It is six in the morning and I’m sitting on the beach under a towel blogging about Star Wars. I needed this. That being said, I also need to be honest about the cultural importance of the film I started talking about yesterday. In short, I don’t think it bears the same kind of cultural relevance to today’s audience that it did in the 70’s and 80’s when it was first ultra popularized. I don’t think we are the same kind of society. The role media plays in our socialization has shifted along with the merchandizing and extra market media that works together to form the ‘Movie Universe’
Take Marvel for example. They have movies and TV shows and Netflix shows that all swirl around the central advancing world. Meanwhile they have toys and product placement that enhance the visibility of every character. Finally they tell parallel stories to children through cartoons that prepare them for the films and the characters and show those characters in a very different light.
Star Wars doesn’t do the same thing. Star Wars is trying to tell an entire history, so all of the shows you see are telling different time periods of the same circular tale. Even the cartoons (Clone Wars, Rebels) are meant to fill the gaps. So, that brings me back to the central argument about the new movie.
There are Gaps and Missed Opportunities.
However, are these things purposefully placed in order to create space for the cartoons to continue building the world story and for other films and TV shows to fill in the gaps? Are the movies simply the summary story that continues to follow everything a handful (or in this case one) of droids sees and in that tell the story of the big things happening to the world and leave it to the side shows to fill in the blanks. If that is the case, I’m a bit pissed that I am being robbed of a deeper and more thorough story in pursuit of a quickly rendered fairy tale.