HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
May 31, 2005 Many, on this website, like to discuss religion, not all of them competently. I refuse to join that discussion, seeing no hope of anything profitable coming from it. However, I would like to offer a critique of a particularly popular religion floating around these days. This is a religion that needs to be stopped, and I say this as a freedom-loving American. The religion is the Force. Yes, I know it’s a movie. I only promise to take it no more seriously than they do themselves. According to reports, George Lucas uses this movie to study the descent into tyranny and evil. How does tyranny happen? Apparently, Lucas argues that tyranny comes from following moral absolutes. That may be true, but Lucas’s story offers a different lesson. His story teaches (unintentionally) why wallowing in moral hesitation is far more dangerous. The Jedi gossip constantly about their suspicions, but they don’t act on them. They suspect the chancellor, but they do nothing. They’d rather just gossip. The chief Jedi also have constant reservations about their own Anakin Skywalker, but as constantly, they place the confused wreck into morally ambiguous dilemmas. Then they have the gall to be surprised when he turns to the Dark Side, even though they’ve been suspecting it since they met him. At the very end, the Jedi finally put down their coffee and get involved. They decide to spy on the chancellor. Amazingly, for their spy, they place their trust in the aforementioned Anakin Skywalker, even though they’ve just insulted him by refusing him a promotion. Imagine you had a double agent in al-Qaeda; you tell him that you wanted him to risk greater danger, but you were cutting his pay. I mean, what could they possibly expect? Dilbert’s pointy-headed boss couldn’t have managed worse. The sheer density of the Jedi is extraordinary. The Jedi place great store in the Force, but I can’t see why. Never mind their surly demeanor, let’s just check with the results. They perch in meditation atop a tower, meditating day and night, claiming to be looking for The Bad Guy, the leader of the odious Sith. Yet, a couple blocks away, a smooth-talking little creep commands a massive army of clones. Hello? Hello? The Force doesn’t help them discover the traitorous Palpatine. The Force doesn’t help them see Anakin’s descent into evil. The Force doesn’t help them discover much of anything. Even when it barely works, it’s wrong. At then end, the Force informs Obi-wan that Anakin is behind Padme’s pregnancy, but not long after, two fully-grown twins are born … which surprises Obi-wan. The Jedi density becomes fatal when Palpatine issues “executive order 66” across the galaxy. Apparently, millions of clones and droids know exactly what executive order 66 is. Apparently, the only ones in the galaxy who don’t know what it means are the Force-using Jedi. If there was ever a time when intuitive insight and perception were needed, this was it, but the Jedi fail miserably. Later, we discover that the chancellor carries around a light-saber. A little less concern for moral absolutism, please, and a little more frisking at the airport. The Dark Side fares no better. The chancellor, supposedly a master manipulator, lets it slip to Anakin that he is indeed the dark Sith Lord. Minutes later, Anakin spills these beans to Mace Windu, who promptly goes to arrest the chancellor. We soon see Mace Windu ready to slice the chancellor into pepperoni. It doesn’t matter what happens after that, one has to question the chancellor’s grasp of things. Either he was a fool to reveal himself to Anakin, or he was a fool to let Anakin out of the building once the secret was out. Master manipulator, my butt. When we first meet the chancellor, he was simply the junior senator from Naboo. Yet he apparently he had enough spare time to train the red-splotched, horny Darth Maul as his apprentice. Where did this monster sleep while Palpatine played bureaucrat? It must have been hard to keep that weirdo under wraps during the day. Count Dooku replaced Darth Maul. Now, based on how well they fought against common opponents, I can’t help but wonder why Dooku didn’t kick the crap out the chancellor any time he wanted. Seems to me that Dooku was twice the fighter the chancellor was. Blinded by the Dark Side was he, I suppose. But again, what good was the Force, especially for Dooku? Darth Vader replaces Dooku. While trying to seduce Vader, the emperor admits that he betrayed his own mentor and killed him in his sleep. I don’t know about you, but if in the job interview, the boss admits to killing his own boss in his sleep, for me, that’s a mark in the No column. Vader’s apprenticeship lasts until Luke comes along, perhaps twenty years later. In those twenty years, we discover, Vader never loses his ambition to replace the emperor. Does the emperor miss this hidden ambition, or does he just consider it “spunky?” Lastly, in the climactic scene of the original trilogy, we see the emperor perfectly willing to have Luke kill his own father and take his place. Again, if you’re Luke, you have to wonder about a job where you have to kill dad to be promoted. After all, where’s the Oedipal payoff here? I suppose in a world of blind men, a one-eyed man rules. The only people denser than the Jedi are the non-Jedi. Consider Padme, the princess from Naboo. We meet her in the first episode, brilliantly rescuing her people from an invasion. There she proves a savvy strategic thinker. In the second episode, however, Anakin confesses that in his anger, he wiped out an entire village of creatures. He admitted he killed all the men, the women, and the children. I mean, is this really marrying material? Yet sure enough, at the end of the episode, she happily marries the genocidal maniac. In the third episode, after he once again kills a whole bunch of children, her only response is that he’s breaking her heart. A more appropriate response would be to call the police, and have the mass murderer arrested promptly. I’m not sure the Force is really helping these Jedi. Yoda is the wisest Jedi of all, but he can’t grasp ordinary English. He uses English words, but German syntax; you have to wait until the end of the sentence to discover the verb. Obi-wan Kenobi watches over Luke for perhaps twenty years while Luke grows up. However, in those twenty years, Obi-wan goes from Ewan MacGregor to Alec Guinness. Must have been a rough twenty years. All in all, I just don’t see the practical advantage of the Force. Seems to be far more trouble than its worth. If you guys want to go after a religion, well by all means, have at this one. ------------ About the author: KC Mulville holds graduate degrees in philosophy, and is an ex-Jesuit. Now a husband and father of four, he is a programmer for databases and for the web. Email KC Mulville: kcmulville@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
