May the Force Be With You

For my last column, I considered writing some great ideological manifesto that would be my parting salvo against injustices here and elsewhere. Instead, I went to see "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." I decided to use the Star Wars "phenomenon" as a lens through which to examine some of the joy and wonder I've tried to write about in this space this past semester. Warning: if you haven't seen "The Phantom Menace," spoilers ahead!

For weeks before the May 19 opening of the film, thousands of people around the United States kept a continuous vigil sleeping on dirty sidewalks and in folding lawn chairs, all to get tickets for the first show on opening day. For a moment in time, their curiosity and excited anticipation was shared by millions more, diluted throughout the nation to form a collective dream. Why were people sleeping on sidewalks?

There's a reason that people, having waited 16 years, are now flocking to the theaters in droves, despite critics' warnings and often for multiple showings. There's a reason people waited in line for days and skipped work on opening day. "Star Wars," unlike many things in our thoroughly secularized, rationalized, over-analyzed world, firmly believes in and openly defends the idea of something greater, something beyond ourselves. Just a movie?

George Lucas has said on many occasions that he made "The Phantom Menace," along with the other "Star Wars" films, primarily for kids. What has left unsaid is that children do not have to be limited by age: the movie is for the childlike joy and wonder left in all of us, if only we look for it within ourselves. It is so easy to abandon these things as the detritus of a journey to "maturity"; however, being older and "wiser" does not mean that we're any closer to the truth. When we are children, we often see the world in black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. Though human existence is filled with oceans of gray, the complexities and responsibilities of adult life often obscure the truth in more insidious ways--like Darth Sidious.

Loyalty. Honor. Courage. Fortitude. Ideals that, sadly, aren't revered or seen much in our world anymore. The comic book warriors of the "Star Wars" films indulge in these virtues with abandon upon stages breathtaking in their special effects. The Jedi, strong in the "Force," battle the Dark Side, i.e., the evil very present in the world, in all worlds, and across galaxies and time. The success of the execution of this is unparalleled--attracting theatergoers of all ages and points of view, from Harvard undergraduates to their sometimes Luddite parents.

There's something timeless about Qui-Gon Jinn and Han Solo, about Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The struggle for peace with justice and honor is not a new fight and it is Lucas' artistic expression of these things that brings so many together for, yes, a movie. It really is true that the anticipation and opening of this film, drawing on our society's love for popular culture and, more importantly, often wordless search for truth, has brought people together like few other things can. Only once in my life have I sat in a theater of 700 people cheering throughout a movie, sharing the joy and wonder I felt with strangers.

Characters in the "Star Wars" universe are not as simple as they seem, however. Anakin Skywalker, promising and generous child, falls so far into the Dark Side that he emerges as Darth Vader, the most evil of all. Yet, even he is redeemed at the very end--by love. Luke's quiet and unflinching faith in him helps him to remember that he has a son. This event, at the end of "Return of the Jedi," is surely one of the greatest moments of redemption ever filmed.

And then there's the Force. What is this Force exactly? Why is it "strong" and why does it force the hand of time and fate, allowing good to triumph in the end? We do know that it is something far beyond the limited scope of human ability. As Shmi Skywalker told her son, it lays a path before all of us, and it is our choice whether to take it. The Force demands we seek out and take up our vocation, with love and humility, with faith and loyalty.

My favorite series of books in the "Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis. In them, Lewis creates a parallel fantasy world with struggles similar to ours, liberally sprinkled with characters derived from mythology and religion, all created and cared for by a child's image of God: Aslan, the great lion. Those very books have been my companions from the first day a quite proper English lady (there's nothing else to call her but that!) read them to my fourth-grade class until now as I am preparing to leave the sanctuaries of college life and childhood behind for good.

Lewis said repeatedly that his stories were not meant to be pure allegory but instead were designed to allow children (and adults) to think about fundamental truths--about God--by making up stories about what might happen were God to come to another world: here, Narnia. George Lucas said recently, in an interview with Bill Moyers, that he hopes the mythology of his movies will make children think about this greater existence, about the possibility that there is more to life than our little world. And it does.

So, you've seen it now. Did you wonder at the idea of a virgin birth, of someone being "The Chosen One"? Did the idea of midichlorians make you think? Did you wonder at the hand of the Force in bringing Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn to Tatooine and "bumping into" Anakin Skywalker? Were you curious about the fall and redemption of Darth Vader?

So, you've asked the questions. Go out into the world and seek the answers. May the Force be with you. Christa M. Franklin '99 is a social studies concentrator in Currier House. This is her final column.