Star Wars on Trial (17 page)

And Luke himself is affected by the Force. His treatment of Jabba's people in Return of the Jedi is pretty scary, and his clothes grow progressively darker as the films go on-not the most subtle bit of symbolism, but that doesn't make it illegitimate. Throughout, Luke is repeatedly tempted to go hog-wild with his Jedi powers and barely holds back.

In the end, though, despite the large numbers of people saying, "May the Force be with you," after 1977, the Force isn't what saves the day. Whenever the good guys score any kind of real victorythe two Death Star destructions-it's due primarily to the actions of the regular folks. When the Jedi Knights are slaughtered, it's only through the efforts of another normal person-Bail Organa-that the last four Jedi are kept alive. Yoda and Obi-Wan take no responsibility for actually raising Luke and Leia, leaving that to the nonForce folks as well. Instead they hide, Yoda on Dagobah, Obi-Wan on Tatooine, waiting for someone else to come along and do the job they utterly failed at.

That, actually, is telling. For twenty years, the last two adult Jedi just sat around doing nothing. The Rebellion was instead started by regular of folks who were mad as hell and wouldn't take it anymore. Yoda held his own against Dooku and Palpatine; Obi-Wan defeated Darth Maul and all but killed Anakin Skywalker-wouldn't that kind of power have been a little useful to the Rebellion? Talk about shirking your responsibility...

One of the biggest problems with The Phantom Menace was that it made it clear that the prequel trilogy was going to be the science fictional equivalent of doing three movies about Joseph Stalin's youth and casting him as the tragic hero/victim. Indeed, that fear was realized in far too many ways, and also served to emasculate a character who had been one of the coolest villains ever. (Hearing Hayden Christensen's whiny dialogue coming from James Earl Jones's voice at the end of Revenge of the Sith was quite possibly the most depressing moment of modern cinema.)

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!