david taus

"It's not a story to be told lightly..."

music: Beethoven- Synphony #6

We humans need stories. Religion itself probably started out as fantastic stories of explanation. Parables and tales not only passed the long hour, they also were the weapons passed down from old to young to be used against the great unknowns of the universe. And while we might not need our weapons, they are nice to have. Stories give us understandings of ourselves and our surroundings, understandings sometimes far greater than the most powerful telescope or microscope. What many do not realize is that the stories that have been told since the beginnings of spoken language are variations on a handful of common themses: creation, love, falling from grace, the battle of good versus evil. All stories flow from the same spring, but some tap the source so directly that their truths are blinding. This is the origin of mythology.

Myth is not dead. Not yet, anyway. My generation’s mythology takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

28 years after the original release, the final installment of the Star Wars saga was finally unveiled. With Episode III’s release, the original vision of its creator was realized in full and the mythology of our age was rendered complete for the first time. The final Star Wars movie is no small piece of trivia; this is an unarguably important moment for our culture as Star Wars is no mere movie. No simple movie could cause 70,000 Australians claim their religion to be Jedi on official government forms.

The figures that sprang from the imagination of George Lucas are nothing short of cultural icons: Yoda as the sagacious mentor, Han Solo as the honorable scoundrel, C-3PO as the trubador storyteller, Darth Vader as the incarnation of evil. We were given these figures in three installments almost 30 years ago, and have treasured them as we have treasured nothing else from the world of story and tale since. Star Wars and its characters are instantly recognizable symbols.

The more recent installments of the epic tale graced movie screens in 1999 and 2002, and filled in the timeline 30 years before the original trilogy. In terms of script, acting, and special effects the general concensus was that the movies fell flat, but there was a deeper disconnect. There was a piece missing on the mythological level. While the first and second episodes had some similar names and faces, they didn’t click into the narrative that we as a culture know so well.

Until now.

In the telling of the final piece of the tale, however, we see something quite different in Star Wars: the myth that was once so clearly about good versus evil has become something else. Star Wars in its complete rendering is really about a tragic fall from grace and subsequent redemption. The main character is not Luke Skywalker as we once thought, it is his father. And now that we have the whole story as it was originally intended, Darth Vader is not the incarnation of Evil that we once thought him to be. We see clearly that beneath that unmistakable mask is a young man hungry for power, conflicted between love and duty, and mortified by his own human limitations. This is not the stuff of Sci-Fi or action entertainment. This is derived from the stuff of the Arthurian Legends, Grimm’s Fairly Tales, Shakespeare’s plays, even the religious stories taught in communities all over the world. Star Wars is no different from these stories. Star Wars is the taproot of modern mythology.

I take Star Wars very seriously. I’ve studied it quite literally; I’ve written papers for academic credit that compared Luke Skywalker with Yvain of Arthurian legend and Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Jim with Han Solo and Chewbacca. I delved into Joseph Campbell’s work my senior year of high school. I’ve sucked up the auxilliary novels and information guides of the Star Wars Universe; I’ve learned that fantastic pantheon’s history as if it were real. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve seen the original trilogy enough times to be able to recite it all myself. I was excited for Episode III, of course, but also apprehensive. There were worlds to bridge and things to explain. While the outcome of the movie was known, much of the telling was left in question. The last two episodes fell on their faces. Would Episode III meet the discriminating standards of the true Star Wars dorque, the one who could tell you the name of the animal that lives in the Death Star trash compactor (dianoga), the Ewok medicine man (Logray), the names of all the bounty hunters hired to find Han Solo (Bossk, 4-LOM, IG-88, Dengar, Zuckuss, Boba Fett), the chorus to the tune played by Max Rebo, Sy Snootles, and Droopy McCool for Jabba the Hutt (Lapti Nek), or the name, race, and planet of origin of the four-eyed fuzzy alien in the Mos Eisely Cantina (Muftak, Talz, Alzoc III)?

I could pick through every detail that caught my eye in the movie. I could list all the points where things clicked together for this Star Wars Dorque, and there were many. I could try to trace the movement of things from Episode II to the original trilogy. I could talk about acting, special effects, or movie script. I won’t bother. Plenty of people do a better job of that than me, and script or acting does not concern me. Episode III is released, and anyone who cares to get into that stuff is more than welcome. What is important is the telling of the tale, and the impact it had on me.

With wholly appropriate setting, music, and symbolism, Episode III slid seamlessly into what we know of the Star Wars universe from the original trilogy. It all made sense and clicked perfectly, even to the discriminating eye of this Uber-Dorque. I walked out of the movie theater entranced, fully believing the myth, loving Star Wars the same way I did when I was ten. And even though the movie ended on a grim and melancholy note, we had the luxury of knowing the eventual outcome. We Star Wars faithful were sad, but not worried. And we sensed as an infant Luke basked under Tattoine’s desert sunset (as he would 18 story years later), that evil would not win permanently, that love and faith would triumph over hate, that redemption for our true protagonist would eventually come, and that magic is possible.

It is sad to me in a way that the entire tale is told, that a new portion of the story would never again fall upon these ears and eyes. But there is something relieving about it as well. The narrative tension, drawn out longer than I have been alive, has been resolved. We have the complete vision of one of the most powerful myths of our time. We have a pantheon of names and faces more familiar than our neighbors, characters more real to us than some real people. We have now heard the story and because of it somehow understand our own human condition a little better. The Force will be with us. Always.

Posted by davidtaus at May 24, 2005 11:24 PM | TrackBack