№ 51. Star Wars

Back in the early 21st century, Spider-Man 1 was shown in tandem with the much-maligned Star Wars Prequels (I, II, III). My friends were surprised why I preferred the Lucas films over the arachnid marvel. Spidey was, by many accounts, better told and more engaging. The prequels were a disappointment, read: Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar

First, I'm a sucker for sweeping narrative strokes and the macro-enterprise. Let me count the ways. The allusions to the aging and frayed Roman Empire on the brink of collapse, the Senate horsetrading and grandstanding, the clash of ideals and ideology, the memory of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (1980s!), hyperdrive and light saber proved too strong a pull towards the dark side.

To me, although Peter Parker's arc was more accessible---hello there angst and secret identities---his crusade was hemmed in to that of a lone ranger. He alone had to carry the burden of his gifted bite. No one else could.

I suppose I found this one-person heroism hemmed in by a form of micromanagement: oh, quick there's fire on the corner of 32nd, a baby's trapped, hurry!; bank robbers just hijacked a police van; et cetera; and, please don't forget your pepperoni delivery, Penthouse A.

His spider senses and powers could not be scaled up. Ergo his crusades just did not reach enough demographics to be elevated to the grand arena like the influence of the Jedis. Sure, he was saving humanity---but in RETAIL, one damsel at a time! We're tallying body counts here. Let me be fair, though. The timeline of the movie was set before he joined the Justice League, which would have addressed this small kink.

Ergo, the preference for the sad, sad Lucas prequels.

Second, it was also mainly ethics versus politics. If I were to really simplify things, politics trumps ethics.

Peter was engaged in soul wrenching struggles at the individual level---Ethics. And, no doubt, everyone else has experienced similar dilemmas somehow. This explains our empathy for his troubles. It's far easier or even simpler to see ourselves lost and to seek a moral compass in the urban decay of New York than in the barren Tatooine orbiting a binary system at the fringes of the galactic empire.

The Skywalkers and the Jedis, on the other hand, had to stake morality on a much bigger scale. Planetary systems and many worlds were pawns ready to be sacrificed for the greater galactic good. Alderaan, for example, was reduced to a collateral damage in pursuit of imperial hegemony. The entire galaxy was at risk. It was also the chessboard of those who wielded powers. Peace and order; trade federations; clusters of civilizations; economic, religious and political alliances; ethnic and global ecosystems; and, legions and armadas were deftly managed using the levers of political compromises.

In the Lucas franchise, it wasn't enough to discern galactic good from the vantage of a solitary conscience. They had to tap into something bigger.  Something that can truly impact worlds and star systems had to be invoked. Something statistically significant: the Force. An individual conscience couldn't have exerted enough "force" to wield the fates of millions, even billions. "The Force" was needed, a collective conscience of thousands of civilizations across the galaxy, far, far away.

Maybe Lucas will reinvent or rewrite the entire franchise and mine the complexities of geo- or galactic-politics. And while he's at it he can also re-imagine Queen Amidala without the ensaymada buns.

The midichlorians are stirring. I sense a disturbance in the Force.



Bento Box:

Blame this article for the long rant (or brain hemorrhage): Use the Force, Daddy!

March 3, 2020 Update: