Where Science Fiction and Money came together

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2014)

I remember as a kid seeing one of the original commercials for Star Wars and I thought "I want to see that if anyone will take me.". I was 13 and did not drive yet living where the nearest theater was 10 miles away. My older brother took me and I knew after watching this movie in its first week of release that the landscape of science fiction had been changed forever. The success of the movie and franchise is now legendary as this launched the whole genre into one in which there was finally serious money being thrown at it after years of being subject to B movies with laughable affects. The special affect at the time were awe inspiring as they set a new bar for quality (even though they remade many with CA in future releases). For the era it was the thing for which it won awards, and specials were made on how they achieved such great special affects. By today's standards the original may be laughable, but the role the movie played in causing the genre to go main stream is what makes it stand apart as a part of movie history. Soon we had Alien and a series of high budget, good script science fiction to watch (along with those taking advantage of the new popularity). I remember thinking after The Empire Strikes back that this brought hope to my dream that someday they would make a series of movies that did justice to The Lord of The Rings. It took decades, but it came to pass. It was only a matter of weeks before there wasn't need for a whole lot of advertising for this movie as word of mouth launched it into history with its unprecedented success.