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David Brin on Star Wars: TPM
sethg wrote to us with a little nugget about David Brin, author of 'The Postman'& 'The Uplift War' that he's written for Salon. The first is an interesting discussion of "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists, while the second examines what's wrong (and right) with "The Phantom Menace". Brin has always been one of my favorite authors and he does an /incredible/ job of de-contructing the myth-as well as making you laugh.
Personally, I have seen TPM three times so far, and I plan to see it again before it closes, so I clearly didn't _dislike_ it. But the plot holes and character problems are there, and bothersome. I think Menand (link above) is pretty close to the mark when he says the problems were probably evident early on, but no one had the nerve to tell the "big guy".
sPh
Kind of like the ITS Output Spy program, eh
I vaguely recall some screed David Brin wrote (which was posted to USENET, IIRC) several years ago when Ralph Bakshi's toons-meet-reality movie "Cool World" came out. It was basically a rant about how everyone should boycott the new movie because Baksi's classic "Wizards" glorified cheating and advocated totalitarian ideals, or something like that. (The article may have exhibited more than a little contempt for fantasy in general, but I'm not as sure of that.) I read a little bit of Brin's Salon piece, and it brought back enough hazy memories of his "Cool World" letter to give me an "Oh, no, there he goes again" feeling. As much as I enjoy some of Brin's fiction (mainly the original "Uplift" trilogy), I can't bring myself to take his nonfiction seriously. YMMV.
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To be precise, we can't aspire to their greatness, because we're too old and have too low a midichlorian count.
Brin is looking at the subtext of some of Lucas's messages, and he's right, some of it is pretty creepy. I don't like the idea of inborn Destiny, I don't like the idea that a nine-year-old is too old to train, and I don't like the idea that righteous anger always leads to evil.
When somebody tells you he's handing out a Myth, you're entitled to examine his theology. That's all Brin is doing.
There's something scary about David Brin; his advocacy of homogeneisation (as exemplified elsewhere by his belief that privacy is a tool of evil), and emotive denunciations of films on ideological grounds seem almost Stalinist. And then there's the way he repeatedly invokes parallels with Hitler to make a point, which is considered very bad form (see subject).
For Ghod's sake, it's only a movie. It's neither a revelation from above nor vile elitist propaganda, just 2 hours of well crafted entertainment.
David Brin commits the sin of taking things way too seriously, just like all the postmodernists writing Freudian-Marxist deconstructions of the inherent racist/patriarchial subtexts of bubble-gum wrappers.
I agree with most of the gripes in what's right/wrong
list but we seem to forget that this is just
another Star Wars flick. George Lucas simply
recreates the heros and villians and plot lines
from the cheezy serial pictures he enjoyed
watching when he was a kid.
I don't care what the critics say about this
flick: I asked my 7 year old nephew if it was
a good movie and he said he it was awesome
hence Lucas still knows who his real audience is.
From the article:
... will anyone please explain why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important -- any hint at all? Hello?
Uh
Naboo isn't important!!!!!! The whole thing was a diversion so that Palpatine can further his political ambitions. The trade federation were a bunch of stooges. Qui-Gon actually says something in the movie about how insignificant Naboo is in the scheme of things, but no one seems to remember that in the movie after be becomes one with the force.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
"theme that Brin gets out of the movies. Another flaw is Queen Amidalah. She doesn't rule out of divine right, she wasn't born to it, she was elected, and turns out to be a fine ruler."
For all the time GL has spent studying mythology, he seems to have missed the point of a constitutional monarchy. In that system, the queen (or other type of monarch or non-elected political privilage) is retained exactly so that it can act for the good of the whole in situations that are too complex, fast-moving, gridlocked, etc. for the elected representatives to handle. The whole point is that the people trust the queen to do the "right thing" for everyone if absolutely necessary. Now the Queen of England, for example, hasn't actually done this for a long period of time (100 years?), but in theory the possibility is there.
I could believe people fighting and dying "for" a 14 y.o. heriditary queen in a constitutional monarchy - they are actually fighting for their homeland, which is _represented_ by the queen. I could believe a 14 y.o. queen leading her forces in a battle to the death - it has certainly happened in the past. And I could believe a 14 y.o. heriditary queen presenting her planet's petition to the Senate.
But I can't imagine a 14 y.o. _elected_ queen for any reason. 14 year olds can be smart. They can be perceptive. They can even be wise. But they just don't have the depth of experience and understanding necessary to form a just and effective government over a period of time.
IMHO George missed the political boat on this one. Put it up there with the tax dispute on the crawl.
sPh
I mean, if Brin can't be trusted to even get Anakin's age right (9 or 10, not 6), what can we trust him with?
Too many of Brin's comments had to do with Anakin being 6, when he's really 10. That may not seem like much of a difference in Brin's mind, but in the context it is quite significant. And consider that Anakin is quite above average intelligence (more than perhaps we can say for his son), the difference is more significant. A 10 year old with an IQ of 150 has a 'mental age' of 15.
Brin gets a lot of small things wrong too, and leaps to unwarranted assumptions. Young Anakin was friends with young Greedo? What, there's only one alien like that on all of Tatooine? Darth Vader toasts planets? Erm, that was Moff Tarkin that blew up Alderaan, not Vader.
Yes, that Yoda considers Anakin "too old" and yet doesn't put up much of a protest over training Luke was something many of us noticed. But again, consider context: In TPM the Jedi Knights are at their zenith and there are many of them. In ESB (and ROTJ) Luke is the only prospect left. Yoda isn't happy about it but what choices does he have? (As an aside, consider how long Jedi training must take if Obi-Wan started at a younger age than Anakin and is only now (in TPM) considered no longer an apprentice.)
Brin's had some odd ideas before. This review wasn't really worth the disk space.
-- Alastair
But, I generally find his commentary lacking. I find his suggestions that privacy is worthless, and his rose-colored view of American culture, off the mark and disturbing.
To hit a few points from the Salon article:
- The U.S. has a "culture that defies the old homogenizing impulse by worshipping eccentricity, with unprecedented hunger for the different, new or strange"? Are we living in the same country, David? I think that recent
/. discussion about the treatment of geeks tells us a lot about American attitudes towards the differerent or eccentric. - The redemption of Vader is not akin to letting Adolph Hitler off the hook. A better comparision would be if one of Hitler's generals had, at the urging of his son, turned against and assasinated Hitler, losing his own life in the process.
- Brin simplifies Lucas' "Dark Side" to "If you get angry -- even at injustice and murder -- it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person!" That's an unjustified exageration. But, yes, when you act from anger, even anger at injustice and murder, your actions may be wrong. Many beleive that NATO bombing of Serbia fits into this category.
Yeah, there are some plot holes in TPM. But if you start picking at those, forget about any of the Star Wars movies - remember the first few minutes of A New Hope when Artoo and Threepio walk right thru the middle of a firefight? Plot convenience, the most powerful force in any fictional universe, protects them, just as it patchs holes in TPM. It's a grand scale epic - don't sweat the small stuff. (I'm reminded of the theme song for MST3k - "Tell yourself, `It's just a show, I probably should relax.'")Nor is valuing the new or different over the old necessarily superior. There are two sorts of fools: one that says "This is the old way, and therefore better!", and one that says "This is the new way, and therefore better!"
Is that enough to merit redemption? It's a heavy question. Props to Lucas for daring to bring it up - how many other popular movies can you name that deal with redemption at all?
That does not mean that we should not act against injustice and murder; but we must let go of anger if we are to do so properly (both tactically and morally). (If I wanted to really get controvertial, I might point out that the Nazis were initially acting from anger against the injustices perpetrated against Germany after WWI.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I'm not familiar with Brin's work. After these pieces, I'm not going to bother.
The piece on Lucas' archetypal storytelling style was, I admit, thought-provoking. I disagree with about everything he says, but it WAS thought-provoking. However, I do think that Brin doth protest too much. As it happens, he's got an entirely different paradigm he's pushing. Consequently, his "analysis" actually becomes an advocacy article. He's not saying, "Lucas got it wrong here"; he's saying, "Pick me! Pick MY way of doing things!"
In other words, when he asks who nominated Lucas to preach his morality through his medium, he might wish to consider that the same question applies to him.
That piece I disagreed with, but his "analysis" of the Phantom Menace I found downright malicious. I don't think I agree with a single criticism he made. I'll try to keep my point-by-point stuff short, but here goes:
* Age of Anakin--the movie could have done a better job of making this clear, but in the Terry Brooks novelization it's explicit that potential Jedis are "recruited" at six months. "Ripping from the breast" might be entirely appropriate. It also lends credence to the Council's extreme reluctance to accept Anakin; at his age, he's far too fully formed to be trusted, yet they don't want a loose cannon roaming around. Nor, however, do they want to "sanction" him by full acceptance, hence the unusual remedy. The seeds are sown.
* More seeds: Obi-Wan's anger in destroying Darth Maul. Folks, _this is not a good thing!_ Not only does it open the Sith apprentice vacancy, it creates (or reveals) a flaw in Kenobi that will later manifest itself in Vader. When talking about anger and emotion and Lucas' approach to them, Brin should go back and read some Martin Luther King on violence and anger (I think "Letter From Birmingham Jail" or various versions of "I Have A Dream" contain the relevant thoughts.)
* Cliches: it's odd that Brin acknowledges that Lucas is retelling an old, old story and then chastises him for using cliches.
* Self-indulgences: It's Episode I. It's called "laying groundwork."
* Political situation (Naboo, "Originality"): Naboo is important specifically because _Senator Palpatine_ represents it in the Senate. It's his political opportunism that makes it important (as well as his willingness to use the "common people" he represents as power pawns--this foreshadows the manevolence of the man which is never explicitly stated in Phantom.) As for the "boring" charge, I think the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the term "banality of evil" to describe the Nuremberg trials. It all started so innocently, and it was just politics as usual, right....?
* "Elitism" of Force: No, the Force didn't all of a sudden get a elite genetic deterministic cause. Those who have _abnormal concentrations_ are trained as Jedi in the old days (and suffer from the exclusivity and secretiveness common to cloistered groups.) By the time of Episode IV, the pickings are far more slim. Besides, it might even signify a _growing_ egalitarianism.
Finally, I think it is fair to make the Nazi Germany allusion as Lucas deliberately uses Nazi imagery in his opus. However, Brin's use of the metaphor is clumsy. No, we would not pardon Hitler. We might, however, pardon the hypothetical master lieutenant who, having been the major force in building the Third Reich, also became one of the major forces in overthrowing it (by killing Hitler, to maintain the analogy). Darth Vader is supposed to have been _redeemed_. (Personally, I find that a higher value than nicer institutions of the future.) The desire to think of the Jedi masters as being in "Jedi Hell" is very, very petty of Brin. Apparently there are scales of some sort; once you commit all that evil, there's not enough good to do to "offset" it, eh?
In summation, I don't care how well the man writes science fiction novels. He flies poor colors here.
>Haven't British monarch's been 'elected' by
:), but to *at least* the war of the roses--especeially when a lesser claimant took the throne :) It was also used a an excuse for tossing kings (James). But if the current queen can make it a few more years, it could also be their solution to the Charles problem . . .
>parliment since Cromwell's days?
I don't know why I'm replying to a three week old post (guess I'll email the author
Gee, I wish I'd read this when it was fresh . . .
:)
.tough and resourcefull, while very female . . .
>The title of "queen" is probably used to be
>evocative for the movie because that makes her a
>special character, and likely because she is
>not a democraticly elected political figure.
Little girls want daddy to take them to movies with princesses & queens. Trust me on this
If princess Leia had been just senator leia, mine would no doubt have liked the movies, but the princess (ok, and "the gold guy", not to be confused with "the glass guy" from Toy Story) gave them a focal point.
And to use modern words that I'm suspicious of, they could find worse role models than Leia . .
Brin's analysis may be overblown, but with Phantom Menace, George Lucas shortchanged us all. New Hope and Empire were brutal without being gory; Menace, like Return of the Jedi, pulled every punch and softened every blow. The pity is that Lucas could have easily employed simple plot twists to add a second dimension to his characters and more depth to his tale. Consider:
* Naboo is conquered by a merciless alien army, its people rounded up in concentration camps. Wouldn't a few scenes of devastated cities and brutalized citizens have helped to set the proper tone? As portrayed, the invasion had all the impact of a bloodless palace coup.
* Anakin Skywalker is such a good little boy, without the slightest hint of a mean streak that might one day develop into a personality like Darth Vader's. Wouldn't it have been far more intriguing if his miraculous victories had been undeserved, his awesome proto-Jedi powers something of a fraud? Instead of having the simpleton bad guy in the pod race sabotage Anakin's pod, why not reverse the roles, and have Anakin cheat his way to success? Especially if Anakin's sabotage inadvertantly results in the bad guy's death - and the precocious little hero shows no remorse... Likewise, when Anakin just happens to make the right moves to blow up the space station in the final battle, wouldn't it have been far more satisfying if R2D2 had been silently pulling the space fighter's strings all along? And then the loyal droid lets Anakin disingenously take credit for the kill...
* Obi Wan is a priceless gem of an apprentice, as obediant as Robin the Boy Wonder. Couldn't he have exhibited some of the crusty recalcitrance so charmingly cultivated by the elder Obi Wan? Just a bit of chafing under Qui Gon's imperious mandates, a little jealousy of his mentor's sudden interest in the annoying little slave boy. Why not have Obi Wan taken in by the fake transmission from Naboo, conspire with Amidala to secretly respond to the plea for help, thus naively tipping off Darth Maul to their location on Tatooine?
* Darth Maul is obviously a pawn who's only genuine purpose is to take out Qui Gon. Instead of simply having Obi Wan dispatch Darth Maul in the end, Lucas could have deepened his plot by having Palpatine/Darth Sidious double-cross him. Here's the rationale: Palpatine forsees Anakin's destiny to become his apprentice and intuits Obi Wan's future role as Anakin's first mentor in the ways of the force. Palpatine intervenes at the critical moment as Darth Maul is about to nail Obi Wan, distracting the arrogant Sithling with his Phantom Projection Power, giving Obi Wan an opening to slice the bastard in half. George, if you need help, I'm available...
* Queen Amidala. Ok, so the handmaiden trick was pretty good, but it could have been better. Qui Gon doesn't want her tagging along, right? So couldn't he have treated her with something less than respect, maybe a little gruff exasperation? This would have at least given Qui Gon some mild embarrassment to portray when her identity is later revealed. And don't you think the intrepid band got along just a little too cozily on Tatooine? Wasn't there supposed to have been some animosity between Amidala's and Jar Jar's species? A few withering remarks directed at that ridiculous geek would have gone a long way...
"Sorry to pick your post to comment on, but it illustrated the point I want to make better than some others."
No problem - isn't that why the Internet was invented?
"So quick are we to judge a plot hole as an error. We see an inconsistency like you've pointed out above, and automatically assume that it's wrong. What if it is just a significant fact?"
Well, that's certainly possible. However, I would find it easier to accept if there were more structure or coherency to either the economics or politics of the SW universe. One never gets (or at least _I_ never get) from TPM a sense that there is a workable social structure working behind the scenes.
"Slate" had a similar discussion about the econmics of SW. Contrast that with the world Tolkien created: I have run across 300 page, thesis-quality discussions of the economics of Middle Earth.
Oh well, it really is just entertainment and in the long run no big deal. But I guess what bothers me is how much better it could have been.
sPh
Brin doesn't believe that "privacy is a tool of evil". Rather, he believes that privacy is doomed, so the closest we can come to freedom is to make sure that privacy gets invaded equally: not only can the cops watch you, but you can watch the cops. It's a provocative point of view, one that I'm not sure I agree with, but those attempting to smear him for it, distorting his position, are either ignorant or just evil.
And, of course, movies are propaganda, the most effective kind. Why shouldn't we take a billion-dollar industry seriously?
I think David Brin does an excellent job of contrasting George Lucas' style of fiction with David Brin's style of fiction. There is a lot of validity to his obeservations about the differences between a hero story and an everyman story. However, unlike (apparently) David Brin I think there is a place for both in our popular mythology. Now, when an author contrasts his own point of view with someone else's it would be unrealistic to expect him to present a perfectly balanced view; however, I think Brin goes overboard in these articles. The Godwin's Law implications of his Nazi allusions have been mentioned by others, but what I notice is that his treatment of Star Wars is both uncharitable and unfaithful to Lucas' films.
By ``uncharitable,'' I mean that given two or more ways to interpret a passage from the film, Brin invariably chooses the most harmful. For example, the scene: a dysfunctional Senate divided by its internal politics and unable to act decisively in the face of an incipient crisis. Brin interprets this as an indictment of our democratic institutions and a glorification of autocracy. But is it really? Lucas' portrayal of the Senate would be viewed as a cautionary tale about what happens when we allow our democratic institutions to drift too far out of touch with the people they government, perhaps something along the lines of ``Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.''
Another example: Brin interprets Lucas' larger than life heroes as ``demigods.'' The heroes greatness (Brin claims) suggests that we ordinary mortals need not concern ourselves with great matters; we lack the wit and the strength. Okay, but isn't it possible that Lucas (and Homer, and all the rest) meant for us to aspire to be like their heroes. Of course, we will fall short of their greatness, but the only way for us to reach our maximal potential is to aim higher than any mortal could achieve, lest we set our goals too low. I can't say for certain the either of these two interpretations is what Lucas had in mind, but I can't believe that they didn't at least cross Brin's mind; yet, he dismisses them without mention.
Brin is also unfaithful to Lucas' films. That is, he invents specious objections that are not supported by the films themselves. For instance, he lowers Anakin's age, objections to Darth Vader not recognizing C3PO (if they ever met face to face I don't remember it, and protocol droids all look pretty much alike), ascribing the decision to allow Obi-Wan to train Anakin to Yoda (Yoda was against it; he goes along with the council's wishes despite his misgivings--so much for autocracy), and so on. In fact, almost everything beyond Brin's analysis of the hero story vs. the everyman story is based on one sort of strained interpretation of the action on the screen. It says to me that either he did not watch the movies particularly carefully, or that he's digging up mud to create a mood which makes his readers more antagonistic toward Lucas' films, and therefore more receptive toward Brin's own theses.
Now, look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that TPM was a perfect film, nor that Star Wars is a perfect saga. I cringed at the ``medichlorians'' and the virgin birth mumbo-jumbo just like everyone else. I do, however, think it was a fine film, and it deserved better than Brin was giving it here. But, more than that, in what is essentially a political debate over ``elitism'' vs. ``egalitarianism'' I want to see an honest assessment of the two sides. In this respect Brin fails miserably, and I think that such overt proselytizing is far more harmful than whatever message ``the children'' (somehow it's always about protecting the children, isn't it?) may have gotten from TPM.
-r
While I agree with much of what Brin said, there were a few flaws in one of his arguments. The first flaw is Han Solo. Irreverent and rebellant, he's exactly the sort of character that made the first 3 movies great. A Han Solo type character was left out of Phantom Menace, and thats what truly hurt the movie. But, back to my argument, Han Solo has no superior genetic traits, he's just a lowly smuggler, yet he accomplishes a great deal, and blows apart the genetic superiorty theme that Brin gets out of the movies. Another flaw is Queen Amidalah. She doesn't rule out of divine right, she wasn't born to it, she was elected, and turns out to be a fine ruler. Another hole in his argument is that the corruption in the democratic process that appears in the senate is a historical allusion to the Roman Empire, not a call for a tyrant. And Brin states that the Rebels in the trilogy have no basis for their rebellion, yet it seemed to me like they were fighting to reinstall a democracy. I'm not sure where Brin got the idea that Lucas was advocating tyrants, but it appears to be unjustified to me.
-BH
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
I'll start by saying I liked the phantom menace. While several points in Brin's articles are well taken, the tone of his article seemed to suggest some sort of hidden agenda of his own. Everything is a cliche, if Brin wants something truly original he should stick to reading ancient literature by the greeks, romans, and even perhaps the bible (hell there is almost every plot conception in there somewhere). While I agree star wars did reuse more material than most other movies -- it wasn't as blasphemous as depicted by Brin.
I like the basic Aristotle/Phonetics style of plot conception in star wars. These types of stories are/can be exciting and interesting. Brin suggests that these types of stories are evil because they rely on ideas he disagrees with. He goes on to suggest (agree with others) that the foundation of popular culture does alter our opinions. I think he should do a web survey and find out how many people woh have seen star wars agree with Adolf Hitler's actions (he appears to be somewhat obsessed with him -- perhaps someone should refer him to Godwin's law). He essintially is saying Aristotle Phoenitc type plots are bad because they reinforce old ideas. Maybe they do for him -- but for me they convey basic human emotions and actions on a grander level. In star wars, Anakin becomes disillusioned -- which leads to him turning aray -- however his love for his son brings him back. Hell, I'm sure many people go through this on their own level -- one oculd even say some teenagers go through this same cycle. Lucas portrays this moral through a grand and flashy movie instead of a really borring one based completely on reality.
He then complains that Lucas doesn't base any of the concepts in his movies on his pride and joy -- democracy. If I recall correctly, the queen distinctly said "I was not ELECTED" -- that suggests democracy to me. Lucas also depicts the reality of democracy not the fairy tale Brin wants it to be. So what! His illogicities about the senate and the naboo are completely unfounded -- UN!. Most of his illogicities are unfounded.
Reguarding Yoda's quote, "I thought it was fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side". A continous quote implies to me that anger DERIVED from fear leads to the dark side. Not anger by itself which is what apparently Brin thinks. This is demonstrated many times in star wars. In TPM, the apprentice is angry -- his anger isn't derived from fear -- but for the loss of his master, therfore there is no illogicity in him defeating the sith. In Return of the Jedi, when Luke faces the emperor -- his anger is derived from fear (for the loss of rebellion) -- he gets wrecked.
As for Yoda's neglect of Anakin in TPM -- that would suggest that the counsil doesn't take the metachlorian shit seriously. I thought the virgin birth was a nice contrast -- I even saw it as an allusion to relgion/atheism.
Anyway, I could keep going, but I'll stop here. It appears to me Brin has some personal grudge against Lucas -- perhaps jealousy?
I disagree on some of Brin's analysis, but I do think he has several points:
1) There are some serious logic/plot holes in the story.
2) Some of these are due to an elitist/uberman viewpoint in the story.
3) There are distinct differences between the first three films and TPM.
4) I don't care if Darth Vader saved his son, I'd still hang him high if he got to trial for war crimes. Redemption is nice, but there are some people you don't take chances with.
It seems Star Wars has degenerated (or always had traits of) a power trip story. Brin's question, which universe would I live in is simple - the Federation. There I'm not an extra.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu