Star Wars Literary Influences: Part II Research Books

In last month’s blog I talked about literary influences in Star Wars that were primarily based on previous pulp adventure stories and space operas. Now, as we all know Star Wars isn’t just lasers and spaceships; it’s all about the human experience. We all can take something personal from Star Wars and use it in our daily lives. It’s teaches us how to behave in certain situations, I.E. the death of a loved one, or how to believe in ourselves when we feel overwhelmed. It teaches us that one person can make a difference against unspeakable odds. The Star Wars saga obtained all these great qualities with a lot of painstaking research done by its creator George Lucas. We all know how much of an influence Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces had on George and the ideals of Star Wars, in reality George already had much of the base hero’s journey down when he discovered Campbell’s well known book on the Hero’s Journey or monomyth. For this reason I want to talk a little less about this book and focus more on the lesser known reference books.

At one point while watching the Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace documentary, Lucas is filmed at his home talking about writing the first movie of the prequel trilogy. As he is talking, the camera cuts to different shots around his writing room. It showed various reference books on topics ranging from a child’s self-esteem, to war, to how to tell if someone is lying. Lucas says that doing research is something he loves to, and it’s amazing how much research was done to write this film. I can honestly say I had a little geek-out moment when I saw this and quickly paused the DVD and wrote down any titles that I could make out, and found most of them on Ebay. I’ve only read a small amount of each book, but here is a sample of some of the books the creator used to write Star Wars:

The first is Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama, which talks about man’s relationship with nature. An interesting read, not too heavy, but I would recommend reading it in small doses as it’s not a small book. I imagine George used these to research different aspects of the Force, and/or possibly the Gungan’s relationship with their home planet of Naboo, and their symbiotic relationship with the human race also called the Naboo.

There were two books by Julius Caeser, The Gallic War and The Civil War. Neither book is especially long, but again it’s not your everyday read. I imagine these books were used to help guide George through the corruption of the senate that resulted in the downfall of the Republic.

Next there are three books that cover the topic of folklore and mythology, one of them being a two-volume set: Bulfinch’s Mythology which is actually a three-volume set in itself, but can be obtained with all three volumes together. The volumes are entitled The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, and The Legends of Charlemagne. The Study of Folklore by Alan Dundes, is pretty self-explanatory, and the last is the two-volume set: Peasant Customs and Savage Myths. If you were to read these, unless you’re a university professor, I would “travel these Jundland Wastes” with caution because it’s not something someone would read for enjoyment. I admit it can be a little mind numbing after a while, but like I’ve said before, if you want to learn about Star Wars, you don’t watch Star Wars, you watch/read what made Star Wars.

The last two that I own are Telling Lies by Paul Ekman and 100 Great Operas and Their Stories by Henry W. Simon. I think I can safely assume that Telling Lies was used to model Senator Palpatine’s scheming dark side manipulations. It’s a great book that discusses all the different ways a person can tell if someone is telling a lie. 100 Great Operas and Their Stories I imagine Lucas used that to help him weave all the little intricacies of story-telling, the background plots and subplots together.

There are a few more books I have yet to purchase; WAR by Gwynne Dyer, a six volume set of mythology books called Motif-Index of Folk Literature, Your Child’s Self-Esteem by Dorothy C. Briggs, and lastly The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels.

I am probably a little more intense about learning about all these different subjects than most, and I understand that it’s not for everyone. But I’m a firm believer that when there is a real-world connection to why the Republic fell, or why Anakin turn to the dark side so quickly, it just makes the whole saga that much more enjoyable. I highly recommend watching this documentary, for those of you who are interested it’s on disc two of the 2006 version of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.

The Cantina Cast

The wretched hive your Jedi Master warned you about!

 

Original sources:

Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch’s Mythology. New York: The Modern Library, n.d. Print.

Caesar, Julius. The Gallic War. New York: Dover Publications, 2006. Print.

Caeser, Julius. The Civil War. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967. Print.

Dundes, Alan. The Study of Folklore. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968. Print.

1. Dorson, Richard M. Peasant Customs and Savage Myths Vol.1. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968. Print.

—. Peasant Customs and Savage Myths Vol.2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Print.

Ekman, Paul. Telling Lies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. Print.

Schama, Simon. Landscape and Memory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, INC. , 1995. Print.

Simon, Henry W. 100 Great Operas and Their Stories. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Print.

Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. Dir. George Lucas. Perf. George Lucas. 2006. DVD.

 

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