The influence and Cultural significance of Star Wars? — Page 2

Lee-Sensei said:

That was an excellent answer. I really enjoyed reading it. However, I have to say that your comparison of King Josiah to R2D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi is flawed. Those two are main characters. I know the Bible pretty well, and even I barely remember King Josiah. A better comparison would be Moses. And I'm pretty sure the average person knows more about him, than R2D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

In school you actually learn about these things. If your studying Medieval Europe, you'll probably deal with the influence of the Church. If your studying Ancient Greece or the Renaissance you'll probably deal with Classical Mythology's influence in visual arts and on words.

I guess by the same token if you were to read about the first century of film and 20th century entertainment in a school in the future, you would probably have part of a chapter examining Star Wars and the late-century blockbusters that were inspired by it. But, obviously, that would probably be uncommon, a Univeristy speciality perhaps, whereas the Church and the classical theology shaped entire civilizations and formed the political policies of entire world empires. You can't expect pop culture to compare to that. Classical "mythology" (if you want to call it that, but then you ought to be also referring to Judeo-Christian "mythology" too) and Christianity were not pop-culture, they were a fundamental part of the entire world-view of their respective societies. Ancient Rome and Medieval Europe had its own pop culture too, but other than the odd thing like King Arthur or Gawain you never hear of any of it. Actually, a lot of the "pop culture" that survives is also intertwined with religion too, so you have stories about Hercules that were meant to entertain despite the fact that he was worshipped but that would be like maybe Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter or something like that, there was still linkage to the contemporary theology of the time. A lot of the "real" pop culture, that wasn't theologically inspired--folk tales, I guess--hasn't survived or fell out of popularity and is lost. Almost all of it was oral too, so it was never even written down, there are entire corpus' of popular culture that we will never have any idea ever existed. You do still have stuff like Shakespeare and Chaucer, but the former is very recent and (IMO) hasn't earned the "immortal" status English majors give him while the latter only became popular in recent centuries (if only because few could read him, plus in recent years we project backward and see he had a role in the development of the novel).

So, anyway, if you look at real pop culture throughout the ages, almost none of it lives on. If you are stacking Star Wars against two of the biggest religious institutions in human history--Christianity and the classical religions--then of course it won't be able to cut it on a historical scale, that would be preposterous. But as far as pop culture goes, I would wager Star Wars will end up somewhere on that list with King Arthur and Robin Hood and Macbeth, along with a lot of other modern tales like Superman and Wizard of Oz. When it comes to antiquity it's a bit hard to draw the line between pop culture and religion since a lot of heroes were worshipped, like Gilgamesh, and even with Gilgamesh his mythology was literally buried and forgotten for two thousand years until a bunch of British colonial diplomats started touring Iraq in the 19th century, only a 150 years ago.

zombie84 said:

Lee-Sensei said:

That was an excellent answer. I really enjoyed reading it. However, I have to say that your comparison of King Josiah to R2D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi is flawed. Those two are main characters. I know the Bible pretty well, and even I barely remember King Josiah. A better comparison would be Moses. And I'm pretty sure the average person knows more about him, than R2D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

In school you actually learn about these things. If your studying Medieval Europe, you'll probably deal with the influence of the Church. If your studying Ancient Greece or the Renaissance you'll probably deal with Classical Mythology's influence in visual arts and on words.

I guess by the same token if you were to read about the first century of film and 20th century entertainment in a school in the future, you would probably have part of a chapter examining Star Wars and the late-century blockbusters that were inspired by it. But, obviously, that would probably be uncommon, a Univeristy speciality perhaps, whereas the Church and the classical theology shaped entire civilizations and formed the political policies of entire world empires. You can't expect pop culture to compare to that. Classical "mythology" (if you want to call it that, but then you ought to be also referring to Judeo-Christian "mythology" too) and Christianity were not pop-culture, they were a fundamental part of the entire world-view of their respective societies. Ancient Rome and Medieval Europe had its own pop culture too, but other than the odd thing like King Arthur or Gawain you never hear of any of it. Actually, a lot of the "pop culture" that survives is also intertwined with religion too, so you have stories about Hercules that were meant to entertain despite the fact that he was worshipped but that would be like maybe Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter or something like that, there was still linkage to the contemporary theology of the time. A lot of the "real" pop culture, that wasn't theologically inspired--folk tales, I guess--hasn't survived or fell out of popularity and is lost. You do still have stuff like Shakespear and Chaucer, but the former is very recent and (IMO) hasn't earned the "immortal" status English majors give him while the latter only became popular in recent centuries (if only because few could read him, plus in recent years we project backward and see he had a role in the development of the novel).

So, anyway, if you look at real pop culture throughout the ages, almost none of it lives on. If you are stacking Star Wars against two of the biggest religious institutions in human history--Christianity and the classical religions--then of course it won't be able to cut it on a historical scale, that would be preposterous. But as far as pop culture goes, I would wager Star Wars will end up somewhere on that list with King Arthur and Robin Hood and Macbeth, along with a lot of other modern tales like Superman and Wizard of Oz. When it comes to antiquity it's a bit hard to draw the line between pop culture and religion since a lot of heroes were worshipped, like Gilgamesh, and even with Gilgamesh his mythology was literally buried and forgotten for two thousand years until a bunch of British colonial diplomats started touring Iraq in the 19th century, only a 150 years ago.

^Alright. Alright. That's another very good answer. Personally, I didn't believe it was up there. But what about Disney?

Sure, Disney stuff could make it. This is all speculatory and very hard to predict--in 1950 Disney would have been there without a doubt, but Disney characters have fallen out of popularity compared to then so many would say they won't truely endure, but the pendulum could easily swing right back where it was in 1950 in another thirty years. Same with Star Wars. In 1987, it was just a modern classic but that's it, there wasn't even comic books anymore, now we consider it a part of modern mythology, but who knows, we could see a return to 1987 in the coming decades. Really, with stuff this recent it is impossible to truely tell--heck, I have some doubts about Shakespeare, and he's stood the test of time for like 400 years, which on the macro scale might as well make Star Wars a current release.

^Just two years ago Disney released Toy Story 3, the mos successful animated movie in history and the only one to make over a billion.

Not with inflation though. Snow White, in 1937, earned more than two billion dollars domestically in today's dollars.

Apples to apples.

^Fair enough. But characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck could make it, right? They're almost 90 years old and they've been iconic for like... 70-80 years now.

Maybe. The last time I saw either of them in anything was Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Spacejam, and they were only cameos, plus both movies were parodying classical animation to a degree. But like I said: who knows. They do still endure, but they are not an immediate part of pop culture like they were from 1935-1965. Discussions like this are great fun but when you get down to it, we might as well be deciding this with roulette. I would love to get together again in 500 years and pick up this conversation. :p

On a long enough time scale, all pop culture disappears, because there is only room for so much, and what will make the cut in 500 years, 1000 years, or 10, 000 years is anyone's guess. The list gets shorter the further you go so it may help to define your timeline and parameters.

Lee-Sensei said:

^Just two years ago Disney released Toy Story 3, the mos successful animated movie in history and the only one to make over a billion.

I'd phrase the difference slightly differently.

If you break down the plot of an OT Star Wars movie you could probably get it into a sentence or maybe two and you would get the broad sweep of the story.

If you tried to break down the plot of Charlie X you might have to use more words  the episode is a fraction of the running length of any Star Wars film and it's one episode of the show.

If you were to try to describe all the characters in and locations and objects in a Star Wars film you would need to write a book.

If you were to do the same for Charlie X you could probably do it in a few pages and if you crossed off objects and environments used in other episodes it would probably be a few lines.

The environment of Star Wars is the real content, it's a simple story told with conviction by a well chosen cast playing likeable characters, but what gives Star Wars the edge is it's placed in a richly detailed, tangible, reasonably believable world.

This is why people get so hot under the collor when Lucas scribbles over it without due care, it breaks the bit of the universe that is the main content of the series.

Rewind to the notion of writing down the plot of the OT films.

Try doing that with a PT film and have it make sense, this is the other problem Lucas has made for himself.

His plots have become unnecessarily complicated and muddled, his environments have become not sufficiently distinct and lack tangibility and his characters aren't that likable.

As for Star Trek in a wider sense, people are more likely these days to be able to identify members of long gone boy bands of the same era than any of the characters from DS9, Voyager or Enterprise.

TV's Frink said:

 

Lee-Sensei said:

^Just two years ago Disney released Toy Story 3, the mos successful animated movie in history and the only one to make over a billion.

I don't know anyone who considers the Pixar films to be a Disney product, any more than people here consider Star Wars a 20th Century Fox product. Distribution only.

 

Disney bought Pixar in 2006. The Boxart even says Disney's Pixar. Whether they consider Pixar films Disney products or not, they are.

Lee-Sensei said:

TV's Frink said:

 

Lee-Sensei said:

^Just two years ago Disney released Toy Story 3, the mos successful animated movie in history and the only one to make over a billion.

I don't know anyone who considers the Pixar films to be a Disney product, any more than people here consider Star Wars a 20th Century Fox product. Distribution only.

 

Disney bought Pixar in 2006. The Boxart even says Disney's Pixar. Whether they consider Pixar films Disney products or not, they are.

True but your thread is about cultural significance and perception.

The Pixar brand is not necessarily associated with the Disney one just as the Muppet brand isn't.

When a new Muppet movie comes out people don't visualise themselves going to a Disney film, even though they are.

Yes but if they know Jabba well enough to call you a geek for evoking him in a comparison the know him well enough to be culturally significant.

I remember as I mentioned previously, showing Star Wars for the first time to a friend from India (he was a big fan of Jackie Chan but hadn't even heard of Star Wars).

He was mocked by a lady he was seeing at the time for watching, "those films for children".

She was from Kenya and had taken her children to see them.

He was much more impressed by "those films with that girl" (Alien and Aliens).

But now he and his sister have seven children between them and they all have Star Wars toys, computer games and DVDS.

I'm not sure if Star Trek is a big deal in Japan but none could show you some pretty bizarre Japanese Star Wars love.

Bingowings said:

Lee-Sensei said:

TV's Frink said:

 

Lee-Sensei said:

^Just two years ago Disney released Toy Story 3, the mos successful animated movie in history and the only one to make over a billion.

I don't know anyone who considers the Pixar films to be a Disney product, any more than people here consider Star Wars a 20th Century Fox product. Distribution only.

 

Disney bought Pixar in 2006. The Boxart even says Disney's Pixar. Whether they consider Pixar films Disney products or not, they are.

True but your thread is about cultural significance and perception.

The Pixar brand is not necessarily associated with the Disney one just as the Muppet brand isn't.

When a new Muppet movie comes out people don't visualise themselves going to a Disney film, even though they are.

I have to disagree. I'll admit that when I hear about the Muppets, I don't think of Disney. But when I hear about Pixar, I've always thought about Disney. Back when the first Toy Story movie came out, I actually thought it was a Disney movie. I didn't find out until later. They were even playing 'Hakuna Matata' in the car though.

About the US and UK's global significance... it's called Cultural Imperialism. The cultures of the countries at the top are very influential.

CatBus said:

LexX said:

I think people in the US and UK (the places where the movies were made) seem to think that they have more global significance than what it really is.

Yeah, I think global significance is a pretty big stretch for any cultural work.  The Bible and Greek/Roman mythology may have meant everything in Europe for a thousand years, but they meant squat to the Maori.  Global communication and media changes this a little, but not as much as you'd think--language and cultural barriers are still pretty tough to bridge.

By the same token though, there really isn't anything that is "global" if you are going to include every isolated community in every far corner of the world. As far as a "global" culture can actually exist, I'd say the Bible and classical religions fit the bill more appropriately than anything else I can think of. The only region in the world that was not directly shaped by these was east Asia, but in terms of trade and economy and to some degree politics they were directly linked into the world systems of both the Hellenistic era and Medieval Europe.

Lee-Sensei said:

About the US and UK's global significance... it's called Cultural Imperialism. The cultures of the countries at the top are very influential.

Well, to be honest in the case of Star Wars is just boils down to 1) English speaking countries and 2) Domestic production. Star Wars was in many ways an American-British co-production so of course it will be biggest in those two countries. It's also, I would argue, equally big in Canada, which is maybe the one area you could make the case for cultural imperialism, but it's not really imperialism since it's a deliberate audience choice mainly because our own entertainment industry sucks in comparison.

I wouldn't argue with you too far on the influence of cultural imperialism but it does wash both ways.

Take for example the Japanese television show Saiyuki  also known as Monkey!

It was imported into Britain, dubbed (to humourous and some may argue improving effect) by notable television and stage actors, became a big hit largely because of (to use the imperialistic term) the oriental influences in Star Wars and resold to other countries.

I imagine the show is probably more remembered in Australia and the UK than it is in Japan.

So you have a Japanese show based on a Chinese legend distributed by the broadcast network of the presently defunct British Empire to the antipodes which is remembered fondly enough to prompt this :

^That sort of thing has been going on for as long as there has been Christianity.

All those medieval popular stories about Simon Magus vs Simon Peter are pure Harry Potter.