One of Hollywood’s biggest, and most culturally important, movies came out thirty years ago this coming Friday. Do you know what it is?
This movie when it came out cured Hollywood of its “morally conflicted” disease, and then eventually contracted and died of the same disease. Do you know what it is?
Let’s step back and remind ourselves how the movie changed everything. Sure, it got producers addicted to big summer blockbusters, but “Jaws” had already started that trend. Granted, it helped sweep away all the off-kilter independent visions that populated ’70s cinema, but hey, no one ever stopped Robert Altman from shooting a funky, multiplot film about 27 quirky people on a giant orbital death-star. Most important, it became cool to be a sci-fi dork.
What did dorks have before? Sci-fi movies either included Charlton Heston or the threat of Charlton Heston, and they were all depressing. “Planet of the Apes”: The world had been nuked. “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”: The world was nuked again, for good measure. “Soylent Green”: eco-collapse, overpopulation, institutional cannibalism and men wearing scarves knotted at the throat. “Omega Man”: everyone wiped out by a virus, except for pasty zombie army led by a former TV anchorman. The hero always died at the end. Roll credits. Commence bumming.
“Star Trek” was dead; “Space: 1999,” a ridiculous show about riding around the universe on the moon, was deeply cool and satisfying — if you were 8. No, it was a bleak, grim era for people who want to see doors slide open with a little “woosh” sound. Into this morass of gloom came “Star Wars,” and yea, it was everything the culture had denied us — er, had denied geeks. It had good guys and bad guys, no competing shades of moral doubt, plus lasers. Lots of lasers. It had the best special effects ever seen on the screen, from the complex and kinetic spacecraft battles to Princess Leia’s motionless earmuff hairstyle. Villains? From the moment Darth Vader walked into the hallway and spoke in James Earl Jones’ commanding baritone-of-death, we had the villain for the ages.
Little did we know that the entire stupid thing would end up to be about Darth Vader and his problems. Granted, it was nice that he found his Good Side at the end, but that doesn’t exactly make up for killing untold billions of people. Prequels included, the series still ends with Darth Vader smiling from the afterlife while Ewoks dance, which is like ending “Band of Brothers” in a disco roller-rink with Hitler doing the Hustle with Gene Kelly. But that was still a long time away when the first movie ended.
And what an ending, eh? Han Solo — Harrison Ford in his first great relaxed performance, and his last — conquers his selfishness and redeems himself. Luke uses the Force — which is sort of like magnetism, plus ethics — and blows up Peter Cushing and his Death Star, along with untold engineers, support staff, kitchen workers, etc. The movie could have ended there, but no: It concluded with an awards ceremony. At the shank end of the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, Carter-era malaise and ennui, Lucas filmed a movie that ended with a princess giving medals to heroes.
After a generation of movies with tortured antiheroes who couldn’t order a sandwich without making A Statement, it seemed remarkably fresh.
Thirty years ago, folks. I’d better order a hearing aid to go with that wheelchair.
