“When I was five,” said Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo andWALL-E, “I was introduced to possibly the most major ingredient that I feel a story should have, but is rarely invoked.” With that, Stanton showed this video to the audience at TED Talk.
What was the secret ingredient? Nature landscapes? Cute fuzzy animals? Well, there’s no denying you can't have too much of either of those things, but no. After the video, Stanton said: “I walked out of there wide-eyed with wonder.”
It’s odd how little you hear the word. How many times have you walked out of a theatre with your friends and said: “Wow, that movie filled me with wonder"? Only once in a blue moon do I ever come across a story that infuses me with such a feeling. And yet, according to Stanton, it’s the most important thing a story can have.
“Wonder is honest, it’s completely innocent, it can’t be artificially evoked. For me there’s no greater ability than the gift of another human being giving you that feeling. To hold them still just for a brief moment in their day and have them surrendered to wonder. When it’s tapped, the affirmation of being alive reaches you almost to a cellular level. And when an artist does that to another artist, it’s like you’re compelled to pass it on. It’s like a dormant command that’s suddenly activated in you, like a call to Devil’s Tower—do unto others what’s been done to you. The best stories infuse wonder.”
No doubt, we’ve all been wondering why Hollywood has been almost completely dominated by sequels and reboots recently. According to a recent report by the infamous Screen Junkies, only twelve of the top fifty films released in 2016 (so far) are originals. Back in 2000, the top fifty had a total of thirty-one original movies. Not only that, but a good deal of these “original” films—such as The Secret Life of Pets—were riding on the success of previous hits like Zootopia (so apparently cute fuzzy animals ARE the secret ingredient??) What’s happened? We can always attribute franchise fatigue to financial reasons: Hollywood is a business, and it doesn’t want to take risks on new material. Audiences want to spend their money on something familiar. So what if it’s Indiana Jones 50—what’s not to like about the iconic American action hero?
But I don't believe financial stability gets to the real problem. The real problem is that we as a culture have lost our sense of wonder.
But what, exactly, is wonder? Kindly indulge me in a little exercise. Close your eyes. (I know what you’re thinking. “Ugh, I hate these interactive-type articles.” Bear with me. Just this once.) Close your eyes and say these words to yourself: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” If there are people around you, pretend like you’re talking on a Bluetooth or something. Just say it.
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”
Now, of course, you recognize this as the opening line of Star Wars. But discard that from your mind. You have never heard of Star Wars. You have never even been in a movie theater. Think, very hard, stripped of all the fandom and childhood nostalgia, the meaning of those words. A long time ago. Before our Sun was born, before God gave Adam the breath of life, before the earth had form and darkness was over the surface of the deep. We did not even exist. There is nothing to see but unfathomable breaches of unrealized life for all eternity.
But not for all eternity. Elsewhere, lightyears and lightyears away, a thousand eons removed from any range of human experience, there is another galaxy already formed. And in that galaxy, there is a civilization. A civilization that was ancient before our galaxy even began. Today (if it still exists) it must be ancient beyond all imagining. And, back then, it was thriving with starships, fantastic beasts, floating cities, heroes, villains, legends—all before the first human being stood on his own two feet.
That is wonder. However, when we were all packed like sardines in the theater, swept up in the sheer exhilaration of “oh-my-gosh-star-wars-7-is-this-really-happening” I doubt many of us stopped to let these thoughts pass through our heads. Or, if we did, the antics of interplanetary warfare tore us away from it before we really had the chance.
If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we were not excited simply by seeing the mere, raw words “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” on the screen. Those words, if they do anything at all, transport us back to our childhood. We recall when we first saw those words flash across the screen. We are excited not by what the words represent, but the words themselves, the words dreamed up by an American filmmaker based in California who made a lot of money in the 1970s.
If you are a lover of Star Wars, don’t take this as meaning that I am attempting to disenchant you. On the contrary, I am trying to re-enchant you. Do we truly indulge in these stories because we are wonderstruck by them, or do we merely go to the theaters in an attempt to recapture that ephemeral sense of wonder that we lost a long time ago….in a galaxy far, far away?
It’s interesting that a good deal of these movies—the ones that are being rebooted—were not even that good to begin with. I realize such a claim as this may make some people defensive. “Hey, don’t diss my childhood, man.” I understand the sentiment. I don’t like people treading on my childhood loves. Believe me, I know the feeling. But let’s face it, the old black-and-white Superman TV series I watched when I was a kid were cheap, poorly acted, run-of-the-mill plotlines dreamed up by a committee of people who had to crank out an episode every week—or else. But why does that matter? The point is that we are dealing with an alien from outer space who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond the strength of mortal men. A man who can change the course of mighty rivers and bend steel with his bare hands. A man who can fly. As a kid, that was incredible. It was wonderful.
But our generation has been introduced to a very different kind of Superman. The old TV show had none of the melodramatic, mythic, almost religious reverence that saturates Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. When I watched Man of Steel, I experienced nothing of the feeling I had as a child. Since when did Superman take himself so darn seriously? Yes, Man of Steel tries, and tries nobly, to invoke wonder. But if we, as an audience, do not already have wonder, what will any amount of dramatization and realistic CGI effects do for us? What can possibly re-ignite a decaying imagination?
It is my belief that if we are not surrendered to wonder by a little fawn and a bunny playing on a frozen lake, nothing will. And no one understood this better than Walt Disney himself when he said, “I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us.”
