While I was watching a documentary on the making of the "Star Wars" films, it occured to me that George Lucas is certainly one of the world's true geniuses. As a "fallen" student of Objectivism, I made the obvious parallels between Lucas and Ayn Rand's Howard Roark.
Lucas had a vision of something he wanted to do, something on a grand scale, and he persevered through numerous set-backs and against immeasurable odds in order to bring his abstract vision to concrete form. He did this by refusing to buckle under to criticism, which apparently was coming from within as well as without, as many of the people involved in making the film, from the executive upper-crust to the actors themselves, obviously had very little confidence at the time that what they were doing would have any lasting impact or value. I've always said that Harrison Ford played his character in the first film as if he didn't have a great deal of genuine respect for the material, that his performance was sometimes careless and flippant.
Lucas said, in this documentary, that he had always been sort of allergic to the whole "corporate" thing, to the "establishment", so to speak, for want of a better way to put it; but, in the course of making his films, of becoming ridiculously rich and powerful, he had actually "become" the very thing which he'd always strongly disliked and wished to avoid. He drew a parallel between his life and the metamorphosis of the Darth Vader character. Anakin starts out as a fiercely independant yet dedicated Jedi, but over the course of time, he eventually becomes the embodiment of the very evil which he had once been sworn to oppose.
Some would say that Ayn Rand herself went through a similar metamorphosis. Her opponents, which are many, describe her as little more than the originator and leader of a dogmatic, secular cult. For anyone who isn't familiar with Rand's philosophy, the words "dogma" and "cult" were both anathema to her. Objectivists today are under fire everywhere, and are often refered to as "Randroids": they are accused of being the brain-washed followers of a cult leader. I don't agree with most of the criticism of Rand or of Objectivists, but I can't help finding the irony interesting.
* * *
I have no idea whether or not Ayn Rand saw any of the Stars Wars films. I believe (though I'm not certain) that she was alive for the first two. I suppose I should do a search on this before I say anything. I'm not aware of anything she may have said in regard to those films, but I would bet that she'd have found something to enjoy, but far, far more to dislike.
The Stars Wars films aren't original as far as the story goes. It's as old as the hills, even older than that cliche. Good versus evil, with both sides being clearly distinguished from the other. It's an ancient and familiar tale, told in a strange and exciting new world. Old wine in new bottles, to use yet another tired expression. I think Lucas's genius consists in taking such a time-worn, if time-tested, formula and managing to come up with something that could still move an audience in such a powerful way; and I don't think for a moment that the primary reason Star Wars succeeded was because of the special effects. I'm sure that they were a crucial factor, but I think more elementary and basic things factored in to an even greater degree: the simplicity of the story, the unambiguousness of the characters, the likeability of the players, the pleasing irony of the traditional morality play transpiring among starships, robots, and strange alien creatures, the effective contrast of synthesized, mechanical sounds and voices set against the lush backdrop of a full symphony orchestra. How could all that not work?
Well, there are a million ways that it might not have worked, and were it not for Lucas's vision, his dogged endurance and power to persevere, it would have failed. But that's not really what I want to write about. I mean, it is, but it isn't.
I suppose my brief brush with Objectivism will always have some kind of an impact on how I presently think. While I can still sit and be powerfully moved by Star Wars, as I just have been in fact, with my two sons on either side of me, it still bothers me that there is a giant conflict at work in that film: not the conflict of good versus evil, but that of rationality versus mysticism, of reason versus faith. In the old myths, set in times long before the advances in science and industry, long before the Renaissance, long before the Enlightenment, there isn't that great a problem when it comes to the suspension of disbelief. There's no immediate difficulty in believing that Odysseus is the son of a Goddess, that he lives under the hand of a type of divine providence, that his actions go according to some kind of pre-ordained fate or destiny. The same with the King Arthur legend. The story is set somewhere amid the dark ages, and so we have no problem dealing with "strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords" (Monty Python), or with magicians, sorcerors, witches, spells, fate, or destiny.
But in the Star Wars universe, technology is the order of the day. Only great knowledge and rational thinking, the unadulterated application of reason to complex, large-scale problems and challenges, could have brought about such a state of affairs, and yet in this universe there is not much that is new as far as the characters are concerned, whether in regard to their motivations and actions, or their titles and stations in life. Almost nothing has changed from the old myths and stories. There is a Princess, a farmboy, the mentor/magician archtype, an evil emperor, and his evil henchman, Vader, who is even called Lord.
During his apprenticeship, which is amazingly brief, Luke is old to "trust his feelings", and that his eyes will deceive him. He is not told to think, he's told to feel. The Force is pure mysticism, with no disguise whatsoever, except that it's stripped of any divine personality, and refered to as a kind of impartial energy, which can be tapped into and exploited either for good or for evil. Han Solo has what amounts to the only lines which come from the voice of reason, but the film works so well that we actually convince ourselves that his lack of faith is a grievous character flaw. In the scene at the end where Luke fires the shot that destroys the Death Star, it isn't his skill as a pilot or as a marksman that wins the day: it's his faith, his gut, his destiny-guided intuition. It's not his brain that deals the death-blow to evil, but his feelings.
Maybe this is where Lucas's true genius lies. That he could create such a moving piece of work with such obvious conflicts going on, that perhaps the conflict of reason versus faith is part and parcel of the conflict of good versus evil, or maybe they are one and the same, which is an unsettling prospect. Or maybe the message is simple: that as we progress technologically we tend to lose sight of the old virtues and values, and that our only saving grace will be whether or not we can get a firm grasp on them again, before we blow ourselves into stardust.
Lucas had a vision of something he wanted to do, something on a grand scale, and he persevered through numerous set-backs and against immeasurable odds in order to bring his abstract vision to concrete form. He did this by refusing to buckle under to criticism, which apparently was coming from within as well as without, as many of the people involved in making the film, from the executive upper-crust to the actors themselves, obviously had very little confidence at the time that what they were doing would have any lasting impact or value. I've always said that Harrison Ford played his character in the first film as if he didn't have a great deal of genuine respect for the material, that his performance was sometimes careless and flippant.
Lucas said, in this documentary, that he had always been sort of allergic to the whole "corporate" thing, to the "establishment", so to speak, for want of a better way to put it; but, in the course of making his films, of becoming ridiculously rich and powerful, he had actually "become" the very thing which he'd always strongly disliked and wished to avoid. He drew a parallel between his life and the metamorphosis of the Darth Vader character. Anakin starts out as a fiercely independant yet dedicated Jedi, but over the course of time, he eventually becomes the embodiment of the very evil which he had once been sworn to oppose.
Some would say that Ayn Rand herself went through a similar metamorphosis. Her opponents, which are many, describe her as little more than the originator and leader of a dogmatic, secular cult. For anyone who isn't familiar with Rand's philosophy, the words "dogma" and "cult" were both anathema to her. Objectivists today are under fire everywhere, and are often refered to as "Randroids": they are accused of being the brain-washed followers of a cult leader. I don't agree with most of the criticism of Rand or of Objectivists, but I can't help finding the irony interesting.
* * *
I have no idea whether or not Ayn Rand saw any of the Stars Wars films. I believe (though I'm not certain) that she was alive for the first two. I suppose I should do a search on this before I say anything. I'm not aware of anything she may have said in regard to those films, but I would bet that she'd have found something to enjoy, but far, far more to dislike.
The Stars Wars films aren't original as far as the story goes. It's as old as the hills, even older than that cliche. Good versus evil, with both sides being clearly distinguished from the other. It's an ancient and familiar tale, told in a strange and exciting new world. Old wine in new bottles, to use yet another tired expression. I think Lucas's genius consists in taking such a time-worn, if time-tested, formula and managing to come up with something that could still move an audience in such a powerful way; and I don't think for a moment that the primary reason Star Wars succeeded was because of the special effects. I'm sure that they were a crucial factor, but I think more elementary and basic things factored in to an even greater degree: the simplicity of the story, the unambiguousness of the characters, the likeability of the players, the pleasing irony of the traditional morality play transpiring among starships, robots, and strange alien creatures, the effective contrast of synthesized, mechanical sounds and voices set against the lush backdrop of a full symphony orchestra. How could all that not work?
Well, there are a million ways that it might not have worked, and were it not for Lucas's vision, his dogged endurance and power to persevere, it would have failed. But that's not really what I want to write about. I mean, it is, but it isn't.
I suppose my brief brush with Objectivism will always have some kind of an impact on how I presently think. While I can still sit and be powerfully moved by Star Wars, as I just have been in fact, with my two sons on either side of me, it still bothers me that there is a giant conflict at work in that film: not the conflict of good versus evil, but that of rationality versus mysticism, of reason versus faith. In the old myths, set in times long before the advances in science and industry, long before the Renaissance, long before the Enlightenment, there isn't that great a problem when it comes to the suspension of disbelief. There's no immediate difficulty in believing that Odysseus is the son of a Goddess, that he lives under the hand of a type of divine providence, that his actions go according to some kind of pre-ordained fate or destiny. The same with the King Arthur legend. The story is set somewhere amid the dark ages, and so we have no problem dealing with "strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords" (Monty Python), or with magicians, sorcerors, witches, spells, fate, or destiny.
But in the Star Wars universe, technology is the order of the day. Only great knowledge and rational thinking, the unadulterated application of reason to complex, large-scale problems and challenges, could have brought about such a state of affairs, and yet in this universe there is not much that is new as far as the characters are concerned, whether in regard to their motivations and actions, or their titles and stations in life. Almost nothing has changed from the old myths and stories. There is a Princess, a farmboy, the mentor/magician archtype, an evil emperor, and his evil henchman, Vader, who is even called Lord.
During his apprenticeship, which is amazingly brief, Luke is old to "trust his feelings", and that his eyes will deceive him. He is not told to think, he's told to feel. The Force is pure mysticism, with no disguise whatsoever, except that it's stripped of any divine personality, and refered to as a kind of impartial energy, which can be tapped into and exploited either for good or for evil. Han Solo has what amounts to the only lines which come from the voice of reason, but the film works so well that we actually convince ourselves that his lack of faith is a grievous character flaw. In the scene at the end where Luke fires the shot that destroys the Death Star, it isn't his skill as a pilot or as a marksman that wins the day: it's his faith, his gut, his destiny-guided intuition. It's not his brain that deals the death-blow to evil, but his feelings.
Maybe this is where Lucas's true genius lies. That he could create such a moving piece of work with such obvious conflicts going on, that perhaps the conflict of reason versus faith is part and parcel of the conflict of good versus evil, or maybe they are one and the same, which is an unsettling prospect. Or maybe the message is simple: that as we progress technologically we tend to lose sight of the old virtues and values, and that our only saving grace will be whether or not we can get a firm grasp on them again, before we blow ourselves into stardust.
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