Joseph Campbell on Star Wars as Modern Myth

"[The modern myth] has to do with machines, airshots, the size of the universe, it's got to do with what we're living with.

"Star Wars deals with the essential problem: Is the machine going to control humanity, or is the machine going to serve humanity? Darth Vader is a man taken over by a machine, he becomes a machine, and the state itself is a machine. There is no humanity in the state. What runs the world is economics and politics, and they have nothing to do with the spiritual life.

"So we are left with this void. It is the job of the artist to create the new myths. Myths come from the artists."

Joseph Campbell, interviewed by Chris Goodrich in Publisher's Weekly (1985)