The Ways of the Force

My mom likes to say that I went through several phases in my childhood, based on the things I drew. First there were superheroes, then knights, and then Star Wars. And that phase pretty much didn't end until I woke up sometime in the spring of 2000.

I was a huge Star Wars fan. I was about as big a Star Wars fan as you could be before this monstrosity that is the Internet came along. Nowadays, I’m completely outclassed by the likes of Darth_Chocolate32, Grand Moff WampaLoverr, and Ted the Hutt.

Still, I appreciate what George gave to the world, and from time to time fragments of memory combine with experience to produce moments of genuine understanding. For example, I’m mulling over the hows and wherefores of setups and payoffs, done particularly well in current offerings like 3:10 To Yuma and Eastern Promises, and this idea, this insight, pops into my little noggin, and suddenly two seemingly innocuous dots in the rich tapestry that is Lucas’s elegant script slam together with a huge, a gigantic, amount of . . . well, force.

Let’s look at the original Star Wars film. At the end of Act I, Luke has decided to follow old Ben on his “damned-fool idealistic crusade” and become a Jedi Knight like his father. At some point, Ben is going to provide some instruction. You know the scene. While in hyperspace en route to Alderaan, Luke is training with the remote seeker and getting zapped in the process. Han laughs, dismissing the Force, but Ben places a helmet on Luke’s head that completely covers his face.

LUKE: (laughing) With the blast shield down, I can't even see. How am I supposed to fight?

BEN: Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.

And thus one of the film’s themes is articulated. Luke relaxes and, trusting the Force, succeeds in blocking the remote’s laser bolts. The scene itself might have worked with just Ben and Luke, and that’s how a novice writer might have constructed the scene. But Han’s doubt provides the contrast necessary to highlight and embolden Luke’s lesson: “Ancient weapons and hokey religions are no match for a good blaster at your side.” In fact, his words echo those of Admiral Motti, proud architect of the Death Star, to Darth Vader: “Don’t try to frighten us with your sorceror’s ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel’s hidden fort . . .”

Here, in the conflict between the ways of the Force and the ways of technology, lies the key to Luke’s journey and the resolution of the story. This theme is located in at least two other instances. The first occurs when Luke uses his macrobinoculars to spy on the Sand People. His recklessness and reliance on technology actually prevent him from seeing the danger right in front of him. The second takes place in the Death Star detention area, when Luke, disguised as an Imperial stormtrooper, complains, “I can’t see a thing in this helmet.”

If we jump to the climax of the film, the Death Star battle, we find Luke making what will certainly be his only trench run. All his comrades have fallen prey to enemy fighters. Vader—in whom the tension between faith and technology resides most dramatically—is closing in. The impossible target of the thermal exhaust port looms ever closer. And then Luke, prompted by Ben’s disembodied voice, makes a simple but critical choice. He switches off his targeting computer—to the consternation of Rebel strategists—and, guided by the Force, releases the torpedoes that destroy the Death Star and save the Rebellion.

Looking back to the training scene, which occurs just prior to the midpoint, we see that its structural function is to set up this climax. To prepare Luke (and the audience) for the task he will need to perform at the very end. Let go your conscious self and act on instinct. In a simple scene, complete in itself, Lucas has planted the seed for one of the most joyous and satisfying conclusions in film history.

Wasters, Rhymers, Minstrels and Other Vagabonds

Yep, that’s us. Last week I attended the latest manifestation of the Minnesota Men's Conference. For over 20 years, poet Robert Bly, father of the expressive men’s movement and author of the landmark Iron John: A Book About Men, has led this gathering of cultural creatives and societal scofflaws from all over the United States, and from lands beyond.

Folks invariably want to know what this is all about. And it’s hard to say, really, especially to my corporate compadres. This blog, which takes its name from the small group I joined at last year’s conference, may serve as an explanation by example. It's an ongoing effort at working out my experiences as they relate to the practice of screenwriting, following the premise that any practice, diligently followed, can be a spiritual path.

And so as I piece together the details of my Norse epic, delve into my heritage and explore the mythic terrain that informs the pattern of my life, I have an opportunity to join the efforts of men like Bly, mythologist and storyteller Daniel Deardorff, Aikido instructor Tom Gambell, poet and educator Haki Madhubuti, and wizard of song Doug von Koss.

This work, and the work you are doing, is a chance to be a danger to so-called civil society, to reintroduce the wildness that this society insists be buried, to open the imagination to a vision of life that goes far beyond the duel failures of war abroad and oppression at home.

“Wasters, rhymers, minstrels and other vagabonds” were, according to Deardorff (citing Robert Graves), outlawed by Henry IV as a threat to the security of Wales. These unsuitables, ironically, were the keepers of myth and lore, including the Arthurian legends.

By contrast, Iceland, home of the sagas, was for several centuries a land governed not by a king but by a national assembly called the Althing. Each summer, the leading men of Iceland, the godis and their thingmen, would arrive from the four quarters to discuss the issues of the day, recite and carry out the law, and join together in celebration. Maybe they were on to something. Something like Bly's dream of ecstatic cultural transformation.

So what was last week about? Perhaps it’s best to leave it at this:

Myth and magic and skaldic mischief.

Singing and drumming, poetry and politics.

And ritual, lots of ritual.

As Robert would say, “Do you hear what I’m saying?”


References:

Deardorff, Daniel. The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, & Psyche (Ashland, Oregon: White Cloud Press, 2004).

Graves, Robert. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1966).

George Lucas . . . prepare to be toormahnated.

I am not a cyborg from the future. Honest. And I wish nothing but light and goodness for George. I swear. But all the pics from the Austin pitch competition suggest that behind those glowing red eyes, lurking beneath that grainy facade, is the endoskeleton of a T-101 (or is it T-800?). Of course, the script Thomas and I pitched, American Jedi, is about an obsessed fan who sets out to kill George for ruining Star Wars. You know, a light assassination comedy.

In fact, as Thomas I were wrapping up the fourth draft last spring, we received a curious phone call. Seems Lucasfilm had hired a local private investigator to make sure we were on the up and up. The short we had made to promote the script had worked its way around Los Angeles. The letter we sent George about the short had not yet been returned to us unopened -- that would happen a few days later. So within the hour our intrepid gumshoe arrived at Thomas's house and we had a nice chat in the living room.

We played the video for her on Thomas's widescreen TV, and she laughed. She pointed out her favorite part. We agreed. She admitted that she wasn't really into the whole Star Wars thing, but that her son really dug the video. We pointed out that the web site's URL was displayed in the video's background and that anyone in the target audience would be in on the joke.

Of course, she expressed Lucasfilm's desire for us to take down the web site, cease distributing the video file, and presumably move on to more George-friendly subject matter. Of course, none of this was in writing. Now, admittedly, we were slightly intimidated, not knowing how far this would go, so we did take the video down -- for awhile. But the site itself stayed up, and in a matter of days we had thousands of hits from within the Lucasfilm empire: LucasArts, Skywalker Sound, ILM. Someone was watching and not just a bunch of lawyers.

Time passed and we never once noticed armed thugs trailing us. Our P.I. did call us once more -- this time to request that we take down my pen-and-ink wash of George (which incidentally was part of a dream journal I did for an art class nine years prior) and that we change the name of the web site and presumably the script. But again, nothing in writing.

Several months later, at the Minnesota Men's Conference, I had the good fortune of meeting the amazing Doug von Koss. He worked in the art department on several of George's movies. I told him about our project and how we were interested in holding a mirror up to fan culture. I relayed how our protagonist was a firm believer in the widespread AICN Talkback-type sentiment "George Lucas raped my childhood. " Doug was appalled: "That's the most awful thing I've ever heard." I asked him about George. And he said that George is one of the most genuine people he's ever met. An inspiration.

And that's what I had hoped to hear. That's why we wrote American Jedi. So, yeah, I'm not a cyborg from the future. And I'm pretty sure Thomas isn't one, either.