By: Dr. Jesse Russell
There are, in effect, two major narratives in the Catholic blogosphere regarding Star Wars.
The first positive or “affirmative” narrative celebrates Star Wars, a movie that first captured the imaginations of matured (or at least full grown) Baby Boomers and freshly minted Gen-Xers, as a movie rich with Christian symbolism and meaning.
Certainly, this narrative argues, there are New Age elements as well as the pronounced influence of Eastern religions in George Lucas’s “popcorn flick” masterpieces; however, these elements are relatively harmless and/or are subsumed by the wider and stronger Christian motifs.
Luke Sky Walker, the (usually) calm and silent but kind and studious outsider from a desert world, is an homage to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Darth Vader and the Storm Troopers are Satan and his minions or the Nazis or traditional Catholics or maybe even the high school bullies who terrorized “LeftCath” science fiction fans.
Han Solo is the Catholic bad boy with the Augustinian past as well as a heart of gold.
The Ewoks are usually Catholic sci-fi fans in general as well as NET youth ministers or FOCUS missionaries.
These Catholic Star Wars fans are, as a rule, part of the wider Star Wars fandom and thus view the series in a state of decline after 1983’s Return of the Jedi (Star Wars books and video games are another story).
The second Catholic narrative largely draws borrows from the Fundamentalist Protestant backlash to introduction of elements of the occult into mainstream American pop culture, which was part of the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and 90s
In this narrative Star Wars is one of the most deleterious and corrosive manifestations of the triumph of New Age occultism in the West.
Loaded with perverse theology and metaphysics as well as magic (The Force) and literal demons (Yoda), Star Wars has had an incalculable effect in eroding Western Christianity.
It must be noted that these Catholic Star Wars haters, like their counterparts, recognizes that whatever artistic and intellectual merit the first three films had has been squandered by George Lucas’s prequels as well as Disney’s even worse recent movies.
Whether either of these narratives is true, there is little doubt that whatever the ultimate theological meaning of Star Wars, Star Wars means a lot to many people.
It is the Iliad or Aeneid of our time. It’s concepts, verbiage, and iconography dominate Western consciousness.
When people think of what it means to be a mentor, they think of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda.
When they think of a cruel villain, they think of Emperor Palpatine or (comically) of Jaba the Hutt.
It is precisely because Star Wars plays such a central role in the architecture of contemporary post-millennial Western consciousness that Catholics, whether haters or lovers of Star Wars, should pay attention when a new addition is made, by the trigger-happy hands of Disney, to the now ever expanding lineup of Star Warsmedia.
There is little debate that the Disney films are bad; however, many Star Wars fans had hoped that the bounty-hunter themed television series on Disney Plus, The Mandalorian, would be a return to the rugged authenticity and (yes, unironically possibly Satanic) mythic richness of the first films.
At risk of triggering Star Wars fans, it must be noted that The Mandalorian, although better than the Disney travesties, largely disappoints.
For the most part, The Mandalorian is an odd combination of J.J. Abrams-eques redundant homages to other Star Wars films, original Star Trek-tier awkward fights, and shoot outs that resemble a badly made Super Nintendo game that 1990s kids would return to the video store after thirty minutes of overstimulated boredom.
Such seemingly harsh criticism of anything Star Wars (including the now many bad films) by a non-Star Wars fan (your author) will undoubtably provoke outrage, but such outrage should prompt reflection.
Star Wars fans are not wrong to get excited about Jedis, blasters, and to long for a film that projects a universal struggle between good and evil, for, as humans, we need these things: we need culture that is exciting and heroic.
One of the biggest reasons why so many Millennials and now Generation Z Catholics have fallen away is because Catholic culture has become stagnant.
Catholic culture is stuck in replay loop of nostalgia for Victorian, Edwardian and mid century writers like Cardinal Newman, G.K. Chesterton, and J.J. Tolkien, or it is burdened by a fetishization of “the Classics” or “the Great Books,” which, since the 19th century has presented all of Western civilization as a collection of pretty and clever museum piece to be admired at overpriced liberal arts programs or in largely redundant Christian literary publications.
This is not to say that Star Wars is the antidote for our Catholic cultural malaise.
Rather, the true remedy for Catholic cultural stagnation is a return to reading the great works of Western civilization as heroic works of literature meant to inspire men and women to acts of greatness.
For, in our age, which is so weighed down with boredom and irony and civilizational fatigue, and which scorns the very name of Christ, it is only by the great and small deeds of Christian heroes that we will witness a new hope and rebirth of Christian civilization.
I so enjoyed reading this. I am looking forward to passing this post on to a Catholic, seriously passionate, almost 24 year old part time movie critic that I think who might be interested in considering your thoughts on this.
As Andrew Breitbart once prophetically said, politics is downstream of culture.
To abandon the fight for the culture – both negatively (via criticism of all stripes) and positively (via contributions to it through the various forms of media) – is to ultimately abandon society.
“The Passion of the Christ,” and “The War of the Vendee” are examples of Catholic culture in the cinema venue not stuck in a replay loop,
all-be-it in the fiction venue, rather then the nonfiction venue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_BDLYAfg7w&list=RDfMblmC3qcGs&index=2
An here we have an example of Catholic culture not coming at us like literature. But it comes from us in so far as we are motivated to lean it’s skills. A culture that may have existed before the Church, but was defiantly restrained to a more modest expression by the influence of the Catholic Church.The axe adding a masculine element of danger for the development of the young men. The ladies though modest, torqued out gorgeous, in their colorful flowery dresses.
Notice the smiles on their faces, an insulting expression to the English who portray the medieval pheasants this culture comes from as being in brown or grey homespun with frowns on their faces, even as Brother Nathaniel Kapner reveals that those who inundate us with anti-Christ culture, are mostly all on Prozac!
Sadly, Breitbart was yet another cuckservative. Might he have eventually jettisoned his pitiful, sputtering, ineffectual cuckservatism? Possibly, but only after exposure to deprogramming, really real shock treatment such as the following:
An Open Letter to Cuckservatives
https://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/an-open-letter-to-cuckservatives/
Excerpt:
“You tell yourself that the things you love about America–and I love them, too–are rooted in certain principles. That is your greatest mistake. They are rooted in certain people. That is why Germans, Swedes, Irishmen, and Hungarians could come and contribute to the America you love. Do you really believe that a future Afro-Hispanic-Caribbean-Asiatic America will be anything like the America your ancestors built?”
Mandalorian is associated with Disney and I avoid going to Disney movies because they are part of the New World Order’s attempt to corrupt young people and families.
The article had many good points especially this one “Rather, the true remedy for Catholic cultural stagnation is a return to reading the great works of Western civilization as heroic works of literature meant to inspire men and women to acts of greatness.” The lives of the Saints should be a staple for Catholic reading but too often children are glued to computer games. I don’t think you can become addicted to reading the lives of the Saints or the Bible but sadly we can be to the computer and cell phones. I heard that young people now are growing two bones on the back of their sculls- that look like “small horns” from looking at their cell phones all the time.
We Christians made an horrific error by allowing (False) Jews to dominate film, book publishing, tv, newspapers… We have allowed these people to feed us and our children, much of our culture. These False Jews, some of them hate Christians, many have contempt for us and all people. They began Hollywood, if i remember correctly they owned/controlled every major studio: Paramount, Warner Brothers, Columbia, 20th Century Fox.. Since they are enemies of Almighty God, you can see the perversions worsen in their films every decade, for the past century. These Talmud Jews are of their father the devil, therefore they have no boundaries, they are lawless.
The amount of destruction they have caused through controlling most media is immense: subversion of cultures, propaganda camouflaged as entertainment, omitting their evils throughout history, instigating turmoil among peoples, slandering others to deflect their own crimes and perversions such as against children…
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The Apostle Paul commands us Christians, Be Ye Separate…
Catholic or any Christian fictional programming for the most part has been HORRIBLE outside of a few rare examples.
I know that HBO is a horrible company, but series they’ve made with Canal+ like ‘The Young Pope’ and currently ‘The New Pope’ are extremely interesting, and if I had to recommend any Catholic-themed entertainment to the adult heathens to start a conversation, these would be it. It’s the sort of topics that Catholics should be tackling head-on, but of course we could do without all the unnecessary sex and nudity that typically make up HBO’s slate. Though I understand why its there since it deals with scandals in the Church and the fact that immoral sex is the #1 stumbling block between humanity and Christ. Unfortunately, the show is definitely not for pious eyes. A more censored version or just shooting scenes differently would’ve made it a very recommendable viewing.
That said, I’ve been enjoying quite a bit of Japanese animation. If anyone wants to check out a worthwhile show, look at Vinland Saga. There’s probably plenty more there, but I believe aspiring young Catholic film-makers should consider animation as a good medium which has endless possibilities at a much more feasible budget than shooting epics in live action.
Videogames are also a big potential space where the Church has no presence whatsoever, and while those things have a bad rep with all the grey-hairs in the pews, and for good reason; we’ve come a loooooong way since then and games are rivals to cinema that don’t need to be a bunch of fools shooting each other in the face for endless hours online, nor be any more of a time sink than a film or book. The independent scene has plenty of clever examples. Frankly, if the nanny state just allowed boys to be boys and play soldier with toy guns outside in the yard without having communist neighbours calling Child Services with estrogen injections, they wouldn’t need to lock themselves in a room and get PTSD in front of hours of photo-realistic violence from a black box.
It just needs clever thinking and infusion of Catholic themes into all genres. It’s not just about adapting the Gospels and lives of saints over and over again. C.S. Lewis and Tolkein proved that. Children of Men was another good example, and to a lesser extent, even films like Tron Legacy channel Christian themes, albeit in a twisted Hollywood way, but the fact is that you can do it.
I could go on with examples, but I think those who understand, get it.
Thanks for that link, Alphonsus.
The Fundamental Opposition: Judaism vs. Catholicism
https://youtu.be/KoLrvF7XA7Y
Speaking of the corruption of the young:
LGBTQ education is now mandatory in N.J. schools. Here’s how teachers are preparing.
https://www.inquirer.com/education/nj-lgbtq-education-curriculum-lesson-plans-mandate-20200120.html
You’re most welcome.
Your comments are sadly true Joseph a Christian.
“The lives of the Saints should be a staple for Catholic reading but too often children are glued to computer games. I don’t think you can become addicted to reading the lives of the Saints or the Bible but sadly we can be to the computer and cell phones. ”
Yes!
Parents – mother and father, grandparents and God parents and other close, Catholic relatives and priests, etc., have various levels of duty in respect of a child’s physical, intellectual and moral education. It is grave matter for parents to neglect these most fundamental duties to their children. Lord, have mercy.
“It must be noted that these Catholic Star Wars haters,…”
Where have I heard this before? Haters…..hmmmmmm. Isn’t that what liberals call traditional valued folk they wish to dismiss ?
Actually, there is much for people to be weary about with the star wars series. Here is a great little ( 18 minutes) homily on the books/movies. http://reginaprophetarum.org/audio/20171231-Falling-Prey-to-Star-Wars.mp3
Also, leaving the new age theme out of it, the offenses against the 6th and 9th commandment make it unfit for consumption. Lea’s metal bikini ring any bells?
“When we don’t worship God, we won’t worship nothing, we will worship anything.” G.K. Chesterton