Really enjoyed reading this - thank you. I personally felt SW was being over-explained even as far back as ROTJ when incidental aliens were being given names (I preferred non-names like Hammerhead, Snaggletooth etc which left everything to my own imagination).
BTW the ‘Dreadnaugts firing on each other’ thing was done in ROTJ too. I dimly recall Lucas explaining it in a documentary (don’t remember which, sorry)…
Over-explanation of SW is one of the reasons I’m possibly the only person on earth who doesn’t like The Mandalorian.
Great read!
Thanks, though it’s a interesting that you mentioned The Mandalorian as I did mention it at the end of the 3rd addendum as getting a lot of things right in regards to archetypes and keeping things simple. Of course it is a post-EU series so it does have way more sci-fi elements to it than the OT did.
I’m hardly advocating for the OT to go back to full surrealism mode, I just don’t think that’s feasible and just wouldn’t go well with audiences, but I am glad that The Mandalorian has added some more fantastical elements without explaining it (withing the show at the very least); like f.ex. the Krayt dragon swimming through sand like water. We also got vague names like Frog-lady, which is pretty fun. It’s simple, accurate, and quite frankly it’s all I need. I’m sure the EU will give her a name and a backstory at some point, but she served her purpose to the story and I don’t really need more from that character. She almost designed like a fairly-tale character, or something out of Wind in the Willows and that’s pretty great.
Another thing which places Star Wars firmly in the fantasy/surrealist camp is that the OT never showed a scientist or engineer, or at least never showed one at work. The closest we get to a truly STEM profession is mechanic or technician. The story is focused on soldiers, pilots, generals, captains, emperors, farmers, smugglers, bounty hunters, crime lords, peasants (droids), monks, masters, and all manner of human and alien civilians. It’s very much a medieval view of a world dressed in the illusion of technological sophistication.
Good point. And after all, ANH was originally conceived as a space-opera remake of Hidden Fortress. I didn’t include the quote in the essay, but I recall Lucas referring to SW as a “mythology for the space-age” or something to that effect, which I think summarizes the franchise, and especially the OT, quite well.