Star Wars on Trial by Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover Page A
Authors: Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover
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(One wonders, why has the fundamentalist community gone after Harry Potter, when this old heresy is rearing its head, hmm?)
Does Qui-Gon's call for "balance" make any sense? Does this story-promise ever get resolved?
Oh, I have heard lots of this-that, about the differences between the dark side of the Force and the other side. (Force Light?) Sith lords want "progress" through ferocious Darwinian winnowing, kind of like you see in Dune. The light side tends to be overprotective, insisting on an eternal, static order. It sounds very Tolkienish, and that's no coincidence ... though without Tolkien's cheerful willingness to reevaluate. In any event, notice how these supposed "opposites" have vastly more in common with each other than differences. For example, their shared, relentless devotion to elitist secrecy.
But notice, we are never offered a third choice. The choice of freedom. Of everybody knowing what's going on. A galaxy of openness and transparency, in which institutions and individuals, governments, companies and private citizens of all races get to innovate and compete fairly, thus avoiding both static sameness and the horrorslaughter of open warfare? Progress, without vicious winnowing.
Was this what Qui-Gon hoped for, in his yearning for balance? Is this what Darth/Anakin was supposedly preordained to deliver?
Well, I am going to surprise you now, and tell you what I really think.
He did!
EXCUSES FOR A DARK HENCHMAN
Look, I got entirely too much mail-after the Salon article-coming up with rationalizations and excuses to let old Darth off the hook. Here are just a few of them:
1. Darth kills the Emperor and saves more than his son. He saves the universe!
2. Vader's redemption is personal. It's about a son's forgiveness.
3. Vader isn't the leader, so it's unfair to call him "Hitler." At worst he's a Himmler.
4. Vader was mind-controlled. He was just following orders.
5. Yes, normal people can get really, really mad, and not suddenly "turn evil," reversing all their morals like a switch. But Anakin isn't normal! He's a demigod. That makes him more vulnerable than normal people.
6. Vader's actions were necessary in order to restore balance to the Force/universe/franchise ...
... and so on ...
I did not simply reject all of the ideas that people sent in. In fact, half of these points are interesting-and possibly valid at some level. (Care to guess which ones?) The others, I'm afraid, still strike me as rather lame, or even provably wrong. We'll deal with some of them later, in the testimony on "plot holes."
But the core point is that we shouldn't have to go trawling around for meaning like this! The biggest and most lavish sci-fi epic of all time should make sense by now.
Alas, you could fill intergalactic space with row after row of giant floating yellow words, and still, nothing would tie together. For example, the political rationale behind the "secessionists," or why the Republic fell apart.
Or how Darth was able to detect Leia's midichlorian-rich blood from a million miles away... but never sniffed a thing when he was interrogating her by hand, with truth serum. Likewise, he doesn't recognize his own hand-built droids, when he meets them again after so many years.
Or why he conveniently orders all the antiaircraft guns and fighters to stop shooting at Luke, so he can do it himself... and somehow keeps missing till the boy gets his shot.
Then there are all sorts of other coincidences. Like the way Vader conveniently persuades Tarkin to let Luke and Leia and the Millennium Falcon go ...
... or, the way, twenty years earlier, Obi-Wan took the newborn Luke in order to conceal him from Vader, and chose as a hiding place, from all the worlds of the galaxy... Vader's home planet and Vader's hometown.
Or a myriad other hints and clues that really ought to have added up to something. If anyone had been at the tiller, paying attention.
Want to hear something pathetic? The most pathetic thing of all?
I
Does Qui-Gon's call for "balance" make any sense? Does this story-promise ever get resolved?
Oh, I have heard lots of this-that, about the differences between the dark side of the Force and the other side. (Force Light?) Sith lords want "progress" through ferocious Darwinian winnowing, kind of like you see in Dune. The light side tends to be overprotective, insisting on an eternal, static order. It sounds very Tolkienish, and that's no coincidence ... though without Tolkien's cheerful willingness to reevaluate. In any event, notice how these supposed "opposites" have vastly more in common with each other than differences. For example, their shared, relentless devotion to elitist secrecy.
But notice, we are never offered a third choice. The choice of freedom. Of everybody knowing what's going on. A galaxy of openness and transparency, in which institutions and individuals, governments, companies and private citizens of all races get to innovate and compete fairly, thus avoiding both static sameness and the horrorslaughter of open warfare? Progress, without vicious winnowing.
Was this what Qui-Gon hoped for, in his yearning for balance? Is this what Darth/Anakin was supposedly preordained to deliver?
Well, I am going to surprise you now, and tell you what I really think.
He did!
EXCUSES FOR A DARK HENCHMAN
Look, I got entirely too much mail-after the Salon article-coming up with rationalizations and excuses to let old Darth off the hook. Here are just a few of them:
1. Darth kills the Emperor and saves more than his son. He saves the universe!
2. Vader's redemption is personal. It's about a son's forgiveness.
3. Vader isn't the leader, so it's unfair to call him "Hitler." At worst he's a Himmler.
4. Vader was mind-controlled. He was just following orders.
5. Yes, normal people can get really, really mad, and not suddenly "turn evil," reversing all their morals like a switch. But Anakin isn't normal! He's a demigod. That makes him more vulnerable than normal people.
6. Vader's actions were necessary in order to restore balance to the Force/universe/franchise ...
... and so on ...
I did not simply reject all of the ideas that people sent in. In fact, half of these points are interesting-and possibly valid at some level. (Care to guess which ones?) The others, I'm afraid, still strike me as rather lame, or even provably wrong. We'll deal with some of them later, in the testimony on "plot holes."
But the core point is that we shouldn't have to go trawling around for meaning like this! The biggest and most lavish sci-fi epic of all time should make sense by now.
Alas, you could fill intergalactic space with row after row of giant floating yellow words, and still, nothing would tie together. For example, the political rationale behind the "secessionists," or why the Republic fell apart.
Or how Darth was able to detect Leia's midichlorian-rich blood from a million miles away... but never sniffed a thing when he was interrogating her by hand, with truth serum. Likewise, he doesn't recognize his own hand-built droids, when he meets them again after so many years.
Or why he conveniently orders all the antiaircraft guns and fighters to stop shooting at Luke, so he can do it himself... and somehow keeps missing till the boy gets his shot.
Then there are all sorts of other coincidences. Like the way Vader conveniently persuades Tarkin to let Luke and Leia and the Millennium Falcon go ...
... or, the way, twenty years earlier, Obi-Wan took the newborn Luke in order to conceal him from Vader, and chose as a hiding place, from all the worlds of the galaxy... Vader's home planet and Vader's hometown.
Or a myriad other hints and clues that really ought to have added up to something. If anyone had been at the tiller, paying attention.
Want to hear something pathetic? The most pathetic thing of all?
I
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