For a half-century, almost the complete history of the feature film, the most reliable and prevalent genre was romance, either comedy or drama. Hollywood did make science-fiction films in the years just before Star Wars but they were mostly of the dystopian variety Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, Lucas' own THX-138 and carried grim political or ecological messages. The more innocent science fantasy, familiar from 30s-40s B-movie serials like Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon, was not big at the time. Star Wars made it hot, and made it an A-movie genre (though directors like Ridley Scott, in Alien and Blade Runner, quickly reimposed the dystopian tone). Further, Star Wars' exaltation of the movie-serial/comic-book impulse reverberates in every Marvel movie spinoff. That's why, reversing another longstanding trend, more big movies today are made from comic books than from best-selling novels.
The 10 Ways Star Wars Changed the Movie Industry
On the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars TIME film critic Richard Corliss looks at how the groundbreaking film changed everything about the movies