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.

Comments

[oddjob]

Luke is nobody of inherent importance.

???

Very weird assertion. It isn't a prominent part of the first two movies, but it's also not a secret Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda were paying attention to Luke Skywalker because they knew he was the son of Anarkin Vader/Darth Vader, and that the force was consequently "strong with him".

[Sir Charles]

Weird Al is truly awesome.

"The Saga Begins" i.e. his Star Wars tale set to the tune of American Pie is somewhere beyond genius.

[oddjob]

Weird Al is singularly insane, inane, and brilliant. :)

(But the reason Luke was raised in an out of the way place wasn't because he was a nobody but because he needed to be kept safe by being kept out of view. It's like what happened to Jesus after he was born, when Joseph had an angelic visitation in a dream where he was instructed to take the child to Egypt because Herod intended to kill the child.)

[Corvus9]

Considering that the original trilogy is basically the first set of films that I ever saw, and I have seen them hundreds of times since then, I have to disagree. I never got that sense that Jedi supports Villager ethics.

First, Luke and Leia are not Elites. Well, Leia is as a former Princess of a destroyed planet, but not when it comes to the force. Those are innate talents, not signs of superiority. (People make the same interpretive mistake with the Harry Potter books.) And Luke is not going to run the universe after the story ends, he's going to become a monk or something, most likely. Leia is high up in the hierarchy of the Rebellion, but she is not running it (Mon Mothma is), and as the stories of Han and Lando illustrate, the Rebellion is meritocratic in terms of who it elevates to power (world-class smugglers, rogues and pirates have incredibly useful skillsets if you are trying to overthrow a Galactic Empire).

Darth Vader is redeemed in the end, yes. After all, he kills the Emperor. However, this redemption is basically limited to him throwing off the dark side and renouncing his ways. People seem to think that this means he gets away without punishment, but he is punished. He punishes himself, allowing his circuits to be fried in the process of saving his son, ensuring his death. It's only Luke, who is acting out of love and forgiveness (oh no! forgiveness!), who thinks that Anakin has a future among the living, but Anakin knows he is done. Anakin dies for Darth Vaders crimes, and even ensures that it happens, taking his mask off. And I don't know, but personally I think there is something valiant in Luke's pursuit of another's salvation even after all others have given them up as hopelessly evil.

[kathy a.]

weird al! i can't do a discussion of SW movies, but weird al helped keep me sane during college.

here's a link to the saga begins.

[Corvus9]

As to whether Empire or Jedi is better, well, I am actually one of the few souls who doesn't mind the ewoks (I first saw the movies when I was three), and I agree with Drum that the throne room sequence is the best part of any of the three movies, but I still like Empire more. It has the best, funniest dialogue of any of the movies ("Who's scruffy-looking?"), the Han/Leia romance is great ("I know"), and it has lots of Yoda being Yoda ("Size matters not!" "Wars not make one great!" "Luminous beings are we! Not this crude matter!").

[low-tech cyclist]

oddjob - it may not be a secret once you've seen Jedi, but if there's a hint before "Luke, I am your father" at the end of Empire that Luke has any special ancestry, I've sure missed it. And at that point, you can still buy into the notion that Vader is just trying to throw Luke off his game.

But really, that only affects the question of whether the third movie could have gone in a more redeemable direction, or whether the trilogy was worthless from the get-go.

[oddjob]

You weren't paying attention to Obi Wan's ongoing dialogue with Yoda.

[Corvus9]

Ben Kenobi has spent however many years living around Luke Skywalker, in the middle of the desert on the edge of the empire, and happens to show up just as he is endangered, implying he is watching him closely. Also, apparently his father was a Jedi trained by Obi-wan, as was Darth Vader. Luke is not no one, even from the beginning of the series, he was the son of a Jedi knight who was personally killed by the right-hand of the Emperor, who just so happens to be living in the same stretch of desert as the right-hand's teacher.

If the internet existed back in 1977, someone would have put all that together with the fact that Darth Vader is dutch for "dark father" and figured out the truth way before Empire premiered.

[oddjob]

The Dutch translation of 'dark father' isn't darth vader, but rather donkere vader. 'Darth' isn't a Dutch word.

[Corvus9]

damn it, where did I hear that factoid then?

[Corvus9]

Hmm, skimming the internet, it looks like darth isn't a word anywhere, or at least not one of any significance. Still, I think that vader is a germanic word for father, and darth sounds kind of like "dark" would have been enough to go on. So I still think there are plenty of clues as to Luke's significance present even in the first movie.

I think I read that tidbit about dark father in Entertainment Weekly years ago, and it just kind of stuck around. Stupid Entertainment Weekly, leading me astray!

[big bad wolf]

on the down side, had we had the itnernet and entertainment weekly, star wars would have been lost. although i have to say, as a non-T.V. person, that i was pretty amused that all those years of lost theorizing were for nothing. there's a lesson there, but i bet we didn't learn it.

[oddjob]

Yes, 'vader' is the Dutch cognate word to 'father'. The German cognate is 'Vater' (with the 'V' pronounced like the English 'F'). 'Vader' is indeed a Germanic word.

I also assume that 'Darth' was probably coined because it seemd like a dark word.

I was seventeen when I saw the first Star Wars movie (in the movie theater, in the summer of 1977), and yes, it was clear to me there was something uniquely special about Luke Skywalker, that the plot made it clear he was an unusual person who was being looked out for by another more powerful than he and that the other was doing it for reasons of his own, reasons which Luke had yet to learn.

Even the last thing Obi Wan Kenobi said before dying (at the end of the duel with Darth Vader) was an allusion to that.

[low-tech cyclist]

Corvus, I've been meaning to reply to your comment, so here goes:

First, Luke and Leia are not Elites. Well, Leia is as a former Princess of a destroyed planet, but not when it comes to the force. Those are innate talents, not signs of superiority.

Well, they're strong in the Force because of their bloodlines, and for no other reason. And the whole conflict is basically between those who are strong in the Force, between those who have gone over to the Dark Side of the Force, and those who haven't.

Darth Vader is redeemed in the end, yes. After all, he kills the Emperor. However, this redemption is basically limited to him throwing off the dark side and renouncing his ways. People seem to think that this means he gets away without punishment, but he is punished. He punishes himself, allowing his circuits to be fried in the process of saving his son, ensuring his death. It's only Luke, who is acting out of love and forgiveness (oh no! forgiveness!), who thinks that Anakin has a future among the living, but Anakin knows he is done. Anakin dies for Darth Vaders crimes, and even ensures that it happens, taking his mask off. And I don't know, but personally I think there is something valiant in Luke's pursuit of another's salvation even after all others have given them up as hopelessly evil.

In the words of prolific hymn writer Fanny J. Crosby,

The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

I completely buy into that. But that's between the 'vilest offender' (practically written for Darth Vader!) and God. The rest of us, if we've got half a clue, should exercise a bit more skepticism.

I can only think of one real-life instance in my lifetime of someone already well known as an abhorrent person when he had a conversion experience. That person was Chuck Colson, and hangin' with the Lord doesn't seem to have changed him much, overall.

In the Star Wars movies, persons strong in the Force seem to have an ability to exercise a continued presence in the living world (e.g. Obi-Wan's conversations with Yoda in Empire), so for them (whether or not for others) death just seems to be another step in life. So Vader's sacrifice is somewhat less than total, certainly. And indeed, we get that nice group hug that includes him and Obi-Wan, present from their apres vie, at the end of Jedi.

The message of that group hug is clear: Luke and Obi-Wan consider the books to be balanced, as does Lucas, and Lucas thinks we should too. I strongly disagree: Vader/Anakin did the right thing at a crucial moment, but he's still a freakin' mass murderer. God is God, and is free to dispense redemption to those who truly seek it from him. But the rest of us shouldn't accept one true moment, however significant, as full payment for the deaths of billions.

The lives of each one of those people still matter as much as Vader's does. And the story is still ultimately about the fate of the galaxy being decided by someone who is what he is because he's got the right bloodlines.

[Corvus9]

Ah, arguing the meaning of Star Wars. Heaven.

Well, they're strong in the Force because of their bloodlines, and for no other reason. And the whole conflict is basically between those who are strong in the Force, between those who have gone over to the Dark Side of the Force, and those who haven't.

People are or are not strong in the force, and that, like many qualities that are both beneficial and harmful, is hereditary, yes, but harnessing that ability to be become someone like, say, a Jedi, takes work. Years and years of work. So there is at least some aspect of meritocracy to being a Jedi. It's not just handed down.

With that in mind, I have to also disagree that the story "is basically between those who are strong in the Force". In Jedi, there are basically three fights going on in the third act. 1) The Emperor, Vader, and Luke in a battle of wills for Luke and Vader's souls, 2) Han and his insignificant little band trying to blow up the shield generator on Endor, and 3) Lando, Admiral Ackbar and the rest of the Rebel fleet having to take on the Empire's fleet and the Death Star before blowing it up. The conflict between Luke and the two Sith lords is actually kind off to the side from the main battle going on, which is all about lowly rebels trying to overthrow the Empire using very non-force type things like spaceships and bombs. In fact, two people who are most responsible for the victory in the battle are Han and Lando, who are probably the most non-force using characters in the story, a pair of ex-smugglers and con men who come from nothing. So there is a large part of the Star Wars story and climax that has nothing to do with people who use the force.

[Sir Charles]

I vividly remember the scene where Rush Limbaugh had Princess Leia chained up.

[KN]

Har! SC - you nailed it, I was tempted to post nothing but interogatives as if having fallen asleep with one finger on the shift key and another on the solidus.

oddjob at 11:19 - do you realize your analogy cuts both ways?

I have kind of liked Weird Al, but even more I liked that guy who's name escapes be who did "I Love L.A." Was it Randy Newman? Great song if you lived in L.A. at the time, and I did.

paula a. on previous thread thanks, its not just posturing (though I don't mean to imply that you thought it was).

[oddjob]

I'm not sure I understand your question. If you're asking whether I understand that both of these stories can be viewed as hero myths (of which there are legion around the world), yes, I do.

[KN]

oddjob - spot on.

[oddjob]

(Learned that from Joseph Campbell, thanks to Bill Moyers & PBS. :) )

[Sir Charles]

KN,

At some point in the not so distant past I posted Newman's wonderfully corrosive "It's Money that Matters." And a great version of his song "The Kingfish" done by Levon Helm.

I am also a huge fan of his deceptively smooth ode to the slave trade "Sail Away." The man gives cynicism a good name.

[Corvus9]

Lucas has been incredibly explicit that he used Campbell's structure of the monomyth to create the plot of the original trilogy. Hell, the Power of Myth (to which oddjob refers at 3:29) was actually filmed (at least in part) at Skywalker Ranch.

Does anyone watch Community? I bring it up because apparently Dan Harmon uses the monomyth to structure all the main cast's character arcs on any given episode of the show. Which, I think shows that The Hero's Journey does not need to be read as a celebration of elites, but a dramatically heightened manner of exploring the trials and tribulations that we all go through in life. A story about Luke and Darth Vader is not a story exulting elites, it's a story about us, but with the stakes raised.

[oddjob]

it's a story about us, but with the stakes raised

That's more or less why the first three movies always appealed to me (that plus I also knew he was trying to recreate in an updated form the Buck Rogers-type movies he grew up with and had loved, and had noticed no one was making movies like that for the kids of the 1970's).

(The second three movies I found offensive and boring. I think Lucas did much better story telling when he had a lot less computer power for his animations.)

[Corvus9]

The one interesting thing about the new movies is that Lucas actually does a very interesting job of lining them up structurally with the first trilogy. There's lots of little symmetries coursing between the two trilogies (example: both Luke and Anakin lose body parts at the end of the second movie.) The newer trilogy also does an real interesting job of heightening or altering the themes of the older one. (This John Seavey post at Mightygodking does a great job of reinterpreting Luke's apotheosis at the end of Jedi in light of textural evidence from the new films) However, that in no way excuses that the newer films are full of awful, uninteresting dialogue, rote performances from its leads (People rag on Hamill, but Jesus, Christensen and Portman are so awful that I think Hamill deserves some serious credit. Acting with greenscreen and puppets is hard, and Hamill at least convinced you he was actually talking to something. It still pisses me off that they gave Portman an academy award, because anyone that awful in a movie should be forever banned from getting one.), jokes that are objectively not funny, and plotlines that don't have the same resonance and power that one expects from Star Wars. Just not as good. I don't think it's the CGI that is wrong with them. It's everything else.