Space Otters, Episode IV: A New Blog
Let me start off with a confession. I do not like Star Wars. If you wish, you may attribute this abnormal attitude to the fact that I didn’t see any of the movies while still in my childhood. I was nineteen when my roommates sat on me to make me watch Episode IV. With the stilted dialogue and the thingies constantly zinging across the scene, I couldn’t tell who was shooting who, let alone why. Same problem continued when the aforementioned roommates and my boyfriend ganged together to make me see Episode I. And then Episode II. In the theater. Any mention of sand in conjunction with skin will still send me into an uncontrollable giggle fit.
So that was where things stood until this past summer, with the imminent release of Episode III. Out of love for my boyfriend, knowing that we would soon be engaged, I made the ultimate sacrifice: I surrendered the last remnants of my blissful Star Wars ignorance and consented to watch Episodes V and VI before accompanying him to see Episode III in the theater. Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi impressed me just about as much as a wet dishrag. Revenge of the Sith, however, got me thinking. Thinking! George Lucas actually inspired thought! Not that the script was any better than the previous ones, not that the characters’ motivations really made sense, but there was still something inherently compelling about the mythic plot of one person’s fall into evil.
My boyfriend and I found ourselves discussing Jedi ethics for days afterward. We were both fascinated by how the simplistic “Jedi good, Jedi noble,” mind-over-body preachiness of the original three Episodes IV, V, and VI wasn’t present in the newer films, particularly Sith. We wondered how much the Jedi’s teaching that general compassion couldn’t be combined with love for individual people contributed to Anakin’s demise. We saw truth there: that disembodied “compassion” ultimately leads to cruelty. As Flannery O’Connor wrote, “When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chambers.” Of course, the Jedi themselves never would have sanctioned Anakin’s means-to-a-better-end actions (motivated not only for the protection of Padme, it seems, but also by the desire to create a safe and controlled galaxy), but didn’t their teachings that individuals don’t matter make it possible for him to slay the Younglings?
There’s room for debate there, of course. But as we chattered endlessly about a movie I’d thought I would hate, the idea for this blog was born. Here you’ll find ruminations and rants on discoveries I’ve made as I do some of the things I love: watching movies and reading books. Some of my entries will have ethical or religious (specifically, Christian) reflections, some will just be fun. After all, my favorite animal is the otter, and otters, I’ve been told, won’t do a thing unless they can find a way to make it fun.
Add comment February 3rd, 2006