Not really. It became this way after the prequels, which George Lucas hilariously based Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith around George W Bush's presidency and the Iraq war. Order 66 was literally the PATRIOT Act. Lucas is a shitty writer and those movies were universally mocked and made fun of until about 7 years ago after Disney bought Star Wars and there was some weird internet campaign pushing articles that said "Actually, the prequels are good!' and then people trying to analyze the shitty writing in those movies with American politics.
Star Wars before the prequels (and the real heart of it) is more or less, mythology stories set in space. They followed the same tropes of good vs evil, the hero's journey and all that. The original movie parallels with the Greek mythology classic Odyssey, and putting it side by side with that, you can see a lot of similarities. The Death Star trench run is similar to a part in that book where Odysseus' ship has to go through a trench. Luke goes on an adventure similar to him and meets friends along the way who help him, etc etc. THAT is what Star Wars was all about before Lucas got dollar signs in his eyes and realized he could turn it into a merchandise empire (and he began doing this around the time of ROTJ), and later on wrote the awful prequels.
the entire franchise existed from the beginning to sell toys anyway.
Star Wars almost wasn't even a franchise. They had no idea if the first movie would even be a success, let alone blow up into a cultural phenomenon.
Had they known it was going to be huge, they most likely wouldn't have neatly wrapped up the plot with the first movie destroying the Death Star at the end. Lucas was extremely lucky to be surrounded by better writers back then. His wife directed the final act of the first movie (the Death Star battle) and she won the Oscar for best editing and cinematography for it. Lawrence Kasden and Gary Kurtz wrote Empire Strikes Back which was the best one of the entire trilogy.
Come time for the prequels, he was 100% in control of everything and it clearly showed. Lucas is a good 'ideas person'. He is creative and can come up with cool ideas, but you need a good writer (or a couple of them) to really arrange things and put a decent story to it.
The toys originally were meant to pay off the debt that Lucas had amassed from making the first movie. He put himself in serious debt to make it. There's some pretty interesting stories about the casting of the original Star Wars. Alec Guinness hated those movies and only agreed to do Star Wars for a pay check. Despite his loathing of the movies, he put in a pretty good performance as Obi Wan and was friendly on set.
Lucas had the least to do with Empire Strikes Back though and that's probably why it's the best film of the entire franchise. His original script was seriously some WTF stuff, and the worst part is, most of that script ended up in Attack of the Clones all those years later.
The toy empire was really driving it in time for Return of the Jedi. There were multiple scripts and he changed so much of the original stories so they could focus on toy sales (that's how we got the Ewoks). This was around the time Kurtz also got fed up with Lucas and wanted out.
from what I understand, star wars was the harry potter of the 80s when it comes to politics
Not really. It became this way after the prequels, which George Lucas hilariously based Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith around George W Bush's presidency and the Iraq war. Order 66 was literally the PATRIOT Act. Lucas is a shitty writer and those movies were universally mocked and made fun of until about 7 years ago after Disney bought Star Wars and there was some weird internet campaign pushing articles that said "Actually, the prequels are good!' and then people trying to analyze the shitty writing in those movies with American politics.
Star Wars before the prequels (and the real heart of it) is more or less, mythology stories set in space. They followed the same tropes of good vs evil, the hero's journey and all that. The original movie parallels with the Greek mythology classic Odyssey, and putting it side by side with that, you can see a lot of similarities. The Death Star trench run is similar to a part in that book where Odysseus' ship has to go through a trench. Luke goes on an adventure similar to him and meets friends along the way who help him, etc etc. THAT is what Star Wars was all about before Lucas got dollar signs in his eyes and realized he could turn it into a merchandise empire (and he began doing this around the time of ROTJ), and later on wrote the awful prequels.
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Star Wars almost wasn't even a franchise. They had no idea if the first movie would even be a success, let alone blow up into a cultural phenomenon.
Had they known it was going to be huge, they most likely wouldn't have neatly wrapped up the plot with the first movie destroying the Death Star at the end. Lucas was extremely lucky to be surrounded by better writers back then. His wife directed the final act of the first movie (the Death Star battle) and she won the Oscar for best editing and cinematography for it. Lawrence Kasden and Gary Kurtz wrote Empire Strikes Back which was the best one of the entire trilogy.
Come time for the prequels, he was 100% in control of everything and it clearly showed. Lucas is a good 'ideas person'. He is creative and can come up with cool ideas, but you need a good writer (or a couple of them) to really arrange things and put a decent story to it.
deleted by creator
The toys originally were meant to pay off the debt that Lucas had amassed from making the first movie. He put himself in serious debt to make it. There's some pretty interesting stories about the casting of the original Star Wars. Alec Guinness hated those movies and only agreed to do Star Wars for a pay check. Despite his loathing of the movies, he put in a pretty good performance as Obi Wan and was friendly on set.
Lucas had the least to do with Empire Strikes Back though and that's probably why it's the best film of the entire franchise. His original script was seriously some WTF stuff, and the worst part is, most of that script ended up in Attack of the Clones all those years later.
The toy empire was really driving it in time for Return of the Jedi. There were multiple scripts and he changed so much of the original stories so they could focus on toy sales (that's how we got the Ewoks). This was around the time Kurtz also got fed up with Lucas and wanted out.
I wish. Gen x would be Maoists.