Stars Wars: the iconic movie that left Ridley Scott “depressed for three months”
For the most part, the career of Ridley Scott has been defined by two genres. In terms of historical epics, he’s delivered many celebrated works including Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator and Napoleon, but Scott also had made some of the most important contributions to science fiction too.
After all, Scott brought two of the best sci-fi movies ever made into reality, beginning with his glorious and claustrophobic 1979 sci-fi horror Alien. Just a few years later, the director came up trumps again with his adaptation of Philip K. Dick in the form of Blade Runner, a true masterpiece of the genre.
However, long before Scott had announced himself as a science fiction auteur with Alien and then Blade Runner, he had only directed 1977’s historical drama The Duellists. Scott had been planning to work on a version of Tristan and Isolde at the time, but when he saw one of the most famous science fiction movies of all time, he found his new calling.
In 1977, George Lucas released his widely influential epic space opera Star Wars, which would go on to become one of the most celebrated works of science fiction of all time and spawned one of cinema’s biggest franchises. Scott had been in Hollywood at the time of the film’s release and caught it on its second day in cinemas.
“It totally blew me away, as the Americans say,” Scott had once noted. In fact, the first-ever Star Wars movie had left such an impression on Scott that he went back to the cinema to watch it again the very next day to see “if it was as good as I thought it was”. Interestingly, he said that “unfortunately”, it was.
The director found this “unfortunate” feeling because he also felt “depressed” by the brilliance of Star Wars. After all, Scott was still a new filmmaker in the late 1970s and had been blown away by Lucas’ effort. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Scott explained how he suddenly knew that he had to get involved in the science fiction genre.
He noted, “I thought, ‘Why on earth am I even thinking about doing Tristan & Isolde when this guy is doing this kind of movie?’ It literally stopped me in my tracks. I was depressed for three months.” According to Scott, following his initial depression, he got “very competitive” and sought out a way to challenge Lucas’ Star Wars, leading to his own sci-fi masterpiece, Alien.
Still, Scott offered his accolades to Star Wars by admitting to its “very powerful” quality and its ability to entertain. “I think it’s a very, very sophisticated fantasy,” he said. Remembering that first screening of the film, the director had also noted, “The theatre was positively boiling with expectation. I have never seen such audience participation.”
Energised by seeing the limitless possibilities of the science fiction genre, Scott set about developing his next film, which ended up flipping sci-fi on its head completely. When Alien arrived in 1979, sci-fi fans found that their favourite category of cinema had been doused in true terror and that they had a new director to call a hero. However, the likes of Alien and Blade Runner perhaps might not have come to fruition were it not for the legendary first Star Wars movie that blew Scott away.
