A New Myth

Abstract

George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars saga, recognises the importance for, and significance of, filmmaking as a means of teaching about matters such as the good and moral responsibility. This led him to develop Star Wars: Episode IV. A New Hope (1977) as a modern myth, and he explicitly appealed to the work of myth-scholar Joseph Campbell as having helped determine the direction that this mythic narrative would take. Scholars of myth, and more specifically of the mythic quality of this Star Wars movie, have often taken Lucas’ claim of providing a modern take on ancient myths at face value as if he simply and consistently presents a set of core mythic values across time and cultures. Much more instructive, however, is the political context of Lucas’ first Star Wars movie, coming as it did out of the writer’s concerns with the Vietnam conflict. Reading the mythic quality of Star Wars contextually leads the chapter into a case study on the movie’s approach to violence. The argument is that the matter of violence in Lucas’ Star Wars needs to be handled carefully since the material, and the sequels of the original trilogy show numerous signs of contesting the “myth of redemptive violence” and even come to resonate with a form of active non-violence.