Synthesis

I didn't really try to put together a generational model of stories. It started taking shape, though, after I had read through Generations and The Fourth Turning, and was understanding the larger model. I started seeing patterns visible in works from Harry Potter to Hamlet, from Buffy to Gatsby. Some of it was - and probably still is - confirmation bias and apophenia. There still seems to be something there, though, and that's what I'll be digging into here.

This is is a synthesis of observations, like the generations of filmmakers, with expectations from the model, like the personality traits. There are parts that start from the books, such as Luke, Han and Obi-Wan being Hero, Nomad, and Prophet. Others were observations that appeared unasked, probably because they follow easily -  that the 75th Hunger Games, and the Crisis they unleash, are right about when we expect it (~80 years after the Dark Days, clearly the previous Crisis). Still others are attempts to fit observations, hopefully without forcing them. One of these would be what happens with the generations of filmmakers - why there is this perceived change with new generations.

 There are three particular interactions with the generational model that will be considered:

First are the characters themselves and what archetypes they fit.   Are they intensely moral and pure of purpose? Are they misfits and criminals? Are they trying to follow the rules, or is the story about breaking them? Do they match with the attributes predicted by Strauss & Howe, and does that affect how the story works? 

Second is the question of where the characters fit in an historical context. Is there a major war going on, suggesting it's a Crisis period? Or do people talk about a war in the recent past, and what they did there? Are there strong religious or spiritual implications for what is happening, suggesting an Awakening? 

For stories set in the present day, this may not be immediately useful, since we should already know what's happening, now. Eventually, though, signposts to the past become helpful - that The Best Years of Our Lives is immediately after a Crisis war is an important item to know, for a trivial example. It's even more helpful with historical, speculative, or science fiction, where there may be hints we can glean from noting, say, that there sure are a lot of soldiers around the Bennet sisters.

Finally, there appear to be particular kinds of stories that break well along generational lines. The relatively recent GenX films aren't quite the same as the Boomer stories before them, or the (presumably) Artist stories before that.  It's as if particular generations want to create narratives that fit a more general narrative structure that is comfortable to them. We might expect, for example, that Heroes write Hero stories, ones that hew closer to Joseph Campbell. Does the story match the creator, or are there other influences?

That third one is what's up next. It's more than simply an attempt to explain what distinguished the mid-90s Xer filmmakers from the mid-70s Boomers. It suggests what different stories there are for different generations to tell.