Journal #44

Star Wars is the name of a movie which I have recently watched that seems to fit the characteristics of Postmodernism. Actually, Star Wars is a series of movies that has one through six in it. George Lucas is the director and creator of these fine films about a galaxy far, far away a long, long time ago. Such as in Postmodernism, this movie represents an alternate galaxy, or an alternate world. This style of writing is very common in the Postmodernism era as well as the trait of using themes from the past. Star Wars does this by illustrating a classic conflict between the good guys, Rebels or Jedis, and the bad guys, or Galactic Empire or Dark Jedis. This sort of conflict could even be linked to a war in history such as the Civil War, which two sides disagreed. However, with this theme from history, Star Wars uses another Postmodernism characteristic by utilizing unorthodox, or non-traditional forms. Of course, there had never been a true story like Star Wars before, although there had been similarities to older movies such as old westerns. This series of movies really switched it up though with George Lucas creating this entire world and all new characters and environments. Let's not forget about the force as well. Lucas exemplified Postmodernism well with the addition of the force to his movies. The force is a sort of phenomenon harnessed by the Jedi, and it may control all sorts of things. This is kind of similar to Zen-like qualities. Another trait of Postmodernism is the work having multiple meanings to it. Star Wars has no shortage of multiple meanings. While most viewers just take in the literal sense as an alternate world which is purely fiction, some Star Wars watchers may look at the movies as some sort of radical outcry. Now if Lucas really meant it to have multiple meanings is a different question. Of course, since he used themes from the past, he is alluding to events in the past, and may include some of these alternate meanings there.