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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi 560

Posted by michael from the help-me-obi-wan-kenobi dept.
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."
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Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi More

Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi

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  • I'd like... (Score:3, Funny)

    by flewp ( 458359 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:10PM (#3318534)
    to see Jar Jar Binks beaten to a pulp. Does that add any evidence to the theory?

  • I don't see why.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gmplague ( 412185 )
    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.

    • He's not even credited with it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:29PM (#3318677)
      > 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.

    • Re:I don't see why.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zamokzam ( 218601 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @04:23PM (#3319458)
      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.

  • Lucas & Writing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by wednesdaywar ( 551455 )
    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...
    • I don't know if anyone here would know this, but wasn't Carrie Fisher called in to do some script docotring for Episode II, I know she's done it for other films.
  • I think Star Wars is overrated, trivial nonsense, but even I would know better than to make that a story item in Slashdot. That's just asking for trouble. The Salon article itself is wonderfully savage: I'm almost looking forward to the earnest cries of defense from aggrieved Star Wars fans who will insist the author Just Doesn't Get It, when it's the fans who don't realize how vacantly pompous Lucas' schtick is.

    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.

    • I think Star Wars is overrated, trivial nonsense, but even I would know better than to make that a story item in Slashdot. That's just asking for trouble.

      Not as far as Salon is concerned. They're asking for page hits (and the corresponding ad hits). A little carefully-presented faux controversy is profitable.

    • 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.
  • 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"

    • You've got a point here. When I was a kid and first saw Empire, I didn't go, "well wow, this is like an epic greek tragedy, what an amazing omage to that genre," I just thought it was a really cool movie, and that I should probably go out and get some of those new Empire Strikes Back toys.

  • Article Summary... (Score:3, Funny)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:15PM (#3318575) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • Some people take entertainment way to seriously.

      one of the main points of the article is that mr. lucas falls into that category.

      • Re:Article Summary... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tps12 ( 105590 )
        Some people take entertainment way to seriously.

        one of the main points of the article is that mr. lucas falls into that category.

        As his career, its understandable that Lucas take entertainment seriously. The real point of the article is that everyone else takes Lucas too seriously.

        • 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.

          • Oops (Score:3, Funny)

            by sunwukong ( 412560 )
            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!

            ;-)

    • "Some people take entertainment way to seriously."

      Yeah, they don't realize that Star Wars is really just big commercial for Lucasfilm. "You gotta have cool effects, and you gotta have us to do it."

      Anybody who thinks Star Wars was meant to be more than that really should take a good hard look at all the unnecessary digital work they did.
      • Anybody who thinks Star Wars was meant to be more than that really should take a good hard look at all the unnecessary digital work they did.


        You mean like re-releasing the original movies with dull digital explosions and a completely pointless scene with Jaba the Hutt? I thought the only real fix the original films needed was to remove the blue mattline from the battle scene on Hoth in ESB, but hey! look! Digital effects! How very 1998!
  • 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.
    • just as long as they're enjoyable and worth the nine bucks' admission price.


      Did you even see the last Star Wars movie?!!?

      Nine bucks?? No way. There are some movies that are worth that, but not many. And SW:TPM was not one of them.

      And yes, I shelled out to see it in the theatre. It wasn't worth it.


      grnbrg

    • Why overanalyze it? It just ruins it.
      I doubt that anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with written science fiction would want to over-analyze Star Wars. It's bloody obvious. Tatooine = Dune. Coruscant = Trantor = Rome. Jedi Knights = Lensmen. Luke = the callow kid starring in 90% of SF...

      The thing is, somehow this Joseph Campbell (not to be mistaken for the great magazine editor of the "Golden Age") won't admit to ever reading anything just for fun in his whole life, and so is unaware of all the SF stories Lucas "sampled". Instead, he goes back to the ancient myths -- which are the same sort of stories as bad SF writing, but age has made them academically respectable. And Lucas suddenly discovers his work becoming respectable among the snooty crowd, and is lapping it up...

  • star wars was ripped off a japanese film (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alcimedes ( 398213 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:18PM (#3318593)
    Star Wars was just a rewritten Japanese film about a Samuari. The movie was titled Hidden Fortress [canoe.ca]

    Thank god for the Japanese, or we might have Howard the Duck part V.
    • ...and James Joyce's Ulysses is a rip off of The Oddyssey.
      • ...and James Joyce's Ulysses is a rip off of The Oddyssey.
        Um kinda. MAN was THAT the hardest book EVER to be read in a College Elective Class.

        The stuff that passes for classical fiction these days... Sheesh! Ulysses ain't got NOTHING on Harry Potter. ;)

    • Actually, most people say that "Star Wars" was "Hidden Fortress" combined with "Hero with a Thousand Faces" Which makes sense when you realize that "Hidden Fortress" didn't have a Luke character.

      I've always considered that a strength to the film. A synthesis of two powerful pieces of culture made into popular entertainment is sort of brilliant when you think about it.
      (Oh, and it's not just a Japanese film, it's an Akira Kurosawa film, that's sort of important)

    • You obviously haven't seen Hidden Fortress. I bought it a few months ago because I had heard the same thing you did. It's not true. If I hadn't been told of the Star Wars connection, I wouldn't have noticed it on my own. It's about a princess, protected by a general, fleeing a rival kingdom that has conquered her own. Two stupid peasants provide comic relief along the way. Not exactly a direct copy of SW.

      If you want American movies that blatantly steal from Asian films, watch Resevoir Dogs and City on Fire back to back.

      -B
      • If you want American movies that blatantly steal from Asian films, watch Resevoir Dogs and City on Fire back to back.

        ...or Seven Samurai, or Ran, or Yojimbo, or...

      • 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!
        • 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
    • No, it wasn't. It swiped a few elements, sure, but if you'd ever actually, you know, seen The Hidden Fortress, you'd see that there's many, many differences. The goal of the characters in Star Wars is not just survival until they reach safe territory, there is no following-in-your-father's-footsteps theme in Kurosawa's movie, the one short and one tall peasant are squabbling, greedy, and have to be threatened and bribed before they'll cooperate, there's no climactic battle that winds up in the destruction of a really big castle or anything similar. Lucas was (I haven't a clue if he is still) a big admirer of Akira Kurosawa, and there's no argument that he did use several cinematic and plot elements from The Hidden Fortress, but to say that it's a "rewritten" version of it is wholly ludicrous.

      This is just another example of people quoting without understanding, really. I'm no fan of Lucas, and I believe that his success with Star Wars really is more of a reflection of his ability to imitate Kurosawa in general and recast Kurosawa's stylistic tropes and whatnot in a widely-acceptable-to-American-audiences pulp-fiction format. That belief, though, is a far cry from claiming that Lucas just filed the serial numbers off of Hidden Fortress - one, at the very least, is arguable, and the other is easily disproved just by comparing the plots of the two movies.
    • He didn't "rip it off." He took elements, certainly, which he freely admits. In fact, he, along with Coppola, FUNDED some of Kurosawa's later films! He was hardly ungrateful for the inspiration.

      I hate how some people are always looking for some way to knock down good things, claiming they "ripped off" someone else. Is success so abhorrent a concept to you?

  • 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.
    • 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!
    • I don't even know who Stephen Ambrose is but he doesn't seem to have anything to do with Star Wars.

      Yeah, what the hell does chocolate have to do with Jedi's?

  • Another good analysis (Score:5, Informative)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `101retsaMytilaeR'> on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:19PM (#3318605) Homepage Journal

    A good companion to this article is another Salon Article [salon.com] that ran in 1999 by David Brin [davidbrin.com]. Excellent read on why Star Wars' morality sucks. :)

    • Looks like there's a follow up [kithrup.com] to that article has well on his web site.

    • Does Brin also go by Katz?

      :)

      Travis
    • Here's a link [salon.com] to the side article too.
  • I think we once had this site [pulpphantom.com] up on slashdot (too lazy to check). It definitely draws the connection between Star Wars and Pulp Fiction.

  • Standard disclaimer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PinkStainlessTail ( 469560 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:22PM (#3318627) Homepage
    "I'm gonna get modded to hell for this..."
    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.

    • Oh and while we're at it, let's open another can o' worms: When Star Wars was first released to theaters, it wasn't labeled Episode IV. It was just called Star Wars, plain and simple. It wasn't until it was re-released shortly before The Empire Strikes Back came out that they started using the goofy episode-numbering system.
    • Others have already noted the fact that SW wasn't "Episode IV" until the re-release (and the imminent release of ESB), so I won't belabor the point, although the "nine-movie-plan" does have a different origin.

      After ANH came out, Lucas decided to continue the story (via sequels). At first, he had a plan for nine movies, but realized shortly thereafter that six movies would do it. The nine movies thing got perpetuated, however, and there are STILL people who think that after he finishes the Anakin trilogy, there will be three more movies.

      Ain't gonna happen.
    • 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:").

      Speaking of revisionist history!

      When Star Wars was originally released, it didn't state "Episode IV" or "A New Hope." It just had the title, Star Wars. After the movie's success, the plans started forming for a 9-part series with sequels and prequels.

      Take a look at the trivia [imdb.com] page at IMDB on Star Wars.

      Also, trying doing a search for "Star Wars" at IMDB. You'll notice episodes I, II, V, and VI all have the numbering system, but episode IV is just called "Star Wars." (I've noticed IMDB is generally really anal about details like this... look at the entries for the three LOTR movies, and you'll see Gandalf's character name changing from Grey to White... cool.)

  • It's both (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Galvanick Lucipher ( 52042 )
    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?

  • Looks like someone doesn't like Campbell... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:23PM (#3318636)
    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.

  • Top 3 Screenplays George Lucas Wants Forgotten (Score:3, Funny)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:29PM (#3318682) Homepage Journal
    1. Star Wars Holiday Special [imdb.com]

    2. The Ewok Adventure [imdb.com]

    3. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor [imdb.com]
    Of course, an honorory Golden Turkey Award [tripod.com] has to go out to the slop that was Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace [imdb.com]

  • Not Pulp Sci Fi -- Just Pulp (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jgerman ( 106518 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:30PM (#3318689)
    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.
    • 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.

      There are very very few sci-fi stories that couldn't easily be fantasy stories.

      I'm not sure I see how the second half of Star Wars (after Leia is rescued) could be a western, though.

      What I'm really wondering, though, is what you feel makes the story trite. I mean, every story has been told before, especially if you simplify it into elements ("rescue the princess, defeat the evil army, save the world"). What makes this particular one trite?

  • Starwars from Dune? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Neil Watson ( 60859 )
    This site [jitterbug.com] talks about how there are many similarities between Star Wars and Dune.

    I still think Star Wars is a fun film. There is no shame it being influenced by the likes of Frank Herbert.

  • David Brin on governance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:31PM (#3318698) Homepage
    ... The oppressed "rebels" in "Star Wars" have no recourse in law or markets or science or democracy. They can only choose sides in a civil war between two wings of the same genetically superior royal family. They may not meddle or criticize. As Homeric spear-carriers, it's not their job.

    He has a point.

  • So what? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by epepke ( 462220 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:31PM (#3318705)

    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.

  • Oh for (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lblack ( 124294 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:32PM (#3318710)
    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

    • Well, not quite (Score:3, Insightful)

      by balsosnell ( 172414 )
      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.
    • 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.
    • After 6 hours of Moyer's interview with Campbell, I came away not caring a jot about any of the stuff you seem to be getting your knickers in a twist over.

      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


  • 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.

  • Backlash, and missing the point. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity@sbcglobal . n et> on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:39PM (#3318761) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Never really thought about StarWars in a "literary" context much, but this did make me reflect that it not only follows Joseph Campbell's briefer pattern to the letter, but also is fairly close to the "general" pattern for heroic myth (shamelessly taken from Classical Mythology, Images and Insights by Stephen L. Harris and Gloria Platzner):
    1. The hero's mother is a royal virgin (we'll find out soon enough, I guess)
    2. His father is a king
    3. The circumstances of his conception and birth are unusual, and
    4. He is reputed to be the son of a god (close enough, I'd say)
    5. At birth an attempt is made, often by his father or maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
    6. He is spirited away, and
    7. He is raised by foster-parents in a far country (you know, a far, far away kind of country)
    8. On reaching manhood, he returns or travels to his future kingdom
    9. 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
    10. AFter he triumphs over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
    11. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
    12. 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.

  • Flash Gordon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LionKimbro ( 200000 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:50PM (#3318854) Homepage

    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.

    • "Leia! Leia, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save Yavin IV!"

      (couldn't resist... and yes, I know it should be Luke, but if I had my choice of love interest in A New Hope it wouldn't be him :p)

      Don't remember any equivalent of The Force in FG, just space opera tech (indistinguishable from magic anyway)?

  • It's SPACE OPERA. Duh. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:52PM (#3318869) Journal
    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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

  • Ignorance on parade (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rand Race ( 110288 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:59PM (#3318914) Homepage
    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.

  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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 :)
  • 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.

  • Pulp Homer (Score:4, Insightful)

    by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @03:16PM (#3319039) Homepage
    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".

  • This is news? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bskin ( 35954 ) <.bentomb. .at. .gmail.com.> on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @03:20PM (#3319071)
    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).

  • Overanalyzed crap.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by terrymr ( 316118 ) <terrymr.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @03:29PM (#3319136)
    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.

  • Pot calling the kettle black (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cato the Elder ( 520133 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @03:55PM (#3319307) Homepage
    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.

  • If there was any movie anyone should gripe about (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @04:50PM (#3319636) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • The bleeding obvious (Score:4, Funny)

    by dswensen ( 252552 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @05:07PM (#3319751) Homepage
    Steven Hart reveals all! Star Wars is actually pulp science fiction! And don't miss these other great Salon stories...

    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.

  • The Lensman influence (Score:3, Interesting)

    by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @05:55PM (#3320011)

    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 [imagi-nation.com] as one of the greats because his version of Oedipus Rex [imagi-nation.com] 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.

  • Obviousness of it all (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @06:01PM (#3320035)
    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.

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