Sunday, May 4, 2014

Sensor Scan: Star Wars

You didn't think I was really going to skip this one, did you?

But this is going to be a different sort of Star Wars retrospective then is perhaps the expected norm. Because I really find all the major things that can be said about this movie to be not only obvious, but commonly accepted knowledge. And ultimately because, one or two points notwithstanding, the legacy and impact of Star Wars are not actually especially important here in Star Trek land.

The major intersection between Star Wars and Star Trek I can think of is far more materialistic than inspirational: Paramount's decision to scrap Star Trek Phase II and greenlight Star Trek: The Motion Picture instead would seem to be the standard response, but that actually had far more to do with Close Encounters of the Third Kind then it did with Episode IV, as during the period between the two films everyone largely assumed Star Wars was a fluke and science fiction held no promise for regular, reliable success at the box office. The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is the frequent description of Benjamin Sisko's story as a “Hero's Journey”, which to me is just as much about a fundamental failure to understand what Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was supposed to be about then it is about Star Wars cementing itself into the collective Western consciousness.

I am, of course, expected to talk about Joseph Campbell, the Myth of the Hero, how Star Wars draws on many myth and story archetypes from around the world and how that transformed not only the pop culture landscape, but how people respond to all stories at an instinctual level. It's had an incalculable impact on entire generations of writers and readers alike, and I'm sure you all are waiting for me to say something about it. The thing is, absolutely everybody who has ever written about Star Wars has talked about this: Star Wars is, in fact, one of the most overanalysed and overstudied works of fiction in history. I'll just let James Rolfe explain this in a far more heartfelt, poignant and personal way then I could ever manage, and then call in Phil Sandifer to make the case for the prosecution (in spite of me largely disagreeing completely with his opinion of Star Trek) and to point out the problems with the Campbellian approach. I have literally nothing more to contribute.

One observation I will make is that one of the reasons at least the original Star Wars had the impact it did was because it is very good at building a sense of a larger pre-exisiting world and history that we only get fleeting glimpses of. Everything from the famous opening text crawl, to Obi-Wan telling Luke about the mysterious and long-departed Jedi, to the Jawa merchants and the canteen on Tatooine (with its twin suns) to the Empire itself, is described in terms that make them seem equally wondrous, fantastical and mundane. Star Wars, right from the very beginning, seems to exist in a grand, rich world of its own, and the fact that the characters were all very well versed in what this world was and how it worked and we as the audience very much weren't was surely fascinating at the time, and made it all the easier to become drawn to Luke Skywalker and his Hero's Journey Myth Arc. And I will grant that Star Trek, in spite of its ridiculous predilection to pointless fanwank, is simply nowhere near as good at this: It's not reliably great at instilling that particular kind of wonder and imagination, even in the cases where it really, really needed to be (Bajor springs immediately to mind here).

But the thing is, for whatever reason, Star Wars' magic spell never worked on me. I can't really tell you why (well, I can to some extent, but I'll talk about that later), it just didn't. What interests me the most about Star Wars as a work is how patchwork a thing it really is. The iconic look and feel of the series is of course due to Ralph McQuarrie, as is well known by now, and most of the world-building elements come from Alan Dean Foster. Even the much talked-about toyetic nature of Star Wars comes from somebody else, namely Steven Spielberg. During the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg was approached by Kenner who wanted to use the film as the basis for a large-scale new line of toys. Spielberg pointed them in the direction of an up-and-coming filmmaker named George Lucas who was working on a new science fiction film that he felt might be more what Kenner was looking for.

Most tellingly, though George Lucas gets a bunch of credit for taking the Myth of the Hero stuff and translating it into the context of a science fiction blockbuster, neither he nor anyone else associated with it seemed to talk that angle up much until The Empire Strikes Back, which was also suspiciously around the time Joseph Campbell was starting to get really popular as a fixture on PBS and when discourse about Star Wars was starting to reach critical mass. Furthermore, in spite of what literally everyone says, as far as I understand it The Empire Strikes Back was never even planned, nor, for that matter, was Return of the Jedi or any other Star Wars work: The original film was a total gamble with no real expectations, and it retroactively became the first part of an epic when George Lucas realised how successful it had been (I don't have a specific link here, but search Cracked.com for “Star Wars”: They do a surprising amount of historical mythbusting in this regard).

So what we have here is, like all examples of large-scale Soda Pop Art, a loose, dissociated collection of things that have been given the appearance of being a singular, monolithic, untouchable artistic statement in the wake of, and to capitalize on, its unexpected popular and critical success. Indeed, I'm not even convinced that Star Wars' resurrection of the pulp style of science fiction was in any way unique apart from being the first real time this was done on a blockbuster, hyper-mainstream scale. Certainly not when compared to the fusion of Hard SF, Pulp sci-fi and soap opera that characterizes, say, Star Trek. Which is, incidentally, what this blog is about.

Looking at Star Wars from a Star Trek perspective (or, at least mine) is a confusing experience. There was a period in my life where it seemed the most obvious thing in the world to view Star Wars and the Star Wars faithful (who I once derisively nicknamed “Warries” as payback for “Trekkie”-It was very, very long ago and I wasn't any cleverer at that time then I am now) as The Enemy. This was exacerbated by the fact that the Star Wars fans I did know were extremely loyal and combative, and took every opportunity to attack me for my love of Star Trek and indifference to their franchise. This became especially painful for me when Star Wars began to take over *massively* in the 1990s on the back of the home video and theatrical re-releases, Special Editions and prequel films while Star Trek faltered and stumbled through that same era, beginning its long, slow slide towards irrelevance the moment Star Trek: The Next Generation signed off. Nor did it help when, in response to this, the Hasbro Star Wars toy line absolutely exploded, relegating my beloved Playmates Star Trek line to extinction, ironically doing so on the back of Playmates' reinvigoration of the toy industry.

(This is a longstanding source of enmity between me and Star Wars: I explicitly blame it for preventing me from being able to find figures of Tasha Yar, Ro Laren and the *entire* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine line for over a *decade*. Similarly, I'm also less than thrilled that the “official” Star Wars “holiday” on May 4 each and every year completely overshadows the actual history of the day, which is, among other things, Alice Liddel's birthday and the day when Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is said to take place, as well as a major date in revolutionary politics. Sometimes it feels like this franchise is deliberately harassing me.)

Indeed, this seemed to be the accepted thing for at least a time. Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans were not seen in polite company together, and there was no love lost between the two camps. One of the foundational pop culture debates has always been: “Star Wars or Star Trek?”, to the point it's even a question on OKCupid. But then there came a period where there started to be more of a bleedover between the two fandoms, and I'm not sure where to draw the line here. I want to say it wasn't any time in my lifetime: Maybe it was with The Phantom Menace, as that was the first Star Wars in living memory of the generation for whom fandoms stopped being seen as a sparring, factionalized things and became things you collected: The Tumblr generation talks at great length about all the different fandoms they're a part of where when I was younger you only tended to have one (the obvious thing that changed was, of course, the Internet. No, I'm not doing a Sensor Scan on that).

But then there does seem to be the belief among some people that the people who like Star Trek should like Star Wars as well, and I'm not sure why, as they're not even remotely the same thing: While both Star Wars and Star Trek can loosely be called sci-fi-fantasy, Star Wars owes far, far more to the epic sword-and-socery adventure serials and dimestore novels then Star Trek, which is more its own weird little thing. If you could sum up Star Trek's brand of sci-fi fantasy, you might say it's about exploring the territory between the mythic and the mundane and what it means to be utopian. Star Trek isn't always as true to its underlying philosophy as it really needs to be, but Star Wars doesn't even have an underlying philosophy, except for some superficial motifs haphazardly lifted from Eastern mysticism and United States-ized to make them palatable to a popcorn blockbuster audience.

(There is an argument to be made here that it's specifically this slapdash syncretism and hyper-mainstream status that allows Star Wars to be many people's first interaction with the concept of comparative mythology, and I grant that: Star Wars isn't particularly good at this, but it's likely the first exposure many people are going to have with the idea.)

I want to say this shift in attitude has to do with Nerd Culture, who stereotypically enjoy anything that's remotely science-y (it doesn't have to be actual science and very frequently isn't: The key is that it's science-y and thus has a whiff of futurism, technofetishism and elitism about it), but then again one of the biggest joint Star Trek and Star Wars fans I can think of is VFX artist and professional MythBuster Grant Imahara, who I wouldn't call part of Nerd Culture. Imahara is more what I'd refer to as a Maker Hobbyist and has a fascination with tinkering, the process of making movies and practical effects, which is not something the average Nerd cares about.

(The reverse is also true: The Makers I know who aren't interested in the filmmaking side of things couldn't care less about Nerd Culture stuff.)

Indeed, Imahara, as well as his colleagues at M5, did a lot of the effects for the Star Wars prequels themselves. But Imahara also talks about how much he was inspired by “Arena” and watching Captain Kirk build the tree cannon as a kid (not to mention the fact he's as of this writing the current Mr. Sulu, which means I probably ought to talk about him more often), which is a statement that would have been considered blasphemous when I was younger. No, M5 may be heroes to a certain sect of Nerds, but they're not Nerds themselves.

But I've run into this attitude and overlap elsewhere too. As a matter of fact, it's the primary reason I have a history with Star Wars to talk about in the first place. My parents strongly pushed me to watch the original Star Wars trilogy after my love of Star Trek started to blossom, being of the belief that because I clearly liked science fiction now and Star Wars was science fiction too, I'd like it just as much as Star Trek. This...did not go over well with me at first and it took some arm twisting to get me to actually sit down with these movies. Even then I knew Star Trek and Star Wars were never supposed to meet, and watching the original trilogy felt a little bit like betrayal. Though I will say I didn't *hate* the first movie when I finally saw it, and I remember actually being impressed with a few things. Naturally, Princess Leia was my favourite, and I also liked the design of the X-Wings and the Death Star, as well as the trench run bit from the end. I liked the other two movies significantly less (though I did dig the Luke vs. Vader tightrope battle over the pit scene in Empire Strikes Back), to the point I actively disliked Return of the Jedi, and I'm still not a fan of either it or Empire to this day.

But in spite of this, and even though I quite enjoyed the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron video games from the late-90s and early-2000s, Star Wars simply did not have the profound, life-changing impact on me that it seems to have had on everyone else (Well, everyone save Phil Sandifer, obviously). People who I'd otherwise consider kindred spirits and fellow travellers (like James Rolfe above) don't hesitate to share their breathless love of the Star Wars Saga, and it always leaves me feeling left out. Even Michael Kirkbride, one of the lead designers on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and someone who has become a massively inspirational figure for me, was profoundly shaped by Star Wars, so much so that in 1999 he and fellow Elder Scrolls luminaries Kurt Kuhlmann and Ken Rolston pitched a television show set in the Star Wars universe called Star Wars: Rebellion, which would have chronicled the rise of the Rebel Alliance, and, knowing who was involved, would likely have been a brilliant, subversive and transformative take on the franchise and probably the single greatest science fiction show of its time. It bothers me that I can't see the same things people like them see in Star Wars.

(Though now that I've said that I wonder if one of these things might in fact be the same thing I see in Star Trek: The fact it's a contemporary myth structure drawing from a wide pool of cultural themes and motifs that has grown to such a size it belongs to everyone. It's telling to me that at least Kirkbride's background is in comparative religion: He and his co-writers are the only people apart from Aleister Crowley and Alan Moore I've ever read who can do syncretism without lapsing into cultural appropriation. In fact, given that and where my interests for future projects lie, this means I may have to actually cover Star Wars: Rebellion in depth at some point.)

This is actually the real legacy of Star Wars for me: It left me with a profound feeling of loneliness and isolation, because it was so obviously a shared cultural signifier that I was denied participating in because I simply didn't get it. Everyone else I know seems to have the exact same story and experience with the original Star Wars Trilogy...except me. Everyone shares their fond, vivid memories of having their lives changed, eyes opened and worldviews shifted upon viewing these films at an early age...except me. And, as the Hasbro Star Wars line snowballed to greater and greater sizes, displacing everything else and pushing the Playmates Star Trek line I loved so much and so deeply further and further to the margins of each and every toy store I visited, my lack of understanding turned to active anger and resentment, as it seemed to be a metaphor in plastic for the direction science fiction fandom was starting to go in the 1990s. And it was a direction that had no place for me anymore.

11 comments:

  1. You're not alone. Replace Star Trek with Doctor Who in this essay and I could have written it.
    (Oh, and I think RAW could also do syncretism without appropriation, but then as the missing link between Crowley and Moore, that would make sense.)

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  2. The "belongs to everyone" point interests me a bit, because I think a crucial difference between Star Wars and Star Trek is that Star Wars actually *doesn't* belong to everyone- at least not in the same way that a multi-version long running science fiction show with multitudes of writers and a history of fan involvement does.

    Even before the takeover by Disney, Star Wars has always been run pretty firmly by a corporation- the same can be said of Star Trek, but the extent to which Lucasfilm and later Disney really controlled the franchise is nearly incomparable. Plus there's the issue of Lucas himself- while Star Trek always has the shadow of Roddenberry to deal with, there's at least an extent to which other writers and creatives' contributions to the show are seen and appreciated, and the fact the franchise continued noticeably after his death helped to establish the franchise as something more than just Roddenberry's brainchild.

    But Lucas has a weird sort of power over the franchise that, even though it's now out of his hands, you still feel his shadow over the property. I suspect a large part of this is the tendency to treat film directors as the be-all and end-all to a film's quality (despite Star Wars having obviously come from multiple other creatives like Katz, Kasdan, Marcia Lucas, etc.), but it's also the amount of control he really exerts over the films The special editions are telling, as he outright refuses to release any version of the film he doesn't specifically approve of (giving the film preservationists of us a bit of a headache), and explicitly views the franchise as "his movies". Even canon is part and parcel of this, with Lucas taking part in saying what did and didn't count more than Roddenberry ever did. It's possible things'll change in this regard with the new films, but it doesn't strike me as particularly likely.

    For me, I quite enjoy Star Wars and Empire (the latter I do consider to be a legitimately great film, seeing as it's the only one that's actually *about* anything), but don't really care for the others- Return especially I find lazy and unimaginative, especially as a follow-up to what Empire was doing. It makes the franchise monumentally less interesting, and one wonders how it'd be perceived today had Lucas not rewritten the script after Empire's financial issues.

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    1. I can't speak for Merry Eyesore the Elk here, but I grant that there's a sense of authorship/authority that dogs Star Wars in a way even Star Trek lacks. Gene Roddenberry tends to get all the credit for everything Star Trek did that was good, while George Lucas gets all the credit for everything Star Wars did, good or ill. Strange: Roddenberry seems to have a *reputation* for being a Singular Creative Authority, whereas Lucas actually *was* one. I do think some of this has to do with one franchise being primarily filmic and one being primarily TV- (and fanfic-) based, though.

      But I'm speaking in a far more esoteric sense. Star Wars has been around long enough (and been big long enough) that it's permanently embedded in the pop consciousness. Despite the protestations of Lucas, given that it's been an iconic shared cultural experience for everyone (me, Phil and Andrew aside-Hi, Andrew) and the mere fact people *do* get so upset about what is and isn't canon and what Star Wars means to them, personally...I think that has to count for something.

      (But no. It's not as successful in this regard as Star Trek. Nowhere near so. But that's a discussion for another time...)

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  3. I have a foot in both camps here because.. yes, Star Wars was a massive part of my childhood, but it has entirely failed to carry forward into my adulthood. I just don't care about it much anymore. I still stick the original trilogy on from time to time, but in the same way that I occasionally stick Clash of the Titans on... and Star Wars probably gets put in the DVD player significantly less frequently than that particular attempt to cash-in.

    It's primary influence upon me was probably as a gateway drug. It led me to other SF, including Trek and Who, both of which loom much larger - though Who is the franchise that insinuated itself into my head as a part of my personality, a myth I continue to use to think with.

    Star Wars was several narratives for me. It was the movies and, primarily, it was the stories I made up for myself using the toys. The memory of asking my Mum for a Luke Skywalker figure precedes the memory of seeing the film (on my uncle's top-loading VHS player with massive springy buttons) and the memory of seeing Doctor Who for the first time. Star Wars pulled me towards Who, Trek, Blakes 7, Hitch-Hikers, and then on to the George Pal H.G. Wells adaptations, and from there on to SF books, etc etc etc. Ironic, given how little it has in common with such other works... but then Josh himself narrates the assumption in his own kidhood that liking Trek will entail liking Wars.

    Star Wars works for me now primarily on the level of pure aesthetics. Images and music and moments. And catchphrases that I share with my cousins, with whom I played Star Wars when we were all kids. I think that's how it works best, since it is primarily an aesthetic experience. It lacks that novelistic fullness that comes with cobbled-together, rambling, polyauthored TV franchises like Trek and Who, even if it has a superficial unity coherence that they lack.

    One thing that Wars always had over other stuff (except Who) was its villains. Vader and the Emperor are tremendously powerful figures of evil for kids - sinister, aesthetically menacing, yet also safely delineated and fantastical. In Trek, only the Borg have really achieved anything like the same oneiric monstrous power - and they are a generalised monstrosity rather than 'villains'. Who, of course, has Daleks and Davros and Cybermen, etc. This is probably one reason why Trek tends not to latch itself onto the brains of kids in the same way as those other franchises.

    One last thing: I was looking over a sort of online Star Wars encyclopedia once and read that the Empire 'nationalised' everything. Star Wars is inherently more reactionary than Trek. But it is reactionary in the same fairytale way that it manages to be hippyish. All bitesize chunks of nice, comforting oversimplification. Yoda has mindless soundbites about the Force that can be mistaken for profundities. And the Empire is the ultimate Republican wet nightmare of 'the state' run amok.

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    1. This is probably the definitive thing on Star Wars I've ever read. Seriously, great job. You could probably write a retrospective of your own if you wanted.

      "Star Wars was several narratives for me. It was the movies and, primarily, it was the stories I made up for myself using the toys. The memory of asking my Mum for a Luke Skywalker figure precedes the memory of seeing the film (on my uncle's top-loading VHS player with massive springy buttons) and the memory of seeing Doctor Who for the first time."

      "Star Wars works for me now primarily on the level of pure aesthetics. Images and music and moments. And catchphrases that I share with my cousins, with whom I played Star Wars when we were all kids."

      And this, right here, touches on the heart of this kind of fandom for me. Swap out Star Wars for Star Trek and you've essentially explained, word-for-word, the affinity I retain for this franchise. The difference is that I do in fact think there are material Soda Pop Artefacts in Star Trek worth studying as well where, as you said, Star Wars tends to fall apart once you stop being a kid.

      But its the characters, the setting, the images and the ideas the stick with me the most, combined with this spiritual dimension I keep writing back onto things. And I think that translates into fanfiction and role-playing, and why I genuinely do feel that's the future for franchises like this: It's not just about writing your own stories, it's about expressing your love and connection to the universe and what that accumulation of symbols means to you.

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  4. "Star Wars works for me now primarily on the level of pure aesthetics. Images and music and moments."

    This right here. Appropriate you mention VFX Makers, Josh, as it's primarily on the basis of it's practical effects that the original movies continue to hold appeal for me; the original trilogy is a visual feast, and wonderfully tactile in a way only movies preceding our current CGI-dependent digital age are (although when it comes to the "used universe" look, Ridley Scott's Alien trumps it in every conceivable way, mostly by actually being about something, as Jack so aptly put it).

    And yet...Episode IV was actually the first film I ever saw in a theater (my first film ever that I can remember seeing and loving was an advance VHS copy of Disney's Cinderella my parents got from some friends of theirs who worked a video store. It was a personal favorite of me and my sister, and that I grew up on both it and the old Filmation Superman cartoons, amongst others, ended up foreshadowing the person I would eventually grow up to be uncannily well). My dad took me to see the Special Edition re-release at the now long gone local theater in my town. I certainly wouldn't call it worldview-shaping or life changing, but it was great spectacle. That said, my relationship with Star Wars is strange. I've partaken of the Expanded Universe material (primarily in terms of video games and some of the novels and comics) to such an extent, and have a broad working knowledge of The Verse, as it were, that I can't really call my self a casual fan. On the other hand, I really don't give a flying fuck about what gets done with SW, aside from bemoaning the fact that so many great series the franchise spawned will never be continued. Indeed, SW video games probably had a bigger presence for me growing up (and even today) then the movies themselves, which I rarely saw. Dark Forces/Jedi Knight, Rogue Squadron, Knights of the Old Republic, and so on.

    Speaking of that last, Josh, that "brilliant, subversive and transformative take on the franchise" you mentioned? We got it, in the form of Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, courtesy of Chris Avellone and Obsidian (of Planescape: Torment and Fallout: New Vegas fame), considered by many to be the best thing with Star Wars name on it ever created. You'd love it, I think; it's essentially a multi-hour long demolition of SW's cardboard philosophy and spirituality, and in many ways helped to kickstart the very gradual move towards more ambiguity in moral choice in gaming, western RPGs in particular. Like much of the Trek of which you're most fond, it works quietly within the confines of a flawed larger tradition to make something great. It was also, sadly, rushed out prematurely by Lucasarts for the Christmas rush, and thus was buggy as all hell on release and quite literally without an ending; Obsidian ended up releasing all or most of the cut or missing material to the fans, who went ahead and created a mod that allows one to play it more or less as it was originally intended. Highly recommended if you haven't given it a try, and don't mind a rather lengthy introductory quest before things really start rolling.

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    1. I was aware the original Knights of the Old Republic is considered by many to be the high water mark of Star Wars: I was first getting into game journalism when that that game was just starting to get a lot of really exciting buzz. I was also aware that the sequel was considered by many to be a massive disappointment for precisely the reasons you outline above-I didn't know there was a mod out to fix all of that, so that's really great to hear, thanks!

      I get the feeling Knights of the Old Republic is sort of the pioneer for where BioWare eventually went with Mass Effect. Every few years I think about playing it, but then never get around to.Maybe I will now. Hopefully I'll like it *better* than Mass Effect.

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  5. Thanks for a great essay Josh.

    Very interesting to hear about your experience and relationship to Star Wars. I am gonna be honest here, I do have a totally divergent experience from you - but I am not in any way partisan, unlike some folk I have comes across, and would never want to stand up and shout that it is the best thing in the world and highlight your true feeling of loneliness, despite the fact that the movies (the original trilogy) have shot through my life with a bit of a golden thread of memory.

    But first I want to start with Joseph Campbell. About 9 or so years after watching the original movie as a kid with my father which is a pretty golden memory. I remember seeing Campbell on TV here in the UK presenting his ideas on the Myth of the Hero over a series of talking head interviews, with one of the linking in Star Wars. At the time this wowed me and really inspired me massively on my inner personal journey. Now, I do totally *get* the criticism of Campbell and the problems with his mono-mythic approach, as I have attempted reading The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Myths to Live By and neither work for me. In lot of ways I think he might have been piggy-backing on the popularity of SW and allowing Lucas to ret-con mythic intent into his work.

    There is though a lot more to Campbell - I recommend checking out his book series The Masks of God where he explores myth in a much wider (and deeper) context than his later books. I sadly do then think that Campbell did himself a big disservice in linking himself with SW, leading to a diluting down of his ideas and The Writer's Journey where the most over-simplified form of his approach is offered up as a one-size-fits-all approach to scriptwriting. I do not think that is work can now easily be seen beyond this or SW now.

    "Star Wars to be many people's first interaction with the concept of comparative mythology, and I grant that: Star Wars isn't particularly good at this, but it's likely the first exposure many people are going to have with the idea"

    So yes as you can see the above was big part of my journey with SW, as well as RPG, and getting me into storytelling. I did love playing SW RPG more than Trek RPG as with Trek I had real trouble playing to rank and that turned me off. So I agree nowadays that SW is a cobbled together series of images, symbols and themes woven from many cultures - but as a kid it totally drew me in along with the "wonderfully tactile" (thanks Cleofis) approach to model making, that helped my imagination *feel* like it was in a world that had solid things in it.

    In the end though, I do love (and have loved) Trek SW and Doctor Who all equally. Though each work on me in different ways, as well as me spending time with SW less now. In the 90's I was not part of any fandom and as a result I have never had the experience of being on one side or the other as far as fan divisions go - and I would never have time for anyone who makes someone else feel lesser for not sharing a love for the same product they have.

    So Josh, thanks for sharing such a personal story of your relationship to Star Wars.

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  6. I always thought the Empire was just the Federation as more honestly seen form the standpoint of its subjects.

    And I'm willing to forgive the prequels much because they get the politics so right.

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  7. I've been so busy lately that I've fallen massively behind on your blog - as I have a lot of things that are interesting and fun. Consequently, I find that nearly everybody's said what I have to say already. My family had the original trilogy on VHS when I was a kid. My brothers and I watched it so many times I'm surprised we didn't wear out the tape. Needless to say, I can still "sing along" to basically every line of dialogue in the original trilogy. (I remember one of the commercials before the start of the tape, loudly proclaiming that this would be the LAST TIME the Original Trilogy would be available on home video - a claim that I was able to see through even as an 8 year-old boy).

    There are a few things I could say about it (one of these days I'm going to come to the defense of Return of the Jedi in a big way), but on the whole, it works on much the same level that you and the commenters here say it does: on a visceral cinematic level. The original Star Wars trilogy is a series of films that knows how to grab you by the short and curlies. The characters are incredibly broad, yet recognizable and sharply drawn, archetypes which can easily be identified, understood, liked, and disliked. The production design is a triumph - it feels lived in, but the design choices made also evoke clear emotions (not thoughts or ideas, emotions - think the opening shot of the Tantive IV being chased by the massive Star Destroyer, which tells you much of what you need to know about the story without any need for dialogue). In short, Star Trek, the new BSG, Doctor Who, and the like may have more intelligent things to say, but at its best, Star Wars made people CARE. Which in my opinion is owing to the way it makes use of visual and symbolic language. Maybe that's why MK likes it so much.

    Of course, all this makes it all the more clear that Star Wars' success owes far more to Ralph McQuarrie than it does to George Lucas.

    On a completely separate note that I found no way to make a good segue into, as much as George Lucas looms over the franchise, it's interesting that his EU policy is more inclusive than, say, Star Trek's. As opposed to "nothing is canon unless I say it is," it's "everything released commercially is canon unless I say it's not." Which is still inferior to Doctor Who's policy (and more inferior still to The Elder Scrolls's policy), I did find it interesting. And as a kid, enjoyable - since I was a fan of the Dark Forces games (and later on, Knights of the Old Republic). Still, it makes sense - playing with the action figures and making your own stories is what kids are supposed to do.

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  8. Count me as another for whom Star Wars is nothing special. It had its appeal as a child, then I grew out of it. I watched the prequels and was left entirely unenthused, so I went back and watched the original films with the nostalgia goggles off, only to realize that they are really just as bad.

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