Sunday 26 January 2014

a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

As a very fine interstitial-piece during a Sunday afternoon's theme on myth and legend, a network broadcast a documentary from 2007 on the post-modern fable of the Star Wars saga.

All good and timeless stories draw effectively on the archetypes, the deep- seated stuff of the human-experience told and retold, but the crafting of this franchise—and not only for the purists who reject anything that was not presented in media-res, the original parts three through five—really is a master-work and a cultural touch-stone that references parallels that can be found in all branches of classic mythology and ringing through psychology as a digest of wrath, coming-of-age and redemption. How much can you find of the Iliad or the Odyssey or other epics can you find in the principals, mentors, monsters, and side-kicks of the old Republic as well as the quotations? What struck me perhaps as the most amazing aspect, aside from each single connection that I had never made with the classics, was that although there are influences and footnotes to influences, many of these constructions were unconscious and organic and came to be known with the consensus of academics and fanatics.