“The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.”
–Yoda
Galactic Myth
Star Wars is like many things, but nothing is quite like Star Wars. With its vast and varied influences and source materials, and with its lived-in and gritty texture, Star Wars is now a worldwide cultural phenomenon—and for good reason. It is one of the few contemporary attempts at mythopoeia, or mythmaking. More than a simple blockbuster popcorn flick, it is an attempt at truly grand storytelling in a transportative way. Star Wars’ success was not a fluke—it worked for very specific reasons. It resonated with the world at large (and still does to an extent) because what George Lucas created was meaningful. Lucas crafted a world where good and evil are objective, and where the good wins. He crafted a story about family, about freedom, and about human dominion.
I often tell people, tongue only slightly in cheek, that Star Wars is my favorite western.
First and foremost, Star Wars (meaning mainly the original film and its two sequels, although the prequels are included to a lesser extent) is a good story. It is a proper faery story, or fairy tale in the sense that Lewis and Tolkien meant the term. It is escapist in the way Tolkien meant, and it produces a longing for something beyond our world in the sense that Lewis meant. It is easy to see why many (including myself) regard Star Wars not as true sci-fi, but as fantasy that happens to be set in outer space. After all, there is almost no focus whatsoever on the scientific in Star Wars. The story is not dealing with human progress or the nature of technology in the same way a hard science fiction story from H.G. Wells or Gene Roddenberry does. Star Wars has magic, wizards, princesses and dragons—and with its intentional story structure built around Joseph Campbell’s understanding of the hero’s journey, it is a classic fantasy story through and through. One thing that I believe sets Star Wars apart from any other classic fairy tale though, is that Star Wars is a uniquely American faery story. Star Wars is an American myth. Star Wars is perhaps even a retelling of the foundational American myth, warts and all.
You might find that statement odd, considering that stylistically and foundationally, Star Wars is an amalgamation of many things that aren’t native to America: the Samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, European fairy tale story structure, and a thin veneer of Eastern mysticism and philosophy, to name a few. But in lots of other ways, Star Wars serves as a perfect American fairy tale. It is inherently anti-authoritarian, and the “righteous rebellion” angle is impossible to miss. It’s pro-farmer and pro-blue collar, and promotes the destruction of overreaching leviathans. It is pro-democracy, pro-republicanism, and highly individualistic. Star Wars in one way or another reflects the foundational American myths of the melting pot of cultures, the great western frontier waiting to be conquered, and the promise of discovery. Some of these ideas are baked into the setting and lore, and others are actually very present in the story and aesthetic of the films themselves.
Perhaps one of the most prominent aspects of Star Wars’ American flavor is its deeply western character. I often tell people, tongue only slightly in cheek, that Star Wars is my favorite western. In Star Wars, rugged lone gunslingers are romanticized. The Outer Rim is the frontier, far from the reaches of the oppressive government, waiting to be tamed and explored. The galaxy is populated with seedy saloons and corruption. The world is dirty, lived in, and a man’s ship is his steed: the dearest friend and constant companion, allowing him the freedom to go where he wishes. Space is a frontier, much like the American West, an empty dreamscape of dangerous natives and unknown treasure to discover, where one can go to make their fortune. Han Solo is the prototypical cowboy antihero who rolls into town—the scoundrel with the heart of gold.
Even visually, Star Wars often resembles the vision of the frontier cast by John Ford, or the vision of Samurai Japan cast by Akira Kurosawa. The close relationship between Samurai films, specifically Kurosawa, and the western genre is a complex one to be explored another time, but the detail is relevant. George Lucas drew inspiration for the aesthetic and story of Star Wars from the same films that Sergio Leone based his Italian-made “Spaghetti Westerns” on. The American West has become a near-ubiquitous myth in various world cultures. It holds the same place in the heart of man that the New World did for sixteenth-century Europeans, and for each and every explorer who came before. Manifest Destiny, regardless of its uneven and often disastrous application in history, seems to be something deep in the heart of man. We are created to exercise dominion and subdue the Earth, after all. And though this mythological West has transcended American culture, it is one of the defining traits that gives America its character. That there is a looming frontier just over the horizon, one that promises both danger and fortune, a new life or a quick death. That only the most rugged and lonely men can conquer and thrive—or become corrupted. The frontier flavor of Star Wars is American to the core.
The Americanness of Star Wars matters because it allows for the story of the film to be at its heart Western—and therefore, culturally Christian—rather than Eastern, like the flavor of the external trappings and setting. It also matters because it means that Star Wars is built far more like a genre western or a fantasy story than a sci-fi story. A sci-fi story centers on man’s progress, on technology and the hubris that comes with it, on human achievement and failure. Star Wars is about adventure, about growing up, about good triumphing over evil, about the underdog, about human emotions and how they can be tamed. A sci-fi story can be Eastern or Western, Christian or pagan, theistic or materialistic. But an American myth like Star Wars can’t be anything but Christian. And because it is Christian, it reaches far beyond America and resonates with every earthly culture—because the Christian story, which is ingrained in the heart of the American story, is the true myth, for all peoples.
A Great Galactic Melting Pot
“Never tell me the odds!”
-Han Solo
If Star Wars were simply a straightforward shoot-em-up adventure flick set in space, it would be no different from the pulp stories or the Flash Gordon serials that came before it. The thing that sets Star Wars apart is the way that Lucas is able to blend disparate worldviews, cultures, beliefs, and metaphysical systems into a cohesive story with true meaning. He brings together many vastly different influences and makes something new out of them—he builds a meta-myth that resonates with cultures and peoples all around the globe. And he does so by throwing all sorts of philosophies into a galactic blender and seeing what comes out.
The interesting thing about how Lucas uses these Eastern or pagan concepts is how he adopts them into a Western and Christian frame.
The idea of the Force, for example, is at its core an Eastern construct, with roots in Taoism and Buddhism. It sees an inherent “oneness” in the created order, a flow of the universe, and conceptualizes reality as simultaneously being impersonal, yet having a will that strives to keep all in balance. But keep in mind that the interesting thing about how Lucas uses these Eastern or pagan concepts is how he adopts them into a Western and Christian frame. For example, in the Lucas-led Star Wars films, the Force desires “balance.” And yet, this doesn’t mean an equally potent evil to counteract the light, as a traditional Taoist might think. Instead, the Force finds balance at the end of Return of the Jedi, when the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker, finally repents of his evil, destroys the Dark Sith Lord Sidious, and light triumphs over the darkness. Lucas takes something Taoist in flavor and Eastern on the surface, and repurposes it into a Western, Christian fairy tale. More on this later.
The Jedi themselves are essentially warrior-monks, a strange mixture of Eastern and Western ideals. The pacifistic Buddhist monks who desire balance, peace, and understanding, who seek to tap into the essential natural power that binds all things together, and to live in harmony with nature, are combined equally with the Western conception of the warrior knight, the noble protector who uses physical strength, intense training, and chivalric ideals to protect the weak and vulnerable, to serve the lords of their homeland, and to promote justice and peace through the disciplined and righteous use of power.
Lucas takes Eastern mysticism of Buddhist and Taoist (and more) varieties, he takes European folklore and fairy story, a bit of American individualism, and Joseph Campbell Jungianism, and blends it all together into a Western fantasy frame like only he could have done. In the process, he mixes in some distinctly Christian ideas: for one, the concept that good is inherently different from evil, and that these two cannot mix. They are objective and unchanging, and to use evil means (even for a good end) will inevitably lead to damnation. Further, Star Wars assumes an invisible sovereign hand at work, guiding all things for the good of the good and the demise of the evil. It isn’t God, but it is something not quite “not God” either. The idea that history is not random, but echoes, repeats itself, and is guided by a storytelling hand—well, that is as Christian as it gets. History echoes and rhymes because it is a story told by the great storyteller. Sometimes, George Lucas got things very, very right.
Jedi Hypocrisy
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.”
-Yoda
The original trilogy is perhaps the best way to see what I’m getting at. The prequels, though they do have their strengths (yes, even Attack of the Clones) are very poor representations of what George Lucas originally set out to do with Star Wars. He may claim he intended the six-part saga all along, but some analysis of his inconsistent words over the decades reveals that to not be the case.
Let’s unpack some of these themes by comparing Luke Skywalker to Master Yoda—again, in the original trilogy. Yoda is essentially a Buddhist monk, prioritizing inner peace, harmony with the universe, patience, and quiet humility over raw power. He believes in emptying oneself of strong emotions, even positive ones, as they eventually lead to the Dark Side. He seems to want to rid himself of all desires, or at least the ones that matter. He lives ascetically, and there is almost a gnostic flavor about him. He refers to the physical body as “this crude matter,” and to our inner, Force-sensitive spirits as “luminous beings” which are our true selves. He has no patience for hasty, hotheaded Luke (perhaps some hypocrisy there) and discourages him from being too eager to confront evil. Of course, this comes in part from Yoda’s knowledge of Luke’s heritage, but it also seems to be his philosophy on a deeper level. The Force, to Yoda, is something larger than us that we can be a part of, not something to be used to achieve our own ends. It would seem Yoda, somewhat inconsistently, believes some form of the quote attributed to Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
But the Jedi are wrong. And this is where George Lucas is beautifully and wonderfully inconsistent.
This brings us to one of the best scenes in Star Wars history: the meeting of Luke and Yoda for the first time. Luke is expecting to meet the greatest, most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, the great Master who trained Obi-Wan. He is expecting a warrior who acts like a warrior should act. What he meets when he arrives on Dagobah is not what he expected. Instead, Luke is greeted by a small, aged, and physically weak figure, who seems to be no more than a senile, solitary ascetic. Yoda is a prankster, a tester of patience, and a sage. He pokes and prods at Luke, and quickly determines that because of his deeply ingrained and long-learned emotional attachments, he cannot be trained. He is too old. To Yoda (and a much lesser extent, Obi-Wan), emotional attachments like these are dangerous. They lead to suffering and loss, and not to detached inner peace. To the sage Jedi, Luke is weak, even though he has natural and innate raw power. He is weak because he feels strong emotions. They are an echo of Vader in him, the evil and seductive Dark Side luring him in.
But the Jedi are wrong. And this is where George Lucas is beautifully and wonderfully inconsistent. The Jedi may be Eastern mystics and Buddhists, and the universe they inhabit may be a Taoist, cosmic balancing act, but the story being told is wholly and completely Christian. The story itself demonstrates that in the end, Luke was right. Not Yoda, not even Obi-Wan, but Luke. Because while Yoda hid in a swamp, afraid of his own power and of the Sith, Luke chose to act. In his greatest moment of “failure” (from Yoda’s perspective) Luke gives into his emotions, and he leaves before his training is complete. Out of love for his friends, his passion takes him straight into the fray, and into the trap. But Luke was right—and in the end, the Force had the final say. Anakin may have given in to the Dark Side and become Vader, but in the end it was Vader’s position as a Sith Lord that gave him the opportunity to kill Palpatine and destroy the Sith. His repentance came at just the right moment, and the events leading to the prophecies’ fulfillment were fraught with actions the stodgy and detached Jedi disapproved of.
A Balanced Force
“I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”
-Luke Skywalker
At the end of the original trilogy, we see how Lucas contradicts himself, or at least appears to, in a beautiful way. Throughout the films, we are told repeatedly that the Force must be brought to balance, and in the prequels, we are told over and over that Anakin is the prophesied chosen one who will bring balance to the Force. Because of the Taoist flavor of the Jedi order, and the overall cosmic structure of the nature of the Force (not to mention the ways that the Jedi speak of it, especially in the prequel trilogy) one might assume that “balance” means equal parts darkness and light, two opposing forces keeping one another in check. We might have in mind a Yin/Yang image, a vision of reality in which good and evil are always in tension, holding one another back. But the end of Return of the Jedi shows us that this is not the case.
Anakin finally fulfils his destiny, and brings balance to the Force. And what does that balance look like? A full, total, decisive victory of good over evil. Balance is not darkness and light holding each other in check—it is an utter defeat of the Dark Side, the destruction of the Sith Lord Sidious, and the repentance of one of the most wretched acolytes of the Dark Side. The Force “in balance” is actually good defeating evil, from top to bottom. It is a picture of light let loose across the oppressed systems of the galaxy, and the Jedi living on while the Sith are destroyed. A balanced Force is a Force overwhelmingly light, where the darkness has been crushed. This is a Christian vision of reality—an eschatological victory and stamping out of evil. When it matters most, the heart of the Star Wars story is a Christian one. One in which good triumphs and evil retreats. That is true balance.
Balance is not darkness and light holding each other in check—it is an utter defeat of the Dark Side.
Further, we see that the way this balance and victory was won was not as the Jedi envisioned. It was not through detachment, a rejection of emotion and human bonds that led Vader to repent. It was love for his son. It was strong, emotional ties to his own flesh and blood that caused Vader to see the evil of his (and Palpatine’s) ways, and to take action and intervene. It was the opposite of Buddhist, detached ideals that led to balance—it was raw emotion. It was the love of a father for a son.
And this is the image that the Christian faith gives us of humanity. As human beings, we are not to rid ourselves of all desire, forsake all bonds of fellowship, and abandon emotion. In the Christian worldview, human emotions matter. They are not to be stamped out, but rather oriented toward the true greatest good that exists. Our emotions are to be rightly ordered, tamed, and directed to God-honoring ends. We are to love and desire the God who created us, to love and care for our families and fellow man, to love and care for our communities. And we are to direct our hatred—yes, hatred—toward evil, toward sin (first and foremost our own sin), toward those who would do harm to the innocent and destroy what is good.
That is a Christian vision of human emotions, and of human passion. It’s this Christian vision that George Lucas adopts when writing the overall arc of the story. Yes, he is pulling from varied and syncretic sources, from Eastern mysticism and Samurai movies and pulp comics and sci-fi serials. But he also pulls from European faery, from the American western frontier, and from the Christian story. And Star Wars is at its best when those influences shine through not just in flavor, but in theme. The original trilogy struck a magical balance that has helped it to stand the test of time as a story that speaks to humans on a basic level. It does this because, contrary to the Jedi’s official stance, it shows that love is more powerful than hate, and that those emotions are a thing to cling to, not destroy.
Star Wars is unique. It is a unique blend of influences, but in my view, it is uniquely American in spirit, and uniquely Christian in its moral claims. It is a western, one in which the rugged outlaw returns to save his friends, not out of obligation, but out of love. It’s a story in which the white-hatted hero faces off against the black-hatted killer at high noon, and destroys the threat to protect the ones he loves. The American western frontier is a product of the Christian impulse to exercise dominion over the dark and dangerous wilds, to tame the furthest reaches of the Earth that God placed us in. America has always been a Christian nation, despite its flaws. Star Wars is a product of Christianity, whether it likes it or not.
George Lucas is confused. He wanted it both ways—he wanted a sage order of warrior monks who preach that we should rid ourselves of desires, but he also wanted love to win. He wanted a Taoist universe where dark and light balance to keep each other in check, but he also wanted objective good and objective evil in his story, and wanted the good to win. He wants to blow up the evil Empire that builds world-killing stars. Luke Skywalker is a good protagonist, because he seems to understand this central tension. Even when it goes against his training, against everything he is trying to dedicate himself to, he follows his human instinct to save the ones he loves. And the Force, or Divine Providence, guides him to help his father bring balance to the Force by destroying the Sith. Maybe the Jedi were wrong, or intentionally obscuring the truth for their own purposes, and their hubris led to their downfall as an order. Maybe this was the plan of the Force all along. Maybe George Lucas wasn’t thinking of any of this at all when he wrote the films.
Lucas may have been confused when he pulled from various sources, but Tolkien was not. Tolkien knew the myth at the heart of his story, and masterfully constructed a story in which the true, good, and beautiful shine through—something George Lucas did too, but maybe more by accident. Tolkien captures very well this idea that our relational and emotional bonds and ties are part of what it means to be human. As the King Aragorn says to the Men of the West as they lay down their lives for the good:
A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day!
This day we fight!! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!
The Force rewards Luke’s emotional bonds. It rewards Anakin’s as well in the end, after the Jedi’s forbidding of love created the monster Vader. But it’s when he listens to the right impulse and denies the wrong one that goodness triumphs. Our emotions should be the same. They are messy, they are imperfect, and they take lots of discipline and practice to reign in. Our mistakes can often lead to good and just events later that we never could have foreseen. Only a sovereign Lord can weave the threads of history in this way. And even the pagan heart, like the heart of George Lucas, yearns for a universe in which a good and powerful God is working all things together for His glory, and our good.
