nevernerdenoughblog:

rosemoonweaver:

If I had more time and energy, I’d write meta about Star Wars, but I never seem to have the time, energy, or really the audience for it.

A thought that’s been on my mind recently is the metanarrative of Star Wars and how we’ve gotten so damn cynical. TLJ kind of seems to feed into this a bit (on the surface it rejects legacy, rejects the whole plot of Poe being a Hot Shot With A Plan So Crazy It Just Might Work, and Ben’s whole everything) but it really doesn’t. TLJ rejects the idea that legacy is the only thing that matters, even pointing out through Luke that sometimes it can go to your head and cloud your judgement, but ends with Han’s dice as, in my opinion, a reminder that what parts of family (Or cultural or w/e) heritage you uphold are up to you. Poe’s story is a warning against arrogance. Ben himself is a call back to every important character in the saga and when he’s not leaning on the fourth wall he’s kind of a symbol for all of this – his darkness and his fate is the symbolic darkness and fate of everyone who came before.

But all that aside, the historical context these stories are present in puts an odd weight on the story. The conversations around the story shapes the interpretations of the story and these characters in a very strange way that’s both disheartening and fascinating.

Omg, I got the most amazing answer!

I believe that by the end of IX what we’ll get will be a “redemption of legacy”, which is why the second film appears so cynical. It’s a fatal flaw to rely too heavily on a legacy but to “kill the past” is equally as flawed. A reconciliation of past and future is where we are heading imo.

I feel you completely in what you say, the historical context in which the ST takes place is heavily loaded in that regard, so the movies end up being under an odd light to say the least. But SW has always been its own thing. I think that Lucas was a man “outside” of his time in the way he chose to tell his story, as a myth, and I believe the new direction of LF stuck to the core of what SW always was.

Once again, I LOVEEEED your answer (and I consider it to be a meta).

Thank you! And now that I’m not just kinda wildly posting and hoping it sticks, I’ll expand a little lol. 

I absolutely agree. The universe is trying to set up a compromise between honoring the past and letting go of the things you don’t need/the things that hold you back. Doing both is necessary in order to move forward both individually and as a society. We have to learn from the past, to understand our mistakes, and to let go of the guilt, shame, and fear that those mistakes cause us if we ever want to move forward. This is exactly what Luke learned in TLJ and what he is attempting to pass on to both Rey and Ben. The movie seems cynical on the surface, what with the whole “it’s time for the Jedi to end” “let the past die; kill it if you have to” kind of talk but that argument doesn’t stick where it counts. By the end of the film Luke has gone from “it’s time for the Jedi to end” to “I will not be the last Jedi” because he’s finally understood that failure is an important stepping stone instead of a dead weight. 

And honestly, the reconciliation of the past and future is needed. Vader’s shadow is heavy over the whole trilogy because the man and monster were never reconciled. Anakin kind of got an easy out by dying, honestly. Everyone else had to come up with a way to make sense of the fact that the galaxy’s favorite soldier was also it’s greatest terror and ultimately they couldn’t do that. That’s really the whole reason we have a conflict right now. In a way, Anakin’s redemption isn’t complete. His legacy needs to be one that affirms, not damns, or else what had he done but left ashes in his wake? And that’s the point, imo. 

As to the metanarrative, it’s so interesting because Star War is a myth. It exists in a timeless way where the core themes and ideals of the story can be used to teach and advise even out of their original context. But that’s not to say Star Wars isn’t political. It absolutely is and always has been. Lucas himself admits that the OT was his own version of protest against the Vietnam War and the Emperor is both Nixon and Dick Chaney depending on what trilogy you’re watching. So while I do believe the ST is political, I don’t think t’s political in the sense that what we’re seeing on screen is supposed to match what we’re seeing IRL. If memory serves, The Force Awakens was written in 2013 which was before *gestures to everything* this. Five years ago we had different concerns. Concerns like “what about war profiteering?” (Canto Bight) and “should we really be using drones to kill people super far away?” (Starkiller Base) and “are we really just paying for the short-sighted mistakes of our past because honestly a lot of this is hangover from older conflicts?” (the whole damn First Order). So yes, I think there is a political message in the ST but I don’t think it’s the thing Americans are currently dealing with. To me, it makes more sense as a reflection of the evils of the Military Industrial Complex and “It’s technically not an Empire” American Imperialism. 

I think a lot of what the story was trying to say got lost because people frankly jumped the gun and decided they knew what the trilogy was about before it even hit theaters. There’s an element I can trace all the way back to g@mer g@te of internet shitlords manufacturing outrage over Finn and Rey and no white men and blah blah blah “muh Star Wars” and there’s an element that reacted to that by embracing the idea that this trilogy was supposed to be a criticism of toxic masculinity and a celebratory dismantling of the patriarchy. And honestly? Both of those miss the point and do so badly. The films don’t say anything like that. The films are a lot more interested in the concept of  “how do we become what we were meant to be despite the trauma of the past” which ties in to both the character arcs of Finn, Rey, and Ben, and the political message as I see it.