Star Wars on Trial (18 page)

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.