Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars Poster

Star Wars. Sorry, folks, but I could never understand the hysteria. I remember when Luke Skywalker first discovered he was the son of a Jedi Knight. Alec Guinness was a friend of the family. A Shakespearean actor, He was embarrassed by the ridiculous fluff he was often forced to play.  Before he took the role of Obi Wan Kenobi, he famously remarked, "Fairy tale rubbish, but could be interesting perhaps."  I shared his sentiments. 

In 1977, I was a pretty eccentric character myself. Having recently surrendered to Krishna, I dressed in an orange dhoti and shaved my head. We used to get in an orange school bus, drive to Hollywood Boulevard, and chant Hare Krishna whilst pounding on drums and clanging finger-cymbals.

Hare Krishna devotees

And yet, as strange as we seemed with our outlandish Hindu dress, I felt we were normal compared to the droves of young people dressed as wookies, Darth Vader, and R2D2. 

Darth Vader in Hollywood

Having been exposed to Hollywood schlock from an early age, I felt everyone would easily see through the superficiality of Star Wars. I was raised on Jules Verne, Lost in Space and Star Trek. After my mother's Hollywood divorce, one of her suitors had been Jeffrey Hunter, who had become famous as Jesus Christ in "King of Kings." Hunter was Christopher Pike, captain of the USS Enterprise in the original Star Trek pilot. 

Jeff Hunter as Captain Pike, Captain of Star Trek's Enterprise

Since my father was an executive TV producer with NBC at the time he was often called on to see "pilots." I remember going with him at the time to see this first episode in 1964 at the tender age of 10 years old. 

By the time Star Wars had come out, I had read thousands of pages of science fiction and seen thousands of hours of TV programs and movies about rocket ships to the moon. I followed every moment of the U.S. Space program from our competition with sputnik, to the Mercury and Gemini programs and finally to the moon landing in 1969.

Jules Verne's Moon shot

I remember watching the scratchy black and white moon landing on TV as my brother Philo changed the channels.

"What is this?" he remarked.

"There's nothing on."

Moon landing 1969

When a boy I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut. We had conquered the moon and mars was in reach.

But by the time Star Wars captured the popular imagination I had turned from the conquest of outer space to the conquest of inner space. Indian spirituality and an understanding of the spirit came to mean much more to me  than phoney space ships traveling to  a galaxy far, far away.

Buck Rogers Space Ship

It was clear to me from the little science I had studied that light-speed travel was patently impossible. It defies the laws of physics and the theories of Einstein, who set the speed of light as the speed limit of the universe.

Einstein's Speed Limit

The outlandish claims of science fiction represented in Star Wars were patently mythological.  As a student of mythology, the real article had much more appeal to me. I had been through the Arthurian legends, Homer and the Greeks, the Norse cycles. But when I began reading the Puranas I found that here was a deeper literature, one with elements of mythology and legend, but that ultimately satisfied the soul's need for meaning.

Nothing could have been more meaningless for me at that moment than hordes of Hollywood tourists dressed as Yoda and Princess Leia. I was trying to engage people in understanding the timeless message of the Bhagavad-Gita. 

Yoda

It seemed ironic that the movie-goers would have such a deep fascination with the mysterious guru-like Yoda and yet not pay any attention at all the message of a genuine guru.

Prabhupada: a Genuine Guru

That was nearly 40 years ago. The Imperial Forces under orders from the cruel Darth Vader held Princess Leia hostage in their efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. 

Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, captain of the millennium Falcon, worked together with droids and wookies to rescue the princess, help the rebels and restore freedom and justice to the Galaxy.

I have since succumbed, not once, but on various occasions to multiple viewings of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. I've also seen some of the prequels, and understand fully why they weren't well-received critically. The stories were unclear, the dialogue was ridiculous, the acting was wooden, even the special effects look quaint.

I'm really at a loss to understand why the latest version of Star Wars: the Force Awakens continues to captivate audiences or why this would be the top-grossing movie of the year, other than completely shameless marketing and mind-manipulation. 

But apparently Disney has the tools to create modern mythology and the power to  convert mythology into money.  Having bought Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, Disney has skilfully capitalised on their intellectual property--and in so doing, cemented its position as the market leader in the industrialisation of mythology. 

Its success rests on its mastery of the three elements of modern myth-making: tropes, technology and toys."

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Disney properties, which include everything from "Thor" to "Toy Story", draw on well-worn devices of mythic structure to give their stories cultural resonance. 

Walt Disney himself had an intuitive grasp of the power of fables. 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, is an avid student of the work of Joseph Campbell, an American comparative mythologist who outlined the "monomyth" structure in which a hero answers a call, is assisted by a mentor figure, voyages to another world, survives various trials and emerges triumphant. 

Both film-makers merrily plundered ancient mythology and folklore. The Marvel universe goes even further, directly appropriating chunks of Greco-Roman and Norse mythology. (This makes Disney's enthusiasm for fierce enforcement of intellectual-property laws, and the seemingly perpetual extension of copyright, somewhat ironic.) 

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The internal mechanics of myths may not have changed much over the ages, but the technology used to impart them certainly has. That highlights Disney's second area of expertise. In Homer's day, legends were passed on in the form of dactylic hexameters; modern myth-makers prefer computer graphics, special effects, 3D projection, surround sound and internet video distribution, among other things. 

When Disney bought Lucasfilm it did not just acquire the Star Wars franchise; it also gained Industrial Light & Magic, one of the best special-effects houses in the business, whose high-tech wizardry is as vital to Marvel's Avengers films as it is to the Star Wars epics. And when Disney was left behind by the shift to digital animation, it cannily revitalised its own film-making brand by buying Pixar, a firm as pioneering in its field as Walt Disney had been in hand-drawn animation. Moreover, modern myths come in multiple media formats. The Marvel and Star Wars fantasy universes are chronicled in interlocking films, television series, books, graphic novels and video games. Marvel's plans are mapped out until the mid-2020s.

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But these days myths are also expected to take physical form as toys, merchandise and theme-park rides. This is the third myth-making ingredient. Again, Walt Disney led the way, licensing Mickey Mouse and other characters starting in the 1930s, and opening the original Disneyland park in 1955. 

Mr Lucas took cinema-related merchandise into a new dimension, accepting a pay cut as director in return for all the merchandising rights to Star Wars--a deal that was to earn him billions. Those rights now belong to Disney, and it is making the most of them: sales of "The Force Awakens" merchandise, from toys to clothing, are expected to be worth up to $5 billion alone in the coming year. In all, more than $32 billion-worth of Star Wars merchandise has been sold since 1977, according to NPD Group, a market-research firm. Even Harry Potter and James Bond are small-time by comparison.

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Those other franchises are reminders that Disney's approach is not unique. Other studios are doing their best to imitate its approach. But Disney has some of the most valuable properties and exploits them to their fullest potential. It is particularly good at refreshing and repackaging its franchises to encourage adults to revisit their childhood favourites and, in the process, to introduce them to their own children. 

This was one reason why Pixar, whose films are known for their cross-generational appeal, was such a natural fit. Now the next generation is being introduced to Star Wars by their nostalgic parents. At the same time, Disney has extended its franchises by adding sub-brands that appeal to particular age groups: children's television series spun off from Star Wars, for example, or darker, more adult tales from the Marvel universe, such as the "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones" series on Netflix.

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What explains the power of all this modern-day mythology? There is more to it than archetypal storytelling, clever technology and powerful marketing. In part, it may fill a void left by the decline of religion in a more secular world. But it also provides an expression for today's fears. The original "Star Wars" film, in which a band of plucky rebels defeat a technological superpower, was a none-too-subtle inversion of the Vietnam war. 

The Marvel universe, originally a product of the cold-war era, has adapted well on screen to a post-9/11 world of surveillance and the conspiratorial mistrust of governments, large corporations and the power of technology. In uncertain times, when governments and military might seem unable to keep people safe or stay honest, audiences take comfort in the idea of superheroes who ride to the rescue. Modern myths also have the power to unify people across generations, social groups and cultures, creating frameworks of shared references even as other forms of media consumption become ever more fragmented.

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Ultimately, however, these modern myths are so compelling because they tap primordial human urges--for refuge, redemption and harmony. In this respect they are like social-media platforms, which use technology to industrialise social interaction. 

Similarly, modern myth-making, reliant though it is on new tools and techniques, is really just pushing the same old buttons in stone-age brains. That is something that Walt Disney understood instinctively--and that the company he founded is now exploiting so proficiently.

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This is, in other words, a story that occupies a substantial amount of turf in the popular culture. Everyone in America knows "May the force be with you" and what a Wookiee is, just as everyone knows "Yabba dabba doo!" and what a Flintstone is. 

Whether this translates into myth, any more than The Flintstones translates into myth, is another matter. Star Wars is stuffed with "mythemes"--the atomic elements, so to speak, of mythic material. The movie reminds you of dozens of stories you already know, and it thus cashes in--brilliantly, it must be said--on the secret formula of all art, which is: If it worked once, it will again. But most of the elements didn't come out of The Golden Bough. 

They came out of all the other successful pseudo-mythical contrivances of American popular culture--Westerns, Flash Gordon, The Godfather, and so on. The basic template seems to be an amalgam of The Wizard of Oz and Happy Days: The relationship between Luke (Mark Hamill) and Han (Harrison Ford) is just the relationship between Richie and the Fonz; the Wookiee is cloned directly from the Cowardly Lion; and the scene in which C-3PO is dismembered by the Sand People is completely appropriated from the scene in which the Scarecrow is dismembered by flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. 

In reading the recent reviews for Star Wars: the Force Awakens one is struck by the number of synonyms for "unoriginal material." The director, J.J. Abrams is said to have plagiarized from the original Star Wars, as well as from the Star Trek series.  As a "fan" of Lucas his new movie is a "tribute" to the original. He "gives a nod to the past" version. The review in the Atlantic Monthly says, "Abram's much-anticipated reboot of the franchise, is in many ways less sequel than remix, a loving mashup of familiar scenes, characters, themes, and dialogue."

Of course, it is unfair to criticize the film for lack of originality. Nothing in Star Wars is original. Umberto Eco once remarked about Casablanca that what makes it a great film is exactly the barrage of cliches from start to finish.  He said the difference between a great film and a mediocre film is that the latter contains cliches, while the former consists entirely of cliches.

Or as T.S. Eliot put it "bad poets copy; great poets steal."

The original Star Wars movie recycled myths legends, fairy-tales and bad Hollywood movies. By stealing from the old Star Wars movie, Abrams is merely recycling a recycled product. But the result is pretty bland.

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Lucas himself seems to have very few original ideas.  The sweep of his films is stolen from David Lean. You can see David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia in the Star Wars desert scenes and Doctor Zhivago in the winter scenes. He stole Lean's principle actor, Alec Guiness, who starred in the above moves as well as in Bridge Over the River Kwai. 

The look and feel of Indiana Jones' character is a dead ripoff of the William Holden character, Commander Shears from Bridge over the River Kwai.

Lucas' singular contribution seems to be having created a mashup of the old cowboy-western pioneer attitude and injecting into outer space movies. But I personally can't watch Star Wars without groaning at the bloated dialog and stiff characters. 

There's an argument to be made that these movies are made to be enjoyed; we should "sit back and enjoy the ride." It's a fun experience for the whole family. I get that.

And yet there is another side to the argument. That Cinema is an art form to be taken seriously. Art is meant to hold the mirror up to society. Art is important in self-reflection. If cinema is only a means to a quick fix, a two-hour pleasure ride, it becomes nothing more than a cheap entertainment and loses the status of art. 

This, I think, is an important tendency not to be overlooked in the cinematic industry. 

All too often cinema becomes a form of porn, devoid of any redeeming qualities: revenge-violence porn, thriller porn, blood and gore zombie porn, space-porn, or just porn. 

Small film-makers and independent producers are all-too often squeezed out. Investors are interested in movie-making as a way of ensuring a fortune. They no longer take chances on smaller productions or movies that promote human insight.

Since Star Wars first became a box office phenomenon in 1977,  blockbusters have dominated studio economics and big mainstream movies have gotten stupider. 

I remember the old Hollywood tradition of films like "It Happened One Night," or "The Thin Man," with crisp dialogue, witty interchanges between charming characters. Or taut noir dramas like "Double Indemnity," "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "The Maltese Falcon." These were well-written with human interest and fast-paced dialogue.

The 1970s were a time of auteur directors such as Martin Scorsese with "Taxi Driver and Raging Bull," Bob Rafelson's "5 Easy Pieces," or Mike Nichols "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," based on Ken Kesey's novel exploring madness and authoritarianism.

Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey invited us to contemplate the subjective evolution of consciousness and our place in the universe.

But as the blockbuster economic model took over, we no longer get to see movies that remotely reflect our own quotidian experience.

Given the expense of visiting the movie theater, perhaps it's our own fault. We don't want to go out of our way to be challenged. So, unless a movie has been certified as a blockbuster, we avoid going to see it. But this has led to a plethora of blockbusters that are superficial and vapid by any standard.

 "Titanic," "Avatar," and "Prometheus" are professionally turned-out and entertaining enough for the two to three hours that one sits in the theater watching them and they mint money. But they don't have a coherent thought in their heads, despite the intellectual veneer decorating some of them.

 "Star Wars" was slathered with the same philosophical gravitas, bootstrapped from Joseph Campbell, but the most incisive judgment was delivered by Alec Guinness when he was being courted to play Obi-Wan Kenobi: "Fairy tale rubbish but could be interesting perhaps," he wrote to a friend.

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"The Force Awakens," curiously, elicits greater respect for the first "Star Wars," which was a pastiche of old serials, Buck Rogers space operas, and military adventure stories but was at least an inspired act of cultural appropriation. Nobody thought of "Star Wars" as Art, though there was something definitely novel about Lucas' reassembly of old parts.  

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But not until now, in Disney's hands, has the series become commerce and nothing but. Many of the pre-release articles about "The Force Awakens" were business stories, and bows to its box-office success creep even into critics' reviews. Among the publicity features preceding the premiere was one in which Daisy Ridley, who plays the new protagonist Rey, rated eight action figures being sold with her character's image.

"The Force Awakens" will reinforce even more strongly a blockbuster, sequel-oriented style of moviemaking and marketing that has sapped Hollywood of its creative energies. Why be creative when that will merely interfere with merchandising, and when recycling is more dependably profitable? 

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It was said of George Lucas that he originally envisioned "Star Wars" as the first of a trilogy, which became reimagined as a series of three trilogies, and ended with two. Now we're at seven films, and anyone who thinks "Star Wars" will end at nine features doesn't know their Disney. The company, you see, is not really a movie studio, but an entertainment conglomerate. For Disney, "Star Wars" will be the gift that keeps giving. You, the consumer, are the mark who keeps paying. 

"Star Wars" sequels, prequels, and requels are destined to be part of moviemaking into the infinite future. One can envision Hollywood eventually turning out only two products: "Star Wars" movies and James Bond movies, each periodically "rebooted" for a new generation of customers by casting the latest new young stars in new costumes facing the same old perils and uttering the same old quips, with every other vestige of creative originality relegated to the void and forgotten. 

And as moviemaking companies buy into the blockbuster economic ethos, the 7th art will gradually be turned into nothing more than a money-making device for reinforcing the status quo.