Interpreting Star Wars : Reading a Modern Film Franchise

Upon its initial release in 1977, many critics regarded Star Wars as a childish retort to the mature American cinema of the seventies. Though full of sound and fury, some felt that it signified nothing. Four decades later, the significations are multiple as interpretations of the film's strange imagery and metaphoric potential continue to pile up. Interpreting Star Wars analyses and contextualises the dominant trends in Star Wars interpretation from the earliest reviews, through Lucasfilm's attempts to use its position as copyright holder to promote a single meaning, to the 21st century where the internet has rendered such authorial control impossible and new entries to the canon present new twists on old hopes.

“Taking a bold, broad sweep over the changing meanings of Star Wars since the 1970s, Miles Booy's captivating study returns us to the Original Trilogy and invites us to see it again through diverse cultural lenses, from Christianity to contemporary identity politics. Booy analyses the movies, comics and novels with forensic fan attention, his witty critical examination restoring a much-needed sense of novelty and enthusiasm to the saga.” - Will Brooker, Professor of Film and Cultural Studies, Kingston University, UK

“Interpreting Star Wars does something unique and important: it traces the cultural shifts of a broader culture when examining the products of the franchise, itself. As a result, Interpreting Star Wars is a work allowing for a deep insight on how each film interacted with the time period of its release as well as its influence moving forward. Especially cogent are Booy's look at the religious and mythic underpinnings of the series and how those foundations is a pathway understanding the abilities of the franchise to both reflect and influence culture. This is a must-have book both for fans and for scholars.” - Matthew Wilhelm Kapell, editor of Finding the Force in the Star Wars Franchise (2006) and Adjunct Professor of American Studies and English, Pace University, USA

“So many thousands of words have been written about the Star Wars phenomenon that one started to wonder whether there was anything left to say. As this carefully researched, engagingly written and often strikingly original book demonstrates, the answer is yes, there is. Even for the most well-informed scholar and the most dedicated fan much is to be learned here. The emphasis is on the evolution of the Star Wars universe across more than four decades, on how the increasing number of stories set in it relate to each other and on how ever-changing currents of critical writing have generated a wealth of interpretations.” - Peter Kramer, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey (2020), Dr. Strangelove (2019) and The General (2019)


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