Rising Star Wars: It's still a fairy tale, but the audience has grown up

Brionna 2021-12-07 08:01:04

The Star Wars series actually always makes me feel a little strange. It's not that I hate this series; it's that after watching one, I feel that the handling of some parts makes me uncomfortable, but I can't tell. In contrast, I prefer the prequel trilogy, and apart from special effects or the progress of the times, I don't know why this is the case. After watching this Star Wars 8, I finally figured out why I have felt this way for a long time. In the final analysis, the reason for this feeling is:

The Star Wars series is a fairy tale.

The significance of the fairy tale here is not to say that the mythological structure that we have been familiar with for a long time out of the entire story structure of Star Wars; I believe that this perspective has been made clear by many people many years ago. The whole story of hero suffering-trial-encountering obstacle-overcoming-success is the general structure of genre films in the modern sense. What I want to say is that under this general story structure, Star Wars is a typical fairy tale thinking for the handling of the details of the story .

Fairy tale thinking is like this: all the fairy tales we have seen have very simple and direct character logic and story structure. Children’s brains are relatively simple, and they can’t handle too complicated reality and logic. So the typical fairy tale thinking is that if I do something, there will be a result, which will be a very direct cause and effect relationship: three A little pig built a house, one built a thatched house, one built a wooden house, and another built a stone house, so the first two were eaten by the big bad wolf. If you are an adult, the structure of this story is not that simple question: Why wouldn't the stone house be eaten by the big bad wolf? Maybe the big bad wolf can't open the wooden house? Of course, if you struggle with this, this is not a fairy tale. In fairy tales, there is no "why" and "why not".

In the entire Star Wars series, in fact, the characters’ thinking mode and plot promotion are typical fairy tales: I do one thing, and it will have an immediate effect: the whole plot will not consider why it has an effect and What if it doesn't work. There is a very typical example in 8: the last salt mine defense battle, the rebels sent taxi boats, a lot of titanium fighters on the first order side to fight them, this will show the Millennium Falcon, and then immediately put these titanium All the fighters were distracted. Everyone said happily, oh yeah, this tuned the tiger away from the mountain and all the enemy fighters left. But here comes the question: Why did this Tune Tiger Lishan succeed? These Titanium fighters clearly beat the rebel planing ships very smoothly, and they also have a quantitative advantage. You drew them away as soon as you cited them? Do the fighter pilots of the First Order in it have only one thread in their minds? If I were the fighter commander of the First Order, could I send half of my troops to intercept the Millennium Falcon, and the other half to kill all these taxiing ships? Even the blind can see that this is turning the tiger away from the mountain, okay? The Millennium Falcon flies into the cave, so do I have to follow it? Can I patrol at high altitude to see where they fly out and beat them? This is too cooperative, right?

For example, the last General Holder drove the cruiser Kamikaze to attack a single ship at a speed of light and overturned the entire First Order fleet. Yes, the kamikaze attack here is that General Holder saw the enemy's strength and bravely smashed the enemy's Star Destroyer. But the question becomes: what did you do earlier? First, if you can fly through the enemy's Star Destroyer every day with a spaceship flying faster than the speed of light, how about the two ships that you have lost meaninglessly before? Second, if it is said that as long as the spacecraft is flying faster than the speed of light, it can ignore any enemy's defenses, then the entire space warfare rules in Star Wars have to be rewritten. As long as I install a super-light speed engine on anything, it can be used as a star destroyer. Whatever star destroyer you build will not work.

Therefore, why do we think that many types of movies are the so-called "IQ Online", that is, because the thinking and story development of the characters in these movies is a logically coherent process, that is, in the world of this movie, it Taking into account the "why" and "why not", and gave us an adult answer. For example, in Star Wars 7, Han Solo trio mixed into the core platform of the Death Star; this is not impossible, we have seen similar infiltration bridges in countless movies. However, sneaking into the bridge section has to give us a logical and coherent development: in such an important position, there must be heavy defense, we have either found some secret passages or seized the identity of the enemy; this is acceptable. . If it is to emphasize this infiltration process, we still have more complicated steps to present. But in 7, three people... just walked in like sightseeing. The fairy tale is like this: the big bad wolf eats the grandmother, and explains to Little Red Riding Hood why its teeth are sharp, and Little Red Riding Hood believes it. Well, I want to get in the core area of ​​the Death Star, so I really "mixed" in. Just like Tom in the cat and mouse, sneaking in.

In fact, the oldest Star Wars 4, 5, and 6 have the same temperament; the Star Wars trilogy is a fairy tale, there is no doubt about it. At that time, it was precisely its fairy tale temperament that it could succeed. When Lucas made the prequel trilogy in the 90s, he actually wanted to be more mature; 123 had much less fairytale temperament. After Disney followed up with 456, it also inherited this fairy tale temperament, and strengthened this as a Feature, not a bug; this is actually useful for old Star Wars fans, I guess. But in the 1970s and 1980s, we could do this without any problems. It does not mean that it is still possible to do so in the new century. Star Wars is still Star Wars, but the audience has grown up.

This kind of fairy tale thinking actually does not only exist in Star Wars; it exists in many science fiction films or other types of movies. Perhaps we should think this way: audiences have not grown up, they just like fairy tales, and they can only understand fairy tales.

So, here comes the question: Does the audience really grow up?

View more about Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi reviews

Extended Reading
  • Delia 2021-10-20 18:58:41

    A young girl with depraved muscles in online dating, despite the teacher's persuasion to see netizens, was kidnapped by the underworld!

  • Adaline 2022-04-24 07:01:02

    It's a pity to say that JJ's "The Force Awakens" is a timid and conservative product, however, it is still the best of the three new Star Wars sequels so far, and Ryan Johnson will make a big thing. It was very small and scattered, which was originally his advantage, but this time, it was only empty and sluggish.

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi quotes

  • Luke Skywalker: What do you know about the force?

    Rey: It's a power that Jedi have that lets them control people and... make things float.

    Luke Skywalker: Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong.

  • Poe Dameron: You must have a thousand questions.

    Finn: Where's Rey?