The impact of Star Wars: How High Concept film saved George Lucas’ career and turned him into an Auteur machine.
The success of George Lucas’ Star Wars, released in the autumn of 1977, was almost totally unexpected. His previous science-fiction film, THX-1138, was a complete commercial failure, set in a dystopian world of blank vastness and totalitarian technology. But, as Mark T. Decker (2009) states quite succinctly, “…dystopia is usually a tough sell” (420). Perhaps it was his realization of this that prompted Lucas to write and direct a simpler, more appealing story that addressed similar issues but with more relevance to the current American culture. In this essay I will address the crafting of Star Wars as a high-concept film, attempt to discover how and why it became so popular, and discuss George Lucas as a contemporary auteur.
The high-concept film, described as film where the plot can be summed up briefly and with “broadly defined characters, striking icons and highly quotable lines” (Jenkins 2006, 284) re-defined cinema in the 1960s and 70s. If we focus on the United States of America, we see that they were facing great national crises, in particular the Vietnam War. In a time when things seemed quite bleak the public needed uplifting experiences to ensure a positive outlook. In a way, then, high-concept films like Star Wars are “partly responsible for the notion of the feel-good film” (Salewicz 1999, 72). The stylized settings are visually appealing in their combination of futuristic and ancient; the characters are clearly defined as black-and-white, good-and-evil (even their clothes are black and white, reinforcing this idea) and the easy-to-follow story of good triumphing over evil encourages audiences to relate to the main characters and feel as though ‘good’ will always triumph over ‘evil’ in the real world. Some 34 years on and we still feel as though good will triumph over evil; symbols like the Death Star and the Lightsaber are instantly recognisable, and “May the force be with you” is used everywhere from pop culture, to merchandising, to everyday speech.
The spectacle of high-scale events and an aim at wider audiences in high-concept film was another key factor of its success. As Geoff King explains:
An emphasis on spectacular epic production of this kind gained particular prominence in Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s, decades in which the industry struggled to regain equilibrium in the face of the combined threats of the divorcement of exhibition from production and distribution, the decline in cinema-going that resulted from broader social changes such as migration to the suburbs, and the rival attractions of television and other leisure pursuits. (King 2003, 115)
After 1965, many multinational corporations were buying out major movie studios, television was becoming the dominant media, and the current film target-audience, consisting mainly of teenagers, was not broad enough to make an ideal amount of money from cinema-going. The high-concept film, with its visual aesthetics, inclusion of big-budget special effects and classical narratives like “the story of a girl, a boy, and a universe!” (the tagline of Star Wars’ original theatrical trailer) would help the industry regain equilibrium and attract a better target audience that included every age, gender, race and socio-economic background.
As a film that could almost be the epitome of high-concept, it is no wonder why Star Wars did so well and continues to do well. In its limited opening weekend, it made $1,554,475 in the U.S.A alone. Following its many re-releases over time, the domestic lifetime gross for Star Wars is now $460,998,007. For a film with a budget of $11 million, this is phenomenal. Of course, this does not include the sheer amount of money made from Star Wars merchandising. The marketing and merchandising of this film was and is definitely extravagant, with products ranging from action figures to collectable cards, to headphones and fridges, to Lego and tie-ins with fast food restaurant chains. The film, having “re-established symphonic music in films” (Salewicz 1999, 72) was also able to sell its soundtrack, composed by John Williams, for fans eager to recreate the impact of the spectacular sound in their own homes. Over the years, Star Wars has been re-issued in cinemas four times, re-digitised twice, released on video and DVD multiple times, had 2 sequels and three prequels, and has even had a theme park attraction based on the original trilogy called “Star Tours” at Disneyland (Schatz 2003, 29).
Having created an iconic style of mythic journeys with “identifiable themes and issues that continue to reverberate today” (Voytilla 1999, 273) within his film series, George Lucas quickly became an auteur of new Hollywood. His appealing style is thus so due to the basic concept of a dominant myth: ‘The Hero’s Journey’. As Voytilla (1999) claims, this “Space Opera as High Adventure” (274) consists of a structure that is traced back to Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero of a Thousand Faces’, which George Lucas has always mentioned as an influence. The hero (Luke Skywalker), beginning in an Ordinary World (Tatooine), is Called to Adventure by a herald (Artoo-Detoo with a message from Princess Leia), meets a wise Mentor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), and Refuses his call to adventure (Uncle Owen needs Luke to stay on the farm). Soon, he Crosses the Threshold (after discovering his Aunt and Uncle killed by Darth Vader’s Stormtroopers), discovers his Allies (C-3PO, R2-D2, Obi-Wan, Han Solo, Chewbacca), and his Enemies (Stormtroopers, Darth Vader, the Galactic Empire in general), then approaches the Innermost Cave (the Death Star). In the “cave”, the heroes (Luke, Han, and Leia) face great struggles (the trash compactor; the stormtrooper chase), but are Rewarded in the end (Obi-Wan sacrifices himself to let them go free, and subsequently they work closer together as a team). In the “Road-Back” sequence, the heroes begin their quest back home. In this case, they must face on final challenge: to destroy the Death Star. His chances very low, Luke approaches the Death Star with the enemies on his tail, preparing to make his once-in-a-lifetime attack. As part of the hero’s Resurrection, Han returns to the battle at the last minute to save Luke, and the heroes return with the Elixir of victory and peace (Voytilla 1999, 278). It is very apparent that the sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) also follow this structure closely.
George Lucas had obviously discovered something that worked with the public, but still kept his ideas of the human spirit rising above technology, experimented with in THX-1138. One can even find numerous allusions to THX in Star Wars. In the second half, Luke and Han, dressed as Stormtroopers, attempt to use Chewbacca as a ruse for getting into the Princess’ cell block. An officer questions them: “Where are you taking this…thing?” and Luke replies with: “Prisoner transfer from cell-block 1138”. THX is now a well known surround sound company owned by Lucasfilm, and its label will appear at the beginning of every re-digitised Star Wars film on DVD.
Auteurism had a much-needed boom in the 1970s, mainly because film studios needed to find new ways to “mark a movie”, other than with the signature of the studio itself (Corrigan 1998, 40). The auteur as Author or Artist of a blockbuster film was, as argued by Timothy Corrigan (1998) “part epic genius and part promotional commodity” (44), with an “aim to guarantee a relationship between audience and movie whereby an intentional and authorial agency governs, as a kind of brand-name vision whose aesthetic meanings and values have already been determined”(40). There is no doubt that Star Wars works as both a film with artistic merit and an entertaining commodity, winning six Oscars for Score, Sound, Artistic Direction, Visual Effects and Costume Design, on top of being a huge box-office hit, as mentioned before. When audiences lined up for The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars had already become a strong franchise and brand name that pre-determined most of what people were going to see in each subsequent film: Stock characters borrowed from the American Western and Japanese Samurai films (Akira Kurosawa, in particular), large-scale special effects, scenes of war that heavily reflected World War Two and Vietnam, and a grand symphonic score that contributed to the narrative as much as the hero’s journey did.
Autuerism is indubitably a way of further selling the Star Wars films. Nowadays, on the DVD releases, Lucas’ name is pasted everywhere, from his THX company, to the upgrade of Lucasfilm in bright green letters to a larger, bolder display with changing colours at the beginning of each film. All six re-digitised special edition DVDs contain an audio commentary featuring George Lucas. It’s as though it was almost planned from the start, with our hero’s name — Luke — being a shortened version of Lucas.
Star Wars created a phenomenon that has been mimicked time and time again, where “…media audiences must not simply buy an isolated product or experience, but rather, must buy into a prolonged relationship with a particular narrative universe, which is rich enough and complex enough to sustain their interest over time and thus motivate a succession of consumer choices” (Jenkins 2006, 284). Auteurism, instead of allowing low-budget, artistic directors wider recognition, has instead become another selling point of the new Hollywood high-concept film. However, this is not all negative: with its highly marketable visual appeal, stylized characters, easily relatable plot and broad audience appeal, Star Wars and many other high-concept films returned balance to the combined forces of cinema, television and other media. Star Wars fans have joined George Lucas’ universe of ‘Space-Western’ narratives, participated in the cinema-going, merchandise consuming, and Video or DVD buying experience of it all, and continued to keep a franchise — that practically saved Lucas’ career — growing. Star Wars, its sequels, its imitators, and its high-concept precedents and followers re-defined the Hollywood blockbuster and kept the cinema-going experience alive.
First published in 2012
REFERENCES.
Journal Articles:
David Forbes, Bruce. 1999. Battling the Dark Side: Star Wars and Popular Understandings of Evil. Word &World XIX, 4 (Fall): 351–362.
Decker, Mark T. 2009. They want unfreedom and one-dimensional though? I’ll give them unfreedom and one-dimensional thought: George Lucas, THX-1138, and the persistence of Marcusian social critique in American Graffiti and the Star Wars films. Extrapolation 50, 3 (March): 417+. Expanded Academic ASAP. (31 Mar. 2011).
Books and Anthologies:
Corrigan, Timothy. 1998. Auteurs and the New Hollywood. In The New American Cinema, edited by Jon Lewis, 38–60. Durham: Duke University Press.
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture. In Media & Cultural Studies — Key Works, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas McKellner, 549–576. London: Blackwell.
King, Geoff. 2003. Spectacle, Narrative, and the Spectacular Hollywood Blockbuster. In Movie Blockbusters, edited by Julian Stringer, 114–124. London: Routledge.
Salewicz, Chris. 1999. George Lucas. New York: Thunder’s Mouth. Quoted in David Forbes, Bruce. 1999. Battling the Dark Side: Star Wars and Popular Understandings of Evil. Word &World XIX, 4 (Fall): 351–362.
Schatz, Thomas. 2003. The New Hollywood. In Movie Blockbusters, edited by Julian Stringer, 15–30. London: Routledge.
Voytilla, Stuart. 1999. Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 unforgettable Films. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.
Film:
Star Wars. 1977. Directed by George Lucas, 121 minutes., 20th Century Fox.
The Empire Strikes Back. 1980. Directed by Irvin Kershner, 124 minutes., 20th Century Fox.
Return of the Jedi. 1983. Directed by Richard Marquand, 134 minutes., 20th Century Fox.
