"No one has closed the gap between art and technology more successfully than George Lucas. In his epochal six-film Star Wars saga, he fused ancient hero legends from East and West with futuristic science fiction and created characters who have entered the dream lives of millions. He constructed a vast, original, self-referential mythology like that of James Macpherson’s pseudo-Celtic Ossian poems, which swept Europe in the late eighteenth century, or the Angria and Gondal story cycle spun by the Brontë children in their isolation in the Yorkshire moors. Lucas was a digital visionary who prophesied and helped shape a host of advances, such as computer-generated imagery; computerized film editing, sound mixing, and virtual set design; high-definition cinematography; fiber-optic transmission of dailies; digital movie duplication and distribution; theater and home-entertainment stereo surround sound; and refinements in video-game graphics, interactivity, and music." (p. 336)
Quem diria, a Camile Paglia como fã encarniçada da saga Guerra das Estrelas. Tão fangirl que sublima a obra com uma forte teorização académica onde coloca George Lucas no mesmo pé que Donatello, DaVinci, Monet ou Picasso. Pode parecer chocante aos olhos que gostem de traçar distinções entre cultura "séria" e géneros, mas Paglia coloca o dedo na ferida: as artes tradicionais desdenharam os meios tecnológicos, que apropriados pelas artes aplicadas infiltraram a cultura popular com artefactos visuais de estilismo e complexidade similares aos da grande tradição artística mundial. É esse o elogio de Paglia a Lucas, o ter sido capaz de traduzir conceitos meta-ficcionais para a cultura global de uma forma visualmente apelativa.
Ou como Paglia coloca brilhantemente: "The digital revolution was the latest phase in the rapid transformation of modern communications, a process that began with the invention of the camera and typewriter and the debut of mass-market newspapers and would produce the telegraph, telephone, motion pictures, phonograph, radio, television, desktop computer, and Internet. Except for Futurists and Surrealists, the art world was initially hostile or indifferent to this massive surge in popular culture. Industrial design, however, rooted in De Stijl and the Bauhaus, embraced mechanization and grew in sophistication and influence until it has now eclipsed the fine arts."
