Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIt’s tempting to think of the first “Star Wars” movie as ground zero for the new era of popular culture. (You might say that the 21st century began, in spirit, the day “Star Wars” opened.) But part of the primal power of George Lucas’s sci-fi landmark is that it represented a kind of dawn-of-the-digital-age, joystick-happy recycling of many, many things from the past.
It drew on the ramshackle movie serials of the ’40s and ’50s. It drew on classic films as serious as John Ford’s “The Searchers” and Akira Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress.” And, of course, there would have been no “Star Wars” without J.R.R.
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