Greetings, and welcome to Earthling Cinema. I am your host, Garyx Wormuloid.
This week’s artifact is Star Wars, a documentary about life in our galaxy, just with all the
names and dates screwed up. For instance, it should start, “A long time from now.”
And we don’t have The Force, we have big eyebrows that link us to a shared consciousness.
But other than that, pretty accurate.
Star Wars tells the story of a whiny teenaged humanoid named Luke,
"But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!"
who just hangs around at home and doesn’t have any friends.
His family buys two of the least helpful appliances on the market,
and before you know it, their house is destroyed.
They run into Obi-Wan, Luke’s nosy neighbor who won’t shut up about how he knew Luke's father,
"Your father"
"Your father's lightsaber."
which Luke somehow didn’t know, despite living next to this guy his entire life.
Also, how does Luke not know what the Force is?
The Jedi were basically running the galaxy like twenty years earlier.
They hit the club together and meet Han Solo,
an intergalactic party boy who either shot first or didn’t shoot first.
Who cares?
Next, they go to an even bigger club and fight over a girl.
Obi-Wan forgets his ID, so the bouncer kicks him out.
"Nooo!"
And the rest of them get all worked up about it and come back to trash the place.
Finally, they have a very long, oddly wordless ceremony, where Luke and Han get medals, but Chewy doesn’t,
and neither do the other surviving pilots or anyone else who helped plan the attack.
Tough break, losers.
Storywise, Star Wars has many influences, most notably Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, or hero’s journey,
featuring steps like the call to adventure, crossing the threshold, and hitting on your sister.
It also draws from previous films, like Akira Kurosawa’s "Hidden Fortress," which uses two lowly characters
to propel the story forward, and numerous Westerns, such as "The Searchers," in which a guy sees a thing on fire.
The film also has religious and metaphysical overtones. The Force is something that requires faith,
a human concept necessitated by crippling mental insufficiencies.
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster."
The ethos of the Jedi is reminiscent of Earth’s Taoism, which teaches that there is a force called the Tao
behind everything in existence, from trees to toxic waste to seahorses to horses.
“It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.”
Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching of an energy that
“gives people life yet claims no possession... it is the steward yet exercises no authority.”
Kind of like me with my kids.
Obi Wan tells Luke to trust the Force instead of technology,
since, when have old people ever trusted technology?
In contrast, the Empire puts all their faith in the Death Star,
and rallies behind a guy who is more machine than man.
This cold reliance on technology leads to chaos and destruction,
whereas living in harmony with the natural world leads Luke to victory,
and a more heart-warming kind of destruction.
The Empire can trace its roots back to Earth’s most successful ideology, fascism.
The imperial generals wear clothing that resemble Bavarian Chevaulgers,
which were all the rage in the spring of 1915.
Many communist and fascist regimes used black and red as their colors,
most notably the Third Reich and the Miami Heat.
Also, “stormtroopers” is what German dictator Alfred Hitler called his personal bodyguards during World War Z.
And spoiler alert: “Vater” means “father” in German.
"Nooooooo!"
Visually, Star Wars is a pioneer, combining influences like Metropolis and 2001 to
create a rich tapestry sewn together with state-of-the-art special effects.
It also makes great use of color,
often using it to express duality, because what else are you gonna use it for?
As if mirroring the film’s moral structure, Vader and the Empire’s upper-echelon members
all wear black, whereas Luke and Leia wear white. Han wears black and white together
because he’s a bit of a bad boy. The stormtroopers have a white outer shell, but underneath you
can see the black, suggesting the “facade of benevolence” that hides the Empire’s more sinister motives.
The film’s legacy is monumental. It marked the end of 1970s cinema,
which was more focused more on pointless frivolities like substance, nuance, experimentation, theme, irony, etc.
After Star Wars, the movie industry shifted its focus toward special effects, explosions, action, and butts.
It went from complex conflict to stories that had a very clear and elementary distinction between good and evil.
The difference is that good people are super serious,
and evil people laugh all the time.
Furthermore, Star Wars ushered in a new era of monetization,
with sequels, merchandising, clothes, toys, spinoff novels, comic books, and video games,
all of which directly led to the extinction of the human race.
The moral of the story is: if at first you don’t succeed, just keep at it.
The first three Star Wars movies were a pile of hot garbage,
but by the fourth movie, the series finally hit its stride.
And the one that came out last week wasn't bad either.
For Earthling Cinema, I’m Garyx Wormuloid.
Thank you for watching.