Star Wars is both a science fiction version of the classic sin and redemption story, and an illustrated guide to how the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
When A New Hope, the first episode of Star Wars to be produced came out, I was one of those people who saw it in first run. I was so impressed I had to see it several times. It was obvious that George Lucas had a good story, and the film version was well produced, unlike most film adaptations of books. The fact that Lucas wrote the book and produced the movie certainly had something to do with it. When Lord of the Rings was made into a film the relative faithfulness to the book certainly also contributed to its success, which should be a lesson to the film industry.
I didn’t get to see Episode III, Revenge of the Sith in the theater. I wanted to, but things were just too busy, and I was less impressed by Episodes I and II than I was with IV through VI, so it wasn’t a matter of priority. I was also put off a bit by the title. I knew that Episode VI had originally been titled Revenge of the Jedi, but the title had been changed, even though it would have been correct. Here, it was dead wrong; there had been nothing for the Sith to take vengeance over. “Rise of the Sith” would have been better.
Recently I purchased the DVD of Episode III so I could finish the entire series. In checking out the contents I noticed and subsequently watched the extra feature on “The Chosen One,” dealing with Darth Vader as a classic sin and redemption figure. The concept was somewhat fascinating, as it introduced politics into the mix, made Anakin Skywalker the victim of the manipulating Chancellor Palpatine, and eventually required Anakin as Vader (in Return of the Jedi) to choose between his son and the evil Emperor — who had finally shown his true colors by declaring that Vader was expendable if Luke would kill him and take his place.
The crossover into human politics is striking because Anakin, in his journey to becoming Vader, is made to believe that he is doing the right thing, is distracted by the apparent trust that the Chancellor puts in him, combined with honors, and the distrust of everyone else who sees what he is becoming. He was, in short, the Emperor’s “useful idiot,” just as much at Darth Maul, Count Duku and the other Sith disciples were. The difference was that he survived, and continued to serve the one who had turned him to the dark, when what he really wanted was to prevent harm to those he cared about, bring peace, and so on. It is the same thing with modern liberalism.
In Revenge of the Sith Anakin thought he was supporting the republic. In the end he found out that in truth he was helping to destroy the republic, but then it was too late. His desire to save Padme from death in fact led to her dying because she would not live after he had abandoned her for the Dark Side. When the Emperor said Anakin killed her he was right, but he lied about how. Anakin’s misguided efforts to save her by joining the Dark Side were what caused her death. He could just as easily have saved her by trusting her and the Jedi.
In truth, Anakin wanted to achieve good results; all the time we see him wanting to fix things, eliminate injustices, and save the ones he loved, but his actions didn’t work for two reasons. First, some things just could not be fixed. He could not save his mother from death at the hands of the sand people, and killing them did not bring her back. Second, in the later stages where he fell under the influence of Palpatine, the path he was following was corrupted. He did not know it at the time, and could not discover it because he allowed himself to be blinded by devotion to idealism.
Today we see many politicians and officials saying, “give me a little more power and everything will be all right.” When this happens we must ask the question: Are they truly interested in solving the problem, or are they only interested in power? Today many politicians and other “leaders” are only interested in power, as was Palpatine. Like Bill Clinton, Palpatine used anyone he could, and didn’t care one iota about any of them. When they were of no further use he threw them away and replaced them. It is likely that that activists for positive-sounding social causes understand the same thing. Whether their tools do also is another matter. Just ask Norma McCorvey. The result is an “end justifies the means” mentality and course of action. What Palpatine wanted was ultimate power. He says as much during the combat sequence just before killing Mace Windu.
There is one other area where Lucas may have added a small piece of the puzzle, in the film’s dialogue. It is where one of the Jedi states that only Sith deal in absolutes. This is slightly troublesome, as conservative Americans have come to know that there are absolutes of good and evil in the world, and they must be recognized as such when they appear. The Emperor was such an absolute. Vader eventually proves he was not. At the same time, conservatives understand that the world is not perfect. This is perhaps an essential part of the Jedi philosophy; understanding that you cannot have perfect results, living with imperfection, bearing up under adverse conditions without taking off on emotional tangents, and keeping peace with yourself and the world around you is essentially a conservative principle. Modern Liberalism goes in the other direction by demanding perfection, and requiring that its proponents be given absolute power to achieve it, regardless of the past track record of such attempts, and throwing temper tantrums when they don’t get their way.
While Revenge of the Sith does show itself to be a science fiction version of the classic sin and redemption story, it could also be an illustrated guide on how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and how there are always people waiting to make use of those good intentions by turn them to something evil. Others ignore the truth, seek to use more of the same failed policies to solve ongoing problems, and demand that troublemakers be understood and appeased. Palpatine stands as the absolute example of the user, manipulating the well-intentioned Anakin to further his designs, then later keeping Darth Vader in thrall by enforcing the belief that he had nowhere else to turn. It is the same with the social underclass that Democratic politicians depend on. Using them to get elected, keeping them down, throwing them welfare bones now and again, and telling them that they cannot care for themselves, obtain jobs, and have self respect; their only hope is to stay on the welfare plantation.
When Vader found he had a son, he first attempted to bring Luke with him to strike down the Emperor and replace him. It didn’t work. When Luke refused to kill Vader it finally severed the link between Vader and the Emperor. One might say that Luke made the ultimate sacrifice, by risking death and in so doing allowed his father to experience redemption. He becomes, in effect a Christ figure who leads an evildoer away by showing love.
Admittedly, much of the Star Wars saga if fluff. Back when A New Hope was released some critics called it a space opera, albeit an entertaining and well produced one. But taken beyond the fluff, the annoyance of Jar Jar Binks, and Hayden Christensen’s wooden acting, the totality of Star Wars provides several excellent lessons. Unfortunately, it seems that they are rarely up for examination in the public forum, even when their author attempts to call attention to them.
slaib@intellectualconservative.com
http://intellectualconservative.com
Read more articles by Steven D. Laib
I nearly choked on your interpretation of George Lucas’ many theatrical allusions as representing conservative-like virtues. I do hope you were trying for irony.
Lucas’ is a California-bred liberal of a high-order who fancies himself more anti-establishment, apolitical, iconoclastic, and libertarian than he really is. Not so much a radical, he is more a sympathizer. He declares his distrust of all government and politicians to be the same regardless of party, but his statements belie his supposed impartiality. His digs at Bush and Reagan are few but repeat slanders taken from the media; hardly the stuff of a maverick. By contrast, his reproach of repeatedly malfeasant Democrats is non-existent. So, where he remains aloof with regard to liberal politicians, he is not so reticent when it is some oil guzzling, cowboy conservative out for empire.
Lucas is a man of enormous artistic talent, but limited political growth. Mostly limited to the 1960’s, which, he freely admits, were formative for him. He explains that the Star Wars Movies scripts were all written “long, long ago and far, far away” (somewhere in the San Francisco galaxy). The parallels he draws are to events of the Vietnam era (1962-1974), which, for all of us of that generation, was defining. He describes those events as the failure of democracy to resist morphing into an evil empire (the theme of SW); and that any parallels to current events are merely circumstantial (yeah, right). He views the enlightened but ultimately flawed policies of 1960’s (Democratic) leadership giving way to the demagoguery of reactionary (a.k.a., conservative) politics resulting in the ‘dictatorship’ of Richard Nixon. It is Nixon he regards as the (in)Sidious archetype of evil emperor. Nor was his an isolated sentiment of that time. The media made great fuss over “the trappings of empire” of the Nixon White House, making ‘Tricky Dick’ out to be a power grubbing megalomaniac. The then young Lucas, like many of us of the time, had this imprinted upon his immature psyche. Similarly, the House of Kennedy (along with its steward, LBJ) is linked in our psyches to ‘Camelot’ and a golden age of the republic. Up till then, everything was okay; after that, everything is regarded corrupt. Fast forward: the immediate disaster is narrowly averted, yet the structure of republic is dangerously fractured and in need of constant shoring. Thus, the victories of the Democrats post-Nixon are seen first as vindication by Lucas, but later as no more than reprieve. Lucas clearly faults the Democrats as corrupted by too much success and power (hence, the light and dark are inseparable). Yet, compared to conservatives, they are still the good guys. He does not see that the corruption was already there or that, just possibly, the case against Nixon was distorted beyond reality for political grist.
All of this is linked to a “profound insight” (dare I say ‘vision’) Lucas claims to have had at that time (early 1970’s) of a parallel between America and ancient Rome; noting how their Senate defeated the dictatorship of Julius Caesar only to grovel before Octavian/Augustus (note how the changing of names is paralleled in SW). At first, Octavian was his model for evil emperor, but I suspect he’s added to his pantheon over time and moved his characters around a bit. A later alteration might pose Nixon as Julius and Reagan as Octavian, with a brief return to ‘republican’ (i.e., liberal) principles in the span between. The republic Lucas claims to speak for is the Roman one, not our American Republic; yet he keeps mistaking parallels. In Lucas’ world, the Roman Senators are champions of democratic populism; whose duty it is to guard the welfare of the little folk. In this he reveals how little he understands the politics of either republics. The real Roman senators were avowed aristocrats and upper-class mercantilists, who resisted populism until well after the demise of the republic. Only under the later empire did they pander to the masses, but only as a means of regaining power. It was Caesar and Octavian who were the populists (though no more democratic than the rest). Today (including the 1970’s), Democrat senators (and some Republicans) pander to welfare-state pariahs, not to self-reliant citizens. In this, they are more like senators under the Empire than its republic.
Lucas reveals a certain elitism, which David Brin notes. Lucas claims the many dialogue elements in Revenge of the Sith resemblance to current persons is purely history repeating itself and not manipulation of the script to net additional targets of his wit. Regardless, he still manages to imply (at media events) that Bush, Iraq, and the war against terror are just as bad as the ‘near catastrophe’ of Nixon, Vietnam, and ‘phony’ war against communism. To Lucas, raised on the mantra of anti-McCarthyism and American imperialism, Nixon (with his anti-communist rhetoric and call for victory in Vietnam) is the embodiment of his darkest fear. Note in all the Star Wars movies the references to weak-minds and how they (we) are easily duped. This is a dig at the vast-rightwing conspiracy of mindless-morons lead by not greatly more intelligent yet cynical Republicans (Sith?). Of course, the Jedi are also capable of manipulating mental midgets, but only do so with the best of intentions and restraint. All of his protagonists are casts as exceptional people, uniquely endowed with the pure hearts necessary to good leadership. Sound like some liberal intelligentsia types we know? So here we have the would-be libertarian promoting elitism, qualified status to rule, lineage, ends-justify-means, and nanny-state social-welfare.
To Lucas, Iraq is one more phony-war in a progression of phony-wars all designed to rob us of our birthrights. Because we are so much bigger than Iraq and more powerful, we cannot possibly say Iraq is a serious threat or an aggressor. Note how ‘phony wars’ in the prequels are used to explain Anakin’s metamorphosis from hero to villain. Vietnam was declared by the left to be a ‘phony’ war, a sentiment much echoed or given credence in the press; and perceptions of America were altered from shining-good to darkly-sinister. Vietnam is only a phony war if America has no legitimate and vital interest in it, as is true of any war. Critics of war often claim there is no rational basis for war, yet the alternative may be submission or annihilation. Had Saddam’s regime acquired WMD’s and delivered them against us, they would have been more than just a threat; and the opportunity to do anything about it would have been lost. Had they used them to disrupt global oil infrastructure they’d be a threat to the life-blood of billions of people everywhere. Saddam’s depredations to date are sufficient to establish his credentials as a danger; and to have waited until he’d made good on his threats would have been unconscionable. The same sentiments were attributed to Vietnam where that puny little country could not possibly be a threat to America and its aggressions repeatedly disguised: ipso facto, we must be the aggressor. Never mind that Vietnam was just one piece of a far larger war we were fighting against the very real ambitions of communist giants (Russia and China). Similarly, Iraq and Afghanistan were less a threat, in their own right, than the collective threat they collaborated in.
Lucas denies his most current SW movies mirror todays events, but the close paraphrasings in ROTS to Bush statements and popular reactions to them are much too coincidental. How can't he deny the addition of beheadings and child-deaths are new to his storyline uninfluenced by recent events. Where else do could they come from if not from televised beheadings by terrorists and the angst over suicide child-bombers. There is nothing remotely like them in his earlier SW films and are unnecessary to Lucas's original and un-updated premise. All his prequel battle scenes and indigent characters have a decidedly mid-east and third-world flavor to them. Again, unnecessary if no parallel is being marketed.
I loved the original movie, Star Wars, before it morphed into “Episode IV”. Right away, with Return of the Jedi and the announcement of another seven movies to follow, I smelled something fishy. Sure, he had this great idea for a triple trilogy, but did he get it before or with Jedi. Along with the scent of franchise rights and career security, he had a surefire vehicle for peddling his ideas. It didn’t take long for the ideology to dominate great storytelling, either. In addition to becoming feel-good political-mythos, the later episodes are retooled for progressively younger audiences (sexier Princess Leia, notwithstanding). Pretty soon, we were hearing the accolade "Star Bores".
Where you credit Lucas as evoking the corruption of Clinton, he pictures Nixon. Where you designate Vader, Count Duku, Darth Maul, and others as the “emperor’s useful idiots”, Lucas (together with other Hollywood elitists) envisions Nixon and anyone on the right. Clearly, Bush is regarded a well-intentioned idiot who believes he is doing right by flying off to war to protect those who do not need his protection (but is also evil-incarnate, depending on what day it is). So, who does he see as Anakin/Vader? LBJ? Then, I suppose JFK would be Obi Wan Kenobi, who then merges with the lighter-side of the force (Camelot myth) when he is slain by Vader/LBJ (as substantiated by numerous conspiracy theorists who know about these things), and still provides guidance from beyond the grave. Hey, I can have fun with this all day! Maybe the Ewoks, living in the forest (jungle) and speaking unintelligible gibberish (Vietnamese?; which our heroes can, nonetheless, decipher) are really the gentle and much misunderstood Vietcong. The devilishly-attractive-to-women maverick, Han Solo, who lacks ‘Force’-perception but always manages to land on his feet and on the side of the good guys is … George Lucas! Maybe, Kissinger is Vader to Nixon’s evil and all powerful emperor Palpatine (hmm, good physical and vocal resemblance to the original unmasked ROTJ Vader), who’s reputation improves after the fall of Nixon. Then, Johnson would be Obi Wan and Kennedy would be Luke Skywalker. But, that would make Luke father to Anakin. Or Obi Wan is Muskie, or is that Yoda? Wait a minute … I am starting to get confused.
No, I don’t give Lucas that much credit. He cobbles his fables together from bits and pieces of 1960’s campus politics, adventure movies we grew up watching (1950’s swashbucklers and science-fiction), and allusions to whatever touchy-feely rant is current. His one constant is Nixon as the embodiment of palpable (Palpatine?) evil. The others are more targets of opportunity. He has added a few elements of political-correctness to his script along the way; and has even gone back to edit out incorrectness (another revisionist!). He has kept to his original script (well, mostly) only because he genuinely wrote it all down long, long ago. But he can’t resist updating it to add new characters as they present themselves. Too bad he can’t update his thinking. His main talent is technical, bringing a level of realism and artistry to the screen earlier science-fiction lacked, but he does detail his stories and characters richly. Richly detailed, though, does not make them any better representations of political truth. Nor, does it make his view any more visionary. A more mature visionary admits the need to align his vision with reality.
Open these two jpg files side-by-side, and see whether you find any resemblance?
http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Image:Supreme_Chancellor_Sith.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nixon94.jpg
also of interest:
http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/05/open-letter-to-george-lucas.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/05/16/BL2005051600615.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/670228/posts
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/index.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/16/entertainment/cannes/main695449.shtml
http://ex-donkey.blogspot.com/2005/05/george-lucas-bush-bashing.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_III:_Revenge_of_the_Sith (see section titled: Political Comparisons)
Comment by Bob Stapler | February 18, 2006