Author: Cass Sunstein
| Synopsis |
| The World According to Star Wars (2016) was published by Cass Sunstein 2016. The book explains how ideas are created and how most creativity elements only unfold during the process. It also takes your attention to the fact that once a creative project reaches the tipping point, it spreads like fire. There are factors like time and luck that make a project successful, and Star Wars happened to have both on its side. |
Detailed Summary of The World According to Stars Wars
If you have seen or heard anything about Star Wars, you know it involves space, spaceships, alien-like characters, and weapons. What you do not know is that even though it is fictional, there are a lot of lessons to learn from Star Wars.
In The World According to Star Wars, Cass Sunstein takes you behind the scenes. You will learn how creativity worked in Star Wars making, how the creator does not control all the factors leading to the finished project, and how Star Wars presents an outlook on religion and politics.
The book will take you inside the creative brain of the Star Wars creator, to 1970s America, and to a trip back in time in a galaxy far away, packed inside only a few hundred pages.
The World According to Star Wars Summary Key Points
Do you believe in the power of storytelling? How can it change our perspective and make the world a better place for us? Also, How does storytelling change the concept of morality, ethics, and culture to reshape our beliefs?
The following key points will reveal answers to all these and other questions in your mind. Let’s dive into the details to learn from the biggest name in the entertainment world.
You might also like to read No Rules Rules Summary to learn how to do changes in the company’s culture.
Creativity is not a Linear Process
You Cannot always plan the ending of the project at hand. If you are a writer or someone who has ever written a short story, you will agree with what I say. When you sit down to write a story, you have a proper plot in mind.
This conventionally includes your beginning, middle, and conclusion. You begin to write, and many ideas come into your mind, and you introduce a rising and falling action in your story.
As the story progresses, you give in to adding some plot twists, and most of the time, the ending happens to be quite different from what you had imagined in your mind. In the same way, the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, confessed in interviews that he did not know how the story would unfold when he started creating the first film.
He just wanted to create something with aliens and humans. A film that portrayed humans as villains and aliens as heroes. Everything you watch in the trilogy is the result of the constant creativity that was done during the process. It was not planned beforehand.
This shows that when you work on something creative, things often change from what you had imagined. This may feel scary but trust the process. You cannot foresee everything when it comes to such projects. The key here is to follow the flow and trust your creative instincts. Be open and welcome uncertainty!
Star Wars and both time and Luck by its side
You know by now that movies, seasons, and books are huge sources when people want to escape. What do you do after a hectic and tiring week when you have no energy left? Most of you might have replied that you get in comfortable PJs and binge-watch your favorite season the entire Saturday.
This is the kind of escapism people needed in the late 1970s. No, it wasn’t an ordinary hectic day or a bad couple of years in the state. I am talking about the economy going into a rut, the cold war, important personalities being killed like Martin Luther King Jr., the Watergate scandal, the energy crisis, and the ongoing Vietnam War.
In short, the 1970s were tumultuous, and people needed something to escape. Something that did not remind them of these events.
So yes, nothing from your typical historical fiction or reality-based genre worked, and Star Wars: an American epic space-opera multimedia franchise, did the exact job. It took the people to a galaxy far from where Luke skywalkers on a quest to become a Jedi. It showed them his struggle with the evil Imperial agent Darth Vader and the struggle to free the galaxy from the hands of the Galactic Empire.
The second factor that played in favor of Star Wars was its luck. Gen Z and millennials will be quite familiar with the tipping point concept, but let me make it easier for you.
Remember how Money Heist became insanely popular a few years back, and everywhere from Facebook to Instagram, you started seeing clips and memes from the show? Then all of your friends started watching and praising it. Soon you fell into the peer pressure and binge-watched it too.
This is what happened with Star Wars. Initially, People watched it to escape; it was so good that it was soon everywhere. Its most famous jokes and dialogues, including the infamous ‘I’m your father,’ were on everyone’s tongue. As it was everywhere in every discussion, more and more people watched Star Wars, and today, there is a huge fandom related to this franchise.
The World According to Star Wars Quotes
“Lawrence Kasdan has this to say about Star Wars: “Force Awakens, New Hope, Empire—these are movies about fulfilling what is inside you. That’s a story that everybody can relate to. Even when you get to be my age, you’re still trying to figure that out. It’s amazing, but it’s true. What am I, what am I about, have I fulfilled my potential, and, if not, is there still time? That’s what the Star Wars saga is about.” –Cass R. Sunstein
“A lot of people disparage the Star Wars prequels, and understandably so; they’re not nearly as good as the original trilogy. But in their own way, they’re not just beautiful; they’re also awfully clever. Here’s the best part: all of the choices in the first trilogy are precisely mirrored in the prequels. The two trilogies are about freedom of choice under nearly identical conditions. Lucas was entirely aware of this: “Luke is faced with the same issues and practically the same scenes that Anakin is faced with. Anakin says yes, and Luke says no.” –Cass R. Sunstein
The World According to Star Wars Summary Review
The book does a fantastic job of taking you behind what you see on screens. It is not just about what you see in Star Wars. It is about the not-so-linear process of creativity and factors like time of release and popularity trend that we often overlook while analyzing creative projects.
You will thoroughly enjoy it if you want to know stuff related to entertainment, Sci-fi, and creative projects. Also, the book is a treat for Star Wars fans.
The two things that played an important role in the success of Star Wars are timing and luck.
To Whom I would Recommend the World According to Star Wars Summary
- To the literary nerds who want to learn about creativity from the most popular fanfictions in the world.
- Particularly to the fans of the Star Wars franchise.
- And to anyone who is interested in the Sci-fi genre.
Link: https://amzn.to/3vrDPIt