_Star_Wars_
by Kelvin Thompson
_Star_Wars_, yet another entry in the recent spate of "Space Operas," is
a bad, morally empty movie. Look, quick!! It has lights!! It has
zooming spaceships!! It has laser flashes!! It has explosions!! Look
closer, and it has nothing.
The plot of _Star_Wars_ is certainly nothing new: a bunch of good guys
try to overthrow an evil space empire. Ruling the evil space empire
are an evil count, James Earl Jones (a Negro), and an evil spaceship
commander, Peter Cushing (_Dracula_A.D._1972_, _The_Curse_of_
_Frankenstein_). Among the good guys are a princess, Carrie Fisher
(_The_Blues_Brothers, _Shampoo_), an old warrior, Alec Guiness
(_The_Man_in_the_White_Suit_, _Murder_by_Death_), a young warrior, Mark
Hammil (_Corvette_Summer_, _Three_Women_), a mercenary, Harrison Ford
(_Witness_, _The_Conversation_), and assorted robots and aliens.
From its opening scene, where two spaceships chase each other around a
planet while trying to blow one another to smithereens, the movie loses
any semblance of realism. The spaceships make swishing and humming
noises as they maneuver about, and their lasers make zapping noises as
they fire -- all despite the fact that it has been scientifically proven
that there are absolutely no sounds in space.
In another gaffe later in the movie, a robot supposedly manages to go up
and down a staircase, even though it is quite obvious that it is
structurally impossible for the robot to do so. The camera cuts away
just as the robot gets to the staircase, but the viewer is again jolted
by the obvious impossiblity.
More important than any scientific error, however, is the glaring lack of
any moral statement. In a time of mass starvation in central Africa,
terrible human-wave battles in the Middle East, repression of civil
rights in the USSR, legalized racism in South Africa, and rampant
terrorism everywhere, this movie just hums merrily along in its
rose-colored glasses.
For example, when Hammill, the supposed hero of the movie, sees the
burned corpses of his parents, he responds by turning his head sideways.
No tears, no shouts of outrage, just a crick in the neck and they are
forgotten. Later, when an android buddy of his is discriminated against
in a space-bar, he accepts the wrong without a blink. Late in the film,
when an entire *planet* full of billions of sentient beings is
annihilated, the good guys just sort of go, "Gosh, that's too bad." The
bad guys, of course, smile cruelly. These kinds of responses to murder,
discrimination, and genocide certainly do not encourage the kind of
consciousness needed to overcome today's problems.
_Star_Wars_ contains a lot of action sequences, so it will no doubt have
a strong draw on today's young people. Nonetheless, parents should make
every effort to keep their children away from this morally bankrupt movie
and direct them toward a film which takes a useful stand on some of the
issues facing our world. And, naturally, all ethical adults should stay
well away from it themselves.
