For over 40 years, Star Wars has endured as one of the biggest and most popular brands in popular culture and despite some recent hiccups along the way, the franchise shows no signs of slowing down in the near future. The main saga may have been brought to an end thanks to the divisive The Rise of Skywalker and the Star Wars Story spinoffs seem to have been abandoned, but Disney and Lucasfilm still have release dates staked out for three more movies, despite the studio’s worryingly high turnover of filmmakers.
Even with the Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney Plus being delayed indefinitely, Star Wars is still going strong on the small screen as well with The Mandalorian’s second season on the way. Suffice it to say, the sci-fi series created by George Lucas has shown remarkable staying power over the decades, although there were plenty of people that were initially skeptical about the idea during the early days when A New Hope was in the midst of production.
In a recent interview, when asked about his favorite memories from making the movie, Harrison Ford revealed that while Episode IV was shooting in London, some of the veteran members of the crew couldn’t believe what they were seeing, and thought the whole idea of Star Wars itself was inherently ridiculous.
“The complete and utter disdain that our very experienced British crew felt for what we were doing. They couldn’t figure it out. A guy running around in a dog suit, a princess, some guys in tight pants. They couldn’t figure out what we were doing, so they laughed at us constantly. Thought we were ridiculous, and we were. But we made a movie that people really enjoyed seeing.”
Ford has a point that the concept was ridiculous to both him and the veteran crew members, given that many people thought Star Wars was doomed to fail when it hit theaters in 1977, because at the time sci-fi hadn’t been a popular genre for decades. Obviously, though, things worked out alright in the end and the franchise continues to retain a devoted following to this day.
