by Herbert H. Stein
Let’s talk about the new Star Wars movie. After all, for a while everyone else was.
In a now mildly famous controversy, the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, told Charlie Rose “They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make them completely different, with different plan- ets, with different spaceships, make it new.” In a later TV interview on CBS, he apologized, saying, “The issue was ultimately, they looked at the stories and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans.’ People don’t actually realize it’s actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems-it’s not about space- ships. So they decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, ‘Fine … I’ll go my way and I let them go their way.’”
To call Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens a “retro” movie is a gross understate- ment. A case can be made that it’s close to being not a retro movie but a remake of the first Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope.
Episode IV: A New Hope had two basic plot lines.
First plot line: There is a civil war with a growing resistance fighting an evil empire. The empire is soldiered by uncaring men in white metallic uniforms, covered from head to toe, who shoot at anything that’s in their way. The empire also has a death star which can destroy a planet and uses it at one point in the middle of the film to destroy a planet filled with mil- lions of people. The resistance has the plans for the death star and ultimately finds it’s weaknesses and engages in a final battle in which the death star is destroyed by brave fighters in small speedy space ships.
Episode VII: The Force Awakens has two basic plot lines.
First plot line: There is a civil war with a growing resistance fighting an in power group called “The First Order.” The First Order is soldiered by uncaring men in white metallic uni- forms, covered from head to toe, who shoot at
anything that’s in their way. The First Order has a death star which can destroy a planet and uses it at one point in the middle of the film to destroy a planet filled with millions of people. The resistance has plans for the death star and ultimately finds its weaknesses and engages in a final battle in which the death star is destroyed by brave fighters in small speedy space ships.
The second plot for Episode IV revolved around an adolescent boy, living on a small, out of the way desert planet. His uncle buys a “droid,” a small robot that looks like a bullet with wheels and talks in squeaky sounds. He buys it and its friend, a more humanoid droid that speaks human languages from scavengers who had picked it up. The boy, an apparent orphan, is living with his somewhat grumpy uncle and aunt (Wizard of Oz?), but has much freedom on his little planet. He discovers a hidden message on the droid that seems to be addressed to an Obiwan Kenobi. We know that that message was placed in the droid by Princess Leia before she was taken captive by Darth Vader (I don’t think I need to describe him) and the evil empire. The boy, Luke, finds Obiwan Kenobi living in the wilderness of the desert planet and thus begins a journey to save the universe and for the boy, Luke Skywalker, to discover his roots and his des- tiny. On the way, he befriends Han Solo, a seeming traveling adventurer and wheeler dealer who proves to have a good heart, and his companion, Chewbacca, “Chewie,” a large furry creature that looks and sounds like a wild beast, but thinks and communicates like a human being.
Oh, and there is a pervading theme about a unifying Force that shapes the universe, with a Light and a Dark side. And Luke is told by Obiwan Kenobi that his father was a great Jedi knight who was killed by Darth Vader (a lie that contains a metaphorical truth). Luke is destined to meet Vader (in a subsequent episode) who tells him “I am your father.”
The second plot for Episode VII revolves around an adolescent girl, living on a small, out of the way desert planet. She saves a “droid,” a small robot that looks like a beach ball that rolls around and talks in squeaky sounds. She saves it from a scavenger who would likely make it into scrap metal. The girl, an apparent orphan, is living alone as far as we can tell, and has much freedom on her lit- tle planet. She learns that there is a hidden message on the droid, ok actually a map that will lead to Luke Skywalker, the boy in the first story. It was placed there by a resistance pilot just before he was taken captive by Kylo Ren, who looks, talks and acts like Darth Vader. The girl and the droid meet up with a former First Order soldier who has defected and they all escape from the desert planet on a journey that will lead to saving the universe and dis- covering her roots and her destiny (as it turns out on the same space ship that took Luke off his desert planet). On the way, she meets an older but recognizable Han Solo and Chewie who join in her quest.
Oh, and there is a pervading theme about a unifying Force that shapes the universe, with a Light and a Dark side. And we get a strong hint that the girl, Rey, is the daughter of or in some way related to the great Jedi knight, Luke Skywalker, whom she is going to meet at the end of the film. It would appear, but with some uncertainty, that both Luke and Rey are on a collision course with their missing fathers in their respective Star Wars episodes.
And so, we should not be surprised to find that although it had some early fanfare, this new Star Wars is a dud, attracting early atten- tion through its name, but disappointing viewers across the board who were looking for something new and exciting.
Not so fast! I, at least, kept hearing reports first and second hand about people loving the new Star Wars film. Many of the reviewers were gushing as well. And the clincher for me: I loved it myself, greeting the opening screen that begins “In a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away” with tears of joy!
What’s going on here? I think it goes back to what Lucas said in his second statement, after saying “they wanted to make a retro movie.” According to Lucas, the studio people said, “We want to make something for the fans.” It turns out in fact that a “retro” movie and “something for the fans” are not contradictory ideas at all. The common theme is nostalgia.
It reverberates with Lucas’s other comment about the Star Wars saga. “People don’t actu- ally realize it’s actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems.” After all, in the original trilogy, it turns out that Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are brother and sister and Darth Vader is their father. (I’m sure I’m not the only one who automatically trans- lated “Darth Vader” as “Dark Father.”) It’s not clear to me from the printed version of his comments if Lucas was saying that the film- makers were missing that point or making it. They were in fact capitalizing on it. In effect, watching Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens may be likened to going to a 50th reunion, or, perhaps more to the point, to the Bar Mitzvah or wedding of the grandson of old dear friends you haven’t seen in many years.
For me it started with that opening screen with its announcement of “Episode VII: The Force Awakens” and a rolling synopsis that leads us into the story with a backdrop of stars. This was not merely nostalgia, but something I might call deja vu nostalgia. I had had a similar reaction when I saw the first film, Episode IV: A New Hope almost forty years ago. Those credits created instant and pleasant recognition of the weekly serial episodes of “Don Winslow of the Navy” and “Flash Gordon” that I’d seen on Saturday mornings over twenty-five years before. Here was a film made by someone who had shared my experience of watching excitedly after waiting a week to see how Flash managed to survive capture by the Clay People.
And so I settled back in my seat, surprised to see how happy I was to be back in a time long ago in a place actually not so very far away. And, in fact, in reading about nostalgia in the psychoanalytic literature, I learned that in 1966, Webster’s Dictionary included in the definition of nostalgia “longing for something far away or long ago.” I didn’t find what seemed to me to be a definitive psychoanalyt- ic understanding of nostalgia, but I did come to find that the way in which I am using the term is a more recent usage. Originally, the word “nostalgia” was coined as a Hellenized version of homesickness. My use of it as a pleasant remembrance of things past is newer; although, it did then occur to me that the underlying sadness at what has been lost might have been represented in my tears of joy.
The scrolling introduction was, of course, not new to this version of the Star Wars saga. Each of the first six films began with it. This one, the first continuation of the trilogy that began the series, offered something more, perhaps a return to the excitement of those first three films. That promise was further kin- dled with the similar device plots and images that followed. Within moments, we were wit- nessing a clandestine meeting between a rep- resentative of the resistance and a graying man played by Max Von Sydow who is vaguely reminiscent of Alec Guinness’s Kenobi. This character seems worldly wise with a sadness appropriate to such a figure at such a terrible time in history. He gives the resistance fighter, Poe Dameron, a missing map to help locate Luke Skywalker. Immediately, the small village they are in is attacked from the skies by the same white-armored storm troopers who had attacked the rebel ship in the first film, also led by a character who looks and sounds like Vader. And soon we were on a desert planet with an enterprising adolescent, this one a girl in keeping with the recent trend begun with the Hunger Games films.
But it was the actual meeting with old friends that really caught the spirit. Here was an aging Princess Leia, played again by Carrie Fisher, still leading a rebellion against an evil empire. And with her, C-3PO, the clunky humanoid droid, constructed to do transla- tion and also played by the original actor (I had to look that up). We knew we were not merely in for an old style adventure, but that we would catch up on the lives of these people who we followed through their youth through three films, and in many cases through our own youths. Whatever Lucas had intended to give us, this is what we wanted. What happened to Luke, Han Solo, Leia, even Chewbacca, the Wookie, after we left them celebrating their gratifying victory over the evil emperor? Kenobi and Vader were gone, of course, killed off in the original trilogy, but what of the next generation?
It was particularly effective in the interest of nostalgia that the characters (including the humanoid robot and the furry Chewbacca) were played by the same actors who had played then in the original trilogy. And, in a sense, in real time: the last film of the trilogy, The Return of the Jedi, came out in 1983. The new film is set approximately thirty years after those events. The actors have aged, the time has passed as if it were real life.
And, as so often happens in real life, things have not turned out as we might have hoped. Here is the opening written introduction that rolled up the screen:
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
“Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.
“With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy.
“Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts.”
How did this happen? Luke vanished? Leia is leading a brave RESISTANCE? How could the bright young generation of the sixties and sev- enties lead us right back to where we were at the outset of Episode IV? Is this art imitating life?
It gets worse! Han Solo and Princess Leia, the quarreling lovers of the opening trilogy are now a long separated couple. And worse! Their only son has been turned to the Dark Side of the Force. He is the confused adolescent parading around in his grandfather, Darth Vader’s, suit of black armor, killing people with no compunction and destroying every- thing his parents had fought for. Perhaps Disney is telling us that we cannot remake the world of our parents, only relive it.
And once again, the film gives us a new generation. The action at the beginning of the film, with the passing of the secret map and the attack of the First Order on the village takes place on a quiet desert planet called Jakku, which is also the home of the orphan girl, Rey. Through circumstances that I won’t go into, she finds the little droid with the hid- den map, BB-8, and teams up with another young and parentless man, Finn, who was raised by the The First Order to be a storm trooper but has changed sides at seeing the horrors of battle. He, in fact, has freed the Resistance Pilot, Poe, who is the third member of the younger generation.
Lest we get tired of this old wine in a less artful bottle, the film restores us again with nostalgia, that warm sense of reunion. Rey, Finn and BB8, escaping from First Order pur- suers on an old abandoned space ship find their ship captured by a larger ship. As they wait in hiding in a small hatch, awaiting the arrival of their captors, we are caught by sur- prise as Han Solo and Chewbacca come walk- ing in, delighted to have re-found their ship of yesteryear, the Millennium Falcon. Han is graying and looking about 30 years older, but is easily recognizable from the last time we saw him. It comes across almost as comic relief. You’re waiting for storm troopers or monsters and there is Uncle Harry and his friend Charlie at the door, older but with all the mannerisms and quirks that you’d known. Suddenly, out in space in a galaxy far, far away, we are at home with the family.
A bit later, we see the reunion of Han and Leia. We quickly realize that although they could not live together, they still love each other, leading perhaps to more tears. We hear them talk about the anguish over their wayward son, O-Ren, now calling himself Kylo Ren. I’m sure that most readers over the age of 40 know someone with a wayward adolescent who has them terribly worried, but Han and
Leia’s son is a leader of the worst, most violent gang in the neighborhood. Han thinks he’s lost, even suggesting that his grandfather Vader’s genes have taken over, but Leia wants her son back.
This will lead to another father/son con- frontation, but now in reverse. Han will meet his son on a bridge inside the death star, determined to bring him back from the Dark Side. Now, it is the son who must be saved. Those who saw the original trilogy may remember hearing Luke tell Leia about Vader, “ … there is good in him. I’ve felt it. He won’t turn me over to the Emperor. I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side. I have to try.” Now, we see Luke’s nephew, confronted with his father and asking of him, “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?” Han tells him he’ll do anything to help, not realiz- ing that he is helping Ren find the courage to kill him, running him through with his light saber and throwing him off the bridge with Rey, Chewie and Finn watching in horror. Oy! But even here, we are reminded of the earlier stories. It would appear that in the world of fantasy, fathers will sacrifice themselves to allow their sons an Oedipal victory, but sons are not bound to sacrifice themselves for their fathers.
I mentioned Vader’s genes. It appears that Disney has, at least for the moment, come down on the side of nature versus nurture. We learn through a set of mysterious visions asso- ciated with Rey’s discovery of Luke’s light saber that Rey is also related to Luke and Leia. With that comes a strong attachment to the force. She quickly discovers that she has the same special powers as Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, her presumed grandfather. She ultimately defeats Ren in a light saber duel on the death planet, but each lives to fight another day. At the end of the film, she finds Luke Skywalker. The film finish- es with a moment filled with great meaning that we do not fully understand as they stare at one another. It is not clear if he is her father, as I suspected when I saw it, or her uncle (or perhaps a third cousin once removed), but we know that there is some familial tie. In the interim, the Death Star has been destroyed, the Resistance has remained intact, C-3PO and R2-D2, the droid buddies of the original trilogy have been reunited. For the moment the world is saved and Luke found, but with so many questions unanswered.
For me, the biggest question is: How did Luke Skywalker just “vanish,” leaving the galaxy to the Dark Side of the Force? And how did someone in this nice family leave a young girl alone on a desert planet to fend for her- self? Who are these people that I thought I knew? Were they simply corrupted, as Lucas at one point seemed to imply, by the Dark Side of Disney? Sure, we expect the Dark Side to always be there. The films speak of a balance in the Force. But how could Luke abandon the fight? Was I so wrong about my old friend?
Perhaps a more objective question is how is it that we can see our generation falling into the same mess that it tried to fix and yet con- tinually have hope that the next generation will do better. In terms of our reaction to the film, itself, it comes from the secure knowl- edge that Disney, now in control, will give us some sort of happy ending at the conclusion of Episode 9. But using that logic, we should expect Disney, or some other company or independent filmmaker to take us back there in thirty or forty years after Rey and Finn have failed to preserve the Republic securely, forc- ing their children to once again fight the battle against the Dark Side of the Force.
Is it possible that in their innocence, the director and co-screenwriter, J.J. Abrams, and the Disney blockbuster geniuses have created a cinematic representation of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle? We keep hearing about an imbalance in the Force as the light and dark side compete in a dialectical, pulsating contest evoking Freud’s Eros and Thanatos, a “death instinct”—replete with a “Death Star”—that pushes us inexorably towards our original inanimate state and a “life instinct” that keeps pushing for new hope.
I doubt that the filmmakers consciously intended to make a statement about a repetitive generational pattern. I do think they intended to capture the optimism of youth in the three principal new characters, Rey, the female version of a young Luke, Poe, the cocky pilot, perhaps reminiscent of Han Solo, and Finn, the somewhat innocent convert to the rebellion. But the optimism of youth requires that the older generation has once again failed to realize the promise of its early victories. That youthful optimism along with the chance to meet old friends helps to create the good feeling that draws us like a tractor beam in front of the giant screen to see the new Star Wars episode.
Nevertheless, it can’t help reminding us that the dreams of the generation—the generation of the “sixties”—that produced the spirit of those first Star Wars films have led us to a world filled with “a new order” of dangers to freedom, justice and peace, much as the failed dreams of the preceding generation that defeated Nazism and Fascism let to the cold war, the threat of atomic annihilation and the Vietnam war that fueled those dreams. As it happens, this film was released just at a time when the idea of “The New Order” seems very topical.
Perhaps more pointedly, there are the per- sonal stories. The filmmakers do make sure to remind us that the loves of youth do not always have a happy ending. Somehow Han and Leia—the good, caring loving people of the original trilogy—could not maintain their marriage and could not prevent their son from being corrupted by the Dark Side. The ongoing verbal combat that seemed cute in court- ing did not wear well in marriage, and an adventurous merchant trader was not likely to be a good stay-at-home dad. We don’t yet know Rey’s full story, but somehow her presumably good parents were forced to abandon her on a desert planet.
Intended or not, the message, then, may be that with each generation we may overcome and survive the threats that confront us, while our failures provide the soil for the idealism and optimism, as well as the dark side, of a new generation. We are left with a seemingly endless cycle of hope, repetition and nostalgia.
Published originally in the PANY Bulletin, Spring, 2016