For Lucas, it was enough that Star Wars could be merely entertaining — and entirely the point. Only a year or so earlier, moviegoers had flocked to films like Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men, Network, and The Enforcer — movies that embraced antiheroes and reinforced American filmgoers’ increasing disillusionment with the media, law, and politics. Lucas found such world-weariness depressing; he worried about its effect on a generation raised in the shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, and weaned on movies about criminals and conspiracies. Star Wars, then, was his response to cynicism, a shot
...more
