ST Jung, Bly and all that jazz - literary/psychological influences on the ST

So Snoke is Lukes shadow? His dark side manifested in person? If someone is really powerful, then his shadow is, too? Luke somehow failed to integrate it and it managed to get more and more power and became his greatest threat? Maybe arose due to something Luke has found or learned during all his research? And therefore so close and influential to Ben? God, Leia really would have sent her son into his doom.

 

Xinau

Yes, to some extent I agree with you that it may have been interesting to see Luke struggle with his dark side. On the other hand, I think that Lucas's idea - the broad outline that I believe they've followed - was that the ST focus on Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order, and the struggles and dangers that come from that. So, I think they've had to go in this direction with Luke ( the wise old man, who must avoid falling into dogma and becoming the Senex ), and I guess that the fall storyline went to Kylo, though whether there'll be a redemptive arc for him, I'm not sure.

 

Yes, I meant for filming an entrance or descent, not that the set would be underneath, although, that tree itself is a set and not on location

 

But isn't that an outdoor pic? If it is and it is also a constructed set then you just blew my goddamn mind.

Also, wouldn't it be excessive but totally badass if they build an underground cavern below the tree that was all Jeditemple-ified?

 

While I will most certainly enjoy Star Wars' deep descent into Jungian theory (and expect that Rian Johnson may take us spelunking there), I do worry that getting too far away from the simpler Campbellian "monomyth" could start to erode the global appeal of these stories. Yes, Jungian concepts are likely familiar to a pretty wide swathe of cultures, but the distilled monomyth typologies most certainly have a wider reach.

Don't get me wrong. Personally, I want Star Wars to go deeper, rather than wider. And that's OK for us adult fans that want to delve deep. Will keep our interest fresh.

But for new, younger audiences, this path could lead to a shrinking of its appeal.

We shall see!

 

MotherNature's SilverSeed It's my bad. I spoke about the tree in the movie, that cosndiering there's an opening on the right side, our characters will likely go in through that entrance into a larger chamber beneath the tree. But it sounded like the chamber inside is on this particular set. I do believe that the tree is hollow inside and maybe even has some design that they'll use for filming. But if there's a chamber underneath it, it's definitely a separate set.

Mungo Baobab Those images and Senex remind me of the old TFA rumor from MSW ( can't open their page but this link leads to them):

http://screenrant.com/star-wars-episode-7-luke-skywalker-story-details/

I would say that many things from this rumor seem to be saved for VIII. In particular "more a wizard than lightsaber wielding warrior" sounds a lot like their Ireland source's description of Luke vs KoR fight that also called him a wizard warrior. Also, wasn't there a rumor that he makes a hut explode by sheer use of the Force? We've seen various types of telekinesis but never exploding objects. Is that right? Also, Luke has meditation rock now and assuming those story details from 2014 were actually for his ST character arc rather than TFA alone (where he had only a cameo) , your previous assertation that he may be "a Jedi Prospero" looks more and more on the money.

JabbatheHumanBeing I think that Jungian stuff is mostly going to affect supporting players such as Luke and Kylo, while Monomyth will apply to Rey maybe with some slight Jungian influences but nothing heavy. However, I do think that younger audiences enjoy complex movies. TDK isn't the most complex movie ever but it's complex for its genre and is younger audience's favorite and considered the best superhero movie to date. Likewise, ESB is more complex than other 2 OT movies and often cited as the best and favorite. I don't think that Jungian stuff would diminish the boxoffice. if anything did that would be complaint that TFA was too much like ANH.

 

Might want to slow your roll there, brah. YOU'RE the one bringing up **** like moonshine, monoliths and topography. Oh, and FURTHERMORE, if you cram too much Irish coast and Tolkien into the first Jedi temple you''ll end up with something what might as well be called O'Ch-Taughnessalador and nobody wants that.

I keed, I keed...

Anyway, yeah I've been meaning to kind of point this out for a while...some of what we're talking about happening would seem to require that the allusions be somewhat overt or even forced, and that would have the potential to come across as ham-fisted.

But count me as ALL IN FAVOR of alienating those less interested in more mature/sophisticated fiction if it means we'll get a more compelling finished work..

And yes, this means The Children.

Sorry kids. I'm particularly greedy when it comes to the pretentiously minuscule selection of art and entertainment that I find stimulating.

 

I agree, actually. I like to think that whatever influences they've incorporated, be they Jungian, or mythological, will sit firmly in the subtext. Star Wars should at it's heart operate at the level of the fairytale, and Flash Gordon should be as important an influence as Campbell. Whilst it may feed into the choices that the characters make, I think that a lot of this stuff could be suggested visually, perhaps through design, or cinematography.

 

Yeah, and I suppose I do sometimes forget that a respected and accomplished and more-than-capable writer/director is at the helm. These types of things, I would assume, require a delicate touch to get to that "classic" or even "timeless" criterion, and I think we might be getting that with this Johnson dude.

 

It's all about pawpaws and aspens.

This is what I was talking about--this is what I would love for Star Wars to become--less Casino Royale, more Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

 

I hope not; this is basically the same thing as The Matrix: Revolutions. Also,the computer RPG Ultima IX: Ascension (which was terrible).

I don't think this is possible anyway, as Snoke is said to have watched the Empire rise to power. He's supposed to be ancient, isn't he?

 

I didn't understand a single word you just said! That's not a critique of you, but of me since it's been a few moons since college. The fact that I'm uneducated about these concepts probably proves your point. But never underestimate what these theories can achieve if you mix them with awesome 'splosions on camera!

 

Which makes me wonder if the literature Rian Johnson studied during his pre-production preparations included David Hume's "On Morality And Detonations" or even "Blowed-Up: Deliverance Of A Disposable West" by Naomi Klein.

 

A little more on the Senex.....

If Luke represents the positive aspect of the Senex - the Wise Old Man - and Snoke represents it's negative aspect ( perhaps particularly apt, if he's an ancient Force user of some kind ) - an autocratic figure, representing monolithic dogmatism - then I think that Kylo Ren could represent the negative aspect of the Senex's opposite, the Puer Aeternus. Kylo exhibits a number of the characteristics associated with this figure: Entitlement, rejection of authority, lack of self control.


The Senex
The god Saturn-Kronos is image for both positive and negative senex. His temperament is cold. Coldness can also be expressed as distance; the lonely wanderer set apart, cast out. Coldness is also cold reality, things just as they are; and yet Saturn is at the far-out edge of reality. As lord of the nethermost, he views the world from the outside, from such depths of distance that he sees it, so to speak, all upside down, yet structurally and abstractly. The concern with structure and abstraction makes him the principle of order, whether through time, or hierarchy, or exact science and system, or limits and borders, or power, or inwardness and reflection, or earth and the forms it gives. The cold is also slow, heavy, leaden, and dry or moist, but always the coagulator through denseness, slowness, and weight expressed by the mood of sadness, depression, or melancholia. Psychologically the senex is at the core of any complex or governs any attitude when these psychological processes pass to end-phase. We expect it to correspond to biological senescence, just as many of its images: dryness, night, coldness, winter, harvest, are taken from the processes of time and of nature. But to speak accurately the senex archetype transcends mere biological senescence and is given from the beginning as a potential of order, meaning, and teleological fulfillment –and death- within all the psyche and all its parts. So death which the senex brings is not only bio-physical. It is death that comes through perfection and order. The senex spirit appears most evidently when any function we use, attitude we have, or complex of the psyche begins to coagulate past its prime. It is the Saturn within the complex that makes it hard to shed, dense and slow, and maddeningly depressing –the madness of lead-poison- that feeling of the everlasting indestructibility of the complex. It cuts off the complex from life and the feminine, inhibiting it and introverting it into an isolation. We must further conclude that the negative senex is the senex split from its own puer aspect. He has lost his ‘child’.



The Puer Aeternus:

The words, puer aeternus, come from Metamorphoses, an epic work by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – c.17 AD) dealing with Greek and Roman myths. In the poem, Ovid addresses the child-god Iacchus as puer aeternus and praises him for his role in the Eleusinian mysteries. Iacchus is later identified with the gods Dionysus and Eros. The puer is a god of vegetation and resurrection, the god of divine youth, such as Tammuz, Attis and Adonis. The figure of a young god who is slain and resurrected also appears in Egyptian mythology as the story of Osiris.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung developed a school of thought called analytical psychology, distinguishing it from the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). In analytical psychology (often called "Jungian psychology") the puer aeternus is an example of what Jung called an archetype, one of the "primordial, structural elements of the human psyche".
The shadow of the puer is the senex (Latin for "old man"), associated with the god Cronus—disciplined, controlled, responsible, rational, ordered. Conversely, the shadow of the senex is the puer, related to Hermes or Dionysus—unbounded instinct, disorder, intoxication, whimsy.
Like all archetypes, the puer is bi-polar, exhibiting both a "positive" and a "negative" aspect. The "positive" side of the puer appears as the Divine Child who symbolizes newness, potential for growth, hope for the future. He also foreshadows the hero that he sometimes becomes (e.g. Heracles). The "negative" side is the child-man who refuses to grow up and meet the challenges of life face on, waiting instead for his ship to come in and solve all his problems.

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"For the time being one is doing this or that... it is not yet what is really wanted, and there is always the fantasy that sometime in the future the real thing will come about.... The one thing dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatever."​

"Peter Pan syndrome is the pop-psychology concept of an adult (usually male ) who is socially immature. The category is an informal one invoked by laypeople and some psychology professionals in popular psychology. It is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a specific mental disorder.​

Psychologist Dan Kiley popularized the Peter Pan syndrome in his 1983 book, The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up. His next book, The Wendy Dilemma (1984), advises women romantically involved with "Peter Pans" how to improve their relationships.​

An example of the Peter Pan syndrome is used in Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel Island, in which one of the characters talks about male "dangerous delinquents" and "power-loving troublemakers" who are "Peter Pans". These types of males were "boys who can't read, won't learn, don't get on with anyone, and finally turn to the more violent forms of delinquency." He uses Adolf Hitler as an archetype of this phenomenon"​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puer_aeternus​

 

Slightly OT:

I recognize that first quote ("for the time being") as coming from Marie-Louise Von Franz's book, "Problem of the Puer Aeternus".

https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Puer-Aeternus-Marie-Louise-Franz/dp/0919123880

Probably one of the most personally powerful books I've ever read. If you're inclined toward Jung, and recognize some of the negative Puer aspects in your own life, I can't recommend it strongly enough.

 

For everyone who's interested in Bly's A Little Book on Human Shadow but have no time to read, Bly's reading from it here:

https://archive.org/details/The_Human_Shadow/Human_Shadow_1.mp3

So you can listen for free. You'll see it's really relevant for de-coding TLJ as Satipo pointed out in Spoilers.

 

Just found this old interview with Lucas that touches upon the Jung and Campbell influence.

"SCHELL. Does your concern with the emotional side of things have some bearing on your interest in mythology?

LUCAS. Yes. One of the reasons I do the things I do in my movies, and why I've gotten so wrapped up in mythology, is that for me they offer a chance to explore psychological archeology. It really is interesting to be able to cut across cultures and then go back 3,000 years and find what the emotional driving points were then and realize that they're the same now, that they touch the same chords today that they did then.

SCHELL. So how does the mythology of "Star Wars" fit into all this?

LUCAS. Jung was amazed by what anybody who delves into this past is amazed by -- namely, how many psychological motifs are constant throughout the human race and time, which is where mythology comes into it. Mythology is a performance piece that gets acted out over hundreds of years before it actually becomes embedded in clay on a tablet, or is put down on a piece of paper to be codified as a fixed thing. But originally it was performed for a group of people in a way in which the psychological feedback would tell the narrator which way to go. Mythology was created out of what emotionally worked as a story.

SCHELL. But these stories, these mythologies, have evolved over a long period of time, whereas you have created your mythologies out of whole cloth. Is this a kind of distortion of the process?
LUCAS. I haven't really distorted the process. Even though "Star Wars" is a completely new story, it's using the same old motifs. I mean it's still "The Hero of a Thousand Faces." The hero does have a thousand faces and this is just one of them. I'm obviously contemporizing my stories and personalizing them. What I am saying in my films is: These are emotional issues that I care about, that came out of my time, which are the 50's, 60's and 70's. But they embody ageless themes, a distillation of a lot of different mythologies from around the world.
The fun part is that I have been able to work in a worldwide market, and one of the weird and more interesting things about "Star Wars" is that it seems to work in as many cultures as it does."

https://partners.nytimes.com/library/film/032199lucas-wars-excerpts.html