Barrold Bonds: Star Wars is quite literally children's entertainment. It's all just stuff cribbed from the old Flash Gordon serials mixed with a dash of Kurosawa (and a hint of John Ford). Don't think too deeply about it.
That's cool! It is (in the end) a 'boys own adventure,' with a feminist add-on, told in such a way that it will not tire the brains of child-like adults.
Pattberg's scholarship, (as his brief bio makes clear) is focused on Chinese thought and the way that 'world culture' is handling/adjusting to the re-emergence of an Asian power in a world that's essentially Eurocentric since the European (the USA is a transplanted 'Europower) led 'age of Colonialism.'
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talesin: FTS - My only question to that premise would be that in the Force, duality is not seen in most of the characters. The Dark Side (Emperor) is totally evil. Anakin, too, is pure good, until he turns to the Dark Side and becomes Lord Vader, who (we are led to believe) is pure evil as well. This runs contrary to the balance of yin/yang in taoism, in which each entity would have a balance. On the other hand, we do see this balance in Anakin (Vader), death scene. Hmmm, it seems that the Emperor represents the pure evil, and the Jedi pure good. HA! Rather confusing, but I will have to look at this more. Now that I think about it, when Yoda was teaching Luke, we saw the beginnings of good vs. evil struggling in the young Jedi.
It's always been my feeling that the concepts of SW was simplistic - the age-old fairy tale where the forces of good battle the forces of evil. Such nuances did not occur to me. But filmography is the literature of the modern age, and I believe, invites such analyses. Interesting thread this is, for this SW geek.
I agree - it is a simplistic story, but its likely that most popular stories are simplistic. Did Jesus say anything profound? Or rather, did the accepted (as 'official) stories portray his saying anything profound
The travelling storytellers of the past, (now replaced by films and TV) knew stories had to be simple and exciting. So the precedents of modern western culture were not very profound, and neither are the stories of today.
Take Hercules, as an example,
"Hermes, Herakles and Theseus, who are honoured in the gymnasium and wrestling-ground according to a practice universal among Greeks, and now common among barbarians." ( Pausanias, Description of Greece 4. 32. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
I agree - it is a simplistic story, but its likely that most popular stories are simplistic. Did Jesus say anything profound? Or rather, did the accepted (as 'official) stories portray his saying anything profound
The travelling storytellers of the past, (now replaced by films and TV) knew stories had to be simple and exciting. So the precedents of modern western culture were not very profound, and neither are the stories of today.
Take Hercules, as an example,
"Hermes, Herakles and Theseus, who are honoured in the gymnasium and wrestling-ground according to a practice universal among Greeks, and now common among barbarians." ( Pausanias, Description of Greece 4. 32. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
Why was he 'honoured' in the Gymnasiums? the gymnasiums were the finishing school for the young men of a Greek city, where naked young men, with oiled bodies, worked out and engaged in body contact sports like wrestling, And on the wall for all to 'honor' a representation of Hercules - a typical teen age hero.
(See the Twelve Labours of Hercules) -
He also sleeps with all fifty daughters, maybe all in the one night, of King Thespius, which was not his only sexual exploit.
And, as was likely for most young men in Hellenic culture, he had at least one boyfriend, Hylas.
The poet Theocritus, who wrote 300 years before our era, had this to say:
 | "We are not the first mortals to see beauty in what is beautiful. No, even Amphitryon's bronze-hearted son, who defeated the savage Nemean lion, loved a boy-charming Hylas, whose hair hung down in curls. |
