Summary: The World According to Star Wars

The Uni­verse As Out­lined by Star Wars (2016) uncov­ers the numer­ous life lessons to be gleaned from George Lucas’s Star Wars films. Uncov­er what pop­u­lar sci­ence fic­tion can inform us about our­selves, what Star Wars con­veys about the pol­i­tics of pop­u­lar­i­ty, and how we inter­pret movies and inject our favorite nar­ra­tives with our own concepts.

What’s the benefit for me? Grasp the universe through Star Wars

Regard­less of whether you’ve viewed the Star Wars movies, you have like­ly heard of them, and you are prob­a­bly acquaint­ed with some of the franchise’s char­ac­ters and arti­facts: the diminu­tive Jedi mas­ter Yoda and his unique way of speak­ing; lightsabers with their dis­tinct sound; the men­ac­ing Darth Vad­er with his res­onat­ing breath and renowned line, “I am your father.” These are mere­ly a few of the most well-known allu­sions. There are many more — some are uti­lized as setups for humor, while oth­ers are poised to be quot­ed by ded­i­cat­ed fans.

How­ev­er, it’s all pure­ly fic­tion­al, right? And what can fic­tion gen­uine­ly teach us about the world we inhabit?

Well, it appears that fic­tion can actu­al­ly teach us a con­sid­er­able amount. So, let’s observe pre­cise­ly what we can dis­cov­er by embark­ing on a jour­ney through time and space — by voy­ag­ing back to a dis­tant past, in a galaxy far, far away.

Investigating how Star Wars came into being debunks a misconception about the creative process

Star Wars has become so influ­en­tial and emblem­at­ic — despite a sci­ence fic­tion realm teem­ing with clas­sic char­ac­ters and renowned lines — that at times, it appears as though it has exist­ed forever.

Yet, there was once a peri­od when con­cepts like Death Stars and Wook­iees were mere­ly vague mus­ings in the mind of their orig­i­na­tor, George Lucas.

Indeed, dur­ing the ear­ly 1970s when Lucas ini­tial­ly broached the notion of cre­at­ing a Star Wars film, these ideas were extreme­ly neb­u­lous: the pro­tag­o­nists would be extrater­res­tri­als, and the antag­o­nists would be humans.

While that is a cap­ti­vat­ing start­ing point, it bears min­i­mal resem­blance to the movie we rec­og­nize today and the all-human tri­umvi­rate of cen­tral hero­ic fig­ures: Luke, Leia, and Han Solo.

As with many films, the ini­tial Star Wars movie, A New Hope, under­went numer­ous revi­sions before it reached the screen. Lucas even­tu­al­ly authored four diverse drafts before he set­tled on the ver­sion that pro­ceed­ed to become the cher­ished movie we know today.

And that was only one movie. It cer­tain­ly did not entail a detailed plot­line that would span over two trilo­gies with a third install­ment still in the works.

Even the leg­endary plot twists intro­duced in sub­se­quent movies, such as Darth Vad­er being revealed as Luke’s father or Luke and Leia being sib­lings, did not exist from the outset.

Sev­er­al years lat­er, when con­vers­ing with the scriptwrit­ers of the tele­vi­sion series Lost, Lucas dis­closed that he was uncer­tain of the tra­jec­to­ry when the ini­tial movie premiered.

Indeed, those dis­clo­sures that appear fun­da­men­tal to the mythos of Star Wars were all the out­come of brain­storm­ing ses­sions between Lucas and his writ­ing team.

It’s a preva­lent mis­be­lief that renowned cre­ators like Lucas bring to life worlds that are entire­ly devel­oped and metic­u­lous­ly planned ahead of time; we can des­ig­nate this as the myth of cre­ative foresight.

How­ev­er, that’s not the gen­uine nature of cre­ativ­i­ty. The cre­ative pro­ce­dure revolves around being recep­tive and unsure and seiz­ing on con­cepts that arise along the path.

The appeal of Star Wars is a question of timing and the aspiration to be part of the phenomenon

Giv­en how incred­i­bly pop­u­lar Star Wars ulti­mate­ly became, you might assume that the cre­ators were aware that they had suc­cess on their hands. Nev­er­the­less, this would be yet anoth­er mis­con­cep­tion. In real­i­ty, most indi­vid­u­als engaged thought it was des­tined to fail.

Nonethe­less, the first Star Wars film had two immense fac­tors oper­at­ing in its favor: tim­ing and serendipity.

In 1977, the ambiance in the Unit­ed States was rather bleak: Indi­vid­u­als were still recu­per­at­ing from the assas­si­na­tions of Mal­colm X and Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., as well as two Kennedys. Fur­ther­more, the econ­o­my was in a down­turn, ter­ror­ism was on the rise, and the Cold War was still insti­gat­ing tension.

What spec­ta­tors required was a grand, exhil­a­rat­ing piece of art that would unite peo­ple in a spir­it of camaraderie.

And that’s pre­cise­ly what Star Wars accom­plished. The mas­sive space­craft, amus­ing droids, and lightsaber duels per­mit­ted indi­vid­u­als to briefly for­get their trou­bles and rel­ish a bit of amusement.

More­over, the heroes and vil­lains were unequiv­o­cal and well-defined, hence, unlike the present polit­i­cal cli­mate, every­one could read­i­ly con­cur about who the pro­tag­o­nists and antag­o­nists were.

Star Wars appealed to vir­tu­al­ly every­one, and this was piv­otal to its endur­ing triumph.

There exists a human incli­na­tion to appre­ci­ate what oth­ers appre­ci­ate since such con­sen­sus enables us to feel con­nect­ed to oth­ers and rel­ish a mutu­al experience.

This can give rise to what’s termed a pop­u­lar­i­ty cas­cade — where some­thing com­mences being exceed­ing­ly pop­u­lar and esca­lates in pop­u­lar­i­ty as peo­ple desire to be a part of the trend.

It can also be labeled as the net­work effect: the more indi­vid­u­als uti­lize some­thing, the more valu­able it turns out to be. Face­book is a prime illus­tra­tion; the pri­ma­ry rea­son indi­vid­u­als uti­lize Face­book is due to the mul­ti­tude of oth­er indi­vid­u­als using Facebook.

Star Wars con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence a cas­cade of pop­u­lar­i­ty at present: Upon the release of the ini­tial trail­er for Star Wars: The Force Awak­ens, it broke records by being viewed 88 mil­lion times with­in 24 hours. Clear­ly, peo­ple still yearned to be part of the phenomenon.

Star Wars continues to captivate individuals by presenting numerous interpretations

When a movie is watched as fre­quent­ly as the Star Wars films have been, it can spark a mul­ti­tude of dis­tinct view­points. And these var­ied inter­pre­ta­tions can even arouse a desire to revis­it the films.

Some indi­vid­u­als inter­pret Star Wars as a Chris­t­ian alle­go­ry about love, sac­ri­fice, and redemption.

Above all, one of the cen­tral char­ac­ters is exceed­ing­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Christ: Anakin Sky­walk­er was born to a vir­ginal moth­er, and by ulti­mate­ly trans­form­ing into Darth Vad­er, he per­son­i­fies and sur­pass­es the trans­gres­sions of oth­ers before under­go­ing a sym­bol­ic demise to safe­guard his children.

More­over, the Dark Side of the Force can be seen as the metaphor­i­cal apple of temp­ta­tion akin to Satan. It entices an inno­cent Anakin with the pledge of eter­nal life and the abil­i­ty to res­cue his loved ones.

Alter­na­tive­ly, Star Wars can be inter­pret­ed as being about Buddhism.

After all, Yoda seems some­what akin to Bud­dha, and his teach­ings regard­ing how to har­ness the Pow­er to evolve into a Jedi under­score dis­en­gage­ment and aware­ness in a man­ner con­sis­tent with Bud­dhist teachings.

As an illus­tra­tion, Yoda advis­es Luke: “Anx­i­ety begets wrath. Wrath begets ani­mos­i­ty. Ani­mos­i­ty begets suffering.”

By com­par­i­son, con­sid­er Bud­dha’s teach­ings, stat­ing: “Suf­fer­ing exists. The cause of suf­fer­ing exists. There can be an end to suf­fer­ing. The eight­fold path leads to the ces­sa­tion of suffering.”

Remark­ably, there is a pub­li­ca­tion address­ing this sub­ject titled The Dhar­ma of Star Wars, penned by Matthew Bor­tolin, a dis­ci­ple of the esteemed Bud­dhist instruc­tor Thich Nhat Hanh.

There are also more cyn­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tions of Star Wars.

One artic­u­lates that the cen­tral theme revolves around order and chaos. This per­spec­tive chal­lenges the con­ven­tion­al per­cep­tion of vir­tu­ous Jedis oppos­ing the malev­o­lent Empire by pos­ing a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion: Could the galaxy have been in a bet­ter state under Emper­or Pal­patine’s rule?

If one were to view the Emper­or as a com­pa­ra­bly char­i­ta­ble author­i­tar­i­an fig­ure, then it is the Jedis and the Rebel Alliance who are insti­gat­ing all the tur­moil and violence.

Additionally, Star Wars captivates individuals by mirroring the realities of political dynamics and insurgencies

Star Wars cap­ti­vates by pro­vid­ing insights into real-world scenarios.

For instance, the intro­duc­to­ry text of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones reveals the Galac­tic Sen­ate’s tur­moil as numer­ous solar sys­tems are on the brink of seced­ing from the Repub­lic; con­se­quent­ly, the Jedi strug­gle to main­tain peace.

Once again, we wit­ness the rip­ple effect – but this time, instead of a wave of pop­u­lar­i­ty, it results in rebellion.

In Attack of the Clones, the dis­tant solar sys­tems with­in the galaxy do not act autonomous­ly with­in the sen­ate. Instead, once a few depart from the Repub­lic, oth­ers fol­low suit, lead­ing to a domi­no effect of depar­tures cul­mi­nat­ing in a full-fledged polit­i­cal secession.

This puts the Jedi in a state of over­whelm, fos­ter­ing a gen­er­al atmos­phere of rebel­lion that fur­ther fuels disorder.

The cas­cade effect is mere­ly one way in which the Star Wars realm mir­rors our own world.

Con­sid­er, for exam­ple, the 2008 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Dur­ing his run, Barack Oba­ma gained trac­tion from a surge of pop­u­lar­i­ty that attract­ed increas­ing donors and voters.

In con­trast, one could exam­ine the more recent 2015 cam­paign of Repub­li­can can­di­date Scott Walker.

Once deemed a fron­trun­ner for the Repub­li­can Par­ty, Walk­er’s cam­paign suf­fered after being tagged as a fail­ure. Strik­ing­ly, this notion quick­ly caught on, result­ing in decreased finan­cial sup­port as oth­er donors fol­lowed suit. Sub­se­quent­ly, it became chal­leng­ing to raise funds, lead­ing to the col­lapse of his campaign.

The cas­cade effect under­scores the sig­nif­i­cance of pri­ma­ry elec­tions in US pol­i­tics; it is dur­ing this peri­od that a can­di­date’s tra­jec­to­ry com­mences, for bet­ter or for worse.

Ultimately, the most significant takeaway from Star Wars is the freedom of choice

While Star Wars can be inter­pret­ed in var­i­ous ways, one can­not deny that it was craft­ed by an indi­vid­ual hail­ing from the Unit­ed States – a nation renowned as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

George Lucas con­ceived Star Wars in the 1970s, amidst the Cold War, the after­math of the Viet­nam War, and Pres­i­dent Nixon’s Water­gate scandal.

Con­sid­er­ing these ele­ments, it becomes appar­ent that Star Wars delves into the sac­ri­fices entailed by freedom.

Dur­ing the 1970s, numer­ous Amer­i­cans regard­ed the Sovi­et Union and its satel­lite nations in East­ern Europe as a form of evil empire; con­verse­ly, they per­ceived the Unit­ed States as a sym­bol of liberty.

How­ev­er, with the atroc­i­ties of Viet­nam and Pres­i­dent Nixon’s res­ig­na­tion fol­low­ing the Water­gate scan­dal in 1974, Amer­i­cans acknowl­edged the dark­er facets of their establishments.

A del­i­cate equi­lib­ri­um between the demo­c­ra­t­ic and lib­er­ty “forces” became evi­dent. Just like his con­tem­po­raries, George Lucas wit­nessed first­hand the reper­cus­sions of yield­ing to the Dark Side.

Hence, while Star Wars cel­e­brates polit­i­cal auton­o­my, it also acknowl­edges the dichoto­my of good and evil with­in each individual.

The strug­gle for polit­i­cal free­dom is not the sole focus; the char­ac­ters in Star Wars also con­front ardu­ous per­son­al decisions.

Many of them must opt to leave their homes and instead of aid­ing their kin in the fam­i­ly enter­prise, ven­ture into the uni­verse to fight for righteousness.

Fre­quent­ly, the char­ac­ters face a cross­roads between the easy way out and the more demand­ing yet ful­fill­ing path. This lib­er­a­tion of choice often comes at a steep cost.

For instance, young Anakin Sky­walk­er elects to depart from his moth­er to train as a Jedi. How­ev­er, not only does he nev­er see his moth­er alive again, he must ulti­mate­ly elim­i­nate his mas­ter and men­tor to pre­serve the galaxy!

Concluding Remarks

The pri­ma­ry mes­sage in this volume:

No indi­vid­ual pos­sess­es absolute clar­i­ty in life or cre­ative endeav­ors in advance. Most indi­vid­u­als are nav­i­gat­ing through it in real time. Once you gen­er­ate some­thing and release it into the world, its recep­tion, and inter­pre­ta­tions are beyond your con­trol. Should some­thing achieve immense pop­u­lar­i­ty, it is often due to an ini­tial wave of acclaim pro­pelling it into a desir­able enti­ty for all. While this phe­nom­e­non extends to pol­i­tics as well – in both advan­ta­geous and detri­men­tal ways – Star Wars fun­da­men­tal­ly reminds us of the tremen­dous val­ue we pos­sess in our free­dom of choice.

About the author

Cass R. Sun­stein is a lec­tur­er at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and the orig­i­na­tor of the insti­tu­tion’s Pro­gram on Behav­ioral Eco­nom­ics and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy. He has served in the White House Office of Infor­ma­tion and Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs and as a mem­ber of the Pres­i­den­t’s Review Group on Intel­li­gence and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nolo­gies. His reper­toire includes Nudge: Improv­ing Deci­sions about Health, Wealth, and Hap­pi­ness and Sim­pler: The Future of Gov­ern­ment.

Review

“The World Accord­ing to Star Wars” offers a stim­u­lat­ing and per­cep­tive explo­ration of the cul­tur­al and soci­etal influ­ence stem­ming from the Star Wars fran­chise. Craft­ed by Cass R. Sun­stein, a dis­tin­guished legal schol­ar and author, this pub­li­ca­tion delves into the exten­sive and ever-evolv­ing uni­verse of Star Wars to scru­ti­nize its per­ti­nence in our tan­gi­ble domain.

Sun­stein employs Star Wars as a per­spec­tive to delve into a broad array of sub­jects, encom­pass­ing pol­i­tics, phi­los­o­phy, psy­chol­o­gy, and human con­duct. He posits that Star Wars has mor­phed into a con­tem­po­rary mythol­o­gy, mold­ing our prin­ci­ples, con­vic­tions, and even our polit­i­cal ide­olo­gies. He assess­es the endur­ing series’ pop­u­lar­i­ty fac­tors, dis­sect­ing the char­ac­ters, themes, and eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples res­onat­ing with enthu­si­asts across generations.

An exem­plary facet of the vol­ume is the explo­ration of the “Star Wars effect” on var­i­ous soci­etal facets. Sun­stein delin­eates how Star Wars has impact­ed polit­i­cal dis­cus­sions, legal rul­ings, and even our com­pre­hen­sion of behav­ioral eco­nom­ics. He con­tends that the fran­chise’s tri­umph lies in its capac­i­ty to tap into our fun­da­men­tal instincts and aspi­ra­tions, offer­ing an age­less nar­ra­tive that speaks to the human essence.

The author also pro­vides a dis­tinc­tive out­look on George Lucas, the mas­ter­mind behind Star Wars, and his odyssey in mate­ri­al­iz­ing this grand saga. He scru­ti­nizes the hur­dles Lucas encoun­tered, the risks under­tak­en, and the reper­cus­sions of his cre­ation on the enter­tain­ment sec­tor and pop­u­lar culture.

To sum up, “The World Accord­ing to Star Wars” is an enthralling expe­di­tion into the pro­found impact that this icon­ic fran­chise has wield­ed on our cul­ture and soci­ety. Cass R. Sun­stein’s apti­tude to link the fic­tion­al galaxy far, far away to our dai­ly lives under­scores the endur­ing poten­cy and rel­e­vance of Star Wars.