House of Eratosthenes

Revenge of the Sith showed up finally, Saturday. Maybe I’m biased here, but I can’t find anything really positive to say about this marketing technique. I pre-order the movie, and my reward is that I get it on November 5th or so, while the Soccer Mom/Redneck Wal-Mart shopper gets to waltz in and pick it up on the 1st. My reward for all this advance planning is paying $14.86 instead of $19.99, a savings which is promptly eaten up by the shipping costs. Eh, some things it makes sense to by on the innernets, some things it don’t. But I digress.

Shortly before this final Star Wars installment came out there was this buzz going around that it was a Bush-bashing movie. This is based mostly on a line used by Anakin Skywalker, shortly after he turns to the Dark Side. Uh oh, I just ruined it for you if you haven’t seen it, huh. Anyway. He says something to his former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you are not with me, then you are my enemy.” Kenobi is supposed to further cement this relic of my childhood memories into the Fahrenheit 9/11 genre with the reply “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” There ya go, further proof that George Bush sucks. He lied to get us into a war that took 2,000 American lives, he smirks, he swaggers, he’s an evil genius who took over the country, he’s a raging imbecile, and he’s a Sith Lord.

Well, this whole outlook on the final Star Wars chapter has been bugging me every time I watch that part of the movie because from where I sit, there are quite a few lines that come swinging back around the other way. I will not go so far as to say it is a pro-Bush movie, only that I see a mixed set of messages. A lopsided mix of messages. There is a whole mess of one-liners, character setups, and plot developments that appear to be 1) artificially inserted for no other purpose than supporting the War on Terror, or 2) created for the support of a storyline that, intentionally or not, supports the War on Terror. I was going to write up a list, but someone else beat me to it.

The example that I think is most important comes first, but this author does not put quite as much weight on it as I think it deserves:

In the film, Anakin states something to the effect that the difference between a Sith and a Jedi is that the Sith are emotional and turn inward and are selfish in the Force, while Jedi are ruled by logic turn outward and are selfless. Being selfish and emotional are the literal hallmarks of contemporary liberalism. It�s all about how you feel, doing what you feel is right. There are no moral absolutes. At one point Obi tells Anakin that Palpatine is evil, and Anakin responds that he believes the Jedi are evil. Obi believes in absolute moral evil, whereas Anakin takes the liberal position that “one man�s terrorist is another man�s freedom fighter.”

Here’s the dialog in question as I lift it from the DVD, in the middle of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s ferocious duel. See if you’re reminded of one side or the other in this whole Iraq debate, as the two actors speak:

Anakin, at 1:58:23: “I should’ve known the Jedi were planning to take over.”

Obi-Wan (exasperated): “Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!”

Anakin: “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!”

Obi-Wan: “Well, then you are lost!”

(The two contestants glower at each other for ten or twenty seconds or so)

Anakin: “This is the end for you, my master.”

Now really, let’s take a couple steps backward and look at what you have going on here. You have this punk kid who is abundant in his power and potential but unwise in the ways of the world/galaxy, completely lacking in perspective, who is ruled by his emotions. He’s sold out his “country” and is pulling this opinion pretty much out of his ass that the “Jedi were planning to take over.” His incredulous, wiser elder, with this What in the blue fuck is the matter with you tone uses exactly the same argument the Republicans are using, that this guy offscreen is just plain evil — he just plain is! — and what is the matter with you that you can’t see it?

And Anakin’s Euro-pansy douchebag response is the classic John Kerry nuance philosophy of (as the Right Thinking blogger points out) there are no absolutes, it all depends on your point of view. The guy who possesses a better sense of perspective about what’s going on, realizes (“then you are lost!”) that he’s having a futile conversation with someone who isn’t listening to reason, and seems to come to a mutual agreement with his former apprentice that the political debate is over.

The young “lost” guy then prognosticates that the Good Guy’s demise is close at hand — very much like the mainstream media and liberal bloggers are predicting, nowadays, that the White House is about to collapse (“Is it on its final days? Is Scooter Libby’s indictment the beginning of the end?”).

I suppose there is a certain symmetry to all this, at least on the surface, and that for every snippet of this movie that seems to cheer on the Republicans there’s another one designed to appeal to the MoveOn.Org crowd. And vice-versa. But this particular line of dialog is critically important to the entire six-chapter saga. All the way forward (backward) in Return of the Jedi, in a line that is clearly supposed to show the audience What It’s All About, the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi chastises Anakin’s son Luke that “You’re going to find that a great many of the truths we cling to, depend greatly on our point of view.”

And indeed the Ghost of Kenobi is right about that. But he, and by extension George Lucas, is emphatically stating that all points of view are not equally valid. It’s not a game with a monkey and a spinning dartboard; if this, somehow, is inconsistent with the intended message of Star Wars, then Lucas and crew have quite by accident made an insightful and prescient comment about life. You are individually responsible for the points of view that you hold, and whether these lead you to the Good Side of the Force, or to the Dark Side. It is, as the saying goes, Your Desssssstiny. Point-of-View and Destiny are inextricably linked.

And if your “point of view” makes it easy to swivel the roles of good & evil, back, forward, and backward again, this Lazy-Susan spinning-around is a harbinger of a destiny that ultimately won’t have a lot of appeal to you. And no, outside of the movies it doesn’t get you a glossy, scary helment or a spiffy-looking suit.

Update: I was thinking about this before, and forgot about it, and then after I wrote what you read above I had this flashback. I was thinking about one scene that had a huge impression on me the moment I first saw the film in the theater, and the Right Thinking author completely missed this. At 1:13:20 there is the “Fork in the Road” for the entire friggin’ movie, which means, the whole Star Wars story. Mace Windu and Chancellor Palpatine duke it out right in front of Anakin, the three major characters arranged neatly into a simple triumvirate of Good, Bad and guy-who-has-to-make-tough-choice. Palpatine and Windu start zapping each other with force lightning, and simultaneously, have a political argument in front of Anakin. That’s gotta be tough to do while you’re being zapped, although admittedly the exchange doesn’t approach William Buckley heights of sophistication:

Palpatine (zapping Windu): “He’s a traitor!”

Mace Windu (absorbing and reflecting the zaps back): “He’s the traitor, Aaiiigggh!!”

Palpatine (face getting distorted by his own lightning): “I have the power to save the one you love!” (His plosives become distorted as his lips lose shape) “You must choose…ugh!”

Holy Crap. The social commentary is burning through this so incandescently you’d have to be blind to miss it.

If Anakin enjoys the luxury of a studious examination of what is good and what is evil, he will side with Mace Windu and the forces of good. Cornered, Palpatine turns everything around simply by denying Anakin that luxury: I have the power to save the one you love. He knows that once this factor is introduced, Anakin will cease to care about anything else.

As he changes tactics, from “He’s the bad guy” to “I can save the one you love,” the distortion of his features takes place right then and there — a reflection of how truly insidious this brand of demagoguery is.

Forget about terrorists. Vote for us, or those Republicans will have your grandma choosing between her meds and her next can of dog food.

You know why there are so many people who were bitterly disappointed in Star Wars I and II, and were all set to trash this movie, instead having to grudgingly admit it was, at least, the best of the three? It wasn’t that Yoda had a bigger role or that Jar Jar had a smaller one. It was because this movie had the best drama. We were supposed to identify with Anakin, especially with his flaws, and we did. Deep down, we all have what it takes to become embroiled in a battle between right and wrong, and abandon the Good Fight once we see that the side of “wrong” has some perceived power, however delusive that may be, to save the ones we love.

We have the capacity to care about what’s good, and then forsake the pursuit of good, even align ourselves with what we know to be evil — out of love. It is a flaw of compassion that burdens nearly all of us. If half of us enjoyed immunity from this, the drama would be no good. But in real life, half of us fall prey to favoring love and compassion, over our innate and God-given recognition of good and evil, while nearly all of us have the capacity to do so.

So we can all relate. That’s what good drama is. Beats the snot out of watching some stalk-eyed soprano amphibian prattle on about “Meesa People Gonna Die?” and “How Wude!”

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Revenge of the Euro-Pansy America-Hating DouchebagsTuesday, November 8th, 2005

Revenge of the Euro-Pansy America-Hating Douchebags
Tuesday, November 8th, 2005