The
Lure of "Star Wars"
Exploring The Appeal Of A Fictional
Story
Commentary by Loren Phillips
5/15/99
Recently, because of this website's increasing
popularity, my husband and I have been having to answer the same question frequently to
the media: "Why does everyone make such a big deal over Star Wars? It's just a
movie, isn't it?" I've never been able to answer that question satisfactorily
to myself in the two or three minutes given to me by a reporter.
I've been debating this within myself for the past few years, asking myself why so many
people, in so many walks of life, follow this fictional storyline so intently. I'm
not a "huge" Star Wars fan - I don't know even a fraction of what happens in
this "universe" - and have looked upon those who know and collect everything to
do with these stories in amazement. I'm not involved in the Echo Station website
because Star Wars fills my life. I'm here because I enjoy the people with whom I get
to work, and because of the new things I learn. Sure, I really liked the movies when
they came out, and soaked it up like a sponge twenty years ago. I was twelve, and
like children that age in any generation, I practically obsessed over the things that I
liked, and devoured anything I could find about it. Kids today are doing the same
thing, whether it be over Godzilla, sports cards, Barbie, or the like. It's not a
matter of "Why Star Wars?" as much as "Why NOT Star Wars?".
What makes the adult women with Barbie collections, or the adult men with
rooms full of baseball memorabilia any different? They're not. They're simply
enjoying as an adult that thing which made them so blissfully happy as a child.
These are not people who care what anyone else thinks of their hobby. These
are people who are perfectly willing to wait in line for 3 hours to buy a ticket that will
allow them to wait in line 2 hours to get an autograph from their favorite sports figure
or artist. And it's done with joy, because, for the rest of their lives,
they'll be able to remember the moment that they stood in front of someone like Steve
Yzerman, shook his hand, told them how much they admired him, and walked away with an
autographed photo, thinking to themselves that this celebrity is just really a normal,
nice guy who happens to play great hockey. There will always be a memory of having
their favorite author sign their favorite book, and be able to pick up that book to read
it over and over and think to themselves that they're glad they were able to tell the
author that their story had perhaps changed their outlook on life, and expressed their
gratitude to this person who never even knew they existed.
Every life consists of "moments"...specific times in our lives that stand out
when we look back on our lives. We all "remember when..." Kennedy was
shot, the Challenger exploded, or man first walked on the moon. But there are kinds
of moments that affect some types of people more than others. The ballpark was
filled with baseball fans who will always be grateful that they were present the day Mark
McGuire broke the home run record, while to others, it was just another story in the local
newspaper. Some people remember proudly the day they met the President of the
United States, while to others it would mean nothing. But these kinds of events are
scheduled, planned.
It's the events that aren't planned that are the truly interesting memories. I
remember in 1980 when the United States Olympic Hockey Team beat the Russian Team for the
gold medal. No one had dreamed at the beginning of the games that it was even
possible. Yet as the final game drew nearer and nearer, everyone watched in
amazement as victory after victory was gained. We all sat in absolute stunned
silence around our television sets as 60 minutes of game time became one of the most
memorable moments in many of our lives.
Even now, watching videotape of that game, I still get tears in my eyes from the
twenty-year-old emotions that can still seem all too fresh. And I'm glad I can still
feel it, because it's those emotions that help me truly remember the entire event and
appreciate that I was fortunate enough to be a part of such a wonderful experience, if
even only through a television monitor. Although, to many people, and even maybe
most people, this would seem a laughable reaction. Getting sentimental about a
hockey game that happened twenty years ago when you weren't even involved with the team in
any way? They'd look at me and think I ought to find something important to get
emotional about, then walk away shaking their heads, calling me ridiculous.
You see, it's differences like this that make us all individuals. To me, an
eventful hockey game is a memory I'll treasure forever. I do not expect everyone
else to feel the same way. I would not want to get one hundred people in a room and
show them that videotape and have them all react the same way as me. It would take
away my individuality to know that what is important to me is no different than any other
person. Sitting in that room, I would want those one hundred people to have one
hundred different responses. I'd want some to get bored and leave, some to watch
with casual indifference, and some to simply be entertained. And I'd want some to be
as overwhelmed, after all this time, as I would be. But even within those different
groups, I'd want each person to have their own level of interest and emotion.
Because when it was all over, those one hundred different perspectives would lead to
interesting and stimulating interaction between the viewers. A lot of people would
talk about how great is was, analyzing each play, each skillful move of the stick, that
managed to gain those boys a gold medal that affected an entire country. They could
talk for hours, delving into the wisdom of certain lineups, or discuss why certain
mistakes occurred. And on the outskirts of this discussion, there would be people
thinking to themselves "My god, how could people possibly get this involved in
talking about an hour's worth of a game that happened twenty years ago?" Those
folks would start talking amongst themselves about how obsessive the others were, and how
they couldn't believe there wasn't something more important or interesting that the others
could spend their time on. And in the end, everyone would leave with their own
opinions, going back to their own lives, as the individuals that they are.
It sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?
A little over twenty years ago, a great deal of people sat in a movie theater and watched
a film for a couple of hours. Nobody bought a ticket at the box office thinking it
would "change their lives", they just wanted to be entertained. And
entertained they were. "Star Wars" was a film that was unlike any of us
had seen before. Its story was nothing new...it was a conglomeration of folklore,
mythology, and science fiction that was familiar to us all. It was the presentation,
this weaving of things so common into a new format, that struck many of us so strongly.
The film was made with innovative special effects techniques, that for the first
time, truly made the audience look at a screen as if it were really happening. Never
before had a film viewer been able to so escape from real life into a fictional world with
no sense of "manufactured" surroundings. Finally, people who loved science
fiction, around since the days of Jules Verne, could actually see a world they longed to
be a part of presented to them as if it were real.
We must all remember that in those days no one had VCR's. You couldn't turn on cable
television and select from 150 channels to find whatever interested you. Most people
only had three or four network stations of sitcoms, the occasional Sunday Night movie, and
public television documentaries. "Epic movies" were films like
"Lawrence of Arabia" and "Ben Hur" - historical dramas. Science
fiction film consisted of "Godzilla" movies, and "Lost in Space".
No one had ever seen an alternate universe brought to life in epic proportions,
drawing on real-life themes, beyond mindless broadcast entertainment.
It wasn't Luke Skywalker that changed anyone's life. It wasn't cool special effects
that made people bond. It was the understanding that there really is a lot of people
in the world who find an image of how life could be in an alternate universe extremely
intriguing. People started talking. Over the years, after three films, and
countless books, people are still talking, even more so thanks to the internet. I've
overheard a lot of this conversation, and while a small amount of it has been silly, the
larger portion of it has been thought-provoking examination of a fictional universe that
has a great deal of reflection on the lives of real people.
There is nothing that happens in "Star Wars" that hasn't some basis in fact from
our history. I have seen analysis of the spiritual guidance of, or blind devotion to
religion, and how it can cause strife and war, as occurs with "The Force" and
its followers, the Jedi, being systematically hunted down and destroyed by an intolerant
government. How many pages of history are written covering this very topic?
How many people's lives were lost because they were simply different than the
people who held the weapons? I have seen discussion of the wisdom and
manageability of superweapons, their neverending increases in destructive capability, and
how they can possibly be defended against or eliminated, as in the Death Star being used
to destroy a planet. Is this not a specific commentary on the eventual growth of the
destructive powers on our own planet? Can we on earth eventually develop such
capability that we could destroy a planet, or are we, in fact, already there?
You see, it's not the actual story of "Star Wars" that draws people in.
It's the use of the stories to talk about what is right and wrong in our own world.
It is sometimes too difficult for people to talk about what is happening around
them. It's too painful to look across the dinner table and discuss people in Kosovo
being slaughtered for simply being who they are. It's not in human nature to make
casual conversation each day involving social commentary on the human race. But many
of us need to do it, just in a way that is easier for us to handle. We talk in
"what if's", "this could be possible's", and "it would be
wrong's" about a world not our own, while subconsciously we learn about ourselves.
We don't log into our computers thinking "I want to talk to someone in
Europe about genocide". We log in and talk about the Empire hunting down the
Jedi, and the Jedi rebelling and becoming victorious in the end.
And perhaps these discussions, held between people who have never met before, oceans
apart, from different cultures and different nations, help all of us to learn more about
each other. Perhaps, because of a simple movie and the international discussion and
bonding it spawned, one person in one country somehow learned that it's acceptable for
people to be different. And perhaps there IS one person whose life was changed
because they learned a little more about "right" and "wrong" because
of a debate they were involved in over a twenty-year-old film.
Personally, I think the media Armageddon surrounding the release of "The Phantom
Menace" is too much. But I can understand what is happening in the minds of
some of these fans who are acting so "crazed" over its release. Twenty
years ago, the opportunity to watch a particular film became a "moment" in some
people's memories. They never planned it to be, but it did nonetheless. And
now, all of this time later, people who either want to relive that moment, or want to try
to create their own moment because they were unable to experience it the first time, are
lining up to see the release of this new film.
I don't think "The Phantom Menace" will ever create the experience that the
original Star Wars film did. It's not possible to manufacture a "moment".
Perhaps many younger people will look back on the day they first saw this new movie
and think it was special, but these people can't recreate what many of us who were there
the first time experienced. Frankly, I've never felt much need to see the new
film. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm not anticipating that I'll even find
it that good (although I hope it proves me wrong). But I'll be seeing it still the
same. Not because I think George Lucas has made an earth-shattering film, but
because I long for the new and interesting conversation I'll be having with people all
over the world. I can't wait to see a new young person log into our message boards
and start asking questions about why the bad guys did this, or why the good guys did that,
all the while seeing that, behind those innocent questions about a movie, a young mind is
subconsciously learning about the real world around them.
If one person learns something from "Star Wars", then George Lucas did a good
thing. And if our website can provide the opportunity for one person to talk to
someone thousands of miles from their home, and use "Star Wars" as a tool to
expand their knowledge and understanding of the human race and how we can all be better
people by discussing topics from different cultural perspectives, then we who run this
simple website will find all of our work worthwhile.
Loren Phillips