Essay: The Moral Ambiguity of the "Star Wars" Trilogy

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL by Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Above: Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker

 

There is a moment in “Star Wars” (1977) when the young farmer Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) stares at the sunset, his hair blowing in the desert wind.  A memorable moment to be sure, but what’s Luke thinking?  Is he perhaps longing for adventure?  Or is it something deeper?  Some primal need to wander, to be free, to journey into space?

            The original “Star Wars” trilogy (which includes also includes “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi”) is, in many ways, about those pursuits.  Yet though the films are packed with spaceship battles and laser bursts, they do not present a mere war of good versus evil.  In fact, as Luke matures, so too does the series, morphing from a simple tale of heroes and villains to a sober chronicle of sadness and shades of gray.  And it is through that transformation that we see Luke grow from a naïve boy to a whiny warrior to a stoic hero, wise to the world’s complexities and devastated by them.

            It’s light years from where he begins.  When we first meet Luke, he’s helping his Uncle Own (Phil Brown) shop for robots and complaining about his limited free time.  Yet something powerful emerges over the dinner table.  Luke, as he explains it to Owen and his Aunt Beru (Shelagh Fraser) wants to venture beyond the farm and when Owen says no, he storms outside.  “Looks like I’m going nowhere,” Luke bitterly declares.  It’s a petulant utterance, yet you don’t begrudge him for it.  Luke is clearly more than a rebellious teenager—he’s a young man who desperately wants a life of his own.

            For Luke, that life is ultimately shaped in the “The Empire Strikes Back” when he even receives a ghostly, Campbellian call to adventure.  Bloodied and bowled over after an encounter with a nasty snow creature, Luke can barely move.  Yet he manages to hear the specter of his long-dead mentor Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness) imploring him to embrace the mantle of the Jedi Knights.

            Ah yes, the Jedi.  There is perhaps no concept quite so beautifully nerdy—warriors who wield laser swords (AKA lightsabers) and move objects with their minds, sending them soaring with the slightest gesture.  A Jedi, we learn, is needed to defeat Darth Vader, the galactic tyrant who killed Luke’s father.  That’s why the vengeful Luke accepts the Jedi training, bowing to the will of an elfish creature called Yoda (a marvelously lifelike puppet created and voiced by Frank Oz).

            It is here, in the midst of this spiritual warrior education, that the moral ambiguity of “Star Wars” truly surfaces.  “Your weapons—you will not need them,” Yoda tells Luke when he tests his mettle in a murky cave.  Yet Luke ignores this warning, strapping a gun to his hip as he steps into the darkness.  The result?  He has a vision of himself as Vader—a reminder of where his grim hatred and trigger happiness could lead him. 

            And so, the crux of “Star Wars” bursts forth.  When training Luke, Yoda speaks of “the dark side,” his name for the corrupting power of anger, fear, and aggression.  And Luke, we learn, is susceptible to this power, especially when he uncovers a terrible truth—that Darth Vader is, in fact, his father.  “Join me, and together we can rule the Galaxy as father and son!” Vader bellows in the gloriously menacing voice of James Earl Jones while Luke clings to a flimsy railing, reeling from the bad news.  It’s a revelation so horrific that it’s hilarious, yet your laughter dies in your throat when Luke visits a dying Yoda in “Return of the Jedi.”  “Is Darth Vader my father?” he asks.  And once he knows the truth, his mission is suddenly more complicated.  “I can’t kill my own father,” he says simply.

            But should he?  Difficult to say, that is.  In “Star Trek,” the question of whether or not Vader should be executed for the greater good might have been explored, even confronted.  Yet “Star Wars” is different and its creator, George Lucas (who guided each film at least as a writer and executive producer) chose to frame Luke’s struggle not as an ethical dilemma, but a personal one.  It’s embodied by the fact that Luke carries the secret of his parentage deep within himself, even though those who know urge him to kill Vader.  Will they be proven right?  Maybe.  But Luke insists, “I can bring him back…to the good side,” raising the question—in this dark universe, will the hopeful intuition of one man prevail?

            Good question.  But as show-stopping as the answer is, the point of the “Star Wars” trilogy is that Luke has gone beyond the realm of good and evil.  In the first film, he fought his opponents indiscriminately.  There was no need to think; he knew who was right and who was wrong.  But by “Return of the Jedi,” Luke is convinced that there is good within Vader, the most iconic vision of evil imaginable.  Life, he now knows, is not black and white.

            A simple thing to understand, I know.  But simplicity has always been what has made “Star Wars” meaningful.  And indeed, it is the reason why Luke’s realization that hero and villain are meaningless terms rings with such vibrant force, even as he ignites his lightsaber for the last time.