Re: Salinger turns to the Dark Side

bethany edstrom (bethanyedstrom@hotmail.com)
Wed, 30 Jun 1999 19:10:56 -0500 (CDT) 

>Not sure if this has been mentioned, but didn't Lucus spend a great deal
>of time with Joseph Campbell on Campbell's ranch at the same time he was
>writing SW.
>
>

Yes, Campbell was a huge influence on Lucas... There's a book-length 
interview, The Power of Myth, in which Campbell and Bill Moyers discuss 
(among other things) Campbell's involvement in Star Wars.

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell outlines about 46 stages the 
hero in a hero myth must go through. These stages all fall roughly under the 
headings of Departure, Initiation, and Return. Most of these stages have 
their counterparts in the original trilogy, but not all (for example, there 
seems to be no "woman as temptress" in the trilogy--at least, not for Luke).

Campbell's framework does, however, leave the first trilogy more or less 
self-contained. I thought about this a lot when I was watching The Phantom 
Menace--it just doesn't fit into the puzzle as neatly as I wanted it to. 
Someone on this list has said that there was no real struggle between good 
and evil--that's because as far as we're concerned, the only struggle that 
matters hasn't even begun yet. Imagine how hard it will be to beat the 
redemption scene at the end of _Jedi_--Christ, I wouldn't want to try it. 
What Lucas has to do in episodes 2 and 3, I think, is to make the internal 
conflict within Anakin Skywalker as compelling as the external conflict 
between Luke and Vader was in the first trilogy. It will be risky, because 
it will mean that something besides light sabres and pod racing will have to 
carry a large part of the movie. Within the individual mind is where all the 
real struggles of good vs. evil go on, anyway.

On a lighter note, one of my students wrote her final paper on Star Wars and 
Oedipus Rex, on the premise that NOT ONLY were both works popular in their 
own times, but they have also SOMEHOW survived and are with us in the 
present day. <sigh> Made me feel old...which I'm NOT. Made for a good laugh, 
though.

Bethany


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