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Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay) — Page 2

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Shopping Maul said:

ZkinandBonez said:

screams in the void said:

also , Robert E. Howard deserves a mention in this discussion , he is regarded as the father of sword and sorcery and did a lot of world building for Conan’s world , as evidenced in his Hyborian age essay https://conanthecimmerian.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age Many fantasy authors imitated him afterwards , but never quite captured his spirit . Then there were the many many fantasy film cash grabs that came in the wake of the 1982 Conan The Barbarian film …

Yes, Howard’s another one of those guys that no one has ever quite managed to imitate or adapt to film. Now I do really enjoy the John Milius Conan film, but it really has very little to do with Howard. Unlike Lovecraft though, and despite often borrowing a lot of his ideas, Howard did have a tendency to add a backstory to everything so I’d definitely say he has more in common with Tolkien in that regard then with OT SW. Then again characters/creatures like Yag-Kosha are quite abstract in concept.

Does anyone know if Lucas ever made any direct mention of Howard work as an influence? I would assume he at the very least knew of the character as SW was written right at the start of the Howard boom in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

As a side note: I find it fascinating that Tolkien’s first published book was only one year after Howard’s death. People often forget that Howard did the whole world-building thing before Tolkien, that is, as far as what was publicly available.

Actually, I think the real parallel here is between Lucas and Milius. The thought processes behind Star Wars and Conan are remarkably similar - Milius wanted to create a believable ‘lived-in’ universe in the same way George did, and both were going for a real mythic quality. The ‘father’s sword’ motifs, the aged wizard - Conan even has its villain (played by James Earl Jones) deliver a ‘I am your father’ speech! And both productions had run-ins with Gil Taylor…
Conan and SW have pretty much the same poster art as well…

That’s a really good point. I’d never thought about just how SW-like it actually is. And I do love the whole Riddle of Steel element of the film, it not only serves as a thematic through-line, but as you say, it gives it a mythic quality and makes the story feel like some ancient fable.

“An age undreamed of” is very much the sword and sorcery equivalent of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” I really wish more storytellers would utilize this storytelling device to its full potential, rather than get bogged down in details like so many series often do. Comparing it to Tolkien again, I have a book from the early 70’s were someone tried to make Middle-Earth match up with a map of Europe, though thankfully people generally just accept it as a fantasy world nowadays. Of course Howard’s Hyborian age map did just that, and that’s fine, but there’s also so much potential in vague settings, like Samuel Butler’s Erewhon or Fritz Leiber’s Nehwhon (literally"nowhere" and “no-when” spelled backwards).

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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This is a great essay, and really helped me to synthesize some thoughts that have been rattling around in my brain for a while. Along with rocknroll41’s essays, primarily his great 4-parter from last November (https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-real-reason-you-probably-dont-like.html?m=1), I was inspired to finally write my thoughts out and get them into a (hopefully) coherent form. I posted that late last night at https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/star-wars-has-felt-off-to-me-since-1980-essay/id/82758 .

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Pakka said:

This is a great essay, and really helped me to synthesize some thoughts that have been rattling around in my brain for a while. Along with rocknroll41’s essays, primarily his great 4-parter from last November (https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-real-reason-you-probably-dont-like.html?m=1), I was inspired to finally write my thoughts out and get them into a (hopefully) coherent form. I posted that late last night at https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/star-wars-has-felt-off-to-me-since-1980-essay/id/82758 .

Great essay, Pakka. Glad I could be of some help to verbalize some of your thoughts.


A copy of my response in the Pakka’s thread:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/star-wars-has-felt-off-to-me-since-1980-essay/id/82758/page/1#1404749

ZkinandBonez said:

Yes, the WEG source-books, though delightfully geeky and partially responsible for keeping the franchise alive for a few years, really did transform it into something quite different from what it originally was. I personally don’t mind there being some connectivity, especially when it’s narrative based, so the “I am your father” element works well for me because it has such a mythic vibe to it. And it’s interesting how you pointed out the possibilities of the 77-80 years, and I agree that the comics did a great job to tell new stories without shackling it down with lore, because I’ve heard people make a similar argument that they feel that SW was always meant to be the mythological tale of the Skywalkers and they therefore ignore the side stories. As a franchise it’s a real tough nut to crack, and although Lucas definitely intended for it to be a fairy-tale without having to make logical sense of it all, I don’t think even he fully knew what the core of the franchise was. But then again stories do evolve over time, though the WEG interpretation definitely took a more Star Trek-type of approach to it. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the EU and all the sourcebooks coincided with the second Star Trek boom in the late 80’s and 90’s, not to mention the internet which has made it far easier for fans to share ideas and over analyse things.

There was a section of my essay that I ended up removing (it got a little bit off topic) where I talked about how loose canon was treated back in the 30’s and 40’s, using the Universal monster films as an example, arguing that it related not only to how pop culture was just starting to become a thing, but also how the lack of home media made it kind of pointless. Back then you saw a film once, maybe a few more times if you really liked it, and when it was no longer in the theater you simply couldn’t see it anymore. So if the sequel broke continuity you had no way to go back and check and as long as it felt right (by sticking to the core plot and themes of the previous story) no one really cared. It is completely possible that this modern fascination with lore and continuity is simply a natural development of how we consume media these days, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does put SW in this really weird place. My essay was an attempt to at least acknowledge this, but also to point out that even if a franchise evolves and starts to include a more rigid narrative, I would at least encourage creators to treat the setting with an appropriately surreal approach (and quite a few do this reasonably well IMO).

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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BTW, I’m curious to hear what people here, in relation to my own and Pakka’s essay, feel about the Dark Empire comics? Especially the first of the three series.

I ask because of how much of an anomaly it is compared to the later EU comics and novels, and because of how it’s often referred to as the last of the early EU days before everything was set in stone and they could go more wild with their storytelling. Now it obviously acknowledges canon in that it brings Palpatine back from the dead, and even Boba Fett returs, but it was and is still quite controversial for how loose it played with the established lore. And that’s why I personally kind of love it. It feels pulpy and kinda silly, while still being very dark and gritty. It acknowledges the personal journeys of the characters, but it visually feels like it belongs to an entirely different universe and it brings in all of these crazy things from out of nowhere. Palpatine’s return, to me at least, feels like something you’d see in some old movie serial or read in an old comic where the bad guy is inexplicably returned through some flimsy excuse simply for the sake of having him return. The later EU spent a lot of time trying to explain how the whole Palpatine clone thing actually worked, especially after the Prequels, but I feel like it treated the concept of cloning in an appropriately surreal and pulpy fashion. It feels almost like something out of ancient mythology where he is simply reborn in a new body and he even tries to possess Leia’s child at some point. The scale of this series is also off the charts, with giant probe droids towering over cities and superweapons galore. It has a very French-Belgian comic feel to it, with style and narrative being more important than logic or world-building, which I feel is very OT-like. And if I remember correctly Lucas was inspired by Valérian and Laureline and other French-Belgian comic series.

Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy made a comic a few years prior to Dark Empire called The Light and Darkness War which I think is a masterful example of surreal fantasy storytelling, which apparently Lucas was really impressed by (hence why they got the job). This comic is a fantastic example of how to do symbolic stories that only creates the illusion of world-building. And it is in many ways very similar to Dark Empire in it’s overall feel.

I can’t help but feel that the little “opening crawl” that was added to Dark Empire issue #1 explaining how it takes place shortly after the Thrawn trilogy kind of did it disservice. I like the idea of a SW story that continues the overall narrative of Luke, Leia and Han’s personal journeys, but which only tangentially related to the OT movies in that they take place at some unspecified point after ROTJ.

At least that’s my interpretation. What do you guys think? Do you agree that Dark Empire was one of the last fully surreal SW stories before the West End Games sourcebook model of thinking took over as the foundation for the lore going forward?

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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^ I loved the first Dark Empire series ,and for the way they handled the Emperors return ,it worked for me better than TROS .It certainly had a surreal touch to it in the artwork ,from the color palette to the recursive imagery of the star destroyers surrounding the planet Byss . ( which was picked up on in TROS ) .I remember being in a comic shop about a year before the first issue came out and seeing The Light And Darkness War and thinking this creative team would be great doing a Star Wars book …in fact , I mistook it FOR Star Wars at first glance .As a huge fan of the original Marvel Star Wars comic ,which was in publication before all of the over explained EU stuff , I was bummed when they stopped publishing it . When the first Dark Empire issue came out , I was ecstatic and bought it on the spot .I would now be getting my monthly Star Wars comic fix after 5 long years ! That first series felt very cinematic to me and indeed it felt like the possibilities of where they could go were limitless .I liked the Tales Of The Jedi comics for that reason as well .Dark Empire 2 and Empires End were a letdown to me though as they got too formulaic and I could accept the Emperor coming back once , but it was overkill after that and he just came off as another carton villain .Then there was the whole matter of these stories later tying in with the Kevin J. Anderson novels …while they had some cool concepts ,the execution was clunky . I was glad that the novel I,Jedi summarized those events more coherently and kept the cooler aspects in without going overboard .I also liked the audio drama of Dark Empire as well as Tales Of The Jedi and Crimson Empire .

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/

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It’s quite interesting reading about the making of Dark Empire II and Empire’s End as you can tell Veicht and Kennedy weren’t overly enthusiastic about making them as the first series was pretty much intended as a self contained story. Though I would say that Dark Empire II deserves some credit, nor just foe the top notch art, but for some interesting ideas it played with. I especially like Ood Bnar; the idea of an ancient Jedi that is so old he became an old gnarled tree is about as mythological as you can get. His origin story in Tales of the Jedi was a tad bland I think, but that series overall did a great job at feeling different from the OT while still fitting within the SW mold. It definitely embraced the more fantasy-like elements. As much as I like Timothy Zahn, I do think it’s a real shame that the EU used his style as their standard instead of embracing the wilder aspects of the early Dark Horse comics. Like the Marvel comics before they weren’t afraid to go crazy with the IP and try new things, but after a few years they began playing it safe (the comic crash in the 90’s probably didn’t help either) and much of it began feeling very formulaic. Plenty of solid stories, but not living up to it’s full potential IMO.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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yeah , I did like the old tree dude and Dark Empire 2 had some decent art in places ,the whole steam ship world etc . Oddly enough , I did enjoy The New Jedi order series , as they finally got back to taking some risks with the IP and moved beyond the Empire /Rebellion conflict and brought in a new threat ( even though Marvel did it first with the Nagai ) after that was when I bowed out , as thee cast of characters became too overblown to follow for me . I did keep up with what happened with Lumiya though and read about the final battle between her and Luke ,as I was a fan of the character from the Marvel series .The Truce at Bakura was another one I enjoyed .

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/

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All of this had me thinking about Dark Empire - I obviously need to re-read it, now.

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I remember really enjoying Dark Empire and I agree that it’s one of the more creative and unique pieces of SW related media to be released since the OT.

ZkinandBonez said:

It’s quite interesting reading about the making of Dark Empire II and Empire’s End as you can tell Veicht and Kennedy weren’t overly enthusiastic about making them as the first series was pretty much intended as a self contained story. Though I would say that Dark Empire II deserves some credit, nor just foe the top notch art, but for some interesting ideas it played with. I especially like Ood Bnar; the idea of an ancient Jedi that is so old he became an old gnarled tree is about as mythological as you can get. His origin story in Tales of the Jedi was a tad bland I think, but that series overall did a great job at feeling different from the OT while still fitting within the SW mold. It definitely embraced the more fantasy-like elements. As much as I like Timothy Zahn, I do think it’s a real shame that the EU used his style as their standard instead of embracing the wilder aspects of the early Dark Horse comics. Like the Marvel comics before they weren’t afraid to go crazy with the IP and try new things, but after a few years they began playing it safe (the comic crash in the 90’s probably didn’t help either) and much of it began feeling very formulaic. Plenty of solid stories, but not living up to it’s full potential IMO.

I remember really enjoying Dark Empire and I agree that it’s one of the more creative and unique pieces of SW related media to be released since the OT.

The second book felt a little rushed from what I remember and the third read more like a treatment of a story then a finished comic book but they still had some interesting ideas and the artwork was always top notch.

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I enjoyed Dark Empire to a degree but it never felt ‘real’ to me. I only got halfway through Zahn’s first SW novel for the same reason. Ultimately it came down to the fact that RoTJ was such a conclusive ending in my view, so anything else just felt like more SW for the sake of it. More importantly, the EU emphasised just how dissatisfied I was with RoTJ overall. The ‘Leia as twin sister’ thing just doesn’t work for me at any level, so any continuation with ‘Leia as Jedi raising Jedi kids’ just seems like so much BS to me. I’m one of the few people I know of that genuinely enjoyed TROS as a legitimate piece of post-TESB Star Wars (every other movie since and including RoTJ has annoyed me at some level!) and it’s a shame that the Leia Skywalker thing is unavoidable in this case.

On a side note let me just thank ZkinandBonez, Rocknroll41, and Pakka for these great essays…it’s such fun nerding out with everyone here!

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First, thanks for including me in that list - I really appreciate it! It was seeing ZkinandBonez and Rocknroll41 post their thoughtful, nuanced essays that gave me the push to finally write mine after having it bouncing around in my head for years, so being included with them is humbling.

Also, if I can paraphrase, you made me realize that, for me, everything from “I am your father” on feels like BS. Knowing that Vader wasn’t Luke’s dad when Star Wars was made makes that feel untrue for me; same with Leia not being Luke’s sister when Empire was made. Those were two of Lucas’s first retcons, and they diminish what the Star Wars Universe felt like to me as a kid. I will grant that the Vader thing works from a mythological POV, but I still feel like Lucas made that decision in part because it would be shocking, and in part because it would simplify the story for his purposes. The Leia decision was just doubling down on that - the OT was really hard on him (directing Star Wars was physically overwhelming), and it felt like RoTJ was made knowing that it would be successful, so he just wanted to tie up as many loose ends as possible so he could do something else with his life.

Along the same lines, I don’t think Lucas imagined the look and feel of the PT before the mid-90s (at the earliest). I know he likes to portray things as “I couldn’t make the movies I saw in my head before the technology was ready”, but I think that puts the cart before the horse. I think the look of those movies, and many of the events in them, came about because he saw that they might be technically possible, and modified his basic storyline to fit what he thought ILM could pull off.

For me, the historical events hinted at in Star Wars took place in a universe that fits (roughly) with the look and feel of what we saw in the first two movies. I’ve never fleshed that idea out beyond that thought - what would be the point? - but that’s my basic stance, and why nothing since has felt right to me.

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This was really interesting to read! It defiantly explains why I’m so drawn to the original trilogy and why anything else just never really interested me. Reading this has giving me a better understanding of how I view the SW franchise and my relationship to it, so thank you.

I know the main purpose of this essay is not to discuss where Lucas got his inspiration but I just quickly want to add in regards to addendum#1 that the force is also similar to the concept of qi.

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Koral said:

I know the main purpose of this essay is not to discuss where Lucas got his inspiration but I just quickly want to add in regards to addendum#1 that the force is also similar to the concept of qi.

Discuss away. A lot of this essay and the responses have gone into Lucas’ inspirations, so it is in no way off-topic.

As for qi, I only know a little bit about it, mostly just the cliches, but it does seem like the kind of thing that Lucas might have referenced, especially since all things new age and martial arts related were quite big in the 70’s.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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This topic dredges up that old topic we’ve addressed around here before, what is science fiction. Some think Science Fiction only realistic, science based stories (specifically labeled Hard Science Fiction). The history of the genre makes it clear that Space Opera, the lighter more free portion of the genre the developed out of the Planetary Romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, is just as integral to the overall science fiction genre as hard SF is. And it is funny how Asimov is considered hard SF. A lot of his work is far more on the Space Opera side then hard SF. Especially his Robots/Empire/Foundation setting that so obviously had an impact on Star Wars. Lucas himself labeled Star Wars as Space Opera, which it most certainly is. In Space Opera, hard realism takes a back seat to story and it is up the writer to make the audience believe. People steeped in science have always loved to poke holes in Space Opera. Often it is only feasible on a theoretical level. Sometimes not even then. Space Opera writers end up writing quasi-science to give an air of authenticity and possibility to things like ESP, FTL and so many things that current science says are not possible. A lot of that is based on the reality that at one point in time, breaking the sound barrier or going to the moon was considered impossible.

A truth I’ve discovered about most fiction is that it can usually fit in more than one category. There is room to call Star Wars science fiction, space opera, fairy tale and other things. Even a space western or space Samurai cinema. But rather then saying it should not be called X, we should be saying it can be called W, X, Y, and Z. I call it space opera (a subset of Science Fiction) because that is actually my favorite genre and I am well read and well watched in it.

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Oh, I agree, there’s definitely a lot of genre overlap with SW. And much of sci-fi does defy any single label. However, since science fiction has the word “science” in it I personally tend to equate it to the term speculative fiction which implies at least a certain degree of what’s being shown will be plausible one day. SW doesn’t really fit into that genre, nor does the Barsoom stories. Now, obviously there’s a lot that isn’t realistic in much of sci-fi, with Star Trek being a very good example. But as I said in my Addendum #2 the premise is one of exploration and there’s always some attempts at keeping the technology somewhat within the realm of possibility, except for when it prevents the stories from being told (like how there is no time-dilation in warp-travel, etc.). Plus, much of the pseudo-science, like telepathy, was believed at the time it was made to be real science, so it was at least an attempt at science fiction.

Besides, I’m not really denying that SW has elements of sci-fi in it, like it does with so many other genre as well, but “Star Wars is surrealism, sci-fi, a western, a samurai film, a space-opera, a fairy-tale, and so forth” doesn’t make for a very eye-catching title. And I do think that it is primarily a fantasy/fairy-tale at it’s core, while the rest are mostly aesthetic influences.

I also think it’s interesting how the sci-fi genre originated in a time when space travel seemed so absurd to people that it might as well have been fantasy, so weather you were reading Burroughs, Doc Smith, Wells or even Robert E. Howard, it was all classified as “science fantasy.” Then after the first satellite, the first man in space and finally the moon-landing in the 50’s & 60’s then suddenly the absurdity of some of the old science fantasy stories didn’t seem all that crazy anymore, and people started to differentiate authors like H.G. Wells from Edgar Rice Burroughs, with the former retaining the science fiction label while the latter gradually being reclassified more and more as fantasy (or Sword & Planet to be more specific).

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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ZkinandBonez said:

Oh, I agree, there’s definitely a lot of genre overlap with SW. And much of sci-fi does defy any single label. However, since science fiction has the word “science” in it I personally tend to equate it to the term speculative fiction which implies at least a certain degree of what’s being shown will be plausible one day. SW doesn’t really fit into that genre, nor does the Barsoom stories. Now, obviously there’s a lot that isn’t realistic in much of sci-fi, with Star Trek being a very good example. But as I said in my Addendum #2 the premise is one of exploration and there’s always some attempts at keeping the technology somewhat within the realm of possibility, except for when it prevents the stories from being told (like how there is no time-dilation in warp-travel, etc.). Plus, much of the pseudo-science, like telepathy, was believed at the time it was made to be real science, so it was at least an attempt at science fiction.

Besides, I’m not really denying that SW has elements of sci-fi in it, like it does with so many other genre as well, but “Star Wars is surrealism, sci-fi, a western, a samurai film, a space-opera, a fairy-tale, and so forth” doesn’t make for a very eye-catching title. And I do think that it is primarily a fantasy/fairy-tale at it’s core, while the rest are mostly aesthetic influences.

I also think it’s interesting how the sci-fi genre originated in a time when space travel seemed so absurd to people that it might as well have been fantasy, so weather you were reading Burroughs, Doc Smith, Wells or even Robert E. Howard, it was all classified as “science fantasy.” Then after the first satellite, the first man in space and finally the moon-landing in the 50’s & 60’s then suddenly the absurdity of some of the old science fantasy stories didn’t seem all that crazy anymore, and people started to differentiate authors like H.G. Wells from Edgar Rice Burroughs, with the former retaining the science fiction label while the latter gradually being reclassified more and more as fantasy (or Sword & Planet to be more specific).

Well, there is what things ARE called and there is what they should be called. What we call Science Fiction should really be Technology Fiction. Think about it, no matter how much science, the stories all deal with some level of technology. Sometimes, like Steampunk, it is backwards extrapolation of what could have been in a past time. But always technology. Similarly Fantasy is really Magical Fiction. All the stories deal with magic in some way, from magic creatures, to wizards and talismans.

But we are kind of stuck with how the genre names have come down to us and how they are used. Unfortunatley Speculative Fiction is the current umbrella term for all Science Fiction and Fantasy and a bit of Horror as well. Bookstores don’t use it, but writers, agents, and publishers do. And movies are never as divided as literature. Everything even remotely science fiction gets thrown under that label. I have seen some adoption of the term space fantasy, but that is usually just space opera rebranded. A lot of it is just semantics. The word science throws a lot of people off. Asimov usually populated his stories with scientists, but the plausibility of his stories was no better than Burroughs or Star Wars. Especially his Mule and Second Foundation and then the Robots he made responsible for those abilities. But being a scientists himself, he was always good at making his leaps sound logical and plausible even if they were not at all.

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I see what your’re saying, and I agree that it’s probably the only practical way of dealing with these genres. I personally find reducing stories to just technology and magic a bit too rigid as these are just tools used by characters in stories, and ultimately stories are about people and themes. Although it’s probably not all that practical, I personally would like for these to define genres. But technology and magic is probably the simplest way to separate genres as it at least gives people a sense of the aesthetic/atmosphere of the book or movie they are about to read/watch.

It does still annoy me though, since I feel that spaceships doesn’t necessarily mean sci-fi unless it serves a theme of science, and magic doesn’t always denote fantasy, especially when it’s not done in a mythological way.

For example:
Even though Asimov’s books include a lot of things that probably won’t/can’t happen (though this has been said of sci-fi many times until it actually does happen), yet his ideas are as I’ve mentioned before with Star Trek, rooted in themes of human exploration/development. The society depicted in the Foundation books may seem exaggerated and fantasy-like, but the idea of storing all human knowledge to minimize the duration of an inevitable age of barbarism predicted through an a scientific method that can simulate the most likely outcomes of predictable human behaviour, is at it’s core a very science-based concept. We can argue about exactly how possible this is, though computers are only now starting to be able to do large-scale simulations, so who knows. Asimov made it a math-like process, but he wrote it in a time when computers were just starting to become somewhat useful. The idea however, is science-rooted. And it’s from the 50’s, so it still has that veneer of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, but the ideas are all based on intellectual concepts, and the human stories are only second priority, almost treated as a mere necessity as civilizations do of course center around people. What Asimov is really interested in though is civilization as an concept.

Fantasy on the other hand, at least when done properly, I would say is more rooted in themes of mythology and fairy tales. Unfortunately, a lot of modern fantasy is written from a sci-fi viewpoint were magic is basically a metaphysical science with specific rules to be obeyed. Now this is an interesting concept, but it really should get it’s own sub-label (which it kind of already has in Hard Magic) as it has little to do with true fantasy. Classical fantasy, like Narnia or The Wizard of Oz are, like mythology, purely symbolic affairs. They are not meant to be made sense of through literal interpretations. Even when fantasy creates an elaborate lore, like Lord of the Rings, you can rarely figure out how exactly the magic works or where exactly the stories take place. People have tried to superimpose Middle-Earth over mas of Europe, but like Erewhon and Newhon, it’s a nowhere and a nowhen. Likewise with Star Wars, you can find many videos online where fans speculate whether the SW-galaxy is supposed to exist in our universe/dimension, but like those who tried to equate the Shire with England and Rohan with Norway, I feel they are missing the point.

Of course where things get really complicated is when you star to analyse writers like Robert E. Howard who literally superimposed his own Hyborean age map over a map of Europe and created his own fictional pre-historic timeline for the earth. Is that fantasy? Sci-fi? Maybe the old term science fantasy still applies to his work in particular. The again there’s not much science in his writing. Maybe speculative fantasy should be a thing.

So, all my ramblings aside (I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record at this point), most people will most likely continue to label anything with spaceships as sci-fi and anything with wizards as fantasy, so all we can really do is provide sub-genres for those of us who do care about the minutiae of fiction. But I find it especially fun to challenge the genre definitions of Star Wars in particular as the very first movie basically has a wizard in a spaceship.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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ZkinandBonez said:
So, all my ramblings aside (I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record at this point), most people will most likely continue to label anything with spaceships as sci-fi and anything with wizards as fantasy, so all we can really do is provide sub-genres for those of us who do care about the minutiae of fiction. But I find it especially fun to challenge the genre definitions of Star Wars in particular as the very first movie basically has a wizard in a spaceship.

And then you have Star Wars with spaceships and wizards. For me the ESP-ness of the Force places this in Space Opera.

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yotsuya said:

ZkinandBonez said:
So, all my ramblings aside (I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record at this point), most people will most likely continue to label anything with spaceships as sci-fi and anything with wizards as fantasy, so all we can really do is provide sub-genres for those of us who do care about the minutiae of fiction. But I find it especially fun to challenge the genre definitions of Star Wars in particular as the very first movie basically has a wizard in a spaceship.

And then you have Star Wars with spaceships and wizards. For me the ESP-ness of the Force places this in Space Opera.

Sure, space opera is a very accurate niche-genre label to place SW in. Not sure why ESP specifically would put it in that genre, you could make the argument that ESP is more of a paranormal trope, but the pseudo-science nature of it coupled with the adventure, melodrama, ect. definitely qualifies. Though it’s funny to me how the Wikipedia page for space opera specifies that the “opera” refers to soap operas and not traditional opera, as I think the latter fits quite well too, maybe even better. Maybe it’s just me, but I would say that SW has a certain Wagnerian quality to it.
My only real issue with the Space Opera classification is that it’s by definition a very pulpy and trashy genre, or at least that’s what the person who coined the term put into it. Maybe that’s changed since, I’ve read a lot of old pulps but not too much space opera. SW definitely has a lot of pulpy elements to it, but I think it succeeded in transcending the pulps it was initially trying to emulate. An argument could be made to place SW in the Sword and Planet genre however, though ironically it might be a bit too tech-focused to fit that genre (even if the tech doesn’t actually make a lot of sense).

I dunno. Maybe trying to find a specific genre for something like SW is impossible. I’m probably seeing this from an author’s perspective and sometimes you can’t even properly categorize your own work. And Star Wars is in many ways the ultimate genre mashup. I do like the term space opera though, and even if I’m not a big fan of the original definition, it does sound right when talking about Star Wars.

PS. I’m not quite sure what you meant by your first sentence as you just re-phrased what I wrote in my previous post. Does space opera tend to have wizards and magic in it? Like I said, I’m not too well versed in the genre, but what I associate with it is stuff like Flash Gordon and the Lensman series.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Star Wars has had Wagner baked in from the very beginning. Things like Siegmund in the Ring Cycle claiming the sword left to him by his divine father Odin, and then immediately sleeping with his sister. 😉

Heck, even the spelling of Leia’s name comes from the cries of the Rhinemaidens in Goetterdaemmerung.

“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”

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 (Edited)

screams in the void said:

If I have to put a label to it , I prefer Space Fantasy .As a huge fan of the original Marvel Comic , I love the tagline , " The Greatest Space Fantasy Of All !"

Yes, nice and straight forward.
And i emphasizes space as a setting instead of lingering on science (even if tech is still present in SW).

This section from the Wikipedia page for Science Fantasy (closest “official” equivalent) summarizes the recent discussion pretty succinctly I think;
“Distinguishing between science fiction and fantasy, Rod Serling claimed that the former was “the improbable made possible” while the latter was “the impossible made probable”. As a combination of the two, science fantasy gives a scientific veneer of realism to things that simply could not happen in the real world under any circumstances. Where science fiction does not permit the existence of fantasy or supernatural elements, science fantasy explicitly relies upon them.”

Also interesting how it specifically mentions that the old pulps appealed to the “New Wave” writers of the 1960s (which I would say Lucas qualifies as), who were “exasperated by the limitations of ‘hard’ SF”. Seems pretty close to what I wrote in my essay, though I focused more on the German Expressionist influences (which I’m sure film students of that time would have been very much aware of).

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time

I think Curtis Saxton’s head would asplode if he were to read this. 😄

“The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order and in the assertion that, without Authority there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a violent revolution… There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”

― Leo Tolstoy