21st Century Wire

There’s a widely spread prejudice that George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy is fundamentally – even exclusively – based on Joseph Campbell’s idea of mono-myth. It is, we are told, primarily a portrait of “a hero’s journey,” embodied in the exploits of Luke Skywalker, starting off on his path to achieve the maturity and spiritual accomplishment in a quite modernized, to the century of self(ish) appropriated, theory of ancient pedagogical method – intended to paint “the veritable image of truth” (Plato) when rational argument fails to express it.

Although Campbell’s influence is duly noted by Lucas and some other leading filmmakers of his generation, my intuition for some time was that there’s something more fundamental and at the same time more mundane to quasi-mythical subtext of Star Wars films.

Namely, as an outside – and quite unfashionably amiable – observer of American mentality, I couldn’t help but notice that American’s almost unilateral fondness of those films has more to do with their own relatively recent history, than to the “archetypes” modern psychology sells us as something original and fundamental to all human beings.

Well, it’s hard not to notice how those blazing turrets of Millenium Falcon, X-Wing fighters scrambling for the attack run and all that individual sacrifice in the name of the Universe of the Free and Galaxy of the Brave astonishingly mirrors the visuals of old WWII propaganda documentaries, featuring B-17 fending off German or Japanese fighters or dive bombers ravaging Imperial Japanese fleet at the battle of Midway.

Moreover, I have to admit that, for my money, Luke and his buddies don’t really resemble Jason and Argonauts. I’d say they are more like typical innocent faced late Seventies kid in kung-fu outfit, accompanied by space cowboy, inarticulate non-Caucasian gentle giant and prom queen in distress with the girl-next-door demeanor.

In summation, therefore, I’d say that universal acclaim the Star Wars gets among American people across the political spectrum – from patriots to hard core critics of their own “American Empire” – is rather an expression of subconscious, but quite adamant, national pride.

This is the reason why I find Star Wars: Rogue One a puzzling film. Namely, it is a straightforward, emotionally laden war movie with an unspoken yet clear message: a praise of suicide in defiance of USA.

We are treated with the universe where a omnipresent Empire is fighting rebels, split into moderates and radicals (sound familiar?). The rebels are obligatory multicultural, with recognizable Middle Eastern features in the forefront, and radicals faction is introduced in the scene blatantly evocative of public image of urban warfare in USA occupied Iraq, or present day Syria:

Hero and her assassin sidekick scour the desert planet’s urban landscape in search for clues of whereabouts of her former mentor, now leader of Al-Qa … er … radical rebels. The city is obviously a simulacra of stereotyp

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