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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30380 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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What I wonder - have we done this sort of check for any years well into the past? Yes, Star Wars was a classic, but what other movies were released that year, and how many were original? I recall hearing about music, many say older music is better because they only remember the smash hits from some particular year 3 or 5 decades ago, but that was one hit, when there were maybe 500 released that year, and 90% of the rest were relatively mediocre pop. Is the same true for movies?

FWIW, having picked 1964 at random it seems like only one of the ten top-grossing films that year could be classed as 'original', otherwise we have two Bonds, two pink panther films and the others based on books, musicals etc.

I actually picked 1963 at random for my test (by accident, I was going for 1964!) and there seemed to be a bit more of original stuff there.

It should be noted that even Star Wars started as a clever rework of Hidden Fortress with other plot elements and characters added in rewrites wrapped in nostalgia for Flash Gordon.

The appeal to the audience is not "I saw Hidden Fortress/Flash Gordon, so I'll see this", so it shouldn't count. Every work cribs from previous works in some fashion.

That poster messaging is literally an appeal to the audience of "you saw Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers as a kid, this will make you feel like that again". Hence the tag line "it'll make you feel like a kid again" after invoking the earlier two properties.

That poster messaging is literally an appeal to the audience of "you saw Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers as a kid, this will m

There are shades of this. Being named the same as a previous movie that came out two years ago except you have a number on the end of your title is high on the scale. Being inspired by a property that hasn't had a hit in a while is lower on the scale. Being inspired by a genre which contains hits rather than by one and only one specific hit is lower. So is having the reference only appeal to some of your audience (the overlap between the whole Star Wars audience and people who've seen Flash Gordon is a lot less than the overlap between the audience for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy 3).

I think that Star Wars is overall low on the scale, even if you can certainly point to some elements that are derivative.

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