Star Wars: Light and Dark

Hey everyone, I'm still in Prague, but I just finished up a huge project (and I'm recovering from celebrating the end of it), so I thought I'd lounge a bit and finish my series on Star Wars. Watching Return of the Jedi on Independence Day is what planted the idea for a post series in my mind, but I think what ultimately made me realize I wanted to talk about some of the themes was a line in Revenge of the Sith. After seeing Return and talking about the series as a whole with some of my friends, I decided to rewatch a few scenes of Revenge on YouTube. I really want to enjoy that movie because the overall story, the fall of Anakin Skywalker, is intriguing and it has some amazing duel scenes. Sadly, Anakin's fall is handled so poorly and the dialogue is so clunky that I can't will myself to like it. But as I was watching the build-up to Anakin and Obi-Wan's duel, one thing Obi-Wan said to Anakin really hit me. When Anakin said that Obi-Wan was either his friend or his enemy, Obi-Wan responded that only Sith deal in absolutes. Which is total bullshit. (Note: I just went on YouTube to see if I could get a short video of this exchange for the post, and someone pointed out that the line is an oxymoron.)

All the way back in A New Hope, Obi-Wan was telling Luke about the difference between the Light Side and the Dark Side of the Force; there isn't a bigger absolutist position than that. Jedi are trained to discern the Light Side from the Dark Side and to NEVER dabble in the darkness. In The Phantom Menace itself and the marketing for Attack of the Clones, this was further expanded upon; one somewhat famous scene from Phantom (it was in the first trailers... and was later alluded to in Buffy) has Yoda warning young Anakin that he was full of fear and that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the Dark Side. Then, there was a poster for Clones that featured Anakin and Padme back to back with a caption reading "A Jedi shall not know anger, nor hatred, nor love."

This way of life presents multiple problems in my opinion. The Jedi learn to control (read: suppress) their emotions and in effect become less than human. Or at least, that is how they should be if they truly eradicate their ability to feel basic human emotions like anger, fear, hatred, and love. Fear can even be a healthy emotion; it can inform us of when we should flee instead of fight, and people who claim to feel no fear usually are either arrogant or fooling themselves. And to deny oneself anger is pretty dangerous. I have no doubt that plenty of organizations in the Star Wars universe have done things to piss off the Jedi, whether it be the Senate, the Sith, or smugglers, and although the Jedi may be good at controlling their anger, there are probably some things that are unforgivable, even to the most enlightened and calm. The fact that the Jedi are "peace-keeping" agents requires them to be in a position that will earn them a lot of enemies, and there will likely be some animosity between the Jedi and the Sith. Obi-Wan was probably upset with Anakin for his descent into darkness, and I can't imagine not hating the man partly responsible for destroying your way of life and everything you hold sacred.

Even the fact that the distinction of the Force is based upon lightness and darkness is absolutist. Is every Jedi who follows the path of the Light Side morally clean? Is every Sith morally bankrupt? George Lucas continually tries to point out Darth Vader, a Sith lord, as a tragic figure with redeeming characteristics. And come on, there has to be at least one Jedi who is a total dick. You can probably tell from this that I am a moral relativist, and I think that if a character in the Star Wars universe were to find a way to walk a middle path between lightness and darkness, that character would become more powerful than any other Jedi or Sith (maybe that happened; Palpatine told Anakin that he could foresee him becoming the most powerful Jedi ever, and Anakin was a "tragic" Sith). To use the incredible powers of the Dark Side for righteous and moral means and still be able to become "one with the Force" (become a Force Ghost) would have its advantages.

That's it for Star Wars for now. Law school is starting up again soon, so my posts won't be frequent for a while. I will try and keep up with TV (Mad Men, Dollhouse, and Dexter are starting up soon), but I don't have an idea for a post series right now.

Up next: Television tracking...

Star Wars: The Tragic Tale of Darth Vader

I apologize now if I start bashing heavily bashing George Lucas in these posts. That is not my intent, but he has done and said things about the Star Wars movies (and let's not forget Indiana Jones and the License to Print Money) that don't always make sense. One of which concerns Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader; Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy established him as a tragic character, one who fell from grace to become one of the most ruthless and deadly beings in the galaxy, only to redeem himself by fatally injuring himself to kill his master, Emperor Palpatine. But there was no trace of his inner conflict in either A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. In those movies, he was portrayed as pure evil because the inner conflict hadn't yet been established (the revelation that he was Luke Skywalker's father was a late addition to Empire).

The entire story of the six Star Wars movies was redefined as the story of the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. Never mind that the focus was clearly on the Rebels in the original movies or that George Lucas said for years that he wanted to make 9 movies (although he vehemently denies that now). The prequels were about telling his rise and fall, in order to explain why Darth Vader was who he was when we met him in the original trilogy. In theory, I really like the story because tragic characters intrigue me, and if Lucas had planned this from the beginning, I think it would have been an incredible story. But as it is, we were introduced to Vader as an absolute, a being of pure, unrepentant evil. And that's what audiences attached to. We liked watching a villain who was merciless and completely dedicated to the cause of evil. Don't get me wrong, I usually prefer villains (and heroes) who are very complex and neither purely good nor purely evil, but every now and then, an absolute is pretty fun (just look at the Joker). In A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, there was not a single spark of goodness in Vader. When made his big paternity revelation to Luke, we could see it as the necessary step Luke needed to take to become an absolute to defeat Vader (because we thought we were watching Luke's story; and on the other hand, Vader could have been lying because he was EVIL).

But after Lucas decided to make Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker the same person, he decided that Vader should be redeemed through his son. He decided to introduce the Emperor in Return of the Jedi (instead of the proposed 9th film) as the new absolute evil, instead of the powerless bureaucrat he originally envisioned Palpatine to be. All of the sudden, Vader became but a pawn. There was also a scene where he showed some hesitation after Luke accused him of having good deep down inside. I still enjoy Return of the Jedi, but Vader went from being all evil to all good because his son told him so.

Interestingly enough, the opposite complaint is leveled against Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogies; people accuse him of going from all good to all evil without any reason. I think this is slightly exagerated, but this criticsim does have its merit. It was clear from Attack of the Clones that Anakin had some anger issues when he slaughtered the sandpeople who abducted and killed his mother. Granted, revenge is a basic human desire, but Jedi are trained to suppress a lot of basic human emotions and desires (more on that in the next post). In The Phantom Menace, we are TOLD that Anakin has a lot of fear and anger, but with the exception of one scene, all of that manifests as sadness (and he was a pretty happy kid for a slave).

When I talk about these "what-would-have-beens", I cannot substantiate most of them, but I have heard them from many sources for many years, so I am basing a lot of my conclusions on them. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin was pushed over the edge when he saw Mace Windu try to kill Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (who had recently revealed himself to Anakin as Darth Sidious and promised him a way to save his wife). Strangely, even though he knew Palpatine was a Sith and that he had manipulated the events of the prequels, Anakin took Palpatine's side in the "Jedi Rebellion" and the formation of the Empire. I've recently read about how, originally, Revenge of the Sith was going to focus less on Anakin fearing Padme's death and more on Palpatine convincing him that the Jedi were trying to take over the Republic (see above for my position on my sources). In the final cut, there were cursory references to making people think the Jedi were trying to take over, then after Palpatine told everyone about the supposed Rebellion, everyone, including Anakin, believed him. But even when Anakin aided Palpatine in killing Windu, Anakin was still conflicted. It wasn't until Palpatine promised to save Padme's life that Anakin decided to join Palpatine and believe absolutely everything he said.

As I said, in theory, the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker is a great story. He came from nothing, could have had everything, but decided to take everything instead. He became one of the most feared men in the galaxy, but was redeemed by his son when his master tried to kill his son. But the story was reshaped numerous times, and we ended up with a somewhat strange path to the dark side.

Up next: The way of a Jedi...

Star Wars: The Politics of the Galactic Republic and Empire

I am ashamed to say that a rather large realization I had about the Star Wars universe came not only from one of the updates in the "Super Special Editions" (my name for the further edits made to the already edited films to maintain some continuity with the prequel trilogy), but from a Gungan (the species that Jar Jar Binks belongs to). At the very end of the latest version of Return of the Jedi, after the Empire falls, we see residents of various planets celebrating (in the first rerelease, we got our first view of Coruscant) , and the newest version shows a scene in the capital city on Naboo. A Gungan yells out, "Weesa free!", and I suddenly had an epiphany: we got very few scenes showing us how the Empire functioned as a government. We were well aware of how evil the Empire was because, after all, it was led by two Sith lords. Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader obviously ruled with iron fists based on the actions they took against their own men. However, we only ever saw them in their roles within the Imperial military. I know that wars are fought by soldiers, but wars have politics behind them, and we didn't see any other branch of the Imperial government.

That doesn't mean that we didn't get an idea of how the Empire ruled, but we only ever saw the military. After making my realization, I tried to think of any time in the original trilogy when we saw the Empire interact with civilians, and I came up with a very small number of examples. In A New Hope, we saw the Empire in action when they (1) killed Owen and Beru Lars after learning that R2-D2 and C-3P0 were sold to them and when (2) stormtroopers interrogated people in Mos Eisley about the droids. However, as I came to understand things in both the original and prequel trilogies, neither the Old Republic nor the Empire had much of a foothold on Tatooine. In The Phantom Menace, Republic money was worthless on the planet, which was primarily run by Hutt gangsters, and in A New Hope, Luke's comments about the worthlessness of the planet made it seem unimportant to the Empire. The impression I got was that the stormtroopers who were searching for the droids landed from the Star Destroyer that captured Princess Leia and would pack up once their mission was complete (this could be completely wrong, but it is the impression I got).

The other example is from The Empire Strikes Back; the Empire enforced its will in Cloud City through the use of its military. Once again, our heroes came to a planet free of Imperial influence only to discover that Darth Vader and a few ships from the Imperial Navy showed up to pursue them. Vader made a deal with Lando Calrissian, Han's old friend and the current leader on Cloud City, stating that in return for turning Han, Leia, Chewie, and C-3PO over to the Empire, he would enjoy continued existence free from Imperial control. Throughout the course of their dealings, however, Vader continually altered the deal, knowing that Lando would have no choice but to comply (the alternative was submit to the Empire). If this was any indication, the Empire functioned through its military, using its vast army and navy to bully star systems into compliance.

In A New Hope, there was a brief reference to the Imperial Senate, once the Galactic Senate, and how the Emperor finally dissolved it. From what we could tell, Emperor Palpatine had absolute power to make whatever decision he wished and that the military was used to enforce his will. But this makes me wonder why the Rebel Alliance wasn't larger. If the Empire was as oppressive as we were told it was, and the military was its primary enforcer, then why did it take so long to overthrow? Some people have drawn parallels between Palpatine and Hitler, which I'm not going to wholly refute, but while Hitler singled out groups for the camps, we are led to believe that Palpatine was ruthless to everyone, which is not a way to maintain a government. While going through Wikipedia before starting this post series, one article mentioned that Palpatine had disdain for non-humans, which would bring him more in line with Hitler. But I do not recall seeing this anywhere in the two trilogies; from what we saw, he was indiscriminate in who he would harm.

And yet, in spite of their actions, Palpatine and Vader constantly state that their goal is to bring order to the galaxy. They say this to each other at one point in Revenge of the Sith, which would make us think that maybe they really do believe it. But every other time they say it, it is to others; Palpatine says it to the Senate to make them go along with the idea of an Empire and Vader says it to Luke when trying to bring him to the Dark Side. One doesn't have to look to closely at these two to know that all they really want is power. Or maybe with Vader, there is more there, but that is better reserved for my post about him. Palpatine may believe that order will come out of fear, but I doubt he would have worked as hard as he did during the prequel trilogy if he truly cared about order.

Which brings me to the prequels; unlike the original trilogy, we got more than we bargained for with the political stuff in the new trilogy. George Lucas claims these are kids movies, but when I first saw The Phantom Menace, I was thoroughly confused by the political plot. The Trade Federation blockade made no sense to me and I had no idea what a vote of no confidence was. In Attack of the Clones, the Separatist movement was poorly explained, and in Revenge of the Sith, the "Jedi Rebellion" was one act that only Palpatine witnessed. And yet, while all of those important political events were short-changed, we got numerous scenes of political discourse that seemed superfluous. If the original trilogy was about the civil war between the Empire and the Rebels, the prequel trilogy was about the politics that brought down the Republic. Unfortunately, the politics we saw were either unnecessary or handled extremely poorly. It wasn't until I saw all three prequels at least twice to fully realize Darth Sidious' (Emperor Palpatine's alter ego) plan and how he was manipulating things. I knew he was the one responsible, but everything was so muddled. For instance, I realize that he started the blockade in Phantom Menace to oust the old chancellor with the no confidence vote, but I still am not sure why the Trade Federation went along with it.

Up next: The rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker...