Star Wars on Trial by Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover Read Free Book Online

messages in Star Wars aren't just window dressing. Speeches and lectures drench every film. They take up the slack time that could have been spent on plotting.
    They represent an agenda.
    Let's go back to comparing George Lucas's space-adventure epic to its chief competitor-Star Trek. The differences at first seem superficial, but they add up.
    We have already see how one saga has an air force motif (tiny fighters) while the other appears naval. In Star Trek, the big ship is heroic and the cooperative effort required to maintain it is depicted as honorable. Indeed, Star Trek sees technology as useful and es sentially friendly-if at times also dangerous. Education is a great emancipator of the humble (e.g., Starfleet Academy). Futuristic institutions are basically good-natured (the Federation), though of course one must fight outbreaks of incompetence, secrecy and corruption. Professionalism is respected, lesser characters make a difference, and henchmen often become brave whistle-blowers-as they do in America today.

    In Star Trek, when authorities are defied, it is in order to overcome their mistakes or expose particular villains, not to portray all government as inherently hopeless. Good cops sometimes come when you call for help. Ironically, this image fosters useful criticism of authority, because it suggests that any of us can gain access to our flawed institutions-if we are determined enough-and perhaps even fix them with fierce tools of citizenship.
    Above all, whenever you encounter Homo superior in Star Treksome hyper-evolved, better-than-human fellow with powers beyond our mortal kin-the demigod is subjected to scrutiny and skeptical worry! Such mutant uber-types are given a chance to prove they mean no harm. But when they throw their weight around, normal folk rise up and look them in the eye. This happens so often in Trek-as well as shows like Stargate and Babylon 5-that it has become a true sci-fi tradition.
    By contrast, the choices in Star Wars are stark and limited. As in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, you can join either the Dark Lord or the Chosen Prince (with his pointy-eared elf advisors). Ultimately, the oppressed "rebels" in Star Wars have no recourse in law or markets or science or democracy. They can only pick sides in a civil war between two wings of the same genetically superior royal family.
    (The same royal family? Oh, but it's right there, in front of you! The implication that bubbles out of the quirky SW obsession, with heaping coincidence upon coincidence. The Emperor comes from the same narrow aristocracy-on Planet Naboo-as Luke's mother. Probably, they're cousins. As for Anakin's mother, who's to say she didn't come from the same place? A gene pool of midichlorian mutants, engaged in a family spat, and galaxy-wide hell ensues. It's a reach, but thoughtprovoking. Is it any wonder that, in Star Trek, demigod mutants are always treated with skepticism, not reflex worship?)

    Yes, Star Trek had its own problems and faults. The television episodes often devolved into soap operas. Many of the movies were very badly written. Trek at times seemed preachy, or turgidly politically correct, especially in its post-Kirk incarnations. (For example, every species has to mate with every other one, interbreeding with almost compulsive abandon. The only male heroes who are allowed any testosterone-in The Next Generation-are Klingons, because cultural diversity outweighs sexual correctness. In other words, it's okay for them to be macho 'cause it is "their way.") Nevertheless, Trek tried to grapple with genuine issues, giving complex voices even to its villains and asking hard questions about pitfalls we may face while groping for tomorrow.
    Anyway, when it comes to portraying human destiny, where would you rather live, assuming you'll be a normal citizen and no demigod? In Roddenberry's Federation? Or Lucas's Empire?
    THE FEUDAL REFLEX
    George Lucas defends his elitist view, telling the New York Times, "That's