Star Wars on Trial Read online

  Having said all that, let me again acknowledge that Star Wars harks to an old and very, very deeply human archetype. Those who listened to Homer recite The Iliad by a roaring fire knew great drama. Achilles could slay a thousand with the sweep of a hand-as Darth Vader helps Tarkin murder billions with the press of a button-but none of those casualties matters next to the personal saga of a great one. The slaughtered victims are mere minions, after all. Extras, without families or hopes to worry about shattering. Spear-carriers. Only the demigod's personal drama is important.

  Thus, few protest the apotheosis of Darth Vader-nee Anakin Skywalker-in Return of theJedi. With a single, sudden act-slaying his master at the cost of his own life-he gives in to a fatal attachment and saves his own son... and thus achieves redemption. Entry into Jedi Heaven.

  To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler's defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence:

  "But, Your Honors ... Adolf did save the life of his own son!"

  Gasp! The prosecutors blanch. "We didn't know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!" The allies then throw a big parade for Hitler down the avenues of Nuremberg.

  This may sound silly, but isn't that the lesson taught by Return of the Jedi?

  Along with the bizarre notion that getting angry at an evil will suddenly cause you to switch sides and join that evil.... Say what?

  Then it only gets worse.

  How many of us have argued late at night over the philosophical conundrum- "Would you go back in time and kill Hitler as a boy, if given a chance?" It's a genuine moral puzzler, with many possible ethical answers. Still, most people, however they ultimately respond, would admit being at least tempted to say yes, if only to save millions of Hitler's victims.

  Yet in The Phantom Menace, George Lucas asks us to gush with warm feelings toward a cute blond little boy... one who will later grow up to help murder the population of Earth many times over. Hey, while we're at it, why not bring out the Hitler family album, so we may croon over pictures of adorable little Adolf and marvel over his childhood exploits! He, too, was innocent till he turned to the "dark side," so by all means let us adore him.

  To his credit, Lucas does not try to excuse this macabre joke by citing the lamest excuse of all, "It's only a movie." Rather, he sticks to his guns, holding up his saga as an agonized Greek tragedy worthy of Oedipus-an epic tale of a fallen hero, trapped by hubris and fate.

  Alas, if that were true, wouldn't Star Wars by now have given us a better-than-caricature view of the dark side? Don't swallow it. The apotheosis of a mass murderer is exactly what it seems. And we should find it chilling.

  Only then it gets worse. Much worse. For you see, there is another Lucasian character that makes the adoration of young Darth seem positively benign.

  It's Yoda. One of the most horrid creatures ever to snarl at us from the silver screen.

  VICIOUS LITTLE OVEN MITT

  Remember the final scene in Return of the Jedi, when Luke gazes into a fire to see Obi-Wan, Yoda and Vader smiling in the flames? I briefly found myself hoping it was Jedi Hell, for the amount of pain those three unleashed on their galaxy, and for all the damned lies they told.

  Okay, now Brin has gone completely around the bend. What, in all the galaxy, could he have against little Yoda?

  Well, for starters, how about this simple challenge: can you name a single scene in which Yoda is actually forthcoming, informative or generously helpful?

  This supposedly all-wise figure rejects young Anakin, because he senses "too much fear." (Despite the fact that we spent most of The Phantom Menace marveling over a nine-year-old's dauntless courage.)

  He foresees danger, if the boy isn't trained properly... then refuses to train him.

  When Master Mace wants to inform the Republic that dire conspiracies are afoot, Yoda insists on secrecy, which only worsens the calamity. Just as his lies to Luke almost ruin everything much later. Lies that he conveniently gets out of explaining by pulling the old "death-fade" trick. (Well, Luke was always kind of a dim bulb.)

  Then there is all that smarmy lecturing-a withered old prune telling a virile young man that he shouldn't give in to the human yearning for "attachments." Forcing Anakin to fulfill those basic human needs in secret.

  Um ... all right. One can understand demanding that a young adept avoid undue distraction while focusing hard on his training. But to cut off all thought of loved ones, even when they are suffering? Where is the "wisdom" in that?

  Especially when it came to the tragic situation of Anakin's mother. Tell me, which approach is more likely to help the boy focus? Leave Mom to endure slavery on far-off Tatooine? Or maybe dip into the treasury to buy her freedom and get her a nice little house on Naboo, in gratitude for the way Anakin saved Amidala and all her people? Would it be too much "attachment" to get a nice card, once a year, showing her happy in her garden? Call it insurance, to keep such a powerful apprentice from getting ... well ... angry.

  Oh, but it gets worse. Later on, other Prosecution witnesses will discuss the charge that Star Wars is less than "elevated" in its attitudes toward women. Those writers focus (for example) on Princess Leia's decline from rambunctious, gun-toting senator and revolutionary bigwig to chained harem girl. Or upon the small-nay tokenpresence of females in the Jedi Order. But in fact, I do not consider these to be the most worrisome lapses in sexual subtext. After all, it is possibly legitimate for a space fantasy society to replicate the pattern that held in 99% of the real societies we know from the human past-in which most of the warriors were male. It's not politically correct-and I am proud of an America in which the skilled soldiery has largely turned away from that criterion-but Star Wars does, after all, promote nostalgia for feudalism. Therefore, it is only natural to expect some sexual distinction in roles.

  No, what's far more troubling is another aspect of this issue of "attachments." In a few passing lecture-moments, we are told that Jedi are free to enjoy pleasures of the flesh, but that they must not become attached to-or committed to-other people over the long term. Um. Right. Did anyone else catch how this is, well, the bachelor seducer's perfect answer to the famous apres question: "will you call me later?" The perfect male cop-out? Getting to have your cake, eat it, but never having to pay for it?

  Uh, sorry, babe. I can't commit. Or call. Master Yoda won't let me. But wasn't that fun?

  Yeesh. This is "wisdom"? No wonder Young Skywalker gets married without permission!

  All right. Point by individual point, this can be called nitpicking. But the pattern adds up, relentlessly, to a clear picture of Yoda that doesn't support all the superficial press he's given, as an archetype of right-living. Rather, if you look closer, he's an imperious little elfguru, secretive and domineering, judgmental and unkind. Humorless and never, ever informative. Oh, one can see how this might fit somebody's cartoon image of an austere and demanding, quasi-oriental sage. Indeed, there are plenty of real and historical figures that Yoda may be modeled after. But must we take this lying down? Even J. R. R. Tolkien, in his later works, ripped the sweet/wise veil off of his elves, exposing them as selfish creatures who brought Middleearth to the brink of ruin.

  Which brings us to the point of ultimate betrayal, pictured in Attack of the Clones. One of the most horrific scenes I ever witnessed. Has anyone else noticed?

  The Jedi Knights aren't an army. They are an elite corps of secret agents! The 007 James Bonds of the Old Republic. So why does Yoda order all but one of them to charge-in the worst frontal assault since the Light Brigade-straight into an obvious death trap, where they will be surrounded and slaughtered by innumerable robots, monsters and flying aliens? Only his peer and equal-Master Mace-refuses to fall for this. Instead, Mace does his job as a secret agent, sneaking in the back way and almost capt
uring the villain, single-handedly. Had even two or three of the other Jedi Knights accompanied him as helpers, then all would have been well.

  But that wasn't Yoda's plan, you see. Instead-how convenienthe takes delivery of a new army at just the same moment that he hurls the older one to its doom. A new army trained to be much more obedient than that rabble of psychic adepts and bickering individual agents. A new army that represents everything worrisome about civilizations and institutions. Sameness, rigidity and amoral, ruthless efficiency.

  Oh, it's implied that Yoda merely grabs a clone army that someone else ordered. But why assume that incredible coincidence? Take the plainest evidence of all, the actual sequence of events. Isn't the simplest answer that Yoda was the one to secretly order the clone army? (There is no evidence to contradict it and the astute clone-makers certainly thought they were doing it for Yoda's Council.) Yes, the situation is ambiguous ... but it smells of one of the worst betrayals in cinematic history.

  Even if you balk at following me that far, remember how, in The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon spoke of a need to "restore balance to the Force." This-like so much about George Lucas's new-agey religion-stays frustratingly unexplained. But it sure implies that old Yoda had an "unbalanced" agenda. One with its own dark side.

  We'll get to that matter in just a second, but first, let me reiterate the challenge. Is there any tangible reason to believe that anybody in his right mind ought to listen to that vile green demon-muppet? Always secretive, mysterious, grouchy and unhelpful. Never actually achieving anything useful (except to annihilate his own knightly order). Is this an archetype of wisdom that we should hold higher than, say, Benjamin Franklin? Than George Washington, George Marshall, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King and all the other hero-teacher-leaders of our democratic enlightenment? Or even the hapless Old Republic? So, what do we make of the "eternal struggle between two sides of the Force? Other than the fact that it sounds a bit like Manicheanism, or the Zoroastrian mythos of light vs. darkness, forever equal and tearing the cosmos apart? (One wonders, why has the fundamentalist community gone after Harry Potter, when this old heresy is rearing its head, hmm?)

  Does Qui-Gon's call for "balance" make any sense? Does this story-promise ever get resolved?

  Oh, I have heard lots of this-that, about the differences between the dark side of the Force and the other side. (Force Light?) Sith lords want "progress" through ferocious Darwinian winnowing, kind of like you see in Dune. The light side tends to be overprotective, insisting on an eternal, static order. It sounds very Tolkienish, and that's no coincidence ... though without Tolkien's cheerful willingness to reevaluate. In any event, notice how these supposed "opposites" have vastly more in common with each other than differences. For example, their shared, relentless devotion to elitist secrecy.

  But notice, we are never offered a third choice. The choice of freedom. Of everybody knowing what's going on. A galaxy of openness and transparency, in which institutions and individuals, governments, companies and private citizens of all races get to innovate and compete fairly, thus avoiding both static sameness and the horrorslaughter of open warfare? Progress, without vicious winnowing.

  Was this what Qui-Gon hoped for, in his yearning for balance? Is this what Darth/Anakin was supposedly preordained to deliver?

  Well, I am going to surprise you now, and tell you what I really think.

  He did!

  EXCUSES FOR A DARK HENCHMAN

  Look, I got entirely too much mail-after the Salon article-coming up with rationalizations and excuses to let old Darth off the hook. Here are just a few of them:

  1. Darth kills the Emperor and saves more than his son. He saves the universe!

  2. Vader's redemption is personal. It's about a son's forgiveness.

  3. Vader isn't the leader, so it's unfair to call him "Hitler." At worst he's a Himmler.

  4. Vader was mind-controlled. He was just following orders.

  5. Yes, normal people can get really, really mad, and not suddenly "turn evil," reversing all their morals like a switch. But Anakin isn't normal! He's a demigod. That makes him more vulnerable than normal people.

  6. Vader's actions were necessary in order to restore balance to the Force/universe/franchise ...

  ... and so on ...

  I did not simply reject all of the ideas that people sent in. In fact, half of these points are interesting-and possibly valid at some level. (Care to guess which ones?) The others, I'm afraid, still strike me as rather lame, or even provably wrong. We'll deal with some of them later, in the testimony on "plot holes."

  But the core point is that we shouldn't have to go trawling around for meaning like this! The biggest and most lavish sci-fi epic of all time should make sense by now.

  Alas, you could fill intergalactic space with row after row of giant floating yellow words, and still, nothing would tie together. For example, the political rationale behind the "secessionists," or why the Republic fell apart.

  Or how Darth was able to detect Leia's midichlorian-rich blood from a million miles away... but never sniffed a thing when he was interrogating her by hand, with truth serum. Likewise, he doesn't recognize his own hand-built droids, when he meets them again after so many years.

  Or why he conveniently orders all the antiaircraft guns and fighters to stop shooting at Luke, so he can do it himself... and somehow keeps missing till the boy gets his shot.

  Then there are all sorts of other coincidences. Like the way Vader conveniently persuades Tarkin to let Luke and Leia and the Millennium Falcon go ...

  ... or, the way, twenty years earlier, Obi-Wan took the newborn Luke in order to conceal him from Vader, and chose as a hiding place, from all the worlds of the galaxy... Vader's home planet and Vader's hometown.

  Or a myriad other hints and clues that really ought to have added up to something. If anyone had been at the tiller, paying attention.

  Want to hear something pathetic? The most pathetic thing of all?

  I actually care about this stuff.

  I care about it because of all those high hopes, back in the same year that my own first novel came out. I care because I passionately believe that important stories ought to make sense. Even if they are dark tragedies. Even if I disagree with the lesson that's being taught. Because we learn from things that we can decipher. Even if and when we don't like the point being made. But an illogical mish-mash teaches nothing at all.

  More the fool, I care so much that this ongoing Star Wars thing sometimes distracted me from some of my own stories. On occasion I would catch myself mulling it over while driving, or sitting in the tub....

  ... until suddenly one day, it came to me.

  A simple solution. A way that it all might have made sense.

  THERE'S A SECRET PLAN, AFTER ALL

  But I'm not going to tell you here.

  Because my time's up. There are enough indictments on our plate, and the Defense is already on the wings, ready to weigh in, eager to tell us about the merits and glories of the Star Wars universe!

  Also, there's another reason.

  As a professional, I live in a world of critics and reviewers. I am used to being told what's wrong with work I've written, even novels that were tested past my special battery of fierce pre-readers, who generally catch most of the slipups before publication. (My aphorism: CITOKATE. Criticism is the only known antidote to error) I am used to others telling me where I failed, or where my creations have problems. That's fine.

  But what really prickles is when some upstart tells me how I oughta have fixed a problem. What I shoulda done, instead of what I did.

  I don't hanker for that.

  Furthermore, I don't have any right to do it to George Lucas. Not formally at least, in print. It just isn't right.

  Because, having heaped on criticism, for page after page, I really need to add this: the world would have been a much poorer place without Star Wars!

  Despite my grouchy grumblings about what could have been, the fact is
that George Lucas delivered a mainline feed of fantastic imagery and almost-pure joy, straight through the eyes, ears and optic nerves of about a billion people. That's a lot more than I have ever reached. It merits respect. The genuine kind, directed toward somebody who has used his talents to make a difference, and had fun doing it, too.

  Besides, hey, the man hired and subsidized maybe 10% of the greatest and most groundbreaking technical artists of our age, pushing forward dozens of wondrous new visualization technologies and opening doors for other creators in this wondrously free and open civilization.

  Yes, I have complaints about plot and character and deeper meaning. But, as I said at the beginning, fortunately, most people just don't care about any of that! We, here, reading (and writing) this book, are among the few who do. Moreover, if we are all lucky, then the "messages" in Star Wars will never matter anywhere near as much as the pure and simple joy.

  And yes, my kids cut in at one point, crystallizing this wisdom.

  "Cut him some slack, Dad. The lightsabers are cool."

  All right then, I'll hold back on my little plot gimmick-the Darth Vader twist-that (in my humble opinion) might make sense of so many unfortunate coincidences ... fulfill Qui-Gon's dream ... and even give the nasty oven mitt some payback, too. There are enough clues. Readers who like to play mental games can follow where they lead, using their own marvelous imaginations.'

  In the end, what matters is only this: be willing to look with a complex eye, even upon simple legends.

  You are many. A child, a teen, a grown-up. Individualist and citizen. A worker and a player. Feel free to enjoy any entertainment in the spirit that it's offered ... while another part keeps asking "what bill of goods am I being sold between the frames?"