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."

Comments

Looks like someone doesn't like Campbell...

[realgone]

After reading the article, it seems like the author's gripe is less with Lucas -- inspiration's hard to quantify, after all -- and more with Campbell and his theories (or more precisely, how they're applied in popular culture). Take a gander at this bit from the article:

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.

He's not even credited with it

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Not Pulp Sci Fi -- Just Pulp

[jgerman]

Star 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.

Backlash, and missing the point.

[Rimbo]

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?

Ignorance on parade

[Rand Race]

One usually has to read the works of a scholar before denouncing those who claim to follow it. Being a semi-adherant of the historical school as typified by Graves, I'm no big fan of the Campbell/Jung school of 'universal' mythology although it has it's points. However, one of Campbells main ideas, and his best theory IMHO, was that the themes shown in mythology are not only common across all historical societies but that the same themes are still the basis of our own stories and tales. Tattoine looks like Arrakis? They are both the friggin' Wasteland for Kibo's sake. Lucas didn't rip off Smith's Lensmen, they both ripped off the Knights of the Round Table which stole from Homer's Greek and Trojan heroes who in turn are updated versions of the heroes of the Upanishads. This was Campbells main point! I personally believe he gave it too much weight, historical happenings color myth more than the Jungian common unconciousness does, but it is hard to argue that such commonality does not exist. Wasn't it Heinlein who said there were only three stories?

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.

Pulp Homer

[XNormal]

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".

Overanalyzed crap....

[terrymr]

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.