re: #44 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate

SW IV was written with the classic hero story as its basis (Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces was Lucas’ inspiration). The sequels finished the hero arc with Luke replacing his father, but in a good way, and the quest (defeating the enemy) completed. Plus, they lived happily every after.

SW I-III were written with the classic Hollywood model of “we must make money on this franchise” by trying to redo the Luke-becomes-hero story as Annakin-becomes-villain, and largely failing at it.

I have a whole paper written on the hero’s journey in the classic trilogy. For junior year English class, if I remember corrently. I think I saved Harry Potter for senior year.

But the original succeeded because it was fun. Not because of the storytelling. Let’s face it: storytelling was not really Lucas’s forte.