#studyingstarwars Tuesday Blog Post
Today in class we watched the first episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Netflix series. I really enjoyed it and had previously always thought that it was a kid’s show. The droids were pretty funny and entertaining. We also discussed the prequels and how they were missing some of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I still don’t really understand why some people hate the prequels and think that George Lucas should have never made them.
Final Project
For my final project I believe that I am going to focus how the Star Wars movies created a separate tourism industry. This tourism industry revolves around visiting where the different scenes from the Star Wars movies were filmed.
I’ll probably begin explaining the tourism aspect in the US revolving around Disney theme parks. For example, the new opening of a Star Wars theme park in 2019 at Disney Land and Disney World. I will also probably discuss the tourism aspect of the Red Woods and Death Valley. I think it would be interesting if I could research and find any information on if tourism increased to these areas after the movies’ premieres.
Next, I’ll probably discuss the different locations from the movies that attract a lot of tourists. Some of the locations I plan on discussing are Norway, Ireland, Italy, Tunisia, and the Maldives. The country of Ireland has it’s own website specifically for Star Wars tourism here. From the little research that I have done the location in Norway is for experienced hikers only and there are a lot of disclaimers out there saying Beware. I think that currently the Tunisia locations are a little dangerous to try to get to, but maybe sometime in the future.
I’ll then discuss some of the negative effects of this “new” tourism industry. From the little research I have done, the Redwoods location is not the same as it was in the movie because of logging. Scientists are worried about the Skellig Michael location due to it’s special ecosystems. Ireland is preparing the location to be visited by thousands of tourists. The Tunisia locations had to be restored and it was the dedicated fans of Star Wars that helped to do this.
I also wonder why people want to visit these locations. Is there some psychology behind this? I plan to do some in-depth research on this. Maybe even segway into why people are so connected to movies that they flinch, cry, and cheer. I’ve found a couple links here and here on this.
