Posted on 06/02/2018 5:41:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
So now it’s finally upon us: Solo: A Star Wars Story! This stand-alone installment in the Stars Wars franchise features the adventures of a young Han Solo before he met Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Mos Eisley Cantina in Stars Wars: A New Hope.
It will be interesting to see what veteran screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Lawrence Kasdan, has imagined as Han’s backstory. Was Han always a charming, roguish smuggler, or was he once an idealistic recruit of the Empire who became disillusioned and turned into the Han Solo we’ve all come to know?
The exploration of the path from idealism to disillusionment is not new to the Star Wars universe, of course. The events immediately preceding Solo: A Star Wars Story centered on such a transformation in the form of Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith.
(Here’s where I usually issue a spoiler alert, but if you don’t already know by now that Anakin Skywalker eventually turns to the...left and walks up to the Mustafar Landing Platform to get away from the heat of the surrounding lava flow, then you’ll probably never watch Revenge of the Sith anyway.)
Anakin stands on the landing platform as Obi-Wan emerges from the Naboo cruiser to confront him. This is what it’s all been about. It’s the final fight. We know they won’t face each other again until master and student reunite on the Death Star decades in the future. They circle one another on the platform and argue, each expressing his worldview and trying to convince the other:
OBI-WAN
You have allowed this Dark Lord to twist
your mind until now…until now you
have become the very thing you swore to
destroy.
They circle each other until OBI-WAN is near PADME. He places his hand on her.
ANAKIN
Don’t lecture me, Obi-Wan. I see through
the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the
dark side as you do. I have brought peace,
freedom, justice, and security to my new
empire.
OBI-WAN
Your new empire?
ANAKIN
Don’t make me kill you.
OBI-WAN
Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic…
to democracy.
ANAKIN
If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.
OBI-WAN
Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do
what I must. (ignites his lightsaber)
ANAKIN
You will try... (ignites his lightsaber)
Only a Sith deals in absolutes? Are you absolutely sure about that Obi-Wan? Master Kenobi seems pretty certain about his own statement, especially since he’s willing to ignite his lightsaber over it. If only a Sith deals in absolutes, then Jedi Master Kenobi cannot be absolute about his own statement, right? But if he’s not absolute about his own statement, then that means that the Sith are not the only ones who deal in absolutes! Obi-Wan actually refutes himself in the very act of expressing himself.
These kinds of statements are usually expressed popularly as: “There are no absolute truths.” It’s meant to sound profound, tolerant, and open-minded. But an astute observer will see that it is a self-refuting statement. A self-refuting statement is one that refutes itself in the very acting of expressing itself. Some examples include:
and of course,
If it’s true that there are no absolute truths, then the above statement is false since there is at least one absolute truth, namely, that “there are no absolute truths.” So you see the inherent contradictions in these self-refuting statements? If they’re true, then they’re false. But if they’re false, then they’re still false. Either way, they’re false. Therefore, they’re necessarily false no matter which way you turn. Did Jedi training include Intro to Logic 101?
Screenwriters insert these sentiments, as dialogue, into the mouths of characters all the time. More importantly, they’re not just placed in the mouths of any character, but they’re placed in the mouths of the protagonist. And since filmmakers want us to identify with the protagonist, this tells us the filmmakers want us to adopt the view of the protagonist. It’s a technique to make you accept the filmmakers’ views by using your empathy instead of your rationality.
The corollary is also true: Filmmakers will put views that they find distasteful into the mouths of the antagonist. And again, this makes us reject the view without thinking it through. It’s a technique to make us reject a view by using our antipathy instead of our rationality. “Well, if the guy that just force-choked his own wife, Padme, believes XYZ, then I don’t want to believe XYZ!” And in this instance, XYZ is the belief that “if you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.”
But what if you heard a similar view coming out of another mouth:
These words come not from a Sith Lord but from the Truth Lord, Jesus of Nazareth.
It’s important that as active viewers of films, we be aware of these storytelling techniques. It’s not a far cry from saying, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes,” to saying, “And that’s because there are no absolute truths.” Don’t be fooled by this seemingly “open-minded” and “tolerant” denial of the existence of absolute truth. It’s neither open-minded (since they’re not open to the possibility of there actually being absolute truth), nor is it “tolerant” (notice Obi-Wan didn’t tolerate the dark side).
One of the motivations behind denying the existence of absolute truth is the desire to deny the existence of objective moral truths. If there are no objective moral truths, then morality is relative. But if morality is relative, then can there really be such a thing as objective sin? And if no sin, then why need a savior from said sin? And if no savior, then where does that leave a Christianity that teaches the absolute truth that an objectively morally perfect Savior saves humans from objective moral sins? I hope you see that denying absolute truth is one of the first steps in absolutely(!) falsifying Christianity.
Don’t be seduced by its pretensions to open-mindedness. Remember that the purpose of an open mind is the same as that of an open mouth—that is, to eventually close upon something solid, substantive, and nourishing; in the former, nourishing to the soul, and in the latter, nourishing to the body.
So be careful, my Padawan learners. Spend less time making rocks float and more time learning how to spot self-refuting statements. May the Truth be with you.
J.T. Wynn sits on the Board of Stage & Story, a ministry that teaches Christian actors, writers, and filmmakers how to integrate a Christian worldview with the narrative arts. He is a speaker, writer, and media producer with a passion for integrating theology, apologetics, and media. J.T. holds a CPA license, a B.S. from USC, a Certificate in Foundations of the Faith from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and most importantly, a Christian Ambassador Certificate from Stand to Reason. He is currently pursuing graduate studies at Regent Divinity School.
Darth... seriously. You got Padme in your choking death grip projection force thing, and then whined “nooooooo” when she died. What did you expect?
Yeah, the whole thing was pretty much Lucas trying to make cheap shots against George W. Bush (somehow, he thinks the Bay Protests against Iraq are representative of Americans). I was never fond of that line anyway (in fact, when I came up with an otherwise similar scene in a fanfic I was writing, I made SURE to reword the Obi-Wan type character’s reply to specifically mention that while she might not agree with him, that does NOT mean she is his enemy.). And my parents were baffled by that line as well. In fact, from what I could tell from online, a lot of people, Star Wars fans and even casuals, did NOT like Obi-Wan’s line there.
That being said, that wasn’t the first time Lucas tried to promote at the very least relativism if not nihilism in the series. In Return of the Jedi, for example, Obi-Wan when admitting the full truth to Luke about how Vader is indeed Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father, claimed that it was still true that Vader killed Luke’s father from a certain point of view, Luke balked at the phrase, and Obi-Wan claimed that the many truths people cling to depended greatly on a point of view. It’s actually a bit ironic that in Star Wars, its the villains who told the truth for the most part.
And yeah, to the other guy who mentioned a message in ROTJ, Lucas was definitely trying to make his pro-Vietcong message/anti-Vietnam War message a bit more explicit in that movie with the Ewoks (it was already prevalent to a certain extent in A New Hope/Star Wars due to the development notes, but it was at least disguised to such an extent that most of the audience would be snookered). It’s actually why I kind of tolerate Jar-Jar a bit more than the Ewoks. Sure, he was unfunny and stupid, but at least he wasn’t created to essentially be a love song for such an evil group as the Vietcong in a clear attempt at manipulating audiences, unlike the Ewoks.
Well, at the very least Revenge of the Sith was meant to be an indictment of GW Bush (maybe Attack of the Clones as well if we’re feeling particularly generous). The Phantom Menace was made before George W. Bush was even considered a nominee for the 2000 election cycle (in fact, technically, the movie had in fact been written partially as a condemnation of the 1994 Republican Revolution led by Newt Gingrich, hence why the main villain was named Nute Gunray).
But yeah, that was definitely the main reason behind that line (of course, considering the Cannes film festival had Lucas when explaining his views on democracy being “given away” implied that he thought Robespierre’s France, of all things was a good thing, or at least it was better than either King Louis XVI’s France or Napoleon’s France, I’m pretty sure most people would not want to have allegiance to democracy, especially if the democracy Lucas envisioned was just people killing each other simply for a sheer laugh and out of class warfare before the Marxists made it a platform).
And here’s another caveat to mention, regarding the anti-Bush element behind the above dialogue: Apparently, when he wrote that dialogue, he thought that the Bay Protests against the War in Iraq (which had just been getting started at the time he started writing the movie) were somehow representative of America. At least, that’s what How Star Wars Conquered the Universe seemed to indicate here:
Chris Taylor. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise. New York, New York, USA: Basic Books, 2014-2015. Pp. 342. “Episode III, however, was written around the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In the Bay Area, protests against the Iraq War and [President] Bush were as hard to avoid as Vietnam and Nixon were during the writing of “Star Wars,” especially for a self-confessed news junkie like Lucas. Suddenly, after Anakin Skywalker is first dubbed Darth Vader and confronts Obi-Wan, we find him using this line: “If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.” Few adult listeners at the time would fail to pick up a reference to Bush’s line in his speech to Congress on September 20, 2001: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Obi-Wan’s response would have cheered the heart of every voter who felt some nuance was lost in Bush’s black-and-white worldview: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” Promoting the film later, Lucas would declare his hostility to Bush for the first time, publicly comparing him to Nixon and Iraq to Vietnam. ‘I didn’t think it would get this close,’ he told reporters at Cannes. The endless circle of politics, as Darth Vader might say, was now complete.”
Yeah, the teddy bears were a sign the franchise had gone to crap.
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