Star Wars launched the careers of many of its actors, including Hamill, Ford, Fisher,[47] Daniels, Baker, and Jones. Ford, who subsequently starred in the Indiana Jones series (1981–2023), Blade Runner (1982), and Witness (1985), told the Daily Mirror that Star Wars "boosted" his career.[301] The film also spawned the Star Wars Holiday Special, which debuted on CBS on November 17, 1978, and is often considered a failure; Lucas himself disowned it.[302] The special was never aired again after its original broadcast, and it has never been officially released on home video. However, many bootleg copies exist, and it has consequently become something of an underground legend.[303]
In popular culture
Star Wars and its subsequent film installments have been explicitly referenced and satirized across a wide range of media. Hardware Wars, released in 1978, was one of the first fan films to parody Star Wars. It received positive critical reaction, earned over $1 million, and is one of Lucas's favorite Star Wars spoofs.[304][305][306][307] Writing for The New York Times, Frank DeCaro said, "Star Wars littered pop culture of the late 1970s with a galaxy of space junk."[308] He cited Quark (a short-lived 1977 sitcom that parodies the science fiction genre)[308] and Donny & Marie (a 1970s variety show that featured a 10-minute musical adaptation of Star Wars guest starring Daniels and Mayhew)[309] as "television's two most infamous examples."[308] Mel Brooks's Spaceballs, a satirical comic science-fiction parody, was released in 1987 to mixed reviews.[310] Lucas permitted Brooks to make a spoof of the film under "one incredibly big restriction: no action figures."[311] In the 1990s and 2000s, animated comedy TV series Family Guy,[312] Robot Chicken,[313] and The Simpsons[314] produced episodes satirizing the film series. A Nerdist article published in 2021 argues that "Star Wars is the most influential film of all time" partly on the basis that "if all copies ... suddenly vanished, we could more or less recreate the film ... using other media," including parodies.[315]
Many elements of Star Wars are prominent in popular culture. Darth Vader, Han Solo, and Yoda were all named in the top twenty of the British Film Institute's "Best Sci-Fi Characters of All-Time" list.[316] The expressions "Evil empire" and "May the Force be with you" have become part of the popular lexicon.[317] A pun on the latter phrase ("May the Fourth") has led to May 4 being regarded by many fans as an unofficial Star Wars Day.[318] To commemorate the film's 30th anniversary in May 2007, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 15 stamps depicting the characters of the franchise. Approximately 400 mailboxes across the country were also designed to look like R2-D2.[319]
Star Wars and Lucas are the subject of the 2010 documentary film The People vs. George Lucas, which explores filmmaking and fandom as they pertain to the film franchise and its creator.[320]
Cinematic influence
In his book The Great Movies, Roger Ebert called Star Wars "a technical watershed" that influenced many subsequent films. It began a new generation of special effects and high-energy motion pictures. The film was one of the first films to link genres together to invent a new, high-concept genre for filmmakers to build upon.[104] Along with Steven Spielberg's Jaws, it shifted the film industry's focus away from the more personal filmmaking of the 1970s towards fast-paced, big-budget blockbusters for younger audiences.[47][321][322]
Filmmakers who have been influenced by Star Wars include J. J. Abrams, James Cameron, Dean Devlin, Gareth Edwards,[323] Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, John Lasseter,[324] Damon Lindelof, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Kevin Smith,[104] and Joss Whedon. Lucas's "used future" concept was employed in Scott's Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982); Cameron's Aliens (1986) and The Terminator (1984); and Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.[104] Nolan cited Star Wars as an influence when making Inception (2010).[325]
Some critics have complained that Star Wars, as well as Jaws, "ruined" Hollywood by shifting its focus from "sophisticated" films such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and Annie Hall to films about spectacle and juvenile fantasy.[326] On a 1977 episode of Sneak Previews, Gene Siskel said he hoped Hollywood would continue to cater to audiences who enjoy "serious pictures".[327] Peter Biskind claimed that Lucas and Spielberg "returned the 1970s audience, grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films, to the simplicities of the pre-1960s Golden Age of movies ... They marched backward through the looking-glass."[326][170] In contrast, Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws, Lucas and Spielberg did not betray cinema, but instead "plugged it back into the grid, returning it ... to its roots as a carnival sideshow, a magic act, one big special effect", which amounted to "a kind of rebirth."[322]
