The Star Wars prequel trilogy is nearly brilliant. It took me 10 years to realise it, but it’s true. You see, the other night, my girlfriend and I drank a bottle of wine and started – as is entirely understandable – ripping into Episodes I to III. We hit the usual, obvious punching bags – Jar Jar, Anakin’s creepy sex-pest characterisation, the pointless set-pieces – but along the way, we noticed something big. All of the plot points required to make the prequels tell a sensible, meaningful, satisfying and affecting story are actually already in there, either explicitly on-screen or strongly alluded to. But for some reason, George Lucas doesn’t seem to notice that he’s written them, and ignores the lot.
Stick with me on this one. I haven’t gone mad, I promise. It all starts with the fundamentals of Star Wars lore.
You see Star Wars has always been about binary, black-and-white morality. In the Original Trilogy, that works just fine. The good guys are plucky underdogs, and the bad guys are a fascist galactic empire who think nothing of blowing up a populated planet for shits and giggles. In the wider, more complicated world of the pre-Empire days though, things are, and should be, more nuanced.
While they might be merry old samurai hippies in the Original Trilogy, the organised, prolific, altogether more militarised Jedi of the prequel period are a hardcore conservative faction, incredibly rigid in their doctrine, code and methods. They are ubiquitous, unchallenged, and if anything, slightly too powerful. They have restrictions on sexuality, a strict religious code, make free use of mind control for ‘the greater good’, and enforce stoicism to the point of detachment. They demand utter devotion, are run by an oligarchy, and almost entirely cut themselves off from the outside world. Sound a bit cultish? It is.
The Sith, on the other hand, are staunch libertarians. They accept no oversight or control from the state, practice a self-centred philosophy, and value personal freedom over social responsibility. Both sides are arguably problematic in their own ways, their extremist attitudes to their own philosophies making all elements of their conduct potentially rather dangerous. Suddenly the simple, unambiguous lines between the Light and Dark sides are rather blurred. They’re binary opposites in terms of ostensible alignment, but in practice, neither is entirely good or bad. Wherever it stems from, extremism always tends to boil down the same way. And that really raises questions about ‘balance in the Force’.
George Lucas nearly wrote a perfect prequel trilogy. He just didn't notice
David Houghton, Phoebe Wood-Wheelhouse on December 17, 2015
The Star Wars prequel trilogy is nearly brilliant. It took me 10 years to realise it, but it’s true. You see, the other night, my girlfriend and I drank a bottle of wine and started – as is entirely understandable – ripping into Episodes I to III. We hit the usual, obvious punching bags – Jar Jar, Anakin’s creepy sex-pest characterisation, the pointless set-pieces – but along the way, we noticed something big. All of the plot points required to make the prequels tell a sensible, meaningful, satisfying and affecting story are actually already in there, either explicitly on-screen or strongly alluded to. But for some reason, George Lucas doesn’t seem to notice that he’s written them, and ignores the lot.
Stick with me on this one. I haven’t gone mad, I promise. It all starts with the fundamentals of Star Wars lore.
You see Star Wars has always been about binary, black-and-white morality. In the Original Trilogy, that works just fine. The good guys are plucky underdogs, and the bad guys are a fascist galactic empire who think nothing of blowing up a populated planet for shits and giggles. In the wider, more complicated world of the pre-Empire days though, things are, and should be, more nuanced.
While they might be merry old samurai hippies in the Original Trilogy, the organised, prolific, altogether more militarised Jedi of the prequel period are a hardcore conservative faction, incredibly rigid in their doctrine, code and methods. They are ubiquitous, unchallenged, and if anything, slightly too powerful. They have restrictions on sexuality, a strict religious code, make free use of mind control for ‘the greater good’, and enforce stoicism to the point of detachment. They demand utter devotion, are run by an oligarchy, and almost entirely cut themselves off from the outside world. Sound a bit cultish? It is.
The Sith, on the other hand, are staunch libertarians. They accept no oversight or control from the state, practice a self-centred philosophy, and value personal freedom over social responsibility. Both sides are arguably problematic in their own ways, their extremist attitudes to their own philosophies making all elements of their conduct potentially rather dangerous. Suddenly the simple, unambiguous lines between the Light and Dark sides are rather blurred. They’re binary opposites in terms of ostensible alignment, but in practice, neither is entirely good or bad. Wherever it stems from, extremism always tends to boil down the same way. And that really raises questions about ‘balance in the Force’.
Enter Anakin, prophesised as the Chosen One who will bring that balance. It all falls apart, of course - from the Jedi perspective at least - when he is tempted by the Dark Side. The prophecy was a lie! Or was it? Who knows? It all gets a bit confusing, and the remaining Jedi just run away and hide from the issue for a couple of decades. But how about if Anakin’s shift in polarity is actually the would-be product of balance, but his promise is warped by the biases and failings of factions who don’t really want balance at all?
We hear about balance all the time. It’s portrayed as the Jedi’s key, long-term goal, and the ideal state for all of existence. But even with a respected High Council and countless Knights acting as Galaxy Police, the prospect of just a single Sith/Apprentice combo existing at any given time – “Always two there are” – is far too much to bear. The Jedi version of equilibrium is actually the eradication of the Dark Side. This inherent failing, this self-focused misinterpretation, is the core of what the prequel trilogy should have been about.
With both, deeply flawed sides explicitly battling for control of Anakin’s soul, and the issue of ‘balance’ being front and centre, the stage is clearly set for the young Darth to be not an angry teenager on an inevitable slide to tragedy, but the first moderate Jedi, a thoughtful, questioning young man who can bring actual balance by controversially walking the line between the two factions. The reason he can do this? He can see things no other Jedi can, because he was ‘too old’ at the start of his training.
We’re told this around the time Anakin joins the Jedi, but it’s never properly explained. We’re broadly told that the Jedi only recruit really young, and that Anakin’s ripe old age of nine puts him way over the hill. We hear vague talk that he has ‘too much anger’. We’re told that training him will be impossible. But we’ve already seen Luke successfully trained, at the age of around 17, despite also apparently being “too impatient”, “too angry” and “unfocused”. There must be another explanation.
How’s about indoctrination? After all, it’s a hell of a lot easier to make a recruit accept a dogmatic lifestyle if they start too young to remember anything else. Anakin though, can remember life before his Jedi training. If the films had been brave enough to use him as an audience point-of-view character to explore the nuances and problems with the prequel world, then we would have had a hell of a powerful story set-up. Because good lord, does Anakin see some things.
He sees burgeoning child soldiers, being trained in lightsaber combat, but the scene is played for cuteness rather than moral disturbance. He sees the Jedi regularly control innocent minds for their own ends. He was ‘benevolently’ bullied from his mother’s care – Qui-Gon’s talk with her effectively amounts to ‘He’s a slave, do you want him to remain a slave? Better give him to us. No, I’m not going to rescue you, although I totally could’ – and Anakin must have seen this happen to countless other, Force-sensitive children by Episode II.
George Lucas nearly wrote a perfect prequel trilogy. He just didn't notice
David Houghton, Phoebe Wood-Wheelhouse on December 17, 2015
The Star Wars prequel trilogy is nearly brilliant. It took me 10 years to realise it, but it’s true. You see, the other night, my girlfriend and I drank a bottle of wine and started – as is entirely understandable – ripping into Episodes I to III. We hit the usual, obvious punching bags – Jar Jar, Anakin’s creepy sex-pest characterisation, the pointless set-pieces – but along the way, we noticed something big. All of the plot points required to make the prequels tell a sensible, meaningful, satisfying and affecting story are actually already in there, either explicitly on-screen or strongly alluded to. But for some reason, George Lucas doesn’t seem to notice that he’s written them, and ignores the lot.
Stick with me on this one. I haven’t gone mad, I promise. It all starts with the fundamentals of Star Wars lore.
You see Star Wars has always been about binary, black-and-white morality. In the Original Trilogy, that works just fine. The good guys are plucky underdogs, and the bad guys are a fascist galactic empire who think nothing of blowing up a populated planet for shits and giggles. In the wider, more complicated world of the pre-Empire days though, things are, and should be, more nuanced.
While they might be merry old samurai hippies in the Original Trilogy, the organised, prolific, altogether more militarised Jedi of the prequel period are a hardcore conservative faction, incredibly rigid in their doctrine, code and methods. They are ubiquitous, unchallenged, and if anything, slightly too powerful. They have restrictions on sexuality, a strict religious code, make free use of mind control for ‘the greater good’, and enforce stoicism to the point of detachment. They demand utter devotion, are run by an oligarchy, and almost entirely cut themselves off from the outside world. Sound a bit cultish? It is.
Topic: Star Wars Discussion Thread v. Rogue One (Read 456286 times)
