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Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi
mikelove writes "Salon has an article arguing that Star Wars owes its origins to pulp science fiction and not Joseph Campbell-esque mythology. Finally SOMEONE is realizing this... Also makes the suggestion that Lucas/Kasdan didn't really write The Empire Strikes Back, which makes a certain amount of sense when you compare it to Lucas' other screenplays."
to see Jar Jar Binks beaten to a pulp. Does that add any evidence to the theory?
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I don't see why someone wouldn't have already claimed that lucas didn't write ESB. I'm pretty skeptical of the article as a whole.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
You might as well attribute Star Wars to the Wizard of Oz or any other archtypal story.
That Lucas was influenced by other things when he did the trillogy. Episode 1 was such a big departure from the quality storyline of the originals. Perhaps he let his family influence him too much. In any event, at least he didn't screw up the Indiana Jones trillogy.
The article makes many good points, and highlights the lack of success of GL's other films. It's no big surprise that Lucas is not considered a gift to screenwriting. There's no shame in it. He should really consider sticking to the production/direction/story idea side of things, and let others flesh out the script...
It does sadden me that a number of otherwise smart people make such a big deal about the Star Wars franchise. It's not like I have anything against epic geek entertainment: LOTR was fucking brilliant.
"Joseph Campbell-esque"
Wasn't it John W. Campbell that made all of the early advances with Campbellian Science Fiction? Granted, I'm not done reading Invaders from the Infinite yet, but he was the lead editor for Analog and it's predecessor...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
We let people say they "borrowed" from great works because it makes us feel better about liking the pulpy pop-culture end product.
i.e. Madonna says she borrows from Mozart.
i.e. Lucas says he borrows from "mythology"
Well, Star Wars borrows from (among other things) Arthurian myth. Arthur was far from being a king before he got Excalibur. After that he rose to greatness. Likewise, Luke was a farmboy before getting The Force and becoming great himself.
Blah blah grump grump grump. Cheating grump bastard. grump grump grump. Buckets of money. Grump grump, lack of appreciation for true source of inspiration. grump complain whine grump.
Some people take entertainment way to seriously.
air and light and time and space
I guess my only question is: When was this considered news? Most of us knew this already, but without any proof (budding conspiracy theorists - unite!) we sound like just a bunch of freaks/fanatics grousing... Well, maybe a second question: will the 'real' writer ever come forward, or is this a topic for another conspiracy theory???
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
It doesn't matter the source or inspiration for the Star Wars movies, just as long as they're enjoyable and worth the nine bucks' admission price.
Why overanalyze it? It just ruins it.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
Star Wars was just a rewritten Japanese film about a Samuari. The movie was titled Hidden Fortress
Thank god for the Japanese, or we might have Howard the Duck part V.
Just look at it, he's attacking the fans, Joseph Campbell's work as a whole (unrelated to Star Wars), various other random works of sci-fi, and I don't even know who Stephen Ambrose is but he doesn't seem to have anything to do with Star Wars. The author is just venting spleen in general and happens to have focused on Star Wars.
I heard the only reason he made the third one was because Temple of Doom was so bad and he was ashamed.
Of course, I have come to doubt that story, as I no longer feel he is capable of feeling shame.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
A good companion to this article is another Salon Article that ran in 1999 by David Brin. Excellent read on why Star Wars' morality sucks. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Huh? Isn't that the whole /point/?
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
Star Wars may have borrowed heavily from pulp sci-fi, but pulp sci-fi borrowed heavily from mythology. The pulp authors themselves would probably tell you that straight out....
I think we once had this site up on slashdot (too lazy to check). It definitely draws the connection between Star Wars and Pulp Fiction.
But I've always felt that the whole nine movie plan was a bit of revisionist history after people didn't get the "Episode IV" joke-cum-homage to old time serials ("...our story so far:"). Maybe I'm just looking for evidence of my own crackpot theory, but the movie is full of stuff like that: irising in and out, deliberately clunky cross screen fades, villains in crazy costumes, hysterical cliffhangers (the compactor scene mentioned in the article for instance)...it's all from those fun old serials. Doesn't lessen the impact of the movies for me, but by the same token, the Campbell/Jung stuff doesn't increase it.
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
Star Wars is pulp sci-fi. And it is Campbell-esque. Just like The Matrix is high-budget pulp sci-fi, draped with overtones of Buddhism and Christian mythology. Geez, why do people have to be so binary?
Campbell's ability to generate whirlwinds of cross-cultural references makes his chatter sound tremendously erudite [...] but once the dust settles it's hard to grasp the point of it all.
Dare I say it, this Steven Hart fellow looks to be using the Lucas/Star Wars aspect as a cheap hook to gain a wider audience for his anti-Campbell viewpoints.
And as thousands of /.ers bang on Salon's servers, you gotta admit -- it worked.
Didn't Lucas himself say that Campbell-ianesque mythology was a major (the major) influence for writing Star Wars? I seem to remember this from an interview with Lucas. I'll try and dig this up and post it as a reply....
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
A troll on Salon? [cough-horowitz-cough]
Some blowhard jackass out to pad their self esteem by panning someone else's work? [cough-wagner-au-cough]
The hell you say!
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
Finally someone who dares to go out on a limb and state the obvious. The article is somewhat lofty and tries to put classical literature on a pedestal, but still manages to get the point through;
Star Wars really is pulp fiction (pulp=trash).
Now granted, tastes are like butts, i.e. everyone has their own (Swedish saying), and SW was extremely successful.
I am of the view, however, that the major reason for the success is the novelty of the trilogy (there had been nothing like it ever made) and a stunning luck in choosing the setting of it.
All sci-fi-fans deep down know that Lucas doesn't really get it...
Die dulci fruere. Have a nice day.
Ok, I didn't even make it through the Salon article. (Speaking of pulp...) But it looked like they really missed the boat.
I thought it was pretty common knowledge that the first movie was based on Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress? Lucas readily admits that it was a big inspiration.
Everbody do yourselves a favor, and rent Seven Samurai, and a couple other random Kurosawa movies. They're all a hell of a lot better than Phantom Menace.
setting the story aside, anyone ever notice the similarities between the star wars films and Akira Kurosawa's samurai films? IMO star wars is a blatant ripoff of roshamon and the hidden fortress, Lucas even tried to get toshiro mifune to be in star wars as obi-wan kenobi. Just another example of how george lucas really does suck as a writer/director. Only thing he seems to be good at is franchising and creating hype around a series of movies that were made 20 years prior.
If you like computers and Linux it stands to reason you must give a crap about Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
Yes, Lucas is a bit too self-important, and yes Star Wars (and the rest) owe quite a bit to science fiction.
However, this article is so one-sided and vindictive it's ridiculous. Like it or not, Star Wars does draw some of its themes from mythology. It does fit with certain archetypes, and that's probably why it was so broadly popular instead of just being popular with sci-fi geeks.
For thousands of years, people of all cultures have told stories of heroes that shaped their culture and helped form their perception of the world. We no longer have a truly coherent culture or enjoy the belief in heroes like Beowulf or King Arthur -- so we go to movies and search for heroes there. No one believes that they're going to grow up to be Luke Skywalker (I hope...) but the movie satisfies a craving that we all have for heroes -- that's basically all Campbell and Lucas are saying, though they try to make it sound much more complicated than that. There are plenty of other reasons to enjoy Star Wars, but I believe that this was a huge factor.
> I don't see why someone wouldn't have already claimed that lucas didn't write ESB.
Perhaps because...
1. Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan are credited for the screenplay and Lucas is not? So to the public, there was no controversy as to who wrote it.
2. Leigh Brackett died after writing the initial screenplay, before the movie was made, so she wasn't around to contest claims made by Lucas and Kasdan.
3. Lucas and Kasdan wrote ROTJ. The weakest film of the original three.
4. Lucas wrote Phantom Menace. The worst of the four. Brackett's mysterious pseudo-spiritual Force from ESB becomes something you might get in your breakfast cereal in TPM. "Wheaties: Now fortified with midichlorians!"
Lucas didn't start making grandiose claims about myth-making until he had a hundred million dollars in his pocket. At that point, you spout whatever claptrap you like and the adoring public eats it up.
Later on, TPM woke up the adoring public, causing them to re-evaluate their earlier adulation. "Hey, Lucas isn't as great as I thought he was!"
Remember, Lucas borrowed from all the sci-fi of the day and a TEAM of artists created the Star Wars look and feel. Lucas is no visionary.
Why does Salon seem to go to such great lengths to "pop" Lucas as a "gasbag"?
I don't think it matters if Lucas intentially tried to use classic myths as basic plot-lines. Isn't it a good argument that Star Wars was as popular as it was BECAUSE it hit on so many deep rooted cultural myths? Intentially or otherwise?
I think Salon is using the "if I call someone BIG dirty names, it makes me BIG" line of reasoning. -jhon
- Star Wars Holiday Special
- The Ewok Adventure
- Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
Of course, an honorory Golden Turkey Award has to go out to the slop that was Star Wars I: The Phantom MenaceStar Wars, love it to death, really isn't even pulp sci-fi, it's a trite story with sci-fi trappings that could just as easily been a fantasy, or a western or whatever. It just happens to have a sci-fi-ish skin. Technically sci-fantasy even, since the science aspect isn't even considered. But I still love it, love the sci-fi skin, love how campy it is even. Hell I even love Episode one, well, sort of at least.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I still think Star Wars is a fun film. There is no shame it being influenced by the likes of Frank Herbert.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
So what if it does borrow from mythology? Mythology's value is that it tells stories common to all people. If it were especially intelligent or innovative, it wouldn't have been understood by enough people to become mythology.
Mythology's value is that it is old, not good. How many people do you know who have read the Bible cover to cover? How many good movies have been made about Gilgamesh?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
There's no question as to authorship. Lucas ONLY penned the outline. It was then given to Leigh Brackett, who tragically died after completing the first draft. Screenwriting duties were then given to Kasdan, to revise from Brackett's first script. Lucas never really touched the script past the outline stage. (and what a surprise that it's by far the best script of them all...)
Yes I'm a Star Wars fan, but I don't consider Lucas Godlike. Or anywhere close.
He has a point.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces was an analysis by Joseph Campbell of the heroic myths in various cultures, emphasizing the properties they have in common. It has long been required reading for anyone producing a screenplay involving a hero.
In particular, the myths tend to follow a specific pattern, which has been copied for far more movies than Star Wars.
I don't see any sense at all to describe it as "pulp sci-fi" rather than mythology, because pulp sci-fi is also based on mythology. So are comic books, which I think are the best source for new myths. So are westerns. So is fantasy. Pretty much everything where the protagonist has a quest to defeat evil is based on mythology.
Not everything is mythological. Detective stories, where the protagonists' goal is to restore the status quo, are not mythological. Nor are comedies or romances that are purely personal. However, drama where an external conflict mirrors an internal, personal confict is all myth, almost by definition.
The only question is what Lucas had in mind. This has become obfuscated with time. I have the advantage to be 40 years old, and so I remember what the interviews said. Basically, Lucas' money from THX-1138 was running out, and he didn't want to get a job. So he made Star Wars. He based it on westerns and war movies, particularly the 1930 WWI movie "Hell's Angels."
Then it became popular beyond his wildest dreams. The idea that it would be part of a trilogy of trilogies came later. The "Episode IV" wasn't on until it was re-released. Joseph Campbell picked up on Star Wars as a way of teaching mythology. He could have used any of hundreds of pop culture references, but Star Wars was succesful on an unprecedented level. I'm sure that Lucas had heard of Campbell, but the mythology really is in Star Wars because that's what people do when they make certain kinds of arts.
is summed up in the title.
Lucas now believes his own bullshit. And he's attributed his inspiration for Stars Wars to *several* sources, underscoring how offensive his self-importance born of sf-film-geek worship really is. G'day.
Nothing that I've read about Campbell in any place other than the masturbatory presses that produce quasi-intellectual asides within E! and People lauds him in any sense for his belief in the World Myth.
His vision was that there was a sort of primal myth, variations on which were the substances of our myth.
He left it open to the god-like powers of the Interpreter-of-Myths (himself in his writings) to cram other myths into his distinctly Western, Judeo-Christianic views. While the "Water-Jar Boy" myth can be made to appear to fit into those characteristics, the actual meaning imparted by it within the group of people who tell it is far removed from Campbell's heavy-handed re-interpretation.
For myths that spring from the Western Classical and are influenced heavily by Judeo-Christianity, his analyses can be held as valid in most permutations of the more popular myths. Though a sufficiently creative interpreter can make them *appear* to, by re-locating them into the Western Sphere of Thought.
A bit dishonest, to say the least, though Campbell himself never seems to have realized this. (Those of his students who emerged beyond the fun-filled days of smoking weed and having deep conversations, however, did. And wrote extensively about it.) This is not to suggest that Campbell's impact is unimportant -- he did a tremendous amount of work in collecting and (occasionally mis-) cataloguing existing myths, and as I mentioned above, his interpretations remain largely valid for a particular subset of mythology.
Anyway, the point being that of course Star Wars fits his vision -- everything does. It's one of those annoying little self-enclosed bits of ignorance. All pulp science fiction fits it, too. Of course, it's all up to who is doing the interpreting!
It is a bit valid, too, for a lot of sci fi -- most of it is heavily influenced by Classical and Christian mythology.
Sorry this post is a bit disjointed, I'm debugging in the other window.
To Summarize: Campbell's system can be made to contain any myth within it; this is due to a flaw in Campbell's system. Star wars can be made to be contained within it. Milking that gave George Lucas some intellectual credibility with the uninformed. It also gave Campbell some recognition (and he did deserve some, make no mistake.), and perpetrated a sort of urban myth about George Lucas toiling by candlelight to reproduce ancient mythologies in space.
Pah.
The examination of Lucas' sources was interesting, but the rest of this article seems to be a bit too vitriolic, and contained absolutely zero in the way of new information or refutation.
He didn't even have the grace to properly explain and debunk Campbell's theories, which I think he should have, because I found his point to wander away from time to time due to a lack of support.
-l
I just had a mental image of a naked Palpatine! Arrgghh!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Allegation of plagarism aside, Lucas did create a Campbell-esque saga. The point that Campbell was making in his books on myth was that humans are and have been telling the same stories over and over again since the beginning of recorded history. So whether or not Star Wars was original, it did follow the cycle of myth as did the works on which it based on--or copied from. The reason the movie followed the cycle points to something fundamental about human nature or so Campbell beleived.
It's funny to me when a critic thinks they know more about a writer's creative process than the writer himself.
George Lucas once gave a speech at a shindig for Joseph Campbell and said that he wouldn't have been able to write Star Wars without having read Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces. So much for trying to discount Campbell's influence.
As for the pulp aspect, in an intro to one of the Star Wars tapes, Lucas also says he was trying to recreate the feeling he got from the serialized Westerns of his youth. Maybe the pulp style figured into that subconsciously, but he seemed pretty explicit about what he was going for...
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Before I go off on a rant, the article makes some valid points -- people have taken the Lucas/Campbell association way too far.
But then, the whole point of Campbell's research wasn't something you would go dig into and then use in the first place anyway; the point was that there were certain archetypal myths that people have always enjoyed. Lucas didn't need to have been familiar with Campbell's work or ancient Greek legends to have done something that agrees with Campbell's research! In a sense, as someone who'd studied a half-century of cinema (focusing on the good ones), he couldn't help himself but to follow it, subconciously.
Let's not replace one form of idiocy with another when we backlash against the first kind, k?
big deal, Art is built on other art. hell, are you going to sue Goya for Plagerising the image of venus when ever he depicted lady liberty?
come on people, he took the concepts from 20th century sci-fi and made them into somthing entirly its own. that is not plagerism.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The ripoff^h^h^h^h^h^hborrowing is obvious to anyone who has read any science fiction. Two of the movies feature sandworms -- the skeleton of a wormlike (or snakelike, worms being inverterbrates) creature in Ep IV, and the mouth at the bottom of the pit thing in Ep VI. Borrowed from that other (and earlier) classic desert planet, Arrakis (Dune).
It wouldn't be hard to find classic SF precedents for everything in Star Wars -- the difficulty might be in arguing which precedent.
But so what? Robert Heinlein admitted to swiping many story ideas from classic literature, "you just file off the serial numbers". (He also said that there are only four or five basic story ideas, the rest is detail.) The Star Wars movies are fun if you don't take them seriously, and thats worth a few entertainment dollars.
-- Alastair
I think people confuse Star War's excellent execution with its story. Lets face it, the story is very basic, nothing new. However, the characters are all believable, we care about what happens to them, etc. Its quite simply a well executed simple story. It would be insulting to compare this simple plot with scifi masters such as Asimov, Clarke, etc. Even though Star Wars may have an epic feeling to it, I think it lacks the complexity found in scifi. Scifi stories question our assumption of things such as society, social conditioning, technology, morals, etc but Star Wars really did not (as was not intented) to do any of these. Much like most Stephen Speilberg or Jerry Bruckheimer films, what you see is what you get; these movies are intended for the general audience and hand everything to you on a silver platter. Don't bother trying to find deeper meaning in them, just enjoy them for what they are: entertaining movies. If you want to examine humanity through film, watch a Kubrick, Aronofsky, etc film.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
> in my opinion ESB went a bit too slow.
The training scenes were slow, the rest was frenetic. Opens with a snow battle, then the Milliennium Falcon has to escape, they are pursued across space, Luke fights daddy, etc.
ROTJ: Droids walking across the desert. Jabba scenes are slow until they blow him up. Then Ewoks pop in. Leia communes with them (slow slow slow). Luke and the Emperor glare at each other for 10 minutes. Luke crisps daddy. Ewoks sing and dance for another 10 minutes.
"Once considered a sensitive actor, Reeves now gets by on his athletic bearing and stoic demeanor."
. . . yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking after watching Bill & Ted, Speed, and Johnny Mnemonic... He's a SENSITIVE actor. Whoa.
Ok, so Lucas stole all his ideas from far more talented people, the whole mythology thing was only introduced afterwards, and so forth.
Well, does it really matter?
I enjoy the movies very much - just the way they are. I don't need any background knowledge who wrote what and why.
Many times art lies in the eye of the beholder - not necessarily in those of the artist.
Or would you say that a beautiful piece of art is less beautiful just because the original artist didn't intend to create what many people see in it?
- The hero's mother is a royal virgin (we'll find out soon enough, I guess)
- His father is a king
- The circumstances of his conception and birth are unusual, and
- He is reputed to be the son of a god (close enough, I'd say)
- At birth an attempt is made, often by his father or maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
- He is spirited away, and
- He is raised by foster-parents in a far country (you know, a far, far away kind of country)
- On reaching manhood, he returns or travels to his future kingdom
- He of makes a journey to the Underworld, or the shades of the dead may visit him (the latter is obvious, I think the former is a bit more of a stretch
- AFter he triumphs over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
- He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
- He becomes king
the rest of it goes on about how his life ends, which isn't really relevant I suppose. Anyway, with a strech or two here and there and a bit of a twist with the whole princess thing, the trilogy pretty much hits every single point.Personally, I'd say it's more of a case of not being that original, rather than direct "borrowing" - people couldn't come up with anything new for millenia, and Lucas just isn't all that special.
sic transit gloria mundi
Give credit to Leigh Brackett, she wrote the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back and wrote several of the best movies ever made, The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo. I doubt that The Empire Strikes Back, frequently considered the best Star Wars movie, would be half as good as it is without her talent.
Star Wars was most heavily influenced by Japanese martial arts such as Aikido. Darth Vaders breathing, "The Force" = Chi/Ki, sword techniques.
Also Lucas admits to being heavily influenced by director Akira Kurosawa. And occasionally some film buffs will play scenes from Akiras "Hidden Fortress" and ESB side by side showing the similarities.
Would like anyone else to elaborate.
1.type in the following at a commandline (before it segfaults)
I know this is a troll, but I had to step back for a minute otherwise I would have spit the contents of my mouth (a burrito) onto my screen from laughter.
Hand one: Star Wars entertaining.
Hand two: Star Wars philosophical.
Hand three: Star Wars rip-off.
Who is the ONLY authority to actually determine the 'truth' of it? George Lucas. Period. Others are wasting our time be attempting to explain why it did well at the box-office ...
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
...about ten years ago, pretty soon after Return of the Jedi came out.
I've always found it funny that some people tried to form what are pretty fun sci-fi flicks into real literature of some sort.
I really liked the movies when I was a kid, but have a hard time sitting through them now. It is kinda like the Dukes of Hazard. It was a great show when I was ten.
Hm, I was pretty sure it was Flash Gordon (ooold sci-fi show) that the first Star Wars came from. You have Ming (Darth Vader), you have OB1-kenobi, you have Luke skywalker, you have OB1 going into the evil fortress and shutting down the defence shield from within... I forget if the Force was there or not.
Someone who has Flash Gordon memorized in their head, please post a better reply.
BTW, it is still appropriate to say that the work is related to Jospeph Campbell's, just as it would be appropriate to say that it was related to, say, Jung. That's because Joseph Campbell and Jung lay claim to wiiide territory and deep waters- pretty much anything in the realm of Myth, which includes Star Wars.
Lucas has ALWAYS Said that the Star Wars movies harken back to the old Sci-Fi serials he watched as a boy. He's never hidden this fact.
What is it about Salon and this gigantic anti-Star Wars bent? David Brin's article from a couple years ago was seething with resentment -- he was clearly REALLY annoyed that Star Wars, which is space opera (not hard SF) was so insanely popular. "True SF is the only way to salvation, not this populist trash! Curse Lucas for his success!" He went off on a rant about how Lucas's morality was going to destroy Western civilization or something.
Now we've got another guy ranting about Star Wars's faults.
Hey, dickhead -- it's a MOVIE. Sit back and enjoy it -- it's not worth having an embolism over.
Incidentally, Lucas and Kasdan DIDN'T write ESB -- but this is not news. Kasdan and Leigh Brackett did. Lucas had the story credit, but Kasdan and Brackett were the WRITERS. Who's claiming that Lucas co-wrote ESB?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
...that he took inspiration from multiple sources? He's acknowledged Flash Gordon, Campbell, Kurosawa, and Star Trek as inspirations already. Why is this a revelation? Does anyone think he tried to cover this up?
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
In spite of Lucas's pomposity, he persists in saying "it's just a kid's movie, so you grownups quit complaining about all the silliness." Star Wars has turned into a giant ad for kiddie merchandise. Someone should tell Lucas what C.S. Lewis said once - if it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for kids either.
Did you know that he actually believes that midiclorians (or whatever the fuck they are) are real? I remember reading an interview with him in Entertainment Weekly regarding "The Force" and his personal beliefs when Episode I was released. The man has taken his own fiction (which isn't his own, but that's excusable, at some level every creative endeavor is derivative of something) and turned it into his reality.
That and his fucked up, screw the people who made him (uh, that would be you, fans), sales and marketing techniques.
I give Lucas as much credit as I give to the craxy old man who wanders around downtown screaming. It might surprise you to find out that I give the screamer more credit that you might think.
The middle mind speaks!
Regardless of the "actual" origins of Star Wars, the film (and Empire and Jedi) touches a nerve. We live in a society where the only way to be a hero is to get lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time (a firefighter in NYC on 9/11). It isn't a profession.
So, most of us are sadly lacking in the rites of passage department. We seek out meaningful adventure in fantasy. Through Star Wars we could live vicariously, and go through the classic struggle that Luke went through. Campbell or not, it's still a hero's quest.
George Lucas borrows elements from many sources. WWII aerial fighter footage, religion, mythos, Kurosawa films, pulp fiction, and even his other works. How can anyone say with certainty that Lucas was lying when he says that his main inspiration was Campbell and the mythos of mythology? Just because the films have many resemblances to a certain genre doesn't mean it is homage to that genre.
Its undeniable that the current state of the american Sci-Fi movie makers is to take some few parts of a book (or dozen books) and cobble them together into a movie, and this is fine by me.
Why is it though that when they find some wonderful story that they decide to take to film, they apply the same formula? I refer here to Starship Troopers, a truly wonderful read, but when converted to a movie it may as well have been "Tremors" plot wise.
This is why so many sci-fi junkies have turned to anime, in which the story usually comes first. (or at least the series that make it through the import filter (or download) seam to be more concerned with story than the garbage that makes it through Hollywood)
Really, when it comes down to it some of the greatest stories ever told are variations on a theme...good vs. evil. Good struggles versus evil, evil rises in power and looks like the hands down favorite for winner...but wait! Good makes a comeback and defeats evil. The end.
Sound familiar? It should, much of our entertainment, history and culture is intertwined with this concept. Examples? Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible (or many other religions, ancient and contemporary, for that matter), The Lord of the Rings, Erin Brockovich...the list goes on.
The fact that Star Wars is similar to previous works is rather inconsequential since prior art for most anything can be traced very, very, far back.
Oh, and the nerve of accusing The Matrix of ripping off Nueromancer and then mentioning Blade Runner in the next sentance! Ridley Scott defined the look of cyberpunk thankyou... and even he was borrowing from others. A bit of Omega Man, a touch of Babel 17, some Felinniesque visuals, with just a sprinkle of A Clockwork Orange for good measure.
It's been said over and over again for nearly three millenia (and probably longer), but the Preacher of Ecclesiastes is still right: There is nothing new under the sun.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
I find it hard to believe that the author of the Salon article, or the authors of many of the "me too" responses about the problems of Star Wars, or of the lack of respect to the original source, have ever sat down and worked on creating more than just a short story. Creating a world, like Lucas has, is not easy. There are MANY influences, operating on many different levels. To believe otherwise is as simplistic as believing that Santa Claus must exist, since there are presents around the tree on Christmas morning. George Lucas has long acknolwedged the sources of his inspiration, such as comic books and pulp novels. But something as complex as a series of movies based in a consistant world does not have one source or inspiration.
While Lucas may have been inspired by the Lensmen, that is not to rule out other levels of inspiration. As J. Michael Straczynski has said, in regards to his creating and writing most of Babylon 5, you can't consciously think on an archetypal level, otherwise, you keep second guessing yourself. Many writers who are strongly focused on creating a universe of their own are often, consciously, or unconsciously, in touch with the archetypal structures and characters which show up in Star Wars, Babylon 5, and even in other movies and books.
I don't see why it is impossible for Lucas to draw inspiration from multiple sources. To suggest otherwise is silly. I couldn't help feeling that the author of the Salon article, and several posters here, are doing nothing more than showing a snob attitude, as if to say, "Hey, this is no good." It's as if people can "prove" their elitist tastes in culture, art, and intellectualism by arguing against something popular.
Star Wars is what it is -- a series of movies that is a heck of a lot of fun. It is also a thinly veiled morality play. The fact that it is one does not deny the ability for it to be the other as well. Look at Hamlet. It was written to make money, to compete with The Spanish Revenge Tragedy. MacBeth was similar -- on one level these plays are to give people a sense of fun and adventure. MacBeth, at a simple level, is also little more than swords and ghosts, at a deeper level, it is a morality play, and even deeper it is a fascinationg insight into the workings of the human mind. Shakespeare had to make his plays popular so people would pay to see them. His plays work on many levels. The same is true with Hitchcock's best movies, and the same is true of Star Wars.
I think the bashers, both here and on Salon, are more interested in showing off by bashing something everyone else likes, than they are in just getting a life.
There's a difference between I Am Serious About Making A Fun, Dumb Movie serious and This Movie Is Not A Dumb Fun Movie But Part Of The Great Tradition Of Epic Storytelling, And I Am A Latter Day Homer serious.
D'oh!
;-)
This article provided some interesting suggestions to the origins of the science fiction mythology of Star Wars.
;-)
However, the article was majorly flawed in suggesting that merely because the characters, locations, and plots in the films resembled those of previous science fiction novels, George Lucas MUST have ripped them off. While the similarities are striking in some instances, the argument is nonetheless groundless in that there are no direct connections proven between Lucas and the other works. We don't know if he has indeed ever owned or read the works in question, or discussed them with someone who has.
In short, the argument wouldn't hold up in a court of law.
Second, the author misses a major point by making the implicit assumption that the written medium is equivalent to that of film. Even if Lucas had ripped off the cited works entirely, he had still created a new, and powerful work, portrayed on film. There are numerous examples of direct adaptations of books where the film had quite an artistic integrity of its own right ("Dr. Zhivago" and "Remains of the Day" pop immediately to mind), and others (ie, "The Matrix") which blatantly stole from other works, but nonetheless were an outright success in and of their own right.
In short, I think the author of the Salon article secretly wishes he had one tenth the success of Lucas.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Not being the Cambell expert that this guy claims to be I might be wrong. But, wasn't Cambell's whole thesis that Star Wars draws on deep cultural refrents so old and so universal that they appear in everything?
:)
Therefore, even if Lucas is full of it, even if his whole friendship with Cambell (which started after the first movie came out not before) was a scam, and, even if he did copy it from old movie serials and pulp mags such as Flash Gordon isn't Cambell's thesis is still correct? Hasn't he just drawn on the same shared mythos as the rest of us?
To my mind, the only one "blinded by snobbery or the need for self-inflation" here is Steven Hart who seems to be taking the whole discussion waaay too personally.
Although, I do agree that Lucas is kind of a Gasbag
According to a report from the pulp-fiction-writer-turned-cult-creator L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event held by the scam "Church" of $cientology, David Miscavaige (L Ron Hubbard Wannabe) Scientologists were responsible for the Berlin Wall coming down too...
"It appears that just before the Berlin Wall crumbled, a small but secretive Dianetic Auditors Group had formed behind the Berlin Wall. They became active and Viola! The rest is history."
/me just *lol's*
... or even if you don't, check out this link, about the marketing of Star Wars.
I dearly love Star Wars when I take it as a fun and campy type movie (series). When it is cheesy good-guys fighting somewhat less cheesy bad guys and the somewhat less cheesy bad guys are doing really bad things such as blowing up planets, sacrificing dancing women to monsters and getting beat by dumbfluck Luke Skywalker...then we are looking at what I would say is the best aspect of the films...their fun factor. Now, the more you analyze Star Wars the less fun it gets...for me...so I stopped. I am not stupid to say it is a great film...but it is a great film to watch and get into. (of couse, I am possibly the only person in the world not pissed off at the Ewoks (though wookies would have been cooler).
Hidden Fortress is a rip off of an American Western staring John Wayne called "The Searchers." John Wayne is quite young in it. Rent it or buy it if it is on DVD. It is totally worth it and is one of the best pieces of American Film making from that time period. John Wayne plays a Luke Skywalker type character who decidedly drifts to the dark side!
Akira Kurosawa was the director of Hidden Fortress. John Ford was the director of The Searchers (1956).
The link to Pulp Fiction for Star Wars was researched ages ago right after the movie was released. Actually there are more ideas stolen from WWII films in Star Wars than their are from Pulp Fiction as far as I am concerned. The cockpit of the Mil. Falc. is ripped straight from that of a B-25 Bomber and the Cantina scene is film noir in color!
Enjoy!
Lucas rips off^H^H^H^H^H is inspired by Japanese culture in a many ways:
Light sabers = samurai swords
Kimono-like clothing styles esp. in Phantom Menace
Japanese naming and Japanese language-derived terms:
Obi = belt/sash
Wan = Harbour
Kenobi - Means nothing but Japanese syllabary
Jedi from "Jidai-geki" = "period drama"
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
When Starlog gets their index page set up, I'll be able to look for that issue -- maybe it was May of '77 -- that had Star Wars as its cover feature -- it's the one with the X-Wing being strafed and the logo in purple. I bought that at a supermarket way back when I was fifteen, just a couple of weeks before the movie came out.
In it, Lucas describes his long-simmering idea for an action story that drew inspiration from the Saturday morning serials (science fiction and Western genres both) of his own youth. I didn't read about this mythology masturbation until a whole lot later -- well after the trilogy was finished, IIRC, and after Joseph Campbell became a household name thanks to the Bill Moyers interviews on PBS.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
But it's Salon that's taking this too seriously? Right -
-L-
... Mark Twaine wrote Star Wars. It's good because of what it IS, not who WROTE it. Regards, Guspaz.
...a Western with some sword fighting thrown in. Of course there's "the force" and all the mumbo jumbo pseudo-religion surrounding it...but doesn't the force seem more like a "treatment" of ESP and such, than religion? I've enjoyed all the movies (Jar Jar can be over-looked), but I don't think Lucus had a truly new or amazing vision when he wrote the first one (4th I guess). But I do think he has a wonderful sense of the visual and a gift for action based story telling.
I don't disagree with the author of the Salon Article's ideas except that it completely ignores the references to classic Hollywood in the Star Wars movies, which to me are far more obvious. Light sabers came from the Errol Flynn swashbuckling movies, the gun turrett in the Millenniam Falcon was exactly like the B17 gun turrets in World War II movies, the speeders banging into each other in the forest in Empire Strikes Back was the chariot scence from Ben Hur. Also like Ben Hur and Sparticus, the Imperials use Brittish actors (the Romans) and the Rebels are mostly portrayed by American actors (the slaves). Jar Jar Binks *is* Stepin Fetchit. There are many more examples but you get the point.
Suprised that you are all this stupid. Star wars is a direct rip off, scene for scene of a 40's or 50's (my memory fails me) black and white movie about an emperor in china. There was a slashdot article a year or 2 ago about it.
What I found REALLY fascinating is that the author is so strongly defending science fiction as a sub-culture. Absolutely refusing to admit that science fiction has any foothold in mainstream media.
Have geeks really fallen this far that we have to DENY mainstream media the RIGHT to include science fiction just so we can feel good with our own special sub-culture?
Look at how recent books and movies have done, it's time to admit that sci-fi and fantasy ARE mainstream now.
Where's Howard the Duck?
I think the effort to determine the ultimate derivation of any given story is a fruitless one. To say Star Wars came from pulp literature, or that it was derived from ancient mythology, or that it was ripped off from a Japenese film is a wasted exercise.
What Joseph Campbell was trying to say (to a non-academic audience, not well versed in the study of folklore) is that Star Wars has many *motifs* that are shared across many cultures that are illustrated in the stories they tell.
Bottom line, all stories we tell are derived from other stories we have heard. Therefore, saying that Star Wars was derived from pulp fiction is incorrect. However, was it influenced by pulp fiction? Probably. The question that anyone who is studying the evolution of anything would naturally ask next is, "if Star Wars was derived from pulp fiction, what was pulp fiction derived from..."
I just don't know that anyone can definitively say what the true genesis of any story is because they all borrow quite liberally from each other.
^byrne :/
I have no idea why you all worship the pathetic universe that george lucas created. he stole ideas from so many sources, and then credited them as his own. His plots are hackneyed and trite, and deserve no more praise than the last carrot top movie. And, for all you who drool over natalie portman, you really have no taste. I guess its because she was a female, playing the lead in a movie in the universe that you worship. all of you, get a life.
It's no mystery who wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. It was Leigh Brackett. It says so in the credits. Go and watch them again.
As for Campbell and other influences, Lucas didn't write with the intent of impressing him. He was clearly paying homage to the old Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. It's even more obvious in the Phantom Menace. Lucas borrowed the storyline from Akira Kurasawa's The Hidden Fortress for A New Hope. When you see it, you will know who R2D2 and C3PO are based on.
If you really want to know where George Lucas got his inspiration watch the short film George Lucas in Love.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
the roots of George Lucas' empire lie not in "The Odyssey" but in classic and pulp 20th century sci-fi.
Is there anything wrong with that? Homer's Odyssey *is* the fantasy pulp of the 8th century BC. Opera was the equivalent of, well, soap operas and even Shakespeare was just popular entertainment. Only much later they have been canonized as "high culture".
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Overlooked in the Salon article are the parallels between Star Wars and Jack Kirby's Fourth World series at DC (1970-73) and Howard Chaykin's Cody Starbuck (1973-74). Kirby's main hero, Orion, was the secret son of the series' main villain, the uber-evil Darkseid. Chaykin's book was a rip-roaring swashbuckling pirate story masquerading as space opera (but featured the main element missing from Star Wars - overt sex). And, of course, the first Star Wars film was a labor of love never designed to be a "trilogy" - too bad Lucas has sacrificed a promising career as a decent filmmaker to be the caretaker of the sacred scrolls...
After hearing such ado about the Campbell book and its influence on Mr. Lucas, I decided to read the thing for myself. An interesting read, if rather flowery/academic/pedantic. One thing that stood out, however, is how a writer COULD use the conceptual framework Campbell puts forth and "push the right buttons." Yes, dear readers, you can use classic literature and myth to create formulaic fiction. Anyone surprised by this, increase your oxygen intake. As far as Star Wars goes, Mr. Lucas didn't do a particularly good job of developing the archetypes Campell dwells enlessly on, but hey - Star Wars is hardly purely character-driven. If you doubt that, consider this - if the film was set during WWI or WWII, would it be the same big deal it is? Nope - it would be called Saving Private Skywalker. Wait, a formulaic war story...? Hmmmm..... IMHO, Star Wars is exactly what is looks like - a kickass SciFi serial that set a pretty high benchmark and resurrected Science Fiction as a viable commercial film form.
Frankly lots of people have made the connection between star wars and old pulp fiction rags long ago. You can see it just from the titles. And incidentally, from this perspective, episode 2's title makes sense. Just add some exclamation points and imagine them on the covers of Shocking Tales! or something.
The Phantom Menace!
Attack of the Clones!!
?
A New Hope!
The Empire Strikes Back!!
Return of the Jedi!
That said, paying homage to something is not the same as ripping it off. Just because there's a connection doesn't lower the value of the movies(or raise it, for that matter).
hot foreign sheep.
The pod run it's a remake of the run in "Ben Hur".
Anakim in face of the Jedi concils is a remake of the young Jesus Christ in face of the Law Doctors of "The life of Jesus" of 1953
Hundreds of millions are being spent on promoting the "Star Wars" series in every form, fawning pieces on Lucas are broadcast on "60 Minutes", and local newscasts are going to have a camera crew around to watch the people waiting in line for weeks outside the theaters.
Uh yeah, but thats all just business. People seem to like the whole starwars franchise and Lucas will wring as much soggy cash as he can out of the thing before it implodes in a jarjarbinksian mush of uncoolness.
air and light and time and space
"...Also makes the suggestion that Lucas/Kasdan didn't really write The Empire Strikes Back..."
Jeez! First Shakespeare and now Lucas. Does nobody write their own stuff anymore?
King Solomon was right there is nothing new under the sun, it is just repackaged and sold for $19.95 a pop.
Maybe the problem is that I was 13 when I saw the movie... and I had a crush on Leah Thompson, and the movie took place in Cleveland (where I live)... but I thought Howard the Duck was "entertaining." Who can forget the bachelor duck reading about hot chicks in PlayDuck, or the principal from Ferris Beuller turning into an alien and sticking his tongue in the cigarette lighter socket to "power up?"
Howard: "Where am I?"
Leah: "Cleveland."
Howard: "What a name for a planet."
Leah: "Are you lost?"
Howard: "Do you think if I had a choice, I'd be stuck in CLEVE-LAND?"
Guess you had to be there.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
That Mr. Lucas has been retelling stories that have always been dear to our hearts. Yes, we knew that they weren't Original, and sure, the anthropologists among us said it was just a standard myth...but it was a *good* retelling of those stories, and it helped put the Magick back into life when the world's concept of good culture was bad dance songs and and recycled art work.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I thought it was pretty common knowledge that star wars was influenced by Akira Kusosawa's works, like Seven Samurai.
I could not agree more with this article. Star Wars and the whole industry it has spawned are maggots on a dead dog. Star Wars is a mediocre movie at best, "ESB" is modestly good, and the rest suck bilge water from the straits of Panama.
Sure, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced venison when it first came out, but i was 12 years old, so I have an excuse. Now I don't have any problem with people enjoying a simple action movie. My problem comes when people pretend that it is not only more than a simple action movie, but that it is right up there in the literary pantheon.
It doesn't even measure up decently with its literary kin like the eminently entertaining works of Dumas, Sabaitini, and Hope. It's dreck. It's pretty dreck. It's vapid, predictable, and dull.
I'm not trolling here. I really think that the Star Wars franchise is a boring pile of cliches, and it is a source of perpetual wonder to me that people go ga-ga nuts over it.
I believe Steven Spielburg once said that there are only 4 movie plots:
Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Nature vs. Nature
Dog vs. Vampire
Why can't people admit it - when they saw the original StarWars they loved it because they were kids at the time. Today's kids loved "The Phantom Menace" and will no doubt love "Attack of the Clones" but for those of us who saw the original as kids the magic isn't going to be there because we're not kids any more.
Everbody has one....
And this is just that one guy's Opinion....
I for One enjoy Star Wars and always will I could careless where it came from....as long as I enjoy it....
But damn i hope EP2 is better than EP1 was...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Wait a minute...I thought we were all supposed to be BOYCOTTING the MPAA?
People on slashdot are quick to say "RIAA/MPAA sux!" and then go out and buy a Metallica CD and watch LOTR:FOTR 12 times.
Make up your minds!
As far as over analyzing, no, this is not an over analyses. There are whole academic fields of study(American Studies, anyone) devoted to analyzing pop culture. This article's analysis is rather interesting, relevant, important, and [largely] true!
The first glimpse of Skywalker's desert homeworld, Tatooine, evokes the setting of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune"; Lucas even throws in a shot of a skeletal desert serpent reminiscent of Herbert's gigantic sandworms. The amazing visuals suggest an eye nourished by the magazine art of Frank R. Paul, John Schoenherr, Kelly Freas and Chesley Bonestell.
The giant-skeleton scene is nearly identical to a scene in the 1966 film "One Million Years BC."
In 1MYBC, John Richardson portrays "Tumak", a caveman who is expelled from his tribe, and wanders through the desert. En route to discovering Raquel Welch's tribe of blond-haired, blue-eyed cavemen, he passes by a giant half-buried skeleton. Once you've seen both films, the homage is unmistakable. Similar skeleton, identical visual composition, even the MUSIC sounds similar.
This article is proof that way too many English Lit. majors don't have jobs.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
This article mostly rehashes previous criticism about the Star Wars films.
To name five off the top of my head. Sci fi is a distinct genre, worthy of respect like other genres. It is not just fantasy, nor is it Westerns with the serial numbers filed off. A lot of what is called "science fiction" is ill-disguised fantasy
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Folks are missing an important point here. Anyone who truly understands the Law of Fives or the Church of the Subgenius will probably already get this. For those that don't, consider this: http://www.totse.com/en/religion/the_occult/libr00 4.html. It's both a serious occult study and a joke. Thus endeth the lesson.
I was pleased to see someone else who instantly recognized Coruscant as equivalent to Trantor. I don't expect to see the Foundation Trilogy on film in my lifetime, so it was nice to see some Trantorian establishing shots, by any name.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Take a look at Darth Vader's parallels with Doctor Doom......
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
I never actually saw the Phantom Edit and I'd like to know where on the web I can find a copy.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
If you've never read any mythology before then Campbell is interesting because of the breadth of his knowledge and the number of enticing references to sprinkles throughout his work. But don't, for God's sake, take any of his interpretation in the least bit seriously.
-- SIGFPE
It's always seemed pretty obvious to me (I thought Lucas had stated this before) that pulp sci-fi serials were part of what Lucas was attempting to recreate with Star Wars. Look at the titles of the movies: it's pretty obvious with "Attack of the Clones" that it's campy, but "Star Wars" has been said so many times that people just don't realize how hokey it sounds.
That doesn't mean, however, that mythology and mysticism doesn't play a large part in the movies, though. You have the Force, like Chi; Dark/Light sides of the Force, like Yin and Yang; an epic tale of one man's journey from a nobody to a somebody that "saves the world/galaxy" (with both Anakin and Luke Skywalker)... and a million other points others have touched on.
I think that even though the movies are very enjoyable and have a definite "gee-whiz" feel to them, they still have multiple layers of meaning and imagery to be deciphered however you like.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Yes!
Honestly, folks, what we have here is an over-intellectualized pissing contest over who is more "cultured."
bzzzt
"I'm sorry, that's incorrect, but thanks for playing"
ALL entertainment borrows from other entertainment. Some well, some poorly. Over time, a collection of "archtypical" stories has emerged.
They're fun to compare. But other than that, it's no big deal
Move along. This isn't the topic you're looking for.
Yojimbo -> A Fistful of Dollars -> Warrior and the Sorceress (an Italian flick with one of the Carradines swords, ponchos, and nekkid chicks)
Get all three and watch in that order.
Be prepared to laugh, cry, or drool...
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Campbell never advocated any 'world myth,' certainly never any primal myth which supercedes more concrete folk wisdom/religion. I fail to understand where you intuit Campbell's "Judeo-Christian beliefs."
_Hero w/ 1000 Faces_ shows up on a lot of creative writing syllabi, but Campbell's real masterwork is the 4-vol. _Masks of God_, an extensive survey of mythology from cave paintings to James Joyce. His point, made there and elsewhere, isn't that there's one myth--a misunderstanding perpetuated by lazy readers of _1000 Faces_--but *patterns* in the way people come to grips with the world. Jung called them *archetypes* and believed they were hardwired into the brain; Campbell is less certain. Common ground is equally found outside the gray matter: every creature has seen the sun rise in the east and set in the west, seen the moon go through its cycles, the stars glide through predictable paths. That the patterns of life are reflected in the patterns of myth is not due to the superimposition of any "uber-myth," but instead to the commonalities of life on this planet.
It takes Campbell two volumes to get to "Occidental Mythology" because that's where it comes in the timeline. By the time you get there with him, you be hard-pressed to extract any sense of a "Western, Judeo-Christian" view. Quite the opposite. The advent of Zoroastrianism and Christianity are something of disappointment to the writer, a time when the forgiving cycles of the regenerative world circle were forsaken for a doomed and transitory world which must be redeemed by the righteous. And here you do get some sermonizing, the same Campbell offers whenever discussing the west: don't take yourself so seriously.
He's also wont to stress that mythmaking isn't a conscious process; nobody sits down and dreams up a religion--and that's my personal beef about this whole Campbell/Lucas 69. Lucas treats Campbell's scholarship like a paint-by-numbers kit, or a cake mix: a dash of virgin-birth, splash of transformation, et voila. It happens all the time in those creative writing classes, but only Lucas had the press agents to make it stick. You always hurt the ones you love.
But that's an old old story, now in'nit.
This article is VERY flawed. It has failed to take into account that Lucas' association with Coppola, Spielberg and others and the natural influence they would have on each other. It is dismissive of Campbell's influence without adequate evidence. Additionally it seriously FAILS to take into account that OBVIOUS advances of TIME, TECHNOLOGY as well as US (the viewers) perceptions of the series due to expectations, the series' influence on the rest of the entertainment industry, and that same industry influence on our perceptions on the series. The article seem to have been done by looking for evidence to fit its pre formed conclusion. IMHO
Star Wars fits neatly into the genre of "Space Opera", with a slight hint of science fantasy thrown in.
Popular themes, concepts and story lines get reused. Here's a suprise, great concepts like the wise old master, the invincible hero, the hot-shot loner, the evil villan behind the mask. All of these concepts were used long before Star Wars and long before Asimov and popular s.f.. The Star Wars movies were not some sort of mythical awakening, they are entertainment. And ready for this, so was the s.f. that preceded it. And the myths and legends that preceded that, guess what that was? Entertainment. Yes ladies and gentlemen, with the exception of a few pieces, very little writing is written with anything more than a simple moral or goal in mind. No one set's out to write a world changing piece, they set out to write and make a story that get's their view and opinion across. What makes something revolutionary is when it's done well enough to appeal to enough people to make them want to follow the moral or lesson of the story.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I agree that many of the "Star Wars"/myth correspondences are pretty streched. However, the Salon writer stretches things just as thin. Tatooine as Dune? Why, because they are both deserts? Common, why don't you compare it to Lawerence of Arabi The skeleton in the desert like a sandworm? Sure, only a completely different shape.
His comparisons to the Lensman series are better, though the disdain in which he apparently holds it would seem to mitigate against his conclusion that Lucas should credit the pulps.
Have you seen any of them? They are all horrible horrible departures from the Indiana Jones character.
Temple of Doom wasn't that bad, not good by any means, but it wasn't bad.
Anyway, the point being that of course Star Wars fits his vision -- everything does. It's one of those annoying little self-enclosed bits of ignorance. All pulp science fiction fits it, too. Of course, it's all up to who is doing the interpreting!
And this is exactly what makes mythology so powerful. Look, you can analyze the cannon of every traditional or popular story in the world, and they essentially break down into 7 to 12 types, depending on who you ask and how fine a sieve you run them through. Why do we find adventure stories interesting? Because of a deeply-rooted (I would venture to say pre/sub coscious) affinity for adventure. Same goes for romance, mystery, comedy, etc.
I've seen some amazing foreign language comedy that almost made me piss my pants without understanding a word. There are certain things that speak to people more or less universally.
These basic tropes of culture (not just entertainment... this is where values really do come from) bear out certain commonalities between disparate peoples. The details, the styles, the appearances, these things change from time to time, from civilization to civilization. Of course anyone seeking to observe this will be prejudiced by her/his origin culture, but that doesn't make the investigation invalid. It's just heisenberg's uncertainty principle operating on the social and metaphysical level.
Campbell's system can be made to contain any myth within it; this is due to a flaw in Campbell's system.
You might also argue that this is the strength of Campbell's work.
The great Pulp stories, the great westerns and crime novels, they are the most mythic of all: they just tend to be rush jobs with poor attention to detail and not a lot of staying power. Of course Star Wars draws from the same sources. or at least the first film does... my contention is that Lucas struck gold once and then turned from prospecting to strip-mining in short order.
The difference between Star Wars and Pulp is the level of detail, craft, and emotion that is invested in it. Star Wars (the movie, not the franchise) looks dated today because of the 70s hair cuts, but other than that the story is still iconic in its power.
You must understand that this forum is not the best place to discuss such things. Many people here love Star Wars for the tech-whizbang factor, droids, lightsabers, x-wings... all the things self-respecting geeks are into. That's why they stay fanatical. But what I think you and I are addressing is a much deeper and more substantive issue.
When the first movie broke in '77, the people who freaked out about it were from all walks of life. It touched a chord, not by being above average SF, but by presenting something that people could believe in. This was my experience seeing it as a child, and it's backed up by the stories my mother told me about seeing it in the theaters. Contrary to everyday life in the Regan era, here was a representation of simple, humble values that triumph over avaristic megalomania. Growing up in an agnostic household, I was one of the many who looked to mythic stories such as Star Wars and the work of Tolkien to hand down a basic set of morals and values, and since I think I turned out ok, I have to be greatful to some extent to these authors and filmmakers.
But my gratitude has limits. Since striking gold with the first film, Lucas has been more and more aggressively humping the fantasy for every dollar it's worth. I think the perfect representation of Lucas's change can be found in the Phantom Menace, during an Exchange between Young Obi-Won and the Computer-Generated Flying Junk Salesman. Obi-Won has been trying to use his Jedi Mind Tricks(tm), and the CG character says, "haha, the force doesn't work on me. Only Money."
That about says it all.
Howard Dean for president
Thanks for the great mental picture.
Read the article. Prima facie nothing, it's a bit deeper than that.
The corruption and mistakes in the Federation can be addressed and fixed from within. The Federation is democratic, and sometimes the democracy even works well. Contrast to Star Wars, where there is no recourse against tyranny except rebellion. The democracy portrayed in Episode 1 is a shambles.
The villians in Star Trek use subterfuge and are not always easily discernible by their actions and outfits. Some of them have understandable motives, like self-preservation or stealing better technology for their species. Contrast to Star Wars, where the villians wear sinister outfits and have openly expressed plans to conquer the galaxy simply for its own sake.
The actions of the main characters in Star Trek are not above the law and do not supersede normal mortals. People are court martialed, and the prime directive is important. Contrast this to Star Wars, where the redemption of Darth Vader for saving his own son redeem him from the murders of thousands of innocents, including the destruction of a planet (Alderaan). There is no scale.
The heroes in Star Trek are the human ideal, but not truly superhuman (with exceptions like Data, who is still not perfect or the main character). Star Wars Jedi Knights and Sith are technologically and physically superhuman. No normal man could defeat a jedi in a fight, in piloting, or engineering.
Brin makes a good argument that Lucas is bombarding us with propoganda in favor of aristocracy. That may not be an expressed intention, but that is the result. Star Trek is certainly idealistic, but it favors democracy.
The writer of the article needs to come back to earth, because this fact is well known in literary circles forever. Earth to reporters "remember all the novels, classics and poems you read in class." As other great writers have said in the past, "to be a good writer, read good writing and forget where you stole it."
You know, I would have modded you up if you hadn't used the world "Magick". It's called magic, and whatever portion of it there is in Star Wars has nothing whatsoever to do with Crowley, sado-masochistic Wicca or whatever you may find exciting enough to motivate your mis-spelling of the word.
I am not saying it is correct...
Click here or here.
Chewie: grunt, grunt, roar, roar, snarl (translation: do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese on Endor?)
Han: they don't call it a "Quarter Pounder with Cheese?"
Chewie: roar, grunt, grunt, roar (no man, they got the metric system, they wouldn't know what the f*ck a quarter pounder is)
Han: then what do they call it?
Chewbaca: roar, roar, howl (a Royale With Cheese)
Han: "A Royale With Cheese"!, what do they call a Big Mac?
Chewie: grunt, roar, snarl, snarl, grunt, grunt, roar, snarl (a BigMac is a BigMac, but they call it "Le Big Mac"
Han: "Le Big Mac", hahaha. What do they call a Whopper?
Chewbaca: howl, howl, snarl, roar (I don't know, the Empire blew up the Burger King)
Scene: Princess Leia on the dusty floor, her shirt open revealing a lacy green bra, she's not breathing.
Yoda: Look, you brought her here, and that means that you're giving her the shot. The day that I bring an OD-ing princess over to your cave, then I'll give her the shot.
Lando: bring out the gimp
Bobafet: but the gimps sleeping
Lando: Well, I guess you better go and wake him up then
Darth: Hand me my wallet
Leia: Which one is it?
Darth: That one that says "bad motherf*cker on it"!
ObiWan: Now let me ask you a question, Luke. When you drove in here, did you notice a sign out in front that said, "Dead droid storage"? Luke: ObiWan... ObiWan: Answer the question! Did you see a sign out in front of my house that said "Dead droid storage"? Luke: Naw man, I didn't. ObiWan: You know why you didn't see that sign? Luke: Why? ObiWan: 'Cause storin' dead droids ain't my fuckin' business!
This is .. http://www.pulpphantom.com
I AM SCI-FI
Use DOS from http://www.freedos.org - isn't it "free software" that you're ranting against? At least be consistant. Yes I know.. .Trolls don't need to be consistant, only annoying!
The first glimpse of Luke Skywalker's desert homeworld, Tatooine, evokes the setting of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune"
The claim that Star Wars is influenced by Dune because it is set on a desert planet is the biggest crok of sh-t I have ever heard. By the same logic, is Lawrence of Arabia based off of the Dune series? They both take place in the desert...
There is a good reason that tons of sci-fi takes place in the desert. And it is not because of the Dune series. Hollywood is very close to the desert. It is much cheaper for a film crew to recreate a desert planet (just go twenty miles down the road and make sure there are no discarded Bud cans in the shot) than making a jungle planet (fly down to S. America).
sigs are for panzies...d'oh!
Gee, you think?
"No Luke, I am your father."
"To keep you safe from the emporer, your twin sister [who you french-kissed in an earlier episode] was separated from you at birth".
And how about those droids that just keep coming back to the same circle, over and over again, by coincidence.
Finally SOMEONE is realizing this...In other news, somebody finally realised the world was round, the Sun rises in the east, and the oceans are rather wet.
Points are not valid.
Points are true or false
Arguments are valid
A valid argument is based that the conclusion follows the rules of logic from the premise
If the premises are true and the argument is valid, then then conclusion is true.
An argument is a connected...sorry, I was channeling Michael Palin for a second.
Was this the half hour argument or just the five minute?
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
This guy could write the dialog for comic-book-guy on The Simpsons.
"And like that
An interesting page that talks about some other Star Wars influenced stuff in a far less sensationalist way:
http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/other.html
e4 e5
I am a big time, major Star Wars fan. I am in it for the lightsaber fights, robots, spaceships and the explosions -- that's pretty much it. I don't have any geeky complaints when Lucas decides to change the "timeline" or whatever. If you invest that much emotional bandwidth into it, you are just asking for trouble. Screw all that talk of "mythological archetypes" and other nonsense. Lucas: just keep me entertained, that's all I ask. (I will freely admit that Episode I had some problems in this regard.)
When Episode I came out, I think the expectations were too high. People had this belief that Star Wars was some kind of religious experience, the Second Coming of Jesus or something. I hope you remember it: this was the single most Anticipated Event in cinema history. Don't look to Star Wars for that kind of importance -- you'll be disappointed every time.
I am looking forward to Episode II because it will have lightsaber fights (tons of them), space battles, robots, and evil Jedi.
I also think it's interesting that, with Episode II, Lucas seems to be making a statement about government, use of force, and civil rights. In context after 9/11, it couldn't be more timely. (Yes, I have read the script.) Whether or not you agree with his message (I don't, entirely) it adds an extra level of complexity to the movie as a whole. I think the themes in Episode II will hit close to home for everyone.
I agree that Lucas's original intent was not to create a modern mythological tale, but to create a modern Saturday Afternoon SF serial (only with a much larger budget). But to call SF "mere" is to insult hundreds of writers who have sweated blood over their work. Remember that when William Shakespere was writting, his work was "merely" accepted by the general populace as an afternoons distraction. It was only after his death that he had been evelvated to the level of literary god-hood.
The author of the article sounded like some Literary Snob...
Different in a bunch of ways, but basically the same - bickering servants instead of droids, no "force", and so on...
The Salon article did not even bother to mention this movie! I guess that's because it wasn't SciFi, and didn't owe anything to anybody.
No, it didn't say "Episode IV" or "A New Hope" in the original. That was later, just like turning the original Jabba The Hut from a not-very-memorable-in-person Casablanca-like Fat Man into His Green Jabbaness was also a revision after "Revenge Of The Jedi" was so wildly successful.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
what about Cat vs. Gnome, eh? Forgot about that plot, didn't ya? Totally forgot Cat's Eye, didn't ya?
And what about Cat vs. Evil Werewolf? (Okay, cats vs. Evil Werewolves).
Damn cat haters.
What a discovery!
Salon.com's "revelation" that the Star Wars series has a lot in common with classic sci-fi is extremely old news. We knew this almost 25 YEARS ago, people! George Lucas is well documented as having said the series pays homage to Hollywood serials and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, among other things. Most people already knew Star Wars is a clever derivative of popular influences, except for Salon.com's clueless writer.
As for the Joseph Campbell reference, the influence he had on Star Wars is way overblown by Bill Moyers, and doubly so by Salon's writer by casting another light on it. That reference should be obscure to the point of complete triviality. I don't think Lucas was nearly as serious about a Campbell association as Moyers, who is really stretching a thin argument.
This brand of Salon.com journalism doesn't pass the "so what" test.
--
Buy a fscking clue. Or steal one. Or rent one. But get one.
"Folks just call him Buckethead." -- Les Claypool
.... when the world's concept of good culture was bad dance songs and and recycled art work.
Yeah, I think that's why it attracted me and my buddies. When we drove to Seattle the day after high-school graduation in 1977 to see it on the wide-screen we weren't looking to learn about the meaning of life, just to see a cool movie.
I think a lot of "historical re-visionism" in Hollywood is no different from how lots of cultural artifacts (painting, literature, drama) have, through the ages, been propped-up after the fact to support somebody's agenda.
What is all this to someone who never saw Star Wars like me. If you want good movies go watch Telugu movies then you will know.
It should be the Matrix. Ok David Brin was kind of on target but at least some of the things he said can be argued against: the Rebel Alliance seemed to be an alliance of all races and beings in a republic (sadly the movie is a little too much *Zap* *Boom* *Bang* to focus on this). And at least they were only attacking known military installations (the Death Star, the Star Destroyers, etc) instead of blindly razing citizens (ala some terrorist folk we know).
But now the Matrix. Damn... ok, maybe it is JUST because so many people gush about it... but what about the morality of this movie?
Morpheus points out explicitly that they are killing people even if the Matrix is virtual. That even though these nameless Redshirts and slobs are just doing what they're told because they are a part of a group hallucination it is ok to murder them en mass in extremely violent and callous ways why...?
Because we are righteous? We are doing the best thing? We are destroying the evil dictators (in the most round about way possible)?
Tell me, did Trinity and Neo have to go through the bottom floor? Did they have to kill 30 or 40 guys? Especially when they end up grabbing a Bell Huey anyway? "Who cares! They're nameless spear-chuckers! In the end their sacrifice won't be in vain!" Sounds a little: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
And then what about the evil tyrannical machines (beyond the FUD ludditism of the movie)? They specifically said that human beings couldn't live in a utopia so they made the Matrix the way it was.
"So?" the leather-clad hippies retort. "Where was our choice in the matter?"
What. Like the same choice you gave those SWAT guys? And the fact that the Agents possess normal humans doesn't stop Neo from blowing all them fuckers away. "Yeah! Coool!!! Bla-dow!!!" Yep, no ethical quandries here!
"But they eat people!!" Oh Jeezus. And like, when it's all over, people can just do whatever the hell they want? Anyone here get their food, house, and shelter for free? Anyone out there going to live forever that I don't know of?
And when they win: Earth is a barren wasteland with no sun and no way to support the billions of freshly freed humans (well those that survive the blazing machineguns of the "Freedom Fighters"). "Gee, thank you!" They'll all say. "This is much better!"
The only moral of the entire movie is this: Man is paranoid and reactionary. When he is not in control of his own destiny (no matter how self-destructive) he will violently lash out, blindly ignoring the consequences.
What is music when you despise all sound?
That excluding the occasional mystic references that didn't have a whole lot to do with the overall plot, the original Star Wars was a Western. Young man on the frontier, parents slaughtered by the bad guy's gang, learns to be a gun-fighter from the grizzled, philisophical old man, teams up with a callous drifter (with a heart of gold in the long term), uses new-found skills to beat the bad guys, gang leader escapes just in case there's enough money to make a sequel, townspeople have big celebration and make him the marshall.
The ripoff from "Heart of Darnkess"/"Apocalypse Now" always seemed obvious to me. A journey through increasingly bizarre situations (think ice plant and cloud city) leading up to some confusion about deity status (with the even more bizarre Ewoks), finally leading up to killing the guy who was terminally corrupt.
Maybe it's just me, though.
JT
Buddy of mine in the industry worked with Luke Skywalker, and, Luke, himself related that he and others thought the script read as a spoof and were set to play it as such until told it was a 'serious work' to be played straight. This is of course hearsay but then this deals with Hollywood. Anyway in simpler terms if Starwars does not equal classical myth And Starwars does equal Pulp Fiction then the possibility remains Pulp Fiction equals Classical myth. Whether Shakespeare, as Ben Jonson told us, knew little latin and less greek, there is no doubt Shakespeare had a handle on the ingredients that brew classical drama. The lineage, the American experience bundled in, is direct to all forms of modern literature. Poe instigated SF (debatable?) and Poe surely was deeply immersed in the classical tradition. Trial by ordeal or by Contest is ancient and remains forever indebted to classical myth.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Lucas obviously created the original Star Wars as an homage to pulp serials and even "started" the series at episode 4 like you were seeing one in a line of recurring serials. All the other little devices (redefining Luke's relationship with Leia, fer example) that were included in subsequent movies are nessasary to cover up the fact that Lucas didn't realise how big a hit he would have and that the original movie was a one shot deal. I 'm glad I'm not the only one who gets this. I mean, don't get me wrong, I stand on line for the Star Wars movies too, but let's not forget why sequels are made. Money, not because of the quality of the story. If Star Wars had had sucky box office numbers....
The Pope: Still Catholic (P.S. Noam Chomsky is a Knob)... by David Horowitz
Don't Look Now, But Bears Are Defecating in the Woods! ...by Amy Reiter
Water: It Sure is Wet... by Garrison Keillor
Special mp3 Audio presentation by Armistead Maupin: "Hail Unto Me, I've Recently Observed That the Sky is Blue."
Jackbooted Republican Thugs Will Have You Shot and Killed in the Dark Future -- Oh, And Today is Wednesday... by Tom Tomorrow
... and they want you to pay $30 a year for this stuff.
Funny how there was John Brunner 20-30 years earlier...
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Distillation of this article:
"Star Wars sure is commercial. Boy, I sure am clever for knowing about E.E. 'Doc' Smith and Lensman, you clueless sheep. Everything good about Star Wars is the responsibility of someone besides George Lucas, because he sucks and stuff. I liked 'Rocky' better."
In spite of Brin's very perceptive rant, referenced by other articles here, there's more distinction between good and evil in Star Wars than most movies of the time - compare it to, say, The French Connection and other Watergate-era movies, where the protagonist isn't particularly better than the Bad Guys.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No matter what I knew or did not know about Campbell (I actually know very little), this would only convince me that the author wanted me to hate Campbell. You don't even get a good picture from the article exactly why he hates Campbell so much, just that he really, really does.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
The writer has his own agenda beyond bshing Lucas. Science fiction writers have been banished to the back of the bookstore for a long time, and worse one cannot break out of it once one is pigeon-holed there. He is really angry at the marketing of publishers, Star Wars just gives him a vehicle (although the point about Empire Strikes Back is telling).
As for Stanislaw Lem, he and Cordwainer Smith ARE the greatest science fiction writers ever (just ask him- he certainly told the SFWA about it). Here is his home page. Note that Soderbergh and James Cameron are in on the movie.
My suggestion is start out light with the Cyberiad, go to Pirx the Pilot, then move up to the Star Diaries, the Futurological Congress and Solaris.
Cordwainer Smith wasn't mentioned in the article, but he's the spiritual and emotional side to Lem's freewheeling tech and savage satire. His real name was Paul Linebarger, and he practically invented modern American Psychological Warfare. This is his daughter's website which like the Lem website will give you a taste of the writing.
Two novels came out in 1964 about heroes from a barren world that produced drugs humanity is dependent on- Dune and Norstrilia. I love Dune, but Norstrilia is better.
Finally, Legends of the Galactic Heroes shows Star Wars, Babylon 5 and Star Trek for the small little tripe they are. Space Opera has never been so big.
Check them out!!!!!
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
After watching the movies and playing the games, Star wars becomes very campy:
-There are only two droids in the Galaxy of any consequence.
-Out of all the businessmen in the galaxy, Lando is the one you inevitably meet up with.
-Somehow, for some reason you will end up at Cloud City
-Out of the hundreds of rebellion frigates, fighters, and cruisers, the Millenium Falcon will always be the one to save your ass.
-You will be looking for trouble, and you will find it when you inexplicably end up at Tatooine AGAIN.
-If your last name is skywalker you will never die in a fighter. Your wingman, your backseater, even your droid will be blasted, but you will NOT die.
-Even though you're in the deepest darkest most unimportant sector of the Star Destroyer/ Death Star/ Base/ Compound there will be a detachment of storm troopers guarding it with their lives.
-When you walk into a bar while you are inexplicably on tatooine, you will immediately notice all forms of life in the bar each getting several seconds of your eye's attention.
The complaint is not that his work is rooted in science fiction. The complaint is that he won't admit it. At least not publically. I'm not sure why any of this matters though. The first three were good, ESB the best, and TPM was horrible. What's more to know?
Somebody mod this up! Please! In two short sentences and a question, this guy has summed up everything that is wrong with this whole debate!
"Our war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." --Tyler Durden
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The author of the article points out in great detail how similar Lucas's series is to that of E. E. "Doc" Smith's classic space opera Lensman series. However, he then states that while Lucas's dialogue was unpronounceable by his actors, Smith's words were unreadable.
Perhaps I need to go back and re-read the Lensman series again. I haven't read it in about 20 years, but the last time I read the series, I thought it was corny fun. It's truly cheesy in many ways, but it's completely unpretentious about its cheesiness, in spite of the grandiosity of the plot. A space opera even occurs within one of the books as a form of entertainment for the characters.
Regardless of the criticism of both series, I think both series represent good fun when they're at their best. Lucas's series definitely has more downs than ups so far, but the ups have been terrific.
I believe the article missed the real point in its attempt to expose Lucas's mythology pretensions. All great stories are simply retellings of the same seven basic plot types. It should come as no surprise that one can find parallels between Lucas's work and stories from mythology or from the recent dimestore pulp magazines and novels. Lucas is no great screenwriter, but Star Wars *does* borrow heavily from many other influences. If he stole from pulp, then he stole from mythology because pulp stole from mythology.
Shakespeare certainly didn't make up any of the stories he told. Virtually all of his plays were based on well-known stories of the time. His genius was in stripping the stories to their essential themes and then dressing them up again. Shakespeare's stuff is contemporary today for that reason.
The ancient Greek playwrights basically told the exact same stories over and over, yet we still regard Sophocles as one of the greats because his version of Oedipus Rex stood the test of time.
The greatness of Lucas's work isn't whether it's original or where it draws its influences. It's in how quickly the audience can immerse itself in the story and how enjoyable and memorable the storytelling ultimately is. SW:ANH, while clunky at times, is a remarkable piece of storytelling because it's fun and the audience can't help but be swept up in its infectious enthusiasm. SW:TESB is an even better piece of storytelling because it explores the characters in greater detail and allows for more gray area, rather than drawing the characters as pure archetypes. Lucas's other efforts to date have been decidedly second-rate compared to those two movies, but that shouldn't give critics carte blanche to savage his work wholesale.
Oooh, burn! You tell 'em, Hermit!
I read somewhere a long time ago (I think it was an issue of Wizard: The Guide to Comics) that the attraction a reader had (They were tackling this same topic in the letters section) to Star Wars was the obviousness and absurdity of the entire series.
The villian is dressed in black and wears this grotesque head gear and has a rasping respirator with a deep sinister voice, so you know w/o a doubt that this guys a total bastard.
The Jedi wear their robes and such and have a strong belief in a mythical "Force" that symoblizies a spiritual existence that relates them to peaceful Monks not so far off from those of today and their ages old predecessors.
Then there are the aspects borrowed from ages old stories of good versus evil that have been around for years that are painted so obviously throughout the first 3 movies it's a nice escape from epics painted in subterfuge and guessing games. You know who's who, what's what and you get to sit and watch them kick the shit out of each other.
These guys are just pissed that Lucas (and I by no means praise George like a deity) put all these bits and pieces together and it became more popular than its predecessors.
Perhaps it was gleaned from other works but why should Lucas give credit to anyone? As far as I know the story of good vs. evil has been around in various forms long before even humans (Predator/Prey).
Quit bitching and just deal with the fact that it is what it is, you either like it or you don't. I do.
No sig for you!!
has lucas violated the spirit of the DMCA with his stealing others IP?
I don't buy a lot of what that Salon article says. Most liteary works are derivative, it's not very often that something truly new comes along.
It seems to me that with the Star Wars trilogy Lucas tied mythology, Eastern religion, and WW2 dogfights together into a great trio of movies.
Who cares where he got his ideas? Nobody else made those movies, does anyone disupute he directed them??
Actually, in a sense he's correct, Star Wars does trivialize the non-heroes, and the heroes are people greatly affecting others. Of course, there's a good reason for both of these:
1) When writing a story it is common to centralize on main characters and trivialize the rest.
2) When writing a story it is common to choose main characters who have a central spot in history or fake history. Or, it is common to choose characters who seem this way and then exagerate to extreme.
I've often seen these precepts come together in history books. For example how much smarter than average do you really think Isaac Newton was? Einstein? How about a couple poorly known guys like Tesla and Maxwell? People need heroes (and Gods?) and have been known to create them if necessary. I've not seen too many people get hurt over it, and I've seen a lot of good kids grow up idolizing someone.
In this case, I think plargiarism and laziness play much more into the making of star wars than any political motivation.
One final thought, it was strange reading Mr. Brin's article because I've always felt that his books layed things on a little thick in the opposite direction... Good books, but the ideas about the device that gauges initial reactions and the class society stuff in Uplift War were pretty off the wall.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
The sad but harsh truth is that the Star Wars series is a blatant, poorly disguised and badly executed rip-off of Asimov's Foundation series (written in the 50's) and Herbert's Dune series. Read them and you'll see names and scenarios that are too close to be mere co-incidence.
This article seems to be more of an attack on Joseph Campbell, than commentary on Star Wars. Why insult a dead man so much. Campbell pointed out the similarities in a lot of good stories from around the world. The author of this article seemed not to get Campbell's point. Myths and `pulp fiction` both draw from the human experience and will as a result share some common elements. Noah's ark and Gilgamesh are remarkably similar yet no one clams that The Bible stole the ark story. Or that Gilgamesh is a rip-off of parts of the bible. There are quite a few common elements in many stories. Many people call them ARCHATYPES. This is not a new concept. The brother's Grim pointed the striking similarity between folk tales all around the world. Is Star Wars a myth or is it just pulp fiction? I think it is too early to tell. The person who wrote the story of King Arthur probably was not thinking about making a myth, just telling a story. I think the author is just angry that his work is not as popular as either Lucas OR Campbell.
Who's your favorite character in star wars?
Remember archetypes?
Remember the collective subconscious?
Campbell just popularised a dumbed-down Jungianism...
I actually tried to read one of his novels once, and was glad to find the article also agreed that they were 'unreadable'. I guess SF, like all arts, has to start somewhere, but couldn't it at least have been something you could read.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
...it's only a movie...
WWW
El Ronny H!
lets overanalyze.....
clear phallic symbols
- lightsabers
- darth vader's helmet(purple to the colorblind)
- R2D2(clearly almost a chode)
- x-wing(it rams and explodes the big circluar
womb(death star)
- the force (it penetrates us)
STAR WARS IS FUN
That's about where the ostensible similarities to Star Wars end.
Someone ought to put in a good word for John R. Campbell. He did more to nurture SciFi than any other figure, as he ran and edited SciFi pulp mags in the 30's and 40's. These were the venues that provided the growth medium for many of the classic scifi writers.
To hear the gods laugh tell them your plans.
The end mirrors Jedi, actually. We have one space battle, one lightsaber fight, and one ground battle.
And it is VERY significant that the victories are accidental. The structural comparison is Jedi, where Lucas invites us to see victory as a product of Luke's conscious choice to disavow violence. It is only AFTER he renounces violence as a means to an ends that we get the victory scenes literally hit us in order. Should we be surprised that Anakin does not make the same moral choice??? Of course not -- and if you read the film's visual imagery, you'll notice that the ending of TPM is remarkably negative. Day falls to night, characters are cowled, etc. Compare the mournful funeral of TPM to the celebratory one at the end of Jedi.
Skeptics may want to remember that no character EVER wins in Star Wars through violence. Even in the much reviled TPM, the good guys need to be "disarmed" before they are allowed to carry the day. Cute or not, it is hardly accidental that Jar Jar's "wesa give up" line is followed immediately by the collapse of the droid armies, that Anakin's guns overheat, that Obi-Wan loses his saber, or that Amidala "gives us" before her decoy appears.
A broader error of the article is assuming that Lucas draws on pop culture unintelligently. Many of his references are quite deliberate. It is hardly accidental that he makes visual allusions to "Ben Hur" in TPM, or "Triumph of the Will" and "The Searchers" in ANH for instance.
EOM
If you don't have the time or inclination to read the David Brin article, the following quote captures the sense of it:
This saga is not just another expression of the Homeric archetype, extolling old hierarchies of princes, wizards and demigods. By making its centerpiece the romanticization of a mass murderer, "Star Wars" has sunk far lower. It is unworthy of our attention, our enthusiasm -- or our civilization.
Jeez, Dave, calm down.
I read this article, and an article it linked to, "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists
Neither of these articles look very favorable on Star Wars. They are entitled to their opinion, but I tend to disagree, at least on some points.
The Star Wars movies are not a visionary gift that we have been granted by Wise Sage Lucas. The Middichlorians never happened, much like Highlander 2. Jar Jar exists for the solepurpose of getting gibbed in Ep. 2. The movies as a whole are, however, very entertaining, and they do strike chords deep in our cultural selves.
I'll relate it to bibical history, since it's what I know. The Jedi may well harken back to the Lensmen (I don't know, this is the first I have heard of them), but they also harken back to the Judges of the Old Testament. Both are the leaders and protectors of their nation. Both are choosen and annointed by some higher power. Both have their heros, and those who fell from grace.
Both tell the tale of a youth that nobody expected much out of, but who went on to a great destiny; Luke Skywalker in SW, and one of the most consistant themes in the Bible is the choosing of the younger son, despite cultural norms
Both paint morality in terms of black and white, right and wrong. There are servants of good, servants of evil, and peopel caught in between.
The link above also rails against the redemption of Darth Vader, saying that is a moral outrage, but this is one of the clearest messages of the Bible; repent, and you will be forgiven. Everything is not magically made better in either case (Vader still dies in the end, after all), but your soul can be at peace.
I could go on, but I think you can see the parallels. Now, is Star Wars a religious experience? No. Is the Trash Compactor scene a re-telling of Jonnah and the Whale? No. But Star Wars does share common threads with many of our oldest stories. It is not surprising that it shares threads with other, modern stories, especially if they are drawing from the same archetypes.
The article I linked to goes on to compare SW and Star Trek, saying that ST paints a better future, one where technology is our friend, governments are beningn, and normal men can successfuly challenge these benign governments when parts of them get out of hand. It then asks "[w]where would you rather live, assuming you'll be a normal citizen and no demigod? In Roddenberry's Federation? Or Lucas' Empire?" Good question. A better one, though, is where are you more likely to live?
One of the things I like about Star Wars is that it takes an esentially believeable univers and adds space travel and magic. Technlogy sometimes fails. Ships get banged up now and then, and there isn't always a replicator around to whip up spare parts. 3PO has a silver leg because that's all they had laying around. And all-powerful governments are not benign; they are a thing to be fought, in just the same way our country was founded.
Thomas Galvin
We can mostly agree a few things. One, that George Lucas is a pretty horrible writer and not a great directory either. Two, that the Star Wars trilogy was by and large an enjoyable trilogy of films, and probably one of the most successful trilogies ever. Three, that whatever failings we find in them (and we all know there's plenty to find), we enjoy them because for many of us, they are films that we grew up with or out kids grew up with, toys we played with or bought for our kids, and that the franchise's enduring popularity in the face of such wretched drivel as TPM is a testament to that impact it had on a lot of people. It didn't have this impact because of deep mythological themes, it had that impact because the ships looked cool, we all wanted to be Han Solo, the good guy wore white, the bad guy wore black, and the sidekick that got shot was OK in the end. We liked it because it was a pretty typical film with bad acting and it was a lot of fun to watch. That's REALLY all there is to it. Geesh.
2) Yes, Lucas did have myth in mind - Obi-wan and Han were once the same, Gandalf/Merlin-esque character. Luke and Leia were also split off from a combined female lead. Lucas was heavily borrowing things from Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and he consulted with Campbell at points!
3) As for the screenplay: Leigh Brackett, Leigh Brackett, Leigh Brackett...and Irwin Kerschner.
Now why didn't this silly little piece surface on April Fool's Day?
Campbell wasn't about scientific reductionism. He was a fan of mythology, and he studied it with zeal. --And as is natural for anybody with a creative mind, he saw grand patterns emerging in the material. He took pleasure in exploring and illustrating those patterns for others. It's ridiculous to think that somebody could get upset or bothered by any aspect of his work. And it's downright hillarious that anybody would approach with anything resembling a stuffy accademic high-brow attitude.
"Follow Your Bliss"
When you understand that, you'll understand Campbell. Until then, I recommend you seek some quiet time.
-Fantastic Lad
I agree aabout the holiday special. I remember watching it when it was first on, at the time I thought it was cool being 6. I recently watched it and the only part that is redeeming is the cartoon where we have Boba Fett originally introduced. It is actually pretty funny and almost a paridy.
As for the ewok movies if your a little kid they are actually enjoyable considering that is the type of audience they are written for, kids love cute stuff.
He put skeletons of sandworms in the desert of Tatooine. It was no stretch at all to draw the comparison because Lucas pretty much admitted it by putting a skelton of a 50 foot tall worm in the bloody landscape.
Lucas read SF; he knew what he was doing.
jk :)
Actually I think it's a bit silly to take it too seriously, myself...I like starwars, having seen Empire more than any other movie - although it's the best from the series thus far, it's easy to poke fun at - the dialog alone is shait (Irish for SHIT) in some parts:
Wow! that got him!
Not to mention phrases like, "nerf herder!"
Still, any related movie has these holes too, so I hope they start this "deeper meaning" shait with the Matrix - guess it's too late though...really now, humans+cold fusion = batteries?? Wouldn't a pasture matrix with cows or other mamals be MUCH easier???
Oh well...
Come on, the congruency is uncanny... I've known this for years.
Bo & Luke == Luke & Han.
General Lee == Millenium Falcon
Dynamite Arrow == Lightsaber
Uncle Jesse==Obi-wan
Daisy==Leia
Cooter == Chewbacca
Roscoe P. Coltrane == Darth Vader
Boss Hogg== Emperor
Cletus==Boba Fett.
The Boar's Nest==the Death Star.
My favorite quotes:
"Use the Bow........... Luke"
" A gyug, gyug, gyug! My little fat Emperor Buddy!"
"Hep me, Unca Jesse! You're my only hope!"
I could go on, but is that really a good idea?
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Lucas copied off of Campbell? Gee, I thought he just ripped off Frank Herbert. Oddly enough, I remember reading that Herbert thought so too.
wags
I know who he is, but I haven't read any of his work, so could someone explain the barb:
Some of the borrowings are as close to theft as anything on the Stephen Ambrose rap sheet.
The irony being that he kills his way to the top out of love. As late as ESB he's still rambling on about using violence to bring peace to the galaxy.
Exactly the trap Luke falls into in Empire.
I suspect that the stories our preliterate ancestors heard around the campfire were at least as crappy as most of the things we sit through today. This reasoning is based on nothing other than human nature. A minority of humans are good storytellers, and a minority of those are capable of telling stories that can inspire original thought. While some lucky tribes might have gotten a Kafka or a Lem, most would have been stuck with the same tired dirty jokes for centuries. Even worse would have been the "I descended from the Bear Spirit but you descended from the Worm Spirit" political propaganda yarns. While I will freely stipulate that tastes have changed, even a group of cavepersons would eventually decide to bash each other over the head with clubs rather than keep listening. If I may be permitted an aetiology of my own, perhaps this is what held back Homo sapiens as a literary creature for the first couple hundred thousand years.
I'm no scholar, but I suspect that most tenured anthropologists aren't particularly scandalized by Campbell's association with even someone like Lucas. I'm highly suspicious of "archetypes" and any reasoning based on them. Much of Campbell/Eliade/Levi-Strauss/Structuralist BS/etc. strikes me as a gigantic set of sampling errors. Once you get past "this story is typical in that it features a protagonist", I doubt the validity of any universal narrative theory. So while it is interesting and valid to say "this movie is a rip-off of this other movie" or "Shakespeare may have had this Celtic myth in mind when he wrote this", arguments from mythic authority for any work are bound to fall short. Star Wars is just as childishly entertaining as I thought when I was a kid, and is just as derivatively silly as it seems now.
later,
Jess
I am programmed for etiquette, not destruction!
well, not entirely a rip-off, but certainly Star Wars has enough elements of space battleship yamato.
Homage to sci-fi serials is exactly why Lucas says he gives the movies stupid names like "Attack of the Clones". He's admitted this himself! Brilliant deduction there, Salon.
Of course Lucas didn't write the Star Wars trilogy. He ripped the story off Akira Kurosawa, as so many American directors did. Lucas just took the story out of Japan (it was called "The Hidden Fortress", or "Kakushi toride no san akunin"), and gave it some neat visual effects. Lucas is good at neat visual effects. He's also good at advertising shit so every type of person imagineable will go see his movies. Not that I'm claiming the whole N'Sync cameo in Episode II was just another way to draw jaded teenagers.
George Lucas never mentioned making 9 movies prior to ESB. During the publicity blitz for that movie is when he started talking about a trilogy of trilogies. I remember thinking as a boy, "now, why didn't I now about that sooner."
Recently, I came across some evidence to support this. First, if you watch the Making of Star Wars, towards the end of the video, it's obvious Lucas has no idea what's going to come next. He's even appears uncertain as to what will happen between Luke/Leia/Han (who will get the girl!).
Secondly, while in a bookstore a couple of years ago, I came across a reissue of the first non-film Star Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. According to a new Forward (written by the author Alan Dean Foster), Lucas commissioned Foster to write the novel before SW was released, in case the film did well enough to warrant a sequel. The goal was to write a story that could be filmed without a huge budget (most of the story takes place in a sound-studio friendly swamp world). But, Star Wars was released, and the rest is history.
I think people are woefully forgetting that movies like the original Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were in many ways akin the old movie serials, but instead of seeing only 12-15 minutes per week in the theater like it was back in the 1930's and 1940's, the whole story is presented in a single two-hour movie.
In short, it was Lucas' homage to these old serials, thrown in with influences from things like the Akira Kurosawa movie The Hidden Fortress.
I'm not sure if this is apocryphal or not, but didn't Lucas wanted to direct a new Flash Gordon movie originally?
ddasdfasdfasdf
you bastard, please put a SPOILER tag in your post so you don't RUIN the movies for everybody.
-rp
OK, the "command voice" shared by Jedi and Bene Gesserit adepts is a good comparison. I wasn't trying to imply that there were no connections between Star Wars and Dune as critizing the articles presentation of it.
No, that's not how it works in general. Some parts of the EU are appointed by elected representatives, others are elected directly.
I stand somewhat corrected. I would have done better to name the United Nations in my original post. In any event, it is still rather removed from the people. Not all of Europe is particularly excited about the Euro, from what I've heard.
Furthermore, to refer to elected representatives as a "ruling class" is, in general, incorrect. In a functioning democracy, representatives don't have power personally, they represent the power of their constituents. Only when democracy goes awry, representatives start acting in their own interest, and can hold on to their positions unreasonably, can they be said to have "power" and constitute a "ruling class".
Every democracy that has ever existed went awry on day one, by this definition. Certainly every Western government. You have power if you CAN act in your interest, even if you don't choose to. Unless there is a perfect candidate as competition, a representitive will always be able to act in their own interest. Keep in mind in the original post I was speaking of Star Trek (r) Federation planets and only refering slightly to European countries. I'm not willing to believe an entire planet can be a democracy.
Actually, that's not true. You are forgetting that most people don't spend all their time on elections. If you only have time and energy to participate in a few elections, you are more likely to get what you want if you elect representatives that then take on the burden of negotiating and choosing other representatives for you.
That's a good argument for adding ONE layer, but once you vote for one representative, that representive SHOULD be spending all of their time on government, therefore further layers are unneccesary. Further layers always make things less democratic. Such layers may be needed if the government is too large (either because it governs a large area or because it provides so many services), but that's the dilemma--you can be democratic or you can be big, but not both.
Two World Wars forced America to abandon democracy in exchange for power and size--why Europe is determined to do the same thing in a time of peace is beyond me.
as any of you that have ever written anything knows, all your inspiration not not flow from one source (unless you're incredibly narrow minded). I would say that visually and plotwise the SW movies owe much to the classic sci-fi movie serials of the 1930's and 40's. If you listen to the audio commentary on TPM DVD, you'll hear how they spent hours trying to figure out the sound used in the Flash Gordon serials whenever a video message was being recieved (it turned out to be a flute). In addition to this, there are many elements of mythology (principly greek) used in the story. Lucas was an anthropology major before he switched to film. I'm not saying he put any great deal of thought into it, I'm just saying that the characters were there in his life, as a part of his studies, and he used them. There are many more images, characters, and story lines used by GL from the films of Akira Kurosawa. Anyone that has seen the Hidden Fortress will see huge simularities between it and SW. I do not see, however, and reason the spend vast amounts of time insulting Lucas, as the article seems to do. Joseph Campbell is using Lucas as a vehicle to promote his books, not the other way around. "Oh Joe, please please let me be on your show. My movies aren't doing so hot and need the air of authenticity that you bring."
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot