Star Wars on Trial Read Online Free PDF Page B

traditional romantic myths cited by Joseph Campbell focus upon women heroes? Or on people achieving what should be the highest human goals? Successfully raising a family. Building a community. Negotiating peace. Engaging in civilization.
    Alas, these are not the tasks or concerns of bold, young, unmarried males. Few Campbellian-style heroes-other than great Odysseus-ever mention or yearn for them.
    Nevertheless, these are the proper focus of would-be leaders. The proper study of grown-up human beings.
    Commented the critic Curt Jensen, amid one of the swirling online exchanges generated by this topic:
One thing you never see with the Jedi Knights is any kind of critical glance at their merits as peacetime political leaders. Being able to levitate an X-wing doesn't make you a wise leader. Quite the contrary actually. It would tend toward the default attitude that might makes right. Not only are the jedi wholly unsuited to the demands of domestic politics, they seem unaware of their limits and keep insisting on meddling, eventually leading society down the road to disaster. Yet, according to the strange logic of George Lucas, these people are still automatically qualified for leadership, with the inherent right to make vital decisions in secret, affecting the well-being of billions.
    Of course, the Defense will argue that Star Wars was never meant for grown-ups! But should not the grown-ups within George Lucas's universe be paying a little heed to such matters, even if only in background? If only to point Luke and Han and Leia and Anakin toward the eventual, proper goal of decent heroes-the role that Odysseus took up when his adventure ended-that of ruling wisely?

    Ironically, this notion was not alien to George Lucas at all! Few remember his short-lived but brilliant television series, The Young IndianaJones Chronicles (1992). It was no great commercial success. But to aficionados, it appeared to be Lucas's most sincere personal statement-a truly brave attempt to mix adolescent excitement with real thoughtfulness and content. Indeed, it seemed as if Lucas was expressing the same theme we often see from Spielberg-one of deep and genuine gratitude.
    In twenty-two episodes, the younger Jones, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, encountered one after another of the greatest minds of the early part of the twentieth century, learning from them, not only as Campbellian journey mentors or spirit guides, but as archetypes of adult ambition and achievement, nearly always representing some key ingredient in a rambunctiously eager and hopeful civilizationfrom jazz musicians to saintly jungle doctors, from inventors to master spies, from mothers to fathers. And, yes, in confronting war and oppression, firsthand, Indy (and the viewers) learned about civilization's "dark side." There were dour reflections, amid all the dashing, heroic deeds. Though throughout, young Indy never lost faith in the power of reason, discovery and science.
    Picture Huckleberry Finn on a raft escapade with Ben Franklin. Imagine something written for all ages, all the parts of your brain.
    Alas, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles sometimes got too lecturey and lost pace. Its relative commercial failure provokes one to wonder: did George Lucas learn a lesson-the wrong lesson-never again to even try blending the adult and the child, offering something to both?
    No, there are plenty of counterexamples, some even provided by George Lucas, to the dismal notion that we must enslave ourselves to a single, tedious storytelling pattern, even if it pervaded many cultures of the past. Especially because it pervaded so many failed, oppressive societies of our bloody, awful past.
    Which is why science fiction-the real thing-came as such a radical departure. A new kind of storytelling, it often rebels against the very archetypes that Aristotle and the Campbellians venerate.

    Take the occasional upstart belief that progress, egalitarianism and positive-sum games are possible-if very