How 'Star Wars' was Influenced by San Francisco - and Architecture (sfgate.com) 49
"Without San Francisco, Star Wars wouldn't exist," says David Reat, the culture studies director of the architecture department at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde.
SFGate reports: Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, where his father expected him to run the family stationery store once he turned 18, but Lucas instead left for Los Angeles, where he studied film production at the University of Southern California, before moving to San Francisco. Despite all that these cities had to offer, Lucas constantly found himself conflicted over his feelings toward them. "The battle of living in the country versus living in the city is huge with Lucas," says Reat, who notes that this theme runs throughout the likes of "THX 1138," "American Graffiti" and the "Star Wars" series. "He sees cities as the givers and takers of things. He's fascinated by cities. He doesn't actually want to live in one. He now lives in a ranch near one. He wants to orbit them. He's a paradox."
When Lucas moved to San Francisco in the late 1960s, there were a number of huge building projects taking place across the city that piqued the burgeoning filmmaker's interest, most notably the construction of BART and a new terminal at San Francisco airport. "Infrastructure really fascinated Lucas. They were these big huge alienating spaces," says Reat. "I think Lucas was driving around San Francisco, looking at them, and seeing that they looked alien." There's a reason why Lucas was particularly interested in the architecture in San Francisco: "He's on record as saying he wanted to be an architect," says Reat. "He has referred to himself as a frustrated architect." Lucas' interest provoked him and his creative team to put extra care and thought into each of the "Star Wars" buildings, vehicles, houses, villages, cities, worlds and galaxies, especially when it came to what they symbolized and represented.
"The architecture in the films play a key role for younger viewers," says Reat, explaining that it helps to indicate who is good and who is evil. When it comes to the Death Star there are "no women, no plants, no signs of life, and it's basically the Nazis in space," continues Reat. "Lucas doesn't like modernism. He always uses it for bad things, a bit like every James Bond baddie." Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and the rest of the light side of the Force are seen living in "exaggerated domesticity" as they sit around drinking blue milk, surrounded by creatures. "There's a care and a weirdness to their architecture, plus it's loaded with color," says Reat, who adds that these choices help to make those characters more appealing and relatable....
The San Francisco International Airport also played a key role in the making of "Phantom Menace." A tour of its maintenance bay gave the film's creative designers a jolt of inspiration when they were creating Anakin's podracer and other vehicles.
The article also adds that the inspiration for the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo in The Phantom Menace was "the Marin County Civic Center, where Lucas once served jury duty."
SFGate reports: Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, where his father expected him to run the family stationery store once he turned 18, but Lucas instead left for Los Angeles, where he studied film production at the University of Southern California, before moving to San Francisco. Despite all that these cities had to offer, Lucas constantly found himself conflicted over his feelings toward them. "The battle of living in the country versus living in the city is huge with Lucas," says Reat, who notes that this theme runs throughout the likes of "THX 1138," "American Graffiti" and the "Star Wars" series. "He sees cities as the givers and takers of things. He's fascinated by cities. He doesn't actually want to live in one. He now lives in a ranch near one. He wants to orbit them. He's a paradox."
When Lucas moved to San Francisco in the late 1960s, there were a number of huge building projects taking place across the city that piqued the burgeoning filmmaker's interest, most notably the construction of BART and a new terminal at San Francisco airport. "Infrastructure really fascinated Lucas. They were these big huge alienating spaces," says Reat. "I think Lucas was driving around San Francisco, looking at them, and seeing that they looked alien." There's a reason why Lucas was particularly interested in the architecture in San Francisco: "He's on record as saying he wanted to be an architect," says Reat. "He has referred to himself as a frustrated architect." Lucas' interest provoked him and his creative team to put extra care and thought into each of the "Star Wars" buildings, vehicles, houses, villages, cities, worlds and galaxies, especially when it came to what they symbolized and represented.
"The architecture in the films play a key role for younger viewers," says Reat, explaining that it helps to indicate who is good and who is evil. When it comes to the Death Star there are "no women, no plants, no signs of life, and it's basically the Nazis in space," continues Reat. "Lucas doesn't like modernism. He always uses it for bad things, a bit like every James Bond baddie." Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and the rest of the light side of the Force are seen living in "exaggerated domesticity" as they sit around drinking blue milk, surrounded by creatures. "There's a care and a weirdness to their architecture, plus it's loaded with color," says Reat, who adds that these choices help to make those characters more appealing and relatable....
The San Francisco International Airport also played a key role in the making of "Phantom Menace." A tour of its maintenance bay gave the film's creative designers a jolt of inspiration when they were creating Anakin's podracer and other vehicles.
The article also adds that the inspiration for the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo in The Phantom Menace was "the Marin County Civic Center, where Lucas once served jury duty."
Re:Lucas? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing the movies had going for them was the futuristic slant.
This ironically for me is the weakest part of Star Wars, the universe it takes place in makes no practical sense and is actually rather small in scale but that is also because outside of the aesthetic it's a fantasy story, not a science fiction one (The film Star Wars stole from) [bbc.com]
Now that being said for most people some of your negatives are positives for the (original) series success. The characters storyline and characters are classic archetypes well suited to a story, just total Joseph Cambell stuff, the action for the time was literally mind blowing. Nobody had seen such feats of motion capture and effects work since 2001 and so much of that practical work holds up today. And that's ok for me because it works as a whole (especially with a healthy slathering of John Williams over the top of it).
Star Wars is totally built on vibes, that's what's so tricky about new spinoffs to get a handle on.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Lucas? (Score:2)
Likely a case or romanticizing the past (Score:2)
Ever wonder how academics dig, dig and dig some more to try to explain, in complicated academic speak, some fringe idea to give it credibility and make an academic career out of it...
Is this just a 'let us create a backstory to the backstory of how Star Wars was created, to sell more books, films, toys, and merch'?
Get Star Wars in the news, wait for the streaming royalties to bump upwards.
Our house quit buying any Star Wars related things or streaming them when Disney took them over. They were well past st
Re: (Score:1)
Then there's the script. Oh dear. Wasn't it Harrison Ford who famously sa
Re: (Score:2)
If you take away the "Wagnerian" soundtrack, telling you what to think & how to feel at every moment, it's pretty dull
Sure, but you can apply that to almost *every movie*. LOTR without Howard Shore is kinda dull. Jaws without the "dun un" does not clearly carry tension the same. Inception or the Nolan Batman films with the Zimmer score is kinda dull. Fact is SW does in fact have the JW soundtrack, you cannot just decouple them, if a director directs a shot he usually has some music in mind, if it didn't they would probably do the shot different.
Does that mean Star Wars was essentially a SciFi version of a musical western? (I don't mean that in a kind way.)
Yes, Star Wars is basically a mash up of a spaghetti western, a Kurosawa film
Re: (Score:2)
Similarly, you don't *need* scripts where the actors explain what they're doing, how they're fee
Re: (Score:2)
The main point being, the music isn't there to tell you what to think or feel; it's the acting, the scene, the events that unfold, etc., that convey the meaning & the affect.
I gotta disagree there. A film with little or no music was intended to be that way. Like No Country for Old Men going from like no music to having a big soundtrack just doesn't work, or just like The Wire only uses incidentals, the director and creative team intended it that way and convey what they need through other means, some, like Star Wars and many many others use that music to effect, like any other part if it's executed well it is part of what makes movies work.
One of my favorites, Jurassic Park.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The story and dialogue I'll give you that. However the action sequences not believable? Star Wars is milestone in the special effects department. Nothing had ever looked that good before and it still looks good today. Twenty years later Lucas started releasing the special editions with his shoe horned CGI scenes and they look awful.
Have you watched THX 1138? It's pretty hard scifi compared to anything else Lucas has done. But movies like that have a limited draw.
Re: (Score:2)
The reason THX1138 was much better SciFi is that it's taken directly from E.M.Forster's "The Machine Stops." That was a story written way ahead of its time.
Re: (Score:1)
I did see THX 1138 when it first came out as I recall but apparently it didn't make much of an impression on me. I had to look it up on Wikipedia to get a sense of the plot, maybe I will have a look at it.
>> action sequences not believable?
I get tired of all the shootouts where armored troops can't hit anything, die easily, and the heroes are invulnerable. It isn't necessary to portray things that way. The light saber swordfights are also tedious.
Re: (Score:2)
To be honest, THX-1138, the college film student version, is better in a lot of ways than THX-1138, the Hollywood movie with a budget.
Re: (Score:2)
Put it into context of the time. The science fiction action movies were rather low budget and simplistic. Star Wars took that space opera genre and upped the stakes; putting in the stuff he loved about the older movies, but with better production values, taking itself more seriously, etc. There's a very solid homage to the sci-fi serials from the black and white era.
Also there's a lot more depth in Star Wars as a stand alone movie than the series had. Star Wars was intended to be standalone, not the foun
A great man once said (Score:3)
"Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."
It reminds me of my trips to the City through the years. And it is as sound advice today as it was then.
Re: (Score:2)
There, fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. I don't understand these anti-tolerance people. You will find the problems of San Francisco in every city, Even Texas cities, and especially Florida ones. But the haters have to focus on "tolerance" because they're being coached to couch the world as a fight between good and evil in the mythical culture wars. I find it baffling that they claim to be upholding Christian values and yet they reject the same tolerance taught by Christ.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. I don't understand these anti-tolerance people. You will find the problems of San Francisco in every city, Even Texas cities, and especially Florida ones. But the haters have to focus on "tolerance" because they're being coached to couch the world as a fight between good and evil in the mythical culture wars. I find it baffling that they claim to be upholding Christian values and yet they reject the same tolerance taught by Christ.
It seems to me that Christians aren't being tolerated. Or Jews... especially around big universities.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh of course they are being tolerated. They're just mad that they're not treated as super special. NO ONE is banning Christians, and yet you will hear this being claimed over and over on televangelist channels. Jews are being tolerated. Israeli government though, is pissing off a lot of people, but that is NOT the same as Jews. There are Christian clubs on campus; of course they have to follow the rules. They may bitch that there's no mandatory morning prayer, but if there was one those prayers might
Re: (Score:2)
Being a victim is a good political card to play.
Are you talking about the Christians, or are you talking about the folks unhappy with Jews right now? College campuses are cancelling graduation ceremonies after all.
Re: (Score:2)
Are people unhappy with Jews, or with the Israeli government? These are two very different things. Even many Jews are protesting against Netanyahu's war.
Re: (Score:2)
Are people unhappy with Jews, or with the Israeli government? These are two very different things. Even many Jews are protesting against Netanyahu's war.
What's the difference if Jewish people have an extra hard time getting to their classrooms?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, so they're only blocking Jews from getting to class. I didn't get that information from the news.
Explains Its' Gayness (Score:1)
Fortunately we had the Alien universe to watch.
Re: (Score:2)
Giger's design for the Alien evoked many contradictory sexual images. As critic Ximena Gallardo notes, the creature's combination of sexually evocative physical and behavioral characteristics creates "a nightmare vision of sex and death. It subdues and opens the male body to make it pregnant, and then explodes it in birth. In its adult form, the alien strikes its victims with a rigid phallic tongue that breaks through skin and bone. More than a phallus, however, the retractable tongue has its own set of snapping, metallic teeth that connects it to the castrating vagina dentata."
the gayness is part of the charm for both franchises
If you've ever seen Giger's original drawings of the aliens, the head is shaped the way it is because Giger drew it as an actual penis. Not implied, but right there for all to see. The tip of the skill was the penis head, and the bottom was the alien's face and retracting jaw. The whole thing looked like some nightmarish, creeping Dildo. Giger was a seriously messed up individual.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of this was going to be the original Dune, inspired by the book but so vastly different from it at the same time. That project died but a lot of the design got repurposed.
"No women" (Score:1)
Pop quiz! Name one woman other than Leia from the entire original trilogy. And "Aunt Crispy" doesn't count as that character's name.
Re: "No women" (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Off the top of my head Aunt Baru and Mon Mothma come to mind.
If you're trying to make a thing out of the small number of ladies in those movies though I should point out that low counts of female actors is pretty typical of movies within this genre during this time period. If anything Lucas deserves some props for having a female lead character that doesnt take shit and kicks ass in a movie made in the 70's. Leia as a weak "damsel in distress" would have been much more common for the period.
Re: (Score:2)
Since Star Wars is also basically just a revisiting of all of the tropes from the silver-screen-age serials that predated the features, it's not really surprising that it doesn't have many women in it either. The crapsack universe is pretty violent, and paternalistic attitudes have meant trying to shield women from the less savory parts, plus military attitudes have also typically not included women in the ranks too much either, something that's changing but even the better part of five decades later only
Re: (Score:2)
Right, but today if you stick in a third woman you'd be accused of being too woke :-) As a redeeming factor though, Leia was not just a love interest, which you might say was light years of an improvement over much of the science fiction movies that came before it. I remember laughing while rewatching War of the Worlds where the main female's role is to provide coffee for the men.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, myself I think back to old Asimov books. Great sci fi writer but his female characters were just terrible.
Right, but today if you stick in a third woman you'd be accused of being too woke :-)
You're probably right for some at least. Good lord am I tired of hearing idiots complain about "woke" stuff all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: "No women" (Score:2)
Not a woman, but if you asked R2 he'd tell you 3PO is non-binary.
Re: (Score:3)
So an analog computer?
Re: (Score:2)
Fry: Bender, what is it?
Bender: Whoa, what an awful dream. Ones and zeros everywhere. And I thought I saw a two.
Fry: It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as two.
Also back when California was affordable (Score:2)
Re: Also back when California was affordable (Score:2)
Ah yes, the good old days when housing in California was so cheap that seniors were forced our of their homes due to not being able to pay the fast-increasing property taxes.
So cheap in fact that Prop 13 was passed in 1978 to solve that problem, shortly after Star Wars was released.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah yes, the good old days when housing in California was so cheap that seniors were forced our of their homes due to not being able to pay the fast-increasing property taxes.
So cheap in fact that Prop 13 was passed in 1978 to solve that problem, shortly after Star Wars was released.
Yeah, the myth of "affordable California" is really that... a myth. California has been expensive to the common man since Hollywood put the state on the cultural map. I was born there and spent my formative years in SoCal...which truly had a bit of magic in the air at the time... but even then the economic storm clouds were gathering. We were a typical American home, father working, mom running the house, kids doing kid things, until 1977, when costs had shot up so much that my mom had to go to work just to
Re: Also back when California was affordable (Score:2)
I'm also CA-born, shortly before the Star Wars release, but my parents moved back to Europe weeks after my birth and I grew up in Europe. I came "back" to CA at 20 and bought my first home in Silicon Valley 6 months later. It was not too awfully unaffordable back then, under 4x my wages. In 2010 I moved to a mansion in the hills in San Jose after the owners got foreclosed. Been living here ever since. I got a good bargain on the house, but have spent hundreds of thousands in ongoing costs, even though I pai
Re: (Score:2)
People bitch about Prop 13 now, but at the time, you had retirees being forced from their homes because of property tax increases that started to look like something out of a South American inflationary spiral.
Most of the people unhappy with Prop13 are the ones that think it's unfair that their neighbor pays less in taxes than they pay. Prop13 is the primary reason why so many folks can afford to stay there...
Re: (Score:2)
The housing problem has been an issue for decades, though it might not see that way at first. In the mid 80s I definitely remember a lot of people bitching about how houses were unaffordable and that they had to live in (gasp) the East Bay. It's been steadily worse all the time, and so the phrase "good thing you bought when you did" said to people who bought a mere 5 years earlier gets repeated every decade. The Bay Area has been overpriced since the 70s. But then so has Manhattan, Tokyo, London, etc. Whe
Speaking of Architecture... (Score:3)
The article also adds that the inspiration for the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo in The Phantom Menace was "the Marin County Civic Center, where Lucas once served jury duty."
The Marin County Civic Center, for those who aren't familiar with it, was designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and was one of his last designs. Wright was hired to design the Civic Center in 1957 but passed away in 1959 before construction was started in 1960. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The selection of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957 to design the Civic Center was controversial. The Civic Center project was Wright's largest public project, and encompassed an entire campus of civic structures. The post office was the only federal government project of Wright's career. Wright's design borrowed ideas and forms from Wright's Broadacre City concept, first published in 1932.
If you aren't familiar with the convoluted and complicated story behind the Marin County CIvic Center I highly recommend you read that Wikipedia article I linked above [wikipedia.org].
Cities (Score:2)
"He sees cities as the givers and takers of things. He's fascinated by cities. He doesn't actually want to live in one. He now lives in a ranch near one. He wants to orbit them. He's a paradox."
This is not a special position in any way, shape, or form.
There's an entire industry built around people that want as much of a sleepy small-town life as they can get while still having access to all of the amenities that urban living offers, it's called suburbia. Everyone with their individual detached homes so the
kiddie stuff (Score:2)
When I went to see Star Wars in 1977, based on the hype I was expecting a great SF film, as in science fiction, not San Francisco. I was so disappointed. It was just Flash Gordon with better special effects, nothing like the real SF I read as a kid. 2001 Space Odyssey was a much better SF film. Since then, the Star Wars "franchise" has only gone downhill, and the imitators are even worse.
Want to see a great SF film? Watch "Better than Us," yeah, made by Russians. Or the quixotic "Solaris"(1972), also