Some ask why I appreciate Star Wars more than Star Trek. Well, Star Trek is grand in our own frame of reference, and as such suffers from the limit of our own trite reality. In fact, Star Wars delves more into the world of fantasy and mythology, and touches on some universal mythological beings that have been present across humanity since the beginning of time, you'll find that most cultures on Earth share a common mythology, in fact the Greek Odysseus was known as Ulysses in Rome, the Greek Zeus was known as Jupiter in Rome, the Greek Poseidon was known as Neptune in Rome, and you're talking about of a young farm-boy from the middle of nowhere that goes up against a great oppressor, and this story is common a lot in mythology, such as David and Goliath, and you'll find again that this touches the core human emotion that we all need to explore through a fantasy world those constants which we cannot achieve in our own reality world.

Now, on another note, I find that the, uh, universal worldwide acceptance of Star Wars is grand in this commonality that we all share instead of being limited through one frame of reference, through one focal point, we can see things in a cross-cultural manner, if you will, and in fact, to expand on that a little bit, I think that you’ll find that the Star Wars Universe is relatable for any culture on Earth, any economic standing, any financial standing on Earth, because again, we’re talking about themes that are core to the concept of humanity and emotion. Furthermore, I can tell you that the types of themes that you’re talking about in Star Trek are limited towards a certain set of circumstances that exist, in almost a two-dimensional plane, where in Star Wars you’re really exploring different feelings about humanity, happiness, sadness, all of the various spectrum of the human existence, and I find that even though you are talking about characters that are often not human, we as human beings can identify through their struggles, and you’ll find that most great storytelling has to deal with a protagonist, an ordinary person up against extraordinary odds, and I think that if you look at the literature across the history of recorded time, you’ll find that a lot of the greatest stories have followed that same theme.

The storyline is almost unimportant, because you’re talking about grand themes here, about human achievement when faced with unlikely odds, and furthermore I can tell you that beyond that, it’s something that we can all agree upon, it is all something we can all identify with, and relatability, I’m sure you know, as someone that works in the storytelling world, is a concept that is necessary to have an audience invest themselves into the story that you’re telling. I’ll also tell you that the Star Wars Universe, while on some level is very exotic, had a musical soundtrack grounded in nineteenth century romantic music, and in fact, I can relate Star Wars, the appeal of it, towards some of the great impressionist paintings like Dutch Van Gogh, because his paintings, although not photographic if you will, or photorealistic, inspired our own imagination to latch onto the concepts present in the painting, and for example, if you look at Van Gogh’s Starry Night, you’ll see that again, while it doesn’t necessarily look exactly like a city and stars, and the wind blowing through the trees, you can feel the feeling of what it was like to be in that situation. You know, unlike looking at a photograph, which again gives you that two-dimensional representation; a split second, a microsecond in time, if you will, and if anyone knows that’s had a bad photograph taken in a split second in time, doesn’t often represent the whole picture.

However, when you’re talking about the idea of a painting, and certainly an oil painting, an impressionist oil painting, you’re not necessarily capturing all of the minute details, you’re capturing a feeling. Now, how do you put a feeling down on canvas? How do you put a feeling down on the screen? Well, that’s the job of the artistic storytelling, and in fact the storyteller in this case took his own human emotions, his own human struggles, and that of others, and put them into a fantastic circumstance, which none of us could have possibly experienced, yet, can all take pride in, relate to again, the young, struggling farm-boy wanting to be part of a- now these are the things that were touched upon in 1976’s Rocky, I’m talking about the original Rocky; it wasn’t about winning the fight, that movie’s not a boxing movie, that movie is about an ordinary guy placed in extraordinary circumstances; a guy… he was the underdog, you know, another common concept you find in a lot of literature. He was the underdog that wanted to make a--all he wanted to do was go the distance. He wanted to make it to the Philadelphia (spectrum?). It probably has some corporate branded name now, but at the time in 1976, shot in 1975, it was called the Philadelphia (spectrum?) because theatres and arenas, amphitheaters, had real names back then, I think Fenway Park is still named as such Candlestick park, I’m sure it’s been renamed, I don’t really follow sports myself, but I’ve heard these terms said, and I know that a lot of the original, like Shea Stadium was like Citi Bank Field, or something, but (clears throat) that’s not really relevant to what I’m talking about here, but interesting nevertheless.

However, umm, what I’m saying is that for an artist to accurately portray a feeling on film or canvas, or whatever the medium; I mean, you could be talking about a mound of clay, really the artistic medium is irrelevant, and when a singer gets up and sings, you don’t care about the vocal cords vibrating at certain frequencies, you’re trying to take part in or relate to a certain feeling that that artist is trying to convey. When a sculptor takes a look at a hunk of mud and clears away certain sections to make this great monolith of art, again, it’s not about the minerals that are present in the mud, it’s about the feeling that you’re trying to convey.