THE JOURNEY TO MANHOOD: GEORGE LUCAS' SAGA OF SACRIFICE AND SALVATION by FRAN WONG A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Philosophical Foundations in the Institute for Christian Studies December, 1991 Supervisor : Dr. Calvin Seerveld INTRODUCTION ......................................... ................... 1 STAR WARS AND "STAR WARS" ....................... 1 PURPOSES: LUCAS' AND MINE ..................... .......... 3 Lucas' Purpose in Making Star Wars ............... 3 Has Lucas Achieved his Purpose? ........... .4 My Purpose in Writing This Thesis ...... ......... 8 CHAPTER ONE: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR STAR WARS.............. 8 A FEW POINTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF F/SF FILM .........8 GEORGE LUCAS' SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY TO YOUNG P E O P L E .............................................10 LUCAS' INNOVATIVE MIXING OF GENRES. ............. 12 CHAPTER TWO: THE THEORIES BEHIND THE PRACTICE IN THIS THESIS..19 THOUGHTS ABOUT HOW FILM WORKS ...................... ... 19 A METHOD OF ANALYSIS: COMMENTARY ON THE USE OF CINEMATIC FEATURES. ................... .................... 20 SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT PSYCHOLOGY AND FILM. ........,22 UNDERSTANDING LUCAS' W O R L D V I E W ..........................25 CHAPTER THREE: THE WORLD OF STAR WARS......................... .27 INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF O V E R V I E W . .....................,27 THE EXTERNAL CONFLICT IN THIS WORLD... ................ 30 Who is fighting with whom? ........................ ,31 How does Lucas help us choose sides?, ............33 Is there a significant difference between the two sides? ........................... 36 HOW MILITARISM AND RELIGION ARE COMBINED: THE WARRIOR MONK. ...........................................38 CHAPTER FOUR: BECOMING A MATURE MAN ............. ......... ........ 42 LUKE'S DESIRE FOR A FATHER ........... ......... 42 Luke's adoptive family of o r i g i n .......... 42 "Some damn fool idealistic crusade" ....... .....44 Luke's father figures: the continuing quest,,..47 WHAT IS A FATHERLESS YOUNG MAN TO DO?... ............. 51 The dysfunctional disguised as the functional..50 The 'denial of feelings' in the dysfunctional family, ................... 52 Attitude toward the body ............ .............. 54 The 'family secret' in the dysfunctional family, ....................... 56 Roles in the family system: Luke as Hero ....... 59 "You cannot escape your destiny" .................. 61 Enmeshment: Life as an Appendage of Your Family System ............................... 63 “The Song Is Ended But The Melody Lingers On"..67 CHAPTER FIVE: THE FORCE AND LOVE: TWO C O S M O L O G I E S ..............70 THE FORCE ACCORDING TO THE JEDIS ................. 70 THE FORCE: AN UNNECESSARY HYPOTHESIS?........... 76 DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. ....................... 81 C O N C L U S I O N ............................................. .................. 89 "LIVING IN AMERICA" .................................. 89 MUTUAL RESCUING: TRUE LOVE? ............ ...........92 THE FILMGOER'S RESPONSE TO 'MUTUAL RESCUING'... 98 FAMILY REUNION: AN APPROPRIATE ENDING FOR STAR WARS. .................................. 101 A FINAL LOOK AT FANTASY ...... .............. 103 NOTES. ................................. ......... ...................... 107 TO I N T R O D U C T I O N ................................... ... 107 TO CHAPTER ONE ..................... .................. 109 TO CHAPTER TWO ............................ ............ 112 TO CHAPTER T H R E E ..................................... 117 TO CHAPTER FOUR ...... ........................ .......122 TO CHAPTER FIVE ......................... ............. 127 TO CONCLUSION. ................... ............. ....... 132 WORKS CONSULTED ......................................................... 138 FILMOGRAPHY. ......... .................................138 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................... ...................... 138 APPENDIX A APPENDIX B INTRODUCTION "What are the stars?" said O'Brien indifferently. "They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out." -- George Orwell, 1984 "If Star Wars is 'about' anything, it is about power --and the source of ultimate power in the film is the Force." -- Dan Rubey AND "STAR WARS" is a world created on film by George Lucas and colleagues. But "Star Wars“ is also the nickname of the Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based missile defense system proposed by the Reagan administration in 1983. Although Lucas was not happy that the name of his film saga became attached to Reagan's plans, we might naturally wonder if there were any good reasons for making this comparison. Are the Star Wars trilogy and the "Star Wars" military project at all alike? Jane Caputi notes several examples of similar language in Lucas' wording concerning the trilogy, and words and phrases con­ nected with the American defense plan• For instance, although the first film was released initially as Star Wars (1977), in 1980, when Empire was released, Lucas renamed it Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode 4): then in a "Star Wars" speech on March 23, 1983, Ronald Reagan said, "I have reached a decision which offers hope for our children in the twenty-first century." (emphasis added) Here is another example Caputi gives: "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, stiking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the Evil Galactic 1 (Introductory text in Hope) (emphasis added) "So in your discussions of the nuclear freese proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation blithely to declare yourself above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil." (Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1983) (emphasis added) ( 497)3 One would almost think Reagan's speechwriter had seen Lucas' trilogy and deliberately incorporated its phraseology into Reagan's speeches! Caputi believes the Force in Star Wars is nuclear power1*; I do not agree. Lucas has said that the Force is like God: I was trying to say in a very simple way, knowing that the film was made for a young audience, that there is a God and there is both a good side and a bad side. You have a choice between them, but the world works better if you're on the good side. It's just that simple." (Clarke 1983 57) Even though Caputi's definition of the Force is wrong -- it does not fit the films, I do find culturally critical analyses such as hers helpful in discerning what is implicit in contem­ porary popular films. Ian Jarvie, speaking of meaning in films s a y s : For far too long, movies were dismissed as social pap -- mere popular entertainment. By titling [my] book Movies as Social Criticism I indicate my dissent from this summary dismissal. Popular movies are a rich source of ideas.about, information concernlng.1__and. criticism of, society....Popular movies were made for money and entertainment. [But] this does not mean they will not reward careful sociological analysis. (emphasis added) (ix) Jarvie's underlined comment also applies to implicit 2 meanings, social commentary embedded in films, with or without the filmmaker's knowledge. The people who categorized Hope in particular, and sometimes all three films, as mere entertainment and pure escapisms, need to consider more carefully what is going on in the trilogy. For instance, Vincent Canby in reviewing Hope said it "made absolutely no meaningful comment on contemporary concerns such as nuclear war, overpopulation, depersonalization and sex." (Canby6, quoted in Caputi 495) I contend, on the contrary, that the trilogy contains messages, dealing with some of those very subjects, namely (nuclear) war, depersonalization and sex, if by the last item Canby means the relationship between men and women.7 PURPOSES: LUCAS' AND MINE Lucas' Purpose in making Star Wars "Star Wars was made because George Lucas wanted to see it; he didn't realize that 100 million other people would want to see it too." -- Dale Pollock Lucas was only in his twenties when he directed American Graffiti (1973), his first commercially successful movie. Making it was partly an exercise in nostalgia for him, a chance to mourn the passing of his youth. At the same time he welcomed change: Life is a constant transition and you have to accept that fact...The future may be completely strange and different and scary but that's the way it should be. I thought that was one of the biggest challenges facing teenagers. I got to do what I wanted to do by not being frightened away by the future and the unknown, and I figured that was a good message to get across. Star Wars says the same thing in terms of technology, space flight and opening up the world. (Sheff 242) 3 In Graffiti Lucas had set out to challenge young people to rid themselves of their fears "of the future and of the unknown. Now he wanted to continue to give them courage: I was conscious about doing a modern fairy tale. Star Wars came out of one of the reactions to American Graffiti. After the movie came out, I got hundreds of cards and letters from preteenagers and young teenagers saying different versions of 'Gosh, I didn't know that everybody has a tough time being a teenager.' The kids were saying, "The problems I'm having are all the same problems the guys in the movies were having, and I guess they had those ten years ago." (Sheff 242) Lucas