Star Wars In American Pop Culture

Science fiction is broadly defined as a film about the future or alternate realities, often but not always set in space, and frequently incorporating horror elements, science-fiction movies are wildly popular among fans (Goodykoontz, 2014). As a subgenre of fantasy, science fiction enables viewers to relate to themes from an idealized alternative version of reality (Edwards, 2014). Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope is a feature-length film that fits this genre perfectly. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope unfolds as princess named Leia is held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker and a smuggler named Han Solo team together with the lovable droid duo, R2-D2 and C-3PO, to rescue the beautiful princess and restore justice in the galaxy.

Star War, Star Trek, those are probably the names that pops into your head when you think of science fiction. However, for over a hundred years, artists and philosophers from all around the world, has never been certain of the true definition of Science Fiction. Although, individual definition of science fiction has erupted in the few decades, especially during the 19th century, when the idea of extraterrestrial surged the media. Today, there are numerous definition of science fiction, each different from one another in its own element. For example, science fiction stories, according to Ray Bradbury are a possibility that has happened in the past or will happen in time. This means that science fiction is the past, the present and the

     The First of the three part series, Star Wars, is the tale of a band of

The launch of the Sputnik had such a big impact on America because “America thought of themselves as the world’s technological leaders” (Richerme 35). Also “the Soviets, after all, were not supposed to be good at technology” (DeGroot 3). This scared America and brought them into a big crisis or as some call a race. This race was known as the space race and it was a very long and twisted path that it bared on its shoulders.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to examine Star Wars because we feel intimately connected to the film and all that it represents. We grew up with R2D2, C3PO, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca. We dressed up like them for Halloween, we played Star Wars games for countless hours, we imagined ourselves using their futuristic technology, and now we want to study how this artifact has affected our society and how it might affect our future.

"Star Wars" was arguably the first in a new breed of high concept, high budget sci-fi action films. It was directed by George Lucas and originally released in only a few cinemas in 1977. However, the buzz around the film grew, and it is now one of the highest grossing films of all time, and along with its sequels, prequels and re-mastered re-releases, has a large cult following. I feel this is because of Lucas` ability to engage the audience through careful use of sound and camera technique;

Star Wars IV A New Hope is a science fantasy film written and directed by George Lucas. Fictional characters help us understand ourselves. Star Wars IV A New Hope teaches us about life and ourselves in many ways such as death,loss,pain and courage are experiences that we will go through during our lives.

​Like I stated before the famous space race began in 1957 between the Soviet Union and the United States. They were both racing to see who could explore more of our Solar System. Space exploration was a large part of

Due to the great commercial success of the Star Wars series, George Lucas was given the opportunity to rerelease Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope along with the two other movies in the Star Wars Trilogy. Fox spent a reported $15 million on giving

Lucas’ movie Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, was not only the biggest sensation of its time,”...winning seven Academy Awards…” (Kiminski 10) , but also a substantial influence on the toy world. Lucas stated in his interview, “Ten year old boys will

Star Wars defined the modern Science-Fiction film, but still to inspiration from old fairy tales. The central character, Luke Skywalker, begins as a peasant, like many other fairy tale heroes (Jack and the Beanstalk, Sword in the Stone, etc.), and later meets an old Jedi/wizard named Obi-Wan Kenobi, similar to wizards from other fairy tales (Merlin, Balthazar, etc.), who moves the story forward and teaches the hero the ways of the force, which is as a stand in for fairy tale magic, Throughout the film, Lucas uses other elements from fairy tales, such as the damsel-in-distress of Princess Leia, and the evil kingdom of the Galactic Empire. Lucas clearly appreciates these fairy tales, the parallels aren't parodied or played for

Both of these universes have become very popular through movies, television shows, videogames, and books. Star Trek has been around since 1964. It has had twelve movies with another coming out in 2016 and several TV series. Star Wars has been around since 1983 and has only six movies with another coming out later this year. It has three cartoon TV series and several books that continue the story after the sixth movie. Star Wars has had better videogames than Star Trek and always

From the opening text that crawl with a line “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...” along with John William’s timeless score, American culture has always been massively impacted by the Star Wars universe and all of its wonders. Starting its first movie 1977, Star Wars created a phenomenon across the US due to its originality in storytelling and amazing works in special effects. Beyond its popularity, Star War was even selected by the Library of Congress to be preserved as a national treasure for being aesthetically, culturally and historically significant. This shows that the spectrum of influence of the franchise does not stop at just filmmaking, but also stretches further to American’s pop culture, history, religion and politics.

theory is a much more simple way of looking at ‘Star Wars’ as a fairy

He races home to find his family dead and nothing left but becoming a jedi (A New Hope Scene-by-scene. Web. 2010). In an effort to get to the Princesses planet they go to the Cantina, a bar filled with scam artist, where the find Han Solo and his co-pilot Chewbacca. Once they’ve settled on a payment their journey begins. What Obi-Wan and Luke don’t know is that in an effort to get Leia to talk Darth threatens and then follow through with blowing up her home planet.(Web. SparkNotes.com. Star Wars Episodes iv-vi. 2014) Eventually Han’s ship is pulled up by Darth’s and then they are forced to fight their way out. Obi-Wan encounters and allows Darth to defeat him, meanwhile Leia is rescued by Han, Luke, and the others. Without Obi-Wan but the rescue of the Princess the only thing left to do is defeat Darth’s ship, the Death Star. Against all odds and the discovery of the force Luke blows it up and is later awarded for heroic nature, as is Han and Chewbacca, ending the first of the epic series.