I like that quote. I hated the second trilogy, and I really enjoyed the new one. It was just good fun and had some really funny lines.

I heard an interview with Abrams on NPR this afternoon and he said he's through doing sequels. He was glad he did this one, but he's ready for something else, so who knows what the second movie in this batch will be like.

AMDG

The very first Star Wars movie (you know, Star Wars IV) had a low budget, which may have contributed to the idea of not taking itself too seriously!

I thought it was fun. I've thought that of all the Star Wars films I've seen except the first prequel. I've never understood those who make a massive deal about them though.

Yeah, I watched the original trilogy on DVD around 10 or so years ago, and its fun. I thought all the movies were enjoyable. But I don't get how it becomes a parallel religion for many folks.

One of the things I do in my 'foundations of theology' class is I require the students to write out a Gospel by hand and to illustrate it.

The first time I did this, one student had Starwar illustrations all the way through. Each character in Starwars corresponded to a character in the Gospels - eg, Jesus was the young chap who wears the Judo costume and so on.

It was really BRILLIANT. One of my colleagues said that some people need a mythology in order to understand a mythology.

If you walk around Moissac, a Romanesque pilgrim church on the camino to Santiago, there are gryphons and unicorns and all kinds of weird mythological animals. I once walked around there with some really trying very hard to be open minded Calvinists, and it was difficult to keep up the pretence that this had anything to do with Christianity! It just seemed to be unapologetically pagan. It was only after my colleague's remark that 'some people need a mythology in order to engage with a mythology' that I even began to understand why so many of my conservative presbyterian students of the 90s and noughties were Star Wars addicts.

The following time I taught 'Foundations of Theology' they wanted examples of how to do the Gospels. So I showed them the Star Wars one and another, which we keep downstairs in the office, to indicate the kinds of things kids do in 'Foundations' (they don't usually but). So then, because the students are always trying to meet one's expectations, I got a dozen versions of Mark all illustrated from LOTR and other Superhero comic type scenarios. None of them came near the original. The thing about the original was that he was really deeply in love with the starwars material.

So I think the thing about Star wars is that it gave a culture which had no mythology, a mythology.

And we don't get it, because we have a mythology and the mythologies we use to engage with it are invisible to us.

I know I've seen the first Star Wars movie, and I've seen at least part of one of the others, but that's it. I missed seeing them when I was a kid, first encountering them as an undergraduate. I thought they were corny. I'll not go out of my way to see the new film, I don't think.

That new Macbeth, though, is another story! (I think it was grumpy commented on it on another thread.)

"Escapist fun" is a pretty good two-word summary of my view of SW, too. And I agree that the cast, and the characters they play, are the best part of the original. Alec Guinness stands out to me.

I would never have had that perception without the student who used Starwars to illustrate Mark. For years, students TOLD me to watch it because it mattered so much to their whole generation.

The student wasn't Ryan, was it? ;-)

AMDG

And its a real shame that no theologian cottoned on to that fast, and flipped the gnosticism - the way Origen would have done

I think Rob G is right about the age - I was 17 in 1977, and it would have seemed like a clunky sci-fi film, not at all the kind of movie I liked in those days.

I can't imagine that it would have seemed clunky. It was so much better than anything else that had been done--SFX-wise.

AMDG

Well, not quite: I don't think it was any better than 2001 in that respect. But they're such very different things that it's not really a good comparison. I say that because 2001 hit me at the time (1969) as, and still seems, the first time sci-fi film-making really did justice to one's imagination. But at any rate SW definitely did not seem clunky to me.

One didn't have to be a kid to be very taken with it in 1977. I was almost 30, and I loved it, although I didn't take it very seriously. I do remember half-defending it to a cinephile friend. I'm embarrassed to say that I did think that "force" business was pretty intriguing.

I've related this half a dozen times recently, but am not sure I've done so here, so apologies if I'm repeating myself, but I distinctly remember sitting in a theater with my wife when the preview (as trailers were called then) for SW came on. We looked at each other and said "We have to see this." No idea what the movie we were watching was. A week or so later we were back, and very surprised to find a long line of people waiting to get in. Didn't have any idea that it was becoming a phenomenon.

Oh, I wasn't even remembering 2001. Well, as you say, they are such different things.

Your story about the SW trailer reminds me of the first time I found out there was going to be a LotR movie. I had gone to a movie with my daughter and a preview began with men climbing a mountain. The tall people were in front--the hobbits weren't in view. I was wondering what it was, and then the ring appeared in the middle of the screen with the burning runes and I distinctly remember sucking in my breath. I was very excited because everyone looked right. Of course, in the end I was pretty sorry I'd seen it, but that one moment was wonderful.

AMDG

You aren't on the schedule so far:

http://www.lightondarkwater.com/52-movies-schedule.html

But you can pick any dates you want other than the ones already taken. You can have Feb 17 if you want--I only put myself in there to fill out the month, I'm sure there will be no lack of other dates I can use. I couldn't remember whether you had definitely picked specific movies or not, so I looked back in the discussion a couple of weeks ago, and hears what you said--almost definite but not quite:

"I am doing one for Janet in January, in August and in September.

So I will do one for Maclin in any of the other months - for instance, February, June, July, October, November, December.

I think my plan is for
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Danton
Man of Marble / Man of Iron
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Les Enfants du Paradis
Au Revoir les Enfants

But I have not completely made up my mind yet!"

Happy to confirm your view of the world.

AMDG

I can't say I loved Star Wars. I loved the toys when I was a kid. And when I bought them for my son when the prequels came out. The first two movies (episodes IV and V) were pretty good. The prequels were dismal (except for the duel at the end of episode I). I was dragged to see the new one. Better than the prequels, but not good.

As for LOTR - I remember being excited when I first heard about the movies. But the first time I saw a clip (from Moria) I noticed that Sting was glowing because of the proximity of the orcs but Glamdring wasn't. At that point I realized I was not going to be able to enjoy the movies. I saw the first one anyway and was proven right. I never saw the others.