The Ambient-Media-to-Media-Supersaturation Spectrum

Star Wars isn’t just the Ur-film of cinema history by virtue of ticket sales; it is arguably the Ur-text of contemporary culture by virtue of its ubiquity, longevity, pseudo-originality. So when someone comes along in the culture who hasn’t seen it, interesting results follow. And what’s so funny about Star Wars Retold By Someone Who Hasn’t Seen It is not the mistakes made in interpreting a movie you’ve only heard about, but how significantly well the reteller does in relating the narrative of a film, and indeed an entire trilogy, that she’s never actually watched. Under digital conditions, the collective unconscious seems to become relatively conscious — relatively quickly.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the viewer who’s seen it so many times, and analyzed Star Wars from a Freudian perspective, that the analysis might best have been left in the entirely unconscious realm. Allz I’m sayin…