Aunt Sally said:
Therefore hypothetical questions like "what if Star Wars was released today?" is as dumb as " what if Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published today?".
Ridiculous.
imperialscum said:
Actually the only relevant historic context was that it was a revolutionary film...
The "time of" I'm crediting for turning Star Wars into a cultural event was the innocence of our culture and the innocence of the movie-goers in general in 1977. I don't attribute its success to the Cold War, Vietnam, the 1972 Olympics, etc. Although there is certainly something to be said for the world needing a fun, bigger than life, escape at the time.
I attribute it to us having not yet lost our cinematic innocence in 1977. It was a big adventure, the likes of which many of us hadn't been on before. It looked as real as 2001: A Space Odyssey, but wasn't nearly as cerebral. We spent a lot of time in space, which we hadn't done much of in films past. It was also a relatively simple story. It was an escape and it was fun.
That wouldn't be possible now. People go into the theater expecting HD CGI realism. If it isn't Avatar, Matrix, Transformers, or a Marvel-based comic action piece, it doesn't land at the level Star Wars circa 1977 did.
The time to capture the world with an event comes along seldom. Once it does, you can't get your innocence back. There was only one Apollo Space Program, one The Beatles, one Facebook, and one Summer of Star Wars.
You can read all you want about Star Wars 1977, you can imagine you understand it, and you can equate your TV experience decades later to it, but unless you were there, you can't feel or understand the emotional moment the way some of us did.
It would be like me saying I understand the emotion when Kennedy was shot or the elation of V-J Day. No matter how much I read or watch about them, I can't feel it the way those people did. Just as it will be when twenty years from now someone comes to you and they say they understood the fear of 9-11 because they've read a lot about it.
You can be every bit as emotionally moved by the story as 1970s people were, and it seems you were. Which is great, by the way, because it keeps the original alive and shows that the essence of the story is what is most important. However, you saw the film through late 1990s eyes in a late 1990s world. It isn't the same as the 1970s.
A tangential discussion to all of this is available entertainment sources now vs 1977. Competition, venues, and availability of 2000s vs 1970s are also huge components of discussing the time in which Star Wars was released.
