Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope

Like a patchwork quilt, the films and literature found in American culture incorporate, to some extent, elements from other movies, books, and even mythological and historical figures and events. For instance, George Lucas’s Star Wars films are a pastiche of various other films, and they also serve as a cache of inspiration for future filmmakers. When the first Star Wars film, Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope, was released in 1977, the film industry had little direction because of the influence of big businesses and Wall Street along with the disintegration of the Motion Picture Production Code. In fact, Star Wars was one of the films that marked the beginning of a new era in film: the postmodern period. Even today, about forty years after

During the modern film era, agents, lawyers, and businessmen ran the film division of the conglomerates. However, Lucas wanted to revive the studio system on his own terms because he cared about putting on a show and believed that people were ruining the film industry by mixing in business to such a vast extent. Lucas’s way of thinking is present in current films where the purpose of entertainment comes before the business practices, and the filmmakers are involved in the production and business side of filmmaking. This allows for the power of film creation to lie with the artists who create the films. For example, original movie music compositions became more widely utilized after John Williams composed original music for the Star Wars soundtrack. Likewise, John Ottman and Tyler Bates composed original music for X-Men: Apocalypse and Guardians of the Galaxy, respectively. One of the other major influences that Lucas had on business in the film industry is merchandising. When creating movies, Lucas had merchandising in mind, which many directors so today. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy has many memorable characters, like Groot, and lines, such as “I am Groot”, which are easily put on merchandise. In fact, the setting and characters in the film inspired the concept for a new theme park ride, Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, which is opening at Disney’s California Adventure this summer. The tactic of considering merchandising when creating a film also applies to X-Men: Apocalypse which has many memorable characters, like Mystique, Magneto, and Charles Xavier. The X-Men films are the cornerstone of the overall franchise, which includes T-shirts, video games, toys, and other