E.P. Clark's Blog, page 13
December 28, 2015
Fathers and Sons in "Star Wars": Or, My Thoughts After Watching All Seven Movies
SPOILER ALERT!!!!! THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT POINTS FROM ALL 7 MOVIES, INCLUDING "THE FORCE AWAKENS."
Unless you, too, have taken a vow of solitude after an apprentice has turned to the Dark Side, you are probably aware that "The Force Awakens," the 7th installment in the Star Wars franchise, has recently come out to mass adoration and critical acclaim. I, like so many others, have already been to see it twice: once shortly after it came out, and again after having re-watched all previous six movies, in chronological order of action, so starting with "Phantom Menace" and finishing with "Force Awakens." And I now have much to say about it. But be warned: I share neither the deep hatred for the prequels nor the overwhelming love of "Force Awakens" that seem to be so widespread; in fact, I consider the hatred at least to be rather suspect, unworthy of a true Jedi and possibly a path to the Dark Side. So if this perspective is going to upset your worldview, then...you probably need to read this post most of all, but I can't force you. If you choose to venture into it the way Luke chose to venture into the cave on Dagobah, it is up to you to deal with the fears that are revealed to you.
Before I delve into the plot and characters, I should say that the visual and sound effects of all 7 films are absolutely top drawer. They were all made in different eras and the filmmakers had different levels of special effect and cinematography magic available to them, but whatever they had at their disposal, they used to create gorgeous and distinct visual effects. The first six films also significantly expanded the boundaries of filmmaking special effects (remember the much-maligned Jar-Jar? Well, if it hadn't been for him, we may never have had Gollum in LOTR, because, well, mysterious are the ways of the Force); if Episode VII has, I didn't notice it and haven't read about it, but as I am not a special effects buff, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. The sound effects are also amazing in all the films, particularly the communication of droids such as R2D2 and BB-8, which manages to be highly expressive without using a single word in any human language. So all that is awesome and would make the movies worth watching in its own right.
The Prequels:
Ah, what to say about the prequels? There was so much hype, and then so much hatred. And I have to admit that I also consider them to be less good than Episodes IV-VI: some of the humor was silly rather than funny, sometimes the action sequences were over-long, some of the backstory was overly complicated, and some of the attempts to tie everything together neatly (the most egregious example in my mind being the storyline where the young Anakin build C3-PO while still a child slave, and then 3PO's mind is wiped so that he never remembers that he was actually BUILT BY DARTH VADER) seemed convoluted and motivated only a desire to bring in fan favorites while also making everything fit together in some kind of Chekhovian fashion, even if maybe it shouldn't. I did and still do think that maybe Lucas never really understood why the original trilogy was so great, and in his attempts to recreate the original spark, he sometimes missed the mark.
That being said, any one of the prequel movies--yes, EVEN "Phantom Menace"--is 1000% better than almost any other sci-fi/fantasy/action adventure movie out there, where the fashion seems to be to load in as many improbable chase scenes and garish explosions, with no concern for character, plot development, basic logic, or the viewer's sanity and stomach equilibrium, as possible. Compared with "Man of Steel," for example, the prequels are a marvel of coherence, and for those who complain about the gratuitous length of the pod race scene in "Menace," have you SEEN any of the "Hobbit" movies? The prequels may not be as good as the originals, but compared with their peers, they are Oscar-worthy pieces of cinema.
That may be damnation by faint praise, but the prequels have more than just not being quite as terrible as most other movies in their genre going for them. Lucas may not fully have understood his own genius in the originals, but he understood enough to know that at heart these are all movies about intergenerational conflict, particularly father-son relationships and the destructive force of the Oedipal conflict. The themes of biological and spiritual fatherhood run throughout the prequels, as we see first the young Obi-Wan losing his Jedi master-teacher ("father") and becoming a "father" himself to the fatherless Anakin Skywalker, who then, as the trilogy progresses, struggles to decide which spiritual "father" he will choose, and how he will deal with his own impending biological fatherhood, with its terrible danger of introducing mortality into his life, by potentially killing the mother of his children. Anakin, motivated by his fear of physical mortality and his resentment of the control that his spiritual "fathers" still hold over him, tries to break free of all this--and chooses wrong, losing his own chance at actual fatherhood, and being symbolically castrated with the loss of various limbs. At the end of the (highly traumatic, at least for me) third movie, Anakin has, by giving into his fear and his Oedipal rage, lost his connection to his feminine side (through the death of Padme), has had his ability to generate life taken away from him by the father-figure Obi-Wan, who, as mentioned above, symbolically castrates him and actually maims him, and then hides his children from him. Anakin ends up in the service of the Emperor, back, essentially, where he started: as an enslaved child, unable to achieve adulthood and a fully-formed, conscious selfhood. One can criticize many things about the prequels, but this underlying plot gives it a seriousness and a moral gravitas that would do well in a Classical or Shakespearean tragedy. As a side note, while I, like many, originally didn't care for Hayden Christensen's performance as Anakin, upon re-watching it I thought he portrayed the part of an angsty, rebellious adolescent who makes a life-destroyingly tragic choice quite well.
And now, Episodes IV-VI.
Coming straight from Episodes I-III I admit that my first thoughts on watching "A New Hope" were "wow." The original trilogy is...amazing. Yes, it's kind of hokey and cheesy places, and yes, some of the dialogue is a bit silly, but in comparison with the other movies and with the vast majority of movies out there, so much of the humor sparkles, in part because of the performances of the actors, particularly Harrison Ford and Anthony Daniels (C3-PO). The action sequences are thrilling and tightly plotted and interwoven, and the pacing of most of the scenes. I have to admit that I'm not crazy about the additions that have been added in he intervening years, but most of them are fairly innocuous and over with quickly. And as for the underlying story...why is it so great? WHY IS STAR WARS SO GREAT?
Well, if I had the definitive answer to that, I'd be a gazillionaire filmmaker, but here are some of my thoughts on the subject.
We know that Lucas was heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." I have issue with some of Campbell's ideas, since unsurprisingly they are in many ways deeply sexist, but there's also a lot there that's right, and Lucas mines that right stuff for gold.
To boil it down to its essence: Episodes IV-VI are about two heroic journeys: Han's heroic journey from selfish rogue to someone who learns to care about others and who stands by his friends and the woman he loves, and Luke's heroic journey from naive and impetuous adolescent to a grown man who has overcome his Oedipal rage and gained control of his thoughts, feelings, and actions. The characters are both coherent and clearly delineated [Leia is also a great character and a heroic one, but she doesn't--because sexism???--make a heroic journey in the same way: she is already a hero when she first appears, and she continues to be a hero to the last frame of the final movie], which makes for a very clean plot and clear, satisfying action and character development. Furthermore, the evolution of both Han and Luke means that, even though they each represent a heroic archetype, they are not one-dimensional.
This in and of itself makes for a good movie, but it Luke's struggle to grow up and overcome his Oedipal rage, and with it, the fear and hatred that leads to the Dark Side, that makes the original trilogy such a resonant classic. There are lots of action heroes, but how many take up their swords and then, even though their cause is just, THROW THEM DOWN? In the final confrontation in "Jedi," Luke almost gives in to the Dark Side, and does in fact symbolically castrate his father by cutting off his hand, but then he RECOGNIZES HIS FATHER AS HIMSELF, and throws down his light saber (*cough* phallic symbol *cough*), refusing to perpetuate the cycle of father-son violence. Vader responds (after some hesitation) by saving Luke's life, and the generations are reconciled. Episode VI ends with Luke having transitioned from adolescence to adulthood by making peace with his father and accepting his feminine side, i.e., acknowledging his sister, Leia.
So, in very basic terms, the prequels are a tragedy about a boy who gives in to his fear of death and his Oedipal rage and thus destroys himself and others, while the original trilogy is a comedy (in the sense of having a happy ending) in which the next generation manages to overcome its fear of death and its Oedipal rage and make the transition into adulthood. There is also the Force, which has a significant moral/spiritual dimension: Jedi must learn to be mindful of their thoughts and feelings, to practice compassion, and to experience themselves as something more than just flesh; as Yoda says in "Empire": "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."
And so this brings us to Episode VII:
There are lots of things I like about "The Force Awakens." Every single shot is beautiful, and there are many clever moments: e.g., when Rey is cleaning off the pieces of scrap in preparation for trading them for food, and she sees a weathered old woman doing the same thing and you can see the realization on her face that this is her in 50 years, or when Finn is marching Poe towards the hanger as they make their escape and is muttering "stay calm, stay calm"--to himself. Seeing the old characters was great too, and Harrison Ford in particular brought his old magic back to the screen as Han Solo. So that's all great. And the Oedipal conflict that formed the heart of the previous movies has been clearly set up with Kylo Ren, whose murder of his father by stabbing him with his light saber (*cough* phallic symbol *cough*) could send us down a very interesting path. In fact, in some ways Kylo Ren may be the best character, despite being the villain.
But the thing is, there's a lot about Episode VII that I don't like. My main problem is that it feels like it was written by committee (which it was), and the committee didn't have a clear idea of who their characters were or what was supposed to happen to them, so they just threw in everything and the kitchen sink. Kylo Ren may be the best character because we know who he is and what his motivations are: he's the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, who has turned against his parents in search of a better father figure and the power of the Dark Side, but is still drawn to the Light. Lots of conflict, lots of potential for character development there. Rey is also a pretty good character, being both appealing and reasonably coherent, although the writers can't seem to decide whether she's the daughter of Luke or of Han and Leia, and keep hinting at both. The result is one of cheap effect rather than the drama surrounding the reveal of Luke's paternity.
The real weakness of the movie can be seen best (although far from only) in Finn. I find him a very appealing, likable character, but he's hardly consistent, which is a major flaw. He decides to desert after witnessing one of his buddies being killed in battle, and then, practically in the very next scene, HE SHOOTS DOWN HIS COMRADES-IN-ARMS in cold blood, with no sign of hesitation or moral struggle. I mean, yeah, storm troopers aren't great, but HE was a storm trooper too, and they're the only family he's ever had. Then he keeps trying to save Rey, then he abandons her to try to run away to the Outer Rim in order to hide out from the First Order, then in the next scene he abandons that plan and goes on a crazy near-suicide mission to rescue Rey, which results him him BLOWING UP AN ENTIRE PLANET OCCUPIED BY HIS FORMER COMRADES-IN-ARMS, once again WITHOUT ANY PANGS OF CONSCIENCE. For someone who decided to run away from the only life he's ever known after seeing ONE friend die, this seems like peculiar behavior, motivated more by the screenwriters' need to move the plot along than any sort of character consistency. Finn could be the archetypal hero who throws off the chains of slavery, but we don't actually see much of his heroic journey at all.
And then there's the business with the light saber. Rey discovers Luke's light saber, to which she is mysteriously drawn, but instead of taking it up, she runs away, and the light saber is given to Finn instead. AND THEN HE USES IT. The only time in the earlier movies a non-Jedi uses a light saber is when Han cuts open the belly of the Tauntaun to save Luke's life on Hoth, but in Episode VII Finn is the one who uses Luke's light saber the most, even though there is no suggestion that he is a potential Jedi. The motivation seems to be to throw in some more action sequences and delay the moment when Rey actually takes up the light saber (her father's light saber?), but it seriously dilutes the aura of power that surrounds light sabers and the Jedi.
In fact, for a movie called "The Force Awakens," there is precious little awakening of the Force. Kylo Ren uses it, and Rey suddenly manifests tremendous natural talent in it, but there is none of the training, none of the spiritual instruction, that marked the previous 6 episodes. The Force has gone from a spiritual force "that binds us and penetrates us," something that requires the user to undergo years of discipline in order to gain the spiritual and moral knowledge to use it properly, to just another weapon, like a blaster except that it can only be used by those who were born with the talent, which apparently requires nothing more than a good scare to be awakened properly.
So, in the end I don't think that "Episode VII" has ruined the franchise in any way, but I also don't think it's been its salvation (although monetarily it certainly has). There are many things to like about it, but, compared with Episodes IV-VI, there's not nearly as much to love.
Unless you, too, have taken a vow of solitude after an apprentice has turned to the Dark Side, you are probably aware that "The Force Awakens," the 7th installment in the Star Wars franchise, has recently come out to mass adoration and critical acclaim. I, like so many others, have already been to see it twice: once shortly after it came out, and again after having re-watched all previous six movies, in chronological order of action, so starting with "Phantom Menace" and finishing with "Force Awakens." And I now have much to say about it. But be warned: I share neither the deep hatred for the prequels nor the overwhelming love of "Force Awakens" that seem to be so widespread; in fact, I consider the hatred at least to be rather suspect, unworthy of a true Jedi and possibly a path to the Dark Side. So if this perspective is going to upset your worldview, then...you probably need to read this post most of all, but I can't force you. If you choose to venture into it the way Luke chose to venture into the cave on Dagobah, it is up to you to deal with the fears that are revealed to you.
Before I delve into the plot and characters, I should say that the visual and sound effects of all 7 films are absolutely top drawer. They were all made in different eras and the filmmakers had different levels of special effect and cinematography magic available to them, but whatever they had at their disposal, they used to create gorgeous and distinct visual effects. The first six films also significantly expanded the boundaries of filmmaking special effects (remember the much-maligned Jar-Jar? Well, if it hadn't been for him, we may never have had Gollum in LOTR, because, well, mysterious are the ways of the Force); if Episode VII has, I didn't notice it and haven't read about it, but as I am not a special effects buff, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. The sound effects are also amazing in all the films, particularly the communication of droids such as R2D2 and BB-8, which manages to be highly expressive without using a single word in any human language. So all that is awesome and would make the movies worth watching in its own right.
The Prequels:
Ah, what to say about the prequels? There was so much hype, and then so much hatred. And I have to admit that I also consider them to be less good than Episodes IV-VI: some of the humor was silly rather than funny, sometimes the action sequences were over-long, some of the backstory was overly complicated, and some of the attempts to tie everything together neatly (the most egregious example in my mind being the storyline where the young Anakin build C3-PO while still a child slave, and then 3PO's mind is wiped so that he never remembers that he was actually BUILT BY DARTH VADER) seemed convoluted and motivated only a desire to bring in fan favorites while also making everything fit together in some kind of Chekhovian fashion, even if maybe it shouldn't. I did and still do think that maybe Lucas never really understood why the original trilogy was so great, and in his attempts to recreate the original spark, he sometimes missed the mark.
That being said, any one of the prequel movies--yes, EVEN "Phantom Menace"--is 1000% better than almost any other sci-fi/fantasy/action adventure movie out there, where the fashion seems to be to load in as many improbable chase scenes and garish explosions, with no concern for character, plot development, basic logic, or the viewer's sanity and stomach equilibrium, as possible. Compared with "Man of Steel," for example, the prequels are a marvel of coherence, and for those who complain about the gratuitous length of the pod race scene in "Menace," have you SEEN any of the "Hobbit" movies? The prequels may not be as good as the originals, but compared with their peers, they are Oscar-worthy pieces of cinema.
That may be damnation by faint praise, but the prequels have more than just not being quite as terrible as most other movies in their genre going for them. Lucas may not fully have understood his own genius in the originals, but he understood enough to know that at heart these are all movies about intergenerational conflict, particularly father-son relationships and the destructive force of the Oedipal conflict. The themes of biological and spiritual fatherhood run throughout the prequels, as we see first the young Obi-Wan losing his Jedi master-teacher ("father") and becoming a "father" himself to the fatherless Anakin Skywalker, who then, as the trilogy progresses, struggles to decide which spiritual "father" he will choose, and how he will deal with his own impending biological fatherhood, with its terrible danger of introducing mortality into his life, by potentially killing the mother of his children. Anakin, motivated by his fear of physical mortality and his resentment of the control that his spiritual "fathers" still hold over him, tries to break free of all this--and chooses wrong, losing his own chance at actual fatherhood, and being symbolically castrated with the loss of various limbs. At the end of the (highly traumatic, at least for me) third movie, Anakin has, by giving into his fear and his Oedipal rage, lost his connection to his feminine side (through the death of Padme), has had his ability to generate life taken away from him by the father-figure Obi-Wan, who, as mentioned above, symbolically castrates him and actually maims him, and then hides his children from him. Anakin ends up in the service of the Emperor, back, essentially, where he started: as an enslaved child, unable to achieve adulthood and a fully-formed, conscious selfhood. One can criticize many things about the prequels, but this underlying plot gives it a seriousness and a moral gravitas that would do well in a Classical or Shakespearean tragedy. As a side note, while I, like many, originally didn't care for Hayden Christensen's performance as Anakin, upon re-watching it I thought he portrayed the part of an angsty, rebellious adolescent who makes a life-destroyingly tragic choice quite well.
And now, Episodes IV-VI.
Coming straight from Episodes I-III I admit that my first thoughts on watching "A New Hope" were "wow." The original trilogy is...amazing. Yes, it's kind of hokey and cheesy places, and yes, some of the dialogue is a bit silly, but in comparison with the other movies and with the vast majority of movies out there, so much of the humor sparkles, in part because of the performances of the actors, particularly Harrison Ford and Anthony Daniels (C3-PO). The action sequences are thrilling and tightly plotted and interwoven, and the pacing of most of the scenes. I have to admit that I'm not crazy about the additions that have been added in he intervening years, but most of them are fairly innocuous and over with quickly. And as for the underlying story...why is it so great? WHY IS STAR WARS SO GREAT?
Well, if I had the definitive answer to that, I'd be a gazillionaire filmmaker, but here are some of my thoughts on the subject.
We know that Lucas was heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." I have issue with some of Campbell's ideas, since unsurprisingly they are in many ways deeply sexist, but there's also a lot there that's right, and Lucas mines that right stuff for gold.
To boil it down to its essence: Episodes IV-VI are about two heroic journeys: Han's heroic journey from selfish rogue to someone who learns to care about others and who stands by his friends and the woman he loves, and Luke's heroic journey from naive and impetuous adolescent to a grown man who has overcome his Oedipal rage and gained control of his thoughts, feelings, and actions. The characters are both coherent and clearly delineated [Leia is also a great character and a heroic one, but she doesn't--because sexism???--make a heroic journey in the same way: she is already a hero when she first appears, and she continues to be a hero to the last frame of the final movie], which makes for a very clean plot and clear, satisfying action and character development. Furthermore, the evolution of both Han and Luke means that, even though they each represent a heroic archetype, they are not one-dimensional.
This in and of itself makes for a good movie, but it Luke's struggle to grow up and overcome his Oedipal rage, and with it, the fear and hatred that leads to the Dark Side, that makes the original trilogy such a resonant classic. There are lots of action heroes, but how many take up their swords and then, even though their cause is just, THROW THEM DOWN? In the final confrontation in "Jedi," Luke almost gives in to the Dark Side, and does in fact symbolically castrate his father by cutting off his hand, but then he RECOGNIZES HIS FATHER AS HIMSELF, and throws down his light saber (*cough* phallic symbol *cough*), refusing to perpetuate the cycle of father-son violence. Vader responds (after some hesitation) by saving Luke's life, and the generations are reconciled. Episode VI ends with Luke having transitioned from adolescence to adulthood by making peace with his father and accepting his feminine side, i.e., acknowledging his sister, Leia.
So, in very basic terms, the prequels are a tragedy about a boy who gives in to his fear of death and his Oedipal rage and thus destroys himself and others, while the original trilogy is a comedy (in the sense of having a happy ending) in which the next generation manages to overcome its fear of death and its Oedipal rage and make the transition into adulthood. There is also the Force, which has a significant moral/spiritual dimension: Jedi must learn to be mindful of their thoughts and feelings, to practice compassion, and to experience themselves as something more than just flesh; as Yoda says in "Empire": "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."
And so this brings us to Episode VII:
There are lots of things I like about "The Force Awakens." Every single shot is beautiful, and there are many clever moments: e.g., when Rey is cleaning off the pieces of scrap in preparation for trading them for food, and she sees a weathered old woman doing the same thing and you can see the realization on her face that this is her in 50 years, or when Finn is marching Poe towards the hanger as they make their escape and is muttering "stay calm, stay calm"--to himself. Seeing the old characters was great too, and Harrison Ford in particular brought his old magic back to the screen as Han Solo. So that's all great. And the Oedipal conflict that formed the heart of the previous movies has been clearly set up with Kylo Ren, whose murder of his father by stabbing him with his light saber (*cough* phallic symbol *cough*) could send us down a very interesting path. In fact, in some ways Kylo Ren may be the best character, despite being the villain.
But the thing is, there's a lot about Episode VII that I don't like. My main problem is that it feels like it was written by committee (which it was), and the committee didn't have a clear idea of who their characters were or what was supposed to happen to them, so they just threw in everything and the kitchen sink. Kylo Ren may be the best character because we know who he is and what his motivations are: he's the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, who has turned against his parents in search of a better father figure and the power of the Dark Side, but is still drawn to the Light. Lots of conflict, lots of potential for character development there. Rey is also a pretty good character, being both appealing and reasonably coherent, although the writers can't seem to decide whether she's the daughter of Luke or of Han and Leia, and keep hinting at both. The result is one of cheap effect rather than the drama surrounding the reveal of Luke's paternity.
The real weakness of the movie can be seen best (although far from only) in Finn. I find him a very appealing, likable character, but he's hardly consistent, which is a major flaw. He decides to desert after witnessing one of his buddies being killed in battle, and then, practically in the very next scene, HE SHOOTS DOWN HIS COMRADES-IN-ARMS in cold blood, with no sign of hesitation or moral struggle. I mean, yeah, storm troopers aren't great, but HE was a storm trooper too, and they're the only family he's ever had. Then he keeps trying to save Rey, then he abandons her to try to run away to the Outer Rim in order to hide out from the First Order, then in the next scene he abandons that plan and goes on a crazy near-suicide mission to rescue Rey, which results him him BLOWING UP AN ENTIRE PLANET OCCUPIED BY HIS FORMER COMRADES-IN-ARMS, once again WITHOUT ANY PANGS OF CONSCIENCE. For someone who decided to run away from the only life he's ever known after seeing ONE friend die, this seems like peculiar behavior, motivated more by the screenwriters' need to move the plot along than any sort of character consistency. Finn could be the archetypal hero who throws off the chains of slavery, but we don't actually see much of his heroic journey at all.
And then there's the business with the light saber. Rey discovers Luke's light saber, to which she is mysteriously drawn, but instead of taking it up, she runs away, and the light saber is given to Finn instead. AND THEN HE USES IT. The only time in the earlier movies a non-Jedi uses a light saber is when Han cuts open the belly of the Tauntaun to save Luke's life on Hoth, but in Episode VII Finn is the one who uses Luke's light saber the most, even though there is no suggestion that he is a potential Jedi. The motivation seems to be to throw in some more action sequences and delay the moment when Rey actually takes up the light saber (her father's light saber?), but it seriously dilutes the aura of power that surrounds light sabers and the Jedi.
In fact, for a movie called "The Force Awakens," there is precious little awakening of the Force. Kylo Ren uses it, and Rey suddenly manifests tremendous natural talent in it, but there is none of the training, none of the spiritual instruction, that marked the previous 6 episodes. The Force has gone from a spiritual force "that binds us and penetrates us," something that requires the user to undergo years of discipline in order to gain the spiritual and moral knowledge to use it properly, to just another weapon, like a blaster except that it can only be used by those who were born with the talent, which apparently requires nothing more than a good scare to be awakened properly.
So, in the end I don't think that "Episode VII" has ruined the franchise in any way, but I also don't think it's been its salvation (although monetarily it certainly has). There are many things to like about it, but, compared with Episodes IV-VI, there's not nearly as much to love.
