Star Wars on Trial

by David Brin

  But what the prequel trilogy made clear was that the Force was not the be-all and end-all, and it reinforced what underlies the oth er three films, in particular in the ending of Return of the Jedi-that people must make their own destiny, and not let those born to power oppress them. If people fail to do that, you get Palpatine, granted supreme authority over the Republic to tumultuous applause-an authority he gained due to the incompetence of the other people with power, the Jedi Knights.

  Far from promoting an elitist agenda, George Lucas has shown us that the elitists, the ones who are born to power-like, say, sons of presidents who feel that family connections entitle them to power over anyone actually competent to hold elected office-are the ones who lead us to ruin.

  Keith R. A. DeCandido has written for practically every media universe except for Star Wars. Look for the following fiction of his in 2006: the World of Warcraft novel Cycle of Hatred; the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel Blackout; the Starcraft: Ghost novel Nova; and short stories in the anthologies Furry Fantastic, Hear Them Roar, Age of War: A Classic BattleTech Anthology, and 44 Clowns: 11 Stories of the 4 Clowns of the Apocalypse. His other Smart Pop ramblings have appeared in Finding Serenity, The Unauthorized X-Men, The Man From Krypton and King Kong Is Back! His official Web site is at DeCandido.net. He is both a registered Democrat and a proud liberal. Nyah!

  THE COURTROOM

  DROID JUDGE: Mr. Brin, your witness.

  DAVID BRIN: First, while use of the terms "Queen" and "Princess" are obviously meant to evoke a fantasy feeling, and might otherwise be overlooked, isn't the notion of Amidala's "election" accepted just a bit too blithely? In Earth's history, royalty were sometimes "elected," but in nearly all of those cases-for example the Holy Roman Empire-the "voters" were a narrow elite of fellow aristocrats. Otherwise, how to explain the election of a mere teenager to lead a whole planet? A teenager already (obviously) used to putting on airs, with an aloof demeanor? (A narrow planetary aristocracy? That would include Senator Palpatine. The implication that they are cousins is never made explicit, though it is intriguing. By implication, would not Amidala likely also have midichlorians?)

  In any event, doesn't the plot itself disprove your assertion of Nabooian democracy? The Trade Federation hunts Amidala down in order to get her to sign away her planet's rights. Her signature alone-even when coerced-can overrule all other planetary institutions! A bizarre situation. But there it is. Can this be democracy?

  The crux: democracy is about replacing arbitrary personal rule with accountable institutions. But institutions do not function in this universe. Ever. Would you care to explain how this can be interpreted as anything but elitism?

  KEITH R. A. DECANDIDO: One can be an elected official and still have broad powers, as the second presidents to carry the names of Roosevelt and Bush can attest. And given that Star Wars planets seem to be the equivalent of states in the U.S., I don't see this as all that big a deal, necessarily.

  Also, that isn't what a democracy is about, either. The word simply means that the people run the government, either directly or through elected representatives. Checks and balances are a particularly American part of the process.

  In any case, it comes down to the fact that Lucas went to the trouble of saying she was elected. The title of "Queen" carries with it the connotation of being appointed, whether by fiat, heredity or conquest, to the role of monarch. Lucas wouldn't have bothered pointing out that she was elected unless he wanted to give the government the connotation of democracy of some kind. I think it's best to apply Occam's Razor here-the simplest explanation for why Lucas made the queen an elected official is because he wanted to give the impression that she got her position from the will of the people. If he didn't, there was no point in even mentioning it.

  (Side note: the only reason we have the whole "Princess" and "Queen" stuff isn't because he's trying to use fantasy tropes, but rather the plot of A New Hope was heavily inspired by the Akira Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress, and that film had a princess, too.)

  DAVID BRIN: As for Princess Leia, she is anything but a normal person. She is a midichlorian mutant, like her brother, is she not?

  KEITH R. A. DECANDIDO: Yeah, but we didn't know that, and neither did the character, until the chronological end of the story line. While Leia has the Force, the fact that she has it doesn't affect her actions as one of the heads of the Rebellion. While the novels that pick up where Return of the Jedi left off were free to deal with that, it's an irrelevancy to the films themselves. She didn't know she was a "midichlorian mutant," and didn't use the concomitant abilities.

  A difference that makes no difference is no difference. Leia may as well have been "normal" for all that it affected what she did.

  DAVID BRIN: Anyway, I am forced to ask again, if this were the point of the series, would not some character, at some point, have said even a sentence to guide the audience to notice? So that more than 1% of viewers would get and grasp this important point? Together, Yoda and Palpatine get almost an hour of screen time to yam mer against open civilization. Sure, they both fail. But should not somebody get a minute to say something like-

  "Oh yeah? Well, up yours, you two masters. We're free men and women and ... furry things! We're small and weak as individuals, but our institutions will be strong. You can't force us to do nuthin'....

  KEITH R. A. DECANDIDO: Actions speak louder than words. Lots of people speechify in the Star Wars films, and they all come to a bad end. The biggest heroes are the ones who shut up, ante up and kick in. Heck, two of the biggest heroes (Chewbacca and R2-D2) don't get a line of intelligible dialogue between 'em!

  ADIES AND GENTLEMEN of the jury, do not be deceived. We are all fans of Star Wars, some of us more so than is healthy ,or wise. Some of us flatter these films by imagining that they have some deep metaphysical, ethical or spiritual meaning. But this is merely flattery.

  I cannot truly discuss the ethics and religion in Star Wars, because, honestly, there is nothing to discuss.

  A religion has many elements, but a real religion makes some attempt to account for the great mysteries of the universe. A real religion addresses metaphysics, spiritual powers, martyrdom, ethics, fate, salvation, miracles, and life after death.

  Star Wars does not address these issues, and does not try to.

  Remember what Star Wars is.

  In the midst of the murmuring sloughs of the 1970s, Star Wars shook the movie world like a trumpet blast: a triumph of sheer youthful energy and imagination at a time when all other movies were wallowing in themes of despair. The moment those letters began to scroll up the screen, everyone in the audience knew what kind of film it was meant to be: a serial, a chapter-play, a Buck Rogers film, a Flash Gordon epic, a tribute and a culmination to all those forgotten matinees of yesteryear when the wonder and grandeur of outer space could be purchased for a nickel. As a Flash Gordon epic, Star Wars is perfect, and outshines it predecessors and its many imitators.

  Observe what Stars Wars is not.

  I cannot call it a great film, unless I use the term in the same way I talk about a great wad of cotton candy or a great fireworks display. I have been awed some Fourths of July with the sheer noise and light and color of the pyrotechnics, but I've never seen the secrets of life and death, or good and evil, or any great statements of philosophy written in the rocket's red glare.

  Great books of literature wrestle with the deep questions of religion and ethics. Adventure stories written for boys depict sword fights on burning decks beneath the hurling moons of Barsoom, exploding planets and beautiful alien princesses. If you are going into a Flash Gordon serial seeking help for a moral quandary, you will not get your nickel's worth. There is not a nickel's worth of religion or ethics in Star Wars.

  The religion of the Force is not a religion: it is an atmosphere, a spooky hint of mystic powers and hidden forces meant to lend an air of exotic supernaturalism to the proceedings. The Force is there for the sword fights. The Force is meant to explain why a
kendo fencer can perform amazing leaps, parry laser bolts or make a single a onein-a-million bull's-eye shot into a ray-shielded thermal exhaust port with a proton torpedo and blow up a space station the size of a small moon. An atmosphere is not a religion.

  As far as ethics, Star Wars is a Boy's Adventure Tale: a combination of Treasure Island and Under the Moons of Mars, Robin Hood and Zorro, and Sea Hawks and Three Musketeers. When the lovable rogue Han Solo belies his solitary name by returning to aid our hero in the fight, we see the sum of the ethical posture of the tale, such as it is: "All for one and one for all." It is the Code of Bravery. Only the comedy relief sidekick is allowed to express any cowardice; and that in words only, not in any serious action.

  Star Wars rises head and shoulders above other Boy's Adventure Tales by adding one additional moral theme: forgiveness breeds re pentance. Although it is clumsily handled, there is some moral depth to the conceit: Luke's forgiveness saves his father's soul. It is worth noting that this is not an act called for by the Code of the Jedi. The Jedi Code, as depicted in the movies, consists of one slogan: Hate, Fear and Aggression are the Dark Side. This one slogan is both clumsily handled and morally shallow. It is worth noting that passive serenity is the only thing explicitly called for by the Code of the Jedi, and that none of the Jedi act this way, nor could they, not if we wanted to watch them in an adventure story.

  That is about all we have by way of ethics. I intend to show in my testimony that every last detail of the religion and ethics in Star Wars is driven by the needs of the plot, or the need to establish atmosphere.

  METAPHYSICS: THE MYSTICAL FORCE IS THE MYSTICAL FORCE

  Let us review what little is known about the metaphysical theory, such as it is, of the Force.

  We first get the hint that we are in a mystical milieu rather than a scientific universe when Uncle Owen dismisses Ben Kenobi as "that crazy old wizard." The line is there for atmosphere. The Force is wizardry.

  Ben Kenobi is next revealed to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, the last of the Jedi Knights, an order of swordsmen with mystic powers. More atmosphere. This time, the atmosphere is distinctly oriental. Kung fu films delight in portraying martial artists who gain superhuman abilities through rigorous study and meditation. The Force sounds charmingly exotic.

  The Jedi are sword fighters, of course. The sword is the preferred weapon of the Galactic Empire in every tale from Flash Gordon to Children of Dune.

  Obi-Wan urges Luke to study the Force, as his father did before him. From this we learn that the Force can be studied: mastery of it is a matter of training, not of credo. You do not train by reading the Holy Scripture in Greek; you train by doing one-handed handstands while levitating crates on the Swamp Planet.

  Study of the Force it is not for learning how to be stoic in the face of adversity, as is the study of philosophy, or for discovering moral truth, as is the study of ethics, or for the salvation or enlightenment of the soul, as is the study of religion. It is for doing super-ninja-leaps with Way Cool psychokinetic powers.

  We are introduced to the other remaining practitioner of "that ancient religion": a figure of Gothic menace and sinister aspect, complete with black cloak, Nazi helmet and Doctor Doom-style skull mask, known as Darth Vader!

  A more perfect movie villain there has never been: He cannot step through the flaming airlock of a captured spaceship without hisses and boos spontaneously erupting from the Saturday Matinee audience. He sounds like the Lion King's father selling telephones and can strangle nay-saying imperial bureaucrats with his ominous mind-powers. Way Cool.

  Note that there is no doctrinal difference between Obi-Wan and Darth. It is not as if one is a Protestant and the other a Catholic, one Shi'a and the other Sunni. We find out that Darth serves "the dark side" of the Force, and uses his mystic powers for Evil rather than Niceness.

  This is to serve the needs of the plot. The idea of "the dark side" is thrown in merely to allow Darth and Obi-Wan both to be mystically powered samurai-knights on opposite sides of the conflict. If the Force were a god like Odin or Zeus, the audience would be puzzled why the Sky Father is supporting both sides of the conflict. Therefore, the Force itself has to be neutral, an inactive and nondemanding sort of god, but with a "dark side" so that the bad guys can make amazing leaps, read minds and strangle people by psychokinesis.

  In one short scene, we get the explicit description, such as it is, from Obi-Wan: the Force is an energy aura created by all living things. Life creates it. It sustains all life and "binds the galaxy together"-a phrase that sounds Way Cool and means exactly nothing.

  Then does it control our actions? In part, but the Jedi can also command the Force to do amazing leaps and parry laser bolts. Your eyes can deceive you: don't trust them! Reach out with your feelings. Hokey religions and archaic weapons do actually turn out to be a match for a good blaster at your side; and in my experience, there is no such thing as coincidence.

  I think that just about covers it.

  In terms of atmosphere, the idea that there are no coincidences and that a Jedi relies on his feelings rather than his eyesight is there to buttress and foreshadow the scene where Luke turns off his targeting computer, relies on instinct and makes a final desperate shot with a proton torpedo to blow up the Death Star.

  Obi-Wan does not say a single word more about the Force than what is minimally necessary for that one-in-a-million shot to seem mystically inevitable rather than a matter of dumb luck.

  SPIRITUALISM: NOW THAT I'M ENLIGHTENED, CAN I BOOT PEOPLE TO THE HEAD?

  What one can and cannot do with the spiritual powers of the Force is also determined by plot considerations.

  In Star Wars we see Obi-Wan use the Force to talk his way past a patrol of stormtroopers. We learn that "the Force can have a powerful effect on the weak-minded." Way Cool. What's it mean?

  It means nothing. Like all wizards in every Boy's Adventure Tale since the world was made, the wizard-helper has to have enough mystical power to be able to help the hero in tight scrapes, but not so much as to be able to overwhelm the plot, solve the major problem or render the hero redundant. If Obi-Wan had been able to paralyze masses of stormtroopers with hypnosis, there would have been no gunfights with blaster-weapons. The audience wants to see gunfights, ergo, no mass-hypnosis.

  When the planet Alderaan is blasted to smithereens by the Death Star, Obi-Wan reacts like Mr. Spock sensing the USS Intrepid being eaten by a giant space-amoeba: his psychic powers tell him something Big and Dreadful has happened. Cue the Big and Dreadful John Williams music.

  This is foreshadowing. This is not a prophetic vision like the Apocalypse of St. John. This is not even a riddling utterance of the Oracle at Delphi foreseeing that a great empire will fall if Croesus attacks Persia. It is not even a plot-driving visitation, like the appearance to a horrified Hamlet of the ghost of his tormented father crying foul murder. The power here is not a prophetic power.

  It is a comic book superpower. Obi-Wan is worried because his spider-senses are tingling.

  Now, of course, it is Way Cool when Obi-Wan can sense things other men cannot sense, or know things lesser mortals do not know. On the other hand, it is also Way Cool when The Shadow can cloud men's minds with a mysterious power he learned in far-off Tibet.

  The prophetic vision of Luke seeing his friends tortured on the Cloud Planet is a plot point to get him to break off his training and go save his friends. Will they die? Well, always in motion the future is, so the future-vision thing can't really tell us one way or the other, because prognostication is inevitable only in a Greek tragedy.

  In Boy's Adventure stories, the power of prophecy is like seeing the Bat-Signal. You see a mysterious vision that tells you there is a villain in Gotham and you need to go fight him. Way Cool.

  MARTYRDOM: LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG, AND DON'T LEAVE ANY SORT OF CORPSE AT ALL BEHIND

  When Obi-Wan dies, he dies because he puts his weapon up. ObiWan promises Darth that "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful
than you can possibly imagine." This is setup for the scene when, at the moment all hope is lost, and Luke in his spaceship is making one final desperate run against the target, he hears the ghost of Obi-Wan telling him to Trust the Force.

  The formula demands the wizard-helper has to die so the childhero can grow up. It is atmospherically more noble for Obi-Wan to die because he chooses without fear the hour of his death, than, for example, to be shot to bloody bits by sneering stormtroopers while clawing at the hatch of the Millennium Falcon begging to be let in before it takes off.

  And his death is eerie: there is no body. There is no reason why there is no body. It is just eerie for the sake of eerie. But neither is there any point to this death. There is no announced theory of martyrdom in this background. There is no evidence that Obi-Ghost is more powerful than Darth can possibly imagine. Freed from the limitations of his physical body, Obi-Ghost does not crush the Death Star like an egg with his mind-powers.

  And there is no real reason why Obi-Wan has to be a ghost in order to whisper advice to Luke. He could have used a radio. There is no hint of any belief of life after death anywhere else in the story, but having a friendly ghost show up to help you in your hour of need is kind of spooky, and really rather satisfying.

  In any case, it is Way Cool.

  ETHICS: THE CODE OF THE JEDI

  There are two ways to look at the ethics in Star Wars: First, what do the characters do? Second, what do the Jedi say people should do?