The Art of Immersion: The Star Wars Generation

Thanks to Susan for the heads up.

Adam Horowitz blames the whole thing on Star Wars.

Horowitz — who with his writing partner, Eddy Kitsis, was an executive producer on Lost and a screenwriter for Tron: Legacy — remembers seeing Star Wars in Times Square with his mom when he was five. As soon as it was over, he wanted to go right back in.

“But there’s no bigger Star Wars geek than Damon Lindelof,” he admits.

Lindelof, the co-creator of Lost with J.J. Abrams, was only four when he saw the picture. Years later, when ABC’s Lloyd Braun paired him with Abrams as the show was in development, Lindelof showed up for their first meeting wearing an original Star Wars T-shirt he’d gotten when he and his dad joined the Star Wars Fan Club. Abrams was wowed.

Lindelof, Abrams, Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly) — for a whole generation of Hollywood writers in their 30s and 40s, Horowitz quips, “Star Wars was a gateway drug.”

It was also a precursor to what we’re coming to expect in movies and TV. Shows in the past, Lindelof points out, went to great lengths to avoid unanswered questions. Lost was deliberately ambiguous.

“The show became an excuse to develop a community” online, says Carlton Cuse, who headed the production with Lindelof. “And the basis of it was that people were able to debate open-ended questions — questions that we insisted be open-ended, and that would get fans engaged in the show.”

Years before the web, with its boundless connectivity and its endless cascade of hyperlinks turned entertainment into a spelunking expedition, Star Wars was a saga you could immerse yourself in at will.

Source: Full Article @ Wired