George Lucas Says He Made 'Star Wars' To Explore "Psychological Motifs In Mythology"

There are some who argue that George Lucas‘ "Star Wars" saga has entered the realm of modern mythology. And certainly, that it’s a tale involving heroes, villains, The Force, and other archetypes, a convincing case could be made. According to the creator himself, his idea in making the toy-selling, sci-fi blockbuster series was to examine the very qualities of storytelling, and how stories are shared and passed down from generation to generation.

In a chat in Chicago with Charlie Rose earlier this month, Lucas discussed why he set out to make "Star Wars," and central among his reasons was to explore "psychological motifs in mythology," in particular elements that resonated each time a story was told.

“It’s about good and evil, but what makes a hero, what’s friendship, what’s the idea of sacrificing yourself for something larger?” Lucas said. “They’re all really basic things. You might say you don’t have to make a movie about that [because] it’s very obvious, but it’s actually not. It’s not that obvious to a lot of people unless you have somebody [telling] every generation that this is what our country believes in.”

He added: “With ‘Star Wars,’ it was the religion. Everything put into a form that was easy for everybody to accept so it didn’t fall into a contemporary mode where you could argue about it. It went everywhere in the world.”

And there’s no doubt Lucas’ attempt at mythological level storytelling was massively successful; he certainly cracked the code of what makes a story popular. Watch below. [io9/HNGN]