Gee whiz folks, here's a possibility if SWs was never made. Maybe Hollywood doesn't become Hollyweird and actually started producing decent movies after the eighties instead of the unmitigated garbage current spewed forth from the Masters of Muck.
But in reality, if SWs was a hit or not, we'd still be seeing garbage.
The writer, who sounds like a typical liberal SJW, assumes that movies now are just great instead of being what they are, stinkingly terrible on average.
Plus, he makes the mistake of thinking if A didn't happen, then B wouldn't happen.
It's like the people who think if Jackie Robinson hadn't broken the color barrier in ML baseball in 1947, there'd still be no blacks in the majors.
Or if the south had won the Civil War, we'd still have slavery there.
If talking movies hadn't been successful in 1927, we'd still have silent flicks.
You get my point.
If Lucas's SWs films hadn't been successful, most likely we'd still be seeing the junk currently on display in movie theaters.
Lucas didn't make SWs in a void. He was/is a product of current technology. If he didn't do what he did with modern tech/methods, somebody else would have.
The writer's theory is bunk.
Hollywierd would still be putting out dreck by the mile.
Hollywierd started putting out blatant "message" movies in the 80s, (well, the '70s, too), and maybe they thought the rest of the world was on board with their uberLieberal fantasy world that we'd suspend disbelief long enough to buy the social messaging, but that just left little enough to watch. Beyond shoot-em-ups of one variety or another, be it set in the dusty fantasy world of the "Wild West", or in a galaxy far, far, away, the movies which remained the most palatable and even, on occasion, enjoyable were those which had a clear moral conflict, be it resisting the 'bad guy' or the evil empire, possibly all a metaphor for the Communist bloc, and often incorporating into the evil ones the simple totalitarian means utilized by other totalitarians, if on a galactic basis, or the evils of individuals or small groups perpetrated upon others. At least the "Anti-heroes' were fighting for something which was morally understandable.
Less watchable flicks either did that job badly, or took off into the social justice space, a wasteland in which moral values are judged by who has them and the group they identify with, rather than the immutable principles of right vs wrong.
Movies have ever manipulated the emotions of their audience, such is the power of a well crafted story, a character you can identify with, a quest or grievance you can embrace, all skillfully displayed on the big screen with plot twists which reach in and pluck the heartstrings or stimulate the adrenaline rush. This is truly the stuff that dreams--and nightmares--are made of; the escape from everyday life we seek when we plunk down the hard earned money for a ticket, buy some overpriced popcorn, and maybe a drink that would cause riots if gas was priced similarly by the gallon at a gas pump.
I saw
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century the same year
Star Wars came out, before I saw
Star Wars, and noted the special effects were indeed 'special', but not in a good way. Later that year I settled into a small town theater seat and watched the first Star Wars movie. Wow.
Okay, spaceships were maneuvering like fighter planes in the absence of atmosphere, which made no sense, but I suspended disbelief in awe of the quality of the effects otherwise. Not until
The Expanse did I see a space battle that, well, made sense to my poor physics laced brain, but that aside, the difference was as striking at the difference between laughing at the string holding up the rocket to seeing the gunfight scenes in Peckinpah's
Billy the Kid . Finally, something which required relatively little suspension of disbelief had come to the Sci-fi screen, perhaps saving that suspension for other elements of the plot.
The end result was that instead of sending messages (Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament or the aliens will destroy your planet and you, too), the elements of a good (and ongoing) story were present, the theme of good versus evil, no matter what your polarity (maybe someone was really rooting for the dark lords and Darth Vader), and the idea that if the evil empire is prevailing, you can do something about it all appealed to me, and held that that which was universally good remained as such, across the boundaries of civilizations, species, and the vast gulf of space.
With a show like that, you tended to forget how expensive the pop and popcorn were and just enjoy.
Sadly, Disney will likely do what Disney does. Initial efforts may well be nearly on par with the old crew, but with time, the accountants will step in, and corners will be cut. Look at the relative quality of the animation from Snow White to Beauty and the Beast, and you see the slide that even among relatively classical tales have suffered in the name of filling the pockets of the rat. If Disney doesn't manage to wreck the franchise with the latest in social justice undertones, it may yet survive.
