Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

When I was a kid, living through the Star Wars-soaked late ‘70s and early ‘80s, my friends and I did everything we could to interact and live within the Star Wars world. First on the list, of course, was seeing the movies. But since they came out in three-year increments (‘77, ‘80 and ‘83), that obviously left lots of down time between installments. And since this was pre-VHS or even cable, we weren’t left with too many other options. There were the occasional (and mostly subpar) television specials and animated series (something to do with Ewoks and droids, respectively). Beyond this my friends and I made do with picture books and soundtrack records and even a bootlegged audio cassette of the movie a friend of a friend had made (of course, during the battle scenes it was nothing but muffled sound effects but still, I must have even just listened to Star Wars half a dozen times). But the biggest thing that filled the gap was the toys. With our plastic reproductions of Tie Fighters and X-Wings, we were able to recreate battles and scenes from the movies, or else just make up our own.

What amazes me about Star Wars is that it’s still alive and growing. Indeed, with the three most recent installments still fresh in peoples’ minds, it’s bigger than ever. And yet, whereas the original trio of movies were the catalyst for the phenomenon, the second trilogy of movies were really just yet another cog of the overall franchise. And there’s now a whole new dimension for Star Wars fans to participate in: video games.

However, even Star Wars-themed video games are nothing new. Back in the ‘80s there were numerous home and arcade videogames that used aspects of the Star Wars world as their plot. But those games were just, well, games. They consisted of crude pixilated versions of our cinematic heroes: a blocky Hans Solo or Luke Skywalker doing battle against similarly jagged Storm Troopers, while in the background an 8-bit version of the John Williams score bleeped and blurped. And while these games had enough of a backstory to get you going, they were really just tests of hand-eye coordination and skill. They were only immersive in the sense that, when a game was going well, we were in our own little world. But when the game only lasted between 5-10 minutes, it was obviously a passing experience.

But we now live in a world where video games have advanced graphics and multiple storylines, not just cursory plots. In fact, in terms of Star Wars, there’s a new game coming out this summer called The Force Unleashed. The game is already talked about as being a huge leap in gaming, not to mention being a kind of ad hoc new installment in the Star Wars saga; a game so rich with detail and story that it gives fans a chance to directly interact and experience the Star Wars world. Frank DiGiacomo recently wrote about the game’s development for Vanity Fair:

The character of Darth Vader is fleshed out further, and, in a plot twist almost as good as the “I am your father” moment from Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back, the game also contains surprising information about the birth of the Rebel Alliance. And like the dramatic arc of the six-episode saga within which it’s nestled, The Force Unleashed is ultimately a tale of redemption.

Compare this with earlier home video games of previous eras, such as Pitfall, which gave us an Indiana Jones-like explorer searching for treasure in a jungle. And yeah, it was fun to guide Pitfall Harry through various dangerous traps and adventures, but we never really knew who he was or why he was there. Compared to the cinematic (if not novelistic) storylines of modern day videogames, the age of Atari increasingly seems like mere canonical babbling.

Reading used to be considered an interactive pastime; parents encouraged kids to turn off their videogames and pick up a book. But reading looks positively passive next to something like The Force Unleashed. Indeed, in a world with entertainment choices like this for kids and teens, there’s a chance that the only reading they’ll ever do is looking over the instructions for these games.