Star Wars on Trial Page 6

It is a new millennium. There are choices. So be many. Keep looking forward, courageously, into a world of change.

  And demand a universe that makes some sense.

  THE COURTROOM

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: I object!

  DROID JUDGE: What is the problem, Mr. Stover?

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: That was a lot more than opening comments. For one thing, it was more than 10,000 words. And for another, he essentially offered testimony on the first charge: the politics of Star Wars are anti-democratic and elitist.

  DROID JUDGE: Well, that is a fair point. Mr. Brin?

  DAVID BRIN: I'm happy to have my comments considered as expert witness testimony on this charge. I believe I've clearly established the anti-democratic and elitist nature of the Star Wars saga. I won't need any additional witnesses on this charge.

  DROID JUDGE: Fine, we'll consider Mr. Brin's opening statement as also serving as expert testimony on the first charge.

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Excuse me? That was expert testimony? Now, hold on-

  DAVID BRIN: Your Honor, I am a recognized expert on the politics of Star Wars. I refer you to my infamous Salon.com article published June 15, 1999-

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Recognized by who, the Imperial Sith Show-Trial Fake Certification Committee? Five Kowackian monkey-lizards on a six-day spice-binge? Hey, this reminds me of a joke-a kid, a Jedi and two droids walk into a bar in Mos Eisley-

  DROID JUDGE: (severely) Mr. Stover, you are out of order. Mr. Brin's expert credentials have been accepted by this Court. Do you have a formal objection to offer?

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Hmp. Well ... if he's the only witness he can find on this charge, it'd be more appropriate to offer sympathy.

  (Reaction in the courtroom)

  DROID JUDGE: Order! There will be order! Mr. Stover, behave yourself!

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Can I at least cross-examine? A question or two, Your Honor.

  DROID JUDGE: You may proceed.

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: (checking his notes) Mr. Brin, in what verse of The Iliad does Achilles slay thousands with a wave of his hand? When I read it, I seem to recall that he actually only fights Trojan heroes (who are hardly disposable extras)-and that each of the Trojans slain by the Greek heroes (and vice versa) is provided by Homer with a capsule biography, specifically referring to details such as his childhood, his homeland and the family that will weep for him-

  DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover, the subject at hand is the politics of Star Wars.

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Yes, Your Honor. Sorry-it's just that all his drivel about flattering the Power Structure doesn't make sense, when Agamemnon comes off as an indecisive blowhard and Menelaos as a cuckolded weakling, Odysseus reads as a conniving bully, and Achilles is a pouting ambiguously gay whiner who lets his "special friend" get killed borrowing his favorite outfit-

  DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover, you will confine yourself to-

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Yes, sorry, Your Honor, it won't happen again. Very soon.

  DROIDJUDGE: Do you actually have any questions specifically relating to the politics of Star Wars?

  MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: In a backhanded way, Your Honor; since Mr. Brin's criticism of the politics of Star Wars comes by way of unflattering comparisons with works and authors he considers to be politically more palatable, I suppose I would ask him if Jules Verne's most famous creation, Captain Nemo, is not precisely the kind of "superhero" he derides? If, in fact, the vast majority of the protagonists of Robert A. Heinlein's novels don't fall into that category? If H. G. Wells's most famous novel, The War of the Worlds, does not present the absolute failure of democratic society to respond to a threat, requiring a deus ex machina to save the human race? If Mr. Wells's other legendary novel, The Time Machine, could not be fairly described as unconscionably racist in a biology-as-destiny sense? If the countless German soldiers disposed of by Mr. Spielberg's heroes in the process of Saving Private Ryan are any more than "slaughtered victims ... mere minions, after all. Extras, without families or hopes to worry about shattering. Spear-carriers"? If the same cannot be said for the numberless Klingons and Romulans and gods-knowwhat blasted to atoms by the Enterprise?

  All these questions boil down to One Big Question: when you try hard enough,you can find elements to attack in just about anything, can't you?

  As Mr. Brin is a hostile witness, a simple "Yes" or "No" will be sufficient. Please remind him that he is under oath.

  DAVID BRIN: If it pleases the Court, may I begin my response by quoting from Homer's great epic poem, The Iliad, chapter XXI:

  Forthwith the hero left his spear upon the bank, leaning it against a tamarisk bush, and plunged into the river like a god, armed with his sword only. Fell was his purpose as he hewed the Trojans down on every side. Their dying groans rose hideous as the sword smote them and the river ran red with blood...

  ... and when Achilles's arms grew weary with killing them, he drew twelve youths alive out of the water, to sacrifice in revenge for Patroclus. He drew them out like dazed fawns, bound their hands behind them.... Then he sprang into the river, thirsting for more blood.

  All right, it wasn't just one wave of his hand.

  Still, might I ask the Court, especially, to note the words "like a god"?

  Moreover, let me make something clear: I never claimed that all Campbellian-style legends portray kings in ways that modern people find admirable! After all, despite recent moves back toward aristocratism, we are still rebels! It will take a lot of propaganda to make us turn away from our enlightenment revolution, to re-embrace the bad old ways.

  Yes, it is easy to see the flaws of kingship in fellows like Agamemnon and Menelaos, though it can be a bit harder to notice in sweetened and sanitized figures like King Arthur, or Elrond, who had better press agents. Still, what's fundamental is that Homer and his ilk never let their common folk choose any other path. As in Star Wars, they must pick sides between demigods-usually the side that looks prettier. They never get to try a wholly different way.

  Since Mr. Stover raised the subject of more recent literature, let's discuss Captain Nemo! Without a doubt, Jules Verne did tug at some of the same emotional strings as in classic tragedy. Nemo rails against the warmongering and oppressive "system" fighting it with great courage, ingenuity and success ... till he is brought low by his own arrogance and pride. Hubris, again. But, in this case, at least Nemo's rant against entrenched power gets heard. And note, he may be a genius, but he remains nothing without a skilled crew that shares his dream. (Again, the naval metaphor, leaving us with the best character of the book, the Nautilus!) This is a complex, hybrid tragedy, but one with lots of modernist elements, more than enough to call Verne a fellow revolutionary!

  Let me also leap to defend Steven Spielberg, who actually strove hard to personalize German soldiers in Saving Private Ryan, at least as much as an American G. I. might have had time to do. (Limited point of view.) Especially impressive was the personal fight between two alpha warriors, and the way the winning German granted a nearby coward the chance to opt out ... only then, later, that coward gathered the courage to do his job. On a larger scale, can Mr. Stover truly not see this wonderful film as a true archetype of what I'm talking about? Myths that portray citizen soldiers standing up for their civilization, sometimes bickering, sometimes getting too angry, but nevertheless always returning to stand up?

  it is not merely the fact that millions die that proves a tale to be anti-democratic. Millions are dying during Deep Space Nine and during Schindler's List! Yet, these dramas preach a very different lesson than kingly leadership or the authority of demigods. The crux is this: are people fighting and dying for elites, or for the accountable institutions, laws and general decency of a civilization that ought to be theirs to share and own? Government by, of and for the sapient?

  The difference, in a truly modern tale, is that many of those "spear-carrier" millions get to do what they weren't allowed by Homer ... and are allowed to do only by a
ccident in Star Wars. They do what our dads did, when a Great Leader roused Nazi romantics to follow him, aiming to end our democracy forever.

  They stand up.

  ITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT of folksy snapping of suspenders and straightening of bowtie, I suppose I have to get up and talk now, about what Learned Opposing Counsel has told you will be the Merits and Glories of Star Wars.

  Well, I'm not gonna do it.

  That's what I have witnesses for.

  Besides, you're hip to the Merits and Glories already, or you wouldn't be reading this.

  I'm here only to introduce myself and the subject, and to talk a little bit about the nature of the arguments you'll be reading. Along the way I'll clear up some minor points, and maybe highlight a few of the rhetorical games the Sith-sorry, the Prosecution-might be playing. Brevity being the soul of et cetera, I'll keep it short.

  Short-ish.

  Let's start right off with some straight truths.

  First: I'm not exactly unbiased, and I'm sure as hell not going to pretend to be. In the interests of full disclosure, I'll tell you right up front that I have personally perpetrated three (that's three-count 'em) of those poor substitutes for real science fiction that are driving real SF off the shelves, including the novelization for Revenge of the Sith. Seeing as how one of the basic premises of this argument is a direct attack against my own work, I see no reason to take a high-minded tone. Since the Prosecution is clearly (and wisely) disinclined to accept a duel with lightsabers, I have reluctantly decided to settle for whipping them in print.

  Second: as the author of the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, I occupy a privileged position in that I have had the pleasure of spending considerable time in a room with Mr. Lucas himself, discussing in detail certain elements of the Saga, including deeper implications of the destruction of the Jedi Order, the nature of the Force and any number of other things, some of which are still covered by the confidentiality clause in my contract. What this means is that I have access to a great deal of inside information, which I fully intend to use in the most ruthless manner possible without actually getting myself hauled off in binders by Lucasfilm Licensing stormtroopers.

  Third: I openly admit that playing Defense gives me a number of advantages (for example, I got to read Learned Opposing Counsel's stuff before I had to write my own). The biggest one is that Our Side doesn't have to prove anything; it's the job of the Prosecution to make their case. All the Good Guys-excuse me, the Defense-have to do is demonstrate that the Prosecution, well, hasn't.

  That they, in fact, can't. Ever.

  That's my plan. That's the entire Defense Strategy.

  Now, this will be an unusual trial for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it's taking place in a virtual space halfway between these pages and your imagination. I want you to keep that in mind; it's important, and we'll be coming back to it.

  Another way in which this will be an unusual trial is that you'll be seeing an inversion of the customary relationship between Prosecution and Defense. In an ideal world, at least, the task of the Prosecution is to set forth an unbiased, unvarnished exhibition of the facts of the case, and it is then the task of the Defense to argue and obfuscate and generally aggressively advocate for the innocence of the defendant.

  That's exactly the opposite of what you'll be seeing here.

  In the subsequent pages, you will see the Prosecution selectively ignore important elements of the Saga in order to support their pernicious misinterpretations; you will see them twist some facts and pretend others have no significance; and you will see them persistently insist that their interpretation is the only valid one.

  It is this last which We of the Defense will be attacking directly

  Why?

  Because we're the Good Guys, of course.

  Well, okay: that's a biased statement. But it's honestly biased. I openly admit that you (or, most particularly, the Sith L-um, Learned Opposing Counsel and his evil minions, er, witnesses) might have a different interpretation.

  Which might be equally valid.

  Hang on to that idea, too.

  Because what we'll be arguing here (with only a very few exceptions) will not be the facts of the case; those facts are on public display, in six films, dozens of cartoons, over a hundred novels and countless comic books. What will be argued here is the interpretation of those facts.

  What the Prosecution will attempt, in fact, is to control your interpretation of the facts.

  Why?

  Not because they're the Bad Guys (well, not just because they're the Bad Guys), but because that control is necessary to their case. They have to make you agree with their nasty-minded misinterpretationsI would say force you, but I won't sink to cheap puns. Very often.

  As soon as you start to think that other, alternate, innocent or even virtuous interpretations of the facts are available to you, their case falls to pieces. So their only option is to twist the facts-and when the facts cannot be twisted, there's only one avenue left.

  Mind control.

  Its an insidious game (in-Sidious, yes, I lied about the cheap puns)-for the need to control is the essence of the dark side-and it has already begun.

  Let's just take a quick look at Learned Opposing Counsel's opening statement for evidence of careful editing of reality to suit a dark agenda....

  For example, Opposing Counsel begins by insisting that Luke Skywalker, in his very first action as ajedi Knight, should have violated the most fundamental principles of the Jedi Order. Opposing Counsel will be satisfied only if Luke threatens Jabba the Hutt-bullies him into submission-rather than entering in peace, and offering even a crime lord a simple, straightforward opportunity to Do the Right Thing. Lukeentirely properly, consistent with his principles and those of the Jedioffers violence only in response to violence. Opposing Counsel, on the other hand, apparently would prefer Luke to have fallen to the dark side by the very first sequence of Episode VI.

  Not that I find this in any way suspicious, you understand.

  While we're at it, let's swiftly dispose of Opposing Counsel's fetish for the Other Franchise as well. Is it really necessary for us to remind the Court that these "closer to average" minor character types in the Other Franchise are statistically far more likely to be disposable cannon fodder than "heroes themselves"? Does Opposing Counsel expect us to believe he is unaware of the etymology and meaning of the SFnal expression redshirt? Does Opposing Counsel expect the Court to forget that-high-minded rhetoric notwithstanding-again, statistically speaking, this so-called Prime Directive has proven to be an SFnal Wicker Man, honored most when it must be burned down in the name of some "greater good"?

  Does Opposing Counsel expect the Court to ignore the plain fact that these Vessels of Civilization he so admires are, in fact, heavily armed warships? That for all its supposed role as a carrier of some theoretical democratic principle, the Enterprise is in fact an authoritarian state in miniature, a collective under the command of an absolute ruler-more often than not in a de facto condition of war.

  This is the truth of the ideal held before the Court by Opposing Counsel: lip service to principles more honored in the breach than in the observance, to create the illusion of democracy-which is actually supported by the suppression of individual rights, in an authoritarian regime justified by a semipermanent state of armed conflict.

  Let me remind the Court that the ship Opposing Counsel fetishizes is "vastly bigger, more complex, a veritable city cruising through space"-a city-ship, one might be forgiven for adding, that carries enough firepower (by no coincidence whatsoever) to vaporize a planet.

  This, Opposing Counsel freely admits, is his ideal.

  Does this remind the Court of anyone in particular?

  Not that I'm saying it should.

  And the filmmaker he holds up as the egalitarian opposite to George Lucas? Whose oeuvre extols the power of the "barely above average"? (In passing, on the subject of Saving Private Ryan-I would sincerely love
to watch Opposing Counsel explain to a roomful of Army freakin' Rangers where he gets the balls to claim they're only "barely above average"... but that's just in passing, and we'll let it go.)

  This filmmaker would be none other than a certain Steven *coughIndianaJonescough* Spielberg, whose films are notable mostly for demonizing and dehumanizing the heroes' opponents, to make us all comfortable with cheering along as we watch them being eaten alive by, say, the Wrath of God.

  As opposed to George Lucas, who has spent half of his life's work putting a human face on what had been previously regarded as the icon of ultimate evil-who spent an entire trilogy of films reminding us that the potential for destruction rests beneath even the noblest motives, and that we should always turn a suspicious eye upon anyone who preaches that They Know Best.

  Even the Jedi Council.

  Because sometimes they're just plain wrong. And sometimes they're up to something....

  What I find so astonishing, in fact, in Opposing Counsel's indictment is that he seems to believe that the Saga endorses rule by a secretive unelected elite-and then spends much of his argument showing how the Saga itself explicitly rejects that very concept.

  Yes, Yoda is secretive, and often unhelpful. The Jedi themselvesSURPRISE!-aren't exactly good guys. Perhaps Opposing Counsel never noticed. Let me enlighten him, and the Court.

  If you take a close look at the Jedi Order, you find that-in Mr. Lucas's own words-they're a cross between the Texas Rangers and the Mafia. They are a vast organization of superheroes-real superheroes, with superpowers right out of Marvel or DC Comics-who wield near-absolute power in secret, without accountability to anyone but themselves and the Office of the Supreme Chancellor. They are the Justice League with interplanetary Licenses to Kill.

  And guess what?

  The Chosen One is chosen to destroy them.

  Does Opposing Counsel expect the Court to believe this is an accident?