🕯❄️Festive AF Brian❄️🕯️

Ok I didn’t expect to write a Star Wars essay today but here goes. I think “only what you take with you,” when Luke asks waiting for him in the dark side cave, is basically the thesis of the original trilogy and why most everything else in the franchise has missed. What Yoda is essentially saying is that the force is not some monolithic, all-powerful entity with definable rules or limits. Yoda obviously suspects Darth Vader will be waiting for him in that cave… but he doesn’t “know” it, because Vader wouldn’t be waiting for just anyone in there. He’s a reflection of Luke’s baggage, his fears and flaws and temptations. THAT is what the dark side is, and more broadly, what the force is. It’s not a god, but an intentionally vague “force” meant to reflect what’s inside of those who can connect to it. When Luke blows up the Death Star, it’s not just because he has a special power, but because he gives himself over to it, his connection to Obi Wan makes him BELIEVE he can use the force, and that’s what allows him to do it. I don’t think this message is meant just for Luke, but for the audience as well. We’re not supposed to understand the force, we’re supposed to project ourselves onto it. We’re supposed to wonder what we’d take into that cave, if we could summon the faith Luke needed to destroy the Death Star, how we’d respond to the tyranny of the empire, The story isn’t about magic powers or laser swords. It’s about the people who use them. By accepting and embracing the mystery, by trusting in the force, we allow ourselves to occupy the same mental space as the characters, to walk in their shoes, to connect with the people trying to save the galaxy as we root them on. That’s immersion. It’s a big reason the original trilogy is such a masterpiece. And it’s what the series, and so much of modern sci fi, lost in basically everything that followed. The Phantom Menace gave us midichlorians and the Chosen One prophecy. Every minor lore question now gets answered. There’s no mystery anymore, nothing to project ourselves onto because the world is suddenly so full. Of course Luke isn’t just any random teenager from Tatooine, he was always special, but it becomes a whole lot harder to project yourself onto him when you understand that he’s more of a pawn in the galactic destiny than any random kid who decided to fight for what was right. One is easier for any of us to connect to than the other. Most franchises are like this now. They don’t understand that less can be more. We have so much less patience than we used to. We see one episode of a show and there are immediately 1,000 theories about what every little thing means, how every bit of magic or technology works, and so much of our enjoyment of the story is wrapped up in whether those explanations are satisfying. We don’t give ourselves over to story anymore. We don’t trust artists. We don’t take anything with us, we demand the story give us everything. And as a result we don’t connect to the characters in the same way. It’s never really “about” the characters anymore, it’s about whether that thing the set up in episode two paid off in episode seven, about whether all of our questions were answered, about whether the magic system makes sense. In short, I miss when The Force was a mystery, something vague enough to tailor itself not only to every individual character, but every individual viewer as well. That was Star Wars at its best. And Yoda encapsulates it in one line.