Orson Scott Card: Christianity More Plausible Than Star Wars
Man, this has got to be a new high in setting the bar low. What's really sad is that I'm not even sure he's right..
I haven't seen Revenge of the Sith yet, so it could suck for all I know. I do find it amusing however how the fringes of the political spectrum get all bent out of shape about Lucas's movies. After The Phantom Menace, some of my liberal (and intelligent!) friends tried to convince me that Lucas was a racist because some of the characters sounded vaguely Asian. Now, apparently, we've got Orson Scott Card and other conservatives coming down on the side of the Empire against the Jedi. (Um, wait...that actually makes a bit of sense, doesn't it?)
Anyway, apparently it's now patriotically correct to be anti-Star Wars. So straighten up and fly right, people (in your TIE fighters, that is). Enough of these bleeding-heart Jedi and the anti-authoritarian Rebellion (er, Insurgency?).
Anyway, Card's ditty will probably provide you with a chuckle. For extra Cardy goodness, you might also enjoy reading an account of my afternoon with the guy about 13 years ago. But probably not.
On a related note, check out this awesome petition in favor of charging Michael Moore with treason. Man, you can't make this stuff up...
Um, let me re-iterate my belief that blogs shouldn't just be used to obsess about the biggest kooks on the other side. That's a waste of the time and bad for the soul. But sometimes I just can't help myself...
Man, this has got to be a new high in setting the bar low. What's really sad is that I'm not even sure he's right..
I haven't seen Revenge of the Sith yet, so it could suck for all I know. I do find it amusing however how the fringes of the political spectrum get all bent out of shape about Lucas's movies. After The Phantom Menace, some of my liberal (and intelligent!) friends tried to convince me that Lucas was a racist because some of the characters sounded vaguely Asian. Now, apparently, we've got Orson Scott Card and other conservatives coming down on the side of the Empire against the Jedi. (Um, wait...that actually makes a bit of sense, doesn't it?)
Anyway, apparently it's now patriotically correct to be anti-Star Wars. So straighten up and fly right, people (in your TIE fighters, that is). Enough of these bleeding-heart Jedi and the anti-authoritarian Rebellion (er, Insurgency?).
Anyway, Card's ditty will probably provide you with a chuckle. For extra Cardy goodness, you might also enjoy reading an account of my afternoon with the guy about 13 years ago. But probably not.
On a related note, check out this awesome petition in favor of charging Michael Moore with treason. Man, you can't make this stuff up...
Um, let me re-iterate my belief that blogs shouldn't just be used to obsess about the biggest kooks on the other side. That's a waste of the time and bad for the soul. But sometimes I just can't help myself...
posted by Winston Smith at
9:25 AM
17 Comments:
I read a little of Card in his early days, and thought him a hack. He recently stirred up a shitstorm writing that not only do the recent Star Trek incarnations suck (they did, bigtime), but so did the original (heresy). Obviously, the man doesn't get it.
But that doesn't mean George Lucas didn't sneak in some Bush-bashing in his latest. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...
BTW, after reading mebbe 50 of his books, I got to meet my childhood/lifelong favorite sci-fi writer, Robert Silverberg.
Whoever said one shouldn't meet their heroes in person sure knew what they were talking about.
I found it hilarious watching Card try to analyze the Jedi religion as though it were not allegorical. His entire thesis depends on the notion that people think of this religion as real, rather than as meaningful. Despite being a writer himself, he is baffled by the notion that people could be powerfully drawn to something fictitious.
By the way, I have both a politics blog (asteroidfield.blogspot.com) and a Star Wars blog (tashistation.blogspot.com) if anyone is interested. Posting has been light lately, but some of it's kind of good.
Herb, the Jedi religion isn't allegorical---it's nonsense. Card was bemoaning that "people" could think it meaningful.
From his essay, it seems Jediism combines the worst of Plato and Calvin---authoritarian "Guardians" and an "elect" (predeterministic) elite---light-sabering away to propogate some sort of relativist/nihilist jihad.
Jeez, I'd rather take my chances with Derrida. Better yet, with mankind's favorite Hobbesian, Jim Kirk.
"From his essay, it seems . . ."
Does this imply that you don't have first-hand experience of these movies?
I'm confused also by the notion that nonsense couldn't be allegorical. We don't seem to be on the same wavelength, I'm afraid.
No, I haven't seen it, Herb, nor do I intend to. I dozed off a few minutes into Return of the Jedi, and haven't returned since. Send me 10 bucks for the admission and another couple hundred for my time, and I'll consider it.
If Card is inaccurate about the particulars, please advise.
No, nonsense isn't allegorical. It is nonsense. What makes an allegory is a resonance with truth. Think Twilight Zone, the original Star Trek, Hans Christian Andersen, or the Everyman plays.
Rod Serling will survive George Lucas in the human canon, of this I am sure.
I find it strange that you would formulate an opinion about a movie you haven't seen, based on an essay by someone you consider a hack and the fact that you dozed off in another movie in the series twenty years ago.
Perhaps it would help for you to provide your definition of nonsense. I know of nothing in Star Wars that's any sillier than the silliest moments of the original Star Trek (which I love, by the way), so I'm unclear as to how one could be disqualified from allegorical status while the other is included. The allegorical tradition seems filled with the nonsensical, from my perspective.
I'm willing to concede that Star Wars might be bad allegory, from your perspective. But it's bizarre to me that you would deny its allegorical nature.
Well, I wouldn't say a movie's good or bad without seeing it. But the Star Wars cosmology is pretty well known.
All stories aren't allegories. Animal Farm is allegory, but I'd say 1984 isn't (even tho I see some on the internet say it is). There needs to be a symbolism, a metaphor. I don't see more than one level in Star Wars. It is what it is.
But we're down to semantics now. If Card's right, and the Jedi moral compass points to and fro arbitrarily, then it's just crap. :-)
If you don't see more than one level in Star Wars, then I have a hard time believing that you're bothering to look. Which is fine -- if you don't like the films, it would be a waste of your time. But it seems unnecessarily contrarian to insist that the movies lack an allegorical level, when you admit that you're not fully familiar with them.
No, I sure don't see anything under the surface. But hit me with some. Always willing to learn.
Great. Describe a surface element of the movies that you are familiar with, and I'll attempt to relate it to the underlying structure for you.
What's with that little green Muppet guy?
haha : ) From the way you phrased that, I suspect you're not entirely serious. But what the heck, I'll give it a shot anyway.
Surface: Yoda is the Jedi master who trains young Jedi in the ways of the Force. He is the wisest of the Jedi, and has been doing this job for over 800 years. The "ghost" of Obi-Wan Kenobi convinces Yoda to train Luke Skywalker in the Jedi ways, and it is this training that enables Luke to fight Darth Vader. Of course, since Luke is the hero of the story, Yoda has to remain in his swampy home while Luke goes off to complete his destiny and heroically vanquish the villains.
Subsurface: In the original trilogy (Episodes 4-6), Yoda and Obi-Wan are consistently wrong in their advice to Luke. They tell him not to leave his training in order to help his friends, who have been captured by Darth Vader. They tell him that if he confronts Vader too soon, he will become an agent of evil himself. Over and over, Yoda insists that "Once you start down the path to the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny." Similarly, in the prequel trilogy, Yoda makes great and wise pronouncements, even being sensitive enough to note that the Jedi have become arrogant and overconfident in their own power. Yet when it comes to crunch time in Episode II, when Yoda faces the Sith Lord Count Dooku, Yoda is himself overconfident. He clearly has Dooku outmatched, yet instead of putting him down, he showboats all over the place, and Dooku ends up escaping.
What do these things tell us? That everyone, no matter how wise or "holy," is subject to the same fallibilities. And, more importantly, that believing in people is more important than believing in an ideology. Luke defies Yoda's advice, and saves his friends' lives. In the process, he discovers that Darth Vader is his father, and becomes determined to redeem him from his life of evil. His persistent belief in the possibility of redemption ultimately leads to the destruction of the Emperor, and the salvation of his father.
Sub-subsurface: Yoda knows that he is wrong throughout these films. He is merely playing a role, the role of the true teacher, who knows that certain truths must be realized for themselves, rather than being taught explicitly. He knows that Luke has the potential to bring Vader back from the Dark Side, and to defeat the Emperor, but he can't tell Luke that, because only a personally achieved grasp of true morality will give Luke the strength that he needs. So, like all good teachers, he gives his pupil the tools that are needed to find the truth, and then weaves a web of questions and ambiguities that force Luke to hone those tools himself.
The skeptical will say that my subsurface reading is wishful thinking and the sub-subsurface, preposterous. Yoda's obvious inconsistencies, they will say, derive from George Lucas' feeble storytelling skills, not from any deeper meaning. But the story is as it is, and it is very easy to see in it clear truths about the ability of faith to blind even the wise, or about the need for each of us who plays a mentor role to foster in our students the capacity to teach themselves.
Wow, this discussion turned out to be damned interesting. I thought tvd had you licked, Herb, especially with that (damned hilarious) muppent comment, but that's a great interpretation of the movies. I'm really bad at this sort of thing, though, so it might actually be bad for you that I agree with you...
Did Yoda really have Dooku licked? Looked like a pretty close fight to me...
Oh yeah. Yoda was going to win that fight hands down, no matter what.
What you have to look at is the actions of the participants throughout the battle. Dooku swaggers into his fight with Yoda, clearly certain that he is going to win. He's completely fooled by Yoda's "I'm so old and weak I have to use this cane" schtick. He flings heavy objects at the master, only to have them brushed aside. Yoda does nothing to strike back. So Dooku switches to the "Dark Side Lightning" approach, which Yoda again deflects or absorbs without returning fire in any serious way. Dooku says, "It is clear that this contest will not be decided by our knowledge of the Force, but by our skills with a light sabre." Despite the frenetic nature of the conflict that follows, Yoda doesn't even break a sweat. In contrast, Dooku, who clearly would like nothing better than to mop the floor with his former master, is forced to resort to a cowardly trick in order to escape.
The only conclusion I can reach is that Yoda had Dooku outclassed in every category -- and that he wanted to show Dooku that. He was toying with Dooku, in order to demonstrate the superiority of the "Good Side." Always the teacher, he wanted to teach his former pupil a lesson. If he had hit Dooku with an all-out assault right from the start, I don't see how Dooku could possibly have survived. This is even more clear from events in Episode III, which I won't relate, since you mentioned that you hadn't seen the movie.
I'm really pleased that you found this thread interesting -- I was beginning to wonder if anyone but tvd had been reading. Keep up the great work on the blog.
Well, that's a relief, Herb. I thought Yoda was going to be Jesus and end up nailed to a light-cross in Episode IX.
But did you ever stop to think that maybe it's a retelling of Paradise Lost, and Yoda is a sort of Satan-Muppet, whose fall comes from pride and overconfidence, so then he tells Man (Luke) all kinds of wrong stuff like don't do the right thing (help your friends) but instead eat of the Tree of Knowledge (Jedi Training) which means Lando Calrissian is really Judas which leaves the Savior being Harrison Ford (even though he's too old for the part now)?
No, I don't think you did.
But still, your interpretation is probably the correct one. Thanks.
See? I knew you could find an allegory in Star Wars. All you had to do was look.
:)
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