Every single film you mentioned came out after Star Wars. The closest, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, came out only 6 months later, so hard to argue that i

Every single film you mentioned came out after Star Wars. The closest, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, came out only 6 months later, so hard to argue that its derivative. Even so, its inarguable that Star Wars was the first of its kind to reach the kind of mass appeal that it did. Likewise (to the parent), references to D&D or Kurosawa are red herrings, because those were sort of niche at that point. Flash Gordon is/was debatably niche, but even then, Flash Gordon wasn't made into a movie until 1980 (after Lucas gave up on pursuing the rights, and instead made Star Wars). I'm not here to defend Star Wars as great art, but I am here to say that its place in the cultural canon is 100% earned, and trying to dismiss it as cliche, formulaic, or derivative is to wildly misunderstand the cultural impact of its forebears, and anachronistically criticize it for its similarities to the things it inspired.