Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Star Wars backstory
"Sometimes you can have science fiction where you create a whole other world, like Star Wars. The genesis was Apocalypse Now. It was supposed to be George Lucas’s movie at first. George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, they came up from LA to the Bay Area because it was the hotbed of radicalism. They wanted to make a radical film collective. And they didn’t. But after Lucas did American Graffiti, he was like, “Cool, I have a hit. Now I’m doing my Apocalypse Now,” which was his movie based on Heart of Darkness.
"The protagonists were [supposed to be] the Vietcong — we were following them, going into enemy territory, into the US’s conquered territory, and finding their Kurtz, which was someone who had come from the Vietcong, joined up with the US, risen in the ranks because of everything he knew and how murderous he was against his own people, and they were going to go get him.
"He couldn’t get it funded. He was like, “What? I just made all this money? What’s going on?” They were like, “It’s too radical. You’re not going to get this funded. Leave it alone.” He was like, “Okay, I’ll take the same story and I’ll put it in space.” The Rebels were the Vietcong, the Empire was the US, and Darth Vader was their Kurtz."
May the fourth
Revisiting a master
It was in my last year of primary school that I became obsessed with Japan
This was informed by an interest in samurai and ninjas but probably laid the groundwork for my haiku writing earlier this century to present day.
Aside from exploring martial arts, reading James Clavell's book Shogun and learning to love eating rice, one of the highlights was watching movies by Akira Kurosawa.
My mother saw the ANU film group were screening his work and kindly drove me to see The Seven Samurai.
I sat next to a couple who seemed to be at the film solely to kiss each other but hardly noticed.
In hindsight I can appreciate the skill of his filmmaking, it held the attention of a boy raised on television cartoons for around three hours of black and white storytelling.
The fight scene at the end is still epic.
However, I've also come to appreciate the influence Kurosawa had on other films.
George Lucas has spoken of the C3PO and R2D2 characters being inspired by two peasants in The Hidden Fortress, and the video below shows other influences from that film.
And when I realised the Italian westerns my father liked were remakes of Kurosawa, I became more interested in them.
This week I tried to interest my kids in watching Yojimbo, priming them with the Youtube videos that make Jedi of Kurosawa's ronin.
They didn't watch much of it but I got a new appreciation for the film.
First, the soundtrack is awesome. I've had the track covered below in my head for days.
Second, the scene with the dog holding a human hand is clearing referenced in my favourite movie of all time: Wild At Heart.
And, finally, my interest in film studies has been stirred by the observation that the formerly fascist countries of Italy and Japan both began making westerns in the decades after World War II.
What does it say about the countries that these films focus on a stranger coming into a lawless town and setting things straight with violence?
This was informed by an interest in samurai and ninjas but probably laid the groundwork for my haiku writing earlier this century to present day.
Aside from exploring martial arts, reading James Clavell's book Shogun and learning to love eating rice, one of the highlights was watching movies by Akira Kurosawa.
My mother saw the ANU film group were screening his work and kindly drove me to see The Seven Samurai.
I sat next to a couple who seemed to be at the film solely to kiss each other but hardly noticed.
In hindsight I can appreciate the skill of his filmmaking, it held the attention of a boy raised on television cartoons for around three hours of black and white storytelling.
The fight scene at the end is still epic.
However, I've also come to appreciate the influence Kurosawa had on other films.
George Lucas has spoken of the C3PO and R2D2 characters being inspired by two peasants in The Hidden Fortress, and the video below shows other influences from that film.
And when I realised the Italian westerns my father liked were remakes of Kurosawa, I became more interested in them.
This week I tried to interest my kids in watching Yojimbo, priming them with the Youtube videos that make Jedi of Kurosawa's ronin.
They didn't watch much of it but I got a new appreciation for the film.
First, the soundtrack is awesome. I've had the track covered below in my head for days.
Second, the scene with the dog holding a human hand is clearing referenced in my favourite movie of all time: Wild At Heart.
And, finally, my interest in film studies has been stirred by the observation that the formerly fascist countries of Italy and Japan both began making westerns in the decades after World War II.
What does it say about the countries that these films focus on a stranger coming into a lawless town and setting things straight with violence?
Something brewing
Do you know those times when you sense resonances across disparate subjects?
I've been having a few of those recently and it's surprising how, after reading across seemingly unrelated subjects, patterns start to form between them.
For example, I've mentioned my interests in fermentation starting with Kimchi to lately brewing beer, as well as Star Wars.
While reading Stephen Harrod Buhner's Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation, I've been learning about the mythology that informs -- as well as, in a sense, scripts -- the process of fermenting.
Many cultures describe the god-like figure that shared the first recipe for beer, gruit, mead or wine as being one who also returned from the dead or the underworld, possibly also as being a fertility figure with plants literally growing as a result of this heroic potency.
The stories explain processes like bacteria growing and seeds germinating, these illustrate how human culture grows with agriculture.
Both are demonstrated in beer-making too, particularly yeast and malt.
The respect for the ability to cultivate life underscores religion, just look at Jesus' bread and wine.
So, why was I thinking about Star Wars?
Recently there was news of a conversation with George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, when he described his idea for the trinity of films that have been developed by Disney:
"...they were going to get into a microbiotic world."
George Lucas' space opera draws on mythic themes, particularly the apparently spontaneous inception of Annakin Skywalker as a parallel with the virgin mother Mary.
Then there's Skywalker's return from death as Darth Vader.
I guess his siring of the twins Luke and Leia might also be significant too.
Now that I think about it, it's significant that Star Wars has become a new kind of May Day in recent years.
Now the idea of Darth Vader as a fertility figure seems a bit weird, but as I read how indigenous cultures display few of the negative effects of alcohol, I pondered if he demonstrates the dark side of our relationship with fermentation.
Did Skywalker's anger lead him to misusing the sacred Force or did this antisocial tendency develop as a result?
Those Sith Lords seem like a bunch of lonely guys, right?
In contrast Jedi seem very social.
Does Darth Vader embody toxic masculinity?
I've been having a few of those recently and it's surprising how, after reading across seemingly unrelated subjects, patterns start to form between them.
For example, I've mentioned my interests in fermentation starting with Kimchi to lately brewing beer, as well as Star Wars.
While reading Stephen Harrod Buhner's Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation, I've been learning about the mythology that informs -- as well as, in a sense, scripts -- the process of fermenting.
Many cultures describe the god-like figure that shared the first recipe for beer, gruit, mead or wine as being one who also returned from the dead or the underworld, possibly also as being a fertility figure with plants literally growing as a result of this heroic potency.
The stories explain processes like bacteria growing and seeds germinating, these illustrate how human culture grows with agriculture.
Both are demonstrated in beer-making too, particularly yeast and malt.
The respect for the ability to cultivate life underscores religion, just look at Jesus' bread and wine.
Recently there was news of a conversation with George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, when he described his idea for the trinity of films that have been developed by Disney:
George Lucas' space opera draws on mythic themes, particularly the apparently spontaneous inception of Annakin Skywalker as a parallel with the virgin mother Mary.
Then there's Skywalker's return from death as Darth Vader.
I guess his siring of the twins Luke and Leia might also be significant too.
Did Skywalker's anger lead him to misusing the sacred Force or did this antisocial tendency develop as a result?
Those Sith Lords seem like a bunch of lonely guys, right?
In contrast Jedi seem very social.
Landscape From Far, Far Away
March into the archives : 21-87
Arthur Lipsett's film 21-87 was the subject of the following Bassling blog post and, while not really archival, kinda picks up on my earlier piece about how Luke Skywalker was an influential SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy)
This morning I was reading an article on George Lucas' new film and it reminded me of an earlier interview I'd read with him in which he talked about the influence of the film 21-87 by Arthur Lipsett, who worked for the National Film Board of Canada (who influenced one of my favourite bands, Boards of Canada).
While there's a fair bit of trivia in the article for Star Wars fans, Lucas' fascination with the film is something that's been in the back of my mind. At the time I was studying television production and thought my lecturers gave sound less attention in the curriculum than it deserves. This view was furthered by a visit to the SMPTE conference in 2006 where one speaker described audio as being "more than 50%" of television because it is a medium that uses a lot of close-up framing, so sound provides context for the narrative.
Today I got around to watching 21-87 and I think it demonstrates the importance of audio and the way it shapes the viewer's comprehension. There are moments when you're watching this short film and the way the sound and picture comes together creates a sense of meaning that is different from what is conveyed in either medium separately.
Can you imagine what 21-87 would be like if Lipsett had tried to match sounds to the onscreen actions? It'd be like Funniest Home Videos, where silly sound effects try to make very ordinary video hilarious.
The other thing it's got me thinking about is a line I read about how when you're in the process of creating an art work you need to disable your critical thinking. You've got to run with your inspiration before trying to analyse the direction. There was a nice analogy about how inspiration and analysis is akin to trying to use first and reverse in your car at the same time. See 8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity
And Stifle Your Success.
While television production emphasised that viewers anticipate that any action seen on screen will have a corresponding sound -- and this is something I've been focusing on when editing my park remix videos -- if you don't do this you open up space for new forms of meaning to be created. If you believe some people this conjuring of meaning is magic.
There's a lot of theory that's been written about editing images (again a demonstration of the focus on the visual, something of a human trait), like how if you cut from a woman's face to a picture of money being left on a pillow you will convey a meaning that she's a prostitute.
21-87 leaves me considering the potential of a kind of 'infinite semiosis' (to use semiotics) or free association to create multiple meanings depending on the viewer if you don't sync the sounds and pictures.
This morning I was reading an article on George Lucas' new film and it reminded me of an earlier interview I'd read with him in which he talked about the influence of the film 21-87 by Arthur Lipsett, who worked for the National Film Board of Canada (who influenced one of my favourite bands, Boards of Canada).
The film that made the most profound impression on Lucas, however, was a short called 21-87 by a director named Arthur Lipsett, who made visual poetry out of film that others threw away. Working as an editor at the National Film Board, he scavenged scraps of other people's documentaries from trash bins, intercutting shots of trapeze artists and runway models with his own footage of careworn faces passing on the streets of New York and Montreal. What intrigued Lucas most was Lipsett's subversive manipulation of images and sound, as when a shot of teenagers dancing was scored with labored breathing that might be someone dying or having an orgasm. The sounds neither tracked the images nor ignored them - they rubbed up against them. Even with no plot or character development, 21-87 evoked richly nuanced emotions, from grief to a tenacious kind of hope - all in less than 10 minutes.
While there's a fair bit of trivia in the article for Star Wars fans, Lucas' fascination with the film is something that's been in the back of my mind. At the time I was studying television production and thought my lecturers gave sound less attention in the curriculum than it deserves. This view was furthered by a visit to the SMPTE conference in 2006 where one speaker described audio as being "more than 50%" of television because it is a medium that uses a lot of close-up framing, so sound provides context for the narrative.
Today I got around to watching 21-87 and I think it demonstrates the importance of audio and the way it shapes the viewer's comprehension. There are moments when you're watching this short film and the way the sound and picture comes together creates a sense of meaning that is different from what is conveyed in either medium separately.
Can you imagine what 21-87 would be like if Lipsett had tried to match sounds to the onscreen actions? It'd be like Funniest Home Videos, where silly sound effects try to make very ordinary video hilarious.
The other thing it's got me thinking about is a line I read about how when you're in the process of creating an art work you need to disable your critical thinking. You've got to run with your inspiration before trying to analyse the direction. There was a nice analogy about how inspiration and analysis is akin to trying to use first and reverse in your car at the same time. See 8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity
And Stifle Your Success.
While television production emphasised that viewers anticipate that any action seen on screen will have a corresponding sound -- and this is something I've been focusing on when editing my park remix videos -- if you don't do this you open up space for new forms of meaning to be created. If you believe some people this conjuring of meaning is magic.
There's a lot of theory that's been written about editing images (again a demonstration of the focus on the visual, something of a human trait), like how if you cut from a woman's face to a picture of money being left on a pillow you will convey a meaning that she's a prostitute.
21-87 leaves me considering the potential of a kind of 'infinite semiosis' (to use semiotics) or free association to create multiple meanings depending on the viewer if you don't sync the sounds and pictures.
March into the archives : Star Wars
Woroni, the ANU student newspaper, ran my piece on the cultural impact of Star Wars in April 1997, ahead of the 20th anniversary re-release of the film.
Ahead of the re-release of the film in 3D, the argument that Luke Skywalker was an influential SNAG seems worthy of further consideration as George Lucas' new film embraces another civil rights topic
While media attention regarding the re-release of Star Wars has focused on the digital enhancements, the opportunity to analyse the effects of this cultural phenomenon has been neglected.
Just as film scholars have proposed that the Oedipal plots of the film noir genre were inspired by the spread of Freudian psychoanalytic theory, I propose that the impact of Star Wars contributed to the creation of the Sensitive New Age Guy (or SNAG). To argue this I will concentrate solely on the first film and not the original trilogy nor the subsequent pre-trilogy.
The term SNAG is a recent addition to our vocabulary and is thought to have entered into popular usuage within the last 30 years. It is noticeably absent from dictionaries in the Chifley Library.
Feminism and the women's movement were firmly entrenched in public knowledge at the time of Star Wars release in 1977. There are only two female characters in Star Wars: Princess Leia and Luke's short-lived Aunt Beru. Leia revolutionised the role of women in science fiction and her influence can be seen in later characters such as Ripley in Alien and Sarah Connor in The Terminator.
Though she may not fly an X-wing into battle (even recently released science fiction like Independence Day maintain women can't fly), Leia survives an Imperial torture device without revealing Rebel secrets, uses scathing sarcasm to undermine the male authority of Darth Vader, General Tankim and later Han Solo, wastes a few stormtroopers and takes charge to blast a way out of the Death Star's detention centre ("Somebody has to save our skins").
In comparison Aunt Beru, as a submissive older woman from an earlier generation, is happy cooking vegetables with her chrome-plated food processor. Furthermore, Feminism is given a veiled reference by Han Solo who, after referring to Leia as "Sister" says "I ain't in this for your revolution" -- linking the fight of the Rebels against the Evil Empire to fight against social patriarchy.
The SNAG message is conveyed to the audience via Luke Skywalker's indoctrination into the Jedi ideology. Under instruction from Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke is taught to use the Force ("An energy field...which penetrates and binds the galaxy together") and to develop a skill akin to women's intuition.
This process shapes young Luke into a classic SNAG as Obi encourages him to "trust your feelings" and "stretch out with your emotions" while instructing him to ignore his rational (and 'masculine') thoughts with "let go of your conscious self" and "your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them".
Luke learns these 'feminine' traits quickly and by the film's final third he tells Leia he cares, doesn't flinch from expressing his sorrow at Obi's death and learns to use sarcasm ("Take care of yourself Han, I guess that's what you're best at").
It is important to note the benefits of SNAG qualities are reinforced in the viewer in two ways. Firstly, through the rivalry between Luke and Han to win the affections of Leia. The bold Captain Solo (who dismisses both the Force and Leia's "female advice") admires her spirit, while Luke describes Leia as beautiful from his first encounter with her holographic image.
Their rivalry is explicit during a conversation when Han asks "What do you think, a princess and a guy like me?" To which Luke replies quickily and sulkily "No". Within a subdued context in the film's final scene, the SNAG gets the Princess as illustrated during the award ceremony. Leia ignores Han Solo's sleazy smuggler's grin and common wink to bestow upon Luke a full pearly white smile.
The SNAG as a sexual conqueror is suggested during the climactic battle where the vulnerable Death Star is exposed to fighters using phallic torpedoes. I propose this is a metaphor for reproduction, with the ovum being penetrated (which you may recall is a function of the Force) by the successful sperm of a "one man" X-wing spacecraft. Our fearless SNAG hero uses the Force to endure longer than his fellow Rebel pilots, who "can't hold on" and merely "impact on the surface".
Thus Luke, an ex-dirt farmer turned star blazing SNAG, wins the day and Star Wars influences a generation of males to get in touch with their feelings and use the Force to win a princess.
Clone Trooper feedback
My son has been very happy with the Star Wars Clone Trooper helmet bought for his upcoming birthday. His only complaint is that he has to take it off to eat and drink. He says it would be better if he could fit a straw into the helmet.
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