Monday, December 21, 2015

MOVIES - Our Star Wars Obsession

Help.  Is there a "Star Wars Anonymous" group out there?  I'm getting the shakes and shortness of breath.

"How a galaxy far, far away became an obsession on planet Earth" PBS NewsHour 12/17/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  "Star Wars:  The Force Awakens" isn't just a movie.  It's part of a universe, both imaginary and real, that has obsessed fans since the 1970s.  Jeffrey Brown explores what’s made the enduring franchise a storytelling and moneymaking powerhouse.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  We could say the force has reawakened.  But for its fervent fans, and they are legion, it’s barely taken a nap, not since the late 1970s.

They were out in force at the frenzied, glittery, weird and wild Los Angeles premier earlier this week.

CHARACTER:  Nothing will stand in our way.

JEFFREY BROWN:  To see the start of a new trilogy for a series, franchise, a universe that can seemingly go on forever.

In his article, “The force will be with us always”, Adam Rogers of “Wired Magazine” refers to “Star Wars” as an example of a paracosm.

ADAM ROGERS, Articles Editor, Wired Magazine:  A paracosm is in psychology terms, an imaginary world.  In the case of the “Star Wars” movie, you can have a year zero and go forward and back and just set stories in the paracosm and people are familiar, oh it is a “Star Wars” story.  These universes are designed to not end and not even begin.  They can stretch 10,000 in either direction, “Star Wars” especially.

MAN:  An adventure unlike anything on your planet.

JEFFREY BROWN:  It all back in 1977.

Filmmaker George Lucas brought out the first “Star Wars,” introducing the world of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Hans Solo; and a host of other characters, human and decidedly not so.

C3PO:  I am C-3PO, a human cyborg relations.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Its enormous success, as Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday says, came as a surprise.

ANN HORNADAY, Film Critic, The Washington Post:  They didn’t think it would do much.  Nobody thought it would do much.

Boy, am I glad 'they' were wrong.

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