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Star Wars: George Lucas
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The 1977 release of Star Wars ... marked a paradigm shift in film sound effects. Lucas heralded this new era of sound effects in three main ways. Sound was no longer only loud or soft, it was a spatial element as important as any actor or visual effect. Ships passing by on the screen were heard passing by from speaker to speaker in the theater through the use of the new Dolby surround technology.
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Younger audiences expect a higher standard of image and sound, so George Lucas re-mastered Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, even altering some of the scenes with computer technology. Purists object, but enthusiasts endorse this. The Star Wars movies are to be judged as products of popular culture rather than `classic texts'. They combine matinee traditions and comic strip characters and situations with science fiction conventions and futuristic imagination.
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Star Wars won several awards at the 50th Annual Academy Awards, including Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, which went to John Barry, Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley and Roger Christian. Best Costume Design was awarded to John Mollo; Best Film Editing went to Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew; John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune and Robert Blalack all received awards for Best Effects, Visual Effects. John Williams was awarded his third Oscar for Best Music, Original Score; the Best Sound went to Don MacDougall, Ray West, Bob Minkler and Derek Ball; and a Special Achievement for Sound Effects went to Ben Burtt. Additional nominations included Alec Guinness for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, George Lucas for Best Screenplay and Best Director, although it did not win Best Picture, which went to Annie Hall.[48] At the Golden Globe awards, the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Score. It only won the award for Best Score.[48] It received six BAFTA nominations: Best Film, Best Editing, Best Costume, Best Production/Art Design, Best Sound, and Best Score; the film won in the latter two categories.[48] John Williams' soundtrack album won the Grammy award for Best Album of an original score for a motion picture or television program,[48] and the film was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.[48] In 1997, the MTV Movie Awards awarded Chewbacca the lifetime achievement award for his work in the Star Wars trilogy.[48] Star Wars has ... been the subject of many parodies, including South Park and Family Guy.
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The Star Wars films portray a world full of grime and technology that looks like it has been used for years, unlike the sleek, futuristic world typical of earlier science fiction films. In interviews, Lucas tells of rubbing the new props with dirt to make them look weatherworn. Lucas may have been inspired by the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western films of the 1960s, which performed a similar function on the Western many years earlier. It is tempting to speculate that this break from traditional science fiction film influenced the cyberpunk genre that emerged around 1984.
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Star Wars debuted on May 25, 1977 in 32 theaters, and proceeded to break house records, effectively becoming one of the first blockbuster films.[30] It remains one of the most financially successful films of all time. Some of the cast and crew noted lines of people stretching around theaters as they drove by. Even technical crew members, such as model makers, were asked for autographs, and cast members became instant household names.[2] The film's original total U.S. gross came to $307,263,857, and it earned $6,806,951 during its first weekend in wide release. Lucas claimed that he had spent most of the release day in a sound studio in Los Angeles. When he went out for lunch with his then-wife Marcia, they encountered a long queue of people along the sidewalks leading to Mann's Chinese Theatre, waiting to see Star Wars.[19] The film became the highest-grossing film of 1977 and the highest-grossing film of all time until E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial broke that record in 1982.
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The Star Wars films show considerable similarity to Japanese Jidaigeki films, as well as Roman mythology. Lucas has stated that his intention was to create in Star Wars a modern mythology, based on the studies of his friend and mentor Joseph Campbell. He has ... called the first movie's similarity to the film The Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa) an "homage."
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George Lucas