Star Wars - A different view

[Purplepeopleeater]

**Probably belongs in RoC, so move if needed**

 

If you haven't heard of Joseph Campbell, pretty amazing guy.

 

I've heard youngsters use some of George Lucas' terms––"the Force and "the dark side." So it must be hitting somewhere. It's a good sound teaching, I would say.

The fact that the evil power is not identified with any specific nation on this earth means you've got an abstract power, which represents a principle, not a specific historical situation. The story has to do with an operation of principles, not of this nation against that. The monster masks that are put on people in Star Wars represent the real monster force in the modern world. When the mask of Darth Vader is removed, you see an unformed man, one who has not developed as a human individual. What you see is a strange and pitiful sort of undifferentiated face.

Darth Vader has not developed his humanity. He's a robot. He's a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but of an imposed system. This is the threat to our lives that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes? How do you relate to the system so that you are not compulsively serving it? . . . The thing to do is to learn to live in your period of history as a human being ...y holding to your own ideals for yourself and, like Luke Skywalker, rejecting the system's impersonal claims upon you.

Well, you see, that movie communicates. It is in a language that talks to young people, and that's what counts. It asks, Are you going to be a person of heart and humanity––because that's where the life is, from the heart––or are you going to do whatever seems to be required of you by what might be called "intentional power"? When Ben Knobi says, "May the Force be with you," he's speaking of the power and energy of life, not of programmed political intentions.

... [O]f course the Force moves from within. But the Force of the Empire is based on an intention to overcome and master. Star Wars is not a simple morality play. It has to do with the powers of life as they are either fulfilled or broken and suppressed through the action of man.

Excerpted from Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth
(Courtesy of the Joseph Campbell Foundation)

 

[Don't Panic]

yea i HIGHLY recommend 'the hero with a thousand faces' and 'reflections on the art of living' by campbell.  art of living is my favorite and most inspired book ive ever read... really changed my outlook on life.  there's documentaries as well i believe on campbell that are moving and there's one with lucas introducing him basically giving him credit for his inspirations in star wars.