By Joel Hodge
[Snip] Lucas’s stated aim was to create a mythology that could provide moral guidance within the context of a renewed sense of spirituality and transcendence. Lucas was concerned this mythology was lacking both in cinema (following the decline of the Western) and in a post-1960s social context. In a 1999 interview with Time magazine, he reflected on these mythic qualities:
I see “Star Wars” as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct […] I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people – more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.
This, in large part, helps to explain the enduring quality of “Star Wars”: It sought to take us deep into the mystery of life and existence through an imaginative and engaging story.
