Lucasfilm: Filmmaking, Philosophy, and the Star Wars Universe

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From A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker and beyond, this book offers the first complete assessment and philosophical exploration of the Star Wars universe. Lucasfilm examines the ways in which these iconic films were shaped by global cultural mythologies and world cinema, as well as philosophical ideas from the fields of aesthetics and political theory, and now serve as a platform for public philosophy. Cyrus R. K. Patell also looks at how this ever-expanding universe of cultural products and enterprises became a global brand and asks: can a corporate entity be considered a filmmaker and philosopher More than any other film franchise, Lucasfilms Star Wars has become part of the global cultural imagination. The new generation of Lucasfilm artists is full of passionate fans of the Star Wars universe, who have now been given the chance to build on George Lucas's oeuvre. Within these pages, Patell explores what it means for films and their creators to become part of cultural history in this unprecedented way.

Reviews

Cyrus Patell's immensely engaging volume dismantles the long-assumed tension between film as industrial production and film as an art form capable of philosophical reflection when controlled by an auteur. In considering Lucasfilm and the Star Wars universe as evidence for the existence of a corporate cogito, Patell argues for the films' cosmopolitanism, working with their viewers to build a model of the world and contemplate how best to live in it. * Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English, Michigan State University, USA *
In Lucasfilm: Filmmaking, Philosophy, and the Star Wars Universe, Cyrus R. K. Patell takes cultural criticism to a new level, advancing a cosmopolitan reading practice that grounds the concerns of contemporary critical theory in the discursive realities of media production and media reception. From the Modesto-born Journal of the Whills to the StageCraft-enabled filming facilities of The Mandalorian, Patell clearly and humanely charts an emergent mythology of the postmodern age. * Marc Dolan, Professor of English, Film Studies, and American Studies, The City University of New York, USA *

Author Bio

Cyrus R. K. Patell is Global Network Professor of Literature at NYU Abu Dhabi and Professor of English at NYU in New York, USA. He is author of Emergent U.S. Literatures (2014) and Cosmopolitanism and the Literary Imagination (2015) and co-editor (with Deborah Lindsay Williams) of The Oxford History of the Novel in English, Volume 8: American Fiction since 1940.