The Culture of the Force

Any good Star Wars fan knows the story of how George Lucas was turned down by countless studios before he was able to convince 20th Century Fox to take on what was, by almost all accounts, an outrageous project. And who could blame all those cautious studio executives who passed on the chance to produce what would become the highest grossing movie the world had ever seen?

Lucas had little going for him. When he started looking for a studio to back his Star Wars project, he was a fledgling director with only two other movies under his belt--a dismal and poorly received artsy sci-fi film called THX 1138 and American Graffiti, a well-made but less than awe-inspiring look at teenage life. Plus, the cast he was assembling for his latest project was made up largely of actors (mostly from TV) who had yet to make it big. And many more who never would. And then there was the story--a heroic epic set, as we all know so well now, in a galaxy far, far away. Admit it, if you were a studio executive in the '70s, you would probably have turned down Star Wars. A farmboy from another galaxy leaves home to fight an evil empire and save a beautiful princess? On paper at least, it sounds like a high-budget kiddie flick. And, in effect, thats what itreally is. No one but a bunch of pre-pubescent boys and perhaps a handful of adults who just refused to grow up would want to see it, or so the reasoning of the times went.

The amazing thing is that Lucas found an audience for his adolescent fantasies put to life, an audience bigger than any ever seen before by a movie studio. Suddenly, corporate mouths began to water. Lucas' space epic had brought to light a mass of consumers hitherto untouched (at least as a group) by American businesses: consumers who wanted to be treated like kids. Popular culture would never be the same.

It is often said that Star Wars revolutionized the way that movies are made, usually referring to the technical special-effects side of the business. That's really only half the story. Less than half. Anyone whos seen 2001: A Space Odyssey will know that Star Wars was not the first, or even the best, science fiction special effects extravaganza seen in Hollywood. While Lucas was still in film school, Stanley Kubrick was sending space stations spinning to classical waltz music and showing us humans suspended in space (a feat not attempted in any of the Star Wars movies).

No, the real Star Wars revolution was not technical. It was emotional. The executives who turned down Lucas extravagant ideas were right: Star Wars is a kids movie. This is not supposed to be an insult. It is not childish or poorly made, terms which could easily be leveled at hundreds of adults' movies. In fact, it's rather mature given its subject matter, and the craftsmanship is impeccable. But the elements of the story itself--a princess in distress, evil villains bent on galactic domination, space bandits and virtuous knights--these are the elements of legends and fairy tales. They are the elements of childhood.

But Lucas sold them to America. Or rather, America bought them--in bulk. Lucas showed beyond any shadow of a doubt that the culture of childhood sells. Perhaps this doesn't come as such a shock to we of the immediate gratification generation, as we've been called (the name itsel implies childishness). But just look at the sorts of movies that major studios were pouring big bucks into in the '60s and '70s--quirky art movies like Robert Altmans Nashville or dark dramas like Martin Scorceses Mean Streets. Even the shoot-em-ups were intellectual. If you don't believe me, check out Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. Sure, there had been spectacle movies before Star Wars, but never one so openly connected to the world of childhood. From The Ten Commandments to Spartacus, there was an earnestness--a high mindedness, you might say--to the pre-Star Wars epics. Star Wars did away with all that, or at least stole center stage from it. Lucas didn't serve up intellectual considerations or emotional explorations for his audiences. Instead, he packaged their childhood fantasies and sold that package back to them. Star Wars was not earnest. It was fun. And it retaught American executives that age-old adage of American culture: fun sells.

And boy, does it ever. Fun sells lunch boxes, clothing, records heck, even toothbrushes (I still have a set at home). And, oh yes, fun sells toys. Lots of them. Originally, the Star Wars line of toys consisted of only seven figures inexpensively manufactured by Sears along with a handful of cardboard (yes, cardboard) playsets. The entire stock of toys sold out in a matter of weeks. Enter Kenner Toys and a line of 93 figures, countless vehicles and elaborate playsets. Sum total: over $350 million in box-office and related sales. (And that's in '70s dollars.) Star Wars, in a sense, put the popular back in popular culture. It would be a long time before major studios started to finance quirky, intellectual art movies again as they did in the pre-Lucas days. The race would be not to make the most stimulating or challenging movie but the most scintillating one--the movie with the biggest effects, the most explosions, the greatest body count--all in the hope that this time, the magic that sold Star Wars would be found again.

Lucas started a quest in Hollywood for the magic of childhood. Sometimes that quest was successful. Without Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo, there would be no Indiana Jones. Sometimes it was not. Without stormtroopers there would have been no Starship Troopers. But successful or not, that mad attempt to find the stuff of childhood and put it in a bottle defined much of the movie scene for the past 20 years.

And not just movies. Star Wars was the first (and probably best) multi-marketed film in history. Toys, clothing, music (yes, the theme was turned into a disco dance track), even kitchenware was sold with the Star Wars label. And it wasn't just kids that were buying the paraphernalia of the Force. Twenty-somethings in Star Wars shirts, executives with collections of Star Wars toys--business analysts would never have dreamed that they could market spaceships and laser guns to anyone over the age of 12. But they could, and they made a ton of money doing so.

Now whenever someone buys a T-shirt with the name of the latest summer block-buster, whenever someone's cereal box contains a movie-related prize, whenever someone picks up a book "based on the movie" or a cd of music "inspired by the film," he or she is continuing a tradition started by none other than Lucas himself. It's a distinctly American tradition. (Of course, it's based on commerce!) Its basic precept is that what sells in one area will sell in others. More importantly, what is popular in one form can be even more popular in another. Movies into toys into books into CDs--there's no limit to the number of ways the same thing can be sold.

Of course, this is a concept we're quite familiar with today. We are living in the age of the multi-media conglomerates. Our newspapers, our TV stations, our movie studios, our books are usually all controlled, in one way or another, by the same few multimedia enterprises. Perhaps it would be a stretch to say that Star Wars is responsible for this trend, the centralization of pop culture. But it at least laid the foundation for this modern phenomena by inaugurating a perhaps more important process: the unification of pop culture.

With Star Wars the lines between movies, and music, books and fashion began to blur. Its not that the forms themselves changed at all but simply that they all began to work off of the same themes. What theme might that be? Well, whatever theme happened to be selling at the moment. Think of Madonna's ventures into various pop culture venues, from music to movies to books and back. Think of the recent trend of turning video games (such as Wing Commander) into movies, or releasing CDs of the music to certain games. Think of all the old TV shows now being turned into films. Think of Will Smith.

It all goes back, in one way or another, to Star Wars--the movie that taught us (or at least the people trying to sell us things) that it's okay to be a kid, to watch our fantasies play out on the big screen and then to go buy the toys and sneakers and mugs. It all goes back to a time not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away. It all goes back, in a sense, to the Force--the force of childhood and the force of mass-marketing our dreams

Lucas started a quest in Hollywood for the magic of childhood. Sometimes that quest was successful. Without Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo, there would be no Indiana Jones. Sometimes it was not. Without stormtroopers there would have been no Starship Troopers. But successful or not, that mad attempt to find the stuff of childhood and put it in a bottle defined much of the movie scene for the past 20 years.

And not just movies. Star Wars was the first (and probably best) multi-marketed film in history. Toys, clothing, music (yes, the theme was turned into a disco dance track), even kitchenware was sold with the Star Wars label. And it wasn't just kids that were buying the paraphernalia of the Force. Twenty-somethings in Star Wars shirts, executives with collections of Star Wars toys--business analysts would never have dreamed that they could market spaceships and laser guns to anyone over the age of 12. But they could, and they made a ton of money doing so.

Now whenever someone buys a T-shirt with the name of the latest summer block-buster, whenever someone's cereal box contains a movie-related prize, whenever someone picks up a book "based on the movie" or a cd of music "inspired by the film," he or she is continuing a tradition started by none other than Lucas himself. It's a distinctly American tradition. (Of course, it's based on commerce!) Its basic precept is that what sells in one area will sell in others. More importantly, what is popular in one form can be even more popular in another. Movies into toys into books into CDs--there's no limit to the number of ways the same thing can be sold.

Of course, this is a concept we're quite familiar with today. We are living in the age of the multi-media conglomerates. Our newspapers, our TV stations, our movie studios, our books are usually all controlled, in one way or another, by the same few multimedia enterprises. Perhaps it would be a stretch to say that Star Wars is responsible for this trend, the centralization of pop culture. But it at least laid the foundation for this modern phenomena by inaugurating a perhaps more important process: the unification of pop culture.

With Star Wars the lines between movies, and music, books and fashion began to blur. Its not that the forms themselves changed at all but simply that they all began to work off of the same themes. What theme might that be? Well, whatever theme happened to be selling at the moment. Think of Madonna's ventures into various pop culture venues, from music to movies to books and back. Think of the recent trend of turning video games (such as Wing Commander) into movies, or releasing CDs of the music to certain games. Think of all the old TV shows now being turned into films. Think of Will Smith.

It all goes back, in one way or another, to Star Wars--the movie that taught us (or at least the people trying to sell us things) that it's okay to be a kid, to watch our fantasies play out on the big screen and then to go buy the toys and sneakers and mugs. It all goes back to a time not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away. It all goes back, in a sense, to the Force--the force of childhood and the force of mass-marketing our dreams