JUNG AND STAR WARS

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.