If you haven't seen Star Wars Episode 7 yet, you don't care enough about Star Wars to care about spoilers. But I'll give you a SPOILER ALERT anyway. I am going to talk for this entire post about the major Star Wars character who dies in Episode 7, and about what his death means to the series, and how this death relates to how fiction works in general.
Stop reading now if you don't want to know.
But before I talk about the character who died, I'd like to talk about the deaths of some other Star Wars characters.
Let's start with the very first Star Wars movie, Episode 4: A New Hope, which was originally released merely as Star Wars. Back then, the whole Star Wars Universe was fresh and new, and we didn't even know who Luke's father was. Luke meets his mentor, Ben Kenobi, early in the movie, has a small adventure with him in Mos Eisley, and receives training from him as a Jedi for a brief time aboard the Millennium Falcon. Once they are aboard the Death Star, Ben goes off to deactivate the tractor beam, telling Luke that "the Force will be with you, always." Luke doesn't see Ben Kenobi again until they are about to escape from the battle station, when he witnesses Ben being cut down by Darth Vader. Luke gets a one line, a brief moment of sorrow, to say, "I can't believe he's gone..." before he is drawn into a battle with TIE fighters and is happy to be blasting Imperials to oblivion.
We know Ben Kenobi during that first movie for only a very short time. Luke probably knows him for only a few hours, maybe a couple of days. It is a tribute to Alec Guinness's Oscar-nominated performance that Obi Wan makes such a large impression. We are sorry to see him go, but it seems almost inevitable in a mythic archetypal kind of way. And almost immediately after he is cut down and vanishes, Luke (and we in the audience) hear his voice yelling "Run, Luke, run!" Ben's death is not just the death of a character that we, and Luke, have known only briefly. Ben's death is an object lesson in the power of the Force: the Force can make you powerful, even in death. It can make you transcend death. As deaths go, it is about as hopeful as they get.
By the time we reach Episode 6: Return of the Jedi, we deal with the death of Yoda, and then of Darth Vader. In the context of the movie, Yoda's death is muted by the fact that we already knew he was eight or nine hundred years old. It also seems logical that Luke should eventually lose all his mentors before going to face his ultimate test alone. Yoda's death is muted also because within moments after Yoda's passing, the spirit of Ben Kenobi appears and has a long conversation with Luke, almost as if he'd never left. He begins the conversation by saying, "Yoda will always be with you." In fact, one wonders, why doesn't Yoda's spirit show up for a chat with the two of them outside his own hut moments after his own death? After all, Ben manages to tell Luke to run only seconds after Vader cuts him down.
Of course, Vader too dies by the end of Return of the Jedi. Remember that I am looking at these as a viewing experience from when the movies were originally released. Vader, up until this moment, has been a man encased in a robot mask. Only here at the end of his life do we see his human face. I feel sadness here, but more for Luke, loosing the father he never had, than for Anakin.
And, of course, by the end of the movie, Ben, Yoda, and Anakin are all seen as Force-ghosts. Death, where is thy sting?
Qui Gon Jinn in the "Obi Wan" of Episode I: we know him only a short time, and then he's gone. Yet we don't have a character quite like Luke here to connect us to him, to identify with him as a mentor. So his death seems somehow less than a tragedy, even an inevitable archetypal event. He's the mentor. He has do die.
We go back in time for the prequels, and everyone we saw die is back again, but with a difference. Obi Wan Kenobi is back, but played by a different actor, Ewan McGregor. We know how Obi Wan will someday die. He even jokes to Anakin, "Why do feel you're going to be the death of me?" in a knowing wink ahead to Episode 4. Yoda is back, badly-puppeted in Episode 1 and then well-CGIed in Episodes 2 and 3. We know how he'll die someday, too.
Anakin of course, is problematic. It takes a mighty act of imagination to take the childhood Anakin, poorly written and directed, and tie him to the young adult Anakin, who was an improvement, but still not great, and tie that Anakin to Darth Vader. Episode 3 is the best of the prequels, and ultimately, I think the transformation from Anakin to Vader becomes convincing in there. It just should have been more convincing all the way through.
What I do find interesting, and even moving, in Episode 3 is how we see Obi Wan, Yoda, and Vader becoming the characters we already know and have already see die in the original trilogy. Obi Wan's speech to Anakin as he lies destroyed at the edge of the volcanic pit gives resonance to Obi Wan's character later in Episode 4. Yoda's duel with the Emperor and realization that he must go into exile gives his character a kind of manic sadness. Yes, Yoda is wise and a skills warrior, but he is also a failure. And despite all the flaws working against the prequels, I still find it moving that Anakin ultimately became Vader for love of his wife, which adds meaning to the fact that by Episode 6, he becomes Anakin once again out of love for his son.
But now comes Episode 7. Hopefully you've stopped reading if you don't know.
Han Solo dies. And Han's death is different than any previous death in the Star Wars saga.
For starters, we know Han in a different way than we have known other Star Wars characters who have died. We met him when he was young, the romantic lead of the original trilogy. His carbon-freezing and capture formed the cliff-hanger of Episode 5, and his rescue the was the entire first act of Episode 6. His character development, from completely selfish smuggler to selfless rebel and friend, is almost as striking as Ebeneezer Scrooge's transformation from miser to philanthropist. And the last time we see him, he is happy, having vanquished the Empire, won the princess, and gotten his beloved Millennium Falcon back. We have spent three whole movies with him. We saw him get a happy ending. We've had over 30 years to live with our memories and repeated viewings to get used to that story as Han's story.
By time we get to Episode 7, he is the Obi Wan of the movie. He has moved from Force skeptic to Force believer. He is still reckless, yet somehow, he is also the mentor. Yet he is nothing like Obi Wan to us. He isn't a character we've just met. We have history with Han Solo.
By the time we see Han die, it isn't just another character we're losing. It's an old friend.
But it isn't just the fact that Han dies. It's that Han's death is more disturbing than any previous Star Wars death. Because Han Solo dies at the hands of his own son, a son he is trying to help. The way someone dies, in both real life and in fiction, can sometimes seem like a beautiful reflection on a life well lived, but it can also cast a shadow backwards over the person's life and make you view it differently. Han Solo's ultimate fate is to be killed by his own son. It puts a different spin on everything that comes before and leads up to it. You can't quite see Han the same way again when you see him meeting Luke at the Mos Eiseley Cantina or Leia on the Death Star. They are meetings that eventually lead to his death. Seeing how he dies changes our perception of how he lived.
And Han's death is not follow up by a "Run, Rey, run!" or a Force-ghost appearance. Han is not a Jedi, and so far as we know, he is just swallowed up into the Force again. Han's death is not an object lesson in hopefulness. It is just... death.
The usually not-much acknowledged dark side of the Star Wars Saga is that it is a very dark tale of family relationships. Anakin becomes abusive toward his wife Padme. As Vader, he unknowingly tortures his own daughter Leia and knowingly duels his own son, amputating his arm in the process. Luke comes very close to killing his own father, and in the end contributes to his death even though he stops short of finishing the job. The Skywalker clan is a very dysfunctional bunch. Han's death scene is a logical extension of that dysfunction, yet with some important differences. Yes, Vader harms his wife and his children, but Vader is a distant figure, remote from his children for most of their lives, not even aware they exist. He is encased in armor and masked. He does indeed seem "more machine than human."
But the scene with Han is different from previous death scenes. Here we have a son killing his defenseless father, who has come to save him from himself. And Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, takes his mask off. He and his father know each other. There are no hidden identities here. And his confrontation with Han is not combat. Han wouldn't stand a chance. This is not an epic scene like the previous light saber battles. This is almost a scene from a small, realistic domestic drama. Come home, son. We can get you help. But in the end, the father's plea doesn't work, Han is stabbed to death by his own son and pitched off the bridge they are standing on into a seemingly bottomless abyss.
The scene echoes Luke attempting to save Vader, trying to turn him back to the light. We have seen that event so often, it seems inevitable. It doesn't seem risky - of course Vader will turn back to the light! It seems safe. But it is not. Here we see the risk, and the consequences, of trying to rescue someone from their own evil. Luke rescues Vader, but Han pays the price for underestimating his son's evil.
The original trilogy was seen as an allegory of the Cold War by some, and as a parable of the Vietnam War by others. The prequel trilogy's politics seemed to be a commentary on post-9/11 America, with its willingness to give up civil liberties for a safe, secure society. We're only one movie in, but it seems to me the zeitgeist being tapped into in this third trilogy is the idea that our secure democracy is being threatened by radical terrorists from the outside, but also by young people in our own country who get lured into radical ways and turn against their own country. The original trilogy was the triumph of youth (Luke and Leia) over the authoritarian dictates of the older generation (Vader and the Emperor). This trilogy has a different vibe. It is less about an older generation's evil, than it is their failure to fulfull the promise of their youth. Luke, Han, and Leia have failed to create a stable New Republic. And for the new generation of characters, it is about choosing which side of the struggle between order and freedom to be on. Kylo Ren is the threat of radicalized Western youth who have been recruited by ISIS.
Or, having just watched Diane Sawyer's interview with the mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold, is Kylo Ren like an angsty high school shooter who has risen to a position of power? We know what turned Anakin to the darkside, and what tempted Luke: love. We don't know what turned Ben Solo to the dark side. Having just read Simon Wiesenthal's Holocaust memoir The Sunflower with my 8th graders, I realize that sometimes people become murderers and turn against their parents just to fit in with a group. Karl, the Nazi who begs forgiveness in The Sunflower, doesn't turn to the dark side in a misplaced attempt to love someone. He simply joins the Hitler Youth and later the SS because it seems like the thing to do. Does Kylo Ren represent "the banality of evil," as Hannah Arendt put it?
From a character perspective, Han's death seems inevitable in some ways. As I'd mentioned above, we go on a journey with Han. By the end of Episode 6, he is willing to risk giving up his beloved ship, and even to give up Leia if she'd prefer Luke. Here in Episode 7 he is willing to put himself in a position of complete vulnerability to save his son. He tells his son he'll do anything to help him. His risk doesn't pay off. He becomes a pawn in his son's need to prove his allegiance to the Dark Side. In some ways the way Han dies alters the way we see his character all along. In some ways, it is the fulfillment of who his character has been changing into all along.
Star Wars is part of the Disney "family," As an adult visiting Walt Disney World (we live about an hour north of the parks), I have come to realize that one of the weirdest things about Disney's brand of fiction is this: their most popular stories seem to be their fairy tales, yet fairy tales all seem to have taken place a long time ago. All those princess must have lived happily ever after... and then died. Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Rapunzel... they must all be dead. Yet here they are, ready to hug you, pose for a photo op, and sign your autograph book. Now you can do the same with the Star Wars characters. We went to Disney's Hollywood Studios recently and saw the line to meet Chewbacca and Kylo Ren. Star Wars happens "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," which is really just George Lucas's way of saying, "Once upon a time." Surely the Star Wars characters are long dead, just the way the fairy tale characters are? Yet here they are, alive and well in Disney World.
On the motion simulator ride Star Tours you are now given several mix-and-match scenarios to fly through. One moment you are meeting Darth Vader, the next moment you are on Jakku thirty years after his death, and a few moments after that you are on Naboo, apparently before Anakin became Darth Vader.
But in some ways, isn't that a slippery way of dealing with time similar to how we perceive all fictional characters? The story may be set in prehistoric times, during the reign of Henry VIII, or back in the 1930's, yet we still care about the characters. We know that, in real world terms, they have been dead for years or centuries, yet they seem alive to us. Atticus Finch is surely "dead," yet many of us didn't want to see our memories of him revised in Go Set a Watchman. And even literary characters who die seem to transcend their deaths. We know that Robin Hood, Hamlet, Captain Ahab, and Gatsby die (sorry if you didn't know about those deaths!), yet the characters still live on for us. They aren't in theme parks taking pictures with you, but we think about them as somehow eternally living, despite their inevitable deaths.
Of course, Star Wars came into being in the age of merchandising, so the characters live on in the literary sense, but also in the marketing sense. Darth Vader lives on in products. We know his character died. But he is on stage at the Jedi Academy show at Disney World. He stars in a series of T-shirts in which he rides Disney attractions and eats Mickey Mouse ice cream bars. Kylo Ren may die by the end of Episode 9, that won't stop them from putting him on packages of Go-Gurt.
And Han Solo is already living on. The newest T-shirt he stars on is a picture of Han and Chewie on the Falcon in Episode 7, framed by the quote, "Chewie, we're home." Taken in the context of the movie, knowing what will happen to Han later on, that shirt seems less like cute merchandising and more... heartbreaking.
Just after the movie came out, I read a lengthy Time magazine article about Episode 7, and J.J. Abrams and others were talking about how the Star Wars movies were about hope. I'm not sure I agree. I stopped reading the Expanded Universe books after a while, because I got tired of seeing Luke, Leia, and Han suffer. They went through so much. I just wanted them to retire quietly on some pleasant planet and get some well-deserved rest. This may explain why I enjoyed Episode 7 on the one hand, yet found it strangely depressing on the other. Han dies, and his death is different from any other Star Wars death, casting a shadow backwards over the original trilogy, yes. But to keep the story going, the evil must continue, or be reborn. Gerry Canavan, in an excellent piece in that ran on Salon, "Tolkien, The Force Awakens, and the Sadness of Expanded Universes" talks about this phenomenon. Having a new Star Wars movie is great, but not so much for the characters. It means that the evil is never really conquered, that our heroes, unlike the Disney princess who wave and sign autographs in the parks, never get to live happily ever after, no matter how hard they partied with the Ewoks at the end of Episode 6.
On the one hand, that's depressing. On the other hand, that's life. I have often related to Luke Skywalker because we both had less than ideal fathers. Like Luke, I made some kind of piece with my father before he died. Like Luke, I thought the family of my childhood had reached a kind of happy ending. Recent events in my family, which I don't need to go into here, have proved otherwise.The saga, the conflict, continues.
I have been fighting against the evil empire of education reform for many years now, and each time I think I've made progress, the standardization rears its ugly head again.
But each time it does, I keep fighting. Maybe Star Wars really is about hope. Maybe we need to know that no matter how many times, in how many ways, hardship and evil return, we need to keep on fighting for the light.
Han Solo did. Right to the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment