Why Kevin Drum Is Very, VERY Wrong About "Return of the Jedi"

 

Kevin Drum says "Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars movie of all time."

To quote Luke Skywalker, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!"

And this has nothing to do with the usual arguments about whether Empire is really the better movie.  Screw that.  As I said in comments here last summer:

Return of the Jedi is a beautiful piece of advocacy for Village ideals. Let me bring in David Brin, who's far more scathing than I am:

Just what bill of goods are we being sold, between the frames? Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.

"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.

Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.

True leaders are born. It's genetic.

The right to rule is inherited. Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.

That is just the beginning of a long list of moral lessons relentlessly pushed by Star Wars. Lessons that starkly differentiate this saga from others that seem superficially similar, like Star Trek.

Darth Vader blew up entire planets, planets with billions of people going about their lives, simply because he could. But at the end he has a change of heart, so it's all OK.

Through the first two movies, Luke is nobody of inherent importance. Like Taran in the Chronicles of Prydain, he is an ordinary person faced with extraordinary challenges.

But in Jedi, it turns out that that is all a scam. Luke can master the Force because he is of royal blood. And so can Princess Leia, his sister, for the same reason, without having to even put that much work into it. They will decide everyone else's fates, because they are the elites and have the right to do so.

It's the Village point of view, to a T.