It was the perfect transferable product in which everyone could find themselves, not just within the US, but worldwide. Two genres had particular significance within Star Wars : the war film and the religious epic. Much of it channelled the Second World War with Imperial uniforms and the terminology of Storm Troopers borrowed from the Third Reich; however, it was also swiftly noticed that in Star Wars a country that had just been defeated by an army of guerillas was able to happily identify with a rebel alliance.
The elements of Star Wars lifted from religious epics functioned in much the same way: the film recovered a genre that had been an immense part of 20th-century cinema, reaching its apogee in the late fifties with wildly successful films like The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur its chariot race scene was the model for the pod-race in Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
The setting in space enabled maximum engagement with minimal alienation, and enabled visual wonders every bit as impressive as the parting of the Red Sea. Overall, then, in Star Wars was a mechanism to culturally have your cake and eat it at a time of great uncertainty in America and the west. It allowed its viewer to luxuriate in the triumphalism, ethnic voyeurism and religiosity without apology.
The Rambo cycle had the political sensitivity of a sledgehammer and did well around the world. I was too young to understand the ramifications of what was about to happen, as it was later in the year that I would have to leave the comfortable world with my father, and live with my mother.
My life was about to change, and the only constant was my sketch pad and the traced silhouettes of X-wings and Darth Vader. My father took me and my brother to see Star Wars ; it was May 25th, School had just let out for the summer, and my sketch pad was nearly full of my own illustrations of what I thought Star Wars was going to be.
The movie changed my life. I related to Luke on a level that I had never encountered before. I wanted to be with him on his journey, and most of all, I wanted to know how the movie was created. In an issue of Starlog Magazine , there were photos of how the space scenes were shot, and how the models were built for shooting. I was not even 11, and I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
As fate usually works, after years of bouncing between cities and custody with my parents, I ended up living with my mother in San Rafael, California in the s, where ILM was located. I was still drawing rebel ships on attack over the Death Star, while listening to my record player spinning the movie score. It was, and still is, my happy place. In the summer of , I applied and was hired at ILM, and with me on my first day was my sketch pad.
I wish that it was still with me, but water damage put an end to it when the garage flooded a few years later. What remains is my absolute love for Star Wars. I will always remember tracing those X-wings at the kitchen table, and how the saga of Luke Skywalker escorted me through my young life, and led me to Lucasfilm where to this day, I supervise how all things Star Wars are lit and rendered for the animated TV shows.
My dad and I had always bonded over our shared love of science fiction, but this was different. There was something about Star Wars that spoke to me in a way that no other film or TV show had.
Princess Leia made me believe I could do anything I put my mind to. Han Solo assured me that you could still do good and have a biting sarcastic wit. And Luke Skywalker? After the prequels, I figured the tradition my best friend since middle school and I had of going to see the new Star Wars films in the theater had reached its end, and I was transitioning into being an adult with a real job at a newspaper, writing serious stories about serious things. I was a grown up with responsibilities, for a time.
Then The Force Awakens hit. Opening weekend, there we were in a New Jersey movie theater to uphold our tradition. The first notes of the epic score rang out and I was utterly transported. Every time I watch Star Wars , I feel like a kid again, watching it for the first time, transfixed and hanging on every word. In Rey, I found yet another stunning example of the characters that make Star Wars feel so accessible.
I had tears running down my face by the end, and as we left the theater we circled back to the box office to get tickets for a second showing, then bolted to the parking lot to unpack our emotions in the safety of the car. The experience had stirred something in me that perhaps I had forgotten was there — a passion for fiction, and a belief that all stories are important, not just the ones that are true.
And I am so thankful to spend my working days in the company of the brilliance and staggering talent of the artists, storytellers, and special effects wizards who have expanded the magic and the myth far beyond the big screen. When I started with the company in , I was in film school and my interest in Star Wars was really focused on George Lucas and the independent spirit of Lucasfilm. How did these amazing ideas all come from one person? The same person who provided an environment that fostered creativity in every employee by surrounding them with nature, books, and art while continuing to push the technical boundaries of storytelling?
My love for the saga and the amazing people who make it started on my first day and has continued for almost two decades. Plus, laser swords and telekinesis and JEDI and battles in space. That was pretty cool too. Loved all the toys and merch, the whole universe created around it. Plus cocky Han Solo in leather trousers with his blaster and lopsided smile was my 'Princess Leia gold bikini'. That may still be true.
Blew my fucking mind. The joy of seeing a first trailer, for me, outstrips the experience of seeing the entire film that follows. Everything you want is possible. You get fleeting reunions with favourite characters, hints of new ones to come, and for those moments the excitement is the one you remember from so long ago. And no series delivers that thrill like Star Wars.
Plus, as product editor, I have been searching the tech companies high and low for someone to make a working Dejarik table. I think with the arrival of proper home VR, the time might be upon us. Heroes, monsters, prophets and prophecies, and love — these are universal. Religions have risen and fallen on the likeability of their characters. There is a reason that Thor is a member of the Avengers.
And Star Wars — for all that it is an old, arbitrary plot, told with uneven balance across six, mostly bad films — is one of the best. We adapted it, shared it, venerated it and consumed it, but now it lives inside us, between us, binding us together. Fan or not, Star Wars is part of you, and you are part of it. Like the travels of Odysseus, the ravages of our ancient, meddlesome gods, the trials of Superman and the heroic journeys of Mario, you can't avoid it.
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