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Early Retirement

© Paul F. McDonald

While it is true I have had other articles planned for this page, and while it is most certainly true that I have much more to say about Star Wars in general, regretfully I simply don't have the time to work on them right now. For the moment, other projects have taken precedence for me, and as such, I am no longer going to be the contributing editor here. As most of you know, I have written about this goofy space opera we all love from many different online places, and I'm sure I'll eventually continue to do so from somewhere. And it is very much a hope of mine that I can get together a book on all this when the final prequel is completed once and for all.

If nothing else, at least I have managed to touch some of the neat depths of Star Wars that are usually not looked at in most other forums. I have very much enjoyed doing it, both in writing my own words as well as reading what others have had to say about them. Everyone has been very generous, and I appreciate the fans who have supported this suite. Good discussion has certainly been the rule rather than the exception.

One good thing about this is that it has given me a chance to help show that the somewhat cataclysmic break that normally exists between high art and pop art is not quite as severe as some would have us believe. That break has never existed for me, and as I just picked up a copy of the newly published Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy courtesy of Open Court Books, it doesn't exist for me now. When a person gets right down to it, all myth is really a language, and it provides that first and foremost for those who are inspired by it. As an erudite poster on another site I frequent so eloquently put it, it provides a common tongue by which normally disconnected people can connect and discuss all the things that are important to their lives.

However Star Wars goes down in history, it does seem safe to say that it might just at least be the demarcation point that Joseph Campbell so often talked about. In many of his books and lectures, he addressed how the current age we were entering was something really new and vital. He called it the age of Creative Mythology, and saw it as spinning the ancient mythic paradigm around. No longer would the society itself be dictating the myths for the individual, but rather the individual would bring - and sometimes even create - their own myths for society. Starting with George Lucas, this seems to be a new trend that is indeed presenting itself to the world. Stories like Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Matrix very much point to this being an age of unprecedented creative mythology.

The copyright of the article Early Retirement in Star Wars is owned by Paul F. McDonald. Permission to republish Early Retirement in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.