Monday, May 16, 2005
We don't watch Star Wars for the brilliant writing
Professor Bainbridge is not just one of the great legal minds of our generation, he's also an astute observer of popular culture, as this post indicates. Long story short, George Lucas betrayed one of the most fundamentally important plot points of Star Wars in order to score fairly mindless political points.
He quotes the New York Times review of the movie.
Wait a second, am I really getting into an analysis of Star Wars? Wow. Just read Bainbridge's damned post.
He quotes the New York Times review of the movie.
Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders. At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Obi-Wan's response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." You may applaud this editorializing, or you may find it overwrought, but give Mr. Lucas his due. For decades he has been blamed (unjustly) for helping to lead American movies away from their early-70's engagement with political matters, and he deserves credit for trying to bring them back.As Bainbridge details, in fact the Jedi were guilty of the same sort of thinking, as the dialogue from the original movies demonstrate. And . . .
Wait a second, am I really getting into an analysis of Star Wars? Wow. Just read Bainbridge's damned post.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 9:01 PM
