As for the theory that movies would have "died out" that is preposterous--the 1970's were the most profitable and popular years in Hollywood history. Each year brought a bigger success than the previous year and Star Wars was the pinnacle of this. The 1970's were when movies became a cultural thing, a pop thing. You had Coppola becoming the first director to be paid over $1 million dollars, you had movies regualarly grossing over $30-$50 million, which was a big deal, and you had the first series of film to break the $100 million mark, like Godfather and American Graffitti. In the 1960's Hollywood almost died out, quite literally, as theater attendance reached record lows, Jack Warner and Darrly Zanuck sold their studios, and all that was being made was Fred Astair musicals and crap like Cleopatra which practically destroyed FOX studios. The American New Wave literally saved Hollywood, and it was they who brought movies into the limelight and into the cultural phenomenon that we know them as today. This is why American Graffiti, Godfather and Jaws were able to make so much money--after Easy Rider, the success of French Connection, Chinatown, MASH, Five Easy Pieces and Exorcist, among others, built up movies into a popular event, and thus the first of the blockbusters were able to become so successful. Star Wars didn't "save" the movies--it capitalised on them!
As for the theory that movies would have "died out" that is preposterous--the 1970's were the most profitable and popular years in Hollywood history. Each year brought a bigger success than the previous year and Star Wars was the pinnacle of this. The 1970's were when movies became a cultural thing, a pop thing. You had Coppola becoming the first director to be paid over $1 million dollars, you had movies regualarly grossing over $30-$50 million, which was a big deal, and you had the first series of film to break the $100 million mark, like Godfather and American Graffitti. In the 1960's Hollywood almost died out, quite literally, as theater attendance reached record lows, Jack Warner and Darrly Zanuck sold their studios, and all that was being made was Fred Astair musicals and crap like Cleopatra which practically destroyed FOX studios. The American New Wave literally saved Hollywood, and it was they who brought movies into the limelight and into the cultural phenomenon that we know them as today. This is why American Graffiti, Godfather and Jaws were able to make so much money--after Easy Rider, the success of French Connection, Chinatown, MASH, Five Easy Pieces and Exorcist, among others, built up movies into a popular event, and thus the first of the blockbusters were able to become so successful. Star Wars didn't "save" the movies--it capitalised on them!