The Offenders: Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordon, a bunch of even cheaper films, Argo, and the rest of the genre for the aesthetic. Star Wars shook up everything in movie making. Finishing off what Jaws had started two years previously and creating the blockbuster, it also had a profound impact on the sci-fi genre in both the short- and long-term. Aside from reigniting popular interest in the genre and allowing the likes of the Star Trek movies and more home-based entries (E.T., Back To The Future) to thrive, George Lucas' mega-hit changed how sci-fi looked. Whereas before the future had been this abstract world where everything was either new and perfect or full on dystopian, Star Wars gave audiences a "used-future", where the world, while still pretty abstract, felt lived-in and not just unwrapped for the film. Then you have the copy-cats. Immediately after the film's release there came a slew of cheaply made attempts to cash in on the notion of space fantasy. Previously sci-fi had been just that, science fiction, but now it was much more crowd-pleasing; along came Battle Beyond The Stars, Starchaser, Hawk the Slayer and more of that sort of thing. These were painfully blatant rip-offs that wouldn't survive in today's franchise ran industry, but back then thrived; how else could Argo (the fake CIA production) have worked as a cover in the events of Argo (the Oscar winning film).
