Five Star Wars myths, from it being a template for blockbuster movies to only young white men watching the films
- Star Wars films have been steeped in folklore, such as the idea that the sound of lightsabres came from the hum of a projector, so what is true and what isn’t?
- With The Rise of Skywalker storming the box office, there’s reason to delve into five myths that have surrounded the famous franchise since it first began
Star Wars is a kind of fable, but it has also spawned a class of fables about its creation.
From the idea that the sound of lightsabres came from the hum of a projector to the claim that George Lucas found inspiration for Chewbacca in his Alaskan malamute, there has been no shortage of tales connected to the film.
Those stories are difficult to substantiate – or to disprove, for that matter.
But as The Rise of Skywalker makes its own ascent at the box office, it’s worth interrogating some of the other stories that Lucas, Lucasfilm and Disney have promoted to burnish their product.
1. Star Wars provided the blueprint for blockbusters
The original Star Wars seems to have been engineered to be the perfect blockbuster. Retrospective accounts present the 1977 film as an immediate game changer that served, as Vox puts it, as an instant “blueprint” for studio production. An article on Medium, likewise, holds that with the first Star Wars film, “the blueprint for the Summer Blockbuster had arrived”.
