-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.22/pageone.html
<A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.22/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City
Times - Volume 3 Issue 22
</A>
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Laissez Faire City Times
May 31, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 22
Editor & Chief: Emile Zola
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Moral Relativism: The Phantom Menace
a movie review by Lauren Bain
I attended the Houston opening of Star Wars on my 25th birthday. The
Jedis were good and Darth Vader was bad, and the Force was everywhere.
Two weeks shy of my 48th birthday, I attended Episode I: The Phantom
Menace at a Seattle theater that would be at home on Endor. The Jedis
are getting surly, Darth Vader is nine and irresistibly winsome, and the
Force is too much with us.
George Lucas is undeniably a cinematic genius of sweeping creativity and
impact. What a shame he gladhands with altruism and moral relativism. I
cannot help but compare Star Wars with Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. The
Trekkers who roamed the known universe were true heroes: They saved
themselves, they defended free trade and the rule of law, and they told
gangbangers to get the hell out of the way. Lucas's champions run around
in medieval robes, besmirch reason in favor of instinct, and commune
with the Force—though they seem not to know it very well, for they miss
the rather enormous reality of the existence of the Siths, their evil
counterparts who sport very Gothic drag, wield double-ended light
sabers, vault nuclear reactors, and generally are a real nuisance to the
freedom-loving universe.
So much for trusting your feelings, Luke.
What a dismal sense of life we see in Lucas's galaxy: humans are the
slaves of corrupt gambling lords, led by Jobba the Hutt, who looks like
a cross between Humpty Dumpty and a blowfish, and who would just as soon
bite off your head and spit it out at a gong as look at you.
Fetching little Anakin Skywalker is a slave who lives with his mom (who
really can't explain his paternity, but the Force has its ways, and it
evidently did with her) on the bleak planet Tatooine, that would make
Winslow, Arizona look like Hollywood on New Year's Eve. He's a clever
lad with big blue eyes, long blond bangs, and a doom-filled destiny.
Down come a couple of Jedi knights needing a few space ship parts, along
with a wise and beautiful 14-year-old democratically elected queen
cleverly disguised as her handmaiden. She effects this disguise by not
putting on her Elizabeth I white pancake makeup and leaving her
hair—normally done up to resemble Roman plumbing—down. The Jedi give
little Anakin a blood test and determine not only that he is one of
them, but a master of masters. Anakin wins his freedom in a pod race,
and goes off to Jedi training camp with his new friends. Mom has to stay
home and be a slave ("My future is here"), but Anakin vows to return and
free her. If he can. He thinks. Mom commends him for "giving all to
those who had none." Shmi Skywalker gives all she has, too—Anakin—and
now has nothing but a future of slavery to endure alone among her
fish-faced masters. Ugh.
Anakin is his mother's son, a true altruist. And to his credit, Lucas
understands that the flip side of altruism is evil tyranny. Anakin, of
course, grows up to be Darth Vader, dark lord of the Siths. He murders,
tortures, plunders, blows up other people's planets, and systematically
destroys most of his once-fellow Jedi. But he does all this only because
he's caught in the grip of the dark side of the Force, not because he's
evil.
That's the trouble. Lucas refuses to make Darth Vader evil. In the final
episode, Darth Vader pitches the true evil genius, the Emperor of the
Terribly Haggard Eyes, down the reactor and saves his own son, whom he
has sought to destroy for at least three episodes. The Lord of Darkness
is redeemed. He dies without his helmet on in the middle of a touching
father-and-son reunion, but his holographic projection is nonetheless
welcome at his children's victory party where they celebrate the
restoration of freedom, peace, and prosperity in the galaxy. I can tell
you that if my Dad blew up my home planet and killed all the best people
in the galaxy and made a general evil nuisance of himself, he would not
be invited to my
party. But moral relativism demands so much more largesse. It demands
forgiveness of evil—abnegation of the very concept of evil. Lucas
expects us to get off Darth Vader's case. Little Anakin, after all, was
such a sweetie, and the wise and beautiful 14-year-old democratically
elected queen had a definite thing for him. He was good by nature. Never
mind his subsequent actions.
Perhaps, Virginia, there are Siths out there. But they are not bogeys
with horns and tattoos and double-ended light sabers. They are rotten
philosophy: they are, specifically, moral relativism. Good fantasy does
not attempt to obscure that reality, and very sadly, The Phantom Menace
does.
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Lauren Bain ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is a Seattle-area Libertarian and a
columnist/book reviewer for the Association of Objectivist Businessmen
News.
-30-
from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 22, May 31, 1999
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Published by
Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc.
Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar
All Rights Reserved
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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