[Note: This is part of an ongoing series that uses Star Wars as a “living document” to rethink our engagement with and interpretation of the Judeo-Christian Bible, all from the relatively safe emotional distance of a galaxy far, far away. For Part 0 (the introduction), click here.]
Last week I said that both the Bible and Star Wars are what are known as “living documents” — they are in constant, irreducible dialog with their own internal worlds, with their historical context, and with the lives of their respective readers/viewers. That’s essentially the premise of the entire series, so I’m going to spend this week giving voice to some objections to my thesis, in case some of y’all aren’t yet totally on board. And I’ll also maybe throw in a couple of Star Wars allusions, if you pay attention (which is why you’re really here, after all).
Objection 1: “Star Wars is pure entertainment, and to read anything deeper into it, or to treat it like a living document, is to misunderstand the cultural function of movies.” My argument rests first on the assumption that Star Wars is actually a living document, but I’ll readily admit that many (my younger self included) have never thought of Star Wars as anything other than popcorn entertainment, to be consumed and forgotten just as quickly as the overpriced Coke you bought in the theater. (And it is good popcorn entertainment!) However, attentive viewers of Star Wars will soon realize that the films reward deeper viewings that go beyond mere escapism.
For Star Wars to be a living document, it must be in conversation with its historical context and with itself. Let’s check those off one by one. First, is Star Wars in dialog with its culture of 1977?
In 1977, America is fresh off the Vietnam War, deep in a cold war with the USSR, and frankly, our grandparents haven’t even had time to recover from the World Wars yet. Meanwhile, Star Wars opens with a shot of “the Rebel blockade runner”, as it was known at the time, fleeing from the iconic Imperial Star Destroyer. The first glimpse we see of the Empire’s personnel is the lasers of Imperial “stormtroopers” (consciously named after Hitler’s brown-jacketed paramilitary, the “Sturmabteilung”), gunning down the heroic-yet-outmatched rebels. The stiff, starched pant legs of Grand Moff Tarkin’s uniform are just as clearly evocative of SS apparel. The Death Star, the Empire’s planet-killer, is a tool of “fear” much like the hydrogen bombs of the 1970s. The phrase “evil galactic empire” was ripped straight out of Star Wars‘ opening crawl right into Reagan’s famous anti-Soviet speech.
(Ironically, Luke/Han/Leia and the ragtag rebels don’t really resemble America’s military machine, but rather the guerrilla tactics of the Viet Cong…George Lucas, the director of Star Wars, was very much opposed to the Vietnam War. But that’s a story for another day!)
Star Wars‘ engagement with then-contemporary politics doesn’t stop with just the first Star Wars movie. According to Lucas, The Emperor of the films is directly inspired by Richard Nixon, both of whom subverted their respective Senates in a bid for power. The fall of the Republic Senate, as seen in the prequel movies, parallels the fall of the Roman Republic. And so forth. (For more on this fascinating topic, see the book Star Wars and History, edited by Reagin and Leidl, with consulting work by Lucas himself!)
It’s clear, after a little investigation, that Star Wars does engage with history past and (then-)present, but it also continually re-interprets itself. Take for example the most popular recent example — Luke Skywalker’s line in The Last Jedi that “it’s time for the Jedi to end.” Luke, once the hero of the original trilogy and the savior of the Jedi way of life, has turned his back on this life. Rey and Luke have an ongoing dialog throughout TLJ about the meaning of the Force and the role of the Jedi (one of the reasons I love that particular movie). But this inner dialog is not exclusive to the newest films. Even in The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda flouts every one of a much younger Luke’s expectations about what a “great warrior” and a “Jedi Master” looks like. Ben Kenobi forces us to reinterpret Luke’s relationship with Darth Vader, by confirming in Return of the Jedi that he was not totally honest in saying that “Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father”. If we approach the galaxy far, far away as a fossilized, unchanging document, it is sure to surprise us at every new installation.
At the risk of belaboring my point, I still need to address Objection 2: “The Bible is not a living document; it’s God’s timeless, unchanging, infallible Word.” Well, actually, I can’t really tackle that presupposition right now, at the very end of an article. However, I can point out several ways in which the Bible is in dialogue with itself and with its context, as counterpoints to Objection 2. (Suffice it to say that pretty much the rest of the article series will be exploring the space around Objection 2 — it’s why this topic is interesting, after all!)
The Bible is constantly in dialogue with its history. Open your Bible right down the middle; chances are you’ve opened to the writings of a prophet. That prophet, besides having a supremely funky name (Nahum or Zephaniah, anyone?), is likely writing about Israel’s relationship to any number of foreign powers — Persia, Assyria, Ninevah, Babylon — the 4th century BCE version of NPR. The curses (i.e. “woe to you, Assyria”) that seem so ridiculous to us were actually sick burns back then, the equivalent of the many politically pointed memes floating around on the internet. I direct the inquiring reader to the prophecy of Amos as just one example of such writing.
What’s more, the Bible engages with itself. Take those prophets for example — Jesus spends much of his preaching time quoting those dudes, putting their words into new contexts, or defending their applicability against people who wanted to ossify “those old useless prophecies”. You don’t have to agree with me (again, that’s what the whole series is for); you do need to slow down enough to realize that I have a point. Let’s examine together the ways in which the Bible engages with itself and its culture.
And then, you will just have to wait for the next installment, because I’ve hit my word count.