I enjoy small stories. I like watching intimate, art house films or reading literary fiction in which characters do nothing more than learn a little about themselves, grow in surprising ways, overcome their own inner demons. These tales connect with us because our lives are filled with these kind of stuggles.
But I love epics. I care more when the central conflict of a story is life-and-death, good-and-evil writ large. A director from Argentina I met recently told me he hated movies about “rich people’s problems.” I’m a little less particular—everybody’s got legitimate problems in this world—but I can appreciate his point. Stories with real obstacles capture my imagination best.
Epic stories awaken thoughts of greater purpose and meaning than we typically face. That hunger for justice which most of us in places like the U.S. take for granted is primal, even theological. Movies like he original Star Wars trilogy, Braveheart and Avatar are epic stories that briefly draw us into completely foreign environments for a couple of hours. But the recent Battlestar Galactica series pulled off a commendable feat by combining the epic with the mundane. It was science fiction that also connected on a much smaller level as the remnants of humanity explored what it means to be a father, son, wife and friend.