So the Messiah in Star Wars is supposed “to bring balance to The Force,” but I never understood what it meant.
Star Wars is extremely dualistic–there is a good side and an evil side, a light side and a dark side, the Jedi and the Sith. Every plotline is based around a manichean struggle where only one side can win by annihilating the other.
The “good side”, the Jedi, are explicitly looking a savior to provide “balance” while at the same time imposing all sorts of restrictions on which force powers are allowed and which aren’t. For an order whose messiah is based on Taoist equilibrium, they are positively Christian in their obsession with purity.
I think there is an implicit subtextual critique of the Jedi Order in the prequels that they incompetent, as you might expect from the leaders of a theocracy, but that’s about as far as it goes.
I think the closest we get to ANY real discussion of balance is Luke’s vision on Degobah, where he must see himself as potentially Darth Vader, which can be interpreted as an attempt towards wholeness OR as a warning to not stray into evil.
Can anyone square this circle?
Edit: It’s funny to me that there are more comments than upvotes. People want to share. I love it.
Totally agree. Star Wars was just a cool movie and something new for its time. I even liked the first one but personally, I think the cliffhanger ending of the second movie was a disgusting cash grab that should have ended the entire experiment and it go only worse from there.
@ExLisper @Vedlt The cliffhanger in the second movie was legit homage to the old Saturday morning serials ,Buster Crabbe style. Not that I liked it, but I think it’s legit. However, there is no forgiving the Ewoks, the yub yub dance, Jar Jar Binks, or a thousand and one other crass marketing grabs. And by the way, Han fucking shot first, mother-fucker.
Han didn’t shoot first. He was the only one who shot.