Saturday, 11 November 2017 07:05 pm
Book Review: The World According to Star Wars
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deckardcanineCass R. Sunstein set out to write for major fans, minor fans, and people who haven't yet found much use for the space opera franchise. Speaking as a member of the second group, I advise you to postpone your reading if you haven't already seen at least Episodes IV through VII and think you might someday. (Rogue One hadn't debuted at the time of printing, and no entries in non-film media come into play.)
The first cute thing you'll notice about this book is the cover illustration, in which a typical-looking Storm Trooper beckons to a LEGO Storm Trooper the size of a toddler by comparison. The second is the table of contents, listing each chapter as an "episode." I guess it fits with the partial focus on the familial nature of the series.
To my mind, the best parts come near the beginning, talking about the early history. I hadn't heard just how few people had had any confidence that Star Wars would do better than break even at the box office. Hard to fathom the discrepancy between the imagined dud and the actual hit. Sunstein goes on to speculate how much different factors contributed, reflecting on Sixto Rodriguez of Searching for Sugar Man fame as the poster child for seemingly arbitrary success and failure. Beyond that, there's not as much trivia as I expected.
As a blurb from The Washington Post notes, the book gets "surprisingly personal." This can be charming, particularly with Sunstein's anecdotes about his young son. But it also undercuts the professional atmosphere. For example, he parenthetically disses 2001: A Space Odyssey. He later discusses the relative merits of Star Trek for a subchapter and admits it can be hard to choose between ST and SW, until he abruptly says that SW is better and doesn't elaborate. And of course, he sees fit to rate all seven SW movies to date. While I happened to agree with a lot of his opinions, this unserious and unfunny departure from objective analysis flies in the face of educational value and threatens to alienate those who beg to differ.
It gets worse toward the end, when politics come up. Sunstein tries to present multiple sides fairly but makes no secret of his own leanings. (To give you an idea of them, he used to work for Obama and writes articles for Bloomberg.) I'm not going to complain about which way he leans, only that he felt the need to show it at all, especially after so many nonpolitical chapters. He even says earlier that part of SW's appeal is that it lends itself to countless interpretations, accommodating all kinds of perspectives. Let's not risk ruining that with partisanship. Heck, let's let escapism be escapism.
I could say this wasn't the book I was looking for, but that's a stretch for both the truth and a quotation parody. Suffice it to say that while I had hoped for something a little different, it didn't waste my time. And hey, it's pretty short.
I have now begun Naomi Novik's Her Majesty's Dragon, because it's been a while since my last female author. Tho I'd hardly have guessed from the all-male cast thus far.
The first cute thing you'll notice about this book is the cover illustration, in which a typical-looking Storm Trooper beckons to a LEGO Storm Trooper the size of a toddler by comparison. The second is the table of contents, listing each chapter as an "episode." I guess it fits with the partial focus on the familial nature of the series.
To my mind, the best parts come near the beginning, talking about the early history. I hadn't heard just how few people had had any confidence that Star Wars would do better than break even at the box office. Hard to fathom the discrepancy between the imagined dud and the actual hit. Sunstein goes on to speculate how much different factors contributed, reflecting on Sixto Rodriguez of Searching for Sugar Man fame as the poster child for seemingly arbitrary success and failure. Beyond that, there's not as much trivia as I expected.
As a blurb from The Washington Post notes, the book gets "surprisingly personal." This can be charming, particularly with Sunstein's anecdotes about his young son. But it also undercuts the professional atmosphere. For example, he parenthetically disses 2001: A Space Odyssey. He later discusses the relative merits of Star Trek for a subchapter and admits it can be hard to choose between ST and SW, until he abruptly says that SW is better and doesn't elaborate. And of course, he sees fit to rate all seven SW movies to date. While I happened to agree with a lot of his opinions, this unserious and unfunny departure from objective analysis flies in the face of educational value and threatens to alienate those who beg to differ.
It gets worse toward the end, when politics come up. Sunstein tries to present multiple sides fairly but makes no secret of his own leanings. (To give you an idea of them, he used to work for Obama and writes articles for Bloomberg.) I'm not going to complain about which way he leans, only that he felt the need to show it at all, especially after so many nonpolitical chapters. He even says earlier that part of SW's appeal is that it lends itself to countless interpretations, accommodating all kinds of perspectives. Let's not risk ruining that with partisanship. Heck, let's let escapism be escapism.
I could say this wasn't the book I was looking for, but that's a stretch for both the truth and a quotation parody. Suffice it to say that while I had hoped for something a little different, it didn't waste my time. And hey, it's pretty short.
I have now begun Naomi Novik's Her Majesty's Dragon, because it's been a while since my last female author. Tho I'd hardly have guessed from the all-male cast thus far.