Star Wars Quick-Takes: Revenge of the Sith- A Shattered Mirror

Part of what made the original Star Wars trilogy so influential was the simplicity of its narrative. It was the classic hero’s journey. The first three movies told the story of Luke Skywalker’s progression from a simple farm boy to a heroic and powerful Jedi Master.

The prequel trilogy tells the opposite story. It is the tragic tale of Anakin Skywalker’s rise to power and fall from grace. Some of the most poignant moments of Revenge of the Sith are dark reflections of similar scenes from the culminating film of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi.

Throughout Revenge of the Sith, Anakin has trouble seeing the line between good and evil. Both Chancellor Palpatine and Mace Windu are willing to kill to accomplish their goals, and encourage him to kill to further their purposes. Throughout Return of the Jedi, Luke sees clearly the delineation between good and evil. He can see the good left in his father through the evil. He knows that his conscience will not allow him to kill, in spite of the fact that the evil Emperor Palpatine is encouraging him to do so for seemingly good reasons.

The story of the first six episodes of Star Wars are also the story of Anakin Skywalker’s fall and redemption. The motif of this plot line is the mask of Darth Vader. At the end of Revenge of the Sith, Anakin’s descent into darkness is complete, and he puts on the mask for the first time. At the end of Return of the Jedi, his redemption is sealed when he takes of the mask for the last time. (I am interested to see how the motif of Darth Vader’s mask is used going forward in the new trilogy).

Whether or not you like the Star Wars prequels, it is very interesting to see how they mirror the plot of the original series, and provide a background against which its story of redemption truly shines.

Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora

Star Wars Quick-Takes: Attack of the Clones- Blind Seers

We don’t get too much about what the Jedi Order used to be like from watching the Star Wars film, (you people who write for Wookiepedia can fill me in on the expanded universe stuff), but we get the impression that the age that the prequels are set in is far from “The Golden Age of The Jedi”. When we discussed The Phantom Menace, we took a look at how blind the Jedi Council had become to things going on outside of their ranks. In Attack of the Clones, we see the true extent of their hypocrisy and blindness.

Obi Wan Kenobi’s diner-owner friend Dex makes the poignant statement in his conversation with Obi Wan, “I should think you Jedi would have more respect for the difference between knowledge and wisdom”. This seems to be a good summary of the decay that is taking place within the Jedi Order in the prequel trilogy. They have retained knowledge, but lost wisdom.

Generally, knowledge is considered to be the cold, hard facts of a matter. The raw data, the charts, the graphs, the numbers, the word-for-word recitation, the names and dates, and technical ability. Wisdom is knowing what to do with knowledge. It is being able to see through the data, charts, graphs, and numbers to the heart of the issue. It is understanding and applying the word-for-word recitation. It is knowing the faces behind the names, and the significance behind the dates. For the main spiritual and philosophical entity in the galaxy to have lost the ability is a grave situation.

When Obi Wan goes to the Jedi Temple to investigate the planet Kamino, and discovers that it has been wiped from the databases, he is told by the temple librarian that it obviously doesn’t exist. This reflects the prevailing attitude of holding to facts without discernment. Later, when the plot to create a clone army has been uncovered, Yoda admits to this fault on the part of the Jedi leaders, “Blind we are if the creation of this clone army we could not see.”

When the spiritual leaders of a society sacrifice their wisdom for mere facts, that society is vulnerable to attack. When the artists, and thinkers, and prophets forget about wisdom and focus merely on transmitting information, crisis is inevitable. Rulers come to power who would rather that understanding remained dim; because, if the people were enlightened to the truth, these rulers would lose their authority. The masses are deceived, and the truth remains suppressed until a new group of people,who have the ability to see, rises up. The restored balance between wisdom and knowledge brings with it, well, a new hope.

Star Wars Quick-Takes: The Phantom Menace- There's Always a Bigger Fish

As all recent media has made painfully clear, we just got a new Star Wars movie less than a month ago, (not that the movie was painful at all, just the excess of marketing). So, I thought it would be a good time to re-watch the Star Wars movies, and see what themes, what little snippets of truth, I could pull from them. I’m doing them in the in-universe chronological order, so that the newest film will be last, (don’t worry, I’ll steer clear of spoilers for The Force Awakens).

A couple of Jedi Knights go to negotiate with a corrupt trade union. This is routine stuff for them, evidently. They’ll just talk them out of the blockade they’ve got going, and be on their way. But what’s this? A Sith Lord? This situation is much more complicated than they thought. Anyways, it’s still not that complicated. They’ll just fight off Darth Maul and...oh drat, he has an evil Sith Master backing him up? Shouldn’t the Jedi Council have seen this coming?

“There’s always a bigger fish”, says wise Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn, after he, his apprentice, and a clumsy Gungan are saved from a Goober fish by something higher up on the food chain. This statement seems to be a concise summary of the plot of The Phantom Menace. At this point in Star Wars universe history, the Jedi Council has become complacent in their knowledge of the force. Too many years away from the struggle of light against dark have blurred the lines for them, until they see a simple trade dispute where a Sith uprising is in the works.

This seems to be a problem in my life as a Christian sometimes as well. I know the force isn’t meant to represent the spiritual realm in a Biblical sense, but there are often good parallels if you dig. Sometimes, I become like the Jedi Council, and let mundane, everyday issues, like trade disputes and history essays, to cloud my view of the fight that is going on around me all the time. When all indicators point to a need for spiritual revival in my life, I brush it off as something merely physical, like a federation blockade, rather than what it really is, an attack from the Sith.

Now, I’m not saying we should go looking for a demon, (or Darth Maul), behind every bush, but I am saying that we can’t lose sight of the reality of our world. There is no real divide between the sacred and the secular. Both the ordinary and the extraordinary are happening around us all the time. So, let’s not forget about the “bigger fish”- the battle going on between good and evil, the light and the dark.

Let’s also not forget that we are on the side of the biggest “fish” of them all. In the end, the light will always win.

Keep on glowing in the dark,

Elora

Visions of the Future: The 1880s- The New World

Automobiles, aircraft, Coca Cola, the 1880s saw the beginnings of many cultural and scientific phenomena that are commonplace in today’s world. After this decade, the status quo of society would be forever changed.

History:

War seems to be a constant in human history. When one uprising is quelled somewhere, another skirmish begins somewhere else. The American Indian Wars which had been raging since colonists first came to the American continent, continued into the 1880s, bringing with them the same bitterness and cruelty they had always carried. A milestone in the struggle occurred in 1881, when Chief Sitting Bull of the Lakota people was forced to surrender to the American army with 186 of his men.

1881-82 were marked by four assassinations, and one failed assassination attempts. In 1888, the world was baffled and appalled by the slew of unsolved murders committed by the mysterious “Jack the Ripper”.

However, in spite of all the bloodshed, many interesting advances were made in various areas of study. In 1884, a conference was held to decide where the Prime Meridian was on the globe.

Also, I will have you know that in 1886, the Moody Bible Institute was founded. It is a fine institute which I am currently attending.

Science:

The 1880s saw an explosion in science and technology that revolutionized the world and changed the status quo. Society began to look more and more like what we see today. Steel frame skyscrapers began to rise, changing the landscape of cities around the world, and the first attempt at the Panama Canal was made.

An army airship called the La France was first launched in 1884. The same year, the Nipkow disc, an early image scanning disc that gave way to inventions such as television was invented. The next year, 1885, Benz patented the motorwagen, which was the first automobile. In 1886, the first commercial automobiles were released. Another interesting cultural development began when Coca Cola was first distributed in 1887.

Stories:

In 1884, E.A. Abbott produced Flatland. Though more of a mathematical adventure than a scientific one, it still carries many of the traits of the sci-fi of this era. It described a two-dimensional world inhabited by shapes, points, and lines with personalities, and their view of the world. Of course, it was meant to provide Abbott’s commentary on his own society.

In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the ground-breaking classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which explored the nature of mankind, and the relationship between good and evil. These concepts and the characters that embody them have since been expounded on and parodied to no end.

This same year, Jules Verne wrote another airborne adventure, Robur the Conqueror. It told the tale of a crazed man named Robur, who took over the world using airplanes.

1888 saw another milestone novel in the history of the utopian genre. Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backward: 2000-1887, which told of a man who fell asleep in 1887, and awoke in the socialist utopia that would be America in 2000, according to Bellamy’s reasoning.

Also in that year, Albert Robida wrote a realistic future war story called The Twentieth Century War, which would go on to inspire Arthur C. Clarke; and W.H. Hudson wrote of a postapocalyptic society in A Crystal Age.

In 1889, Mark Twain, (yes, Mark Twain of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn), made advances in the subgenre of time travel with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. It is a comedic tale in which the titular Connecticut Yankee ends up in the titular King Arthur’s Court and attempts to civilize Camelot according to his 19th century sensibilities.

Worldview:

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche rose to prominence around the 1880s. He is both famous and infamous for declaring the death of God, and for questioning nature of truth and reality. His thoughts are especially influential in the modern day as they pertain to the worldview of Postmodernism.

The 1880s saw a shift in the world from the way things had always been. Technology and philosophy were shaping the society in ways they never had before, and especially through the medium of science fiction.

Keep on glowing in the dark,

Elora

Visions of the Future: The 1870s-The Quest for Order

It was as if the world were trying to cover up the wounds created by the wars of the last decade without treating them. Politicians and scientists saw the future as bright and inviting, even as war, turmoil, and discontent continued just outside their comfortable, padded world.

History:

The British Empire continued to expand its borders during the 1870s, setting up comfortable, western colonies in the far corners of the earth where they weren’t always welcome. The United States, meanwhile, was recovering from their bloody Civil War. The rather unbalanced and ineffectual period of Reconstruction lasted in the States until 1877.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Franco-Prussian War raged from 1870-1871. This struggle led to the collapse of the Second French Empire,the formation of the French Third Republic, and the unification of Germany into the German Empire, or the Second Reich.

Science:

  [The Paris Exhibition of 1878]

Many inventions that are indispensable in the modern day were first devised in the 1870s, such as the lightbulb and the phonograph, invented by Thomas Edison. 1876 saw a prototype telephone created by Alexander Graham Bell. At the same time, an Austrian physicist named Ludwig Boltzmann was developing important theories and equations concerning entropy, and its relation to thermodynamics.

The popularity of scientific exhibitions continued to rise. In 1873, The Weltausstellung, (World Exhibition), was held in Vienna. The Centennial Exposition took place in Philadelphia in 1876, and the Exposition Universelle was held in Paris in 1878.

Stories:

French writer Jules Verne continued to dominate the genre in the 1870s. The year 1870 saw the release of perhaps his most famous work, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. On an expedition to destroy a giant sea monster, a French marine biologist, his servant, and a Canadian whaler discover that their supposed monster is, in fact, a marvelous submarine, the Nautilus, piloted by vengeful scientist-prince, Captain Nemo. The title, which has caused some confusion, refers to the distance travelled around the earth, not the depth below the sea.

In 1971, Colonel George Chesney wrote an important precursor to invasion literature, The Battle of Dorking, which told the story of a terrifying future war.

That same year, Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote a book called The Coming Race, which described an underground civilization of supermen, who controlled an energy form known as vril, an all-permeating substance, which to me sounds very similar to the force of Star Wars. This book, and the substance it described, sparked the interest of some occultist groups, who believed it to be real.

In 1872, Samuel Butler produced another classic of the growing utopian genre, Erewhon. It describes a utopia that satirized Victorian culture. The name of the place is Erewhon, which is a nearly-backwards spelling of the word “nowhere”.

The same year, French astronomer Camille Flammarion published Lumen, a highly philosophical story that explored and introduced ideas about the speed of light, and alien lifeforms.

Another interesting, but rather obscure contribution to science fiction was Edward Page Mitchell’s story, “The Tachypomp”, published in 1874. It details one mathematically-challenged man, and his quest for love, and the secret of infinite speed.

Worldview:

The mindset of the 1870s was rather scientific. People of the western world generally believed that nature was simple, orderly, and theirs to command.

In a decade full of political and social problems, a new social and scientific era was beginning, and the genre of science fiction started coming into its own, with ideas and themes that would keep readers thinking and enjoying for years to come.

Keep on glowing in the dark,

Elora