"A Long Time Ago"...what do you all think?

We all know the famous words: "A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy..."

Now I'm assuming that those words are from a mysterious narrator sometime in the future, and someone quite far away (duh) but has it ever been figured out who the narrator is?

I know it's R2 that tells the story of the Skywalkers to the Whills, but the way that phrase is read implies that it's quite far into the future.

So would it be a distant descendant of the Skywalkers? Some future historian?

What are your thoughts? Did Lucas ever mention a vague idea of who it was?

And do you think it's a "Long Time Ago" from OUR POV or a POV from far into the future?

 

As I see it, "a long time ago" is from the POV of a distant future of the GFFA (I hope that's in both senses of this acronym). However, in relation to our time, 0 BBY can just as well be anywhen from 5,000,000,000 BC to 5,000,000,000 AD.

 

The narrator is in our galaxy - Now. It's George Lucas. Meh.

 

I agree. The Narrator is talking to us, so he is here, now.
It would imply that the events of the movies happened a long time ago, circa the release of the origional movies. The events do not take place in our glaxy, rather they are taking place in a galaxy that is far, far away from ours, which would imply that those events are in the past in earth years. I would say they are taking place probably as we are going through the stong-age or some such. That would mean the events were taking place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, circa 1978 or whenever ANH was released.

 

Until very recently, I always assumed that the title card referred to the POV of us, here, now - and that's obviously the effect it's meant to have on the reader (compare Matt Stover's use of the phrase in the RotS novellization)...

However, as people have already pointed out, it could relate to an internal POV within the narrative - George has said, at least in jest, that the movies are Artoo's account, delivered to the whills a century later, and there are rumours that the sequels were supposed to involve an exodus from the GFFA... or else, of course, you could go far enough back and away through spacetime that you find yourself in the same place you started out, somewhere in the distant future...

There's certainly enough indication that Star Wars either takes place in our future, or else is comprehensively "translated" to give that impression. I'm very sorry that the galley proofs of "Star Wars Official Poster Magazine" #16 were edited to remove a reference to the planet Solaris...



And, of course, there's the direct "contemporary relevance" aspect of the narrative, for which the title card could be read as merely a literary topos within a real-world fiction...



- The Imperial Ewok

 

Well, when you consider relativity, it could be happening RIGHT NOW, but by the time it reaches us it would be a long time ago...

 

Then there's the old trailer for Star Wars - Possibly the first ever, with the narration that goes:

"Somewhere in space this may all be happening right now..."
"...An adventure unlike anything on 'your' planet..."
"...A billion years in the making and it's coming to your galaxy this summer"

Obviously none of it's actual canon, but it gives an interesting insight.

 

I seem to recall in the old Star Wars Radio Commercials...

Ah, dagnabin-sithspit, Havet! Ya beat me to it!

 

Note that these lines, taken together, mean the Star Wars universe had serious continuity errors even back when the entirety of its canon was a teaser trailer. 8)

 

Well if you're trying to in-universe canon the words at the begining, you can also in-universe the words at the end. Those being the credits, which once more makes SW a set of movies and the spin off books spin off books, the games games etc
(I felt like poking in jest. Be kind.)

 

I think we need a FAQ thread.

 

If that was a long time ago, we've gone down the bucket since. Still, today I saw an Excellence blender at work, so it ain't all bad.