[Star Wars] Salon.com Article: "Galactic gasbag"

[Wolfspider]

Interesting article about the many inspirations of George Lucas over at Salon.com --

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/04/10/lucas/index.html

 

[Ashtal]

I think the Salon guys have to stop looking down their noses and taking themselves (and everyone else) WAY too seriously...

 

[el-remmen]

Wow, what cycnical crap. . .

Isn't it possible that both are true. . .?

I hate idiots like that. . .

 

[Tom Cashel]

On the contrary...seems like the author is asking people NOT to take Star Wars so seriously. He claims that it's just pulp action stuff, not archetypal myth.

I don't find it cynical, just a different viewpoint. Quite a refreshing change from the tendency to elevate Star Wars to the canon of Great Works. Especially when that elevation makes George Lucas seem like a scholar of myth (which he may be) and unlike a collector of film motifs (which he definitely is).

I mean, Star Wars is a great flick.
The Odyssey is a Great Work.

 

[Vuron]

So it's not ok for people to point out that George takes his "holy" trilogy + 2 a little too seriously? Besides the article only points out a more likely source of inspiration rather than completely debunking the Campbell mythology tie. Honestly I think it's much more reasonable to look at aspects of Star Wars as being an adaptation of space opera of the 1950s with the framework of Akira Kurosawa's plot

 

[Wolfspider]

I thought the article was pretty insightful. George Lucas himself has admitted that he takes inspiration for the titles of his Star Wars movies from pulp sci-fi literature, so why not also admit that the literature is also an inspiration for the Star Wars stories as well? The author's comparison of the Jedi to the Lensmen is also pretty telling.

I do think that Star Wars touches on some mythical elements as well (Luke and Vader's relationship, the Force, the seperated siblings, etc.), but I also think that it is fundamentally a pulp action story--albeit one that has touched a lot of people deeply.

 

[King_Stannis]

when are people gonna learn....



salon.com just plain sucks. end. of. story.



this was telling (from the end of the article).....

"About the writer
Steven Hart is a freelance writer and novelist based in New Jersey."

uh huh. those who cannot do, teach. and those who cannot write, critique. am i the only one that smell sour grapes?

 

[el-remmen]

Thus, my assertion that it is both. .

I don't think he has ever denied that pulp action aci-fi and such was a great inspiration for Star Wars. . . but that stuff touches on certain archetypes as well. . .

 

[King_Stannis]

and let there be no doubt, the article WAS a hatchet job on george lucas and, to a lesser extent, lawrence kasden. the guy went out of his way to take swipes, in fact.

anyone that doesn't think so is lucas-hater-one-week-boycotter.

 

[Van Dyksun]

I'll gladly take the role of Lucas-hater, although I consider myself more of a Lucas-disdainer.

Yes, I've seen all the movies, and I still think the first trilogy was a great achievement in film.

But the new trilogy lacks a lot of what made the first trilogy good. Some of these things are just the nature of prequels--there's no real surprises in Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones simply because we know where the story is going to go in the future. Lucas based the first trilogy on pulp fiction/film, which is known for cliffhangers--something sadly absent in Phantom.

The bad acting (not just from the inexperienced kid, but also from the "star" names) cannot be excused, and has to be attributed to Lucas, because these actors have acted better in other films.

Visually, the films remain stunning. In fact, the second time I saw the Phantom Menace (I had promised my class that I would take them before I found out how bad the film was), I simply turned my ears off and simply watched the film for the backgrounds and the effects. There are so many shots that seemed to have jumped right off the cover of Amazing magazine, but yet are "realistic" in the context of the world.

Story-wise, the new stuff just doesn't match up.

I truly hope that Attack will be better. But I don't plan to see the film the first week for sure, and people are going to have to come back from it and let me know that there's more of the kind of stuff shown in the second trailer than the first to be able to convince me to go.