Monday, March 07, 2016

Rambling Think-Piece in Precisely Sixteen Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty Six Characters





It depicts a lightsaber and the slogan “Kylo stabbed first”.

Although it contains only three words, someone unfamiliar with the past 40 years of Star Wars culture — let’s call her “Mum” — would not have the faintest idea why the slogan is funny.


To get the joke, you have to know:

1: The original 1977 movie “Star Wars” featured an amoral gunfighter who shot an enemy’s henchmen in cold blood.

2: In 1997, the scene was re-edited so that the gunfighter shot the henchmen in self-defense

3: Fans, who on the whole preferred the original version, expressed their displeasure by making badges and t-shirts with the slogan “Han shot first.”

4: In the new movie, a Very Bad Thing happens to the same character, at the hands of the villain Kylo Ren.

I find this kind of thing funny; but I must admit that I overuse it, to the extent that some people find my writing impenetrable.

I blame the post-modern condition. In the Olden Days everybody shared more or less the same cultural reference points: I could allude to Baby Roo, Moses, James T Kirk, Iago, John Nokes, Fagin, and Tommy Cooper and everyone would know exactly who I was talking about. What with public schools having turned everyone into zombies and everyone having decided that two TV channels just weren't enough, we all have less stuff in common. Oblique signifiers are a nice way of establishing community but they can also be a nasty of excluding people.

Suppose I describe Prof Richard Dawkins as a “whey-faced coxcomb”. Everyone gets that I mean “fool”; nearly everyone gets that I’m using an old-fashioned term for “fool”; and quite a lot of people spot that it’s a quasi-Shakespearian reference. (The bard was good at insults: “Thou base player of football!”) But only a minority — only one of our particular in-group — would spot that I am quoting five times Hugo award loser J.C Wright quoting Shakespeare.

Richard Dawkins is a whey faced coxcomb translates as “Richard Dawkins is a fool, and by the way J.C Wright is a pompous, in the British sense, ass.”

I sometimes wear a “WWTDD” badge because I want people who don’t get it to feel rotten and inferior.


*

Earlier this year I posted the follow squib/aphorism in response to something I had read on the popular social networking site known as Twitter:


Is there some particular reason why believing in Adam and Eve is incompatible with hosting a TV breakfast show which I may be missing?

This has (to slightly misquote Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide) “made a lot of people very angry, and been widely regarded as a bad move”.

The problem with Twitter is that each tweet is necessarily short. You have to sacrifice all nuances in the name of brevity and condensation.

This is also what makes it fun. There is a haiku-like joy in telling a joke or expressing a political viewpoint in precisely 140 characters

One often finds oneself sacrificing grammar, punctuation and elegance to make what you wanted to say fit exactly into the character limit…

OTOH, the very brevity sometimes creates a kind of poetry of its own, and some people actually think and speak in twitter ideolect hashtag gimmick

I feel sometimes I’m in a double-bind. People treat silly little twitter squibs as if they were my final word on great matters of state… (1)

…But when I direct them to my more substantive essays they throw up their hands and say “Oh I couldn’t possibly read anything that long” (2)

To be fair, the same thing is probably true of the twitter output of Prof Richard Dawkins though probably not the Rev’d Giles Fraser LOL (3)

*

The very select group of human beings who have traveled in space all tell us how awesome it is to look down on the Earth. I don’t suppose I shall ever travel in space — I am scared of heights — but am happy to take their word for it. I imagine that looking at the earth from space must be very awesome indeed. (We probably take this too much for granted. Before 1959, every illustration of The World or The Planet Earth was an artist’s impression of what it would look like. In retrospect they usually looked too much like geography teachers’ globes.) Indeed, when English astronaut Helen Sharman appeared on The Museum of Curiosity — a rather odd Radio 4 talk show in which people with nothing in common are invited to talk about whatever they feel like — “seeing the world from space” seemed to be one of the main reasons why Space Travel was a good thing.

Once you’ve seen the Earth from orbit, you realize how insignificant you are, and in particular that the borders and differences between countries and nations that we make so much of aren’t really real.

Woo-oh-oh-oh-oh, you may say I’m a dreamer.

Travel broadens the mind. Traveling into space presumably broadens the mind exponentially. Seeing the earth from space changes your outlook. But then, being wrongly accused of a serious crime probably changes your outlook, as does having heart bypass surgery and taking too much Lysergic acid. The question is whether the new outlook is better or worse than the old one. How could we tell? Yes, I fully accept that you “spoke in tongues” at a revival meeting. So what? Did the experience make you a more pious Christian or a nicer human being, or did you just feel excited during some gospel music? Not that there is anything wrong with feeling excited during some gospel music. There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking out of porthole and saying “Wow!” either. I am just not quite sure what it proves.

Bristol is very big. The world is even bigger. I am very small relative to Bristol. I am very small indeed relative to the world. I am very big relative to my friend Richard. But the idea that I am insignificant compared with the world only works if you think that big things are in general more significant than small things. In which case I am presumably twelve inches more significant than my friend Richard.

I am currently cutting out snacks and taking more exercise in the hope that it will make me less significant.

Up in space, you can’t see any borders or any countries. Well, no, of course you can’t. No-one ever supposed you could. People used to say that you could see the Great Wall of China from space, but apparently you can’t. I don’t think I ever believed that there was a cosmological distinction between England and Scotland that was obvious from the Moon and would have been even if no-one had invented highland clearances, whisky or irn-bru. I always understood that the difference was mostly cultural — language and history and politics. And climate. You can’t see climate from space; not very easily, but I am still taking a coat if I ever go back to Dundee.

We are only entitled to say “in space, you can see that countries aren’t really real” if we have first agreed that “real things are thing you can see from a long way away”. According to which criteria, history and language and politics, and whether the shops open on a Sunday and what time the pubs close are not real. But they make a real difference to the real lives or real people most of whom have no real chance of really going up in a space rocket, whatever Richard Branson says.

A grown up may say to a child “Stop quarrelling about that toy. It only cost sixpence and a few years from now you won’t even remember it, and a century from now you will both be dead” Yes. But to that child at that moment, the teddy bear or the ball or the small ray-gun that came with the second Cyborg and Muton accessory pack is simply the most important thing in the world. The people of Palestine don’t want to hear that from a sufficiently elevated perspective their struggle isn’t very important and from space you can’t even see the wall. What they want is justice. Which is another of the things you can’t see from space.

*

It transpires that there is a journalist named Dan Walker. He used to talk about football for the BBC, and now he is going to appear on a breakfast time talk show. (One of the things I find it hardest to get my head around, from a terrestrial or extraterrestrial perspective is that a man may make a living talking about football.) It transpires that Mr Walker is a Christian; and it further transpires that he is a Christian of a fairly conservative flavour. For example, he believes that Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden were really really real.

This is pretty much all I know about him. Whether he believes that the Red Sea was actually the Sea of Reeds; whether he thinks that John Mark is the same Mark who wrote the Gospel and how he deals with the prophecy of Daniel being written in Aramaic I couldn’t say. The first I heard of him was a post on the aforementioned Twitter by the aforementioned Prof Richard Dawkins.

Why in the world is BBC hiring a young earth creationist to host BBC Breakfast? Why not someone who accepts reality.” said the very great man.

Is there some particular reason why believing in Adam and Eve is incompatible with hosting a TV show which I’m missing?” said I.

Or does the New Atheist movement think that only people who believe like they do should have jobs and everyone else should be blacklisted?” continued I.

It’s not like they’d be the first” I concluded.

I don’t think my first bit contained any hidden meanings or obscure cultural references. By “believing in Adam and Eve” I meant “believing that Adam and Eve were historical individuals in the same way that George Washington arguably was”. By “incompatible with hosting a TV show” I meant “incompatible with hosting a TV show.” My question was “Why does believing that Adam and Eve were real people — even granted that you and me and Richard Dawkins agrees that they were not — prevent you from asking Brie Larson penetrating questions about her dress or asking Jeremy Corbyn equally penetrating questions about his tie?

I admit that the question was rhetorical and I already knew the answer

*

"But” asked my Aunt Sally “You would surely agree that at the very least a journalist who believed in Adam and Eve should not be allowed to work on a science programme?”

“You’ve asked me a question” I replied “So let me ask you a question. Would a journalist who didn’t believe in the Christian God be allowed to work on Songs of Praise”

Songs of Praise is a long running British soft-religious TV show. In the olden days they simply put a camera in a church and recorded half an hour of community hymn singing — Anglican, Wesleyan or Salvation Army as the mood took them. They now go to town and chat to local people and ask them to pick hymns that they like.

“I suppose” said Sally “It would depend on what kind of atheist. If he was the kind who shouted ‘oh no there isn’t’ every time the choir started to sing ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away…’ then probably not. If he was the kind who thought that even though he didn’t go in for all this God stuff himself, it was his job to line up a shot of the stained glass window and the vicar so it looked as pretty as possible, then of course he could.”

“Well, quite” I retorted. “And you couldn’t have someone who was supposed to be interviewing the local Catholic clergymen and was somehow under the impression that he was Free Presbyterian. Particularly not if he thought it didn’t make any difference because it was all equally a pile of rubbish.”

“The question” said Sally, "Wouldn't be 'Is the journalist an atheist.' It’s much more ‘Is the journalist a dick?’”

“But that” said I “Is, in a very real sense, always the question.”

*

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who literally believes in Adam and Eve. It's a fringe belief, in this country at least. Is the literal belief in Adam and Eve, alone among the vast range of spiritual and fringe beliefs in the world — meditation and speaking in tongues and yogic flying and tea leaf reading and Gaia and the journey of the hero and homeopathy — the one which rules you out of presenting TV breakfast shows? And if so, why?  I can see that if the BBC are going to make a prestige 26 part series on dinosaurs and I want to be chief researcher and it turns out that not only do I not believe that any such creatures as dinosaurs ever existed, I actually think that the whole idea of dinosaurs is a myth put about by the Frankfurt Group to make it easier for the communists to take over… Well I probably wouldn’t get the job. I have, how would you say, preconceptions which would make it impossible for me to do it properly. But what's the connection between Breakfast TV and creationism? 

I try to imagine how my interview for the Breakfast time job would pan out in Richard Dawkins' universe: 

“Well: you are obviously a very good TV presenter with lots of excellent contacts. You would fit onto this show very well indeed. But as a matter of pure formality, I have to ask you some questions about your personal beliefs. Do you believe in Adam and Eve?”

“Well, I suppose it depends what you mean by ‘believe’. If you mean ‘were they historical people’ then no, I most certainly don’t believe that they were. But if you mean ‘do they represent important religious truths’ then yes I suppose I do. I think that the story is presented as something which happened a long time ago, but it is really a picture of what’s happening now, inside every human being, all the time. I think that each of us exiles ourself…”

What happens then? Does my interviewer say “Oh, your personal spiritual beliefs are none of my business or anybody else’s. I myself believe in the I-Ching, but naturally I wouldn’t tell you that. I just have to check that you don’t believe that the Garden of Eden was a real place or that God made the world in six days. Anything else is your own problem.”

Or does he say “Oh. So you DO believe in Adam and Eve, or else in something almost as stupid, or else you are using theology to pull the wool over our eyes. We obviously can’t have you, or anyone who believes in anything with the slightest hint of the supernatural working for us. Goodbye.”

Richard Dawkins has form in this area. Back in 2013 he was insinuating that Muslims couldn’t work on financial papers “because they believed in flying horses”. Earlier this year, he was rattling off little squibs asking how it was that people who believed that Jesus turned water into wine could possibly hold down jobs in the modern world. This makes me at least suspect that behind the proposition “Young earth creationists shouldn’t present breakfast TV shows” lurks the parenthesis “…and neither should anyone else who believes in miracles, angels prophecies or any other supernatural aspect of religion” which is only a hop, skip and jump from “you shouldn’t employ Christians or Muslims: you should only employ atheists, like me.”

It would have been better if I hadn’t used the politically loaded term “blacklist”.

*

I don’t think that you can deduce things about Scottish independence, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict or the Brexit referendum by looking at the Earth from space. I don’t think that the book of Genesis is very helpful as an explanation of why the male Kakapo parrot has a mating cry which positively repels the female. I don’t think Darwinism is much use as a religious myth. A friend of mind wrote on Facebook that the black-holes and gravity waves thing meant “Science has proved that God doesn’t exist.” I think he probably said it mainly to annoy me, but I still think it’s nonsense. I don’t think you can draw spiritual and ethical conclusions from material and scientific observations.

If people continue to say “I have seen the earth from space; and this proves borders and nations don’t exist and Tibet should damn well shut up about it” then a certain number of people are going to be very tempted to say “Well, if that’s what it proves, then I don’t believe you saw it. Probably your trip into space was another trick, like that time O.J went to Mars.” If people continue to say “all living things shared a common ancestor, and therefore culture and morality are not really real” then some people will continue to say “well, if that’s what it proves, then I don’t believe all living things shared a common ancestor.” If people try to bring science round to reductive, misanthropic conclusions, some people are bound to reject science. It’s the only rational thing to do.

*

So anyway: all those thoughts were kind of bound up in the little tweet I posted from the coffee shop; just like the whole history of Star Wars is bound up in Mike’s little t-shirt. Kylo Slashed First. Is it just believing in Adam and Eve that disqualifies you from breakfast TV, or religious faith in general. That’s the joy of Twitter, although, of course, that’s the trouble with it too.

And the punch line is this: the people who were annoyed by the 140 character tweet will probably never know, because they will probably find a 3,000 word article much too long and dull to bother with. 


*
On no possible view is it literally true that a kangeroo is my cousin.










Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Ten more quotes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens which would have been hugely improved by the addition of the word "pants"

"Those are my pants! No, keep them, they suit you."

"I know all about waiting. For my pants. They'll be back one day."

"Take off those pants! You don't need them."
"What do you think you'll see if I do?"

"You will remove these pants and leave this cell with the door open."
"I will tighten these pants, scavenger scum."

"You will drop your pants."
"I will drop my pants."

"The pants you seek are not behind you. They are ahead." 

"What about that ship?"
"That one's pants."
"The pants will do."

"What about those pants?"
"They're garbage."
"The garbage will do." 

"If you see our pants, bring them home."

"When you live long enough, you start to see the same pants on different people." 


READ:


The most incredible article about the Star Wars trilogy you will ever read

How Hollywood got Star Wars wrong



What is Luke Skywalker's relationship to Rey? The true answer may surprise you. 





George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me) 



Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Andrew Rilstone writes more perceptively about Star Wars than just about anyone else alive
Echo Station 5-7

...the most intelligent and insightful articles ever on the Star Wars hexology....”
Mike Taylor

...one of the best things I’ve read on the whole Star Wars phenomenon in the last 27 years...
“Speedysnail”

For more than 30 years, fans have been waiting for the definitive guide to the monsters, vehicles and aliens in the Star Wars universe. Some of them may find that this collection of essays by passes the time while they carry on waiting.


Starting with the opening night of Phantom Menace, Andrew explains why the prequels aren't quite as bad as everyone say; wonder if sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber; and tries to show why the Saga has become so important to so many people.

A very personal journey to the heart of the Star Wars saga, in the company of such luminaries as Joseph Campbell, Jack Kirby...and Bob Dylan?

Includes parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the seminal "Little Orphan Anakin", though not necessarily in that order




Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Monday, February 15, 2016

Thought for the Day


"I think (Tolkien) is a crypto-fascist" says Moorcock, laughing. 


"I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”
Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to Christopher, June 1941



"Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride."
Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to his German publisher, July, 1938


Note: In deference to Mr Moorcock, it was arguably naughty of the crypto-communist New Statesman to take a remark he made lightheartedly out of context and use it as the headline for an interview. 

Note: Did C.S Lewis really commute from Cambridge to London to attend fan meets in a pub between 1956 and 1963 (the years he was married to a very sick wife, and dividing time between his home in Oxford and his chair in Cambridge)? I ask merely for information.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Thought for the Day

"Each new discovery, even every new theory, is held at first to have the most wide-reaching theological and philosophical consequences. It is seized by unbelievers as the basis for a new attack on Christianity; it is often, and more embarrassingly, seized by injudicious believers as the basis for a new defense. But usually, when the popular hubbub has subsided and the novelty has been chewed over by real theologians, real scientists and real philosophers, both sides find themselves pretty much where they were before."

C.S Lewis

Ten quotes from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens which would have been hugely improved by the addition of the word "pants"





"Without the Jedi, there can be no balance in my pants."

"Why are you helping me?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
"You need pants?"
"I need pants."

"Luke Skywalker? I thought he was pants."

"Stop taking my pants!"

"Chewie, we're pants."

"The pants you seek are aboard the Millennuim Falcon, in the hands of my father."

"You changed your pants."
"Same jacket"
"New jacket!"

"You changed your hair."
"Same pants."
"New pants!"

"We'll see each other's pants. I believe that."

"It is I, C3P0. You probably do not recognize me because of the red pants."


READ:


The most incredible article about the Star Wars trilogy you will ever read

How Hollywood got Star Wars wrong



What is Luke Skywalker's relationship to Rey? The true answer may surprise you. 





George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me) 



Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Andrew Rilstone writes more perceptively about Star Wars than just about anyone else alive
Echo Station 5-7

...the most intelligent and insightful articles ever on the Star Wars hexology....”
Mike Taylor

...one of the best things I’ve read on the whole Star Wars phenomenon in the last 27 years...
“Speedysnail”

For more than 30 years, fans have been waiting for the definitive guide to the monsters, vehicles and aliens in the Star Wars universe. Some of them may find that this collection of essays by passes the time while they carry on waiting.


Starting with the opening night of Phantom Menace, Andrew explains why the prequels aren't quite as bad as everyone say; wonder if sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber; and tries to show why the Saga has become so important to so many people.

A very personal journey to the heart of the Star Wars saga, in the company of such luminaries as Joseph Campbell, Jack Kirby...and Bob Dylan?

Includes parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the seminal "Little Orphan Anakin", though not necessarily in that order




Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Ten More Facts About the Star Wars Trilogy


1: Peter Cushing also played such iconic roles as Dr Frankenstien, Dr Who, and Sherlock Holmes!

2: George Lucas also directed the Indiana Jones trilogy, featuring Harrison "Han Solo" Ford as the iconic archaeologist!

3: Harrison Ford also takes the title role in the iconic 1982 cult sci fi classic Blade Runner!

4: In the first version of the script, "Star Wars" was going to be entitled "The Star Wars"!

5: Until very late in production, Luke Skywalker was going to be called "Luke Starkiller"!

6: The Force is an energy field create by all living things. It surrounds them, it penetrates them, it bind the galaxy together!

7: Darth Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force!

8: The Jedi Knights were the Guardians of Truth and Justice in the Old Republic for over a thousand generations!

9: Princess Leia turns out to be Luke Skywalker's twin sister!

10: The word "iconic" refers to a style of religious artwork in Greek Orthodox churches, and should not be used as a synonym for "famous"!


READ:


The most incredible article about the Star Wars trilogy you will ever read

How Hollywood got Star Wars wrong



What is Luke Skywalker's relationship to Rey? The true answer may surprise you. 





George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me) 



Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Andrew Rilstone writes more perceptively about Star Wars than just about anyone else alive
Echo Station 5-7

...the most intelligent and insightful articles ever on the Star Wars hexology....”
Mike Taylor

...one of the best things I’ve read on the whole Star Wars phenomenon in the last 27 years...
“Speedysnail”

For more than 30 years, fans have been waiting for the definitive guide to the monsters, vehicles and aliens in the Star Wars universe. Some of them may find that this collection of essays by passes the time while they carry on waiting.


Starting with the opening night of Phantom Menace, Andrew explains why the prequels aren't quite as bad as everyone say; wonder if sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber; and tries to show why the Saga has become so important to so many people.

A very personal journey to the heart of the Star Wars saga, in the company of such luminaries as Joseph Campbell, Jack Kirby...and Bob Dylan?

Includes parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the seminal "Little Orphan Anakin", though not necessarily in that order




Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Hugo Awards 2016


The following essays were published on this forum in 2015 and eligible for nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer and Best Related Work.





Captain America 1942 - 2015

It's not going to happen; but isn't it worth a go just to imagine the look on the face of the guy whose name we never mention (who lost in five categories last year)?


Hugo Award Categories

The Official Rules

Best Fan Writer: 
This is another person category. Note that it does not just apply to writing done in fanzines. Work published in semiprozines, and even on mailing lists, blogs, BBSs, and similar electronic fora, can be including when judging people for this Award. Only work in professional publications should not be considered.

Best Related Work: 

Awarded to a work related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year or which has been substantially modified during the previous calendar year. The type of works eligible include, but are not limited to, collections of art, works of literary criticism, books about the making of a film or TV series, biographies and so on, provided that they do not qualify for another category. Nonfiction collections are eligible here, but fiction anthologies generally are not because all of the individual works within the anthology are eligible in one of the “story” categories. There is no category for “Best Anthology.”







The Force Awakens I -VII


I

II



IV

V

VI

VII


If you have enjoyed these articles, please consider supporting Andrew on Patreon. This means pledging to give him a small amount of money, typically $1 (0.69 English pounds) each time he writes a substantive piece. 

He is currently earning approximately £44 per article; NUJ rates are around £250/1000 words for a small magazine. 





Did you like the Force Awakens, or didn't you?




VII

Chewie: we're home.



Very early on the morning of December 16th, I said “The Force Awakens was as good as it could possibly have been”.

Having now seen the film, er, five times, I think I would say “It was far better than it needed to be.”

I remember the days when TV and movie adaptations of comic books had nothing to do with the source material, and you didn't really expect them to. The Hulk was a fugitive named Dave; Doctor Strange was a medical student; Spider-Man wore his webshooters outside his sleeves. Even the Tim Burton Batman, which was fan-approved and kicked the whole thing off, had us struggling to find the things which resembled the comic book. (Even Reeves Superman. Krypton made of sugar. Elderly Jor-El. Hairy Lex Luther. No Superboy.) But at some point, somewhere around the X-Men, I suppose, someone realized that hey, these comic books are actually quite good; and hey, the kinds of people who read comic books go to movies; so hey, let’s make a Captain America movie that actually, like, follows the plot of Captain America! Let’s make a Guardians of the Galaxy movie and reference the Celestials and Howard the Frickin’ Duck! Let's make geek movies for geeks!

As has been noted, Mr Walt “Uncle” Disney spent 2.75 billion pounds buying the rights to Star Wars. And while a movie like Force Awakens makes a tidy little sum in a tickets and popcorn sales, the real, ongoing money is in computer games and action figures and breakfast cereal and lunchboxes and lightsaber shaped water bottles and duvet covers and t-shirts and lots and lots of underwear. People were going to go and see the Force Awakens whether it was critically acclaimed or not. The main thing to do was not damage the brand. (Marvel and Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who are called "franchises" nowadays, a word which originally had to do with secret recipes for fried chicken.) The easy thing to do would have been to just show us all the toys and not knock over too much of the furniture. Disney would have made it's money back out of any film in which a wookie and a walker said may the Force be with you to a lightsaber. But Disney placed Star Wars in the hands of a man who actually liked Star Wars (however much he may have disliked Star Trek); and he shows every sign of having put together the kind of film he would have liked to have seen. He didn't go for all the obvious fan-pleasing effects; he held some of the cool stuff back til literally the last moment; he killed off good guys; he left us wondering what was going to happen next and wanting more. This was a far, far better film than it needed to be. 

The Force Awakens was a film I felt comfortable with. It was not, in truth, a film that thrilled me or filled me with joy. But as you get older, that happens less and less, which is why we start listening to folksingers. The main thing which was missing, I am afraid to say, was George Lucas. Lucas brought a mad inventiveness to the table; a sense of excess. Yes, someone sometimes needed to take him aside and say “George, George, are you absolutely sure about the Jamaican fish people?” Star Wars had iconic X-Wings and TIE Fighters and The Empire Strikes Back had almost equally iconic Walkers and the Return of the Jedi had, er, loads of cool stuff as well and the prequels, bless them, and gold pointy naboo fighters and funny round Jedi fighters and robots that curled up into wheels like roley poley bugs... The Force Awakens offered us, I think I am correct in saying, not one single cool new piece of hardware: X-Wings and TIE Fighters with slightly different liveries; a lightsaber with a cross bar; an even bigger and more deathier Death Star.

But on the plus side, there was no sense of anyone going through the motions, quoting famous lines, referencing famous scenes for the fans to tick off on their scorecards. Carrie Fisher made very little attempt to re-do her turn as Princess Leia from the first movie. We entirely believed in Han and the General as a middle-aged couple for whom things hadn’t quite worked out. I have known ever since the Ewoks started their song that when I next saw Luke Skywalker he would be a wise old man with a wise old beard and wise old robes, so there could be no better image for the film to end on.






Star Wars is an ongoing, generational space-fantasy saga, created by George Lucas and others. 

It is set during and after the fall of a great Galactic Republic; like the Arthurian saga, it’s about holding on to what you can of civilization as night falls. The cyclical conflict between Light and Darkness is represented by a single family. The first trilogy deals with the messianic Anakin Skywalker; the second with his son Luke Skywalker and the third with his grandchildren Ben and Rey Solo.

In it’s original form, the fourth chapter was intended to be a stand alone work, and therefore does not fit entirely satisfactorily into the saga; although George Lucas engaged in an on-going editorial process to rework the films into a single “fix-up” saga. It was painfully possible to see the narrative crack between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope; but when the saga resumed in 2015, fans were relieved that there was no such disjuncture between Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Episode VII: The Force Awakens. 

At a micro level, the details of the generational trilogy may not have been what creator George Lucas originally envisaged; but we can be pretty certain that at a macrocosmic level, the saga was running roughly according to his intentions. Episode VII takes us into the third generation of characters; just as the heroes of episodes IV - VI were the children of the heroes of episodes I - III, so the Force Awakens introduces us to those characters grandchildren. A new political force, with a new technological terror, threatens the New Republic. The mystical guardians of peace and justice are once again riven by a schism between Darkness and Light. Unlikely heroes and heroines must take up their parents and grandparents swords to fight the coming darkness with their backs to the walls. This is the story that Lucas would have told; it is the story that Abrams is telling; and it is the story which will doubtless continue into the third decade of the new millennium when and elderly Rey Solo will doubtless witness her own children being tempted by the Dark Side of the Force. 

The saga begins with two Jedi Knights being sent to deal with an apparently trivial trade dispute which turns out * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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Monday, February 08, 2016

Why Star Wars bad guys ain't as good as they used to be

VI

If you have a problem, said the Judo instructor on the programme, such as for instance a nineteen stone Jap in pyjamas trying to beat you into a pulp, the trick is to use the problem to solve itself. If you can trip or throw or deflect the Jap as he hurtles towards you, then the fact that he weighs nineteen stones quickly becomes his problem instead of yours.
           Douglas Adams



Finn and Rey, and even Han treat life and death as a game and revel in the playing of it. But there is a sense in which the First Order also seem to be playing at being bad guys.

Many people felt that the unmasking of Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi failed: there needed to be something more shocking, less pathetic, under the helmet. Nearly everybody felt that Hayden Christensen failed to convince as the young Anakin Skywalker in the prequels. He was neither evil enough to be Darth Vader, nor impressive enough to be the great hero and friend of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Clones Wars cartoon handles him better: he’s the cynical, rule-breaking, wise-cracking Jedi. But a plot arc in which a likable cynical good guy turns evil is not really very satisfying. Likable cynical good guys are meant to reveal that they have hearts of pure gold.

In retrospect, Lucas was much closer to the mark when he cast Jake Lloyd as child Vader in Phantom Menace. If no-one without a helmet and voice-over can possibly be Vader, better make young Anakin the least Darth Vader like figure possible: cute, naive, starry-eyed, kind. Star Wars is never far from the influence of Jack Kirby, and Kirby put a character who looked angelic but was actually demonic in virtually every series he wrote: Orion, the Reject, Angel, even Victor Von Doom. Instead of a moody teenager, Anakin needed to be Sir Galahad: noble, gentle, pious, holy, beautiful. Then his descent to the Dark Side could have literally been like the fall of Lucifer.

Darth Vader is a different character in each of the original trilogy: henchman in Star Wars, pantomime villain and bogeyman in Empire Strikes Back and a tragic hero in Return of the Jedi. But he is never less than charismatic; his every line an instant quotation, demanding to be written in capital letters like Death himself. I FIND YOUR LACK OF FAITH DISTURBING! HE IS AS CLUMSY AS HE IS STUPID! THE EMPEROR IS NOT AS FORGIVING AS I AM! Probably James Earl Jones would sound impressively evil if he were reading out a recipe for vegetable soup.

There is no iconic villain in the prequels. How could there be? Palpatine sneers. Christopher Lee is Christopher Lee. Darth Maul looks impressive on duvet covers and underwear.

Episode VII knows that no villain it introduces can possibly have a tenth of the impact of Darth Vader. So what does it do? Following Douglas Adams advise, it makes that part of the story. It creates a villain who knows he is a pale imitation of the previous one. A villain who has to keep proving to everyone else that he is evil: losing his temper and breaking things when his plans fail; killing people he has no particular reason to kill to show he can. Actually holding onto Darth Vader’s helmet – presumably retrieved from the funeral pyre on Endor – as a holy relic, and praying to it. Feeling that he is being tempted by the Light Side of the Force.

"Show me again the power of Darkness. Show me again, Grandfather, and I will finish what you started."

xxx

The theology of the Force is, naturally, a little vague. The very first time it is mentioned (in A New Hope) is when we are told that Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force. ("Seduced": interesting choice of words, coming from an order which enforces vows of celibacy.) Sometimes, it seems that the Dark Side and the Light differ in their approach ("a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack"). Sometimes, the difference is just that the Dark Side use the Force for evil and the Light for Good. Sometimes, the opposite seems to be true: it isn’t that bad people use the Dark Side, it is that if you use the Dark Side, it will make you bad. Sometimes, there seem to be two different traditions: the Sith are custodians of secrets and techniques which the Jedi know nothing about. Leia says that Snoke – the Supreme Leader – seduced (that word again) Kylo Ren to the Dark Side. After he has been all but defeated by Rey and Finn, Snoke says that it is time to “complete his training”. But I have an overwhelming sense that Kylo is feeling his way: that he wants to be a super-villain like Grandpa but doesn’t quite know what he is doing.

There seems also to be a Tao idea that the Light and the Dark sides of the Force need to be balanced. Qui-Gon believed that Anakin Skywalker was the one who would bring balance. Tekka says that without the Jedi, there can be no balance in the Force. Han Solo defines the Force as "a magical energy holding together good and evil". This is one of the ways in which VII acknowledges the prequels without having a guest appearance by Jar-Jar Binks: the idea of "balance" occurs nowhere in the first trilogy.

Anger and fear are paths to the Dark Side. Kylo Renn fears that he will never be such an iconic villain as Darth Vader, and is angry when one of his minions fail him. When people failed Vader, he strangled them, with his fist or with the Force, but in a calm and controlled way. When the Millennium Falcon escapes at the end of Empire Strikes Back, he simply walks away. When Kylo Ren sees that Rey has escaped, he goes berserk and starts smashing things with his lightsaber. (Two stormtroopers simply turn around and leave him to it. They are obviously used to him throwing wobblies.) But it feels like someone showing off: going through the motions of being angry to prove a point, like someone smashing a tea-cup in a domestic row. As if he doesn’t really mean it.

When Luke says that there is still good in Darth Vader, no-one believes him. When Leia tells Han that there is still good in their son and he must try and bring him back, we take it as a definite possibility. He clearly isn't very good at being evil.

All the officers of the First Order are young. If the First Order only arose after Luke disappeared, and Luke disappeared because of the rise of Kylo Ren, then the First Order can hardly have been in existence for more than fifteen years. (Quite quick work in converting a planet into a hyperspace planet destroying cannon, even so.) But there seem to be no old generals in their 50s who remember the great days of the Empire.

General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) seems positively amateurish. His bickering with Ren somewhat recalls Motti's quarreling with Vader in the first film. But he doesn't seem to have properly got the hang of being evil. His ranting speech before they wipe out the Republic looks like someone doing a very bad imitation of Hitler: more Roderick Spode than Oswald Mosley. Look at the way the stormtroopers salute him. The Empire never went in for this kind of thing (if anything, it was the rebels who liked Triumph of the Will style ceremonials). And look, for goodness sake, at the chief Stormtrooper, Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christiie), with her silver armour and bright red cloak. These are people who love playing soldiers; people who became Nazis because they liked the uniforms.

Alan Moore, thinking about Jack the Ripper and the mythology of serial killers, remembers that when he was a small child, he experienced an intrusive thought about stabbing his mother with a knife; simultaneously knowing that it would be easy to do; and that he would never do such a thing. The serial killer, he speculates, is the person who has both imagined and done the impossible thing; and that gives them a certain kind of power because they have crossed a line. He thinks it would be like perceiving the script for your life, and abandoning it. Allowing yourself to be seduced by the dark side of the Plot.

Kylo Renn kills his father. He doesn't kill his father for any reason. He doesn't appear to hate him. He may even love him. He falters for a moment; tempted, as he would see it, by the light. The sky literally turning dark seems to push him back to the Dark Side. He's doing something pointlessly evil; because he wants to step over a line and never go back.

And when he pulls of his helmet: well, it’s a surprise, certainly, but it’s not a shock. Young; floppy haired; rather good looking; weak. Like the Anakin of the prequels. The anti-Luke.

The Pope complained that the villains in the Force Awakens were not evil enough. That's sort of true; but it's also sort of the point. Darth Vader is a fallen angel, with all the evil and charm and charisma that implies. George Lucas was a true artist, and presumably therefore of Darth Vader's party without realizing it. Kylo Ren is not the Dark Lord: he is a very naughty boy.



"General Kenobi: years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars: now he begs you to come to his aid again." 

Star Wars reached back into previous episodes, previous movies previous chapters — even in the good years when it was the only one. We didn't need to have seen Ewan McGregor totally failing to either look or sound like Alec Guinness to understand that Ben-Obi-Wan-Kenobi is the hero of a previous film which just happens not to exist. The Force Awakens reaches back into episodes and movies and chapters which do exist. And Han Solo finds himself in the Obi-Wan role. He’s the hero of the last movie; he’s getting too old for this kind of thing he’s back for one last hurrah.

Perhaps his exit wasn’t a completely unexpected plot twist after all?

As soon as they get to the Death Star, Ben Kenobi knows that he has to face Darth Vader. There's no actual reason for the fight. Vader could have been standing between Ben and the shield generator; or he could have been blocking Ben's path back to the Falcon. But they seem to be fighting because they have to. Part of a personal quest: Jedi stuff that both Obi-Wan and Darth Vader acknowledge, but which the rest of us wouldn't understand.

In Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, facing Vader, in the cave and in real life, is part of Luke's spiritual progress; a thing he has to do to become a Jedi. This makes sense if Vader is a Jungian archetype. In order to become a Man, you have to confront and overcome the terrifying shadow of your father that haunts your dreams. It makes much less sense if he just a particularly nasty war criminal.

Maybe there is some rule which says that when the Light Side and the Dark Side meet, they must duel. Maybe they are fulfilling some promise they made, years ago, before Vader killed Luke's father. Maybe Obi-Wan is consciously seeking his own death. Because he knows that he needs to be at one with the Force before Luke will be able to destroy the Death Star? Because he has learned from his old master a discipline which enables him to maintain his consciousness after death? Because enlightenment involves confronting your shadow self and experiencing ego death?

Is it possible that Han Solo is seeking his own death?

Does he know that the moment he faces his son is the culmination of a redemption arc that began when he turned the Falcon around and covered Luke’s back on Yavin? Or is he just keeping a promise to Leia, knowing how it will end, but going through with it anyway. ("Not my idea of courage. More like… Suicide.")

Han Solo, the real Han Solo, the one who gunned down Greedo in cold blood and cracked a joke about it, did not believe in the Force. I used to wonder how that was possible. How could you not know the Jedi Worreel when they were acting in big numbers when you were a teenager. Chewbacca knew Yoda, didn't he? But the Republic extended across the whole galaxy. (There are maps of the Star Wars universe. It is clear that by galaxy we mean, well, galaxy.) So even if there were hundreds of Jedi, they were awfully thinly spread. Maybe they were more like Saints than Cardinals. Even if you believed in them, you would probably never meet one. If you'd never met one, well, it was pretty easy not to believe in them.

Yoda tells Obi Wan that there is another hope besides Luke. In Return of the Jedi, when we discover that Leia is also Vader's child. Luke thinks she has inherited some of Darth Vader's midichlorians, and that some day, she will understand how to use them. This is a catastrophic failure of Lucas's retrospective plotting: it’s impossible to imagine that the hotheaded politician that Leia has been established to be would undergo the sort of training Luke underwent…and anyway, wasn't Luke too old to begin the training? It’s much more believable that she’s General Leia, running the Resistance to the New Order.

But this makes me wonder…

On Starkiller base, Finn admits that he does not really know how to take the shield's down, but says that he will trust the Force. Han Solo looks shocked and says "That's not how the Force works."

What does Han Solo know about how the Force works?

"I used to wonder that myself” he says “Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo-magical power holding together good, evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is, it's true. The Force, the Jedi, all of it. It's all true."

And when he meets Rey, and recognizes her as his daughter, he takes her, not back to Leia and the resistance, but to Maz's tavern, where she has a mystical vision associated with Luke Skywalker's lightsaber.

It couldn't be, could it?

It couldn't be that while Leia never learned to use the Force Han Solo did?

And that there may be a familiar voice whispering in Rey’s ear in the next movie?






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