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If You See Yoda on the Road, Kill Him! A Defense of The Last Jedi
I am, of course, aware that Yoda is already dead, and has been for decades (to say nothing of being a fictional character). Bear with me on this…. Beginning in 2015, the long-dormant big-screen incarnation of the Star Wars franchise was revived. All the original cast returned, playing their iconic characters, and fresh new faces playing new characters were also present. It was the first time since Revenge of the Sith in 2005 that a big-screen Star Wars movie had been made at all, and the first time since Return of the Jedi in 1983–thirty-two years previously!–that the original cast was back in action. As of this writing (July 2019), two of the movies of the third and final trilogy–The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi–have been released, with the third, The Rise of Skywalker, slated for release in five months. Two standalone movies, Rogue One and Solo have also been released, and further movies with a new cast are projected; but the main attention has been focused on the three movies which conclude the Skywalker saga. Fan and critical reaction has been sharply divided on the two released so far, with seeming storms of controversy regarding The Last Jedi in particular.
I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion in terms of a conventional movie review or rating. It’s been forty-two years since the original Star Wars debuted, and I still don’t think The Empire Strikes Back has been topped. I certainly don’t have any interest in further stirring the pot of accusations and counter-accusations of sexism, racism, political correctness, and so on and so forth. More heat than light has been generated on this front, and I doubt there is much likelihood of dialogue in this area, anyway.
What I do want to look at is the metaphysics, or perhaps more precisely, the philosophical and spiritual themes that are present in The Last Jedi and which have been little remarked on in all the tempestuous arguments about other issues. I think The Last Jedi has definite flaws (some of which, in fairness, were inherited from the plot of its predecessor, and some of the stupid and cockamamie decisions J. J. Abrams made in writing the script for said predecessor), drags somewhat in the middle, and arguably loses focus a bit by expanding the already expanded cast even further. I definitely would not place it above The Empire Strikes Back. All that said, I would argue that Last Jedi is actually the second-best movie of the seven Skywalker-centric sequels and prequels to the original Star Wars, right after Empire (and allowing for the fact that Episode IX has not yet been released). This, I assert, is because of the themes I have already alluded to, and because The Last Jedi is the only movie in the entire Star Wars franchise to take those themes seriously since The Empire Strikes Back (Rogue One made a nod towards some of these themes, but not to the extent that Last Jedi does). Some of these films have been around quite awhile, and some not; but just to play fair, SPOILERS ABOUND for all the movies in the franchise from this point onward–tread with caution!
Einstein and the Millennium Falcon–the Timeline of The Empire Strikes Back
After forty-one years and counting of the Star Wars franchise, which has brought us ten movies, seven television series, and God knows how many books, comics, works-in-progress, and various other media artifacts, I still maintain that the pinnacle of them all was the second movie (Episode V), The Empire Strikes Back. I will take that statement as self-evident 🙂 and thus I don’t intend to make that argument here. Rather, I recently wrote a post about space in which I mentioned time dilation in The Empire Strikes Back, and said that that would be material for another post. This is that post.
I watched The Empire Strikes Back when it came out in 1980, the summer after my junior year in high school. It was long-anticipated, and as I’ve mentioned before, some loud-mouthed acquaintances, having read the book before the movie came out, spoiled the big reveal about Darth Vader being Luke’s father. Despite this, I found I enjoyed the movie enormously, more even than I had the first. I think this is a good demonstration of an argument made by the Plaid Adder, a blogger I follow. She says that if a reveal is properly done, then a spoiler–finding out about it ahead of time–doesn’t, in fact, spoil the show. This was definitely the case with me and Empire.
Anyway, I don’t know when I got to thinking about the specific issue I want to discuss today, but it gradually presented itself to me over the course of a few years. I don’t think I was aware of it at the time I watched the movie for the first time; but I think I had the matter articulated by the time I was in college. To make it clear just what I’m talking about, let’s have a quick recap of the relevant events of the movie.
Space: Stars, Solar Systems, Galaxies, and Such
I had been mulling over making a post on this topic when I saw this story in my Facebook newsfeed. A new galaxy, tiny and dim, has been discovered orbiting our own. That was a fascinating piece of news, and it confirmed my intention to write about the topic of space. More specifically, I want to discuss how the structure or layout of space seems to be widely misunderstood, even by some writers of science fiction. In this regard, this post is a sort of follow up to this one and this one. Thus, let us now boldly go into space and see what we’ll find there!
Since October 4th, 1957, with the launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to be sent by humans into Earth orbit, we have lived in the Space Age. Press coverage of space and space travel seemed wall-to-wall throughout the 1960’s and into the early 70’s. Space figured largely in pop culture, too, with the 60’s giving us Star Trek and the monumental 2001: A Space Odyssey. With time, the allure wore thin and the extraordinary became humdrum. Still, over sixty years later, we are more deeply connected to the inventions of the space program than ever before. Cell phone signals, Internet transmissions, and GPS all depend on satellites to function. Many of us get satellite TV as a matter of course. There has even been a resurgence of interest in space in both pop culture and reality. In the former, the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, after periods of dormancy, have re-started. In the latter, Elon Musk is making plans for manned travel to Mars, while various government sources have spoken of returning to the moon and of founding a military “space force”.
Given all this, one would assume a certain amount of science literacy regarding space. Certainly in the beginning of the Space Age, there was a strong push towards what we’d now call STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, out of fear of the head start of the Soviet Union in space. With space more integrated into our lives than ever, a permanent international space station in orbit, and the aforementioned space exploration plans, it would seem more imperative than ever that we have a good grasp of science and terminology of space. Most particularly, one would expect such science literacy from the writers of science fiction, which is perhaps the most characteristic genre of our age. Alas, that seems to be far from the case. Thus, along the lines of previous posts of mine which detail areas in which sf writers often fall short, I want in this post to look at some of the basics of space.
Star Trek or Star Wars?
Star Trek, of course–what kind of question is that? Actually, if I’m going to write an essay, I should have more to say….
Star Trek, in its original incarnation (which I will henceforth refer to by the standard fan abbreviation TOS for “The Original Series”) began its prime-time network run on NBC in 1966, at which time I was three years old. Its last season ended in 1969, at which time I was six, and about to begin the first grade. I know Mom and Dad watched it, so I no doubt did, as well. I’ve seen every episode multiple times since, and given that, it’s hard to sort out any genuine memories of the series’s original airing.
It doesn’t really matter, though. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, TOS was more or less constantly in syndication somewhere on one channel or another. Every time it was available on any of the channels we got, I always watched it. For reasons that are obscure, certain episodes (e.g. “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “A Piece of the Action”) were in very heavy rotation, whereas others (such as “Errand of Mercy” and the insanely elusive “The Mark of Gideon”) were rarely if ever aired. I made it my goal to watch every one of the original seventy-nine episodes at least once. I set this goal at the age of around twelve or thirteen, and it took into my mid-twenties to complete it, but complete it I did. In the meantime, my involvement with Star Trek was expanding far beyond watching reruns.
The Chequer-board of Nights and Days 