© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 50
I stay away from topicality as a rule. There is enough bad news without it becoming a source of amusement. However to there is an exception to every rule, and occasionally events are momentous enough to warrant comment in this column.
For the past 28 years, wars have come and gone, political movements have risen and fallen, and popes and other religious leaders have been proclaimed only to head on to that great big place of worship in the sky. None of this speaks of a commonality. Even the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics had their political controversies. However a significant part of humanity has been united in a single interest. Now that phenomenon is ending.
After 28 years, the Star Wars saga has reached completion.
For those of you who spent three decades marooned on a desert island or were just too coldly intellectual to be sucked in by the media hype, Star Wars came in two trilogies. The first trilogy, starting with the release of Star Wars I, later renamed Star Wars IV: A New Hope, dealt with the events that were the culmination of the saga. The films in the recent part of the trilogy, dealing with events that led up to the first trilogy, were released over the past few years.
The lopsided timing had something to do with the difficulties in filming the effects for the recent trilogy. This timing did little for the whole saga. When the recent trilogy began its release we all knew precisely where it was headed. That did not detract too much though. Star Wars is Star Wars, and a couple of hundred million other fans agreed with me and went to see the films anyway.
Star Wars has achieved a cultural resonance that rose above the din of more ‘important’ things. For instance, most people can’t name the person who won the Booker Award or the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 or any other year. Those same people will probably clearly recognize the sound of Darth Vader’s respirator-assisted breathing.
Almost everybody knows the phrase, ‘may the force be with you’ and the positive sentiments that it represents. In fact, recently a lawyer who will go unnamed here, though not unappreciated, said it to me.
Thousands of motivational speakers have mined Star Wars for its metaphors, suggesting that corporate schmucks become Jedi Knights in the quest for growth and profit. And interestingly enough, in a census completed in 2002, some 70,000 Australians listed their religion as the Jedi faith.
As ‘literature’ goes Star Wars has about as much depth as a pizza in a weight watchers food store. If you are familiar with the Greek myths and the story of Oedipus, the saga becomes even thinner.
On the other hand, the saga is often referred to in books on the craft of story telling. Without the hallmark fuss and pomp of the literati, writer and director George Lucas told the perfect story in episodes IV to VI. The slow moving sub-plot surrounding Luke Skywalker and the fast-paced action involving Han Solo and Princess Leia are a textbook example of how to weave two stories together.
Perhaps the strength of the story and its old but very popular themes are what makes it so popular.
I have not yet seen the last of the films. I think I am avoiding the final and certain knowledge that it is over and done with. On the bright side, my daughter will be able to watch the entire series from beginning to end. Lucky her!
What remains? If you are a die-hard fan, you can go and hunt out the related but mediocre Ewoks movies set on the forest moon of Endor. The computer games are diverting if you swing that way. Next year a cartoon series will be apparently be released, telling the stories of the Rebellion. However I doubt they will be as good. And there are still a couple of Harry Potter books to come.
Though the stories will endure, all good things must come to an end. I have to stop writing. I have a film to catch. If you have spent a lifetime anticipating the next installment the way I and millions of others have, “May the force be with you.”
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