Star Wars on Trial (64 page)

Ahh, you get the picture.

All the political ramifications resolved. All the science holes plugged. The plot smooth and seamless.

Where would we be?

It sure as hell wouldn't be here.

I mean, how many kids run around pretending to be Captain Nemo? Or, really, James T. Kirk? Even Indiana Jones-you don't see toy stores full of plastic whip and hat sets. Compared to the number of little Skywalkers out there ... ?

Do you think that if it had all been sewn up in the neat package the Prosecution demands, we would have had books about secondary characters making bestseller lists? Do you think we would have had the Clone Wars micro-series cartoons, or the superb Clone Wars graphic series from Dark Horse? Would we have had Knights of the Old Republic and Republic Commando and Star Wars: Battlefront?

We would have lost the late Brian Daley's marvelous Han Solo trilogy. We would have lost the X-wing novels-Rogue Squadron would have been only a passing mention in the films, and Wraith Squadron would have never flown. We would have lost the New Jedi Order, and the Dark Nest and Thrawn and Mara Jade and Anakin Solo and Talon Karrde and I don't have room for the whole list.

We would have lost the book you're reading right now.

My final witness, Mr. DeBrandt, was on the right track when he said that the plot holes don't matter. He just didn't go far enough.

The plot holes are essential.

Because inside every single hole in the entire Star Wars saga-in every flaw in the franchise-you can find a Cheshire grin floating above a flannel shirt, and a fading echo of...

"Ha-ha-made you look!"

When I was at Skywalker Ranch to meet with George Lucas, I brought up the sliding-around-the-turboshaft business in Revenge of the Sith. I said, "They're in orbit-gravity just doesn't work like that-"

The answer I got, verbatim, was: "That's the point."

Each of you on this jury-each of you reading this book-is here because you have one of two fundamental reactions to this.

One is to frown. "Quit it! Quit or I'm telling! And I won't be your friend anymore!"

The other is to grin right back. "Okay, you got me. What's next? Let's go!"

Because your reaction is a choice: You can take that made you look as an insult. Or you can take it in the spirit it is intended.

As an invitation to play.

George says: "Let's pretend!"

What do you say?

Me? I grin. I always have, ever since a hot summer afternoon in 1977, when I was fifteen years old and a kid knocked on my door and told me about this goofy movie he wanted to see.

You saw that grin on my face during my opening statement. You saw that grin every time I got up to question a witness for the Prosecution. Maybe you noticed I wasn't taking this too seriously. Maybe you noticed I was trying more for a smile than to play gotcha.

Because they are a real pack of frowners, aren't they? Every one of them, except Mamatas-I couldn't be sure, through the foam on his mouth-and Bethke, who doesn't count, because he was a Defense witness before he fell to the dark side....

Quit it or I'm telling!

What I'm doing here is that nasty rhetorical trick you've all heard of: the ad hominem argument, which is to imply that the Other Side is wrong because of who they are, rather than addressing the issues they raise. But this is only half the ad hominem, because I'm not saying they're wrong.

What I promised, in my own opening statement, was that the witnesses for the Defense would offer alternate, equally valid interpretations, and that I would leave you, the jury, free to make up your own minds. That's done.

Now I want you to flip back through the testimony. On both sides.

Who's smiling? Who's relaxed, and playful, making jokes and generally having fun?

Who's gritting their teeth and citing statistics and oh-so-serious about How Awful Things Are?

Which side, in general, would you rather hang around with?

Which kind of person would you rather be?

I'm not passing any judgments. The world needs frowners. I'm even one of them, more often than not.

But right now, I've got Sith Lords on my tail and a starship to catch.

The late, great Fritz Leiber liked to say that the best way to teach someone something was to make him laugh so hard he didn't notice he was learning. Nietzsche wrote about the masks that truth must wear. The most insightful social psychologist of the classic world, Aristophanes, was also the funniest playwright.

So cast your vote. For either side. Grin with us, or frown with them.

Because who wins this trial really doesn't matter. It's a show trial, y'know-a Sith put-up job from the start. Go ahead and convict.

They'll never catch us.

Listen.

Hear that? Softly, softly, someone is knocking at your door-a long time ago, on a summer afternoon far, far away...

If you let your younger self pull back the curtain... if you let yourself squint out into that brilliant golden light....

It's me and George.

Come on-Han's got the Falcon in the park behind the basketball court, but there isn't much time-!

Here's your lightsaber....

Come out and play.

THE COURTROOM

DROID JUDGE: Thank you, distinguished counselors. It is now time for you, the readers of this volume, to cast your votes based on the testimony you have heard. Your votes are on the following nine charges; for each of these you must cast a vote of innocent or guilty:

CHARGE #1: THE POLITICS OF STAR WARS ARE ANTI-DEMOCRATIC AND ELITIST

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #2: WHILE CLAIMING MYTHIC SIGNIFICANCE, STAR WARS PORTRAYS NO ADMIRABLE RELIGIOUS OR ETHICAL BELIEFS

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #3: STAR WARS NOVELS ARE POOR SUBSTITUTES FOR REAL SCIENCE FICTION AND ARE DRIVING REAL SF OFF THE SHELVES

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #4: SCIENCE FICTION FILMMAKING HAS BEEN REDUCED BY STAR WARS TO POORLY WRITTEN SPECIAL EFFECTS EXTRAVAGANZAS

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #5: STAR WARS HAS DUMBED DOWN THE PERCEPTION OF SCIENCE FICTION IN THE POPULAR IMAGINATION

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #6: STAR WARS PRETENDS TO BE SCIENCE FICTION, BUT IS REALLY FANTASY

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #7: WOMEN IN STAR WARS ARE PORTRAYED AS FUNDAMENTALLY WEAK

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #8: THE PLOT HOLES AND LOGICAL GAPS IN STAR WARS MAKE IT ILL-SUITED FOR AN INTELLIGENT VIEWER

Guilty or innocent?

CHARGE #9: CONSIDERING ALL THE FACTORS ABOVE, OVERALL, STAR WARS HAS BEEN DAMAGING TO SCIENCE FICTION READERS, WRITERS AND MOVIEGOERS

Guilty or innocent?

You may register your votes at www.starwarsontrial.com, where you may also add your witness testimony to the arguments you have read above.

May the Force be with you!

DAVID BRIN: I object!

DROID JUDGE: Withdrawn.

Visit www.starwarsontrial.com to cast your vote.

I The reader deserves a disclaimer about what this book is not. It is not a well-organized scholarly treatise on the Star Wars universe! Or a thorough analysis of the ideas contained therein. For anyone eager to explore the root sources and inspirations for Star Wars, and many other modern myths, an excellent starting point would be the vivid and detailed Web site at Jitterbug.com that explores a vast range of possible, plausible and utterly blatant borrowings from earlier works. Indeed, George Lucas has never denied making liberal use of earlier storytelling tropes and tricks that range from floating space letters (Buck Rogers) and secretive mystic cults (Dune) to glowing swords and whining little golem-trolls (The Lord of the Rings). (See http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/index.html. "Star Wars: Origins" was created by Kristen Brennan in September 1999 and updated sporadically, with many contributors, through 2006.) For the most part, the authors and essayists in this book will be concentrating on something else entirely-the moral, ethical and other lessons being taught by this epic series.

In making their arguments, our writers selected by the folks at BenBella Books will largely cite plot events from the Star Wars films themselves-on-screen moments that any Star Wars aficionado ought to recall or recognize, without needing any deep grounding in, say, the "arcana of Western and Asian mythology."

' Though, as reviewer and critic James Lowder points out, there are also much more recent historical and pop culture sources that Lucas mined in creating the films. Henderson downplays or ignores the influence, for example, of Kurosawa samurai films like Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress, from which Lucas patterned characters and even borrowed sequences of dialogue.

'The chief ideological difference between a good Democrat and a good Republican appears to be whom you perceive as being a more ominously oppressive potential oligarchy A Republican worries about intimidation and undue power accumulation by pushy academics and faceless government bureaucrats. The Democrat sees undue accretions of power and influence by monied aristocrats, ideological fanatics and faceless corporations. Libertarians choose one from column A and one from column B! When you put it that way, it seems we've been guarding each other's backs for years; so why do we get so mad at each other for worrying about different authority figures? Which authority you choose to fear is largely a matter of experience and personal taste. That doesn't mean the other guy's fear is entirely without basis.