Some nerdy Star Wars thoughts on morality

I’m reading one of those tremendously cheesy Star Wars novels. It takes place 40 years after A New Hope. Luke Skywalker, who leads a new Jedi Order, is being tried. And it’s for quite an interesting reason.
The leader of the galaxy is claiming that the Jedi should be outlawed. Here’s what she says “(The Jedi) protect the common citizen but don’t answer to him. They do not pay for their mistakes. They obey government orders for those orders conform to their moral code and not when they don’t. And that’s wrong. Any other group exhibiting that degree of arrogance, that unconcern for the rule of law, would be classified as a criminal organization.”
I don’t think I agree but I’m fascinated by the notion: usually we say it’s morally wrong to ignore our moral compass. Usually we say we ought to ignore the state if it conflicts with what we believe. This reversal is interesting. It leads to a question though:
If we all did what we wanted  would there be enough cohesion to actually be a country? If Kant is right, if we can’t all do it, then none of us should do it. Which means that the leader of the Star Wars Universe should be putting Luke on trial and that the Jedi are morally wrong.

I am such a geek

So, I just took the kids to see the new Star Wars/Cone Wars animated movie.

It was fair.

But I’ve developed this incredibly geeky theory.

I’m enough of a geek to know that they’ve been talking about this Star Wars television series.  And Lucas said it’ll be about characters we haven’t seen very much of, taking place between episodes 3 and 4.

 

***A bit of a spoiler follows***

I’m also enough of a geek to know that Lucas has used different media before to introduce characters who will later become significant.  For example, Boba Fet was in some unimaginably cheesy Christmas special well before Empire Strikes Back.  And General Grevious was introduced in the Cartoon Network animated shorts, before he was in the movies.

So here’s my theory:

This new show is going to be about Anakin’s apprentice who was introduced in the movie.  By the time of Revenge of the Sith she would be farely well along in her training, but clearly no match for Darth Vader, her former master.  So the whole thing could be about Anakin chasing her down, either in the hopes of turning her or killing her as one of the last remaining Jedi.

Even if I’m wrong, wouldn’t that be a cool premise for a show?

Star Wars, theology, and submission

A couple posts back, I explored some connections between scripture and Christianity.  Before I continue this line of thinking, I think I ought to say that I don’t know how many of these connections are intentional.  And it’s clear that were many other sources for these movies beyond Christianity.  In terms of religions, Buddhism and Taoism are clear influences.  I’m not a Buddhist or a Taoist, though, so these are not the influences I’m interested in, here.

Last post I explored a few connections between Anakin and Adam.  Anakin was tempted and brought about a fall for himself and the world.  At the end of the movie, he is a perversion of what he was meant to be.

There are of course connections  between Anakin and Jesus.  One I mentioned in that last post: both Jesus and Anakin are the result of immaculate conceptions.  A second connection: Prophesies linger around both figures.  People thought that they interpreted these prophecies correctly and they thought they new what to expect.  They were wrong.

It seems to me that Luke is more of a Jesus figure than Anakin.   As with Anakin, there is a name connection to Luke’s paralell figure.  The “other” Luke wrote one of the Gospels.  And scripture calls Jesus “son of Adam”.  If in fact Anakin is Adam, then Luke obviously is the son of the Adam figure.

Luke’s childhood in the unremarkable dessert under the domination of a tremendous and powerful empire evoke images of Jesus childhood, in his own unremarkable world, under the domination of the Roman Empire.

I think the deepest spiritual truths, the most Christian themes in these movies, is around submission and sacrifice as a path to glory and redemption.  Ben Kenobi sets the stage early in the films by sacrificing himself in the lightsabre duel with Darth Vader.  When Luke completes his training, he demonstrates that he understands this.  In Return of the Jedi, he just gives himself up at Darth Vader’s doorstep.

This is sort-of a fascinating contrast: Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi.  Halfway through the former, Anakin is grasping at power that is not his.  It doesn’t seem that he’s doing this so much out of love that Amidala should be around for her own sake as out of his belief that he should be more powerful than death.  On the other hand, Luke, about halway through Jedi, is submitting himself.  He is willing to sacrifice his own life for a chance at appealing to the basic humanity of Anakin… he wants to awaken something in him that was lost after Anakin’s fall. 

Perhaps I’m overintellectualizing here, but consider the changes within just that one movie.  Darth’s strong hold isn’t the first enemy base he attacked.  At the beginning of the movie, he invades Jaba’s palace to rescue Han.  But he engaged in this invasion with an elaborate plan, with his allies in place, with a great show of his own power.  This is quite different than how he arrives at the Imperial base.

Luke’s ploy pays off.  Darth Vader ultimately does more than participate in his own rescue.  He rescue Luke.

Jesus awakens our humanity.  Our awakening does not rescue Him from His fate.  But it does prove the logic of his original submission to it.

Theology and Sith

There are all these Christian themes running through the Star Wars movies.  People have written bazillions of books.  I didn’t think any were all that impressive.   I’m feeling kind-of nerdy (and arrogant) tonight.  I think I’ll blog about them.

I think that these become more obvious in the more recent movies.  The most obvious connections are cosmetic ones. There are these little explicit nods to Christianity that are hard to miss.  For example, Anakin is a product of an immaculate conception.  The number for the plan that will destroy the jedi is order 66– only, of course, pretty close to the number made famous in revelations as the number of the beast.  In the most recent movies, the force is even sometimes referred to as “the living force”– reminiscent of Christians referring to the “living God.”

Slightly deeper is ideas that run a little deeper than mere nods.   The favoring of the spiritual over the material for example.  The Star Wars movies paved the way for The Matrix in their declaration that the physical world is much less important than the spiritual reality which lies beneath it.   Consider, for example, Yoda’s chiding of Luke when his lack of faith leads to his failure to rise the X-Wing fighter out of the muck.  Or consider Ben Kenobi’s victory through surrender.  (More on this in the next post about this topic.)

(Just for the record, I have some misgivings about the understanding of the physical world vs the spiritual world.  Nonetheless, the orthodox Christian position has usually taken this route.)

A second paralell, also on this deeper level, occured to me recently.  One of my favorite scenes in all six movies is the one in “Revenge of the Sith” where Palpatine is talking to Anakin in that bizzare opera house.  He’s laying the ground work for his eventual corruption of Anakin, planting some seeds of doubt about the Jedi, some seeds of faith in the Sith.

I don’t know if this is why I liked the scene before I consciously realized it.   Here’s what I do know about that scene, and really, the whole series of movies.

It’s really about the fall from the Garden of Eden.

Like Adam, Anakin is tempted.  (Interestingly,two of the first three letters are the same of both names.)  Clear parameters have been lain out for him.  (In Anakin’s case, by the Jedi.  In Adam’s case, by God.)  The temptations of both Anakin and Adam are closely related to the God-like power of immortality.  (Remember the tree of life in the Garden of Eden?)  Both Adam and Anakin are tempted by a figure that takes advantage of greed, pride, and fear.

Like Adam, Anakin loses what he most sought.  Vincent Antonucci, in his excellent “I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” observes that Adam’s crushed community with God is the obvious ramification of the fall.  But his crushed relationship with Eve is also worth noticing.  Anakin, of course, loses his Amidala just as Adam loses the community he once had with Eve.  (We see this in Genesis by the way he tries to throw Eve under the bus as soon as God comes ’round.)  The God- Jedi paralell is here, too: Anakin loses the Jedi just as Adam lost his close connection with God.

I think there’s all sorts of interesting paralells between Luke and Jesus just as there are between Anakin and Adam.  I’ll probably “go there” in my next post.