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June 3, 2005
Star Wars Review
With the release of Episode III, I finally took the time to watch the entire Star Wars series for the first time, and once more for good measure. Generally, I found that, without integrating numerous subtleties spread throughout the six episodes, it is easy to not see the true good of the series and misjudge it based on its face value and the unfortunate wording of the dialogue. That being said, upon reflecting beyond the face value of the series, my overall assessment of Star Wars is positive: Beneath all the special effects, the lightsaber-fighting, and the mediocre acting and writing, Star Wars is a moral story about good versus evil, about those who live by a benevolent universe premise versus those who live by a malevolent universe premise, about freedom and representative government versus slavery and despotism.
It all begins in a fictional world set in a galaxy and time where volitional beings of numerous kinds (the race of men being but one), living on various star-systems, have conquered faster-than-light space travel. The thinking life-forms living on these systems in the galaxy are members of a galactic republic of sorts whereby each planet is represented by elected senators in a galactic senate headed by a senate-elected chancellor. The Galactic Republic's rule is upheld by the ancient 'Jedi order,' a relatively small group of deadly lightsaber-wielding warriors that are trained to master a magic called 'the force' which, in a mysterious way, is associated with the emotions driving the usage of the force.
In this fictional world, the force originates from a bio-substance that all living beings possess within themselves in varying concentrations; the higher the concentration of this substance, the higher the innate propensity to master the force. While the Jedi are dedicated to using the force for good, there is also a group dedicated to using the force for evil: the Sith. The Sith are an order of lightsaber-wielding warriors started by former Jedi that are intent on using the force to usurp the Republic and monopolize the rule of the galaxy for themselves, to establish for themselves an empire. This contrasts with the Jedi, who use the force to protect representative government, freedom, the Republic. This is Star Wars's standard of the good, at least in a social context.
It is thus that there are two sides to the force, the good and the dark. Whether or not one is using the good or the dark depends on the emotions which are driving one's usage of the force. This is, at least, my own understanding. While using the dark side of the force involves acting upon hatred, fear, anger, etc., I can't, however, tell for sure what emotions are used to drive the good side of the force. It may be that the Jedi preach that use of the force must done after clear introspecting and meditation (thus not driven on the sole basis of emotion), while the Sith preach that use of the force can be had by blind adherence to emotion. Either way, to be part of the dark side is to use the force for evil, or to be part of the good side is to use the force for good.
Star Wars begins (in Episode I) with the Republic in turmoil. Secretly, a Sith Lord has infiltrated the senate and is manipulating a civil war in order to divide and conquer the Republic. With the existence of the Republic at stake, the Jedi try to hold things together as wars breakout all over the galaxy.
Eventually, the Jedi fail to prevent the Sith from succeeding when Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi who they thought was the one spoken of in prophecy as the 'chosen one' who would actually destroy the Sith, betrayed them for the Sith. Anakin ends up thwarting the Jedi's attempt to kill the Sith infiltrator and then joins him as his apprentice. Anakin and his master then destroy all the Jedi except for two, Yoda and Obi-Wan, opening the door for the rule of the Sith and the Empire.
The nature of Anakin's betrayal is not trivial. The dominant cause, however, is Anakin's disillusionment with existence caused by a series of frustrating events. Though the betrayal is not portrayed in a convincing manner, it only makes logical sense considering the loss of his mother by his inability to act quickly in order to rescue her in time from a people who held her captive, as well as his view of the Jedi's fall from grace when, pushed along by his close friend, the Chancellor of the Republic, he seeks more power within the Jedi council (a group of the highest ranking Jedi that determine the Order's agenda) and is consistently denied. Culminating with the council's request that Anakin betray the Chancellor and spy on him for them, it is pretty clear that Anakin's frustration with his life precipitated into him turning to the dark side, only to further boil over after he is told by his master, Lord Sidious, that his anger killed his pregnant wife. Thus begins the rule of Darth Vader and Lord Sidious.
Unbeknownst to Anakin (now Darth Vader) and Lord Sidious, however, his wife bore him a male child that would eventually, with the help of the two surviving Jedi masters, become a Jedi and help a group of rebels bring down the Empire. The climax of young Luke's Jedi career occurs when he willingly comes to the Emperor and demonstrates that he is not tempted by the lure of the dark side to rule the galaxy, thereby showing his father that good exists, that not all man is evil, that not all is lost, that even though he was disillusioned by his former Jedi friends, that even though he lost high values like his mother and his wife, here is his son giving him a proud example of moral rectitude.
In this sense, Star Wars is a story about how Anakin Skywalker lost his will to value, lost his idealism, and how his son brought that back to him, showing him that man can be good and resist the evil of power-lusting.
However good this sounds, it wasn't totally clear to me at first glance. I was caught up in the catch-phrases I am trained and attuned to pick up on: "trust your feelings," "what do your feelings tell you," "search your feelings," "only the Sith think in terms of absolutes," etc. I also could not consider the life of a Jedi as one I would like to live considering the demand that they relinquish all values they feared losing, like a mother or a wife. All these objections I more or less cleared up when I looked at them contextually.
The context within which the "trust your feelings"-type comments came about were when a Jedi was advising that one trust automatized mechanisms that would be hindered by the slowness of thought. Take, for example, when Anakin was told to use his feelings and not to think when he was getting ready to race in the pod-racing competition. This advice makes perfect sense and is not some whimsical submission to non-thinking. Through practice, Anakin had automatized the required lightning-quick movements to race, and thinking about these movements would only hinder his ability to succeed. Think about driving on the freeway at eighty miles an hour. Suppose the car in your right lane started drifting into your lane, into your car, very quickly. Would you stop to think about how to act in this situation? About the degrees you need to turn the wheel in order to evade the drifting vehicle? Of course not; driving has become so automatic for you that you don't think about it, you just do it. This is what I've found was meant by those comments. The wording is very unfortunate, nevertheless the context makes the meaning clear.
Take the "search your feelings"- and "what do your feelings tell you"-type comments. If you observe carefully, these comments were made in order to advise a Jedi to introspect, to think about why certain feelings came about or what their feelings precisely indicated. Again, these comments were not made for the sake of surrendering one's mind to emotion.
Look at the "only the Sith think in terms of absolutes" comment made by Obi-Wan. This was in response to Anakin's comment "you are either with me or against me." In this scene, Obi-Wan was heartbroken to learn that his young apprentice had turned to the dark side. It is my impression that Obi meant that there were aspects of Anakin worth saving, that he perhaps thought there was still good in him and that Obi wasn't either for or against Anakin, but for and against parts of his soul. Nevertheless, this doesn't preclude the necessity of knowing that Anakin is either a threat to Obi's life or he isn't. When Obi determines that Anakin is against him, he acts to defeat him. The wording is again unfortunate because I don't think he meant it in the general sense, in terms of axioms and reality. What would be the sense of such a comment? Don't the Jedi think they stand for the good? Why would they think they stand for the good yet think there are no absolutes?
Finally, let's look at the Jedi code requiring that a Jedi relinquish all values one might fear to lose. Think about what a Jedi is. One master Jedi is probably worth hundreds of well-trained soldiers. In other words, Jedis are very dangerous weapons. These weapons, however, carry free-will. In order to minimize the chance that a Jedi could lose his mind and go on a rampage, he is required to let go of any value he fears losing, for were he to lose it, this might spark intense emotions that could likely lead to disastrous consequences. Picture having a nuclear weapon with a mind. Wouldn't you want to minimize the risk that these weapons would short circuit and go on a destructive rampage?
One last comment about the force in general. I think I had difficulty with differentiating use of the force and acting on emotion/whim. The force is like magic, it is a made-up tool, a faculty, that these life forms possess. As such, the only real metaphoric meaningfulness of the usage of the force for us real humans is just that it's a tool and must be understood in order for it to be used properly.
The one thing that still confuses me, though, is whether or not the dark side of the force can be used for good, or whether "using the dark side" in and of itself is immoral. Take for example using a nuclear weapon. It can be used for evil and can be used for good. Aren't the good and dark sides of the force just tools?
Anyway, in conclusion, if you look beyond the face value of the series, beyond the special effects and the fighting and the mediocre writing and acting, you'll see that Star Wars is a moral story of actual good versus actual evil. In essence, Star Wars answers the question: Can one live life by a benevolent universe premise? The main problem with the series is that removing all the layers of special effects and poor writing and acting, under which the heart of the story is located, takes an active thinker. If the layers remain intact, the audience will take all the bad wording on face value and think of the Jedi as selfless altruists fighting an evil that seems to border on the common notion of selfishness. That being the case, I don't think the series does a good job to move the discourse towards realizing what the good actually is. With better acting and much better writing, this series could've single-handedly eradicated many common truisms in the discourse (or lack thereof) on morality today.
Crossposted to The Egosphere
Originally posted by Felipe from d'Anconia Online, ReBlogged for Meta Blog