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Jan. 8, 2018 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer
01:09:13
Unconscious Cinema - The Star Wars

Mark Brahmin and Richard Spencer discuss the metaphysics and meta politics of the Star Wars saga. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe

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Mark, welcome back.
Star Wars.
When did you first get into Star Wars?
Were you ever into Star Wars as a child?
Yeah, I was like any kid, certainly.
I think we all were.
I think there'd be something unusual about you if you were not into Star Wars.
Something wrong with you more.
Yeah, I mean...
You can be a tree worshiper or anything you want in America, but I think that everyone is a Star Wars fan on some level.
And I think it's because we all kind of came into the cult at a very young age, right?
Yeah.
But yeah, so I actually don't have a memory of seeing the first film specifically.
I remember seeing...
I think I remember seeing the second film, even in the theaters.
Because you're a couple years older than I am.
Yeah, yeah.
I was born in 1978, so I was born the year after the original Star Wars was released.
And I don't know when I first saw it in the theater.
I mean, it's all a blur.
But the funny thing is, and I do remember my first encounter with Star Wars, and that was not with the film.
Or with a comic or whatever.
It was actually with the toys.
And so my parents gave me Empire Strikes Back toys for Christmas.
You know, let's say 1981 or the Christmas of 1980 or whenever.
And so I loved them.
So I was playing with an Imperial Walker and I was playing with Han Solo and Luke and Leia and all of these guys, the figurines before I had even seen the film.
And I, in a way the film was conveyed to me or the essence of it was conveyed to me through these toys.
And I loved them and I kind of got it, you know, from the immediate, immediately just playing with these little kids toys.
I don't remember when I first saw it.
This was back in the day.
This was pre-VHS.
It was a time when there was a lot of reruns of movies.
So, you know, a big film would be re-released in theaters or there'd be like, you know, second, you know, play movie theaters that would do, you know, older films.
And so it was, we were able to see it.
So I don't quite know when I saw any of them.
I remember looking forward to...
The Return of the Jedi in 1983 and hearing about it and seeing posters.
And I think I even bought a book before the film came out so I could see photos of the film before I saw it.
I remember all these things.
But all of the films are just a blur to me.
They all, you know, when I was a kid.
And then this was the age of VHS, so we were able to look at it that way.
I'm sure there were Pirate VHS copies going around of someone recording an airing of the film on television.
I guess the irony is I wish I would have held on to all of this junk because I could have sold my Star Wars toys for millions on eBay.
And also, if I had a recording of one of those early VHS, maybe even bootleg VHS tapes.
I could be one of these people who has the original pre-Lucas fucking with his own artwork version of Star Wars.
But anyway, I loved it.
I remember I would freeze Han Solo in glasses of water, so I would put Han Solo into a glass of water and then put that in the freezer.
And my mother would always get mad at me because water expands when it freezes.
And so I would break all of these glasses.
So we'd be, you know, eating lunch or something, and then a glass would shatter in the freezer.
And then she'd be like, Richard, you're freezing Han Solo again.
Anyway, to put it mildly, it had a huge effect on me.
And it did form a little mythos in my mind.
I remember I would always watch the films, like, in the early 90s, you know, on, like, Christmas or something, I would watch.
I remember when I was in high school, this was when Lucas was, you know, basically, again, fucking with his own works of art.
We were impressed with the CGI at the time.
The CGI has not weathered the ages, to say the least.
It looks terrible now.
And many people rightly think he ruined these films.
At least the first New Hope in particular.
But yeah, that was great.
I kind of rediscovered them as a young adult.
I rediscovered them again, kind of looking back.
I remember my nephews were watching the prequels and watching those, and I remember hating them.
But as time goes by, I think my hatred of the prequels has lessened.
Perhaps the watching The Last Jedi has.
Made me appreciate the prequels, relatively speaking.
But anyway, I think my experience with all the Star Wars stuff is probably very typical for someone my age, and for a lot of younger people as well.
I know Hannibal Bateman has talked about very similar experiences.
Yeah, I think it is a pretty profound...
Cultural phenomena, Star Wars, and a unique one as well.
What I would say also, too, is that I think one of the things that I enjoyed about the films as a kid is the fact that they, the very simple fact that they had swords.
They had these lightsabers.
And I think that that all has always appealed to me, you know, especially as a young child or a, you know, adolescent was the idea of swords versus, you know, guns.
Right.
There's a.
There's always been more sense of heroism around swords and hand-to-hand combat.
And I think that that was one of the, you know, the fact that it was able to incorporate this kind of honorable old...
Manner of combat into a modern setting, I think, was one of the most appealing aspects of that sort of myth world that Lucas created.
An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
Yeah, I mean, those are the things that I was consciously aware of as a child, right?
I mean, obviously there are much deeper themes embedded in this mythos that we'll get into.
But, you know, from a kid's perspective, I remember being, yeah, you know, there's nothing more kickass than a lightsaber or a sword for that matter.
So, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, it is high fantasy.
I mean, that's the thing.
Star Wars is not science fiction.
Star Wars is high fantasy.
It is in a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
I mean, this is the famous open lines read.
And that is how to understand it.
Because actually, as science fiction, it doesn't even make sense.
In the sense of, like...
I mean, people joke about this.
The Death Star, you know, how does gravity work on that?
Why are people not in an orbital relationship with the center of gravity as opposed to being, you know, basically standing in a...
They're standing upright as if gravity is pulling them straight down with the Death Star.
That's not obviously how gravity works.
They'd have to be on the surface of the Death Star.
Why are they engaging in World War II-style battles with planes and runners and trenches?
It makes absolutely no sense from a science fiction perspective.
But it's not about science fiction.
And I think it is...
Obviously a reference to King Arthur.
There's some Tolkien thrown in there as well.
But I think there are also some more recent myths.
The Rebel Alliance, at least in the original trilogy, the Rebel Alliance are the allies of the Second World War.
And the empire is the British empire to a certain degree, with all the English accents and so on, but it is Nazi Germany.
And it mythified, for baby boomers, as George Lucas is, and then also for everyone who's in the wake of that world war, it offered a mythic restatement of recent history.
Yes.
No, I think that's true.
As far as reference to Arthurian mythology, I think it's pretty evident in the film.
In fact, Obi-Wan Kenobi is actually referred to as a wizard, which I had missed in whatever previous viewings of the film I had made.
So he's Merlin.
Yeah, he's Merlin.
Effectively, he's Merlin.
And, you know, he gives the sword to Arthur.
So it's very similar to, you know, Odin bequeathing the sword to Sigmund, who is Sigurd's father.
Or Merlin giving the sword to King Arthur, right?
Merlin is the one who places the sword.
Well, I guess maybe it might be Uther Pendragon.
It depends on the version.
But strikes the sword into the stone, right?
But either way, the origin of the sword...
But Merlin's always the midwife of Arthur.
He gives birth to King Arthur, from this boy to King Arthur, and kind of teaches him about his father and his family's power.
That's correct.
And actually, the sword passes through Merlin, through Uther, Pengarden, to Merlin, to Arthur.
Though it originates from Merlin.
Hmm.
So...
Yeah.
So, I mean, but those things are pretty evident.
I mean, it's funny how the sword is given in a very kind of, you know, unceremonial way, relatively, in the Star Wars trilogy.
I mean, he just kind of casually, you know, mentions that he has the Father Sword, right?
Though it only later takes on more, as he starts to learn about the Force, the sword only later takes on a greater meaning to...
Luke Skywalker.
But, you know, and also Luke Skywalker is clearly a kind of celestial figure, right?
His name, Skywalker, right?
So he is just kind of Apollonian.
He's a blonde, Nordic, Apollonian figure.
And in this way, actually, in film history, I mean, he's just somewhat unique in that regard.
I mean, if you look at Hollywood, I mean, he's this sort of...
Fair, blonde hero, right?
Similar to Siegert in that regard.
And, you know, the other thing I would say, he is a kind of Apollonian figure.
The name Luke also might, it might be a reference to, I think the etymology of the name is related to light bearing.
It's similar to Lucifer, right?
So light bearing.
Now, I assume that was deliberate.
Though it could have been a reference also to the biblical figure of Luke, which in my mind seems a little less likely.
It could have been a reference to George Lucas as well, or maybe an unconscious one.
Or a conscious one.
I mean, it actually could have been a reference to all three of those things, I don't think.
Yeah, so that's interesting, and then eventually, and I don't think it was ever, I don't know that it was ever intended that Leah would be the sister of Luke, but she then eventually becomes this kind of Artemis, you know, so it's Artemis and Apollo between Leah and Luke, right?
And it actually, in the most recent film, I mean, Leah does in some way become this kind of lunar goddess, like she...
She's thrown out of the aircraft, and she sort of survives this event somehow, because I guess she has the Force as well, right?
She's able to survive being cast out into space, so she becomes effectively Artemis or Diana.
She becomes a lunar goddess in some way, or a stellar goddess, right?
I think a lot of these things develop, so I don't know how much of this was intended by Lucas, because I think my understanding is that he made the first film and thought maybe it was going to be kind of a one-off, right?
So it might have been the case that he didn't, and it actually does seem to be the case, because as much as there are these sort of deliberate kind of mythic themes and sort of reference to mythic figures woven in He definitely did not map this out.
I think I listened to the first few hours of it on Audible.
It's something like the making of Star Wars.
They go through original drafts and so on.
There's this myth that George Lucas created for himself around the time of the prequels that, oh, I had all of this planned out.
I had maps.
I had earlier scripts.
That is absolutely not true.
I mean, he certainly built up a world and he suggested things, but there was no original intention for Darth Vader to be Luke's father.
There was no original intention for Leia to be...
Luke's sister.
In fact, the original intention was the opposite.
That was going to be the love interest.
And it was after Darth Vader became this icon that the prequels became the tragedy of Darth Vader.
He was originally a henchman-like figure, but there was just such a powerful aspect to Vader that he overwhelmed the series itself.
And it had to be about him, and he had to be connected to Luke's story.
And it just, it works.
I mean, it's one of those things that, it's just such a brilliant twist, you know, where you hear about the death of his father, but could you be a Jedi?
But oh, no, no, you don't have to understand.
Your father actually went to the dark side, and you're fighting your father.
I mean, it gets at these, you could say, Freudian themes of, you know, in a...
In a basic way, don't take that too far, but in a basic way of a young person rebelling and needing to overcome his father while in a way becoming his father at the same time through his rebellion.
And also this kind of redemptive quality to that as well.
But yeah, I mean, George Lucas, he kind of caught lightning in a bottle and was just flowing with it.
It's only in retrospect that he claimed that he had all this mapped out and this was a vision in his head.
The original Star Wars was not Episode 4. The original Star Wars was Star Wars.
And the original script of The Empire Strikes Back does not include Darth Vader as Luke's father.
And Leia was only made his sister by the point of Return of the Jedi.
So, again, it was this, you know...
None of this is really to be taken as a criticism of George Lucas.
I mean, it's the artist at work discovering the piece as it unfolds.
No, that's true.
I mean, the other thing I'll say, and I agree with everything you've said, but there were collaborators and co-writers introduced into the process of this trilogy.
And I think that in some cases they may have had a hand in directing You know, some of these...
So, in other words, the fact that, in retrospect, Luke and Leia emerge as kind of a sort of a Jungian repetition of, like, Artemis and Apollo, some of this may have also been directed by screenwriters who were looking to work in mythic themes into the film, right?
and including the theme of like the father, you know, him going against his father, like, you know, Jupiter opposing Saturn to use a very kind of basic, uh, comparison.
Right.
So, I think it's true.
I think he kind of muddled through this.
There's no question about it.
And I think that they were, throughout the process, though, I think that they were looking in a sort of kind of haphazard manner, introducing these kind of mythic themes into the body of this trilogy.
Consciously introducing them.
But like I said, it ends up being a little bit of a muddle, in my opinion.
But, I mean, that actually continues to this day.
I mean, there are still Arthurian references in the most recent films.
For example, the black hero, you know, the...
His name is Finn, right?
And this is a reference to an earlier Celtic precedent of King Arthur, a character named Finn McCool, right?
He was Arthur before Arthur, right?
But there's more meaning and intention to that name.
Off the top of my head, I'm not sure which screenwriters were involved, but Abrams was the director who introduced it.
Well, Lawrence Kasdan actually returned for The Force Awakens, and then Lawrence Kasdan wrote The Empire Strikes Back.
And I would not be surprised at all if Lawrence Kasdan, as a more worldly, sophisticated Jewish writer, added in, you know, or, you know, was very interested to add in the Darth Vader being Luke's father.
I think what you're saying is absolutely correct.
I mean, there were actually Jewish collaborators on that trilogy that clearly enriched...
And made those three films better films.
There's no question about it.
The guy who directed the second film, for example, whose name escapes me right now as a Jewish guy.
He's really known for much else.
Irving Kirshner.
Famous for directing the non-canonical James Bond film Never Say Never Again.
And not much else.
He's not a great director, but he obviously hit it out of the park with that one.
Yeah.
And of that trilogy, that's sort of the best piece of filmmaking.
But continuing on this theme of Finn, though, there is a subversive idea.
So you say Kasdan and Abrams introduced this character, Finn, the black character.
Is that correct?
Yeah, well, his name also means fair, right?
So Finland is land of the fair, right?
And Finn...
The name Finn means fair.
I mean, he's clearly not a fair character, right?
He originally was white in concept art.
Oh, is that right?
Yes, he was.
He was very fair.
I think he might have even had red hair or something like that.
But yeah, he was definitely a fair skinned character before J.J. Abrams got into casting.
All right, well, so maybe that name is, you know, maybe Abrams thought it would be, you know, especially given the name.
I don't know.
You know, who knows how conscious Abrams was of the name, but probably conscious of it.
So, you know, so the other thing, too, I'll say is that because Finn McCool is sort of this precedent of Arthur, it seems indicated.
or at least probably the original idea with this first new round of films is that Finn would be some kind of like kind of heir apparent or theory and character like he would rise as a king right yeah that's a boy Now, of course, there's a female character named Rey.
Is that correct?
Rey is the female lead.
And that name also means king.
Right.
Yeah.
So that might be kind of a tipping of the hand indicating or kind of a foreshadowing, you know, through naming that indicates these characters are going to be salient, you know, going forward, or going to be sort of the rulers or inheritors of the cosmos or whatever the case may be, right?
Right.
I mean, I think this is all very interesting.
I mean, there clearly some kind of love interest was set up between...
There's a love triangle set up between Kylo Ren and Rey and Fenn.
And it's hard to, I don't know, I mean, Fenn, this, for lack of a, sorry for the rudeness, but for a big-lipped, big-nosed, you know, very Negro black man, and, you know, with Rey, I think that, you know, the idea of those two being king and queen, I mean...
That seems a bit much, even for 2017.
I mean, not that they're unwilling to go there, but that just, you know, Hollywood is a bit conservative.
It's more conservative than television.
It's more conservative than a lot of other, you know, at least in terms of casting choices and things like that.
I'll tell you the technical problem with it, Richard, is that there's no chemistry between Ray and any of the other supporting characters, as far as I can tell, right?
No.
Or even between Rey and Kylo Ren.
I mean, that whole thing is kind of an interesting love affair, but it seems a bit forced in terms of the actors.
They don't seem to be in love with one another.
Maybe Kylo Ren kind of is.
He's so passionate about her.
There is a scene where they're psychically communing with one another, and he's bare-chested.
Do you remember this?
And she asks him to put on a shirt.
It almost seems like she has this kind of disgusted intrigue with him at certain points during that scene.
But yeah, it doesn't really seem like it would be a natural relationship.
I think, no question, this is what Kasdan and J.J. Abrams are setting up.
The problem is that Rian Johnson got a hold of...
The movies, the franchise, he was the writer-director.
He had ostensibly total power, along with the producer Kathleen Kennedy.
And he just basically dissolved all of these things.
So Snoke is dead.
No one cares who he is anymore.
Rey and Finn seem to have a kind of friendship.
Maybe he's in love with her a little bit, but there's another new love interest between Finn and this.
You know, Asian, fat Asian bitch who's, you know, totally, you know, just some proletarian character, basically, of no mythic significance.
And Rey is just, you know, I don't know what's going on with that character.
I mean, it's just, it seemed to just be all dissolved by that film.
And so I don't know where they can go.
I think The Last Jedi was a terrible film.
In the sense that, you know, it might have been a well-made film, but it was just terrible in the sense of destroying all of these, you know, this whole setup that Abrams did.
And I do think that Abrams was setting up something like that, like what we've just described.
But anyway, let's talk a little bit about the 20th century mythos, because I think this is very interesting.
Well, just to finish kind of a little section on sort of the mythic or the more ancient mythic references, it's clear also in my mind that Orion is continuing this idea, right?
So in other words, we see, for example, the Jedi Temple has 12 disciples, right?
Which is, you know, a reference to Christianity, of course, as well.
But those references to Christianity are also contained within the Arthurian legend.
So, King Arthur has 12 knights, right, who represent the apostles, right, and whatever else those, the number 12 might signify in, you know, Jewish Esotericism.
So, the, so that's, you know, I just wanted to say that that is something that filmmakers are working with very consciously, kind of, most saliently is kind of an Arthurian Christian reference that runs through it.
But to continue, please, I interrupted you.
In terms of the 20th century myths that these films are representing, the way I look at it is that we should understand it chronologically and understand each film within its time.
The Rebel Alliance is clearly the self-image of The American-led allies in the Second World War.
And again, it's not really based on fact.
This is this image of these spunky, rebellious individualists who all come together to face down fascism, effectively, which is the empire.
You know, willing to engage in genocide.
Of Alderaan, you know, they're brutal.
They dress in black.
They order people around.
You know, Darth Vader's throwing people up against the wall and force choking them at will.
They're cool as fuck, basically.
Basically, it's impossible not to sympathize with them because they're so badass.
And, yeah, they're obviously more civilized.
They're trying to bring order to the galaxy.
But I would say this.
The Rebels, even though they are American and anti-authoritarian or whatever, they are recognizably white in the first two films.
This starts to change in Return of the Jedi, and it changes in the prequels, and it's definitely totally changed in these recent batch of films.
But yeah, so they are white.
When at the end of A New Hope, or Star Wars, that ceremony, the awards ceremony in which Han and Luke are given awards by Leia, I mean, it is in itself a bit fascist.
I mean, that scene is taken directly from Lenny Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.
Almost shot by shot, but certainly in its iconography and music, also by John Williams, which is also an extremely important element to this whole franchise, is the music.
I would actually say it's essential.
You could not, and indispensable, you can't take away John Williams' Wagnerian music.
In this franchise to still stand.
Like, it would lose so much that I don't think it would have had the power.
Not even close to what it has.
I think it would have been a forgotten sci-fi film.
That's how important I think the music is.
But anyway, in terms of the music and the scene, the production design, the mise-en-scene, the actual staging, I mean, it is right out of Riefenstahl.
The Rebel Alliance is recognizably white.
This starts to change in The Return of the Jedi.
You get Admiral Ackbar.
You get some weird aliens thrown into the Rebel Alliance.
This changes more in the prequels, where, again, it's not the Rebel Alliance.
They are the Empire, in a way.
They are the so-called Republic, which is an Empire.
And it's an intergalactic Empire that has a parliament and democratic features.
Federalist features and things like that.
And it is a noticeably alien group of people.
And certainly post-human.
Humans seem to maybe form a bit of a majority, not even a majority of the Jedi Council, but they seem to be kind of like an equal among equals types.
But it is not a human world.
And I would say now, in this second round of films, the so-called resistance are Antifa, basically.
It's a ragtag coalition of the oppressed.
It has a much more left-wing quality than the good old-fashioned...
And this did change as well in Return of the Jedi.
And Lucas, I believe, even spoke explicitly about this.
The battle scenes were also taken from World War II footage.
Even in his first showing of the film, not theatrical showing, but first cut of the film, before the special effects were done, he actually had World War II footage.
You know, again, like cinema footage of World War II, which was fake in itself, but that kind of footage was used in a lot of the battle scenes.
So he was, you know, Lucas was evoking the Second World War.
In Return of the Jedi, he was actually evoking the Vietnam War.
And the forest moon of Endor was originally going to be done with Wookiees, as opposed to the damn Ewoks.
And then he obviously wanted to sell toys and he created these, you know, utterly annoying talking teddy bears and the Ewoks.
But anyway, that was a Vietnam era thing.
So you had the fascists who, you know, enter a primitive world, relatively speaking, the world of the Ewoks, and still lose.
You know, they lose a guerrilla battle.
They lose against an insurgency.
And again, I think as this goes on, the so-called resistance is just becoming, you know, they're becoming the self-image of Antifa, basically.
And the empire went from being a little bit of the British Empire, a lot of Nazi Germany, to it's now a stand-in for white supremacy, and a human-led order, which are connected in this.
You know, when, I'm forgetting his name, Poe Dameron is first talking with General Hux, who's this, you know, very campy, you know, redheaded general of the Empire.
You know, he says, oh, you're white and pasty.
I think that social justice general, played by Lauren Dern, she rammed her ship into the supremacy.
Like it's Dreadnought or whatever it was.
Star Destroyer.
I think the metaphors are clear.
She's literally a blue-haired cat lady.
There's no question that is the type of person he was trying to evoke with that woman and with Leia herself, who's less now of a princess or a love interest.
She was always a little bit of a feminist.
Thanks for the rescuer.
She has some lines like that.
I don't need saving.
She was one of those types.
But she still was a princess.
And now she's General Organa.
She's this earth mother leader of Antifa.
And then with their blue haired general social justice warrior who comes in and commits suicide against the evil Nazis.
It's impossible not to read the story in this way.
Yeah, I know.
So the blue hair is actually a very conscious reference.
That's like a known symbol, I think, in lesbian culture.
There's a film...
Because I was interested.
You see these people with blue hair and you wonder what the significance of it is.
Because blue is a more common hair color than green, for example.
Though I think that I've seen that as well.
I think the woman had purple hair.
Laura Dern had purple hair.
Oh, is that right?
Go with it.
A shade of blue.
Yes.
But there was a...
I guess it was a French lesbian film, which I haven't seen, obviously.
Blue is the warmest color.
It's written a coming-of-age erotic tickler where a confused 15-year-old girl falls for a blue-haired pair.
It's a motif.
I definitely want to watch that tonight.
I think we should do our next podcast.
An in-depth look.
You know, a favorable, sympathetic review.
Sapphic erotic.
Yeah, yeah.
See how many comments we can get in the comments.
Yeah.
But anyways, yeah, so, no, what I would just say, though, just as far as the World 2 metaphor is concerned, I mean, to me, that's evident.
I think it would have been obvious to most people seeing the film for the first time that it was likely a metaphor or inspired in part by a depiction of or was intended as a kind of metaphorical depiction of Nazi Germany, right?
But a lot of that has to do with the fact that Nazi Germany is sort of the primary kind of boogeyman.
in, uh, American society, right.
And for a long time.
So there's sort of the default, uh, boogeyman and, you know, given how kind of kick-ass these guys were in their, like in their appearance and how, uh, you know, just the whole presentation of the empire, uh, is a kind of fascistic, uh, presentation as, as you've already described.
Uh, so I think that that would have been a natural, it would have been, people would have seen that audiences would have picked up on that immediately.
The other thing I would say, though, is, you know, there is there is this very the entire depiction of it, though, goes to a very kind of interesting idea that we have about World War Two and that we've retained long after that war is this idea that we're kind of we are kind of these ragtag, you know, rebels who like, you know, are against the odds.
Yeah.
And when, of course, the reality of World War Two is that.
We weren't the rebels.
We were not fighting against the allies.
I mean, the resources that we brought to that war versus the resources that we opposed, I mean, were very much in our favor.
We were not these little, like, ragtag rebels.
I mean, it is true to the extent that our equipment was much shittier than their equipment, right?
So, in other words, you know, you could find some equivalency in, like...
The Millennium Falcon is this sort of, you know, this flying trash heap or whatever it's referred to in the films, and like a Sherman tank, right?
Right.
As opposed to German engineering, which was so vastly superior, it's not even funny.
Yeah.
Though the problem there is that they were a little autistic about, you know, making...
They were perfectionists.
Yes.
They use too much resources on too few military vehicles and weapons.
The other thing, too, I would say is that the film is given this samurai culture, stylistic patina.
I'm speaking especially of the first trilogy and the first film in particular.
In my mind, it's evident that the primary inspiration was Nazi Germany.
In other words, that would have been a way, the fact that the swords or the lightsabers seem more similar to samurai swords, and there seems to be some kind of eastern influence in the films, I think it's a very shallow stylistic influence.
Thematically, the films are very western in their ideas and themes.
You know, at least to the extent we understand that we're the West, right?
I mean, there's obviously a very deep Christian theme that runs through the films.
So that's kind of the final thing I would say about, you know, in terms of it having this Eastern patina.
That doesn't really resonate with me.
I mean, it is kind of interesting that, you know, the other thing, too, is that I mean, the other obvious kind of Arthurian reference is that they're knights, right?
They're Jedi knights, right?
They're knights of the Arthurian order.
And then, you know, I think that you guys, you and Bateman touched on this a little bit, but the Christian metaphor in this film, which I think we probably we should discuss next, is...
is central to all the films and I think it remains central to all the films and that is this idea of the force which in my mind is is was probably intended as kind of a synonym for the Holy Spirit right yeah Yeah.
No question.
I mean, may the force be with you is may God be with you.
And so on.
But at the same time...
And it is the Holy Spirit, as opposed to the Father and the Son.
It obviously is something intangible and inexplicable in a way, in the sense that it is the Holy Spirit.
At the same time, it has a non-Christian, non-julistic quality to it as well that is very striking.
That's what's fascinating about it, because the force is everywhere.
And it has a light and a dark side which are in balance.
It's a different kind of almost pagan life force conception as opposed to a good versus evil conception that is more dualistic, Manichaean Christian.
You know, I might contest you on that because I find the film very kind of Manichaean.
Okay.
You know, Darth Vader.
You know, in other words, the dark side of the Force, they're clearly these kind of evil caricatures in all the films, you know, including the most recent films, where it seemed that there might be some ambivalence with Kylo, but it turns out he is not an ambivalent figure.
He is kind of, he's like an evil sort of demon that you might find in, you know, Christian mythology.
Right.
I think that it is very Manichaean.
I think that the...
I mean, if you look at the word holy, you look at the word holy from a kind of etymological standpoint, it suggests that it means exactly how it sounds.
It's wholeness or something uninjured or intact, right?
So in other words, it's suggesting...
In some manner, it's suggesting the whole world as a whole thing.
And, you know, Christianity very much has that ambition of being, of kind of occupying the whole space or occupying the whole world.
The world is, you know, I think you understand what I'm getting at.
Christianity is a kind of self-contained universe that is whole, right?
There's nothing outside of it.
Yeah, nothing exists outside of Christianity, ostensibly.
Right?
So that is this concept of wholeness.
And I think that, you know, I don't think Lucas is some...
I doubt Lucas is a very, you know, theologically advanced man, right?
No, no, he's a post-Christian boomer.
And he throws in lots of half-baked Buddhistic aspects to the light side.
So, I mean, this is where I...
I mean, I don't...
I disagree with you.
I think there's different levels to it.
I mean, he throws in some half-baked Buddhistic elements to the light side.
And so the light side is about passivity.
It's about letting go.
It's about dispensing with connections to the world, with love itself.
I mean, this is something that we learn in the prequels, that a Jedi Knight cannot love, cannot reproduce, cannot have a family or a lover.
And so on.
And, you know, it's about withdrawal in a way, in a Christian way, but in a kind of Buddhistic manner.
And the dark side is about passion and attachment and ambition and selfishness, but also boldness and rage and all of those emotions.
And obviously Lucas is counseling us to be more buddhistic and pacific.
Yeah, you're correct.
So, ostensibly, that is the case.
But what you're describing effectively is kind of the posture that early Christians took and that Jews take, right?
And that's the posture that we're kind of always innocent and we're always being sort of attacked, right?
Which is obviously not the whole story.
Which is obviously the case.
Which is obviously not the whole story.
Yeah.
So in other words, no, but this is kind of a more of an Eastern, but I would say also kind of specifically a kind of Jewish way of like kind of dealing with the world.
So in other words, all these these ideas of like kind of love and acceptance and tolerance are effectively propaganda.
Right.
That's the way, so in the Star Wars films, the rebels are being persecuted by the Empire, right?
I mean, we know that's not the whole story, right?
That's not the whole story.
So they are kind of, you know, who knows what the whole story is?
It operates as this kind of propaganda for this kind of Eastern worldview that insists on its own kind of innocence.
You know, while finding, you know, evil in the world that persecutes it for some reason that, you know, can't be explained.
Yeah.
Right?
So, that's what I would say.
So, in other words, it does, you're correct in the sense that it does take these kind of ostensible, you know, posturing positions that were the innocent ones, right?
That's how I would describe kind of the perspective that's conveyed in the films.
As far as the specific words they use to describe their philosophy, one example is balance.
They have this concept of balance, right?
There's got to be balance in the force.
And that would lead one to the conclusion that you just articulated, that this is kind of a Buddhistic worldview, right?
But that also means that there must be the dark side.
Well, what it also means, Richard, it's actually completely false, right?
So it's this disingenuous way of, like, talking about the world.
You know, so in other words, the rebels would be fine if there were just balance, right?
They're not trying to eradicate the empire.
They just want balance, right?
Right?
Right.
Which obviously is completely disingenuous.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean...
Our adversaries are always going to say that we have too much power, no matter how little our power is, right?
We just want equality in this film.
Yeah, the whole concept of balance is a completely fucking absurd idea.
Balance, what is balance?
A similar thing actually happens.
I don't know if you watch these films to their intolerable conclusion.
The Matrix films, right?
I've not seen those in years.
I actually have seen them.
I think I saw them when they first came out.
I've seen the first one multiple times.
In the Matrix films, at the end of the film, there's a kind of black earth goddess mother oracle, right?
Ostensibly, she's sort of the benevolent.
I remember him, Yeah.
So they have at the end, when the films are concluded at the end, They have this sort of meeting, right, where they decide that they basically, it's basically kind of a peace pact, right?
They basically decide, well, you know, we're going to have a period of peace.
You know, some balance, essentially, because of Neo's sacrifice, some balance has been restored in the Matrix universe, right?
Now, that's completely false.
I mean, there is no balance.
There is no kind of...
End of, like, sort of struggle between these forces that, you know, you and I and the alt-right in general understand very clearly.
So that's what I would say.
So to the extent that, you know, sort of the mythos or the ethos, rather, in Star Wars appears Buddhistic is to the extent that, you know, Christian ethos appears Buddhistic.
I mean, right?
Well, let me actually say this.
I think George Lucas is self-critical in a way, because all of these rebels are fighting for the old republic, and it's just imagined as inherently wonderful and just, and so on.
But when it is depicted, it is anything but.
It is unjust.
It is mired in the sclerosis.
Democracy fails.
The parliament goes nowhere.
The only people who are winning in this system are the intriguers, the plotters, the schemers.
And actually, it's interesting because the empire itself emerges from the Republic.
I mean, this is one of the tragic elements to the prequels.
Everyone loves to shit on the prequels for good reason.
And I think because of the...
The poor depiction of Darth Vader by Hayden Christensen and by George Lucas' scripts and the dialogue.
I get it, but those are more interesting films than they're given credit for.
So the Old Republic is not some foreign entity.
I mean, the Empire is the Old Republic.
And the Old Republic goes to war against...
A quote, rebel alliance.
It goes in the second film, Attack of the Clones, it goes to war against the Separatists, who seem to have a kind of just cause.
I mean, they are trying to separate themselves from a corrupt empire.
The Republic is an empire.
To call it anything other than that is just word games.
The separatists have a just cause and a just claim against the Empire.
The Empire brutally attacks them, effectively genocides them, and then becomes the Empire as we know it.
And so, yeah, actually all of these claims for the rightness of the Rebel Alliance are total nonsense.
And the fact is, you know, even Lucas himself depicts this in the prequels, to his credit.
Yeah.
No, you know, I think another theme, I mean, I think we should pursue this Christian theme in the films.
Well, I have quite the interpretation of Force Awakens.
Yes.
To get ready.
No, I mean, I think a Christian theme runs through all, what is it?
Eight films?
Nine films?
Well, I guess it's nine, including that one-off, right?
Right, I guess it is nine films, yeah.
And then there's some animated movie, like The Clone Wars or something, but I don't know if that one counts.
It's officially canon, but whatever.
Yeah, and actually, in that film, maybe there's less of a Christian theme in that one-off.
But, yeah, so, I mean, yeah, in my mind, it seems that Darth Vader, in fact...
It may represent something akin to positive Christianity in Nazi Germany, right?
And so that becomes evident in an early scene when effectively they're criticizing him.
I'm talking about the first film that was produced, I guess the fourth in the series, Star Wars.
They're criticizing him for clinging on to this old...
You know, sort of superstition or faith, right?
And this is the famous scene where he is able to, you know, hoist one of his officers up in the air and strangle him by his neck, you know, without touching him.
And thereby proving, actually, that, you know, this positive Christianity actually is going to be useful in, you know, making Germany, you know, a healthy nation again.
So that's clear in my mind.
And in the film, what's interesting is that they depict, Lucas is worldly and intelligent enough to depict this tension between a kind of more secular German nationalism and the positive Christianity that existed there.
And what's remarkable...
General Tarkin is a secular fascist.
And who doesn't believe in this hocus-pocus.
Darth Vader is that as well, but he's more.
He also understands the spiritual qualities of national socialism, i.e.
the empire.
Yeah, I mean, he's effectively an all-writer that says that we can't go on without Christianity.
I mean, except he's sort of the kick-ass national socialist form of that.
But so that was evident in my mind.
Now, the theme, as you, you know, I'll let you pick up on the Kylo Ren, right?
Because he's clearly a Christian figure, and you may want to describe him.
But that shows the kind of a continuance.
It shows filmmakers recognizing this theme in the early films and continuing the theme through these later films, right?
When Kylo Ren first appears, and you and I have discussed this, you notice that the guy's sword is a cruciform, right?
So it's effectively like a medieval sword, which you pointed out to me.
But there are other clues as well.
So it is a crucifix, what he is holding.
The name Kylo appears to be derived from Kyle, and it's a word that means church.
Right.
Now, Ren, I'm not remembering right now.
I think it might also mean king or something to this effect.
I may have to look it up.
But, you know, he...
So, the thing that I find interesting, though, about the films is that though there is clearly this kind of Christian sort of theme and message to the films from the beginning...
And it's done in a kind of, you know, it's taken through this sort of Arthurian style, you know, science fiction myth.
So in the way, also Arthurian legend contains Christian themes, so also does Star Wars, and adds deeply, I would argue.
And it's taken...
What happens, though, is to my mind, and it almost happens, I don't know if it happens deliberately, or it's...
I mean, there must have been some element of deliberateness to it, but it seems that the dark force at some point, especially with Kylo Ren, effectively becomes Semitic, right?
Because he's clearly a Semitic figure in my mind.
I mean, I don't think a Jew watching the film wouldn't say, hey, that guy looks kind of like a Jew.
I mean, I think the guy looks like a Jew, and I think the Jews would identify that, especially Jews casting him in a film, right?
He's a dark-haired, Semitic-looking character.
There's no question about it.
I think the guy is actually a Jew.
Is it true?
I don't know if the actor is as well, but everything you say about his physiognomy is correct.
Yes.
Which a guy like Abrams who cast him would have been sensitive to, right?
Yeah.
Now, who knows what his ultimate designs for that character were, what direction he intended that character to go, or whether or not he retained some kind of influence on the direction of that character.
He may or may not.
Whether it's actual contractual legal influence, or just he has influence in other artists who are working on the film, and he can share ideas with them.
So, what I would say, though, is that suddenly...
We see this turn where, you know, the kind of evil Christian in the first film was Darth Vader, who, you know, he's odd because, you know, James Earl Jones is voicing the guy, right?
And he's in a black uniform.
I've actually heard blacks complain about this, that they think they interpret Darth Vader as like...
That was a famous scene in Chasing Amy, yeah.
Oh, yeah, I don't...
I mean, I'm not sure I can buy that.
I mean, he's a big black figure and he's voiced by James Earl Jones.
Although, James Earl Jones is famous as a Shakespearean actor.
I mean, I don't...
I wouldn't read Darth Vader as a black man.
I think that's...
It just doesn't...
It doesn't work.
Well, yeah.
And regardless...
If Jar Jar Binks had been Darth Vader, then yes.
Clearly, that's...
And it seems unlikely we'd be having this conversation.
Why are you saying that, Master Luke?
Yeah.
Luke, me as your father!
Luke is like, no, that's clearly impossible.
It would have been an amazing piece of off-on-quart filming.
But so in the final watch, you know, through the trilogies, I mean, we've sort of kind of conceded that there is an element of arbitrariness to the way that these kind of films ultimately came together.
Yeah.
You know, through their kind of various influences, and because it seems Lucas did not have an entirely clear idea of what direction the whole series would go.
But what I would say is that, you know, Darth Vader in the end, he is in the end an Aryan figure.
Yeah.
The reason for this is because he's Luke Skywalker's father, right?
Now, it turns out to be the case.
Maybe it wasn't originally scripted that he was Luke Skywalker's father, but he ends up as an Aryan figure.
And plus, he's at the head of this, you know, clearly Aryan fascistic empire, right?
Where he's dressed in black, but all his soldiers, all his knights are in white armor.
You know, so there might have been some...
significance to that choice, for example, right?
The white block, so to speak.
Yeah, and well, are they clones at that point?
Well, again, no.
I mean, when the original trilogy was created, they were clearly not clones, but they were, what is it called, retconned into being clones by the prequels.
And then they're not clones in the new...
We should return to the clones, because I think that's an interesting point of discussion.
What I would say, though, finally, just to sum up my point regarding Darth Vader versus Kylo Ren, is that he's an Aryan figure.
Kylo Ren is now this kind of somatic figure.
What I would say there is that suddenly...
In other words, I would make the argument, I'm sure much to the displeasure of many listeners is that probably the most Christian of the films is the last one that was made, right?
Because now, you know, you basically have a Jewish enemy, right?
And then you have the rest of the world against this Jewish enemy.
You have all the cat ladies, you have everyone, you have the entire rabble against, you know?
And there's no more Skywalker clan.
There's no more...
Aryan bloodline, that's all thrown out the window.
It's just some girl, Rey.
She's the child of meth dealers or whatever.
It's just basically the world up against the Jews, I guess.
Wow.
Yeah.
It becomes the most Christian and most anti-Semitic film.
Totally unintentionally.
Talk about unconscious cinema.
It's quite a reading.
I certainly don't think that was intended, but that doesn't mean that it's less valid.
I would say this.
My view of The Force Awakens is there is a visual metaphor, a visual language, you could say.
Spoken by J.J. Abrams and perhaps Lawrence Kasdan, who is his co-writer.
And it begins with that lightsaber, which is a crucifix.
It's a three-headed lightsaber where the helm is also lightsabers.
It's a crucifix.
And this cross metaphor comes into play in the battle between Kylo Ren and Rey.
And so in many instances, their lightsabers are crossed perpendicularly.
And actually in one famous instance where he's saying, you need a teacher, the crucifix is actually reflected in each of their eyes.
So you have this crucifix separating them and it's reflected in both of them.
And my view of this was that...
Both Rey, in this sense, and Kylo Ren represent two aspects of Christianity.
So Rey is the Christianity as a hobglob global religion for the masses and the hoi polloi and the world's refuse.
And so everyone, all these aliens are united and they've got their girl power in charge.
They're all fighting against fascism for freedom or whatever.
But then at the same time, Kylo represents this flip side to Christianity, which is organized, positive Christianity.
And so he represents the church.
And that's where you actually gave me that connection of Kylo having an etymological connection with church.
Deorganized Christianity.
Right.
And so Christianity organized can become fascistic and puritanical and hierarchical and intense and worthy of rule.
And so what you see in The Force Awakens is that battle between the kind of flip side of Christianity where it's two sides of the cross.
One is that Christianity is a universalistic, egalitarian religion for the masses, or...
Christianity as a hierarchical organizing force, and that is the first order.
Yeah, Ren either means lotus or love, right?
So it could be ironically, you know, kind of church of love or love church, right?
But it is the church of love.
I mean, the dark side is about passion.
Well, yeah, but the Christian faith is like, it's a love faith as well, right?
That would make sense.
But, yeah, I mean, there are other obvious Christian references in the film.
And this is actually an interesting one to discuss.
Or rather, in the film series, there are other references.
In the prequel, in the first prequel, we learn that Anakin is a virgin birth.
Do you remember?
Yes.
And ostensibly, he's intended as an antichrist.
Now, I don't...
I don't think that the Antichrist is ever indicated.
I think that maybe the Antichrist in Revelations, for example, there is a birth of an Antichrist, you know, ostensibly.
But the virgin birth, though, obviously is more associated with Christ.
So, you know, there is another example where...
It's kind of a mishmash of myth and symbolism that he's weaving in.
And he's definitely stronger as a filmmaker when he has other people directing his films or co-writing his films.
But the other thing, too, I would say, though, is that there is a kind of interesting line in the latest film, The Last Jedi.
When Luke is basically arguing that the Jedis have caused war, right?
That they've been a source of war and conflict.
And this is clearly the case with Darth Vader, who ends up being the alpha dog in the Empire and causing all kinds of violence and destruction and warfare through the Empire.
I found that to be a somewhat profound point, but effectively what he's saying is that Christianity is this kind of war-causing agent, right?
I mean, if you follow...
I mean, that might not necessarily be what the filmmaker is saying, though actually it probably is kind of what the filmmaker is saying.
I'm not sure, because I'm sure the filmmaker understands this kind of Christian metaphor that runs through the films.
So the Crusades, for example, that is an instance of violence in the name of faith.
You know, that might be kind of what the filmmaker's thinking, right?
So in other words, there is a good Christianity, and I'm not talking about positive Christianity in the National Socialist sense, but there's the good Christianity in the Star Wars sense, and there's the bad Christianity.
And that is the dichotomy that's dealt with in these films.
But I thought that that was an interesting point.
And that kind of coheres, or rather, it adheres to one of...
Nietzsche's idea is that priests cause war, right?
And, you know, I mean, we, to a greater extent, we right now live in a kind of theocratic world where, you know, the wars that we're engaged in are ultimately religious wars, right?
They're caused by, you know, especially caused, if not caused, I don't want to pull a Mel Gibson here, you know, but...
I haven't had that much to drink.
Anyways, you get what I'm saying.
So we basically, the wars now are...
They're about a religious ethnic state in the Middle East.
So there is a great deal of truth to them.
If people are engaged in war, they don't have time to figure out what's up and what's down.
They're focused on an enemy.
Well, I think, look, let's put a bookmark in it, actually.
I think this is a good space to take a break.
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