Those of you who follow the blog of Scott Kingsnorth will know that he has recently rediscovered a fondness for the original Star Wars trilogy after more than a decade of rejecting the series. That he used to be light, turned to the dark side and has since returned to the light side has caused me to liken him to Darth Vader.
I can't pretend I'm not a little pleased. Scott had already fallen out of love with Star Wars when I first met him four or five years ago and, despite passionate agrument on my side about how it actually is one of the greatest stories ever told, he would not be moved. Now that he feels the Force again, I have gone back over what it is that makes this story so important to so many people.
I should probably say I don't identify myself as a Fanboy. I don't lead a Star Wars lifestyle, nor do I plan to have a Star Wars wedding. I can see Star Wars for what it is, a film series.
In his post Star Wars: A Love/Hate Relationship, Scott says one of the reasons he turned to the dark side is that Star Wars was continually referenced while he was taking media studies at university. It is true that EVERYTHING I have ever read written since the early 80s on the subject of storytelling makes reference to the Star Wars characters. Luke is the Young Hero, Obi-Wan is the Wise Old Man, Darth Vader is (literally means) the Dark Father, Princess Leia is the Princess (obviously).
The story is familiar, the characters clearly defined. But these archetypes cease to apply after A New Hope. Each new film shows who we thought the characters were is in fact not the case. But more on that later.
George Lucas famously used Joseph Campbell's seminal (but very dense) study of heroic fiction across the world and through history, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, in his writing of A New Hope. The first Star Wars film follows this pattern diligently. We are presented with a frustrated young man who receives a call to adventure, and initially resists it before relenting. He is joined in his quest by a wise old man and a couple of allies to go off and save a princess from a dark influence that threatens to destroy life. After a number of trials in the "belly of the whale" the hero makes a "thrilling escape" and destroys the dark power's base. It is good old-fashioned action adventure stuff that was rightly very successful when it came out. That many people have copied it since is not Lucas's fault.
However, the vast physical, mental and emotional strain of making the film caused Lucas to take a back seat on Star Wars' two sequels. Working with writer Leigh Brackett until her death in 1978 and subsequently Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas created a sequel that was altogether "darker and edgier". I, like many, consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the best of the Star Wars films in particular and a great film in general.
I say this, in part, because it is the film in which Luke undergoes the greatest transformation. His transformation in A New Hope is pitch-perfect from a Heroic point of view, but ultimately felt a little like painting by numbers to me. In Empire, however, he is still young and inexperienced. Han calls him "Kid" and "Junior" and has to rescue him from freezing to death. Luke then goes and spends time learning from Yoda on Dagobah before confronting Darth Vader in an ill-fated attempt to rescue his friends. He is badly wounded in the conflict and discovers a terrible truth.
By the time we rejoin him at the start of Return of the Jedi, he is already referring to himself as a Jedi Knight, and is highly competent. He does not change much over the course of Jedi, though does achieve a great deal.
What I still find surprising about the later two films is that, at the climaxes of each, I find myself skipping through the admittedly amazing action scenes to look for the scenes with two or three characters standing in a room talking to each other. It is in this dialogue that we discover what the Star Wars films are really about.
You see, for all its wonderful technology and exotic locations and colourful characters Star Wars is about one thing. Rebirth.
How deliberate this symbolism is I cannot say, but Star Wars is replete with living symbolism.
If we look A New Hope, Luke's homeworld is the barren desert planet of Tatooine. He then goes to the entirely artificial world of the Death Star before journeying to the Rebel base on Yavin, a lush rainforest world.
This pattern is repeated through the film's two sequels. Early on in Empire Han Solo tells Luke of Rebels' new base on Hoth "There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser!"
After their base is discovered and they evacuate, Luke travels to densely forested Dagobah, which he tells R2-D2 has "massive life-form readings" but no "cities or technology". There he meets Yoda, at first glance an ancient forest spirit, so in tune with nature he can show Luke how to reach out across time and space to feel his friends are in danger and move rocks with his mind. However, Luke leaves this living haven to rush to the splendid, but thoroughly artificial Cloud City. As grand as Cloud City is, this is where Luke falls into Darth Vader's trap. Although the high towers and white corridors among the clouds seems like heaven to Han and Leia when they arrive, we quickly discover Darth Vader is there waiting for them. The Devil has invaded Heaven and won. He takes Han, Leia and Chewie to Bespin's underworld where, like Medusa, he turns Han to stone before his friends' eyes.
It is in Bespin's dark, smoky and treacherous Hades that Luke fails so spectaularly. He fails to save Han, and endangers Leia and Chewie when they must go back to rescue him.
We are left at the end of Empire with the Rebellion homeless, wandering the galaxy in old and delapidated spaceships. Though the last shot is of a new star forming out of the window, there is no chance for new life in this environment.
At the start of Jedi, we open on the newly constructed Death Star, the entire purpose of which is the destruction of life. Again, an entirely artificial world of black, white and grey. This is an entirely masculine environment. At least there was Princess Leia in the closing shot of Empire, offering hope for new life.
From the Death Star, the action moves to Tatoonine, as desolate as the last time we saw it. Luke tells the recently revived Han "There's nothing to see. I used to live here you know?"
While his friends rejoin the Rebels, Luke returns to the living Dagobah. At the same time, the Rebels discover their objective is a forested moon orbiting the gas giant Endor, above which the Empire is completing its Death Star. Here, we see the Rebellion has allies from many races, has many women in its ranks, and is lead by a woman. The story's heroes travel to Endor's moon where they are joined in their struggle by the forest's native inhabitants who help them to repel the mechanised Empire.
However, Luke learns his struggle must take him to the lifeless world of the Death Star. But the Emperor proves too powerful, and Luke's salvation comes not at the end of a sword, but in waking the life in his father. Seeing his offspring in peril, Darth Vader again becomes Anakin Skywalker and hurls the Emperor into the heart of the "technological terror" he constructed. The Death Star is destroyed in a massive explosion, and Luke brings his father's mechanically-augmented body to be cremated surrounded by life and birdsong in the forest.
In each film, we start in a place hostile to life, and end in a place favourable to life. In Empire, we then again go to a place hostile to life, as the heroes seem to have lost at the end of that film. It is not that Star Wars presents technology pre se as bad. Even the Ewoks recognise C-3PO and RD-D2 as living creatures despite the fact they are made metal, wires and circuitry. They recognise the humanity in them. Similarly, technology can replace Luke's lost hand with a living replacement. The evil comes when, as with Darth Vader and the Empire, the technology becomes a prison. Darth Vader isn't evil and twisted because he is more machine than man - he is more machine than man because he was twisted and evil. Luke's hand and their friendly droids have life. They can be compassionate, afraid and courageous. R2-D2 worries about Luke when he fails to return at the start of Empire and C-3PO offers his circuits and gears if they will help repair R2-D2 after he is damaged destroying the first Death Star. They are more than the sum of their parts. Vader is less.
Earlier on I said it was the discussions between a handful of characters that expressed the themes of Star Wars. First of all, Yoda tells Luke about the Force. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan tells Luke "The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It is an energy field created by all living things." On Dagobah, Yoda expands on this: "Life creates it. Makes it grow," and that "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." Yoda also explains about the Force's Light and Dark Side.
Yoda tells Luke to beware of anger, fear and aggression, which flow easily and lead to the Dark Side. When Luke asks if the Dark Side is stronger, Yoda is quick to say it is not, but "easier, more seductive".
When the Emperor is trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side, he incites Luke to use his lightsabre against him, being defenceless, and to "Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete."
What irritated me and more than a few others about the way the Force was described in the prequels was that it was now the Force that creates life, not the other way around. We also learn from Qui-Gon that a person's ability to feel the Force is dictated by an arbitrary number of microscopic lifeforms within their cells.
See, the way I interpreted Yoda and Obi-Wan's description of the Force in the original trilogy was that it was kind of analogous to self belief. After Yoda lifts Luke's spaceship out of the swamp with his mind alone, Luke says he doesn't believe it. "That is why you fail..." is Yoda's reply.
That the Force has a Light life-renewing Side and a Dark life-denying Side, seems to reflect the two sides of human existence. We can both create and destroy life. While we can create life, the most powerful thing we can do, we can also destroy it. The destruction of life is quick and easy compared to its creation, and irrevocable. The instinct to kill is easier, more seductive, quick to join us in a fight and will forever dominate our destiny if we succmb to anger, fear and aggression. Like the Light Side of the Force, life creates more life and, ultimately, is stronger than death.
When Yoda sends Luke into the cave to see what he learns about himself, he warns him the Dark Side is strong there, but that he will not need his weapons. In the cave, Luke sees a vision of Darth Vader whom he fights and beheads, only to find it was himself all along. Unlike the "underworld" of the carbon-freezing chamber where Luke fights Darth Vader for real, the cave is really Luke's own subconscious. This is signified by going down into the ground where he finds his Id, while his Superego Yoda remains amongst the life above. The Dark Side is potentially strong in our primitive instincts, but because Luke approaches the cave expecting to fight, that is what comes about. Luke, if he continues to live a confrontational existence will become a destroyer, just as Darth Vader did.
This brings me back to how the roles of the characters change over the course of the story. Luke's final role is revealed to be not a heroic warrior, but a demigod. At the end he does not destroy a monster, but brings a dead man back to life.
The role of Obi-Wan also changes. In A New Hope, he is unarguably the Wise Old Man, but that role is assumed by Yoda in Empire and Jedi. Obi-Was becomes the Supernatural Helper, showing up at moments of indecision to counsel the hero.
Most significantly, however, is the role of Darth Vader. In A New Hope his role is simply the villain, a generally life-denying monster who comes to destroy the living haven where the Rebels live. In Empire, though, he truly becomes the Dark Father. His persecution of Luke is now very personal and targeted. He even symbolically castrates Luke by cutting off his hand. It is not until Return of the Jedi that we see Darth Vader was in fact the Trickster Ally. Luke could never have faced the Emperor had he not fought Darth Vader in Empire. We now realise that it was really the Emperor who was the life-denying Dark Father all along. Through dark magic and deception, he was keeping the once-good Anakin as his slave.
I think the reason Star Wars connects with so many people is not the great special effects (though the shots of the little fighters skimming the surface of the Death Star the the end of Jedi still knocks the pants off anything in the prequels even more then 20 years later), but the message it carries. For all the mechanical wonder of Star Wars, it is preoccupated with life, living, and the renewal of life. At the end Luke conquers death both by bringing about the destruction of the Emperor (death himself), but also returning a dead man to life. Albeit for technical reasons of being visible against a blue sky, even Luke's lightsabre changes to green, the colour of life, in Jedi.
Moreover, the story went from being grand but generic to small and personal but with epic implications. Who would have guessed at the start of A New Hope that Star Wars would turn into a story about a father and his two children? It went from being distant to highly personal. A story about families.
Whether, as Lucas claims, it was part of a grand plan, or a stroke of genius by subsequent writers, the transformation of Darth Vader from the archetypal Dark Father into Luke's literal Dark Father is what made Star Wars work. The message that a monster can be redeemed with love is so powerful and sophisticated for an action-adventure film it is right that it is as popular as it is.
As we become more and more separated from the human condition, we need powerfully archetypal stories. Like Darth Vader, what we are shown in these stories is "our true self, we've only forgotten". Once in a while we need a story to come along and reassure us that we are not "more machine than man, twisted and evil", but "luminous beings".
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