Iconic Films....Star Wars and Wizard of OZ...

Recently in class we looked into Star Wars and the impact it has had on people and generations who have grown up with these characters, story lines and "life lessons." I certainly did grow up in a time when Star Wars was extremely relevant and had a older brother who was a huge fan so I saw the films and played with the action figures. Back then I was more entertained by the characters in the film and had really never paid attention to the cultural and mythical meanings within the film. We were asked to compare this movie to another movie from our generation, well I am part of Generation X so Star Wars is certainly a product of my childhood.
When I started thinking about other iconic films that did shape my childhood the one that seemed most significant was Wizard of Oz. Now this movie was made in 1939 which was many years before I or even my mother was born but that is the beauty of this movie it is timeless and it has continued to influence many generations. When we were young long before DVD's and VCR's even they showed this movie once a year on television and we waited anxiously the whole year to see it, even though we had watched it every year before that.
As in Star Wars we have a young main character Dorothy who is lost, without her home and on a journey..very similar to Luke. They are both without their parents and both have lost mentors and aunts and uncles. Both characters are on a quest to find home, family and a place of belonging..along the way both Dorothy and Luke learn many lessons while battling archenemies, Darth and The Wicked Witch. They also both obtain a close group of friends who join them in their journeys essentially becoming a surrogate family for both young characters. In the end what we learned from Oz we learned from Star Wars, family is what you make it, you are stronger than you believe and there's no place like home.
True this movie was made about 40 years before I was born but in order for a movie to be TRULY iconic it lives on for generation after generation. The lessons and characters are very similar and both told in magical, fantasy settings which entertain while enlightening us to many life importance's.