Apple and Star Wars together explain why much of the world around you looks the way it does

     
         Apple and Star Wars together explain why much of the world around you looks the way it does

This is the story of two big round things that loom large in our culture. The first of these is Apple Computer—and its ideas and ethics, as embodied in its monumentally circular new headquarters, now finishing construction in Cupertino, California (above).

 The other is the Death Star—the spherical, moon-sized battle station and colossal narrative device of the first and third original Star Wars films.

                           The original Death Star.

 The comparison between the two was instantly drawn when images of Apple’s planned building first appeared in 2011. (“Apple to Build Death Star HQ,” announced—for example—Stuff magazine.) It may, at first glance, seem like the apotheosis of hipster-nerd; roundly and reflexively associating one empire’s icon with another’sBut as the much-hyped seventh Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, approaches, and the enormous edifice in Cupertino nears completion, there’s a lot to be learned by looking at these things together, and not just because the careers of Apple's Steve Jobs, Star Wars creator George Lucas, and several of their key lieutenants are unexpectedly intertwined in the Bay-area’s urbane technological ferment.

 It’s also because the Apple building and the Death Star, with all their closed perfection, reveal a great deal about why today’s world looks and works the way it does.

 In particular, they point to the conflict and balance between order and openness, between power and the distribution of power, that must be constantly negotiated, and renegotiated, as we craft culture, city, and society at the beginning of the 21st century. Just like in the breathless sci-fi serials and proto-mythic narratives that were combined into the original Star Wars scripts, there are no coincidences here.

Real-Style --- -----Today.