This quote from an MSN article on the final episode of Star Wars (linked here) I find completely perplexing:
In the last two movies, Lucas put too much focus on delivering the big Industrial Light and Magic action scenes to the attention-deficit kiddies instead of a well-crafted story for those of us who are his real target audience, the children of the original “Star Wars� generation.
Um…I have a couple of serious problems with this, mostly about the “real target audience.”
1) No matter what way you cut it this I don’t see how the author can be a child of someone from the Star Wars generation. Star Wars came out in 1977 and I would think the “Star Wars” generation would begin with six-year-olds and extend to fifteen-year-olds and I still think that’s being generous. In order to be part of that generation, I think Star Wars had to fundamentally become intwined with your imagination. I mean, can you really claim to be part of the Star Wars generation if you didn’t run around your basement with the Millenium Falcon toy? I don’t think many fifteen-year-olds did. It’s much more probable that Star Wars is entrenched in my imagination (the movies were released when I was 3, 6, and 9 years old) as I had all the action figures and watched the movies a thousand times, as a child is wont to do. My older brothers probably fit the bill even more as they’re three years older: the fertile field of a child’s free roaming imagination tends to go fallow around 12 when, lamentably, we begin to look forward to more adult things like changing clothes in front of other people in a locker room. So back to the article, I would dispute this author’s claim that his parents were of the Star Wars generation. Unless he’s seven-years-old writing for MSN.
2) It’s even more naive to claim that anyone old enough to write an article for MSN would be part of the “real” target audience. Didn’t the Ewoks prove the target market for the Star Wars franchise once and for all? Adults will see the movie once or twice and maybe buy the DVD. In short, they’ll shell out a grand total of $50 if Lucas and Co. is lucky. $50 won’t put a dent in a kid’s Star Wars wishlist. There are toys, animated DVD spin-offs, T-shirts, lunch boxes, jammies, books, etc. Again, even a thirteen-year-old isn’t the target market: that’s just too old.
Seriously, think about it: who was Jar-Jar Binks supposed to appeal to? Anyone remotely close to adulthood?
Star Wars is great entertainment and it had a profound impact on my imagination as a child, no doubt. I love the first three, even if I turn a blind eye to the Ewoks (could you imagine how much “Return of the Jedi” would have kicked ass if it had been a planet full of Wookies instead?). But the franchise has clearly suffered by being “strengthened” by the corporate machine (a la Vader and his mechanical implements) and, more frankly, through the author’s collapsing vision. I will argue until I’m blue in the face that Star Wars packs a big punch for entertainment value–and it’s good entertainment, not completely mindless–but people are cracked if they think Lucas successfully forwards any philosophy or world-view.
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Dude, for my LOTR poli-sci class we bought this book called: “LOTR and Philosophy”, which is a collection of various scholars writing philosophical essays on LOTR.
Today at Borders, I noticed the company has put out similiar collections of other popular medium.
1) Simpsons and Philosophy.
2) Superheroes and Philosophy.
3) Harry Potter and Philosophy.
And yes…
4) Star Wars and Philosophy.
I haven’t picked it up to read it and see what philosophical issues they talk about, but maybe I will.
I’m betting it’s mostly shit. As I’ve ranted elsewhere, philosophy isn’t just sitting on your porch with a few friends idly chatting about what might be.
I’d be willing to bet these books take well-established philosophies broken into bite-sized chunks so people can grasp their meaning and are then applied where convenient to the pop culture hit. Joseph Campbell, mythologist supreme, reads way more into Star Wars than what’s really there, in my opinion.
There’s a book that does the same thing for the Matrix I paged through once and it was laughable–it was about 98% philosophy and 2% Matrix. I mean, I fully understand that there are healthy doses of Cartesian and Humean philosophy worked into the plot, but do they ever add up to something new that makes sense? No!
Call it “philosophical appropriation” if you want. You can understand Descartes and Hume and Christian doctrine and Buddhist principles and you can use them all in a story if you want, but that doesn’t mean they add up to anything of substance.
True.
Well, it’s spread about into different collected articles in these book collections of pop culture.
We actually used to the book in the LOTR class once. We read one article. Talking about Plato and the Ring of Gyges and then talking and comparing it to the Ring in LOTR, seeing how different characters react to the Ring, which is slightly different for each character, and comparing its seductive powers and its affect refering back to Plato’s use of the Ring of Gyges myth.
There are really THREE Star Wars generations out there. There are those who experienced the movies as they came out, as adults, especially the all-important First Day, First Show phenomenon after we “discovered” Star Wars. There are those, who like you, ran through the house with the Millennium Falcon — and caused numerous foot injuries to us adults, who stepped on your damned Star Wars action figures and their associated pointy weapons and parts hidden in the carpet. And then there is the generation being raised on this Second Wave of Trilogies, with all their attendant action figures AND video games.
One could go on and further subdivide, but my point is, there isn’t just ONE generation which can claim Star Wars as theirs. There are at least three — and they all have a very different view of Star Wars. See my LiveJournal entry for today after this mornings 12:01am First Light viewing… http://www.livejournal.com/~dr_phil_physics/4141.html
Dr. Phil
I disagree. I think there are events that go a long way in defining a generation–whether that’s the sinking of the Titanic, the Kennedy assassination, or the release of Star Wars.
While there’s no doubt Star Wars’ appeal crosses generations, it formed a cornerstone of one generation’s imagination. Those born in 1969 probably have the most rightful claim–aged 8 years for Star Wars, 11 for Empire, and 14 for Return of the Jedi. That’s not to say it can’t effect others–it had a massive impact on me but I was 3, 6, and 9 for the movies and therefore too young to really take it all in. Likewise, once you get past a certain age the magic isn’t nearly as alive.
I mean, any adult can appreciate thw wonders of Disney World, but I’d argue no adult can appreciate it as much as an 8-year-old kid.
You may be right about some of the essays in the “and Philosophy” series books just using pop culture stuff as an excuse to go on about Utilitarianism or Kantianism or whatever. But for Superheroes and Philosophy, my son and I got some of the top comic book writers involved for authenticity. That’s the first time in the history of the series that the authors of the the primary pop culture phenomenon under discussion have gotten involved. And we really insisted on good philosophers at good places, like Oxford, Yale and MIT, and held their feet to the fire to make sure they knew what they were talking about in superhero land. I hope you get a chance to check this one volume out!
Tom Morris
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