Is Star Wars A Shared Mythos?
It's hardly original to say that Star Wars has become a series of shared cultural stories people now quote in conversation in ways that were once reserved for the tales of Greek myth. For many folk, Star Wars (if that's the right collective term) seems to provide lessons and metaphors for life.
Disclosure - I'm not a Star Wars fan (the movie in 1977 had minimal impact) and while I consider The Empire Strikes Back the most entertaining of the movies, they have been pretty forgettable from where I sit.
I'm curious what people think is behind the intense attraction and longevity of these movies and the wider Star Wars universe. Is it a new mythos, complete with life lessons? Has it filled some of the cultural space that used to be filled with stories of Hercules and Zeus, back when people read books? It seems like a shared cultural frame of reference which people used to find in Bible stories and folk tales. Or is it just mass entertainment that got lucky?
Or is it the fact that George Lucas deliberately took many narrative tropes straight from Joseph Campbell's book of myth, Hero with a Thousand Faces, and consciously affected Jungian archetypes?
Grown men my age (in their 50's) often have conspicuous displays of plastic action figures on shelves, a kind of idolatry, lined up like totems or fetishes. Are these things secretly worshiped? Why have them?
Also, what is behind the intense hatred of George Lucas I seem to get from Star Wars fans. It's like he's perpetually Bob Dylan going electric, with cries of Judas! from a betrayed audience. But isn't he as creator worthy of veneration and respect? They seem to hate him...
Disclosure - I'm not a Star Wars fan (the movie in 1977 had minimal impact) and while I consider The Empire Strikes Back the most entertaining of the movies, they have been pretty forgettable from where I sit.
I'm curious what people think is behind the intense attraction and longevity of these movies and the wider Star Wars universe. Is it a new mythos, complete with life lessons? Has it filled some of the cultural space that used to be filled with stories of Hercules and Zeus, back when people read books? It seems like a shared cultural frame of reference which people used to find in Bible stories and folk tales. Or is it just mass entertainment that got lucky?
Or is it the fact that George Lucas deliberately took many narrative tropes straight from Joseph Campbell's book of myth, Hero with a Thousand Faces, and consciously affected Jungian archetypes?
Grown men my age (in their 50's) often have conspicuous displays of plastic action figures on shelves, a kind of idolatry, lined up like totems or fetishes. Are these things secretly worshiped? Why have them?
Also, what is behind the intense hatred of George Lucas I seem to get from Star Wars fans. It's like he's perpetually Bob Dylan going electric, with cries of Judas! from a betrayed audience. But isn't he as creator worthy of veneration and respect? They seem to hate him...
Comments (24)
And I always have that love of historical things, but this one is different because it has nostalgia attached -- so it doesn't have the same feel as other historical things.
I think there's a Christian bent to Star Wars, but that may just be my upbringing -- the thoughts I have on it though: Darth Vader as example of a person who has been corrupted and now comes out on the other side a good person, redeemed. Like a baptism. Without the prequels, there was golden age from which humanity had fallen, at least according to the old religious mythos (itself a Christian belief about being outcast in a world dominated by science). The focus on trusting your feelings, at least in the protestant sense of Christianity, accords with the personal experience theology of some Christians.
Also, the whole farm-boy to savior arc has Jesus all over it.
That's one reading. The farm boy is the son of Lucifer the fallen angel, in this instance. :wink: Lucas borrowed this trope - the callow youth who goes out has adventures and returns as a hero/saviour from world mythology. It's a common story. No doubt we can see any religion in this story - A Japanese friend of mine was convinced the story had been borrowed from Japanese religion.
All these ideas are directly from A Hero With A Thousand Faces by Campbell, the source of the Star Wars storyline. Check it out. The evil father, the wise wizard, the tutelary guardians, the quest, the rescue and princess, the sister, facing the father, enlightenment, etc. As I recall, the Force was inspired by the Tao.
That's super interesting to me that it has resonances across religious experiences, too. Maybe there's a more general pattern which particular social groups could relate to?
I can see The Force being inspired by Taoism in the original film, but even there it feels like a Christian interpretation of Taoism, to me: the visuals make it clear that the empire is evil and the accents make it clear that USians should relate to the good guys. The Good vs. Evil plot, I think, is what makes me think of Christianity in particular, especially with regards to choice. Taoism isn't as much about choosing good things, as I understand it, but about finding your place in the universe. But Christianity is all about choosing the Good Things -- as Luke implores Darth to do, and succeeds. (tho, thinking on that more literally, it *is* a reverse Christianity in that the son redeems the father)
Damnation and hell isn't as emphasized, but neither is that as emphasized in more liberal interpretations of Christianity. (more liberal = you live the creed not because hell will hurt forever)
Actually, I always took that as the Zoroastrian contribution which takes light and darkness as a key theme. Later religions were influenced.
But redemption from the darkness?
But in practice? Not many keep the literal fire alight, and you can see the Christian themes still? (Christians are guilty of being derivative... )
The interesting part is the hold it has had on culture.
Quoting 180 Proof
I haven't watched the latest film adaptation of Dune yet because I'd decided to wait for the second film (second half of the novel) to be released so I can watch Denis Villeneuve's complete adaptation (aka "Star Wars for grown-ups"). :nerd:
Dune presents a universe of inexorable consequences where the good guys may not win, if you can say who they are.
:cool:
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting Tom Storm
I'll offer the Marxist theory of Star Wars' hold (40 second mark didn't hold with the embedded link)
But I believe there's also aesthetic reasons, more to do with film and pop-culture, that made Star Wars blow up the way it did. It's definitely a mish-mash of a lot of ideas, and it's neither the plot nor the characters that hold it together (I think the actors other than Mark manages well enough with actor charisma, though). I'm told that the editing on the film is supposed to have made a huge difference in comparison to the script, but I haven't done the dig on that.
Otherwise: Lucas was a master of merchandising on the moment! :D
Quoting Moliere
That's for sure.
I loved them as a kid. Like (almost) any movie, there are some parts I don't like and never have, even as an adolescent. The dialogue is often cringey. But I think the reason it's so popular is because of the basic storyline -- it's a classic good vs evil story. You have a great bad guy in Darth Vader, and the stormtroopers, the empire, the Death Star -- all easy to digest and root against. A cool underdog hero.
Factor in the special effects, which were really cool at the time (blasters and lightsabers), and ideas like "The Force", which is also a cool amalgam of mostly eastern religious teachings and "science" (I guess), and you have a winner during a time of first summer blockbusters.
Alec Guinness really helps give some weight to the movie, as does James Earl Jones' voicework. None of the main actors are very good, though, in my opinion. I like them, but they're stiff in this one (the first one).
Anyway -- yeah, just a lot of things went right. Like Michael Jackson's Thriller, it came at the right time and made a lot of good choices.
Most of all, though, I think the choice of John Williams to score the film was by far the most important. What would this movie be without the music?
Yes indeed - Star Wars one one of those films that brought back the Dimitri Tiomkin-style orchestral film score - even if it sounded more like Holst's The Planets.
Any idea why 55 year-old men have shrines of plastic figures four decades on?
Nostalgia.
:up: