A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

I,ve been coming to these boards for years, and I'm sure this has been discussed, but how long ago are they talking about here? Has there ever been any direct Lucas quote on the how long ago the events in SW happened? Also, as a curiosity, how many years advanced are they ahead of us(technology-wise)? Even EU answers will do at this point...

 

>>>>I,ve been coming to these boards for years, and I'm sure this has been discussed, but how long ago are they talking about here?

Facetious answer: A long, long time.

Nerd answer: It can't have been very long ago, or very far away, because the constellations in Tatooine are virtually identical to those above Tunisia, so they must be close in both time and space.

Real answer: It's like "how come there are there noises in space" or "how do lightsabers work" or the Zen problems like "what's the sound of one hand clapping"- it doesn't matter, and if you're strugglinig trying to figure out the answer, you're kind of missing the point.. It's just like "Once upon a time"- the point is that it's not here or now.

OK, maybe that was the nerd answer...

 

I would guess around 1300's or 1400's our time.

who's been on the boards the longest? Anyone?

 

The only actual time mentioned by GL, as far as I know, was in an early draft of the script. It mentions that the story takes place in our 33rd century.
GL then moved the story to the past to make it more dramatic.

 

Thanks, DS615. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. You've got to think that Lucas has addressed or at least had to have had some sort of vague time frame in mind. I heard somebody say that the events take place about 25,000 years ago, but I'm not sure who said it or where they got the info.

 

You can't go by early Lucas ideas, he had many

There is a nice Lucas quote that answers your question it went a little like,

"A Long Time Ago in a galaxy far, far away"

Correct me if I mis-quoted it.


On the serious side: It does not matter. I'm sure it happened a long time before humans entered the scene on Earth. It is another galaxy and it matters not. It is a fairy tale and you just accept it.

Is there any time between galaxies? Is it not just time where humans are. No humans live between galaxies so is there time or is it just space?

It matters not.

-Seldon

 

According to some of the chronologies I've seen, the events of A New Hope happen 25,000 years after hyperspace was discovered and the Republic was formed. So that means the GFFA is probably 30,000 years ahead of us with technology (assuming they were more advanced than we are before they discovered hyperspace travel.)

 

You can't go by early Lucas ideas, he had many


I didn't say to "go by" that. I said that's the only thing I had ever seen that gave an actual time.

 

Star Wars did not always take place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . ." The treatment (The Star Wars) set the story in the thirty-third century, during a period of civil war in the galaxy. In fact, the famous line appeared for the first time in the fourth draft and read: "A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away an incredible adventure took place."

George Lucas: "I knew from the beginning that I was not doing science fiction. I was doing a space opera, a fantasy film, a mythological piece, a fairy tale. I really thought I needed to establish from the start that this was a completely made up world so that I could do anything I wanted."

-- From Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays

So that's pretty much it. Lucas never thought in terms of how long ago it was from our reality. It's just a line akin to "Once upon a time . . ." so the audience would know this is all made up and not based in any reality.

L8r

 

[face_shocked]!!! So YOU are the one who first took the name, Professor Moriarty!



Seriously though, this is a fantasy sci-fi story set in a time and place that is beyond... memory. It feels good the way it is.


Ciou-See the Sig

 

You can't go by early Lucas ideas

weve heard that thinking before



seriously thought, some authors might give numbers for the purpose of writing their story, but you never know unless you hear it from lucas. And so far, his answer is simply "a long time ago".

 

...and in a galaxy far, far away.


meaning, that, even if ideas travelled at the speed of light, the distance between galaxies being measured in the millions of light-years, then the events of Star Wars took place when single-celled organisms ruled the Earth.

 

"a long time ago....." is jsut "once upon a time//"'s replacement. it wouldn't sound very cool if it started "once upon a time". SW is a fairy tale, so it ahs to take place in a foreign time and place.


Three eyes:"what is the sound of one hand clapping?"



clap v. "To come together suddenly with a sharp sound." one hand cannot come together if it has nothing with which to come together with.

 

What is the Sound of the Single Hand? When you clap together both hands a sharp sound is heard; when you raise the one hand there is neither sound nor smell. Is this the High Heaven of which Confucius speaks? Or is it the essentials of what Yamamba describes in these words: "The echo of the completely empty valley bears tidings heard from the soundless sound?" This is something that can by no means be heard with the ear. If conceptions and discriminations are not mixed within it and it is quite apart from seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing, and if, while walking, standing, sitting, and reclining, you proceed straightforwardly without interruption in the study of this koan, you will suddenly pluck out the karmic root of birth and death and break down the cave of ignorance. Thus you will attain to a peace in which the phoenix has left the golden net and the crane has been set free of the basket. At this time the basis of mind, consciousness, and emotion is suddenly shattered; the realm of illusion with its endless sinking in the cycle of birth and death is overturned. The treasure accumulation of the Three Bodies and the Four Wisdoms is taken away, and the miraculous realms of the Six Supernatural Powers and Three Insights is transcended.
From p. 164, Yabukoji, in The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings, Translated by Philip B. Yampolsky, Columbia University Press, New York and London, 1971.

Personally, I prefer Bart Simpson's answer.

 

Lucas told Christopher Lee that Star Wars takes place further back in time than Lord of the Rings, but I don't know if there is a stated time period for LOTR!

 

so if you went far enough into the SW future, and you flew to middle earth, you might see the fellowship?

 

"Has there ever been any direct Lucas quote on the how long ago the events in SW happened? "

Well I don't know about a direct quote but the 1st movie came out in 1977


"Lucas told Christopher Lee that Star Wars takes place further back in time than Lord of the Rings, but I don't know if there is a stated time period for LOTR! "

LOTR took place in the 3rd age of Middle Earth. That would be just before or during the Hyborian(sp) era in Earth history, the time Atlantis supposidly existed.

 

Isn't the Star Wars Saga supposed to be adapted from the Journal of the Whills ?

So, it's "a long time ago" from the Whills' perspective, not necessarily from ours. We have no evidence on who (or what) the Whills are, and where and when they lived.


In fact, the Saga could be set in a distant past from the Whills' point of view AND still be in our future.

 

so, what you are saying is that if this were so, the saga is based on something quite possibly not written yet. The only evidence of that is that, judging from her performance, is that Natalie Portman was never given a script, since it had yet to be written.


folks, the spinning sound you're hearing is Einstein, turning in his grave.