A fascinating psychological dissection of the iconic SF series by a smart, passionate fan.
Ellerhoff takes a Jungian look at the world of Star Wars.
In this work of nonfiction, the author points out the fact that we can never know what the famed psychologist Carl Jung would have made of the Star Wars movies because he died 16 years before the first installment came to theaters. But Ellerhoff has grown up with the films, and he argues that Jung’s vision of archetypal truths (sometimes delivered through the means of fantasy) maps well onto a cinematic SF world in which “the cruelest person in the galaxy zaps lightning from his fingertips while the wisest is a puppet.” He commences his analysis by noting the Jungian influences in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) and the impact that book had on George Lucas as he was drafting and redrafting the original script of the movie. The author then proceeds to analyze the movies in granular detail, recounting the plots, relating critical commentary from a variety of quoted sources, and identifying correspondences with Jung’s concepts of individuation, archetypes (finding the “senex,” or wise old man, for instance, in figures like Yoda), and, of course, the collective unconscious. Ellerhoff writes with extravagant geeky enthusiasm—Star Wars fans will be enchanted to see their favorite movies so intelligently discussed. Whether his insights are simplistic (characterizing the evil Emperor Palpatine as “the most selfish person in the galaxy”) or galvanizing (observing that Han Solo’s last-minute save at the climax of the first movie “confirms a profound change in Solo’s character”), Ellerhoff is always engaging when writing about this world. Some of his Jungian parallels seem a bit basic (“Darth Vader is a fine character to contemplate in terms of Jung’s concept of the shadow”), but the Star Wars analysis never is.
A fascinating psychological dissection of the iconic SF series by a smart, passionate fan.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781041033523
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Routledge
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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