Between Borders

It’s no secret that Star Wars is based on the cliffhanger movie serials that flourished from 1912 to 1956. The text scrolling towards infinity that opens each movie is taken from the chapter openings of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). And the most recent film features a character — the clone leader working with Obi-Wan Kenobi — named Commander Cody, which I take as a deliberate tip of the hat to Commando Cody, who appeared in the serials Radar Men from the Moon (1952) and Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe (1953). A nice acknowledgment of sources.

However, to work as a serial, it should be possible to watch the six movies in numerical/chronological order.

The quest for truth permeates much of the world’s literature, from the Grail romances of the Middle Ages, through the early picaresque novels to the moral fables of the world’s great religions. All use a physical journey to symbolise a spiritual quest — a quest for truth. Both the modern adventure story and the detective story are descendants of these romances and fables although the detective story marks itself off by internalising the quest for truth, transforming the physical journey into an intellectual one.

The idea of writing a novel is surprisingly popular. It seems that nearly everyone who reads a novel or two entertains the notion that they might, one day, sit down and write one themselves.

Of the reasons given for these notions never advancing beyond a Sunday afternoon’s daydream, lack of time is the most prevelant.

After all, even assuming research and planning for one’s Magnum Opus is complete, everyone knows that writing a novel is a painstaking, almost all-consuming task which will take months if not years. Or will it?

What is Friendly Street that it is so succesful? Why does it survive (to now be Australia’s longest running regular poetry reading) where others, with possibly better resources, do not? Answers to these questions lie in both what Friendly Street is and isn’t.

The makers of Batman threw enormous sums of money about making certain the movie was talked about in every medium the developed world has to offer. Aside from this what good reasons were there to explain its enormous success?