Every now and then, the Star Wars saga seems to re-enter the cultural conversation. George Lucas continues to find creative new ways to keep his iconic films from fading into sci-fi history. Most recently, Lucas started the ball rolling again by re-releasing The Phantom Menace in 3-D. The other five films will follow, and a whole new generation will learn to love Star Wars.
About a mile from my house, a museum exhibit called Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination has been displaying props, costumes, and behind the scenes information on the production of the films since November. Watching tiny children, whose parents weren’t old enough to play with Luke and Leia action figures when the original movie came out, parading around in full Storm Trooper and Boba Fett costumes left little doubt that this groundbreaking science fiction saga continues to strike a chord in the American mindset.
And why not? It’s modern mythology. It hits many of the same notes and archetypes that ancient myths reveal, but it is told in a sci-fi context. Here you have your hero’s quest, your facing the shadow, your Oak King/Holly King battle, your descent into the Underworld, and more.
I hope to explore the Star Wars saga in a series of posts. I have recently finished watching all six films again. This was the first time I had seen the prequel trilogy since its original screen release, and I gained a new appreciation for them. For now, let me start with a list of the Top 10 lessons I learned from Star Wars. Some of these are Pagan-related. Others are just good things to know. If you have your own, please feel free to add them.
10. Keep your mind strong so no one will be able to bend your will.
9. Protesting that “It’s not my fault” will not get you out of difficult situations.
8. Don’t trust genetically modified anything.
7. In a conflict, always take the high road or your opponent will cut you off at the knees.
6. Your dad isn’t as evil as you thought he was when you were a kid.
5. Trust your animal guides whether they are large or small.
4. If your intuition tells you “I have a bad feeling about this,” listen.
3. Blood is thicker than…crazy lightning bolts coming out of the bad guy’s hand.
2. Don’t give up, even if all you know has been destroyed and the love of your life has been frozen solid.
1. Judge others by their size, do not.
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I have one: There’s always a loophole, a weakness, or a spot where nobody bothers to look. Being a huge, dominating dictatorship is a lot harder and more complicated than it looks, you know.
Have you ever looked up something called Deleted Magic? It’s a collection of all sorts of A New Hope footage, the main part of which is an approximation of an earlier cut of the movie that uses all sorts of deleted footage and follows and earlier script. It definitely has a different feel to it, and it probably wouldn’t have hit the chord the movie audiences got did. A little more… you-have-to-be-into-science-fiction-y, I guess. The cut that got used really gave it what it needed, but I find the look into Luke’s life and friends interesting. There’s more of an indication that the Empire is ever looming over people’s lives, ready to draft young men into its service, with getting hooked up with the Rebel Alliance spoken about in hushed tones. And Biggs was Luke’s closest friend, making his death in the movie much more of a blow to Luke when it happens.
Actually, I rather like how A New Hope is a touch different in its treatment of the Empire. In that movie, you get more of an impression of a branch of a military entity that happens to have someone with a grasp of the Dark Side in a high ranking position within it than the entity of pure evil that stands for and is headed by the Dark Side that you get later on. And then there’s the fact that General Tarkin can roll his eyes and tell Vader to quit force-choking people… what’s their relationship that he can do that? I wonder if more imperial officers would be alive if Tarkin were alive to tell Vader to not go around choking people just show off the power of the Dark Side.
But it’s much less mythic that way, though, isn’t it?
Sounds interesting. I always did wonder at the relative lack of loom-overness of the Empire in A New Hope. It’s there, but you don’t really get at its power and structure until The Empire Strikes Back. I’ll have to check out Deleted Magic.
Funny what you say about Tarkin. I guess its all about rank. Now that we have all six movies, we can say that a “Grand Moff” outranks a Sith apprentice enough to stop all choking at will.
The loopole thing was good. It’s kind of like the “look for the solution, not at the problem” lesson from the Sword of Truth novels. I like it.