Cue the John Williams music!
Star Wars! Is there
anything else I really need to say? The
original movies have become a pop culture landmark. They essentially turned the movie industry
into the one we know today. And there
are few movies in the world that are quite so sacred to what’s become known as
“geek culture”. Now, I’ve heard Star
Wars referred to as many things. Star
Wars has been called a western, a samurai film, a war movie, a space opera, a
myth, a fairy tale and even an homage to Casablanca. However, it is as a fairy tale that we’re
most interested in. The phrase has been
bandied about in regards to the franchise for ages. Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi,
once referred to the movie as “fairy tale rubbish” (he also negotiated to get a
cut of the merchandising. He understood
the appeal of the movie even if he didn’t have any respect for it). Also, when Disney bought Lucasfilm, one of
the common jokes was that it was the first time Disney actually had to pay
money to get the rights to a fairy tale.
I’m going to break down the fairy tale tropes in Star Wars
as I see them. This is more or less an
echo to my “Fairy tale tropes in Doctor Who” post I made shortly after I
started the blog.
So, Star Wars is a fairy tale. Not only that, I would even say that Star
Wars is quite possibly a Jack tale.
Here
we go:
The Characters
Luke Skywalker- Luke is our Jack. He’s the everyman, the simple country boy and
even the fool to an extent. He desires to go off and
seek his fortune. This is his means to
progress and come into his own. He wants
to do this, but there are forces that hold him back. In many tales of this type, the Jack
character is the third son who must watch his two older brothers (in Appalachian
tales, usually named Will and Tom) go off into the world first and fail before
he can convince his parents that he should be allowed to go too. In Luke’s case, it’s his Uncle and Aunt
holding him back until they’re forcibly removed from the situation. Also, like in some variants of “Jack and the
Beanstalk”, there’s some mystery surrounding his father. His Uncle tells him he was the navigator on a
cargo vessel, but he finds out that his father was actually a Jedi Knight. It’s like in some of the variants of “Jack
and the Beanstalk” where the fairy who shows up tells Jack that his father was
a rich man and the giant killed him and took all his worldly goods. Of course, the story changes a little in
Episode V ("The Empire Strikes Back"), but we’re mainly going to focus on Episode IV ("A New Hope") here.
Obi-Wan Kenobi- Obi-Wan is, for lack of a better
word, the crone. He’s the mysterious and
knowledgeable older figure who knows more than the protagonist and offers up
advice and means of progressing. He’s
the fairy that Jack meets at the top of the beanstalk, but also the man who
trades Jack the beans. He’s also
analogous to a someone like the old woman who gives the soldier the
invisibility cloak in “The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces”. He does have a meatier role than these
characters usually do, but that’s because Star Wars draws from other types of
stories too. Obi-Wan can also be seen as
being similar to Merlin in Arthurian legend or the sensei in a martial arts
film.
Han Solo- I want to say that if Luke is Jack as
the everyman, then Han is the other side of Jack. That he’s Jack as the lucky rogue and
trickster hero. However, that just
doesn’t seem right. Han is certainly a
rogue and he’s pretty clever, so he could be considered a trickster. There are plenty of old folk tales about
rogues and tricksters. There are Coyote
and Anansi from tribal cultures. There’s
Grimm’s “The Master Thief” and the Spanish story of “The Ingenious Student”. And of course, the most familiar version of
Jack does steal from a giant. There’s
just something about Han’s character arc that doesn’t let this work. The thing is that Han actually learns
something as his adventure progresses.
He becomes less selfish and devotes himself to a bigger cause. In most trickster hero Jack tales, Jack
doesn’t really seem to learn anything.
Jack usually comes through them without a scratch. If anything, those stories tell that being
deceitful and selfish is worthwhile.
This isn’t just where this metaphor breaks down, it’s also where the
theory that fairy tales are for teaching lessons to children breaks down, but I
digress. However, we must consider that
a folk tale and a motion picture are different media for different eras. The cinematic Han Solo with his character arc
may be an evolution of the trickster hero for a modern age. Speaking of updated character roles . . .
Princess Leia Organa- In “A New Hope” (aka Episode IV),
Princess Leia is an update of the traditional Princess-in-Distress trope. We’ve seen it a million times in fairy tales
and video games. I wrote a whole post once about gender relations in fairy tales where I commented on how this trope
usually uses the princess as more of a reward than a character (it’s kind of
okay, though. Princes get used as rewards
too. It’s equal opportunity objectification). However, Princess Leia changes that. Leia debuted after the women’s movement. Rather than just being a goal to achieve,
there’s a whole lot more to it. Leia
doesn’t get captured or need to be rescued for her own sake. As a member of the Rebel Alliance, she stole
plans to the Death Star and was captured for that reason. Also, once she is rescued, it becomes clear
that she’s no slouch. She only needs
rescuing because she’s in so far over her head.
Leia is in many ways the precursor to the more liberated fairy tale
princess we see so often in media today.
Interestingly, when I was thinking of the different types of tales out
there, I only thought of one where the person in need of rescuing is so useful. It’s the story type where the male protagonist
is trying to take away a female character from their overbearing father who is
a king/ogre/sorcerer and is given impossible tasks. The fact that the person holding Leia
prisoner in “A New Hope” is revealed to be her father in “Return of the Jedi” is
not lost on me.
Darth Vader- Vader is an interesting one, because
he grows in importance as the movies progress.
In keeping with the “Jack and the Beanstalk” comparison, Vader is like
the giant in some versions of that story.
In the variants of “Jack and the Beanstalk” that try to give more back
story, Jack is told that his father befriended a giant who then betrayed him
and stole all his worldly goods. This is
similar to the story Obi-Wan tells Luke about how his father was befriended and
betrayed by a young Jedi named Darth Vader.
This story, of course, changes in huge ways with “The Empire Strikes
Back”. The thing about fairy tale
villains is that most of them are really more obstacles at best. The giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk” isn’t the real villain in most
versions. The real villain is
poverty. Such is the case with Vader in
“A New Hope”. He’s actually a
sub-villain. He’s subordinate to Grand
Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) in that movie.
His departure from the film is kind of lackluster. Vader’s TIE Fighter just goes tumbling off
into space after Han shoots it in the Millenium Falcon. Can you imagine if there had been no sequels
and that were the last we saw of Darth Vader?
R2-D2, C3PO and Chewbacca- Every fairy tale has “magical helpers”. However, Star Wars is different from
traditional fairy tales in that the helpers have a huge role. A good chunk of the first film’s story is
told from the perspective of the helpers.
R2 and 3PO are the main focus of the first part of “A New Hope”. In a way, Luke is more the “magical helper”
at that part of the film because it’s R2 who is on a quest until they find
Obi-Wan and it becomes Luke’s story.
Chewbacca actually plays more into the traditional “helper” role because
he’s actually repaying a debt to Han Solo (note: I had to look this up because
I don’t think it’s mentioned in the movies).
Han freed Chewie from enslavement and Chewie swore a life debt to
him. In most fairy tales, helping a bird
or mouse or fish will result in a one-time favor. When you rescue a Wookie, apparently you get
a companion for life.
The Locations
Most fairy
tales require a change in location of some sort. A move from one small place to a bigger
world. To get to their ultimate
destination, fairy tale characters have to pass through the woods first. The woods are the dark and forbidding
place. They are the crucible. They are the place where heroes are
tested. Now, Jack doesn’t go through the
woods so much as he goes up a beanstalk.
Luke goes up as well in that he leaves his home planet of Tatooine. The Death Star serves as the crucible in this
story. It’s on the Death Star that Luke
faces great odds and also faces tragedy as Obi-Wan is killed. It’s interesting to note the difference in
color palette. Normally, the woods are
dark and foreboding. The Death Star’s
interior is dark, but it seems even more so compared to Tattooine which is so
bright because there’s no shade and two suns.
Also, there’s a spatial difference.
The Death Star is all enclosed spaces while Tattooine is wide open
desert in almost every direction.
Magic/The Force
One of the
notable things about fairy tales is that when magical things happen, people
usually don’t bat an eye at it. It’s
treated as if it’s all normal. Star Wars
takes this to a whole other level. There
are things that would be considered fantastic to you and me all around
them. There are aliens, sentient robots,
faster-than-light spaceships and exotic interplanetary locales. None of these seem at all strange to the people
who inhabit this universe. However, on
top of that they also have The Force.
The Force, which can more or less be summed up as “space magic combined
with the Asian idea of chi”, is something that is questioned and doubted. Han Solo dismisses it as a “hokey ancient
religion”. One of the officers on the
Death Star mocks Vader’s “sorcerer’s ways” before getting Force-choked from
across the room. So, in the world of
Star Wars there is magic on top of magic.
These are
just my observations and there’s probably a lot more to it. According to George Lucas, a lot of Star Wars
stems from Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth (to Joseph Campbell, almost
every old story classified as “myth”).
However, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens opening this week, I thought
it would be good to remind people that the whole thing really started with a
boy who wanted to go off and seek his fortune.
I’ll give
you a few links to articles I read in preparation for this post:
“Recognizing the Modern Fairy Tale” – Analyzing Star Wars using Bruno Bettelheim’s theories.
“Star Wars: The Fairy Tale America Needs” by John E. Price
“Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time” by Andrew Gordon
Anyway,
until next time, may the force be with you!
I think mostof this can be brought down to the fact that Star Wars Episode 4 is a (very basic) telling of the Hero's Journey and most fairy tales are also (very basic) retellings of the Hero's Journey, so there's bound to be some parallels, especially in the beginning. However I agree that Star Wars cold easily be mistaken for a fairy tale movie if it had been set in a magical medieval-esque Kingdom instead of a sci-fi setting.
ReplyDeleteAs for Han, I see him more as aFerdinand Unfaithful to Luke's Ferdinand Faithful. FF/Luke is kindhearted and hardworking, FU/ Han is a selfish slacker. Yet both have the same goal and therefore become friends. In these fairytales FU mostly serves as a villain and attempts to steal the princess from FF, just like Han (In Star Wars it's ok, because of... complications). In some stories he is punished or even killed for that, but in others he changes, becomes more like FF in the end and is forgiven, like Han.
I'll have to look up some Ferdinand Faithful stories.
DeleteYay I'm so glad you did a post on Star Wars! Are you going to review the new movie?
ReplyDeleteI thought I ought to, considering what's released this week and the mission statement of the blog. So many people have covered this with back-up from Joseph Campbell quotes or Bruno Bettelheim quotes (personally, I'm not completely keen on Campbell, mainly because he calls every old story a myth. The storyteller in me thinks there's a big difference between a myth, a folk tale and a legend). So, I decided that the best thing I could do is draw comparisons with fairy tales people know.
DeleteI'm not sure about reviewing the new movie. Holiday week is kind of busy for me and mine. By the time I get to viewing it, it might be a little late to the party. I'd also have to review it from a fairy tale perspective to stay on mission. I am curious if any of these new characters will fit into fairy tale tropes or sub-tropes. For example, I wonder if Finn or Poe Dameron might fit the motif of "the soldier", like the one in "Bearskin" or "The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces" or "How Six Men got on in the World".