it a secret, because anytime I did mention it, I would get the rundown of how I should watch them all,” he said. “I admittedly like seeing the shock. … I’ve just heard so much about it my whole life, I picked up the gist of the story. I can quote it and I haven’t seen it. So it’s like, why bother, you know?”
“Star Wars” has, indeed, become one of the most quotable films of the blockbuster era, and it’s also inspired countless films with complex mythologies and expansive universes. But few of its imitators were able to duplicate its fleet, clean sense of storytelling: There’s an almost Zen simplicity to the way its story unfolds, and its basic, elemental approach to plotting has a lot to do, I think, with the movie’s legacy.
Rewatching it recently, I was struck by its dramatic economy: For a series that would develop such a remarkably sprawling world, the first installment relies more on implication than overt explanation. It also throws the viewer headlong into its action and rarely slows down, giving it the feel of a Saturday morning serial already in progress.
Quin Dickinson, the biggest “Star Wars” fan I know, was eager to talk about the legacy of the franchise. His enthusiasm for the original trilogy is such that, even after our 20-minute conversation, he was texting me about things he had forgotten to mention during the phone call.
“It’s a very universal story – being trapped in a boring life and getting whisked away on an adventure,” he said. “You are Luke Skywalker when you watch ‘Star Wars.’ … But all the characters are very relatable, even Chewbacca. You can feel the connection they have together. It doesn’t feel phony.”
But why exactly have these movies endured? When seemingly every big-budget Hollywood product has been cranked up to 11, what is it about Lucas’ world that still attracts audiences? Today’s kids have more entertainment options than ever, and yet so many of them gravitate toward the toys, video games and animated TV spin-offs that “Star Wars” has inspired.
“It’s as big as it is because watching them, you want to know more,” Dickinson said. “It makes you want to watch every single frame. … It’s hard not to be engaged watching something like that. You want to be in that world. You want to be in the pilot’s seat.”
As for Hallenberg, I can’t say she’s a newly converted “Star Wars” junkie. She was, however, pleasantly surprised by the original film’s absorbing story. Our conversation continues:
So what are your impressions of “Star Wars” now?
It was a lot better than I thought it would be. Harrison Ford looks very young. Other than that, the story was much more like a classic Western – these are the good guys, these are the bad guys. It didn’t annoy me as much that most of the characters have their own language and it’s not interpreted and you don’t really know who they are. I really loved the space alien bar. That was brilliant.
I’m still somewhat fascinated by how they showed technology. They mention computers – in 1977, I don’t think anybody had home computers just yet. … There were moments when the dialogue was really good. And I absolutely loved the music. I liked it much better than I thought I would, I really did.
Do you have any interest in the sequels?
Maybe. I’m not sure about the newer stuff, but maybe the two after the first one. There were some characters I expected to see, like Yoda, that I didn’t see. So it’d be fun to, perhaps, see that.
Do you regret not having seen it until now?
Not really. But if I had seen it as a kid, I would have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I would have just been fascinated by the whole thing, absolutely.