ry - until Star Wars. The average film budget in 1978 was about $5 million - increasing dramatically to $11 million by 1980 due to inflation and rising costs. Motion picture art seemed to flourish at the same time that the Vietnam War, the Kent State Massacre, the Watergate scandal, President Nixon's fall, the Munich Olympics shoot-out, and a growing energy crisis showed tremendous disillusion among the public, and a lack of faith in institutions - a comment upon the lunacy of war and the dark side of the American Dream. 1960s social activism turned into an inward narcissism, and yet this uncertain age gave rise to some of the finest, boldest pictures ever made.The decade of the 1980s tended to consolidate the gains made in the seventies rather than to initiate any new trends equal to the large number of disaster movies, buddy movies, or "rogue cop" movies that characterized the previous decade. After the innovations of the 70s, films in the 80s were less experimental and original, with few of what could be called classics. Hollywood continued to search, with demographic research, for the one large blockbuster or "event film" that everyone "had to see". The ones with the dazzling special effects technology, sophisticated sound tracks, big marketing budgets, and costly, highly-paid perfect-faced stars. Most films took expensive fortunes to produce but promised potentially lucrative payoffs. The average ticket price at the end of the decade was a little over $4.00, while the average film budget was over $18 million. The industry also continued to lean towards the tastes and desires of young people - one of the negative legacies of Star Wars, made in 1977, of the late 70s. Steven Spielberg's name has often been associated with the term "blockbuster" - and his films inevitably continued to contribute to the trend during the specific decade.Film budgets skyrocketed due to special effects and inflated salaries. Big business increasingly took...
