OTC50 #105

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ALLEGORIES TOUCH THE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS ON MANY PERSONAL LEVELS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

T

he whirlwind of good fighting evil presented in white and black simplicity no longer washed with a reality more complex than us and them narratives.

Star Wars became a blockbuster just when audiences became weary of the war genre and the western that no longer reflected the realty shown on news clips showing people scrambling for the last seats on military helicopters withdrawing from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

The world like the battle in space between the Empire and the Rebels was anything but certain. Distinguishing the heroes from the villains became as difficult as predicting victory, a state of affairs so tenuous that 40 years later the battle continues with George Lucas passing on his knowledge to Walt Disney Studios just as the rebellion gets scattered into the wind.

George Lucas created Star Wars from a number of influences. Science fiction fantasy came from comic books like Flash Gordon. The wondering solitary space hero came from Japanese Samurai movies. The layered textuality came from the evening news. Star Trek had been on television, but Star Wars was different, more dynamic, less static.

Lucas produced the first trilogy, directing the debut film, Star Wars: (1977). And then Lucas came back in the digital era at the forefront of computer generated imaging technology to make a trilogy of prequels more intimate and more detailed in character development, but also more complicated plots played out in visually stunning masterpieces.

Star Wars relied on the best aspects of cinematic art to make the space fantasy seem real. Stop action motion filming made the giant machines look mechanical. Puppets made the aliens come alive. The prop department made the Millennium Falcon as coveted as a roadster.

The prequels had a bit of sophistication in each element of filmmaking that was lacking in the original trilogy. Scene development became a seamless blend of realism and CGI. Stop motion animation techniques with models seemed more authentic. Plots developed linearly but the stories were frequently complicated by several subplots, often left purposefully unresolved for the next film.

Despite the added complexities, everyone, including children, could still relate to the simplicity of good versus evil.

The story has not waned because everyone, particularly audiences in public movie houses, still feel the injustice of society, and vicariously rebel against the powerful establishment when otherwise helpless to do so in the real world. Star Wars is a chance to finally attend the battle of justice versus injustice.

People attend the next film in the trilogy in anticipation of justice finally winning out.

Injustice had become as much an internal conflict as an international one with few political borders.

Lucas, and a group of young academically trained directors, that included Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma, were influenced as much by Classic Hollywood and international cinema as political developments in the real world. Wars could no longer be won with certainty, and peace was seldom assured by military intervention. Movies were developed with those themes in mind.

Star Wars became so popular as to contribute to the cultural imperialism of the rest of the world. Cultures were assimilated within the capitalist consumer society of the free world at an accelerated rate because of the depiction of empire versus rebellion in the franchise films.

The chaos of interplanetary expansion was cast in an allegory in such a way as to unit families. Children, whose parents did not understand the grandeur of the story themes in 1977, would be able to share their insights with their children in 1999, and then again in 2015. Jedi masters can take lightsabers out of closets and pass them on to Jedi younglings over succeeding generations.

The films’ success depend in part on tapping into common elements of different cultures, such as spirituality and morality, ethics, human frailties and evil temptations, concepts to which every child must eventually be introduced.

When Anakin Skywalker kills younglings, good was tempted by evil, despite the mentorship of the Jedi program. The Force had a dark side. And Darth Vader personified anyone trying to control any country around the world.

Influences all around the family tempt the innocent child. White armored soldiers had become the bad ones and the black armored commander the evil conjuror. The audience had finally seen first hand the worst of the worst.

White symbolizing good and black meaning bad had been thrown upside down. The idea is still simple, but within an added complexity reflecting the reality of domestic and international politics. Audiences just could not trust the color coding anymore because of the internal machinations of states.

Star Wars is an allegory of political and military intrigue involving government infighting and family betrayal. The father and son dynamic plays out on opposite sides of the moral divide while intergalactic worlds are traded in space for personal gain like chips in a political poker game.

But more so, Star Wars touched on those public impressions which had begun to hold the establishment in contempt following the repeated assassinations of leaders espousing peace and the collapse of democracy and loss of faith in the righteousness of those leaders remaining in power.

In America, the murder of civil rights leader and Nobel Laureate, Martin Luther King Jr, Muslim leader Malcolm X, and the Watergate impeachment and resignation of United States President Richard Nixon, made an indelible mark on the Star Wars scripts Lucas had been developing since the late 1960s.

Order 66, in which the Jedi are executed by their own bodyguards, seems so obviously the dirty war against civil rights and religious leaders around the world, from Gandhi to the Dalia Lama, even if Lucas had not intended those scenes to become so symbolic. Star Wars has in many respects become bigger in the public consciousness than the filmmakers may have ever intended.

Princess Leia Organa, played by Carrie Fisher, was constantly under threat of capture. This threat to the justice movement was intensified in the prequels as Queen Amidala/Padme, played by Natalie Portman, survived several assassination plots. Padme was more resilient at first than her daughter.

Portman plays leading roles in all three prequels, opposite Hayden Christenson, as Anakin Skywalker, and Ewen McGregor, as Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan Kenobi is played by Alec Guinness in the first trilogy. Samuel L. Jackson plays Jedi master, Mace Windu, in the prequels.

The prequels answer a lot of questions raised by the original trilogy, like how does Darth Vader become Darth Vader, and how does the battle of good and evil separate him from his twin children. The Jedi Order is scattered into the wind after a military coup replaces democracy with tyranny, but not before Lucas shows the world his perspective on good and evil.

Anakin Skywalker, played by Jake Lloyd, in Star Wars: Phantom Menace (1999) is a victim of child labour as he and his mother, Shmi, played by Pernilla August, are white slaves to an interplanetary scrap yard owner.

Lucas shows, in developing the Anakin character over three films, how innocence becomes evil through a series of horrible misfortunes.

People are fragile souls that are constantly bombarded with life changing influences. Where a person ends up along the moral divide often depends on the choices made by them and for them in difficult circumstances usually thrust upon them beyond their control.

The prequels, produced over six years, allows for character development seemingly in real time, although not quite year for year. Anakin develops from a child slave into a Jedi apprentice, and then into a general commanding armies in space. Hayden Christenson portrays his character as conflicted by good and evil, and while initially dedicated to Jedi business, his character is subtly drawn into evil spells when his personal circumstances are jeopardized by the cruel faith of life on interplanetary worlds.

Characters in Star Wars VII – IX are still in search of answers, but not for questions raised in the prequels.

Droids like R2 D2, C-3PO played by Anthony Daniels, and BB 8, survive partly because they have personalities almost more endearing than the human characters being served by them.

People interested in science fiction fantasy have their interests tweaked by new developments in artificial intelligence and weaponry from film to film. Technology was a compelling influence from the early beginnings, plotted out from the original concepts of space ships and high tech weaponry controlling space.

The Disney films spin a morality tale inside an ethereal reality of bad knights dressed in white unpacking complicated plots made more complicated with family intrigue on a chess board of story boards.

Evil develops technology to do bad things.

The 9 films in sequence go by too quickly, and seldom have a dull moment. Scenes, if not entertaining, are visually stimulating, and occasionally sublimely didactic in such a way as to reach children’s inner thoughts about the mysterious world around them.

But the universe is also a vast empty space of isolation within which people must persevere. Only a good chase scene between star fighters and the Millennium Falcon can cure the existential threat. In the most simplistic form, Star Wars films are fast paced action films. And a Wookiee was the best friend that nobody had, but everyone needed.

Chewbacca, played by Peter Mayhew, was individualistic, but loyal.

The commercialization of Star Wars followed the lead of Walt Disney who began a journey as a young boy from the streets of Chicago to the movie houses and television screens around the world – and then to the theme parks in Anaheim, California and Paris, France.

Star Wars merchandising has been worth over $50 billion.

So when Disney bought the Star Wars franchise from Lucas for $4 billion in 2012, the movie industry blockbusters that appeal to families completed an industry wrap around.

But you know, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Star Wars should not have too much meaning read into the scenes. The allegory has some good lessons for children, but ticket holders gain more value in the entertainment aspects of the films rather than exploring intellectually deeper lessons of right and wrong.

As part of popular culture, much of Star Wars is meant simply to be entertaining and visually stimulating. Audiences go to theatres to have their sensory buttons pushed more than for thought provoking narratives. Chatter about the films is more about the shock and awe of new technology in film production, and the gadgets, droids, weapons and space ships the characters employ in their moral struggles.

Star Wars has had an impact on the collective consciousness. The Disney Star Wars trilogy reflects a more culturally diverse rebellion.

Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, grows into the role of rebellion leader from having to scrap parts for food on her home planet to flying the impounded Millennium Falcon. John Boyega plays Finn.

Disney portrays the struggle for female equality as a difficult journey filled with human frailties on either side of the gender divide. Like the George Lucas Star Wars films, the Disney plots follow a compelling contemporary narrative led by heroines as much as heroes.

Princess Leia Organa is more vulnerable than the other female leads, needing the protection of bodyguards. Queen Amidala can fend for herself with a blaster. Rey becomes a self-made rebel, highly skilled and very very fast with a lightsaber. Stormtroopers carry blasters for a reason. The new trilogy of films lends to the notion that machinations of good and evil take place on many different levels.

Producer JJ Abrams has added a further complexity to the narratives, perhaps because the new technology better allows seamless transitions from scene to scene, but the films also reflect a more complicated world order of which the audience has become aware through social media postings of the many battles around the world independent of the eventual outcome.

People are more informed and more knowledgeable about the goings on in other countries, while the space fantasy film has become more of a space opera than when first appearing on theatre screens over four decades ago.

Every element is so much more intensely stimulating: more subplots, more characters, more contrasting deep rich colors. Whereas the Lucas Star Wars had three or four main characters, each subplot in the Disney Star Wars has three or four characters often all brought together in a grand finale.

The narratives have a greater sense of the subplots occurring simultaneously, like the machinations of state around the world. Characters are more deeply invested, sent away into a subplot, and then brought back into the main narrative to contribute to an overall outcome, as if Disney’s players had always been part of the same time continuum as the audience.

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, by Chris Taylor, New York, Basic Books, 2014.