"A Galaxy Far Far Away" My Ass!

[Mark Kohut]

The most culturally alluded to aspects of these films are
1) the robots
2) that cast of Dickensian non-humans in the famous bar scene
3) fighting and killing his bad dad....(universal but simplistic compared to
Oedipus, Hamlet and/or Freud. )
 
(I, seemingly alone, like Jar-Jar for his annoying Otherness....THAT, as in the bar scene
reveals something human in its eccentricityness..............
 
yes, They [the movies] are embedded in our culture but they are fading
already not growing....
 
They will disappear from the culture like Hemingway's line about how one goes bankrupt--
"slowly, then all at once".......
 
Like Bulwyer-Lytton did...."it was a dark and stormy night".....very popular then gone;
like James Branch Cabell; like the Our Gang TV series; like Amos 'N Andy------
for juvenility and irreality that does not illumine...............
 
 


________________________________
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: "A Galaxy Far Far Away" My Ass!


Star Wars (1-6) bored the living crap out of me - slow pacing, interminable battle scenes, pointless talky scenes, flat or at best, cartoonish characters, rip-offs of the hand-crafted special effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey [the greatest movie ever made, in my opinion, but obsolete] - hell, Lucas even stole the effete C-3PO droid from Woody Allen's Sleeper.  But I don't think it will go away any time soon - it's been embedded in our culture.  You'd have to be a cultural dinosaur not to get Yoda or Jedi or Chewie or Darth Vader references.  It obviously struck a chord in the kids who grew up with it.  Later generations (particularly those who saw retro-episodes 1, 2 and 3 first) may not love it as much.  But they'll still know all the characters and catch phrases.  When all's said and done, the Wizard of Oz was cringe-worthy cheese, but it's officially "beloved."  So is Star Wars, alas. 

Laura

-----Original Message----- 
>From: Mark Kohut 
>Sent: Jan 3, 2012 4:49 PM 
>To: Dave Monroe 
>Cc: pynchon -l 
>Subject: Re: "A Galaxy Far Far Away" My Ass! 
>
>
>"rooting for both sides" creates a contradiction that destroys
>the simple-minded fairy tale it has been thought to be......
> 
>Hansel & Gretel will last longer and has........
> 
> 
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
>Cc: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
>Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:44 PM
>Subject: Re: "A Galaxy Far Far Away" My Ass!
>
>On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Lucas knows filmic technology and variations on one myth.
>>
>> Knows even one human being (in the films), via words and simple reality,
>> NO........
>>
>> Later ones' dialogue was camp upon first viewing.....
>
>Star Wars
>BFI Film Classics
>Will Brooker
>
>Will Brooker's illuminating study takes issue with many commonly held
>ideas aboutStar Wars.  He provides a close cinematic analysis,
>carefully examining its shots, its editing, its sound design,
>cinematography and performances. Brooker argues that Star Wars is not,
>as Lucas himself has claimed, a departure from his previous work, but
>a continuation of his experiments with sound and image. He reveals
>Lucas’ contradictory desires for the total order and control of the
>Empire, and, on the other hand, for the raw energy and creative
>improvisation of the Rebels. Though at first Star Wars seems a simple
>fairy-tale, it becomes far more complex when we realize that the
>director is rooting for both sides, creating a tension unsettles the
>saga as a whole and illuminates new sides of Lucas' masterpiece.
>
>http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?isbn=9781844572779
>
>
>
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