Friday, November 28, 2014

Excited about the new Star Wars? Of course!!! But there's more to it...

Yes, I'm a big fan of the series, but not just because "it's so much fun, hee-yuck!" No, because it is a pure and beautiful example of the evolution of storytelling. From spoken word, to memorized messages, to paintings, drawings, to written language, then written text into records, history, legends, mythologies, and morality tales, to poetry in books and novels, magazines, advertisements, comics, etc., to photographs, to silent films, to talkies, and to modern cinema - the path of mythos. The path of generational stories intended to help, to uplift, inform, warn, and be absolutely drawn into.
How I love the cinema.
Yet so many are confused at what it is. Throughout the artform's life span people have interpreted other forms of how we tell stories - what I mean is that the majority of films are adapted from novels. How many are their own original piece of work? Not too many, and not too many as success and magnificent as Star Wars. It's ultimately a tale of redemption, of father then son balancing the storm inside themselves.
The eternal question of "can we really change?" is on the main basis of the plot - "or is destiny the all consuming future?" That's timeless, and I love it; the new Star Wars movie, Episode VII, titled The Force Awakens hopefully continues this fluid flow of mythology. By the look of it's first teaser trailer I think it's in safe hands.
Nevertheless, all I'm sharing is that film, our modern form of story telling is so much more than simply entertainment. It's our expression for the ages, just as Michelangelo setting his sturdy arms and hands toward hammer and wedge to make The David, or Charles Dickens putting pen to paper for A Christmas Carol; or Beethoven tapping and composing his symphonies; or the pioneers blazing their trails; or the Israelites crossing a gaping sea of their faith, or the Jews and Nephites, and a young 14 year old boy in a grove of trees listening to a holy man confess that He's their Messiah...
Yes, we too are making our mark in history with the work of cinema (and all else from before and so much more after as tools of our age).
That's what Star Wars is to me. It's a part of what I know and believe... a hope and a growing knowledge that destiny does not control me or anyone, but is a tool to help define the different paths we can take so we be not like Alice in Wonderland asking the Cheshire Cat which way to go, and receiving an empty answer that it matters not where we go if we don't know where we want to be.
No, we can know where we want to be, that's destiny, and that's the lesson of Star Wars for me... there, I've said it, now stop thinking I'm so weird for having a vintage poster of the film in my room

Now here's a link to the fun new teaser - enjoy:


1 comment:

  1. Now, I'm not a huge nerd when it comes to the details of Star Wars and other such movies, and I have no in-depth knowledge of cinema and film. But, nonetheless, I am stoked for the new Star Wars movie! And I am so glad that Harrison Ford is it in!

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