Forrest Wickman for Slate:"Star Wars is a Western. Star Wars is a samurai movie. Star Wars is a space opera. Star Wars is a war film. Star Wars is a fairy tale. A Jedi craves not such narrow interpretations. In fact, Star Wars—the original 1977 film that started it all—is all these things. It’s a pastiche, as mashed-up and hyper-referential as any movie from Quentin Tarantino. It takes the blasters of Flash Gordon and puts them in the low-slung holsters of John Ford’s gunslingers. It takes Kurosawa’s samurai masters and sends them to Rick’s Café Américain from Casablanca. It takes the plot of The Hidden Fortress, pours it into Joseph Campbell’s mythological mold, and tops it all off with the climax from The Dam Busters. Blending the high with the low, all while wearing its influences on its sleeve, Star Wars is pretty much the epitome of a postmodernist film."
The Star Wars Guide to Bowl Season. As the college-football postseason awakens, the WSJ assigns this year’s games their equivalent scene or character from the blockbuster franchise
Michael J. Svigel:
Two books lie on display on a tiny table in my office. The first, The Force of Star Wars (1977), allegorizes the original film and suggests it mirrors specific events of biblical end-time prophecies. The author calls readers to faith in Christ and promotes a clear Christian redemption narrative. The second, Religion of the Force (1983), exposes the allegedly heavy-handed New Age religious propaganda of Lucas’s universe. It suggests Star Wars promotes a false religion, that the “Force” is pantheism, and that Christians should flee from all things Star Wars before they damage their souls. So which is it? Was Lucas a reluctant prophet of God’s story who spoke better than he knew? Or was he a sinister antichrist who continues to lure dupes into the pit of hell? Is Star Wars an allegory conveying the gospel of Jesus, or a drama promoting doctrines of demons? Clearly, the two books represent antithetical approaches to engaging popular culture. And in my view, both veer too far in their perspectives. Let me suggest a middle-of-the-road alternative—one that appreciates the underlying “truths” of the Star Wars narrative without confusing metaphorical fiction with spiritual fact. Read the rest.
This Is the Smartest Netflix Trick We’ve Ever Seen. Build a different profile for every mood.
Fast Company discovered that Donald Trump can post hate speech to Facebook but you can't. Related: I don't think the Atlantic had Facebook's restrictions on free speech in mind when they posted this piece on Christopher Hitchens, but it fits. "The right of others to free expression is part of my own....I have never met nor heard of anybody I would trust with the job of deciding in advance what it might be permissible for me or anyone else to say or read. That freedom of expression consists of being able to tell people what they may not wish to hear, and that it must extend, above all, to those who think differently is, to me, self-evident.
Aiding the Christians Targeted by ISIS for Extermination. ‘We know Washington is aware of the realities,’ says John Eibner, asking why the West is so slow to help. (To get the full article, you may need to type the article title into Google.)
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