Skywalkerlied
NOTE: This piece was originally published on my old blog on May 2017 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Star Wars.
“No one has closed the gap between art and technology more successfully than George Lucas. In his epochal six-film Star Wars saga, he fused ancient hero legends from the East and West with futuristic science fiction and created characters who have entered the dream lives of millions. He constructed a vast, original, self-referential mythology like that of James Macpherson’s pseudo-Celtic Ossian poems, which swept Europe during in the late 18th century, or the Angria and Gondal story cycle spun by the Bronte children in their isolation in the Yorkshire moors. Lucas was a digital visionary who prophesied and helped shape a host of advances, such as computer-generated imagery; computerized film editing, sound mixing, and virtual set design; high-definition cinematography; fiber-optic transmission of dailies; digital movie duplication and distribution; theater and home-entertainment stereo surround sound; and refinements in video-game graphics, interactivity, and music.”
- Camille Paglia, “George Lucas’s Force.”
The original Star Wars Trilogy could well be renamed The Song of Skywalker. George Lucas, quite perfectly, weaved the tale of a young boy who becomes a young man.In this sense, Star Wars shares kinship with Lucas’s earlier work, American Graffiti, but differs from his later Indiana Jones, which went full-matinee serial. Forty years have passed since Star Wars first played on movie screens across the nation, and in that time it has become an American myth.
Where Star Wars and Indiana Jones share kinship, is that they were both tributes to earlier films. The Tarantino mash-ups of their time. Star Wars, much like America herself, is an amalgamation of various cultures, stories, and events the world over. Star Wars captures the best of the spaghetti western and the jidaigeki samurai pictures, to Han Solo’s shootout with Greedo to the stoic elegance of the lightsaber duels. The dogfights between X-Wings and TIE Fighters invoke those between the RAF and the Luftwaffe in World War II movies. The Galactic Empire drew from previous democracies that fell into tyranny, from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, from the Wiemar Republic to the Nazi Empire. Lucas even used the Empire as a subtle warning to the United States over its adventurism in Vietnam, and a reminder of our own revolutionary origins against the British. The fallen Jedi Knights recall a sense of chivalry akin to King Arthur’s Knights Of The Round Table, a needed antidote to the cold brutality of the Empire. The parallels to Britain’s great knight run further, as Arthur’s son, Mordred, turned against him, so too does Luke rebel against the will of his father, Vader. The visual composition of Star Wars is, in many ways, a result of previous epics released not to long before it. The empty deserts of Tatooine with their binary sunsets evoke the sprawling sandscapes and slow, climbing sunrise in Lawrence of Arabia. While the expansive realism of the galaxy would not have been possible without the depth of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, even the opening reveal of the Imperial Star Destroyer borrows from the opening reveal of the Discovery One.
Maybe the best way to describe Star Wars is, The Hidden Fortress as told by Flash Gordon. The Hidden Fortress being an Akira Kurosawa film about an older samurai, played by Toshiro Mifune, on a journey to rescue a princess, but all told from the perspective of two bickering peasants. The plot of A New Hope follows a similar line, with the opening imperial seizure of the Tantive IV being told from the perspective of two bickering droids. Mifune himself was even offered the roles of either Obi-Wan or Darth Vader, but his daughter recently revealed that he rejected them out of concern that Star Wars would “cheapen the image of the samurai,” (Blair). His concerns at the time were warranted, given that Star Wars would draw upon the aesthetics of matinee serials like Flash Gordon, where heroes in flashy spandex did battle with the Fu-Manchu knock-off Ming The Merciless, while capturing the hearts of Dale Arden and Princess Aura. Indeed, the famous opening crawl is taken from the intros to Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, while Luke’s battle with the Rancor easily parallel’s Flash’s encounter with the Fire Dragon in the Tunnel of Terror. Lucas was able to evolve that visual aesthetic to a more modern age with the “used future” concept, in which these futuristic spaceships would suffer grime and grit. It brought a tangible sense of realism and humanity to Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon or Boba Fett’s Slave I. Even the Imperial Star Destroyers and the Death Star trench, while not exactly dirty, have a rough and mechanic exterior. This aesthetic was only better evolved during the Millennium Falcon’s entry into Second Death Star, still under construction, with its labyrinthine red pipes.
Indeed, the environments of Star Wars, brought to life by a unique mixture of constructed sets, exotic locations, and Ralph McQuarrie’s surreal matte paintings, were just as important to telling the story as the characters or the script. In A New Hope, the interior of Tantive IV is all white, while the interior of the Death Star is sleek and grey. The wide, desolate sands of Tatooine exhibit the boredom that Luke feels at home. The fierce snows of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back add an elemental enemy to the AT-ATs marching over the horizon. The turgid swamps of Dagobah provide a natural ambience which displays life forms in symbiosis, while also providing a challenge for Luke to overcome. Nature takes on a different status through Endor in Return Of The Jedi, where it stands as a last defense of tranquility against imperial technocrats.
While these influences are well known, they’re easily forgotten, as these entries come off more as canonical additions to the genre, rather than hi-tech homages. Children with no reference to Gunga Din or Treasure of the Sierra Madre will see Indiana Jones as novel in adventure films. Likewise, children with no reference to Flash Gordon or A Princess Of Mars will see Star Wars as novel in space fantasy. I think most people who say that Star Wars is lackluster science-fiction are missing the point of Star Wars. This wasn’t Star Trek, where the primary function was about exploring scientific or philosophical ideas, but to create a swashbuckling yarn to thrill the scenes. The Death Star trench run in A New Hope is probably the greatest climax put on film, rivaled only by the Stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Third Impact in The End of Evangelion. The tension is stretched out perfectly, with Vader knocking off various X-Wings, until only Luke is left, almost certain to die until the Millennium Falcon sweeps in at the right moment to clear a way. Another great action sequence is the escape from Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi, where Luke jumps from the plank over the Sarlaac pit and reveals his green lightsaber, coupled with Leia’s cathartic strangling of Jabba.
We’ve seen most of the characters in Star Wars before, even if we can’t exactly recall from where. The young savior, the captured princess, the old wizard, the sly thief, the dark lord, all of them. Yet it isn’t the archetypes that appeal to us, it’s the way in which they’re presented. Star Wars is a traditional narrative with a modern sensibility. It didn’t always take itself so seriously (Leia once called Chewie a “big walking carpet”). Throughout much of the films, Luke, Leia, and Han spend a great deal of time arguing with one another, mostly about how best not to get killed. This is not only where much of the humor is produced, but it is also what makes these archetypes more human. The three come to like one another, in spite of their troubles, and we believe it. Han Solo easily could have been an asshole, but Harrison Ford plays him with such charisma, while showing moments of humanity that elide a more complex character (think of his last moments with Leia before being frozen in carbonite). Leia Organa could’ve easily been a shrieking damsel-in-distress, but is stalwart against her captors and scolding of her rescuers. Star Wars is so soaked in humanity, that it has us sympathizing with two bickering droids, a howling Wookie, and a green Muppet, as though they were real people.
The Star Wars films were probably the best special effects movies of the 20th century, surpassing the titans of King Kong, The Ten Commandments, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. They’d be impossible to replicate today without computer effects, due to the rising costs of making films. Many of the special effects powerhouses since 1977: Alien, Blade Runner, Titanic, The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Lord of the Rings, all owe a debt to the ground broken by Star Wars. The films utilized the best effects available, at a time when the special effects industry was dying, and pushed the boundaries of what was possible when few were. Meticulously constructed models provided the spaceships, expert puppeteering brought Yoda and Jabba to life, stop-motion animation made AT-ATs walk and the Rancor howl, while well-timed rotoscoping turned on the lightsaber. An often understated, but significant addition to the believability of these effects are the sounds of Ben Burtt. Consider how different Star Wars would be without R2’s bleeps, the hum of the lightsaber, Chewbacca’s howling, or Vader’s breath.
John Williams’s masterful score for Star Wars, named the greatest film score of all time by the American Film Institute, and selected for preservation by the National Recording Registry, is a lucid mix of Holst’s The Planets, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and the triumphalist fanfare of matinee serials. Every note of music in Star Wars is so necessary to the telling of the story, that it elevates the films into high opera. That Williams drew from former scores isn’t plagiarism, but homage of the types of themes that Star Wars wishes to echo. Much of “Imperial Attack” is taken from Holst’s “Mars, Bringer Of War”, while the essence of “The Throne Room” feels like a spiritual twin to the second movement of “Jupiter, Bringer Of Jollity.” While Star Wars carries epic, Wagnerian drama, it also borrows the concept of leitmotiv, where the theme of a character or idea recurs throughout to signal their appearance. As Wagner did this for his fabled Siegfried, so too did Williams do this with Leia, Vader, Yoda, The Emperor, and the Force. While many of today’s films treat the music as an afterthought, Star Wars proves its vital necessity.
While Star Wars is no Star Trek, that doesn’t mean lacks any philosophical thought, it just ponders the spiritual over the scientific. The embodiment of this is, of course, the Force, which is a purely objective spiritual power that bestows psychic abilities to those in tune with it. Indeed, whether one is the Dark or Light Side of the Force says, in my view, less about the Force itself, and more about the people using it. Our venue for understanding the Force mainly comes through the journey of Luke Skywalker. When Luke first uses The Force, it’s during his lightsaber training with the Marksman-H. While relying on his eyes, he fails to counter the strikes, but only with the blast shield over his eyes can he trust in the Force without distraction. This is a precursor to Luke’s willingness to let go of technology and rely on the Force during the Death Star trench run, something that Vader warned of some time earlier when he demonstrated his Force Choke.
Luke comes in closer contact with the Force in his training with Yoda in Dagobah. He sees that it gives Yoda the strength to lift his X-Wing, but also, upon entering the cave, sees that the Dark Side could easily manifest in himself. Note that before Return of the Jedi, Luke is reckless in his use of violence. I imagine that part of the reason Obi-Wan sacrificed himself to Vader was to get Luke out of there as soon as possible, lest he stay and further endanger his life. In The Empire Strikes Back, against the advice of either Yoda or Obi-Wan, Luke goes to face Vader, but is terribly inadequate. Vader spends most of the fight testing Luke’s skills, before revealing his parentage. After Luke lets himself fall, rather than join Vader, he finds that the Force allows him to connect with his sister, Leia. Afterwards, Luke learns tact in the use of violence, offering Jabba multiple chances at surrender before springing his escape, and deferring it to trickery in joining with the Ewoks.
His last great test comes when he must again confront his father, but he’d rather do so by redeeming his heart. In his second battle with Vader, Luke comes to learn how easy it is to abuse rage, and fall to the Dark Side, but at the last minute, chooses nonviolence over excessive slaughter, and spares Vader’s life. Moved by this act, and Luke’s pleas during The Emperor’s electrocution, a father saves his son. By all these things, Lucas wants to say that no matter how great the machine, or how dark the soul, or how sharp the saber, there will always be a place for the human spirit. This is the meaning of Star Wars.
In the years since the end of the Original Trilogy, Star Wars has expanded into a universe that seems to dwarf the very movies that started it. The original stories always felt like they were taking place in a larger world, with many mysteries of the past left obscure or ambiguous. The Prequel Trilogy was an interesting attempt to deconstruct the original narrative, by showing how a heroic figure can turn to evil, but was overwhelmed by digital effects and failed to craft an intriguing Macbethean fall. By far, the best thing to come out of the prequels was Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars. Now we have a Sequel Trilogy, starting with The Force Awakens, which has a lot of promise, and a new series of spin-off films, starting with Rogue One, which while lacking characterization, was tremendously entertaining. Star Wars is everywhere, and yet, even with all the advances in technology and the hundreds of new artists adding their flair, I find it remarkable that it is still so difficult to rival, or even surpass, the original films.
After forty years.
Originally published at http://sansuthecat.blogspot.com on May 6, 2017.
