Star wars 1
Star warsMay The Force Be With You!
Your sitting in a darkened theatre and the movie previews have already been played. It is now time for the main feature. All of a sudden big blue letters appear on a starscape background. The letters read “Along time ago in a galaxy far far away…” Just then the screen changes, loud, inspiring, energetic music plays while huge yellow letters rise from the bottom of the screen. The letters scroll towards the top, all the while shrinking and eventually disappearing into the background. What movie were you thinking of? With all probability you were thinking of a Star Wars movie.
Many people live for this movie. They spend every moment thinking of what it would be like to be a Jedi Knight, or fantasizing about Princess Leia in the golden bikini she wore as a slave for Jabba the Hutt. What causes such a fanatical following? A following of fanatics that creates conventions, over populated by over eager people dressed up as their favorite character or alien in the movie, just to come and see the actual R2-D2 robot used in Star Wars. A following of extremists that drives a person to find out every detail of the movies and memorizes it in hopes that someone will ask him a Star Wars trivia question that they know. Doesn’t these people have lives?
All of the other people that aren’t as crazy enough to visit conventions and study trivia questions must do something to show their love for the movie. That is when all the Star Wars merchandise comes in. Everything from the movie is represented in a toy of some sort, From Luke Skywalker action figures and Millennium Falcon starships, to T-shirts and lunch boxes. Why is there such a market for these items?
Many people feel that the success of the movie is do to the fact that it is the classic underdog theme. A story of a small town teenage farmer, who had his caretakers killed by the evil Empire, growing up to become the most powerful man in the universe. Along the way he took out his revenge (oops, not “revenge,” that leads to the dark side) and eventually defeated the empire.
A good reason for the success of the film might be the Jedi Knight way of life. A very religious point of view, in which a person must not act out of hate, fear, or “revenge” in order to resist the dark side and stay in the light. Or the Jedi just appeals to the fantasy side of human nature. A place were a person can still sword fight and block bullets, or blaster fire with their light saber, and on occasion move things around only with the power of their mind.
The musical score of the movie itself can be a very powerful and motivating reason for such a big audience return ratio. Many avid Star Wars fans get Goosebumps when watching the scene that was described before. Another example of a powerful moment that was emphasized by the musical score happened in the most recent Star Wars movie, “Star Wars: Phantom Menace, episode 1.” It happens towards the end of the movie when the two Jedi Knights square off against Darth Maul for the first and last time. The whole group of rebel fighters returns home to take back what was stolen from them. They entered the spacecraft hanger and was about to proceed further, but all of a sudden these two story massive doors open up to reveal this man dressed all in black with red and black face make up and horns coming out of his head. All the while dramatic music blares as loud as possible, dah duhn duhnn. This provides a lot of extra meaning to the scene, which the movie was leading up to in the final showdown. Numerous people who have seen this movie have said that this was best scene in the entire film.
Another way of looking at the Star Wars universe is seeing the Empire in the earlier films compared to the Nazi party of World War II. The Emperor and Storm Troopers is representative of Adolph Hitler and the Gestapo. The Empires control of the galaxy is Nazi controlled Europe and Expansion into Africa and Asia. A small rag tag group of rebels could either be the U.S. or natives fighting for their freedom. The strict iron ruling of doing your job or heavy punishment is present in both the Empire and the Nazi party. In the Star Wars movies the Empire only used humans for their officers and officials, and the rebels had all sorts of aliens fighting with them. This prejudice of the aliens could symbolize the terrifying treatment of the Jewish people.
The success of Star Wars might be a combination of all of these reasons and maybe a little of persons’ own, like the first time every used special effects. George Lucas has created such a big franchise out of Stars Wars that he is credited as being a genius and one of the many all time great science fiction creators. People have so much faith in George Lucas and his Star Wars film that people would get in line and wait for a premiere, weeks in advance. That type of guarantee is rare and is also another credit to George Lucas and the sensationalism of Star Wars.