Posted on 05/27/2005 7:13:32 AM PDT by Ed Hudgins
Revenge of the Sith Reviewed by Edward Hudgins Executive Director The Objectivist Center ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org
With Revenge of the Sith George Lucas faced the same problem as did the classical Greek playwrights. Their audiences already knew the stories and myths on which their dramas were based. Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides had to make their plays interesting, enlightening or instructive, usually by offering lessons about hubris, unchecked emotions or moral failing.
While the Greeks were not keen on happy endings, Lucas has already given one with the first Star Wars trilogy and we know what to expect in the prequels. We know that Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, apprentice to the evil emperor; that Vader's son Luke joins the rebellion; that the Empire is overthrown by pro-Republic heroes; that Vader saves Luke from the emperor, abandons the Dark Side of the Force, and before dying, is redeemed.
To make the prequels interesting Lucas offers us political and moral lessons, but with mixed results.
In Sith Lucas continues the story of the fall of the Republic. Chancellor Palpatine -- secretly the evil Sith Lord Darth Sidious -- accumulates power in the name of fighting a long war against separatists -- a war that he himself is secretly behind. Curiously, we are told that the Senate of the Republic is corrupt and in the text crawl that starts every Star Wars film we're told that in the war "There are heroes on both sides." Lucas seems to be backing away from the clear-cut black-and-white, good-vs.-evil themes that so characterized the original trilogy. As he obscures that distinction he also obscures his theme.
Some see the theme of Sith as an attack on President Bush and his Middle East policies. But while Lucas is no friend of the administration, he is really offering lessons from history and especially from the fall of Rome's Republic and the rise of its centralized quasi-monarchy (not empire -- Rome gained that while it was still a republic). In the Roman world, wars in the first century B.C. undermined the Republic. In the end, the Senate surrendered most of its authority and gave to Caesar Augustus extraordinary powers; as a quasi-king, he called himself the Restorer of the Republic.
Similarly in Sith the Senate gives Palpatine extraordinary powers and even as the civil war ends he declares the Republic reorganized as a First Galactic Empire, in order to ensure safety and security. As the Senate expresses its approval, Sen. Padme Amidala comments, “So this is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause.”
While America has not faced a military takeover, most wars have led to a growth in state authority that has rarely returned to pre-war levels; remember that New York City still has rent control meant to deal with housing problems during World War II and the federal government still levies a special telephone tax meant to fund the 1898 Spanish-American War. (I think we won that one!)
While Lucas shows military power as a potential destroyer of republics, his liberal views blind him to another threat that helped destroy liberty in Rome as it is now destroying liberty in America: the welfare state. In Rome, cheap slave labor from conquered peoples pushed independent farmers off their land and into the impoverished, urban masses, where they increasingly relied on politicians for bread and circus – they cheered the Caesars who made them subjects rather than citizens. Today high taxes and heavy-handed government regulations rob most Americans of their independence and force them to beg the government for money to send their kids to college, pay their medical bills and care for them in their retirement. Too many Americans cheer the politicians who rob them of financial freedom while throwing them alms.
On the moral front, Lucas shows us Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side, ostensibly caused by nightmares of the pregnant Padme, to whom he is secretly married, dying in childbirth -- and this not long after his mother's tragic death. Further, the temperamental Anakin is frustrated by his failure to advance quickly in the Jedi order. He wants more personal power and he wants the Senate to give the Chancellor more power to crush the enemies of the Republic. He’ll do anything to save his wife and when Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious tells him that knowledge of the Dark Side could save Padme and make him more powerful than any Jedi, Anakin becomes Darth Vader.
The Force in the Star Wars world is rather nebulous. If we take it to be self-discipline, and giving into the Dark Side is giving into anger and hate, abandoning control of one’s emotions and, especially, lusting after power, then the moral message is clear. But Jedi Master Yoda tells Anakin that fear of loss is the path to the Dark Side; that attachment leads to greed; and that one should release oneself from that which one fears to lose. If one lets go of fear -- which by Yoda's logic implies giving up what one loves --, loss cannot harm one.
Well there's a pretty bleak choice! If you really love something -- your wife, children, career -- fear of their loss could drive you to commit every kind of immoral act. Self-interest leads to Darth Vader. The only alternative: self-sacrifice; love nothing. On Yoda’s theory, why should he and the other Jedi love the Republic and liberty?
This false dichotomy flows from a moral confusion shared by Lucas and many others. Morality doesn't begin with a feeling but, rather, with the fact that since we have free will, we need to use our minds to discover a code of values that will guide us in our pursuit of survival and a happy, flourishing life.
The principles of such a code would have told Anakin that if he pursues his love for Padme out of all moral context, if he indulges in every kind of betrayal and atrocity to save her, that he would destroy his own moral character and capacity to love anything. Immorality would not be in his true self-interest. That is the Greek conception of nemesis and is exactly what happens to Vader. Lucas gets that right and Vader's fate is truly in the spirit of classic tragedy. But Lucas would have created less confusion by leaving out Yoda's babble about giving up what one loves.
After two disappointing prequels Lucas does in this film what Darth Vader does in the last film of the first trilogy: redeems himself. With its classical theme Revenge of the Sith is definitely worth a trip to a theater not so far, far away.
That's a long way to go while to get to "Yes." I got that from one line in the movie: "The Siths think only of themselves; the Jedi serve others."
Something which has always bothered me:
In Episode I Yoda is reluctant to allow young Anakin to be trained as a Jedi -- too full of fear and anger. Now, why would that be? Perhaps because he's just been wrenched away from his mother? Perhaps because his mother is still a slave on a distant world?
We see the sumptuousness of the Jedi Council, we hear them say that Anakin could be The Chosen One, we hear that the only worry is his fear and anger -- and it never occurs to them to free his mother from slavery????? Have they no feelings? Have they no love? Are these the Good Guys?????
That's why they don't trust him!
I reckon that boy is a sociopath. He's uncontrollable and dangerous. I saw we give that boy a lightsaber and turn him into an unstoppable warrior. What could go wrong?
That is mistaken. The Emperor dissolves the senate in Ep.IV. The Emperor is for a dictatorship. From ANH:
Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
General Tagge: But that's impossible. How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Governor Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.
I thought Chancellor Palpatine was banned?
;-)
"Revenge of the Lisp"
ping!
I forgot my sarcasm tag. It was implied.
He said several times in the ROTS that he was for the empire and democracy.
There's something of a mystery about character motives in all this. We are told (by Mace Windu) that Anikin is "The one who will bring balance to The Force." Now that's a strange statement. If before Anikin, the Jedi Knights brought "peace and justice to the Republic" (Obi-Wan in A New Hope) and they used The Force, exactly what would "bringing balance to The Force" mean? Would it mean that the "Dark Side" is in fact, a necessary evil? And if so, would not the Sith be as necessary as the Jedi? Anikin's transformation into Darth Vader did fulfill the prophesy -- he brought "balance" to The Force by advancing the Sith cause, suppressed for ages by the Jedi.
I agree. Half baked Bhuddism is a fave Hollyweird cult. The notion of giving up attachments to what you love is very much along those lines.
At the beginning, when the Jedi speak of the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force, they feel that the problem is the return of the Sith and the presence (somewhere) of Darth Sidious. How to restore balance? Why, by wiping out half the equation and making sure that the Dark Side ceases to exist and that the Light Side is the only game in town. This will restore the balance, and, uh ...
I'm a grad student in literature, so I'm used to picking things apart, but even my friends who don't think too deeply about things like Star Wars (much less Shakespeare or Chaucer) talk about the contradiction in restoring balance by destroying one side of the scales. And also how Obi Wan says "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" while he is trying to destroy all opposition.
(Posted in previous Star Wars threads - relevant here)
A couple of thoughts have occurred to me regarding the "liberal analysis" (oxymoron?) of SW:RotS...
Liberals LOVE line by Obi Wan - "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." Liberal rant that Bush is a *Sith* (at least metaphorically) because he deals with things in black and white. Hmmmm... Has it occurred to anyone that this line is akin to saying "All generalizations are false"...? Seriously! The line itself is an absolute!
Speaking of absolutes, it really is Obi Wan and the other Jedi who are the ones dealing in absolutes. To them, Sith=evil and Jedi=good. Period. No discussion. This is true of course, but it is also an absolute. Anakin is the one who starts to deal in grey areas... and wouldn't you know it... that's the path to the Dark Side!
I have asked that over and over. You would think the first thing to be done after the danger was over would be to free Anakin's mother.
"I have asked that over and over. You would think the first thing to be done after the danger was over would be to free Anakin's mother."
Remember - Lucas is a democrat. Historically, democrats haven't supported the freeing of slaves. ;-)
Yes, the silly line about "only Siths deal in absolutes" implies -- what? -- that the Jedi would need to concede that the Siths are not all bad because if they were all bad, that would be an absolute. As I say in my review, Lucas muddies the waters in the opening crawl -- heroes on both sides -- and with Padme -- against the Grand Army of the Republic in Clones -- asking whether they're on the right side. More value relativism!
Something about the Jedi bugs me. If the Jedi go around having rules saying that Anakin cannot marry Padme openly, then how do the Jedi expect to have more little Jedi? I would think the supply of Jedi would run out sooner or later if they cannot reproduce. And never the argument that there are millions of individuals in the galaxy with which to find more recruits. It is a matter of common sense. Or are they afraid of having too many Jedi runnung around diluting their lofty status?
Funny thing that Palpatine was a Sith Lord and the best Jedi among them could not figure it out until Palpatine basically had to put out a big sign saying "The Sith Lord is IN"
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