Apprehension vied with anticipation in the months before the release of The Force Awakens (2015). It was almost unthinkable that everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away had been sucked into the Disney blackhole. Then again, George Lucas, the demiurge behind the Star Wars universe, proved himself an unfaithful custodian of his legacy for many fans after his lackluster trilogy of prequels (1999-2005).
Star Wars After Lucas is both fan book and scholarly monograph, a neat trick pulled off by Swinburne University media lecturer Dan Golding. He was a few years distant from birth when the first Star Wars (1977) captivated imaginations around the world, but growing up in the ‘90s, he was drawn into the burgeoning legion of fandom. He shares the concerns of those who map out elaborate family trees, galactic navigation charts and Wikipedias of other worlds—but he is also able to step back and examine the phenomenon and its proliferating body of artifacts through the magnifier of media studies.
Close readings of The Force Awakens and its less satisfying successors, Rogue One (2016) and The Last Jedi (2017), are placed in the context of the visual technology Lucas pioneered as well as contemporary marketing strategies (including the manipulation of social media). Multiple considerations came into play in crafting recent episodes, including the casting of Chinese actors in Rogue One to build box office in China—things that never occurred to Star Wars’ mythmaking creator.
Star Wars has been accused of fostering communism and fascism, of serving American imperialism, fostering New Age mumbo-jumbo and killing the adventurous creativity dominant in Hollywood from roughly 1969 through 1977. But as Golding indicates, the political message is elastic and that golden age of Coppola and Scorsese was a detour in Hollywood history; the Star Wars pictures travel the main highway where commerce rides with entertainment and art is an afterthought.
Star Wars After Lucas is a spirited and often convincing defense of the saga’s “complex and multifaceted” content. At its best, the Star Wars series isn’t mindless spectacle but “intelligent,” “concerned with the past and questions of legacy” and offers a hopeful scenario for the future of humanity. Golding also offers a thoughtful assessment of the many uses of nostalgia and a primer on how the movie industry works in the 21st century.
