"So What I Told You Was True . . . From a Certain Point of View"--A Theological Reflection on The Last Jedi
[Warning. There is no way to talk about what I want to talk about in this post without getting deep into story beats and specific elements from The Last Jedi. So, this post will be one big spoiler for the movie. Since the movie has only recently come out, if you have not seen it and want to be surprised, stop reading now.]
I saw the new Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, on opening night on Friday. For an overall grade, I would give it an "A -." There were elements that simply did not work, suggesting (strangely, given that this was such a massive, big budget film) that the script could have used one more editing pass. Still, it was great fun, with some excellent performances--especially Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), who are excellent together.
Reviews of the film have been very polarized. On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, professional reviews were almost uniformly positive, while the fan review score is middling. And, if you drill down on the fan reviews, you will find a great many extremely low scores, balanced out by viewpoints similar to those of the professional critics. The negative fan reviews have a number of themes, but the one I want to talk about is the idea that this film "abandons" the canon of the previous films and/or does violence to the character of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). As a descriptive matter, these critiques are fair, in that The Last Jedi recontextualizes the nature of the Jedi in a fairly radical way. On the other hand, I think this recontextualization is the most interesting part of the movie--it makes the concept of the Jedi much more interesting, and it allows you to go back and look at elements from the previous films in a new and more interesting light. In doing so, The Last Jedi raises some interesting theological questions, as the issues it raises about "Jedi theology" are applicable to real-world theological traditions.
In A New Hope, Grand Moff Tarkin makes a throw-away comment to Darth Vader about how Vader was the last member of the "ancient religion" of the Jedi. On its face, everything about the Jedi seems to suggest that the Jedi are believers in a religion--there are a set of concepts about the nature of reality ("The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."--Obi Wan Kenobi, A New Hope) and there are a set of ethical principles that flow from those beliefs about the nature of reality. As the films go on, however, the ethos of the Jedi are presented less and less as religious beliefs and more and more as simply facts about the nature of the fictional world that they inhabit. This culminates in some respects in The Phantom Menace, where we are told that the ability to manipulate the Force is tied to the number of "midichlorians" in one's blood stream. The Force and the Jedi's beliefs about the Force are thus presented not as religion and mysticism, but as science.
The Last Jedi firmly and affirmatively pulls the Jedi back to being a religion, and the Force to being a mystical and theological concept. The mysterious hiding place of Luke Skywalker that is the central element of The Force Awakens is actually the location of the original Jedi temple and the repository of the original lore texts of the Jedi. During his years of exile, Luke has come to the conclusion that the core theological premises of the Jedi--premises that were presented to us in the original trilogy and especially in the prequel trilogy as simply facts about the universe--are basically wrong. It is unclear from the movie to what extent Luke has come to this view as a result of consulting the Jedi version of the Dead Sea Scrolls (especially since he has a conversation with Yoda where he admits he didn't read all of the books). But it is certainly the case that this theological shift is in large measure a result of Luke's conclusion that the fruits of "orthodox" Jedi theology have been poisonous. More specifically, Luke points to two test cases--the failure of the Jedi to stop the rise of Palpatine "at a time when the Jedi were at the height of their powers" (i.e., the story of the prequel trilogy), and his own murderous over-reaction to the burgeoning powers of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.
As part of this reformation, Luke comes to question the dualist theology at the heart of the Jedi religion. In "orthodox" Jedi theology, the Dark Side of the Force is a kind of existential evil, one that must be shunned entirely. But, as Luke points out during Rey's first training session, the Jedi viewed the Light Side of the Force as something that they could control and tap with impunity, whereas Luke comes to see it as beyond anyone's control. Moreover, the fear of the Dark Side drives the Jedi to absolutist, even irrational, stances and postures, symbolized best I think by Luke's freak-out when he felt the Dark Side in Ben Solo. Luke, steeped in Jedi lore via Obi Wan and Yoda, can't overcome his existential terror at the Dark Side; Rey, lacking those pre-loaded ideas, is able to go into the scary sea cave associated with the Dark Side and come out of it with self-knowledge. In a way, I think the movie takes the position that the "true nature" of the Force (to the extent there is an identifiable "true nature") is far more like Taoism, with it necessary balance of Light and Dark, than the Manicheanism of orthodox Jedi theology.
Now, many have complained that this move requires a complete reinterpretation of Luke's character. I don't think so, for reasons I will get into below, but it does require a reinterpretation of a different major character--Obi Wan Kenobi. From the point of view expressed in The Last Jedi, Obi Wan becomes, in essence, a Jedi fundamentalist. Moreso than any other character, Obi Wan never questions the basic theological principles of othodox Jedi-ism throughout the films. He's willing to lie to Luke about the nature of Anakin/Vader, apparently for the purpose of encouraging Luke to kill him as opposed to talking to him (and then dissembles about the lie in Return of the Jedi in the form of the quote in the title of this post). He never questions the decisions of the Jedi council in the prequels, even when those decisions seem obviously bad or destructive. He is steadfastly convinced that, once you turn to the Dark Side in any way, you are lost forever. Indeed, Obi Wan's line to Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith that "only the Sith deal in absolutes," can be seen as pure projection--no one deals in absolutes more thoroughly or completely than Obi Wan.
By contrast, both of the Skywalkers consistently displayed a more nuanced understanding of things. One of the things that becomes interesting in retrospect from the prequel movies is the notion that Anakin Skywalker is fated to "bring balance to the Force." This is talked about by Jedi characters during the prequels, but they don't appear to have any sense of what that might mean. If Luke is right and the Jedi have become too dualist and too exploitative of the Light Side of the Force, then Anakin's turn to the Dark Side might be precisely the act that brings balance to the Force--too much Light Side, as embodied in the orthodox Jedi Order seen in the prequels, is just as destructive to the Force as domination by Palpatine and the Sith. As we know, Anakin/Darth Vader was never 100% on the Dark Side (again, contrary to Obi Wan's analysis). And Luke understood this throughout Return of the Jedi, which was why he was willing to go to confront him. If Luke had believed Obi Wan's uncompromising Manicheanism about the Light and Dark Sides, then he never would have believed that Vader was redeemable.
Moreover, there are many legitimate reasons to question the wisdom of orthodox Jedi-ism, especially in the prequels. Prior to The Last Jedi, I was of the view that Revenge of the Sith was a handful of story beat changes and one more editing pass away from doing the impossible--providing a convincing rationale for Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. When I first saw Revenge of Sith, up to the moment that Anakin actually turns, I was thinking to myself "you know, if I were Anakin, I think I might turn on the Jedi as well." [if you are interested in my fan-fiction of how I would change Revenge of the Sith, see the end of this post]. The Jedi as portrayed in the prequel movies are arrogant, self-absorbed, easily swayed into a purposeless, imperialistic war, and in the end do seek to overthrow the legitimate government of the Republic in the name of their religious principles. As embodied by Obi Wan, they are so sure of their own correctness and so fixed into a dualist paradigm that Palpatine is able to drive them right off the cliff. The point is that Luke's diagnosis of the Jedi and their theology in The Last Jedi is, to me, completely correct.
So, where does this leave us in The Last Jedi? It leaves us with two heirs to the Skywalker legacy, Rey and Kylo Ren, both of them a mixture of Light and Dark. But, this admixture does not determine their destiny, as the two characters make radically different choices. Kylo Ren kills his master Snoke and continues his quest for galactic dominance, not because he somehow must do so as result of the influence of the Dark Side, but because that's what he chooses to do with his abilities. Rey, by contrast, equally freely chooses to support the Resistance. In freeing us from the rigid dualism of Light and Dark, The Last Jedi makes the Star Wars universe a much more morally serious and interesting place. No longer can evil actions be explained away as the unavoidable compulsion of an evil spirit, and no more can morally questionable actions be cloaked with appeals to the Light.
Another interesting, related, theological thread has to do with tradition and the role of tradition in a religious context. There is a scene toward the end where Luke decides to burn down the weird tree that houses the Jedi Dead Sea Scrolls. Before he can do that, Yoda appears, the tree is struck by lightning and burns on its own (and, I think we are being led to believe, Yoda caused the lightning to destroy the tree). The conversation between the two is fascinating--Yoda says something along the lines of "the job of the master is to be an impediment for the student to overcome." This is interesting because it seems like Yoda has evolved in his perspective, as he was right there with the other Jedi in the prequels, secure in their own correctness. Yoda as of The Last Jedi seems to view the tradition of the Jedi (and, by extension, other religious traditions) as something you go through in order to ultimately move beyond.
Now, some of that is a head-fake, as we learn at the end that Rey took the Jedi Dead Sea Scrolls with her on the Millennium Falcon before the tree burned, so that tradition is not actually gone. But the broader point still remains--whatever Rey is at the end of The Last Jedi and whatever she is going to do with those texts, it is going to be different from both what the Jedi did and what Luke would do/did with those texts. The image I kept coming back to as I turned that scene over in my mind (and it was my favorite scene in the movie) is that of a ladder. To get a high place, we need the ladder. But the ultimate purpose of a ladder is to make it so that we can get above the ladder and on to the high place. We need the ladder, but we are not supposed to stay on the ladder. Staying on the ladder in the name of fidelity to the ladder is actually a perversion of the purpose of the ladder in the first place. Ladders don't exist for their own sake.
This "tradition as ladder" metaphor clarified for me something I have personally been struggling with in the last two years of my life. I was raised in a faith that viewed tradition as Tradition, and as True. I don't believe that anymore, or at least not in the same way, but I am struggling to see what role tradition is supposed to play, especially when I love the tradition and feel it is an enormous resource for us in our time. The central theological question I have been wrestling with for the last few years is how can you honor the tradition without becoming a prisoner of that same tradition. Seeing the tradition as a ladder--something absolutely essential and yet ultimately something in which we move beyond--is really helpful. Wise Master Yoda might as well have been talking to me directly in that scene.
If there is a central theological point of view in The Last Jedi, it might be that using tradition as a ladder leads to spiritual growth, while holding on to it as a carrier of Truth leads to fundamentalism and blindness. That's a surprisingly nuanced and deep message for what is ultimately a massive popcorn franchise.
Post-Script
Revenge of the Sith falls apart in the scene immediately after Palpatine kills Mace Windu. In the actual film, Palpatine turns to Anakin and says, "so, want to be my apprentice?" and Anakin, for no coherent reason, is basically "sure, whatever you say," to the point of going off and slaughtering a bunch of Jedi kids.
A much better way to go would be to have Anakin respond to Palpatine by saying, "no way. I'm not about the Jedi, and I am not about the Sith. We are business partners. I'll help you defeat the Jedi, and in return you will teach me how to save Padme." Palpatine, thinking that he could exploit this to his advantage ultimately, would go along with it. Anakin could then be sent to Mustafar and his fateful conflict with Kenobi. This would make Anakin's speech to Kenobi and Padme on Mustafar make much more sense (as he would have been planning to get rid of Palpatine as soon as he learned what he needed to know), and would set up Anakin's final capitulation to Palpatine occur after he was injured and in the suit. As for the younglings, Palpatine could have killed them off screen, maybe with the help of access codes provided by Anakin or something--the whole younglings thing was gratuitous anyway.
The point is that by the time we get to the confrontation between Windu and Palpatine, Anakin could very reasonably have come to the conclusion "a pox on both their houses, but at least Palpatine is offering me something I want, so I'll side with him for now." All of the interesting development in Revenge of the Sith is thrown away the moment Anakin agrees to join self-consciously Team Evil for no reason.
I saw the new Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, on opening night on Friday. For an overall grade, I would give it an "A -." There were elements that simply did not work, suggesting (strangely, given that this was such a massive, big budget film) that the script could have used one more editing pass. Still, it was great fun, with some excellent performances--especially Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), who are excellent together.
Reviews of the film have been very polarized. On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, professional reviews were almost uniformly positive, while the fan review score is middling. And, if you drill down on the fan reviews, you will find a great many extremely low scores, balanced out by viewpoints similar to those of the professional critics. The negative fan reviews have a number of themes, but the one I want to talk about is the idea that this film "abandons" the canon of the previous films and/or does violence to the character of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). As a descriptive matter, these critiques are fair, in that The Last Jedi recontextualizes the nature of the Jedi in a fairly radical way. On the other hand, I think this recontextualization is the most interesting part of the movie--it makes the concept of the Jedi much more interesting, and it allows you to go back and look at elements from the previous films in a new and more interesting light. In doing so, The Last Jedi raises some interesting theological questions, as the issues it raises about "Jedi theology" are applicable to real-world theological traditions.
In A New Hope, Grand Moff Tarkin makes a throw-away comment to Darth Vader about how Vader was the last member of the "ancient religion" of the Jedi. On its face, everything about the Jedi seems to suggest that the Jedi are believers in a religion--there are a set of concepts about the nature of reality ("The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."--Obi Wan Kenobi, A New Hope) and there are a set of ethical principles that flow from those beliefs about the nature of reality. As the films go on, however, the ethos of the Jedi are presented less and less as religious beliefs and more and more as simply facts about the nature of the fictional world that they inhabit. This culminates in some respects in The Phantom Menace, where we are told that the ability to manipulate the Force is tied to the number of "midichlorians" in one's blood stream. The Force and the Jedi's beliefs about the Force are thus presented not as religion and mysticism, but as science.
The Last Jedi firmly and affirmatively pulls the Jedi back to being a religion, and the Force to being a mystical and theological concept. The mysterious hiding place of Luke Skywalker that is the central element of The Force Awakens is actually the location of the original Jedi temple and the repository of the original lore texts of the Jedi. During his years of exile, Luke has come to the conclusion that the core theological premises of the Jedi--premises that were presented to us in the original trilogy and especially in the prequel trilogy as simply facts about the universe--are basically wrong. It is unclear from the movie to what extent Luke has come to this view as a result of consulting the Jedi version of the Dead Sea Scrolls (especially since he has a conversation with Yoda where he admits he didn't read all of the books). But it is certainly the case that this theological shift is in large measure a result of Luke's conclusion that the fruits of "orthodox" Jedi theology have been poisonous. More specifically, Luke points to two test cases--the failure of the Jedi to stop the rise of Palpatine "at a time when the Jedi were at the height of their powers" (i.e., the story of the prequel trilogy), and his own murderous over-reaction to the burgeoning powers of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.
As part of this reformation, Luke comes to question the dualist theology at the heart of the Jedi religion. In "orthodox" Jedi theology, the Dark Side of the Force is a kind of existential evil, one that must be shunned entirely. But, as Luke points out during Rey's first training session, the Jedi viewed the Light Side of the Force as something that they could control and tap with impunity, whereas Luke comes to see it as beyond anyone's control. Moreover, the fear of the Dark Side drives the Jedi to absolutist, even irrational, stances and postures, symbolized best I think by Luke's freak-out when he felt the Dark Side in Ben Solo. Luke, steeped in Jedi lore via Obi Wan and Yoda, can't overcome his existential terror at the Dark Side; Rey, lacking those pre-loaded ideas, is able to go into the scary sea cave associated with the Dark Side and come out of it with self-knowledge. In a way, I think the movie takes the position that the "true nature" of the Force (to the extent there is an identifiable "true nature") is far more like Taoism, with it necessary balance of Light and Dark, than the Manicheanism of orthodox Jedi theology.
Now, many have complained that this move requires a complete reinterpretation of Luke's character. I don't think so, for reasons I will get into below, but it does require a reinterpretation of a different major character--Obi Wan Kenobi. From the point of view expressed in The Last Jedi, Obi Wan becomes, in essence, a Jedi fundamentalist. Moreso than any other character, Obi Wan never questions the basic theological principles of othodox Jedi-ism throughout the films. He's willing to lie to Luke about the nature of Anakin/Vader, apparently for the purpose of encouraging Luke to kill him as opposed to talking to him (and then dissembles about the lie in Return of the Jedi in the form of the quote in the title of this post). He never questions the decisions of the Jedi council in the prequels, even when those decisions seem obviously bad or destructive. He is steadfastly convinced that, once you turn to the Dark Side in any way, you are lost forever. Indeed, Obi Wan's line to Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith that "only the Sith deal in absolutes," can be seen as pure projection--no one deals in absolutes more thoroughly or completely than Obi Wan.
By contrast, both of the Skywalkers consistently displayed a more nuanced understanding of things. One of the things that becomes interesting in retrospect from the prequel movies is the notion that Anakin Skywalker is fated to "bring balance to the Force." This is talked about by Jedi characters during the prequels, but they don't appear to have any sense of what that might mean. If Luke is right and the Jedi have become too dualist and too exploitative of the Light Side of the Force, then Anakin's turn to the Dark Side might be precisely the act that brings balance to the Force--too much Light Side, as embodied in the orthodox Jedi Order seen in the prequels, is just as destructive to the Force as domination by Palpatine and the Sith. As we know, Anakin/Darth Vader was never 100% on the Dark Side (again, contrary to Obi Wan's analysis). And Luke understood this throughout Return of the Jedi, which was why he was willing to go to confront him. If Luke had believed Obi Wan's uncompromising Manicheanism about the Light and Dark Sides, then he never would have believed that Vader was redeemable.
Moreover, there are many legitimate reasons to question the wisdom of orthodox Jedi-ism, especially in the prequels. Prior to The Last Jedi, I was of the view that Revenge of the Sith was a handful of story beat changes and one more editing pass away from doing the impossible--providing a convincing rationale for Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. When I first saw Revenge of Sith, up to the moment that Anakin actually turns, I was thinking to myself "you know, if I were Anakin, I think I might turn on the Jedi as well." [if you are interested in my fan-fiction of how I would change Revenge of the Sith, see the end of this post]. The Jedi as portrayed in the prequel movies are arrogant, self-absorbed, easily swayed into a purposeless, imperialistic war, and in the end do seek to overthrow the legitimate government of the Republic in the name of their religious principles. As embodied by Obi Wan, they are so sure of their own correctness and so fixed into a dualist paradigm that Palpatine is able to drive them right off the cliff. The point is that Luke's diagnosis of the Jedi and their theology in The Last Jedi is, to me, completely correct.
So, where does this leave us in The Last Jedi? It leaves us with two heirs to the Skywalker legacy, Rey and Kylo Ren, both of them a mixture of Light and Dark. But, this admixture does not determine their destiny, as the two characters make radically different choices. Kylo Ren kills his master Snoke and continues his quest for galactic dominance, not because he somehow must do so as result of the influence of the Dark Side, but because that's what he chooses to do with his abilities. Rey, by contrast, equally freely chooses to support the Resistance. In freeing us from the rigid dualism of Light and Dark, The Last Jedi makes the Star Wars universe a much more morally serious and interesting place. No longer can evil actions be explained away as the unavoidable compulsion of an evil spirit, and no more can morally questionable actions be cloaked with appeals to the Light.
Another interesting, related, theological thread has to do with tradition and the role of tradition in a religious context. There is a scene toward the end where Luke decides to burn down the weird tree that houses the Jedi Dead Sea Scrolls. Before he can do that, Yoda appears, the tree is struck by lightning and burns on its own (and, I think we are being led to believe, Yoda caused the lightning to destroy the tree). The conversation between the two is fascinating--Yoda says something along the lines of "the job of the master is to be an impediment for the student to overcome." This is interesting because it seems like Yoda has evolved in his perspective, as he was right there with the other Jedi in the prequels, secure in their own correctness. Yoda as of The Last Jedi seems to view the tradition of the Jedi (and, by extension, other religious traditions) as something you go through in order to ultimately move beyond.
Now, some of that is a head-fake, as we learn at the end that Rey took the Jedi Dead Sea Scrolls with her on the Millennium Falcon before the tree burned, so that tradition is not actually gone. But the broader point still remains--whatever Rey is at the end of The Last Jedi and whatever she is going to do with those texts, it is going to be different from both what the Jedi did and what Luke would do/did with those texts. The image I kept coming back to as I turned that scene over in my mind (and it was my favorite scene in the movie) is that of a ladder. To get a high place, we need the ladder. But the ultimate purpose of a ladder is to make it so that we can get above the ladder and on to the high place. We need the ladder, but we are not supposed to stay on the ladder. Staying on the ladder in the name of fidelity to the ladder is actually a perversion of the purpose of the ladder in the first place. Ladders don't exist for their own sake.
This "tradition as ladder" metaphor clarified for me something I have personally been struggling with in the last two years of my life. I was raised in a faith that viewed tradition as Tradition, and as True. I don't believe that anymore, or at least not in the same way, but I am struggling to see what role tradition is supposed to play, especially when I love the tradition and feel it is an enormous resource for us in our time. The central theological question I have been wrestling with for the last few years is how can you honor the tradition without becoming a prisoner of that same tradition. Seeing the tradition as a ladder--something absolutely essential and yet ultimately something in which we move beyond--is really helpful. Wise Master Yoda might as well have been talking to me directly in that scene.
If there is a central theological point of view in The Last Jedi, it might be that using tradition as a ladder leads to spiritual growth, while holding on to it as a carrier of Truth leads to fundamentalism and blindness. That's a surprisingly nuanced and deep message for what is ultimately a massive popcorn franchise.
Post-Script
Revenge of the Sith falls apart in the scene immediately after Palpatine kills Mace Windu. In the actual film, Palpatine turns to Anakin and says, "so, want to be my apprentice?" and Anakin, for no coherent reason, is basically "sure, whatever you say," to the point of going off and slaughtering a bunch of Jedi kids.
A much better way to go would be to have Anakin respond to Palpatine by saying, "no way. I'm not about the Jedi, and I am not about the Sith. We are business partners. I'll help you defeat the Jedi, and in return you will teach me how to save Padme." Palpatine, thinking that he could exploit this to his advantage ultimately, would go along with it. Anakin could then be sent to Mustafar and his fateful conflict with Kenobi. This would make Anakin's speech to Kenobi and Padme on Mustafar make much more sense (as he would have been planning to get rid of Palpatine as soon as he learned what he needed to know), and would set up Anakin's final capitulation to Palpatine occur after he was injured and in the suit. As for the younglings, Palpatine could have killed them off screen, maybe with the help of access codes provided by Anakin or something--the whole younglings thing was gratuitous anyway.
The point is that by the time we get to the confrontation between Windu and Palpatine, Anakin could very reasonably have come to the conclusion "a pox on both their houses, but at least Palpatine is offering me something I want, so I'll side with him for now." All of the interesting development in Revenge of the Sith is thrown away the moment Anakin agrees to join self-consciously Team Evil for no reason.
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