From the outset you would believe that Star Wars is simply a sci-fi film through and through, but scratch away the surface and you can see that it is so much more, there’s the adventure that runs through the trilogy, following Luke Skywalkers’ beginnings to finally putting a stop to the Empire. There are also traces of comedy with the duo of C3P-O and R2-D2 and even a hint of romance with the main female character of the plot Princess Leia, but this is entwined with an over-lay of drama.
While I acknowledge that there are many genres present in Star Wars I will focus on the predominant featuring genre of science fiction. It ticks all the boxes for a good sci-fi film and was considered ground breaking at the time for its special effects which help to enforce its futuristic outset and draw in its audience. Science fiction films are often visions of the future, and have an emphasis on science advancing to the point where space travel is possible and other technologies that could come from ones imagination. They are usually set with heroes, shadowy villains, far away planets, spaceships, impossible quests and of course – aliens.
When I say impossible quests it feels like I should mention now that science fiction is a branch of the fantasy genre, and the story of Star Wars is actually based on old fairy tales, which cements this link.
Star Wars meets these criteria set for sci-fi films and changes them slightly to make something truly unique. Before Star Wars, every sci-fi film had a vision of the future where everything was clean, almost sterile, space ship interiors were a pure white, with no trace of dirt, everyone wore clean uniforms, and it seemed as if it was almost meant to be perfect with no impurities. Star Wars however tossed this structure out of the window, even the starting scene begins with the rebels being attacked on their ship, the rebels in their rag tag armour, dirty and worn out, along with their ship which had a more rustic aesthetic compared to its contemporaries. This is not just the case with spaceships; most of the planets they visit are equally grimy and reminiscent of the slums of a city, for example the cantina scene on the planet Tatooine.
There are many video games on the market that are all based in the Star Wars galaxy, due to George Lucas creating Lucas Arts games, the game division of his “empire”. To someone like me who is an avid Star Wars fan that understands the story and got involved with this other world, the games feel more personal than if I was playing any other video game which could be of the same style, whether this is a RPG or an FPS. And to Star Wars credit, they are able to transition the films into videogames without changing the genre much, this is because the sci-fi genre is so broad, all Star Wars related games are obviously going to involve aliens and this vision of the future that make sci-fi so compelling. However they do manage to specify the genre better, to take an example, the game Star Wars: Republic Commando is an action orientated first person shooter, it still involves the plot of the films in it, and still has this sci-fi fitting, but the genre does switch to an action/sci-fi for the purposes of the game.
As I mentioned briefly before, Star Wars is loosely based on the fantasy set fairy tales that have been told for hundreds of years before us. George Lucas himself was good friends with the author Joseph Campbell, who wrote the book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” that built on the premise that myths from all over the world, from old tales told by a tribesman or the fairy tales we grew up with in the west, were all built from the same elementary ideas, or archetypes. He wrote an under lying structure with which, most stories follow, which was called the heroes journey.
Star Wars follows the journey at every point in some way, so let’s have a look at the hero’s journey, and compare it to Star Wars.
The hero’s journey is split into three parts, part one is referred to as the “Departure” and goes as follows;
1. The call to adventure
2. Refusal of the call
3. Supernatural aid
4. Crossing the first threshold
5. The belly of the whale
In Star Wars this is portrayed as Princess Leia sending a recorded message via R2-D2 and C3P-O to the Jedi Obi-wan Kenobi; however it falls into the hands of Luke Skywalker – our hero, this is his call to adventure. Luke doesn’t decide to act on the message, believing his place is to stay at his farm and work on the harvest, the refusal to the call. Soon after Luke is attacked by tuskan raiders and is fortunately saved by Obi-wan this is the supernatural aid. Once they’ve been formally greeted and Luke told of his destiny he and Obi-wan must find a way to escape from his home planet of Tatooine which is under the surveillance of the brutal Empire, thus crossing the first threshold. This first part ends with them being in the “belly of the whale” which in this case is a trash compactor on board one of the Empires Star ships.
Part two is the “Initiation” this includes;
1. The Road of trials
2. The meeting with the goddess
3. Temptation away from the true path
4. Atonement with the father
5. Apotheosis (becoming god-like)
6. The ultimate boon
Lukes trials are portrayed as being taught how to wield a lightsaber – the weapon of a jedi, by Obi-wan, who is his mentor in the story. He soon meets Princess Leia, clad in white and looking pristine, she is seen as a goddess of incredible beauty and Luke is infatuated with her. Lukes lure to the dark side by Darth Vader is a direct comparison with the temptation away from the true path. Luke and his father who is shown to be Darth Vader manage to reconcile during the ending of the films, with Vader risking his life to save his son, which is obviously a referral to the atonement with the father. When Luke finally becomes a Jedi, after all his training and so on, this is a referral to becoming god-like. The ultimate boon is personified by the destruction of the Death Star near the end of the film.
The third and final part is called the “Return” which ends on:
1. Refusal of the return
2. The magic flight
3. Rescue from without
4. Crossing the return threshold
5. Master of two worlds
6. Freedom to live
The refusal of the return is shown as Luke being told by his comrades to run away from the battle at hand, but he refuses, preferring to stay to avenge Obi-wan Kenobi. The magic flight is summed up with the space ship the Millennium Falcon, which the main characters use to fly across the galaxy. Rescue from without is best shown by Han Solo managing to save Luke from Darth Vader during a heated battle that would have most likely ended with Lukes death. One of the final stages of a heroes journey is the “crossing the threshold” which comes to us near the end of the film where the Millennium Falcon destroys the last remnants of the Empires fleet which pursued them, before managing to return home, where they have a victory ceremony to commemorate the Rebellion being victorious over the Empire, and these last two scenes follow the master of two worlds, and freedom to live sections of a heroes journey.
So as you can see Star Wars is true to the original concept of the Heroes Journey on pretty much every point.
I do believe that Star Wars contains role models, unfortunately most of the characters emulate this same model, which is this white male hero who is seen to be weak at first but through training becomes the most powerful warrior in the galaxy, this is seen in both Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker, and to an extent in the likes of Han Solo and Obi-wan, however after this white male role model there are very few other characters in the films that are of different ethnic diversities, and differing genders. Let alone any role models for these types.
It is fair to say that the most prominent woman in the film is Princess Leia, who in the first film can be seen as a strong, independent female character, that inspires young girls and women watching that they can be more than just housewives or lesser to men, which to be fair was still in the culture back when the first Star Wars film was released, in the mid to late seventies, though starting to change. She was a welcome change and a decent role model, however after the first film the character changed, it started when she was forced to adorn the famous golden bikini when she was a slave to Jabba the Hutt, and since that she never recovered to being the strong female lead she was before, more reliant on male characters such as Han Solo. If this was not bad enough that the once mighty female character was altered beyond recognition, it’s not like they even decided to replace her with another equally prominent female presence because there were pretty much no other women in the Star Wars universe apparently. Now as someone who knows about the extended Star Wars fiction through books and non-canon writing by George Lucas, there are to his credit many female women – even Jedi masters such as Shaak Ti, out there, but for some reason they were not shown in the films, to give women something to look at and want to strive to become. There’s also a huge lacking of black people in the future it seems, going back over the films I recall two prominent black figures, these are Lando Calrissian in the original trilogy, and then Mace Windu in the prequel trilogy. Now, quoting from the star wars Wikipedia, it says that Lando was a professional gambler, entrepreneur and smuggler, not really a role model at the best of times for young black men. In the film he is a vital part to managing to stop the Empire, and so from that there is some glistening redemption that perhaps he is a hero, however both he and Mace Windu are both in the films for so short a time it’s impossible to me to build them up to be role models. And I would go on to say that they were merely added to the story by producers as the “token” black guys.
So to sum up I would argue that minority groups in Star Wars are shown poorly and that the gender balance of characters is somewhere in the region of 100:1.
The films are very black and white when it comes to representing “types” of characters. They are either a part of the rebellion and want to see a free world which will ultimately be a better future or apart of the cruel, military based rule of the Empire which is given this almost robotic presence of having no emotion or sympathy with anyone, to me the Empire reminded me of the Nazi’s in the way that there is no way you could feel sorry for them, they are to the core evil. This is made even truer by the way that the “good” guys, Luke, Leia, Han Solo etc all wear clothes or uniforms that do not obstruct their faces, and you can see they are human, and as such emphasise with them. All of the “bad” guys are made more sinister in the fact that they all wear masks, whether it be the Stormtroopers, or Darth Vader, you don’t see a trace of humanity in them, this goes even further with Vader because he is shown wearing complete black, a basic “evil” colour. It is only at the end, when Vader has his redemption that he finally takes off his mask and you see the good in him.
Looking at the newer, prequel trilogy my analogy of the Empire being cold and robotic is made a reality as the enemies are actual droids and robots, and are purely used for evil means – attacking the Gungans, a peaceful race that live under the ocean of the planet Naboo for example. There is one antagonist that does show his face and this is Darth Maul, a member of the Sith – part of the dark side of the force (again showing the black and white mentality of good and evil in this film by having the light and the dark sides of the force, which Jedi use). His face is red and black with horns, a call back to the devil, and as such just by looking at him the audience can click that he is evil.
Taking a look at the character of Darth Vader however, when you look at him over the course of all six films it is easy to feel some sympathy. You meet him when he is at his darkest, ruthlessly killing rebels, and even members of the Empire, which he is apparently a part of. So you get the sense of someone who has no boundaries or morals, and will kill anyone that gets on his wrong side. You find out that he is Luke Skywalkers father, Anakin Skywalker, and that he was once a great Jedi, so the wander of how he fell from grace is heavy on our minds. At the beginning of the prequel you meet him again, as a mere boy, how could someone this innocent and inherently good, become Darth Vader? Well over the course of these three films you see him lose his mother, who was captured and raped by sand people on his home planet, secretly fall in love with a girl, despite being ordered by the Jedi Council that he can never have a relationship with anyone. In the end this relationship leads to Padme, his love, become pregnant, and he has a premonition that she will die during child birth. This is what finally pushes him over the edge, looking to the dark side of the force to save her. In the end he is left broken and near death. Which leads to him joining the Sith, and ultimately start the Empire with his master Darth Sideous.
This really puts into context who he is and how he became so evil, and makes the audience sympathise with him on a human level.
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