Today is International Star Wars Day, thanks to today's date: May the Fourth be with you. So to celebrate, join your resident sci-fi librarians at taking a closer look at what may very well be the most popular film franchise in history:
TRACY: The first time I saw Star Wars, I was 11. It was the summer of 1977 (now I've dated myself!). My parents and I were on vacation in Erie, and after a day of spending too much time in the sun we decided to head to the mall. I don't really remember if we had planned on seeing the movie or if we saw that it was playing and decided to go. Either way, it was an important day in my life! Star Wars captured my imagination like no other film had done in my very short life. I was mesmerized from start to finish. My Dad and I walked out of that theatre in a daze. My Mom, on the other hand, was not impressed (I don't get my love of sci-fi from my Mom!).
A few weeks later, I went to see it again at the local drive in with my brother, Andrew, and it was just as magical as the first time. I spent that entire summer obsessed with the movie. I got the t-shirt, the poster, the book and whatever else my Mom was willing to buy for me.
I'm still not really sure why this particular film took such a hold on me. It definitely was unlike anything I had ever seen before. By this point in my life, I was very familiar with Star Trek, but this was something completely different. It felt so much more real. It had good guys and bad guys, and some that were somewhere in between. And, of course, as an 11-year-old girl, I thought Luke Skywalker was pretty dreamy! (Although as I got older, Han Solo, completely replaced my idea of dreamy.)
MS. B: Well, but I've got a theory as to at least one reason why it resonated with so many people the world over -- because nobody had ever seen anything like it before. Or ... so it seems.
MS. B: Writer, director, and Star Wars-creator George Lucas was in his early thirties when he shot the first film in the six-entry series. He'd spent the sixties writing and directing nine short films, and he'd actually written and directed two feature-length films in the early 70s before making the first Star Wars movie (retroactively retitled Star Wars: A New Hope in order to differentiate it from the overall series name). Before Star Wars, there was THX 1138, a sci-fi dystopia starring Robert Duvall; and American Graffiti, ,something altogether different -- a music-filled nostalgia trip through the early 60s (starring such actors as Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and ... Harrison Ford).
And then, enter Star Wars. Produced on an $11 million budget, the film was a box office smash, earning over $200 million at the domestic box office alone (while playing at movie theaters for eleven months straight). The story -- about a farmboy from a backwoods planet, who learns the ways of the mystical "Force" and teams up with a princess and a pirate to stop the evil Darth Vader -- was told against a backdrop of special effects and worldbuilding unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.
Which, one could argue, is pretty ironic, since the story being told is in no way an unfamiliar one. Joseph Campbell, an American writer and mythology scholar, is famous for his theory of the Hero's Journey, which he discussed in his 1949 book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. According to Campbell, all prevalent myths (if not all stories themselves) are variations on the same basic pattern. It goes like this: a hero receives a call to adventure that takes him out of his ordinary life and into an unknown "special world." With the aid of mentors and allies, the Hero will face trials, challenges, and temptations, before descending into the "belly of the beast" (or a handy-dandy trash compactor, right, Star Wars fans?) and experiencing a death and rebirth -- generally while defeating the bad guy -- before returning home transformed.
That, you'll notice, fits the Star Wars plot pretty well. But it isn't an accident. George Lucas was an admirer of Campbell's, and when he wrote his story about Luke Skywalker, he intentionally followed the beats of Campbell's monomyth outline. The result, I'd argue, is a story that people can't help but find captivating, enthralling, and involving -- because it's a story we're hardwired to respond to.
TRACY: The three years between the theater releases of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back felt like an eternity. But somehow, I made it. And then I had to wait another three years for Return of the Jedi! (Luckily, I had my new-found obsession with hockey to see me through those years.)
After Return of the Jedi was released, my obsession lessened, but has never really gone away. When the films were re-released to theaters in 1997, I faithfully went to see each one, although I wasn't very happy with most of the changes and additions George Lucas felt he needed to make. My thought was, why mess with a good thing!
MS. B: Funnily enough, even though I've been a sci-fi fan since childhood -- and a Trekkie pretty much since birth -- I grew up without ever really seeing the original Star Wars trilogy. I knew about the movies, of course, and had an idea of the characters and even the plotlines. But I'd never properly watched the films.
That all changed with the big screen re-releases, issued for the twentieth anniversary of the original release of Star Wars: A New Hope. As Tracy mentioned, the films had been updated with cutting-edge special effects and additional scenes that took advantage of the CGI technology (many of which Lucas's own special effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, had pioneered). While I wasn't too fussed one way or the other about the snazzy special effects, what I was impressed with was the characters and their story.
MS. B: At its heart, the (original) Star Wars trilogy is a story of redemption. One of the working titles of the last movie was Revenge of the Jedi (which was a possible title long enough to show up, as you see, on a few movie posters). The title was scrapped when Lucas decided that "revenge" wasn't a noble-enough quality for a Jedi.
But more than that -- it wouldn't have been keeping in the spirit of the movies. Luke Skywalker's character journey isn't about revenge (and neither is Darth Vader's, for that matter); rather, it's about acceptance, personal responsibility, and forgiveness. Not a bad set of traits to build a modern mythology around.
TRACY: When I heard that Lucas was going to film the first three episodes to the story, I was initially thrilled. But once I saw them, my enthusiasm was gone. I survived The Phantom Menace and even bought the film on VHS, but I have no memory of Attack of the Clones and have tried to block as much as possible from Revenge of the Sith. Other than the brilliant casting of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, I feel that these films were an utter failure.
MS. B: Well, the thing is -- they rather were.
The commercially-successful, critically-acclaimed original trilogy were actually listed in their credits as "Episodes IV, V, and VI" -- leaving the door open for Lucas to film a trilogy of "prequels" to his original Star Wars story. Beginning release in 1999, the new trilogy (numbered Episode I, II, and III) was a box-office smash success; but critics and movie-goers alike agreed that something was missing.
The problem, perhaps, was that -- in the excitement of elaborate scenery, lush special effects, and complicated backdrops -- Lucas seemed to fumble with what had made his original trilogy so appealing: the characters. Anakin Skywalker (AKA the future Darth Vader) is meant to be the trilogy's protagonist, and yet the audience spends more screen time on battle shots and political intrigue than on the development of its central character. Which is a shame, because a trilogy of films that really focused on the character arc of Anakin Skywalker would have been something I'd have liked to see.
TRACY: When it was announced that all six films would be released on Blu-Ray, I was so excited. My excitement was tempered a bit when I realized that my Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV, V, VI) would be issued with the changes George Lucas made to those films in the 90s. I almost didn't get it because of that, but since I only had the films on VHS, I bit the bullet and bought it (actually, my wonderful husband bought it for me!). And I refused to buy the first three episodes.
MS. B: The Star Wars movies are Lucas's to do with as he likes, true. But there's always going to be a particular charm -- and a particular place in audience's hearts -- for the original, un-doctored Star Wars trilogy. Despite taking place "a long time ago," it's a timeless and universal story of the Hero's Journey. And its cast of now-iconic characters will undoubtably captivate and inspire fans for generations to come.
So, think about popping the film in tonight and spending some time in a galaxy far, far away. And May The ... well, you know.
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