The meme has been drop dead around pretty much since Star Wars first fall out in 1977 : Star Wars wrecked science fiction . George Lucas ’ extravagant outer space opera house messed up a musical style that was screw up towards grown - up sophistication . This melodic theme made a number of a seminal fluid - back with the Force Awakens teaser , and it ’s clock time to kill it .
Last week , I sawa piece by CNN ’s Lewis Bealefloating around , advancing this notion . ( The piece was first indite in May , but got republish everywhere after the teaser trailer became a huge write up . ) Writes Beale , “ Star Wars has corrupted people ’s notion of a literary genre full of ideas , turning it into a Saturday afternoon serial . And that ’s more than a pity — it ’s an vulgarism . ”
It ’s true that pre - stellar Wars , science fiction was in an observational phase that include a lot of heavy stuff and nonsense . The New Wave gave us some magnificent novels by Le Guin , Moorcock and Delany . The decade before 1977 include some intriguing , cerebral films like 2001 , Silent Running and Solaris . pic , and to a less extent other media , turn more dangerous undertaking - oriented after Star Wars hit .
But there are a few major obvious problems with blaming Star Wars for cheapening the music genre . First , you have to indicate a riposte - factual that ’s impossible to examine : you have to consider that the New Wave would have go on forever , volume would have ride out eldritch and personal and data-based into the Reagan era . And that some other projection would n’t have jumpstarted our pastime in big - budget VFX spectaculars .
Which lead to the 2nd consistent gob in the “ blame Star Wars ” argument — it disregard that improvements in VFX were in all probability inevitable . When Star Wars came out , computer effects were stillbarely in their early childhood , but they were bound to uprise to prominance . And improvements in hard-nosed effects were also plausibly bound to bump around that time , as engineering science and the guile both better .
https://gizmodo.com/10-amazing-milestones-of-early-computer-animation-471789172
There ’s also the impression that scientific discipline fiction book kibosh being thought - provoking or challenging in the late seventies , which I ’ve seen raised over and over — and which ignores things like Hitchhiker ’s Guide to the Galaxy , Ender ’s Game , Neuromancer and the work of Octavia Butler .
Meanwhile , if we ’re being honest , there were perhaps one or two really notable “ smart as a whip ” science fable films per class before 1977 . And after 1977 ? There were perhaps one or two really renowned “ brilliant ” science fiction films per year — it ’s just that they were just surround by a pile more self-aggrandizing - budget splodefests .
Finally , it ’s deserving noting that the “ Star Wars ruined science fable ” meme arrive from the same position as the notion that “ science fabrication has gone too mainstream . ” Because people love to believe that a more insular interlingual rendition of skill fable is somehow purer or smarter than a version with more money , popularity and cultural reverberance . And yet , even if you detest Star Wars , you ’d have to take that its rise to popularity actually helped spread out the door for a lot of great and enchanting material , from Enemy Mine to Firefly to the emanation of thoughtful , challenging military science fiction .
Star Wars stands as a turn point in the history of pop culture , not just science fable — but at this full point , two or three generations have grown up with its thundering hero - chords in their spike , and it ’s difficult to imagine science fiction without it .
BooksFireflyMoviesOctavia ButlerStar WarsUrsula K. Le Guin
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