Star Wars on Trial

by David Brin

  FIRST WE GOT PUNKED BY THE SITH. THEN THE LITTLE BASTARD FACT-CHECKED US.

  To understand Luke's struggle (and his triumph), one might begin by reflecting on the Jedi who instruct him in the birds and the bees of Force sensitivity.

  The Star Wars films establish beyond a glimmer of all possible doubt that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, wise and well-meaning as they are, are not the sort of guys you'd want to trust with the management of your mutual fund. The venerable Jedi Masters are actually quite the pair of shifty-eyed sons-of-bitches, and the web of guilt, lies and manipulation they construct over the course of the two trilogies is epic.

  Detractors of the films (and of the personal vision of George Lucas) enthusiastically seize upon this point as though it were a revelation-as though the series' writer/creator and its fans might somehow be surprised to learn that the two older Jedi are frequently evasive, selfish and dishonest. But while some second-guessing of Lucas's judgment in the construction of his films is justifiable, in this instance it seems both uncharitable and easily refuted. Lucas clearly worries a great deal about the ethical image his characters presentin at least one instance, he worried far too much.

  In the original version of A New Hope, Han Solo is accosted by Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina. Han keeps the Rodian bounty hunter talking long enough to stealthily unholster his blaster pistol beneath the table and caramelize the poor fellow like a glazed ham. Apparently, Lucas fretted about Han Solo's image enough to design an infamous alteration in the 1997 special edition of A New Hope. In the modified film, Greedo actually snaps off a blaster shot a split-second before Solo does and misses, ludicrously, from the distance of two and a half feet.

  Not only does the added blaster bolt look silly, it wasn't necessary in the first place. There is absolutely no doubt that Han shoots Greedo in clear self-defense, immediately after Greedo tells him that he doesn't care about bringing him to Jabba the Hutt alive:

  HAN SOLO: Even I get boarded sometimes. Do you think I had a choice?

  GREEDO: You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.

  HAN SOLO: Over my dead body!

  GREEDO: That's the idea ... I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

  Yet even this supremely justifiable preemptive blasting was deemed unwholesome enough to warrant a jarring change. Now, with that under his belt, does George Lucas strike you as the sort of writer/director who could plow through six films blithely unaware that two of his central characters like to fold, spindle and mutilate the truth?

  Sure Obi-Wan and Yoda are a pair of liars (and wouldn't you feel like fudging the facts a bit if the alternative was to admit that the Sith played the Jedi like a cheap trombone, and that your bad judgment helped usher in decades of bloody tyranny?). Obi-Wan and Yoda are liars because their deceptions set them up in direct ethical opposition to Luke, for the sake of the story. Materially, the two elderly Jedi are Luke's allies. Morally, the two of them are villains-yes, villains-that Luke must confront and overcome on several occasions in order to bring about a true and lasting victory over the Sith and their Empire.

  Make no mistake: Luke's saga in the original Star Wars trilogy isn't a rediscovery of the ways of the Jedi of the Old Republic. It's the story of how he puts himself on an escape trajectory from almost everything they stood for.

  OLD REPUBLIC JEDI: AMBULATORY OUIJA BOARDS WITH SWORDS

  Consider the Jedi of the Republic as presented in the prequel trilogy. By and large, they're as decadent (in their own fashion) as the slowly dying government they serve. Insular, ascetic, pompous, detached, overconfident and indecisive-even the better ones display some or all of these traits at various points. Again, critics seem to seize on this as though it were an accident-"How can we completely sympathize with this pack of arrogant space hippies?" The only reasonable response is: What makes you think you're supposed to completely sympathize with them?

  The list of moral screwups perpetrated by the last generation of Old Republic Jedi is pretty overwhelming. Ponder:

  • When presented with the most powerful Force-sensitive being in centuries, they decide not to guide him in any fashion. Apparently, leaving him to run around and discover his powers on his own (or under the tutelage of interested third parties like the Sith) is a much better idea.

  • When presented with clear evidence that a Sith is behind the Republic-shaking events on Naboo, they dispatch the same Master/Padawan team that has already failed to beat the Sith once, with no reinforcements. Apparently, the thought of sending three dozen bright young lightsaber duelists to beat Darth Maul like a dirty carpet doesn't occur to anyone-and as a result, Qui-Gon Jinn is slain.

  • When presented with the massive ethical quandary of a huge army of sentient beings cloned to serve as blaster fodder, the Jedi shrug their shoulders and put the poor suckers to immediate use without discussion.

  • When they become suspicious that someone or something is manipulating Chancellor Palpatine, the Jedi Council continues to place the burden of spying on Anakin-a Jedi known to be insubordinate, proud and volatile, with possibly compromised loyalties. We all know what happens next.

  When Obi-Wan Kenobi meets Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, he speaks wistfully of the Republic era as "a more civilized age." He neglects to mention, of course, that the tragedy of the Old Republic Jedi was at least partially self-inflicted. He begins his association with Luke not just by lying to him about his father's fate, but by attempting to inveigle him into an undeservedly charitable view of the Order that Obi-Wan accidentally helped destroy. The message is clear in the prequels, and Obi-Wan's behavior only amplifies it in Episodes IV-VI: the path of the Old Republic Jedi is something Luke must shun, not celebrate.

  ETHICS 101: A FRIEND IS SOMEONE WHO'LL STUFF YOU INTO A GUTTED TAUNTAUN

  So much, then, for the prequel trilogy, a murky series of events in which few characters, even the survivors, manage to cover themselves in glory. The Jedi display an almost callous disregard for the emotional comfort of the boy who grows up to lead their slaughter-even Anakin's closest friend, Obi-Wan, is capable of turning a remarkably cold and dismissive shoulder toward him. Consistent ethical behavior is nowhere to be found... and the Galaxy suffers for it.

  By contrast, the ethical core of Episodes IV-VI is almost ebullient; the unpretentious message enshrined at the heart of the original trilogy's story boils down to "stick with your friends and loved ones even when the whole universe seems to have it in for you." In A New Hope, Luke rushes off alone the moment he realizes his aunt and uncle might be in danger-a foolish but highly compassionate decision. He then elects to stay with the Rebellion and participate in a suicide mission rather than escape with Han. In the end, his example inspires Han to return as well, postponing his vital reckoning with Jabba the Hutt for the sake of saving his friends and their cause.

  The displays of loyalty in The Empire Strikes Back are heartbreaking. Han risks a bitter, lonely death for a slim chance of finding Luke alive. Luke stubbornly ignores Yoda's pleas to finish his training in favor of rushing off to help his endangered friends. Lando Calrissian, in the hope of redeeming himself, gives up his entire Cloud City mining operation while trying to save Han, Leia and Chewbacca. Most strikingly, Luke chooses to fling himself to possible death rather than accept Darth Vader's offer of a partnership to rule the Galaxy-a partnership that would surely destroy his friends and everything they've fought for as members of the Rebel Alliance.

  Luke's moral resolve is an inarticulate and even shortsighted thing, but it shows him to be ethically superior to his teachers-he will not allow his friends to suffer while he stands by and does nothing for them, and he won't even consider using them as chess pieces in some far-ranging game of Jedi against Sith in which the lives of the non-Force-sensitive do not count. The Jedi of the Old Republic dis couraged the emotional connections of love and friendship; Luke is defined to his very core by those connections. The efforts of Luke's mentors to mold him in the fashion of their generation of
Jedimore ascetic, more detached, more aloof-fail continually, and while they are cranky about this failure, events prove them wrong in every respect.

  Luke, driven by compassion, holds out hope for the redemption of his father in Return of theJedi even as a ghostly Obi-Wan grumpily continues to assert that Vader isn't worth redeeming. Kenobi seems to want Luke to atone for his mistakes in the quickest, crudest way possible-by killing Vader so Obi-Wan won't have to think about the problem anymore. Of all Obi-Wan's faults, this one seems the most petty and grievous. Even after the full revelation of every lie Obi-Wan and Yoda previously fed to Luke, Obi-Wan continues to begrudge Luke the feelings that define him: steadfast love, undying loyalty and unquenchable hope. Nowhere is the contrast between the Old Republic Jedi and Luke more apparent; never is Luke's commitment to his own ideals more critical.

  A more arrogant and detached Luke, an old Republic-model Jedi such as Yoda and Obi-Wan might have forged out of a more complacent young Skywalker, would surely have met with disaster in his confrontation with Vader and Palpatine aboard the second Death Star. Palpatine's superiority over Luke is readily apparent; the young Jedi has no defense against the Sith Lord's dark lightning.

  Killing Vader outright or disdaining him as beyond redemption would have done no good; then Luke would have died or been suborned to the will of the Emperor in Vader's place. Struggling against Palpatine would have been to no avail, with Luke so overmatched. Only Luke's feelings for his father-his decision to spend what might be his last few breaths pleading for Vader's aid-succeed in turning Vader against the Emperor. The Sith Lord dies by his apprentice's hand, but it is Luke's love and loyalty that put that hand in motion.

  At the end of the cinematic Star Wars saga, Luke Skywalker inherits the mantle and powers of the Jedi without the hang-ups that brought the Order down at its nadir-the pompous senses of entitlement, superiority and emotional detachment that his mentors failed to truly kindle in him. Luke faces his destiny as the first of a new breed of Jedi, compassionate and sociable, a more faithful friend and a more honorable foe than the Knights of old. The practical moral qualities he articulates by example are immediately applicable in the real world, and worth aspiring to.

  With great power must come a certain amount of healthy selfdoubt, and a certain amount of trust in the people closest to you. In embracing this, Luke's personal triumph becomes the Saga's ethical vindication.

  Scott Lynch was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and currently lives in Wisconsin. His first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, will be released in June 2006.

  THE COURTROOM

  DAVID BRIN: Your Honor, the Prosecution is perfectly willing to stipulate that Luke Skywalker is a righteous dude and a swell guy. He may be dim, but at no point is he anything other than a stalwart fellow, ethical, brave and true. He well and truly represents what we have already accepted as the superficial-or childlike-moral lessons of Star Wars. For example, "be loyal to your friends," "be brave" and "mean people suck."

  Furthermore, we are further willing to admit, as Scott Lynch ably points out, that Luke winds up defying his Jedi Masters, questioning their authority, overcoming their mistakes and helping to bring about a new Order that might-one can hope-rise above the flaming lunacy that both sides of the old Force represent.

  Nevertheless, the question at issue here is not the relative goodness of Luke Skywalker, but the lessons that are taught by this science fiction epic.

  Both Jedi and Sith get-across all six films-about an hour of on-screen time to lecture us about their horrific light-and-dark versions of nastiness. Are we supposed to then rely on the public to analyze the situation, in the very last five minutes of Return of the Jedi, and say to themselves, aloud: "Aha! Luke and his friends rejected all that Force crap in favor of a world of openness and egalitarian democracy!"

  Are we, really?

  SCOTT LYNCH: The estimable Persecutor (er, Prosecutor) is being chronologically uncharitable; Luke's rebellion against the old-Order Jedi doesn't come in the last five minutes of the last film; it's already a major plot point in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back. Luke's journey from wide-eyed acceptance of anything Obi-Wan says to sadder, wiser skepticism covers a film and a half. Through out that second half of the original trilogy, Luke sets himself firmly and consistently in opposition to the ascetic, emotionally isolationist philosophy of his elders. Furthermore, it is not the Force that Luke rejects (for the Force itself can no more be rejected in Luke's universe than the laws of gravity can in ours), but rather the idea that a Jedi Knight should be willing to sacrifice his friends and loved ones just so he can stay appropriately Zen.

  As for the "childishness" of Luke's moral example, well ... to paraphrase something our chief counsel for the Defense once wrote, I would suggest that the reflexive need to belittle straightforward heroism is too often a defense mechanism designed to deal with the unpalatable fact that we ourselves tend to fall short of our own highest ideals ... that because we have perhaps failed to be the men and women we know we should be, the sight of unvarnished virtue stings as much as it inspires.

  DAVID BRIN: Isn't that like asking the public to notice that (in ROTJ) none of the throne-room shenanigans matter at all to the fate of the universe? Yes! Only non-Force guys, like Chewbacca and Lando, actually save the day. But can you count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who noticed that?

  SCOTT LYNCH: Actually, that's not entirely true. The seeming sideshow in the throne room keeps the attention of the two most powerful Sith Lords in galactic history fixed firmly on their little family squabble while the Rebel junior varsity goes for the Death Star's jugular. One can only imagine what else might have gone wrong for the Rebellion if Vader had been available to lead the battle on the forest moon himself ("I love the smell of blasted Ewok in the afternoon ... hooooo-paaaaah... smells like ... victory....").

  And what if Palpatine had been at leisure to work his own mischief?

  Free, for example, to reach out across space and telekinetically set the space-toilets in every Rebel cruiser to "reverse purge" at the same time?

  And given that the Prosecutor can no more telepathically analyze the reactions of several hundred million film viewers than I can, might it not be fair to call rhetorical grandstanding on the second question?

  DAVID BRIN: Aren't these more likely to be plot accidents, than intentional moral points?

  SCOTT LYNCH: That depends on whether or not you can believe that a guy so thoroughly obsessed with the minutiae of his films that he was adding CGI birds, beasts, buildings, clouds and shadows to them two decades after their original theatrical runs would just sort of forget to go somewhere with his story elements. You could certainly argue that they weren't necessarily used to best possible effect, or that another writer/director could have wrung something more (insert positive adjective of your choice here) from them.

  However, the addition of the "directorial intention" factor to the discussion muddies it to an infinite degree. If any piece of cinematic evidence can be devalued at will merely by suggesting that it might be an accident, how can any of it be presumed intentional at all? If the Prosecution would condemn Lucas for the perceived inadequacies of his design, it seems only rational that they should allow that what we're debating is his design.

  DAVID BRIN: In fact, I agree with much that has been said by the honorable witness for the Defense, Mr. Lynch. But then, if George Lucas wanted to make a point of all this, might he have given a hint, in dialogue, that anything like this was in mind? (It could have happened. One minor Qui-Gon-like character, in ROTJ, could have put a seed in our minds, about a "third way, the way of freedom.")

  Isn't the test quite simple? What fraction of the viewing fans of Star Wars would stand up and avow-as my honorable adversary has-that Obi-Wan and Yoda really are a "pair of shifty-eyed sonsof-bitches"?

  SCOTT LYNCH: I would lay a bet that the Prosecutor might be surprised. The untrustworthiness of Luke's two mentors is a source of much blather and a
rgument in Star Wars fandom, often with a decidedly comic bent.

  In my opinion, it's easy to see that Obi-Wan and Yoda are burdened with a particularly insidious cocktail of survivor's guilt, personal shame and self-serving nostalgia. The instructions they spent years pounding into the most hormonal, emotional and powerful Jedi ever (that, in essence, ajedi must never, ever get laid) almost certainly contributed to Anakin's violent change of lightsaber lifestyle. Given twenty years after a mess like that to brood on the affair and stare at the walls of my swamp or desert hovel, I think I might start cooking up a pile of comforting white lies, too.

  LONG TIME AGO, in a decade far, far away (1978 to be exact), Alan Dean Foster wrote the very first Star Wars spin-off ,novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which is pretty much where all the trouble started. Intended originally as the basis of a potential lowbudget sequel, the story takes place entirely on a fog-shrouded planet, and stars only Luke, Leia, C-3PO and R2-D2. (Han Solo is noticeably absent, as Harrison Ford had yet to sign to return.) I remember the day my father brought it to the dinner table. I was impressed at the "legitimizing" of the film by seeing it rendered in so distinguished a medium as print. Of course, I lacked the vocabulary to express it in quite those terms then. But it wasn't until a decade later, in 1987, when West End Games began licensing the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, that the "expanded universe" of Star Wars continuity began to be codified and refined. This larger body of Star Wars canon grew through the popular Dark Horse comic book license that soon followed. Then, in the early 1990s, when Bantam published Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, interest in the novelizations really took off, catapulting the universe of Star Wars media tie-ins to its current level-New York Times best-selling books and a gigantic cash cow for Lucasfilm and all of its subsidiaries.