Apex Mountain
George Lucas, the franchise’s craftspeople, multiple actors, science-fiction lore, sound, and blockbuster culture receive separate apex checks.
Flex pick · Craig Horlbeck
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:55Read transcript
- Lucas’s apex is placed around 1981 after Empire and Raiders, though selling Lucasfilm for four billion dollars is another candidate.
- Star Wars is judged an apex for science-fiction movies, galaxy adventures, and film-created fictional mythology.
- The movie is accepted as Mark Hamill’s apex and a possible early apex for Carrie Fisher.
- John Williams is difficult to pin to one apex, but Star Wars is preferred over later cultural competitors.
- James Earl Jones is placed closer to Field of Dreams, Coming to America, or Mufasa than to his uncredited Vader voice.
- Harrison Ford receives an explicit apex check and is rejected because his apex had already been named earlier.
- The movie is an apex for 20th Century Fox because profits and stock value rose sharply.
- The film is credited with beginning the cultural ascent of nerd fandom rather than representing its final apex in 1977.
- Its sound effects remain exceptional, including Vader breathing, TIE fighters, droids, and lightsabers.
- The saga is called a leading story of absentee fathers because Vader reappears only after Luke becomes powerful.
- The film is declared the apex of Apex Mountain categories because so many people, crafts, objects, and institutions peak around it.