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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."
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"
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
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
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.
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
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
Who are the bad guys in Star Wars? Well, except that the dress in black and kill people, they act basically like the Federation. The good guys? Oppressed peoples.
He might have a good idea or two, but calling Star Trek populist is prima facie idiotic.
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.
Honestly,
I think both you and the article are missing the point. I have been a big Star Wars fan for years.
But I think even die hard fans have realized for more than 10 years now that story telling is not what George is good at. Good grief, any die hard fan knows that his training is in editing and that HOW he makes films is a lot more revolutionary than the stories.
Also, the article points out that his films epic links are tenative. Yes. But there are some there. The article tries to point out that these are so tentative that they can be used with other films. DUH. Most ALL stories these days are NOT NEW. Just like music is its all been done already. It's just how you can twist it, make a statement with it or apply it to todays world. Gripe at Lucas about rehashing old storys? I guess Disney gets off scott free.
The point isn't that the Star Wars fans won't believe what the article says. The point is that Star Wars fans already know what the article says. It's not anything new to them. What WE don't get is why the Salon article bitches about it so much. The whole time I am thinking, "So".
I guess the point is that Hollywood or Lucas or both are overinflating Georges story telling ability. I guess but like I said; the fans know that is "deal" isn't story telling, it's HOW he makes movies. You cannot argue that he is not a Genius with that. His company ILM IS successful on other films even if his non-Star Wars stories aren't.
I read the original screenplay, long before Star Wars came out, edited the manuscript of the novelization of Star Wars. I know the novelizer personally, and knew the publisher, Judy-Lynn del Rey, very well (worked for her for 11 years then took over the Del Rey imprint when she had a stroke). In the period from 1976 (when the ghost-written first novel appeared) through 1980, no one ever mentioned a Campbell connection in the publisher's office nor did they mention any other element that might have contributed to Star Wars than pulp science fiction, Saturday morning movie serials (e.g., Wasn't it in Don Winslow of the Navy? where the evil Japanese were always trying to squash people in rooms with walls that moved?), and elements that had appeared earlier in less successful sf films (R2D2, for instance, was very like Huey, Dewey and Louie -- I think they were -- in Cool Running). And, for several reasons, the publisher was distraught when Leigh Brackett died: (1) Brackett was a personal friend, (2) "That's the end of Star Wars". What Judy-Lynn meant was: "there's no inspiration left to be found in the project other than Leigh's."
The Salon story seems to me, an old fan of science fiction, a founding editor of Del Rey Books, and its editor in chief for more than ten years, quite nicely done. There are many who could tell the story in more detail, I'm sure, but they didn't choose to write. And what was written has, to me, the ring of truth.
I thought everyone knew that Lucas hadn't even consulted Campbell until he was starting on the actual screenplay for Empire.
The first movie of course had zero input from Campbell and was obviously inspired by stuff like Terry and the Pirates and Flash Gordon.
Pulparama.
--Blair
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.
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??
All the more reason for Anikin to be the first - it would be quite poignant that he be friendly, charismatic, and remorselessly violent as a child. He's Darth Vader. He kills his way to the top. What better a place to start?