What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars?

[jefferiestubes8]

An idea popped up in another thread entitled
Re: Is 'Mass Effect' "The Most Impt. Sci-Fi Universe of Our Generation
in which The Lensman essentially asked what

the closest cultural impact to Star Wars since Star Wars.

was.
His answer was

The "next Star Wars" was Harry Potter.

While I disagree as it was first a series of novels aimed at children and then 8 Hollywood feature films based on those movies I instead think that
The Lord of The Rings trilogy of movies in the 2000s (and including The Hobbit films in 2012) were instead having a closer cultural impact to Star Wars since Star Wars 1977-2005 films were released. Technically a Lord of the Rings film even came out in 1978.
The Lord of the Rings 3 volumes of novels were Published 21st of July 1954 and October 1955. The films came out between 2001-2003. The Hobbit films come out 2012 & 2013 and are a prequel to the Lord of the Rings story.

What do you guys think as far as franchises and the biggest and cultural impact? No not a list of the top 5 or top 10 but your choice for the biggest.

 

[Dream]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Remember when people were saying Matrix was going to be the next Star Wars? I can't believe how quickly all the hype and interest died after two terrible sequels.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Cultural influence in terms of being imitated? Maybe Alien for sci fi horror or Blade Runner for style.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Remember when people were saying Matrix was going to be the next Star Wars? I can't believe how quickly all the hype and interest died after two terrible sequels.

The story was uninteresting for the two sequels of The Matrix.
a buildup & a major battle. kind of like Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) plot that came out the year before The Matrix Reloaded (2003).

 

[Harvey]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Obviously it is only one movie at this point, but I think Avatar has potential to approach Star Wars in cultural impact. Visually, its DNA has already been seen in Green Lantern and seems to be found in the forthcoming John Carter as well. In terms of 3-D, I think its influence cannot be overstated.

Of course, the franchise itself could fold if the sequel(s) are a flop, much like The Matrix (which sequels made money, but were a disappointment compared to the first film, leading the franchise to slowly go out with a whimper).

 

[BillJ]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I'm not sure that there is anything that comes close...

 

[USS Kongo]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I agree with Harvey in that I think Avatar comes close to being as big as Star Wars. It's just as richly a defined universe as Lucas' creation.

But Lucas has done an amazing job in keeping the Star Wars brand alive in the minds of the public. We'll just have to wait and see how well the Avatar sequels do before we know if it even comes close to having the same impact as Star Wars.

Sean

 

[sidious618]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I don't know that anything will be as culture has changed a lot since the late 1970s and early 1980s. I'm not sure we'll be able to measure in any meaningful way.

 

[MacLeod]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

An idea popped up in another thread entitled
Re: Is 'Mass Effect' "The Most Impt. Sci-Fi Universe of Our Generation
in which The Lensman essentially asked what

the closest cultural impact to Star Wars since Star Wars.

was.
His answer was

The "next Star Wars" was Harry Potter.

While I disagree as it was first a series of novels aimed at children and then 8 Hollywood feature films based on those movies I instead think that
The Lord of The Rings trilogy of movies in the 2000s (and including The Hobbit films in 2012) were instead having a closer cultural impact to Star Wars since Star Wars 1977-2005 films were released. Technically a Lord of the Rings film even came out in 1978.
The Lord of the Rings 3 volumes of novels were Published 21st of July 1954 and October 1955. The films came out between 2001-2003. The Hobbit films come out 2012 & 2013 and are a prequel to the Lord of the Rings story.

What do you guys think as far as franchises and the biggest and cultural impact? No not a list of the top 5 or top 10 but your choice for the biggest.

I think most would agree the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars have had a cultural impact, as has DW to a certain extend. Since Star Wars though, the obvious answer would be Harry Potter. LOTR came out before SW and I'm not sure they've had as big a cultural impact as the ones listed above.

To me cultural impact means to a certain extend it has become imbedded into society. SW along with other films from around that time basically created the summer blockbuster type film.

As for ST, phrases like "beam me up scotty" as an indication of incredability. Dhey don't show emotion or use logicescribing someone as Spock like, to mean they don't express emotions (that often or use logic). You can use a phrase like "It's not exactly warp drive" and people will know what you mean.

 

[propita]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I agree that for 'cultural' impact, beyond the usual sf fans, it would be HP. That reached way more people and for a lot of years.

LotR had great films (and, of course, great books) but how many references to it do you hear/see, besides Big Bang Theory? It'll always be something special to many, but already forgotten by most who saw the films.

I think so many things have become niche, big niche or small, that having something that attracts the attention of a HUGE, diverse population--and maintains that attention over time--is rarer now.

 

[RAMA]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Remember when people were saying Matrix was going to be the next Star Wars? I can't believe how quickly all the hype and interest died after two terrible sequels.

I love the Matrix series as a combined whole and they are far superior to either Star Wars series. As for cultural impact, well, I still see a lot more references to the Matrix these days than to SW, but overall I wouldn't rate it in the same league. Lord of the Rings was possibly more successful in terms of quality and it got huge box office numbers but people don't really talk about it that much. Avatar may be more successful in recent years in terms of altering perception of what Hollywood is capable with modern tech, than anything other than the original SW.

Ranked in order of t-shirts and caps seen in public(LOL) in the last 2 weeks: Buckaroo Banzai: 1, SW: 2, Star Trek: 1

RAMA

 

[Harvey]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Besides being a sustained and popular franchise, Star Wars (along with two important early films directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) also resulted in dramatic changes to the Hollywood film industry. These films essentially created the high concept, big budget blockbuster that characterizes much of the American film industry today.

The closest thing to have an impact approaching that is probably Avatar, concerning the (latest) rise of 3D cinema, but that technology has a long ways to go. Still, it already has changed the way movies are produced and exhibited.

 

[BillJ]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I love the Matrix series as a combined whole and they are far superior to either Star Wars series.

As a sleep aide? Sure.

I really liked the first Matrix film but the two that followed were brutally bad. YMMV.

 

[RAMA]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I love the Matrix series as a combined whole and they are far superior to either Star Wars series.

As a sleep aide? Sure.

I really liked the first Matrix film but the two that followed were brutally bad. YMMV.

Nope, I actually like the thread of the story carried through the entire series, I even dissected why they were still much better than perceived on this board before at length. They are also more technologically and philosophically relevant than the SW movies. I still feel the same way years later. In terms of sleep, go see TPM in 3D, that'll make you sleep, can't say the same for the kinetic energy from any of the Matrix movies.

RAMA

 

[wamdue]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

I hate to say it but I think its Harry Potter.

 

[Captain Craig]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

If the OP's stipulation is it has to first be a movie, like Star Wars then there may not be another. I say that cause Potter was dismissed as was LOTR it seems.
I'd say both however don't equal SW in terms of cultural impact. Both are part of the mainstream conscience though along with many others such as Bond, Batman or even Godzilla.
I mean culturally SW has original novels, rereleases, a running cartoon, toys for sale all the time even a yearly Convention. Potter, LOTR and Bond don't have all that. I'm guessing Batman doesn't count most likely?

I wouldn't even apply Avatar frankly. I see a universe with potential but where are the original novels, toys a cartoon at least. Original novels at least would be "easy" but I don't hear of those. I'm not convinced there is a ground swell of interest for more Avatar in the vein of the excitement the first one had. A second will do well, don't get me wrong, but the story was a bland rehash of a Hollywood staple told better in other places.

 

[Caliburn24]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

The entertainment landscape is too cluttered today. Star Wars was alone at the top of the heap back in the day, if you grew up during those years and had any interest in that sort of entertainment you were a fan, and part of a generation that can use Star Wars as sort of a cultural touchstone.

Nowadays you have LotR, Harry Potter, Twilight, various other franchises. All of them have decent sized fan-bases but the end result is each getting just a slice of the pie, whereas Star Wars had the whole pie. Fandom is divided.

Patton Oswalt wrote a fantastic essay a year or two back that touches on this subject. The first couple paragraphs...

I’m not a nerd. I used to be one, back 30 years ago when nerd meant something. I entered the ’80s immersed, variously, in science fiction, Dungeons & Dragons, and Stephen King. Except for the multiple-player aspect of D&D, these pursuits were not “passions from a common spring,” to quote Poe.

I can’t say that I ever abided nerd stereotypes: I was never alone or felt outcast. I had a circle of friends who were similarly drawn to the exotica of pop culture (or, at least, what was considered pop culture at the time in northern Virginia)—Monty Python, post-punk music, comic books, slasher films, and videogames. We were a sizable clique. The terms nerd and geek were convenient shorthand used by other cliques to categorize us. But they were thin descriptors.

In Japan, the word otaku refers to people who have obsessive, minute interests—especially stuff like anime or videogames. It comes from a term for “someone else’s house”—otaku live in their own, enclosed worlds. Or, at least, their lives follow patterns that are well outside the norm. Looking back, we were American otakus. (Of course, now all America is otaku—which I’m going to get into shortly. But in order to do so, we’re going to hang out in the ’80s.)

I was too young to drive or hold a job. I was never going to play sports, and girls were an uncrackable code. So, yeah—I had time to collect every Star Wars action figure, learn the Three Laws of Robotics, memorize Roy Batty’s speech from the end of Blade Runner, and classify each monster’s abilities and weaknesses in TSR Hobbies’ Monster Manual. By 1987, my friends and I were waist-deep in the hot honey of adolescence. Money and cars and, hopefully, girls would follow, but not if we spent our free time learning the names of the bounty hunters’ ships in The Empire Strikes Back. So we each built our own otakuesque thought-palace, which we crammed with facts and nonsense—only now, the thought-palace was nicely appointed, decorated neatly, the information laid out on deep mahogany shelves or framed in gilt. What once set us apart, we hoped, would become a lovable quirk.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_angrynerd_geekculture/all/1

The full essay is a good read.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

You could argue this question in a lot of different ways but I think HP has had the closest cultural impact to Star Wars. In terms of public consciousness, interest in each installment and range of merchandising it feels the closest to me of any franchise.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Definitely Potter- LOTR was a cultural phenomenon before Star Wars, so it doesn't really qualify.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: What franchise has had the closest cultural impact since Star Wars

Has to be Harry Potter. Nothing else is close, really.