{"id":220010,"date":"2021-03-20T03:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T03:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/star-wars-used-future-changed-science-fiction\/"},"modified":"2021-03-20T03:00:42","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T03:00:42","slug":"the-used-future-of-star-wars-changed-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/03\/20\/the-used-future-of-star-wars-changed-science-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Used Future” Of Star Wars Changed Science Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The cultural influence of Star Wars<\/strong><\/em><\/a> knows no bounds. George Lucas\u2019 groundbreaking 1977 blockbuster marked a watershed moment in film history<\/a>. An entire generation of filmmakers was inspired to pick up a camera and tell stories by the sense of wonder they felt watching Star Wars<\/em> as a kid. One specific way that Star Wars<\/em> influenced filmmaking\u00a0\u2013 and science fiction in general \u2013 was the \u201cused future\u201d aesthetic of its unique production design.<\/p>\n

Although Star Wars<\/em> takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away<\/a>, the rusty, lived-in aesthetic of Tatooine influenced the depictions of a \u201cused future\u201d in Alien<\/em>, Blade Runner<\/em>, Terminator<\/em>, The Matrix<\/em>, and a bunch of other sci-fi classics. By the late \u201870s, there was a generally accepted vision of the future in which everything was very clean and pristine. Everybody wore the same jumpsuits and the spaceships and buildings were all in tip-top, good-as-new condition. In a lot of these stories, everything was made of chrome (later parodied in a great existential SpongeBob<\/em> episode).<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Star Wars: How Disney Can Learn From Its Mistakes For The Next Trilogy<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In visualizing the Lars\u2019 dusty moisture farm and the seedy criminal underbelly of Mos Eisley Spaceport and the iconic bucket-o\u2019-bolts that is the Millennium Falcon, Lucas wanted to offer an alternative to the usual futuristic aesthetic by adding a layer of grime and wear-and-tear over everything in sight. Lucas described this visual style<\/a> as \u201cdocumentary fantasy,\u201d or \u201cfantasy combined with the feel of a documentary.\u201d All the ships are covered in scratches and dents from years of use \u2013 the Falcon being a prime example<\/a> \u2013 and the Rebel Alliance\u2019s tech is as primitive as one would expect from a bare-bones militia. Jawas prowl the dunes of Tatooine in a dirty, banged-up Sandcrawler, picking up junked droids and selling them to farmers working on a barren wasteland.<\/p>\n

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This concept didn\u2019t originate with Star Wars<\/em>. It could previously be seen in 1969\u2019s Moon Zero Two<\/em>, 1972\u2019s Silent Running<\/em> (a big influence on WALL-E<\/em>), and 1974\u2019s Dark Star<\/em>. However, a lot of these movies cut costs by shooting in real locations like quarries and power plants; they didn\u2019t build entire worlds from scratch like Star Wars<\/em>\u2019 phenomenally talented production designers. And if Star Wars<\/em> can\u2019t be credited with creating the \u201cused future\u201d aesthetic, its historic box office run<\/a> can sure be credited with popularizing it.<\/p>\n

A couple of key filmmakers were inspired by this aspect of Star Wars<\/em> \u2013 namely, Sir Ridley Scott. When the success of Star Wars<\/em> led to a bunch of space movies and Scott was hired to direct a haunted house movie in space<\/a>, he applied these influences beautifully. Alien<\/em> follows the crew of the Nostromo, who are essentially futuristic truckers transporting cargo across space in a big, ugly rig. The Nostromo has the same grimy, well-worn, industrial feel of Star Wars<\/em>\u2019 non-Imperial ships.<\/p>\n

Scott took this influence a step further with his next sci-fi movie, Blade Runner<\/em><\/a>, which takes place in Los Angeles in the near future (although it\u2019s now the past). Blade Runner<\/em>\u2019s futuristic L.A. has a thick cloud of pollution filling its skyline, trash piling up on the streets, flying cars stuck in traffic on congested airways, graffiti all over the towering skyscrapers \u2013 it\u2019s a hauntingly beautiful portrait of urban decay. Scott took the prestigious Bradbury Building \u2013 one of the most overused shooting locations in film noir \u2013 and presented it in an entirely new way by dressing it up as a dilapidated dump. He added a canopy to the exterior, gave it twisting columns made out of Styrofoam, filled the interior with garbage, and blasted revolving spotlights and smoke machines. Incidentally, Blade Runner<\/em> ended up returning the favor to Star Wars<\/em>, as Scott\u2019s depiction of a neon-drenched metropolis heavily inspired Lucas\u2019 portrayal of the city-planet Coruscant in the prequels.<\/p>\n

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Another high-profile Star Wars<\/em> fan, James Cameron, applied Lucas\u2019 \u201cused future\u201d visuals to his own work. The flash-forwards in the Terminator<\/em> movies depict a post-Judgment Day world in which the machines have risen up<\/a> and the human race is on the brink of extinction. Civilization has been reduced to rubble by a nuclear holocaust, the skies are filled with Skynet warships dropping bombs and decimating whatever remains, and the battlefields are filled with killer cyborgs looking to wipe out all human life on Earth. John Connor\u2019s resistance fighters have been driven into a ramshackle existence hidden away from the Terminators, warming by dumpster fires.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s appropriate that Guillermo del Toro opened his epic-scale monsters-versus-robots smash-\u2018em-up Pacific Rim<\/em> with a Star Wars<\/em> reference \u2013 \u201cDon\u2019t get cocky\u201d \u2013\u00a0because the influence of Star Wars<\/em> can be seen all over the movie\u2019s aesthetic. The Jaeger suits are all a little worse for wear after countless kaiju beatdowns. Humanity is living in the ruins of civilized society and surviving on food rations. The computers need giant tapes to display information. Star Wars<\/em>\u2019 influence can also be seen in The Matrix<\/em>\u2019s portrayal of the real world<\/a>. Morpheus and his crew have unfathomable technologies, but since humanity has lost the war against its cybernetic overlords, they\u2019re forced to live in a filthy, claustrophobic underground city.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the success of Star Wars<\/em>, the \u201cused future\u201d has become a well-known trope, and it\u2019s arguably become the go-to approach for depicting the future. Ironically, the classic portrayal of a monochromatic futuristic society has become a thing of the past. Star Wars<\/em>\u2019 \u201cused future\u201d style\u00a0is even parodied in Spaceballs<\/em><\/a> when Dark Helmet quips, \u201cEven in the future, nothing works!\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Star Wars: Duel Of The Fates Would’ve Been A Better Finale Than The Rise Of Skywalker<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Although Star Wars takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, its rusty, lived-in aesthetic influenced sci-fi’s portrayal of the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"The \"Used Future\" Of Star Wars Changed Science Fiction - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"Although Star Wars takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, its rusty, lived-in aesthetic influenced sci-fi's portrayal of the future."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220253,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220010\/revisions\/220253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}