For untold millennia, myths have given expression to humanity’s search for the truth. These epic stories grapple with our fundamental questions about identity, meaning, and purpose. Most importantly, myths can lead us to ponder the nature of our relationship to God.
Certain universal story and character motifs have become lasting archetypes, told and retold in myths across cultures and down the centuries as timeless spiritual truths. Indeed, it’s been rightly said that “[t]he sense of deep and abiding truth that such myths offer is part of their magic.” (Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, p. 4)
Yet, in America of the 1970s, magic – and hope – seemed in short supply. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War, economic decline, social upheaval, and civil unrest, the nation seemed more divided and disillusioned than ever. Ancient myths and fairy tales seemed irrelevant to everyday concerns. America “was a culture that needed new stories to inspire and instruct it – stories that would speak to modern concerns and at the same time offer some timeless wisdom.” (Ibid., p.6) In 1977, a young, visionary filmmaker named George Lucas gave America – and the world – the timeless wisdom it needed, changing the world forever with a new science fiction movie called Star Wars.
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” – That simple iconic opening put moviegoing audiences on notice that they were about to witness something fresh and new: a science fiction fairy-tale, complete with swords and sorcery, heroic knights and dark lords populating an interstellar universe of starships, laser guns, and robots. By transplanting the tropes of medieval fantasy into a sci-fi setting that reflected the anxieties and aspirations of contemporary America, George Lucas created a modern mythology.
George Lucas was born on Mother’s Day, May 14, 1944, the only son and third surviving child of George Walton Lucas, Sr. and Dorothy Bomberger of Modesto, California. George Jr. was an imaginative and creative child who loved to read classic adventure stories, like Treasure Island. He also passionately collected comic books, which introduced him to the power of visual storytelling.
Although raised in a Christian household, George Lucas has a complex relationship with faith. He reports that at age six he had a powerful mystical experience, causing him to ponder seriously for the first time questions about the nature of God, the self, and reality. Lucas’s lifelong search for answers to these questions would eventually influence the creation of the Star Wars saga. By contrast, George Sr. was more religiously conventional, a serious and hardworking Methodist who made sure that young George regularly attended Sunday school, a practice that the boy began to resent, saying “When I got to be old enough—twelve or thirteen—I rebelled against it.” (George Lucas: A Life, p.19)
As an adult, however, Lucas would say that “I have strong feelings about God and the nature of life, but I’m not devoted to one particular faith.” (Ibid.) He remains openly curious about organized religion, but he also became something of a religious eclecticist, describing his personal beliefs as influenced by both his Methodist upbringing and Buddhism. It would be Lucas’s interest in Eastern religions, particularly Zen Buddhism and Taoism, that would have a considerable influence on the philosophy of Star Wars in the form of the mystical energy field called the Force.
Lucas’s teenage years were tumultuous. He shirked his studies, becoming obsessed with fixing up and racing fast cars. Just before high school graduation, he miraculously survived a terrible car wreck. The vehicle was totaled and Lucas only escaped because he was thrown from the car when his seatbelt failed. The incident would change his life. In the hospital, recuperating from his injuries, George reevaluated his priorities, saying later: “I realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life.” (Ibid., pp.39-40)
George gave up racing and enrolled in junior college, taking classes in any topic that interested him, especially sociology, psychology, anthropology, and art. Lucas would eventually transfer to the University of Southern California at Los Angeles, joining its up-and-coming film school. While there, he helped with many student films and independent productions. Among these was The Search, a compilation of short Scripture reflections produced by Fr. Patrick Peyton’s Family Theater Productions. Lucas worked as a camera assistant on the project and, according to some at FTP, even availed himself of Fr. Peyton’s Moviola editing machine for film school assignments. He graduated from USC on August 6, 1966 and later returned for graduate study, directing an esoteric sci-fi student film THX 1138, which would be made into a feature-length movie in 1971. That same year, he incorporated his own independent production company, Lucasfilm, Ltd, alongside his first wife, film editor Marcia Griffin.
In 1973, fresh off the completion of the nostalgic 1960s period piece American Graffiti, George began laboring over the script that would become Star Wars. Often writing for eight hours a day, the process would take Lucas almost three years, and several rewrites. Lucas absorbed inspiration from various sources: world folklore and mythology, Westerns, the Flash Gordon movie serials, and the epic samurai films of famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. His own previous movies also had an influence. The noble fight against the oppressive technocracy of the Galactic Empire has its roots in the dystopia of THX 1138, while the emotional journey of Luke Skywalker has ties to the adolescent search for meaning at the core of American Graffiti.
The narrative framework of Star Wars would also be shaped by the hero’s journey motif. Lucas had become fascinated with Joseph Campbell’s influential book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which explored the universal images and themes from myths and legends across human history. The hero’s journey is not merely a series of physical adventures or even a psychological path of self-discovery. It is, on a deeper level, a spiritual quest, involving unexpected pain, suffering, and loss. The hero must ultimately overcome these obstacles in order to achieve personal growth and spiritual understanding. George Lucas wrote in his notes for the original Star Wars trilogy that “a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity, but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity.” (Ibid., p. 263)
By Return of the Jedi, the battle between good and evil in the Star Wars films had taken on more obviously Christian overtones, including themes like atonement, redemption, and reconciliation. In his climactic duel against Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker faces the darkness of what his father has become as well as the darkness within himself. The archetype of the son’s redemption of the father reflects the story of salvation as recorded in the Holy Bible: “Adam along with humanity is redeemed by Christ, the son of God, who could be considered Adam’s son as well because he took human form.” (Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, p. 120) In this spiritual battle, Luke triumphs not with weapons or physical prowess, but with forgiveness, mercy, and nonviolence, calling to mind Jesus’s famous Beatitudes, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:7 and 5:9)
In the subsequent Star Wars Prequel trilogy, Lucas would continue to explore Christian themes and imagery. Anakin Skywalker is revealed to be the Chosen One, a kind of Jedi messiah created by the Force in a virginal conception. The narrative arc of the Prequels would see Anakin transformed from the hoped-for savior into an Anti-Christ figure, a Judas-like betrayer who destroys the Jedi Order and is transformed into a dark lord of the Sith. And yet the Prequels would also see Lucas downplay the spiritual nature of the Force, introducing a biological explanation for its powers: microbes called midi-chlorians that attune the Jedi and their Sith counterparts to the Force.
In 2012, George Lucas sold Lucasfilm (and Star Wars) to Disney. While the saga of the Skywalkers would continue without him, Lucas’s lasting legacy, the impact he has made on cinema and on the cultural landscape of the world, remains intact. The spiritual themes of the “galaxy far, far away” will no doubt go on to provide inspiration and hope to future generations, because “Star Wars fulfills the basic function of myth: to open our hearts to the dimension of mystery in our lives and to give us some guidance on our own hero’s journey.” (Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, p. 198) For this, and much else, we can thank God for the life of George Lucas.
Works Cited:
Henderson, Mary. Star Wars: The Magic of Myth. Bantam, 1997.
Jones, Brian Jay. George Lucas: A Life. Little, Brown and Company, 2016.
Thomas J. Salerno
Thomas Salerno is a Catholic author, freelance writer, and podcaster born and raised on Long Island, New York. Among his many passions are dinosaurs, Tolkien's Middle-earth, Star Wars, and superheroes. His writing has been featured in numerous publications including Word on Fire, Aleteia, Amendo, Busted Halo, Catholic World Report, Empty Tomb Project, and Missio Dei. Thomas is the creator and host of the Perilous Realms Podcast and is a contributor to the StarQuest Production Network (SQPN), where he serves as co-host on the Secrets of Movies and TV Shows and the Secrets of Middle-Earth podcasts. Thomas has a bachelor of arts in anthropology from Stony Brook University. You can follow his work on his Substack newsletter thomasjsalerno.substack.com or @Salerno_Thomas on Twitter.