I had friends over for a house warming movie party recently. We decided to watch 80s flicks and quickly compiled a list. Of course, quintessential 80’s cinema “The Breakfast Club” was in the stack of titles, and ended up being the only one that everyone could agree on. So I cued it up on Netflix, the modern day version of popping a VHS cassette into the VCR, hit play and the drumbeats of Simple Mind’s anthem of the 80’s generation “Don’t You Forget About Me” resonated over the surround sound speakers in my living room.
As we were watching together, quoting lines, and sharing similar personal stories of high school and youth, for some reason I started noticing stark similarities between the John Hughes universe in 1985’s “The Breakfast Club” and the original “Star Wars” trilogy set a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
This essay is all in fun and by no means meant to be an intellectual dissertation of each film and its similarities, nor do i take a hard stance on any of my observations. These are similarities noted while engaging in afternoon shenanigans with friends as we laughed while reminiscing together. So I’m going to be using ”the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions” to illustrate my point.
The Breakfast Club’s opening shot is of Shermer High School in fictional Shermer, Illinois. A character not yet known to us is issuing prologue speech of date, time and location the film is set, “Saturday, March 24th, 1984; Shermer High School; Shermer Illinois” spoken over a montage of interior establishing shots that represent each of the 5 teens we will be introduced to in the coming minutes of the film. As with every Star Wars movie, though no one is reading it aloud to the audience, there is a prologue scroll creeping up the screen to establish at just which point in the Star Wars timeline this film takes place, “A long long time ago…in a galaxy far far away”.
The main action of the film is within the walls of the library where each of the teen characters are commanded to report for Saturday detention. In the context of Star Wars, the school could be considered Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer ship, and the library the Millennium Falcon, whose inhabitants were drawn helplessly into the school as if by tractor beam, aka detention.
Clearly, Principal Vernon, embodied by the late Paul Gleason, is the Darth Vader of Shermer High. John William’s iconic “Vader’s March” for Star Wars, could easily score his entrance into the library and it would work perfectly. He has a clear disdain for this crew of misfits, rebels, and the misguided, which comes through in his tone, attitude and words towards our team of detained high schoolers as he lays out the rules and expectations of the day; 8 hours of complete silence and a 1,000 word essay to describe who each of them think they are as individuals. Even when he enters the library from his office, it’s not hard to imagine his suit jacket, the jacket he possibly raided Barry Manilow’s wardrobe to get, flapping in the wind as if it’s his Vader cape trailing behind him.
The first character we meet in The Breakfast Club is Claire Standish, aka the high school princess, played by Molly Ringwald. Clair stands in as Star Wars princess from space, Princess Leia Organa of planet Alderaan, famously portrayed by Carrie Fisher. Both are beautiful, young, intelligent, entitled and privileged, with an attitude of confident high school bitchy that hides a specific vulnerability and insecurity, topped with a signature hairstyle. Claire with the brassy red sophisticated yet sassy look. Leia coiffed with what is commonly described as her “cinnamon rolls ‘do”.
It could even be argued that Claire discussing her home life can be related to when Leia’s home planet is targeted by the Death Star’s laser and explodes, when she says “Any minute now (poof)…divorce.” I could take this even further by pointing out that when Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, asks her who she’d choose to live with, she responds “I’d probably go live with my brother”. In Star Wars, due to Leia losing her home, she ends up cohabitating with her brother Luke on the Millenium Falcon and various Rebel bases.
Emilio Estevez’s Andrew, aka Andy, is TBC’s Luke. He’s “the athlete”, has deep “daddy issues”, and in the beginning of the film, shows a more than subtle flirtation towards “the princess”, that fades out through the day, much like Luke losing interest.
Though brother and sister in the Star Wars series, our “Luke” and “Leia” of The Breakfast Club are not related. However, they are cut from the same cloth socially; part of the “in-crowd”, the A-list, the cool kids, and could be considered “social brother and sister”. They understand their particular social scene, and float in the same circles, with the same pressures and expectations popularity and home dysfunction has heaped upon them.
A perfect example of this is when in the group summit on the balcony floor, Claire says “You don’t understand. You’re not friends with the same people Andy and I are friends with. You just don’t understand the pressure that they can put on you.”
Andy’s athleticism and wrestling background could be seen as a result his “Jedi training”, and he shows off his sweet Jedi moves in the pot smoking induced rage scene in the library when he comes out of the Foreign Language room and commits a series of flips, cartwheels, and shadowboxing. Kind of like when Luke visits Yoda in the swamp of Dagobah, training with him, full self-confidence and awareness on display, flipping, swinging from vines.
There was a chance Andy’s attitude to consistently win at whatever cost could take him to the “dark side” and mold him in the image his driven father expects of him, as displayed in his personal revelation during the “group therapy scene”. He saw a weaker kid in the locker room, and the voice of his father in his head driving him to “Win! Win! Win!”, much like “use the force” is used on Luke before he understands fully what it is and why he is hearing it. So he bullied and humiliated that scrawny kid to impress his friends and his “old man”, even though his conscience was saying it was wrong. But after it was over, that conscience and his inner kindness take over, he feels regret and remorse, and vows to be better than that.
John Bender, played by Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club, is the Han Solo of the teens. In both films, he would be described as a rebel punk, or “scruffy looking nerf herder”, who comes from a less than humble background. Han a smuggler, scoundrel, and yes, murderer (Greedo clearly did not shoot first) who owes money/bounty to galactic mob bosses; in TBC, Bender is dubbed a “criminal”. Both characters very much unsympathetic nor empathetic to those around him, and full of himself in a way that almost seems like a defense of insecurity. They also clearly have a crush on their respective princesses, but are very antagonistic in order to disguise their true feelings and vulnerability.
Bender in TBC, “Fuckin’ Rapunzel, right? School would probably fucking shut down if you didn’t show up! Queenie isn’t here!”
In SW, Han barks, “Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess.”
Like Han, Bender also comes across older than the rest of the crew. Or maybe just has more real life experience is the better description. He’s seen things, dark and shady things, and may have been involved, that have aged him internally a little beyond his years. We get a hint of this in the scene where he and Mr. Vernon verbally battle it out in front of the rest of the team, leading to being punished with additional Saturdays of detention for his combativeness and embarrassing the angry principal in front of the others, when Mr.Vernon says “Instead of going to prison, you will come here”. Which leads me to believe Mr. Vernon knows more about John Bender than the rest of the “Club” and audience. For further evidence to his past, we can refer to the “cigar burn scene” where he is angrily confessing to receiving that burn scar from his father after spilling paint in the garage, letting us in on a little of his dark history.
Anthony Michael Hall fills the role of geeky Brian Johnson, aka the C3PO of the trapped teens in TBC. He’s the logical one, “the brain”. The one that follows the rules, calculates life scenarios, is socially awkward, prone to tizzy fits, and clearly programmed by his parents to keep learning and educating himself. Both at home and socially, he is essentially ignored, and pushed aside. Even his humanity is ignored to a certain degree. Like a robot, he is treated as if he has no feelings, and the Club throws some tough insults his way. For example, Bender barks at Brian “You are a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie”. Yet later on, because they spent the day goofing off smoking pot, and navigating each other’s personalities, they need his brain to write the essay assigned by Mr. Vernon to meet the end of day deadline. The SW crew need C3PO’s programming, calculations, and “hard drive” to help get them out of multiple dangerous scenarios.
Both Brian and C3PO take care of the critical thinking for their respective groups. By the end of the film, Brian embraces his place in the group. With self pride, and newfound confidence, he writes one succinct and clear essay that speaks for the group as a whole, as well as each individual; “But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…and an athlete…and a basket case…a princess…and a criminal.”
My favorite character parallel lies within Ally Sheedy’s “Alison”, the “basket case”. Much like R2D2, she is mainly silent, and spends the first two thirds of the movie communicating in squeaks, gaffe’s, grunts, and gestures. But when she eventually talks, who best understands her? Andy, aka the Luke of the group, the way Luke understands R2’s bleeps in SW when none of the other characters seem to except C3PO. Brian, The Breakfast Club’s C3PO, does relate to her more as far as their backgrounds go. Both social pariahs at school, but for different reasons obviously. He’s a “geek”, she’s a “basket case”. However, ultimately Andy is her kindred spirit that she shows her vulnerable side to, and they pair off together. Kind of like how R2 pairs off with Luke in SW as his ride or die for space battles in the X-Wing and traveling the galaxy.
Midday, Carl the school janitor, enters the library to empty the trash cans. None of the students really know him, or even really recognize him except for Brian, whom Carl clearly has a long term acquaintance with based on the way they acknowledge each other, as C3PO knew old Ben Kenobi in SW.
He haunts the halls during the day, floating around students as an almost custodial spectre. The same halls he used to thrive in when he was their age. We even get a glimpse of young Padawan Carl in the opening montage of the film when it shows a display titled “Man of the Year” (1969), and Carl’s photo is featured in the center with the date “1969” under his name. Fifteen years before this particular Saturday in detention.
None of the Shermer students seem to even realize he’s there with them through their days, listening, taking it all in, and I’d guess internally reminiscing his own youth and popularity. Carl states to the group, “I am the eyes and ears of this institution, my friends”.
Now that he’s older, he has a bit of advice and guidance for the 5 youngsters in front of him, though he never actually says it, and maybe doesn’t even realize it. He’s a living cautionary tale, that just because you achieve a high status within the halls of high school, does not guarantee you will be as revered once on the other side of its doors in adult life.
Later in the film, he even offers principal Vernon some guidance after Vernon complains “I’ve been teaching for 22 years, and each year, these kids get more and more arrogant”. Carl responds by leveling with him “Bullshit, man. These kids haven’t changed, Vern. You have!”. Vernon continues to build his case, and reveals a human moment, sort of the “removing of the Vader helmet” he wears as a principal to strike fear and demand respect at the school by saying “These kids turned on me. They all think I’m a big fucking joke”. To which Carl offers a very truthful perspective for him to contemplate, “Listen Vern, if you were 16, what would you think of you, huh?”
As the movie went on, I even noticed similarities in some of the story points/plots between the two films.
The rebel team in Star Wars are running around the hallways of Vader’s Star Destroyer looking for an escape route while trying to evade Darth. Similarly, the rebel teens in TBC are running around the school’s locker filled hallways trying to avoid Vernon, while looking for Bender’s weed which will provide them with a “mental escape” in order to cope with the rest of their time locked away in the library.
Also, Han is even targeted specifically by Vader, the way Vernon targets Bender. The parallel could be drawn that when Han is captured by Vader and encased in carbonite, it’s like when Vernon locks Bender away in the utility closet isolating him from the group.
Eventually, both are rescued by the princess of their world, and receive a kiss to commemorate their release. Each man grateful and admitting to their genuine human feelings for their royal rescuers, shedding themselves of the cynicism and sarcastic wit they previously aimed towards the ladies.
At the end of The Breakfast Club, the battle of personalities is over, and there is peace and burgeoning love within the group. Much like the award ceremony at the end of Star Wars, they are each gifted something from someone: Claire receives Bender’s approval, the personal award she’d secretly sought all day; Claire gifted Bender with some of her riches in the form of a diamond earring; Andy is awarded the bond with, and love of Allison, for being open and vulnerable to her, because he listened to her as well; Where as Allison is given a make-over by Claire, which may help her come out of her antisocial shell; and they all present Brian with the best gift they could ever give him: acknowledgment that he is the smartest of the group, the endorsement of trust for writing the essay for all of them, and their friendship. It was sort of The Breakfast Club’s own personal award ceremony.
Yeah, some of my observations are a bit of a stretch, maybe most of it is, but as a kid of the 80’s, it was fun to visit both fictional universes and see them in a fresh perspective. After all, I’ve seen each one countless times. I cannot recall a time in my life without Star Wars, and can barely remember a time before I’d seen The Breakfast Club. These particular films are in my personal arsenal used for escaping from every day life and will continue to do so any time I’m detained on life’s metaphorical Star Destroyer.
