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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.
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.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
"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'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.
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
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?