Star Wars Exhibition Explores Human Identity 62
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that a new exhibition has opened at the Montreal Science Center that explores human identity through the Star Wars saga and its quirky characters combining the latest scientific research in areas of psychology, neuropsychology, and genetics with some 200 costumes, props, models, and artwork from the Lucasfilm archives to ask the fundamental questions: who we are and how do we become who we are? Visitors to the exhibition will rediscover their favorite Star Wars characters 'in a whole new light' while also developing a better understanding of their own complex identity. 'Since Star Wars takes place in a fantasy world, the characters need to be identifiable so that the audience can connect to them,' says Star Wars creator George Lucas. 'These larger-than-life characters come complete with friends, enemies, values, and beliefs. This exhibition examines how the Star Wars characters are like us, what we may have in common, and what makes up our individual identities.' Each visitor is given a bracelet, which records the decisions they make during the tour and each visitor's decisions combine to create an avatar, which is revealed at the end of the tour. 'When I finally took the tour with the audio guide and bracelet, it was thrilling,' says LucasFilm exhibits manager Kyra Bowling. 'When I saw my hero (avatar) at the end, I felt like a kid again. After I was done I immediately went through a second time and made different decisions so I could end up with a different hero.'"
"Exploration of human identity"? Ugh. (Score:4, Interesting)
I am so sick of "the exploration of human identity" being the only question worth pursuing when discussing works of art. It seems like the only thing we expect of art is that it help us answer the question of what it means to be human, and it's not like anyone can articulate a straight answer to that question, except in that the art itself is its own irreducible answer. It's a "tree falls in the forest" kind of question: its main purpose is to make the person asking it look smart; no answer is required.
Sci-fi fandom is especially guilty of pushing this sort of treacle. But let's be honest here: human identity issues are not the most interesting aspect of Star Wars, and Star Wars is not a very interesting subject for the exploration of human identity. If you want to talk about what it means to be human, talk about District 9 and Source Code, just to pick two recent examples. And if you want to talk about Star Wars, let's talk about whether our own lives are all just sequels to our parents' stories.
But I get it. You just want to capitalize on a mass-market intellectual property to drive attendance at your science museum. Well, you can do it without the pompous psychobabble.
Re:Is it me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Star Wars is directly influenced by the work of Joseph Campbell
That's just a bunch of horseshit Lucas made up years later (the man reedits his own history almost as much as he reedits his movies). The only mythology in Star Wars is cobbed from the Authurian legend (the boy king hidden away, the wizard Merlin, the Sword in the stone, etc.). And I suspect even that was taken third-hand from the Kurosawa films that Lucas studied at USC.