Star Wars

I've been a devoted Star Wars fan for quite a while. Recently, I picked up a Star Wars book to read and found it quite satisfying. I picked up another, by a different author, and reached the same conclusion. At the moment, there are about 10 Star Wars books from the library sitting on a table waiting for me to read them.

While trying to sleep, I realized one of the drastic differences between the Sequel and Prequel Trilogy. Nothing to do with the difference in colors, effects, or aliens - no, something much deeper and more important.

The Prequel Trilogy is the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side, his becoming Darth Vader. It's also the rise of Palpatine to being emperor of the galaxy (the known reaches) and the destruction of the Jedi Order. All three of these ends are more or less a heroic tragedy (from the standard perspective). Note the fact that almost all main characters, except for the villains are dead at the end.

In contrast, the Prequel Trilogy is about the return of the Jedi, the defeat of Darth Vader and Palpatine (Darth Sidious), and the supposed end of the Empire (although in the expanded universe the Empire is still kicking for quite a while). It's a heroic adventure that is not in the least bit tragic.

I also realized that the entire saga can be thought of not only as the story of Anakin Skywalker (and by extension, the Skywalker family) but as the story of Darth Sidious. In fact, Darth Sidious is more key to the story than any character other than Anakin Skywalker himself. He doesn't appear as often as, say, Obi-Wan, but he is the true mover and shaker in galactic events and the true evil that has to be defeated. While Darth Vader, General Grievous, Count Dooku, and others were all quite formidable, none so much as Darth Sidious.

I also noticed that in some old list of top movie villains of all time Darth Vader was only third place. I read about the other characters and they didn't seem nearly as interesting or cool as Darth Vader. I also noticed that on the same list Harrison Ford's characters appeared twice - Indiana Jones was in second place (after Atticus Finch) and Han Solo somewhere down along the lines. The point of this paragraph is that Darth Vader should be considered the epitome of movie villains (in my opinion). Everything about him is simply awesome.

An Exercise in Futility

Here is something that I absolutely hate. The idea that certain words should not be said simply because they are "swear words". Now some words, in certain contexts, are not appopriate at all - I wouldn't call a woman a "bitch", or call anyone a "faggot" and so forth. Certain slang phrases (suck as "Jungle Bunny") shouldn't be used because of their intention. However, there is nothing wrong with words like "hell", "damn", "shit", and even, really, "fuck". I realize that the last word has acquired a new meaning, but the others really remain the same. Nonetheless, people are uptight about words which mean, respectively, a mythological place from Norse and Christian mythology, the action of sending people to hell or writing them off so that they'll be sent to hell, poop, and sex. None of these are particularly bad things. And yet people act like children shouldn't hear them, or they shouldn't here them. Why is this? The idea is that "they're offensive" but really, they shouldn't be. They're only offensive because people make them offensive. If everyone taught their child that those words were essentially no worse than other words then we wouldn't have problems with them. But many people are too close minded to accept that sort of thing.

Likewise, information about sex and sexual organs are not something that should be hidden from children. If it weren't treated like something totally different from everything else, then people wouldn't be so uptight about discussing it and it wouldn't be such a big deal.

Lastly, I heard someone say a few things which were totally wrong: that "children are less innocent that they used to be" and that "America is in a moral and religious decline". Both of these statements are very untrue.

Children are no less innocent than they used to be. They may actually be more "innocent" (a word used to mean that they don't know words which are considered inappropriate, etc)

The United States may perhaps be in a moral decline but I have no idea about the religious decline. Any country that would elect people from the Tea Party is populated by easily influenced idiots. As for a religious decline, I would disagree. It's in the middle of the theological battles that happened in Europe a while ago where the Christians fought against science and eventually lost. It's bound to happen again here at some point.