45th Anniversary of Star Wars
On May 25, 1977, George Lucas' movie "Star Wars" was released in 32 US cinemas. Not a single poster was released by the time the film was premiered.
George Lucas had the idea to make a sci-fi film back in 1973 when he was working on "American Graffiti". More precisely, he wanted to create a "space opera". In 1974, he began writing the script for his future space opera. It is difficult to say whether it was a conscious action or simply a consequence of the impressions received, but in the script, and subsequently in the film itself, many found storylines, images, ideas contained in a number of earlier works by other authors. For example, the mid-1930s American science fiction television series "Flash Gordon", Frank Herbert's novel "Dune", Akira Kurosawa's film "Kakushi-toride no san-akunin 隠し砦の三悪人 (The Hidden Fortress)" (1958), and even the epic saga of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Frank Herbert even intended to sue Lucas and later recalled that David Lynch, while working on the film adaptation of "Dune", complained to him about how much Lucas took from the novel for his "Star Wars".
The first film company Lucas sent his script to was The Directors Company, founded shortly before by Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin ("The French Connection") and Peter Bogdanovich ("Last Picture Show", "Paper Moon"). Along with the script, Lucas submitted a $9 million budget proposal. However, the film company The Directors Company, due to its youth, could not allocate more than 3.5 million dollars and therefore refused Lucas, even despite his friendship with Coppola. Similarly, George Lucas was turned down by Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Disney.
But the then president of the film company Twentieth Century Fox Alan Ladd Jr. liked the script, and the film was given a "green light": a budget of 8.25 million dollars was allocated. This is despite the fact that market research conducted by the film company showed that potential moviegoers have little or no interest in science fiction films, that the script synopsis attracted interest only from the male part of the audience under the age of 25. Moreover, there was strong dislike for the name, since the word "wars" had a negative connotation for most of the general public, causing unpleasant associations with the recently ended Vietnam War. But, apparently, in creativity, in art, intuition is often more important than a scientific approach. Alan Ladd Jr. was so confident in the success of the picture that he did not mind an increase in the original budget when production problems, mainly related to special effects, forced the studio to increase the budget to $11 million. It is possible that Alan Ladd Jr. was impressed by the success of Lucas' previous film, "American Graffiti", which grossed $115 million on a $777,000 budget.
Prior to the film's release, George Lucas showed a working version to a group of film director friends. The opinion of the majority of those present at the screening was summarized and formulated by Brian De Palma, who called what he saw "the worst film of all time." Almost everyone, including Lucas himself, felt that the film would fail at the box office. The only one who disagreed with this general view was Steven Spielberg, who predicted that the film would be "the biggest movie of all time" and make millions of dollars. Lucas later recalled that everyone at the screening looked at Spielberg and thought, "Poor Steven."
The fact that Lucas was not pretending at all when he suggested the failure of his offspring at the box office is confirmed by the following fact. Also in 1977, Steven Spielberg was finishing work on the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Lucas visited the set of this film, after which he expressed his confidence that Spielberg's film would repeatedly surpass "Star Wars" in box office. Steven Spielberg disagreed and expressed his confidence that Lucas' "Star Wars" would be a big hit. Lucas then proposed a gentlemen's agreement (since they were close friends from university) by exchanging two and a half percent of each other's film profits. Spielberg agreed to the deal, and he still receives two and a half percent of the profits from this film (just like Lucas receives the same from "Close Encounters"). Lucas's confidence in the failure of Star Wars was also manifested in the fact that on the day of the premiere, he and Spielberg went to Hawaii to have fun, where, during their entertainment, they jointly gave birth to the idea of the film "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark".
It should be noted that Lucas had some reason to believe that Star Wars would fail at the box office: when Twentieth Century Fox tried to distribute the film in the US, only 32 theaters across the country agreed to show it. And then Alan Ladd threatened that any cinema that refused to show this film would not get the right to show a potential blockbuster - the erotic thriller "The Other Side of Midnight", based on the book by the super popular Sidney Sheldon. By the way, Alan Ladd Jr. was so confident in the success of "Star Wars" that he decided not to spend extra efforts on advertising the film, which is why, as noted above, not a single poster for the film's premiere was released. But reality exceeded the expectations of everyone, perhaps even Alan Ladd Jr. The film was seen by 178 million moviegoers, or 81% of the population, in its first year in the United States, and it grossed over $300 million at the box office. Outside the United States, the film grossed an additional $200 million, and with re-releases of the film, the box office totaled over $775 million.
If it is difficult to call the financial success of the George Lucas film otherwise than dizzying, then it is difficult to talk about the serious festival success of this picture. No, in terms of the number of film awards, the film was quite successful. But the quality of these prizes is quite specific. Judge for yourself. In September 1977, the film was presented at the International Film Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. Despite the unprecedented publicity for this film, the jury of this film festival, chaired by the famous actor Malcolm McDowell, gave preference to Nikita Mikhalkov's film "An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano".
In early 1978, George Lucas's film received 4 nominations for the American Golden Globe Award, won one of them for Best Original Score - Motion Picture (John Williams), and in the most important categories - Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Director - Motion Picture - "Star Wars" and George Lucas lost to the film "Turning Point" and its director Herbert Ross. A little later, the film received 11 Oscar nominations and won 6 of them, but all of these nominations were secondary, technical. And in the most important nominations - Best Film and Best Director - members of the American Film Academy preferred the film "Annie Hall" and its director Woody Allen.
The festival achievements of "Star Wars" outside the US are characterized by the following data. In 1979, the film received 6 BAFTA nominations and won two of them, but again - for Music and for Sound. And in the most important nomination for Best Film British Film Academy preferred Fred Zinnemann's film "Julia". In the same 1979, George Lucas's film was nominated for the Japanese Film Academy Award, but the Japanese Film Academy preferred another film, namely Luchino Visconti's "Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (Conversation Piece)".
Estimates of the George Lucas film "Star Wars" by film critics also cannot be called completely unambiguous. Of course, the vast majority of film critics devoted laudatory reviews to the film. The guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, devoted two reviews to the film: in 1977 and in 1999. In both, he rated the film a maximum of 4 stars and included it in his "Great Movies" list. But at the same time, the highly respected American film critic Pauline Kael wrote in her review: "the loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, the relentless pacing drive every idea from your head; for young audiences “Star Wars” is like getting a box of Cracker Jack which is all prizes...it’s a film that’s totally uninterested in anything that doesn’t connect with the mass audience. There’s no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset...the picture is synthesized from the mythology of serials and old comic books."
The authoritative Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev in his review noted: "This fantastic tale has become a fascinating spectacle for family viewing and for viewers of any intellectual level. Everyone will find in it their own, the most interesting to them. Children are pleased with the tale itself, teenagers and young people are attracted by fantasy, the highest technology discharge, wonderful special effects." - It is noteworthy that Sergei Valentinovich did not say a word about how the mature audience relates to the film.
In Soviet cinemas, George Lucas' film "Star Wars" appeared shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union - in May 1991. But the very phrase "star wars" literally did not leave the front pages of newspapers and from the lips of television and radio journalists for several years. The fact is that in March 1983, US President Ronald Reagan proposed a large-scale, technologically complex defensive system that was intended to protect the country from nuclear attacks by intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles using laser combat stations based both on Earth and in space. The official title of this project was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), but given that many aspects of the proposal had previously been known to the public only from science fiction, it was quickly dubbed "Star Wars" by analogy with the title of a George Lucas film.
As soon as the "Star Wars" movie hit the screen of a nearby cinema in the summer of 1991, I picked up my 7-year-old daughter and went to watch it. I was wondering what a movie competed in 1977 in San Sebastian with my favorite film by Nikita Mikhalkov. After watching the film, I came to the conclusion that the jury, chaired by Malcolm McDowell, made the absolutely right decision. And my daughter was delighted. Both from the film as a whole and, in particular, from R2-D2. True, the subsequent films of the "Star Wars" cycle left her completely indifferent. Looks like she's past the right age.
It is curious that if in the USSR and later in Russia the main audience for the film "Star Wars" were children and teenagers, then in Germany, on the contrary, the film was originally labeled "For adults". This was largely due to the fact that images and terminology relating to the armed forces of the Empire and its leaders were perceived as analogies to Nazi Germany. I don’t know what analogies the film evoked from the Chinese censors, but it received access to the screens of Chinese cinemas only in 2016.
The following figures speak about the assessment of George Lucas's film "Star Wars" by modern moviegoers: 78% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film scores from 8 to 10, and 31% of users gave the film the highest rating - "ten". Based on this score and the above, George Lucas' "Star Wars" was rated 8,764 by FilmGourmand, placing it 227th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
