For my next foray into point-the-dart-at-the-wall-and-choose-a-topic style essays, I'm going to plunge into TWO, yes TWO of my favorite virtual worlds: Harry Potter (HP) and Star Wars (SW). After this, there can be no doubt whatsoever that I am a nerd, a HUGE nerd, and in all other respects and instances a nerd (though I don't wear glasses, own a PDA, or own a bike with a banana seat - it was, unfortunately, stolen a long time ago).
First let me describe the most important "good" thing the two universes have in common: namely that sublime desire in many of us to be a hero/villain
and a super hero/super villain. Let me explain that differentiation in a generalized way.
Hero's, of course, can be regular people doing exceptional work, like saving others from burning buildings and the like, while the regular villain is the one starting those fires with can of gasline and a lit cigarette. SW hero's can wise and meditative, like Yoda, or rash and ominous, like Vader. HP hero's are pure, true, and impulsive, while their villains are irritable and irreflective.
Super hero's, on the other hand, not only save people from burning buildings, but do so in miraculous and often over-the-top ways: doing double flips up the side of the building, flying through the window, karate chopping three anonymous villains inside, and finally carrying out three cats, two dogs, and a goldfish to safety - all of which they manage without breaking a sweat or tearing their tights.
A super villain, on the other hand, detonates 14 bombs in 14 buildings simultaneously with the power of his mind, while dueling 3 virtuous teenagers, giving an expository monologue about his grand world-conquered schemes, chastising his incompetent lackeys, and feeding expendable subplot characters to his evil pet.
We all know these archetypes from watching movies and that illuminating documentary with Joseph Campbell that PBS is always shoving our way. BOTH the HP and SW universes give us the opportunity to visualize ourselves as both doers of actions, and performers of
great actions. I mean, who wouldn't want to run around with a lightsaber or wand and have cool things happen
to us and
from us all the time?
That said, let us plunge into the pro's and con's of each world.
Star Wars: The Good, The Bad, and the Poorly Written.
The Pros:
Great villains like Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, and Asajj Ventress. Great classic hero's like Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda. Wonderfully prissy and head-strong robots. Great lightsaber battles. Emotionally strong women who fight along side the men (and who usually have the better ideas and more common sense). A story where the technology of the universe is subservient to the plot rather than the reverse, as in Star Trek. Great outfits. Darth Vader's heavy breathing. Aliens that look alien (unlike Star Trek where they just have different prosthetic foreheads). Cool puppetry like Jabba the Hutt. Cool visual effects and monsters, as in the Sando Aqua Monster from EPI or the Rancor from EPVI. Lightsabers. Double-bladed lightsabers. Neat environments used for filming.
The Cons: George Lucas's ability to direct or write well. I hear he's an excellent producer, and frankly, I think he should stick to that. The dialogue he writes is all expository statements that don't explain anything, are ever backed up, or even fit with the scene: "Don't over/underestimate ___" "Do not assume ___, or ___ assumes too much" "___ is strong/weak in the Force." * Jar Jar Binks - Worst. Animated. Character. EVER. What the hell does "Mmm, Maxi bid the Force. Well that smell stinkawith," mean? * The Darth Sidious/Palpatine idea. When, exactly, does first a senator and then a Supreme Chancellor have time to also run a Sith Empire? Never mind the issues of communications (does he just hide his Sith cloak in a desk drawer, and pop it on when needed?), but how can someone in such a position of public scrutiny also run both sides of the war AND train his various apprentices? And how can he spend all his time hanging out with top Master Jedi without them even realizing he's responsible for the "disturbance" in the Force which, ironically, prevents them from sensing he's a Sith, in the Force? Surely proximity is meaningful in the Force. * Lightsabers - although incredibly cool, they are completely impractical, since any mistake in their use would result in lopped off appendages, AND more importantly, they have no handle guard. As anyone who has taken fencing lessons, the most important part of the saber/epee/foil is the guard. It prevents the opponent's sword from sliding down and lopping off your hand. Double bladed light sabers - neat to look at, but vastly inferior to a single blade when used on multiple foes. While there is a slight advantage when used against one opponent, wielding a single bladed saber, because you can trap their blade below yours and repost with the other end of yours, against more than one opponent having what is essentially a staff is a huge liability. One end of the saber must always be exactly opposite the other, meaning that the position of one end is always predictable, and useless for parrying anything. Additionally there is the huge "dead space" where the handle of the saber is that must be protected and can't be used either offensively OR defensively since it is not immune to a lightsaber strike. I believe that were the SW universe real, all Sith would double-wield single-bladed lightsabers, allowing them to strike two places at once, or multiple opponents at once. * Throw-away villains. A villain who doesn't accomplish anything isn't evil, but just sad. Darth Maul - kills one Jedi Master, and then gets sliced in two by a Padawan. mmm. did the Force just fail to tell him what Obi-wan was about to do? And General Grievous - very cool in the animated series, but in the prequels . . . a coughing coward who skitters from scene to scene, accomplishing NOTHING. Evil or otherwise. * Whiny Luke. Whiny Anakin. Dense Anakin. Dense Anakin's dialogue and unconvincing switch to the dark side. And on and on and on . . .
And now for a little insight and revelation . . . . . . Take a breath. Relax!
According to Lucas, the overarching theme of the whole series is: 1. Redemption, 2. The relationships in families, 3. The way people will trade their freedoms for security in troubled times, and 4. The way low-tech societies can defy and even defeat high-tech ones.
I want to add a fifth overarching idea to this panel, and it is one that explains the "balance/imbalance of the force" that Anakins is supposedly born to rectify. This is my own pet theory, based on not only watching the movies many times and reading the novels, but also looking at and reading the visual dictionaries.
First, let me state that the Jedi and/or Sith are NOT the Force, and are therefore not it's imbalance. The Force is all life, and all sentience in the Galaxy. The Jedi and Sith are merely two groups of individuals who are unusually sensitive to it. Therefore, when it's stated that there is an "imbalance in the Force", it does not, in fact, have anything to do with how many or how few Jedi or Sith there are.
If you read the visual dictionaries, which are based directly on the movies, you learn that, at the time of the Clone Wars, the vast majority of Republic citizens were being crushed under the iron heal of galactic corporations and burdensome bureaucratic dictates, to the degree that millions of Coruscanti's were fleeing the capitol world every day, in search of new prospects. Poverty and suffering were the norm.
Where once the Republic promised peace and equality for all, the Senate now supported corruption and attrition of worker rights, in favor of subsides to the wealthy IBC or Trade Federation. Since, by mass, this was the plight of the majority of sentient being's experience at that time, and it is much more likely that it is their suffering that is the "imbalance of the Force" rather than the goings-on of the Jedi and Sith, and that it is this state of affairs that needs to be rectified.
How? By the Force itself using both the Sith and the Jedi to destroy the decaying Old Republic, installing a totalitarian regime where everyone suffers equally, and then once people have come to yern for freedom and liberty, destroy that Empire and replace it with a New Republic. Which is exactly what happens.
Now, may purists will point out that the Sith do not get used by the Force, but rather they use the Force for their own ends. However, this is fallacious. By using the Force at all, to see into the future, gauge the outcomes of events and fortunes, and relying on it for intuition, the Sith place themselves in the hands of the Force's designs just as surely as the Jedi do. It is my belief that balance of the Force uses both sides, and both the Sith and the Jedi to achieve its goals, and makes the Force consiquently far more mysterious than either group traditional perception of it.
And so, my theme addition is this: 5. Those who forget to value the essential qualities of Democracy are doomed to loose it. Once anyone takes for granted their freedoms, and does nothing to maintain them, they will, eventually, see them sold away, by politicians and leaders who have their own self-interest at heart.
It happens every day in RL. We see utilities being deregulated, banking being deregulated, unions being weakened . . . all for the sake of multi-national corporations making more money for their share-holders and CEOs. Regulations of corporations are critical for maintaining the freedom of regular people to have basic necessities: coroporations have no inherent conscience, and would gladly squeeze everyone for every penny that they can get, esp when it's someing as ubiquitous and vital as a utility. And unions, similarly, came about to give workers the right to a voice within the workplace, and a modicum of leverage to decide their own fates. Now, in many corporations, people are fired for so much as mentioning unionization. Hundreds of people in America died for the right to form unions, now no one cares . . . .
But enough of my complaining . . .
Next time, Part II:
Harry Potter: The Good, The Bad, and The Irritable.
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