Thoughts on Star Wars

The first time I watched Star Wars, I was about seven years old. My parents had me watch the movie on a day when school was cancelled, and they planned on us watching the entire trilogy. The idea of watching Star Wars was painful for me. One reason, was at the time, the movies already started to look dated in my mind, and two, it was a space movie that really did not have much of an appeal to me. I remember telling my parents that the movie was boring before I even saw it. I am not sure why, I just know that I did not want to watch the movie.

My parents made me watch the movie, and while I resisted it in the beginning, I ended up being completely captivated by the story and the events. The movie had a slow start for me, but with action, comedy, and the fantasy elements it was a really entertaining movie. We watched all three movie and I enjoyed all of them. Now these movies are part of my normal movie collection. My husband and I watch them when we do not feel like going any where for a day, and just feel like having a movie day at home. It's one of our go-to movie collections. 

I think one of the reasons Star Wars has remained so popular is because it had a huge impact on the audience from when it was released. The storyline, the soundtrack, and the special effects that the movie was able to produce were attractive qualities in the movies especially at the time. The movies meant a lot to people, and as a result they did exactly what my parents did, they made their children watch them. The movies have become generational, and are stories which are being passing down. Older generations have kept the stories of Star Wars relevant in society through repetition and marketing. Toys and action figures are still produced, and movies are still being played. Now, younger generations are able to experience the fantasy and action of Star Wars because of the appeal it had for their parents and grandparents. In the video below, this kid is dressed up like Darth Vader trying so hard to use the force to move objects around until he thinks he does (I know this is a VW commercial, but I love this kid). This kid is trying hard to find the magic and power in the force, which he learned from a movie that came out 35 years before he probably even saw the movie. It shows, to me, that Star Wars is a movie that will be watched for many years, and a story that will be handed down for generations.

                                                   http://youtu.be/R55e-uHQna0

Confessions of a Star Wars Fan

My name is Steve, and I am a Star Wars fan, a "Han Shot First," dressing up for premiers, Empire lunch box having, fan.

Episode V, now in lunch box form!

It's been difficult for me to get started on this because of just how important Star Wars was to my childhood. Let me try this way: my teddy bear was an ewok. Not a stuffed bear with a hood. A plushie of Princess Kineesaa made by Kenner in the 1980s as a tie in to the short lived Ewoks cartoon show.

(Updated with my actual ewok.)

Our discussion this week has me wondering just why Star Wars is so important to me. Is it the hero's journey and quest myth? If I were a Mesopotamian child would I have been as obsessed and profoundly impacted by the Gilgamesh epic? Running around with a friend (they, of course, would make me be Enkidu, because I never get to be Gilgamesh), battling the Humbaba, castrating heavenly bulls, and being smote by Ishtar. Did Greek children stay up all night telling stories of Odysseus, and arguing over which of Scylla and Carybdis were the better nautical peril, or if Odysseus or Polyphemus was the aggressor. 

Does the type of fanatical devotion I exhibit go along with any hero myth? If it hadn't been Star Wars for me would it have been something else? 

Either way, for this snow day I will be watching Empire and Jedi, and there may even be a flashlight lightsaber battle or two.

-Steve

P.S. For your viewing pleasure, I present a panel of voice actors reading Episode IV as their famous characters. My personal favorites: Jess Harnell as Christopher Walken as R2D2, and Maurice LaMarche as Kif Kroker as Han Solo.

P.P.S: My girlfriend made me a Death Star pancake today.

The superlaser is a banana slice.

Star Wars: The Original Three Aren't Enough

Star Wars has always been one of those movies that's come under a lot of scrutiny. Experts-read nerds-extol their knowledge and the brilliance of George Lucas when all he did was retell a story that's been told for millennia by his point in time. 

Why is this such a "good movie"? The location, the dialogue, the lovable charactes, the space magic?

Any one of these things could be considered Lucas' great idea but what does he give us really? A predictable story line full of characters we love only because it's obvious they're the good ones. Bad characters and an Empire that's evil because people said so (discounting the reboot that Fans think is awful, what has the Empire done until Alderan that's so bad.) Leia and her ilk are the rebels yet the white of her dress and their proved individuality clearly proclaim them righteous. 

I was not one for the original Star Wars. I think the reboot is actually much better because it had more of the space magic that I enjoy and look for. 

That 's all Star Wars is for me, space wizards fighting bad space wizards using 'muggles' as cannon fodder and human meat walls. In th end, that's what it comes down to. The only difference between the original three and the prequels is that Vader killed th Jedi thus giving himself the advantage in the temporal-galatix Jedi-Sith war. 

Again, my issues with Star Wars stem from my eternal hatred of heavy-handed moral lessons shoveling  right and wrong down my throat. Instead of waiting for a prophecy child Obi-Wan and Yoda should have just ganged up on Vader and the Emperor and murdered him. But of course they couldn't. Such actions would only be driven by anger and vengeance: two things that definitely lead to the Dark Side. (as we really learn and explore in the prequels)

We talked about the repeat of certain tropes, archetypes and formats in literature/storytelling and while it's true that these things can be seen, they do not encompass a good story. New, experimental things might be unpopular but could serve to shake things up. 

One last thought I want to leave this post with: the whole idea of this series is not to me because of the idea that is at the heart of it: good always triumphs over evil. False. This is not true and this fear of letting evil win has infected us since time began. If we simply stopped trying to hide from it we could explore it. 

The Lego Movie

Perhaps a little off topic, but today some people expressed disappointment in stories where the hero starts out as an everyman and turns into THE MOST IMPORTANT AND SPECIAL PERSON EVER and thus becomes someone we can't realte to anymore. And since we also discussed the popularity and success of the Lego Movie, I wanted to say that I think they would enjoy The Lego Movie! Without trying to give away too much of the plot, I’ll say that the movie does have a hero who is the chosen one (he's literally called "The Special" who is supposed to restore the world to peace) but I think the movie does an absolutely fantastic job of subverting that trope.

It’s also really funny and cute heartwarming and I had a smile on my face the entire movie and I SWEAR Warner Bros. is not paying me to promo their movie, I just loved it so, so much and I think it’s the kind of movie that would appeal to everyone. Warning though: the main theme song will be in your head for the rest of your life. You will be lying in your coffin and the song will still be playing in your head.

My Star Wars story

Like Iris, I honestly don't remember watching Star Wars for the first time. I think I've probably seen the whole series once and that was when I was a young kid so I don't remember much about it.

I know most of the big things. I know that Darth Vader is Luke and Leia's father, I know Luke and Leia are siblings. I know that Yoda is a small green dude who talks strangely. I know that everyone hates Jar Jar Binks. I know about Leia's slave bikini (and I remember reading somewhere that Carrie Fisher absolutely hated that outfit.)

But otherwise, I remember very little about the movies. So rewatching A New Hope was like seeing it for the same time.

I do have fond memories of wanting a lightsaber and of playing with my cousin's Star Wars figurines. And I did read a few of the Star Wars books though I think they were about Episode 1. I read one book about the Phantom Menace, but from Darth Maul's point of view, which is cool. And I read one book from the point of view of Boba Fett

And now I feel like I'm making it sound like I was more into Star Wars as a kid than I was! But I really have almost no recollection of watching the first three movies. While my parents liked Star Wars, we watched more Star trek when I was growing up. So I guess you could say I'm part of the notorious Star Trek vs Star Wars fight that we've been discussing in class, though I do like both, I just have a preference.

My girlfriend, however, is so into Star Wars that when we began to watch A New Hope so I could prepare for tonight's class, she was bouncing in her seat in excitement and squealing when her favorite characters came on screen. And I think seeing how much she loved it made me enjoy the movie so much more. I think sometimes that happens with people we are close to. Passion about media can inspire others to appreciate it more and I think that's what makes fandoms so special. A group of people who so ardently love something can sometimes make you want to look deeper to find out what exactly they are seeing and suddenly, you're sucked in too. (There’s something to also be said about how important it is that fandoms also criticize the media they are consuming but that’s a whole different topic.)

The World is like a Writer Suffering From a Severe Case of Writer's Block...But that's okay.

So my memory is pretty bad. The things that I remember about my own life are some of the most useless memories one can have but its worked for me so far...But I totally don't remember watching Star Wars for the first time. I mean, I'm sure young me was excited about it or something but who knows.

I remember being forced to watch Lord of the Rings and I was not there for that. I was very anti-movies when my family wanted to show me something. I was a jerk as a kid.

Anyway, watching Star Wars for this class was kinda like watching it for the first time. I hadn't remembered anything and so it was actually like a brand new movie. I felt like I was meeting new characters and watching something innovative even though I knew the plot and exactly what was going to happen.This is where I got to thinking about Joseph Campbell's quest narrative study.

Its hard to not get peeved at the idea of there being one entertaining story that only had the most minute changes made to it and then it's sold to us. But, and this is me completely disregarded the subconscious blah blah, wasn't this narrative new to us at some point? When you're reading a book as a kid you don't have the library of knowledge as when you're an adult and so each story is different. Even if it is a quest narrative that checks off all of the requirements you really aren't going to know that until you've read other things. You're sitting there thinking it's the most amazing thing in the world and that no one has ever (or can ever) write something like that again. Tons of people probably never bother to see that many T.V shows they watch, movies, and books are quite similar. And I don't think that its a bad thing.

I really don't think acknowledging that there is a rhythm, pattern, system, whatever detracts from the initial experience at all. I don't think that it shows a lack of creativity or innovation because it isn't readily apparent. I also think that time will really tell if Campbell's idea is true. It can be true for now and for much of the past but there is still a universe of uncharted territory in story telling. With new technology like the internet new narratives are being created every second and that is astounding. So don't be so down! There is a new story out there waiting to be written in GIF format! GET PUMPED TO WITNESS A NEW KINDA STAR WARS!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Star Wars, Campbell, Buddha, and The Wise Man's Fear

Rewatching Star Wars was a really enjoyable experience for me. It had been a while since I had last watched it and it was one of my favorite movies as a child. While I may not have seen the movie as much, I loved the other products it produced especially the amazing video games (Star Wars: Rogue Squadron being an absolutely amazing game and a sin on the video game industry for not reviving it) This is one thing I feel Star Wars was incredibly successful at doing. They make consistently great content beyond just the movies. As a gamer, videogames mean a lot to me and Star Wars, is one of the few movie properties, that was able to make multiple videogames, in multiple genres with some success.
 First Person Shooters(Jedi Outcast)

 Third Person Shooters (Battlefront)

Those ATATs? Yeah you can get in them

Ship Combat (Rogue Squadron)

 RPGs ( Knights of the Old Republic)

Racing (Podracer)

 There was even a Dance game that was made of it...

 whether its good or not depends on your sense of humor and how you feel about Vader and the Emperor having a dance-off but the mechanics were decent at least (admittedly completely ripped off)

Star Wars used a very classic narrative, the Heroes Journey, but I feel that so much of its success came, not even from the narrative, but from the compelling worlds and characters it created. It made a world you wanted visit, and a world that could be visited from some many different angles from action adventure, to resolving all the problems in the world through dance and it still holds up as a cohesive whole.


On a slightly unrelated note
Warning: Comparing Campbell to non-class Book read at your own risk
One thing that really struck me while reading Campbell was his description of Buddha and his interaction with the tree and how that fit into the Heroes Journey, as the resurrection of the bringing back of the boon. The thing that really struck me about it was that almost an inverse of that same event occurred in one current favorite books The Wise Man's Fear. In the book the main character, after entering the world of the Fae. He has certain... "encounters" in it, but eventually he goes exploring. In his explorations he comes upon a tree and talks to it. And the tree reveals many things that disturb and discomfort him. Later we find out that the tree houses a being that is evil and malevolent known as the Cthaeh. And this being knows everything, including all futures. Because of its knowledge it is able to know what words to say to cause the most devastation and destruction to the world. It is held as responsible for some of the worst tragedies in the world.
 I can not say for sure, but it seems likely that the author intentionally modeled the scene and the character after this idea. Both characters are all knowing, both represent truth, to get to both of them requires difficulties, struggle and going into an entirely different world. And both bring back something to the human world, that has the potential to change the world as it changed the hero. The only difference is in the heroic journey the change is positive, good wins out in the end. And in this story the change is decidedly the opposite

Tropes on Tropes on Tropes

So I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but this was the first time I had ever seen Star Wars.  Honestly, if it wasn’t for this assignment, I probably would have gone my whole life without seeing it.

All I have to say is thank goodness for Dr. MB because this movie has filled a void in my life I didn’t even know existed.  That might be a little over dramatic, but still!

Granted, some parts were a little strange to me.  Like Storm Troopers riding weird dinosaurs through the desert.  But overall I was really impressed with the special effects considering the movie was filmed in ’77.

As I was watching, the one thing that kept running through my head was why this movie has become such an icon in pop culture.  What makes it so timeless and beloved decades after it was released?  And I think I figured it out.  The movie is composed of nothing but tropes.  But in the best of ways.

While watching the movie I took the liberty of listing all the major clichés that I found and came to a grand total of eight tropes used in the film.

1.       In the beginning credits the audience is told that there is a galactic civil war occurring, fulfilling the classic good vs. evil cliché. 
2.       Luke Skywalker is the classic young man who is bored with his simple life and wants to find adventure.
3.      As with most movies, there always has to be the cute “pet” figure that everyone loves.  In this case it’s a droid named R2D2.
4.       C-3PO plays the classic comedic relief, adding that much needed sense of humor to an otherwise heavily action-filled movie.
5.       There is the standard tension/struggle between the teen (Luke) and his parents (his aunt and uncle).  For instance, Luke wants to go to the academy while his uncle needs him to stay at the farm.
6.       There is the wise man (Obi-Wan Kenobi) with a white beard and a robe who aids the young hero in his journey. 
7.       The hero (Luke) loses his entire family to the “bad guys” and leaves to start a new life and seek revenge.
8.       The hero rescues the damsel in distress (Princess Leia).  Though Luke rescued her in that one instance, it’s pretty safe to say that Leia is the most badass princess I know.

So with all of these classic clichés going on in the movie, it’s no wonder Star Wars is so beloved.  Though on the surface the story line is futuristic, the meat of the plot is composed of stories that we are all extremely familiar with.  Lucas takes the commonplace and puts a much needed spin on it, resulting in one of the most iconic movies of our time. 

My Star Wars Story

I was introduced to Star Wars pretty late in comparison to everyone I knew at the time. The sixth movie, third episode, whatever you want to call it, had come out. My sister’s friend took her, and after seeing it, my sister bought all three of the original trilogy, if that’s what you want to call it. She went on and on about how great it was, so we watch them. We went through all of them really quickly, and then started again. We rented the first two of the second trilogy, and then we went to see Episode III in theaters, and I loved it. We watched them all the time. When the last film came out, she bought that trilogy, too, and we watched all of them repeatedly for weeks. We dreamt about Star Wars. We talked about Star Wars. It was all I could think about. We quoted the films and watched them all the time. It was addicting. There was nothing else. We watched all of the DVD extras, and would find our favorite parts again. I bought her a lightsaber for Christmas. My parents went to Disney World without us, and all I wanted was the little, stuffed Ewok. I love him. 

My mom told us that she remembers seeing Star Wars in theaters. She said, “There weren’t other episodes, and it wasn’t called Star Wars: A New Hope. It was just Star Wars.” It was clear that she held some resentment about the renaming of the movie. It’s just Star Wars. She liked the other movies, but not as much as the first one. She won’t watch the new ones. She told me that while all the other girls had pictures of Mark Hamill on their walls, she always thought Harrison Ford was cuter, and I agreed. These conversations with my mom add to my love for Star Wars. It’s something that we are able to share. 

Even 40 years later, Star Wars still has similar effects on new viewers. When it first came out, it only showed in a few hundred theaters because no one thought it would do well. Now, there are 6 films, three more on the way, and parodies all over. While I’m not saying everyone likes Star Wars, it is something that has universal appeal. It’s still extremely popular and loved, and appeals to all kinds of people.

I think it’s really interesting how much of Star Wars has been integrated into other pop culture. I watch Wreck-It Ralph this weekend, again, and there’s a scene where Ralph is under a lake of chocolate, breathing through a Pirouette, and it sounds like Darth Vader’s breathing. Family Guy has Star Wars episodes. There are quotes that get integrated into other shows and movies as a nod to the films. 

Watching Star Wars again this weekend has reminded me of all the feels I had the first time! It’s been a few years, I think, since I’ve watched any of them, and I desperately want to steal the rest from my sister and watch them all. I think a Star Wars marathon is in order. 

Why Is Star wars Popular?

While watching Star Wars for the zillionth time I asked myself, why was Star Wars so popular and why is it STILL so popular? It follows the typical hero archetype, the good vs. evil, light vs. dark, small business vs. corporations. Even with special effects that are becoming very outdated (even the added scenes look pretty cheesy) it has stood the test of considerable time. Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope premiered in 1977, which was 37 years ago. I personally do not think Star Wars is popular because of the filmography but because of the story it tells. George Lucas paid special and spectacular attention to detail. Due to the lack of techniques of special effects, he had to rely on the characters to propel the story further…something which obviously lacks in the newer episodes I-III. I hope Disney does a better job, but I am not going to hold my breath.

 

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2012/10/31/316585-disney-star-wars-and-lucasfilm-memes-you-knew-they-were-coming.jpg

Watching episode IV I tried to recall how old I was when I first watched it. My father is an avid sci-fi nerd and had me watching all kinds of dorky things when I was younger. My older brother wasn’t as intrigued, he was more sports minded. I, however, loved the daddy-daughter time and would watch anything he put on. While most people are Star Wars or Star Trek fans, my father allowed both a place in our home. My favorite Star Wars movie was always episode VI…I LOVED Jabba’s Palace and the Ewoks.

But why is it popular??

I think it is the perfect mixture of the typical hero story, with an added dash of unpredictable complications (Darth Vader as Luke’s father…Luke and Leia and siblings…the second Death Star is fully operational), and a dollop of cuteness and oddities (Yoda, R2D2 and C3PO, Jawas, aliens, Ewoks, Ton Tons, and so many others). The story was well crafted and a mix of predictable and new to keep the audience on their toes. It also had a clear cut message of good that even developed into a religion for those hardcore fans.

 

http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzA1LzA0LzE4XzAwXzMyXzg2NV9maWxlCnAJdGh1bWIJODUweDU5MD4KZQlqcGc/97d88204.jpg

http://rack.1.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzA1LzA0LzE4XzAwXzMyXzk1M19maWxlCnAJdGh1bWIJODUweDU5MD4KZQlqcGc/90c72c0f.jpg

http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/bloguploads/star-wars-meme-vader-call-me.jpg

My boyfriend’s daughter is 5 years old and personally, I think it is time for her to be introduced to the wonderful world of Star Wars!