Star Wars A New Hope Movie Analysis

The Historical Significance of Star Wars: A New Hope Known as “New Hollywood”, the 1960’s and 1970’s introduced a time of great change in the film industry, and acted as a transitional period from classic Hollywood to the more modern style of filmmaking most of us are accustomed to today. The era was marked by a new generation of filmmakers, who began to move away from tradition, and experiment with new concepts, genres, and technologies in their films (Perno). One filmmaker who greatly contributed to the cinematic modernization in the late 1970s was George Lucas and his immensely popular and innovative 1977 film Star Wars: A New Hope. Star Wars not only pioneered many technological innovations, was a huge box office success and introduced the concept of the summer blockbuster, but also helped to shape the sci-fi genre we know today, becoming extremely iconic in popular culture, and continuing to influence and inspire many modern filmmakers. Soon after the success of George Lucas’s Oscar nominated 1973 film American Graffiti, 20th Century Fox decided to fund the up-and-coming director’s next project, a low-budgeted sci-fi fantasy film that after four years in production would become a major blockbuster and cultural icon (History.com
Many studios started to really target their films at families and younger audiences, and consequently the prevalence of dramatic story-centered films began to decline and exciting audio-visual spectacles rose in popularity (Giacomazzo). Additionally, Star Wars also helped to popularize the concept of the film franchise. With numerous sequels, and a great deal of merchandise, Star Wars’ profitability was not limited to a single film, other studios and filmmakers recognized this and began attempting to imitate the strategy by producing more sequels and putting a much larger emphasis on merchandising