It's Only Space Opera or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Star Wars
I've been enjoying Star Wars for about 43 years now, since the first movie appeared on the screen at the Everett Theater in Everett, Washington when I was 15 years old. Over the years my enthusiasm has had it's ups and downs, and had waned to nearly nothing in the early 90's.
What happened? Had I changed? Had Star Wars changed?
Turns out it was me. Star Wars was, and still is what it's always been – a Saturday-morning movie serial writ large with bigger budgets and better special effects than Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon could have ever hoped for in the 1930's. But I had lost sight of that, I think.
I was trying to apply real-world rules to a totally fictional reality. I was trying to apply hard sci-fi rules and physics to a sci-fantasy universe. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work. Also, IMO over the years there has been too much energy spent trying to justify the Star Wars approach to story-telling and how it portrays it's events and characters. People try to apply everything from Joseph Campbell's anthropology of myth-making, to convoluted arguments amongst fans to try and wash away the various inconsistencies and outright contradictions that have arose over the decades. And I was totally caught-up in this mid-set. It seemed that to be an adult Star Wars fan, everything needed to be firmly delineated and cataloged and explained in meticulous detail. The gown-up were desperately trying to justify the fantasy to themselves and somehow make it seem legitimate to the rest of the world.
Turns out it doesn't need to be that way, after all. You just have to sit back and accept Star Wars for what it is – that direct-descendant of the Saturday-morning Flash Gordon movie serial. In fact, if George Lucas had gotten his way in the early 70's and wangled the rights from King Features, Stars would have never happened and he would have made a revival of Flash Gordon, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Bottom line – quit over-analyzing everything! There are supposed to be improbable plot-twists, and impossible character arcs. Relax, already. This is how the move serials worked. The bad guys lose, the good guys win, and you really shouldn't try to figure out how the hero survived falling off the eight-mile high cliff in the last episode. The main bad guy not only came back from the dead, but turns out to be related to one of the heroes? Just accept it and enjoy the ride.
I no longer care how scientifically accurate the spaceships or aliens are, or how insanely improbable or contrived some of the plot turns are. It's fun. That's all it's supposed to be, after all. If you want or expect more from Star Wars, you're barking up the wrong tree.
I've been enjoying Star Wars for about 43 years now, since the first movie appeared on the screen at the Everett Theater in Everett, Washington when I was 15 years old. Over the years my enthusiasm has had it's ups and downs, and had waned to nearly nothing in the early 90's.
What happened? Had I changed? Had Star Wars changed?
Turns out it was me. Star Wars was, and still is what it's always been – a Saturday-morning movie serial writ large with bigger budgets and better special effects than Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon could have ever hoped for in the 1930's. But I had lost sight of that, I think.
I was trying to apply real-world rules to a totally fictional reality. I was trying to apply hard sci-fi rules and physics to a sci-fantasy universe. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work. Also, IMO over the years there has been too much energy spent trying to justify the Star Wars approach to story-telling and how it portrays it's events and characters. People try to apply everything from Joseph Campbell's anthropology of myth-making, to convoluted arguments amongst fans to try and wash away the various inconsistencies and outright contradictions that have arose over the decades. And I was totally caught-up in this mid-set. It seemed that to be an adult Star Wars fan, everything needed to be firmly delineated and cataloged and explained in meticulous detail. The gown-up were desperately trying to justify the fantasy to themselves and somehow make it seem legitimate to the rest of the world.
Turns out it doesn't need to be that way, after all. You just have to sit back and accept Star Wars for what it is – that direct-descendant of the Saturday-morning Flash Gordon movie serial. In fact, if George Lucas had gotten his way in the early 70's and wangled the rights from King Features, Stars would have never happened and he would have made a revival of Flash Gordon, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Bottom line – quit over-analyzing everything! There are supposed to be improbable plot-twists, and impossible character arcs. Relax, already. This is how the move serials worked. The bad guys lose, the good guys win, and you really shouldn't try to figure out how the hero survived falling off the eight-mile high cliff in the last episode. The main bad guy not only came back from the dead, but turns out to be related to one of the heroes? Just accept it and enjoy the ride.
I no longer care how scientifically accurate the spaceships or aliens are, or how insanely improbable or contrived some of the plot turns are. It's fun. That's all it's supposed to be, after all. If you want or expect more from Star Wars, you're barking up the wrong tree.
