Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology

207 Pages·2012·1.27 MB·English

by  Douglas Brode

Myth, Media, and
Culture in Star Wars
An Anthology
Edited by
Douglas Brode
Leah Deyneka
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
2012
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Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2012 by Douglas Brode and Leah Deyneka
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Myth, media, and culture in Star Wars : an anthology / edited by Douglas Brode,
Leah Deyneka.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8108-8512-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-8513-4
(ebook)
1. Star Wars films—History and criticism. 2. Myth in motion pictures. 3.
Culture in motion pictures. I. Brode, Douglas, 1943–. II. Deyneka, Leah, 1971–.
PN1995.9.S695M97 2012
791.43'75—dc23 2012003282
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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For my son, Shane Johnson Brode,
the original Star Wars kid.
—Douglas Brode
To my parents, Joe and Judy, and my sisters,
Elisa, Larissa, and Tammy, who have
tirelessly bolstered my Star Wars obsession.
Thank you also to Professor Douglas Brode for
creating such a fantastic Star Wars course and
proposing the idea for this anthology.
—Leah Deyneka
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: “Of That Time, of That Place” ix
Douglas Brode
1 “Cowboys in Space”: Star Wars and the Western Film 1
Douglas Brode
2 Is Star Wars a Modernized Fairy Tale? 13
Arthur Berger
3 From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney 21
Craig Svonkin
4 May the Myth Be with You, Always: Archetypes,
Mythic Elements, and Aspects of Joseph Campbell’s
Heroic Monomyth in the Original Star Wars Trilogy 31
Leah Deyneka
5 Not So Long Ago nor Far Away: New Variations on
Old Themes and Questioning Star Wars’ Revival of
Heroic Archetypes 47
Dan Rubey
6 From Sky-Walking to Dark Knight of the Soul:
George Lucas’s Star Wars Turns to Tragic Drama 65
John C. McDowell
v
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vi Contents
7 Under the Influence of Akira Kurosawa:
The Visual Style of George Lucas 83
Michael Kaminski
8 Balancing the Force: How Media Created by Star Wars
Now Defines the Franchise 101
Crystal Renee White
9 A Long Time Ago on a Newsstand Far, Far Away:
The Mythic Comic Book Hero in Marvel Comics’ Star Wars 113
Jon Hogan
10 The Jedi Network: Star Wars’ Portrayal and Inspirations on
the Small Screen 127
Eric Charles
11 Gaming in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: The History of the
Expanded Worlds, Canon Conflicts, and Simplified
Morality of Star Wars Video Games 141
Seth Sommerfeld
12 Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema,
Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture 153
Henry Jenkins
13 Star Wars and the Technophobic Imagination 169
Cyrus R. K. Patell
Index 185
About the Editors 189
About the Contributors 191
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to Professor Douglas Brode and all of the contributors for their
dedication in bringing this anthology to print. I would also like to extend
gratitude to the Syracuse University Library and the Inter-Library Loan
department who proved to be invaluable in researching this extensive an-
thology. Finally, many thanks to my colleagues at the Syracuse University
Bookstore who respected my publication deadlines and allowed me the
opportunity to focus on completing this project.
—Leah Deyneka
vii
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Introduction
“Of That Time, of That Place”
Douglas Brode
These are the legends that prove special since, like the Bible, Greek mythol-
ogy, Shakespeare, and the collected films of John Ford, certain narrative
works do not merely satisfy an audience at the time of their release only to
disappear, sooner or later displaced by the next “big thing” to come am-
bling or roaring down the pike. While other stories, some extremely strik-
ing, perhaps well received at a specific juncture in history, come and go, we
are talking now about those that pass the test of time. These are the legends
that prove special in that, however pleasurable and/or profound they may
have appeared long, long ago, in some past culture near or far, far away,
they speak over the years, the decades, the centuries, even in some rare and
remarkable cases, the millennia. More incredible, they do so to far-flung so-
cieties that often share nothing but such ongoing yarns and the basic ideas
contained within them. These are our uber-stories, meaningful as well as
absorbing after other tales, temporary in value, have fallen by the wayside,
forgotten except by scholars of antiquity.
In each such case, a combination of the universal story itself and the
unique manner of its telling causes the piece to continue to move mass au-
diences and individual receivers, despite ever-changing fads and fashions.
This includes the coming and going of political, philosophical, cultural,
and religious outlooks. Indeed, in some cases, the iconic tales are respon-
sible for those very changes. They are, simply put, the stories that most
powerfully answer certain essential questions raised by the world’s first
philosophers, back when man ceased to merely accept his own existence.
At this point humankind rose above any animal origins by questioning life:
What does it mean to be a man? What is our place in the universe? Why are
we here, and ought we to pursue that final question from birth to death?
ix
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