Ooh, that Star Wars music! When that John Williams score comes on...
Dee DEEEEE! Dee-dee-dee-DEE-dee! Dee-dee-dee-DEE-dee dee-dee-dee deeeee. WOW. AWESOME. The hairs on my arms stand up.

I can't tell you how much I loved The Return of the Jedi when I was a kid; I don't really recall being all that interested in A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. This movie, Revenge of the Sith, more than makes up for the disappointment I felt in the first two prequels - they were just too contrived, too pretty yet insubstantial. In Sith, Ewan MacGregor finally grows into his Obi-Wan Kenobi role, complete with accent. I really get a better vibe from Hayden Christensen, and there was Threepio! And my beloved R2. I just love that R2 roar/scream thing. Not only is he a little droid with a giant attitude, he kicks ass big time. In extremely clever ways. Perfect!

It seems that the Clone War is going badly; Dooku has kidnapped Palpatine, and Grievous is on the prowl. Skywalker and Kenobi must rescue the Chancellor in their teeth, and try to neutralise them if possible. This is where it gets complicated politically; the Jedi council does not trust the Chancellor, and he seems to be gathering far too much power to himself, threatening their beloved Republic. Anakin is caught in the middle, befriended by Palpatine but loyal to his Jedi masters. It is the emotional developement of Anakin that is the focus of the movie, and as such it becomes as painful as a Greek tragedy to see him twist and warp, and finally fall.

Some of the dialogue, of course, was simply terrible: the loving interactions between Padme and Anakin especially. And the attempts at banter between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Aargh. But even so, I loved the complexity of the politics, the variety of species and droids, the richness of cities and cultures. I can't get over how stunning Coruscant has become, how intricate and polished the situations and backdrops. The size alone is staggering; the awesome Senate, the massive columned halls, the glittering city-scapes. This is the universe that captured our imaginations in the first trilogy, and leaves us eager for more. How many times have we heard or quoted lines like "Luke, I am your father!" or "I'd rather kiss a Wookiee"? You can see the excited little-boy grins on Ewan and Haydn's faces when they say "May the Force be with you" to each other. I laughed out loud. I think what really intrigues me is the ability to simply jump on a starship and fly into space, and go to any planet you like. And the space-battles! They were so amazing, so incredibly realistic.

Padme spends most of the movie crying, much to my irritation. Hardly as assertive as Leia, who braved the Evil Empire in spite of the loss of her entire home planet to achieve the liberty of the galaxy! And that curly hairsyle was sooo unflattering. I even preferred the strange doughnuts-over-ears thing Leia had going. Oh well. At least there was no revealing gold bikini...

Palpatine was hideous. He really looked like some sort of demonic monster, or Krang. (In fact, apart from the Mr Burns overbite, he bears quite a close resemblance to my nasty flabby ex-boss. Astounding. I just knew he was an evil Sith lord. This proves it!) I got quite annoyed by the pseudo-Christian mumbo-jumbo in the movie - Palpatine says "It is finished", even. And Anakin-Vader says "If you're not for me, you're against me", a Messianic statement out of the New Testament - and it's a spiritual principle, not an us-versus-them aggression thing...

My instincts say that perhaps, if people want sequels (and you know they do), they should make them while Luke, Leia and Han are still alive. (Although that probably wouldn't be too much of a problem in the future. People will rush around trademarking the faces of dead stars, in case some future director will want to make a movie starring Grace Kelly and Fred Astaire and Gene Hackman. Mmmm: Interesting concept).

All in all, a sumptuous treat that had my friend and I making lightsabre noises all the way home. (We couldn't decide if it was zhooom! or mwummmmm!). Enjoy thoroughly. I have this urge to go watch all the others again...

Zen/Taoist influences in Star Wars

I'm the world's biggest exigete; I just love finding hidden meanings and influences. Not to the extent of paranoia, of course - I'll leave that to conspiracy theorists and cult members. And it's quite fascinating to see all the threads of Eastern religious thought in Lucas's "Force".

Most Eastern religions take their tenets from the I Ching, an ancient Chinese fortune-telling book. Hinduism, Taoism and Zen all derive from this book's teachings. The common thread that runs through all is that there is "god-energy" that permeates everything (chi or ki, or prana). It is made up of animals, plants, people, planets, stars, the desk you're leaning on, the coffee you're drinking, your shoes... No, I'm kidding. Everything living in the universe. These creatures together pool their consciousness into one giant amorphous blob that is called "God". In Hinduism, Brahman. Eventual union with Brahman is called "Nirvana". People "yoke" [yoga] themselves to Brahman by adopting positions, called asanas. Each position in yoga invokes specific deities, and each cumulative body-position is part of a Hindu prayer. Hindus pray with their bodies, not their minds and voices. Prayer is "coercing God", bending this god-force to their will. This is the "Force" of Star Wars.

In Hinduism, people must be reborn again and again before they can achieve union with Brahman in Nirvana, "blessed nothingness". They disappear after death, their arduous existences on earth at last ended (in the East, the doctrine of reincarnation is seen as a curse, not an interesting opportunity to use a oija board. And how come everyone was an Egyptian queen in a past life? Surely there were more peasants and slaves back then than royalty?) It seems Lucas's lot simply recombine with his Force after they die, and turn all blue and glowy. In Eastern religions, there is no Creator. Creation creates itself, in a continuous cycle (how'd it start?) New Agers believe (like Shirley MacClaine and John Denver, for example) that they are their own "God", co-creators and infinitely powerful (yet they cannot stop themselves going all wrinkly, or calm storms, or fly without planes.) It's the Garden of Eden again, and the snake is saying "You will be as God, knowing good and evil". It is an hubristic, irrational belief most people are only too happy to embrace.

The entire training of a Jedi involves learning to "control the Force". They must renounce all fear, anger and hate, because this leads to the "Dark Side". We're all familiar with the Taoist "Yin-Yang" representation of a circle consisting of two opposing teardrops in alternating black and white. The white half is heat, strength, light and dryness, the male principle; the black half is cold, weak, dark and moist, the female principle (**quietly fumes at anti-feminist dogma**). The philosophy is simple dualism: "God" consists of both good and evil. There is a little bit of good in evil, and a little bit of evil in good. Good and evil are equal but opposite in every way. This has parallels in Persian Zoroastrianism.

Jedi must therefore completely control their feelings, denying affection for anyone and not mourning or missing them when they die. They must shun all absolutes (absolutely?) and generally spend all their time meditating or something. They must always control their fear.

Another Perspective

Now the God I know, the Judeo-Christian God, consists of three Persons in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are personal, and are mentioned in the Bible as having feelings, whether of grief, anger, compassion, love, forebearance, mercy, gentleness or zealousness. God's anger burns, even if it lasts a moment; His love abounds, continuing forever. Even though He transcends human gender, He is usually referred to as male. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. God is infinitely more powerful than satan and his demons; they are merely created beings, fallen angels. God is the only uncreated being; He has created all others, and we are His creation. We cannot "become" God; He is God, and we are not. Thus we have the juxtaposition of a personal, loving God with an impersonal force which cannot love, cannot emote, cannot emphathise with us in our suffering. Our suffering is meaningless without Someone to count all our tears, without Someone who created us for His purpose. Even in the darkest valley in our lives, He is with us. He cares for us, and he will use the pain and anguish we go through to not only build our character, but to bless those around us.

My God is a God of love. In fact, God = Love. The Greek word for God's love is agape, meaning a love that is totally unconditional (hard to imagine, but try) and is much, much stronger than death. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out all fear, for fear has to do with punishment. Instead of fear, we bask in the love of God; we are told "Do not fear" so many times in the Bible it's staggering. It's not a command - it's a loving injunction. We do not need to fear anymore. There is another word translated "fear" in the Bible, for example: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. This is a Hebrew word meaning awe, reverence, respect. Therefore it could be translated The loving, revering awe and respect of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Makes more sense, doesn't it?

Jesus was shown to be deeply in tune with his feelings while on earth: He wept, laughed frequently, grieved for those who rejected His message of salvation, experienced righteous anger towards those who profaned His Father's temple. Anger is in itself not a sin; it is an acceptable emotion. It is what we do with our anger that could involve sin. Self-control involves forgiving those who wrong you before the sun goes down; anger carried on too long leads to hatred and bitterness, it's true.

You can't go one hour in any Star Wars movie without someone saying "Search your feelings!". I have little truck with feelings. Feelings are prone to distortion and lapses in perception. You can feel bad about something just because you've got a toothache. You can't trust feelings, they're changable. You need to trust in facts, and then feelings follow. Instead of "having faith in yourself", you need a moral compass against which you can measure yourself and your circumstances. Otherwise you can fool yourself quite easily; say for example you want to go into an investment. You've been told it will skyrocket in two months, and they've shown you little graphs to prove it. You feel great about it. Then you go to transfer your money at the bank and see a booklet about investment companies. You flip through it idly and see to your horror that the type of company you were so excited about is in fact very high-risk, and the chances of losing all your earnings are double the chance of getting any profits! Needless to say, having the facts was much more beneficial than just following your feelings - after all, they were powered by greed, pride and lust for status. How trustworthy were they?

Another very Eastern concept is that of Master-Servant/Teacher-Student. The Student subordinates himself completely to his teacher, calling him "Master". He panders to his every wish, in the hope of obtaining enlightenment. He bows abjectly before him, and serves him all his life; he might also worship his master after he has died. Calling someone "Master" is thus very telling. Jesus said that no one can serve two masters - the implication is that we all serve one. For some it is money, or power; others devote themselves to the altar of fashion or fame. It is, for me, imperative that we identify our "master", for we are slaves to that which has mastered us; I want no master but Jesus Christ. He urged us to call no-one "Father", for we have one father, who is in heaven; to call no one "Teacher", for we have one teacher, our same Father in heaven. No pupil will be greater than his teacher, and no servant greater than his master, but every pupil will be like his teacher. Therefore we must choose our masters and teachers carefully... I mean honestly - people aren't interested in any form of moral teaching, except when it comes from the mouth of a small green Muppet with a syntactically odd sentence structure. A bloody Muppet!

Relativism has always interested me. The statement: "There are no absolutes" is a self-excluding statement. In other words, it nullifies itself. (Like Zeno's Paradox: "All Cretans are liars". He was Cretan. Was he lying? If he was, there might be some truthful Cretans... therefore he might be telling the truth. But if he's telling the truth, then he must be lying... cos he's a Cretan. Aaargh! See what I mean?) If the statement there are no absolutes is true, then the actual statement, which is an absolute, is false. Therefore it cannot work, because it's true and false at the same time... This is why I hate relativism! It's not logical. So how can a Jedi shun all absolutes? All of them? Even that is in itself an absolute. Philosophers love talking about relativism until it hits them where they live. Do not steal is laughable until they get mugged. Do not commit adultery is fine until someone steals their spouse. And so it goes. I could argue that most of the commandments are for the benefit of other people, more than yourself. The whole of the Law and the Prophets can be summed up in just the first two: Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and Love your neighbour as you love yourself. If you love your neighbours, you won't steal from them, kill them, covet their possessions or spouse, or commit adultery with them, for it will ruin their marriages as well as your own. Doing "whatever feels right at the time" could be anything; and the repercussions can be severe. So I can absolutely state that I disbelieve relativism.

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