The Growing Emptiness of the “Star Wars” Universe
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:07 pm
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultu ... s-universe
Early in William Gibson’s novel “Pattern Recognition,” from 2003, Cayce Pollard, a highly paid professional “coolhunter,” wanders through a London department store. Pollard is hypersensitive to the semiotics of brands: when a product is lame, she feels it physically, as a kind of pain. In the basement, she stumbles upon a display of clothes by Tommy Hilfiger. Recoiling from the “mountainside of Tommy,” she thinks, “My God, don’t they know?”
This stuff is simulacra of simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row . . . . But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.
I thought of this scene this weekend, after watching “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” “Solo” is an entertaining movie, with engaging performances, vivid production design, and enthralling action sequences. It’s also distressingly forgettable—it’s about nothing, an episode of “Seinfeld” with hyperdrive. In “Pattern Recognition,” Pollard wonders if Hilfiger’s blandness might be the source of his appeal: where most preppy clothes are freighted with meaning, Tommy allows you to look preppy without actually being that way. Similarly, “Solo” evokes “Star Wars” without quite being it. It isn’t the “null point” of the franchise, but it’s close.
To begin with, “Solo” confronts the problems of any prequel. It feels unnecessary and anticipatory of the real action, filling in the blanks without pushing the story forward. We already know what will happen—Han will meet Chewbacca, make the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, win the Millenium Falcon in a card game, and end up a rakish bachelor—and this puts any genuine suspense out of reach. It’s hemmed in, moreover, by the staid psychology of the “origin story,” according to which people are destined only to become themselves. In origin stories, people almost never contain multitudes, and circumstances rarely leave room for choice; “Solo” discovers that the young Han is pretty much identical to the older one, with the same skills, mannerisms, and values. It would’ve been interesting to learn that Han was once a sensitive boy with a musical gift, or a talented athlete with prospects for the pros, or a genuinely flawed person in need of improvement. Instead, he turns out to have no hidden self and nothing to regret. Our understanding of him does not change.