With John Fardy away this week, Shane was joined by the Picture Show's Philip Molloy for this week's Cultural Toolbox. And up for discussion this week was one of the most enduring of pop cultural phenomena - yes, it's Star Wars (cue fanfare):
It's probably as good a time as any to have a look back at the film that started the franchise - with the seventh film in the series set to be released in December, just yesterday it was announced that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorow will be directing episode IX (Looper director Rian Johnson is tackling the middle film).
It can be difficult to divorce the original 1977 film from everything that followed, so Philip explained the impact it had - and how it was helped along by Jaws.
"What happened with Jaws, is it went way over budget," he explained. "The intention was that they would release it in the Christmas period of 1974, but it was running late so they decided to change it to the following summer. It was a revelation."
And so the 'summer blockbuster' was born, along with the huge marketing budgets. Jaws was a massive success. Fast-forward to '77 and along came Star Wars to really cement the model.
Star Wars was initially an 'iffy' proposition, Philip said, but its eventual success made writer/director George Lucas become one of the most influential people in cinema, as well as a billionaire.
But, looking back almost forty years later, what about the films' quality? Philip said, "I like the second one, The Empire Strikes Back," and it is indeed one of the few sequels considered to be superior to the original. The Return of the Jedi, of course, is a bit more divisive.
Speaking about the series generally, Shane observed "I've seen them fairly recently with my kids, and they enjoyed them. But they're pretty clunky in parts." That said, even Star Wars cynics would struggle to deny they're a cut above the much-maligned prequel trilogy.
Whether the films' quality live up to the franchise's reputation and success is a matter for debate. But no doubt there are few Cultural Toolbox candidates that have earned their place quite like Star Wars.
