This isn't really a review of the new Star Wars movie Revenge of the Sith. It's more like my own wierd take on the last movie as it related to the other movies and how it relates to our culture.

I'm probably very much in the minority, but I think that the Star Wars saga is really culturally important. Though George Lucas is a baby boomer, I think his work is really relevant to, and speaks about "my generation"....those of us who came after the baby boomers and who have lived in the shadow of their self-absorbtion, in the wake of their making change-for-the-sake-of-change, and in the din of their "nineteen-forever" music and general refusal to get off of the stage.
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When Star Wars came out I was about 10. Everybody went to see it, but, the way I remember it, it was MUCH more well recieved by children then it was by adults. Adults talked about the special effects, and believed that they were what held the kids in thrall. I remember my nieghbor - a quentissential Boomer, saying that "except for the special effects there was nothing to it. I can't see what the fuss is about" and my parents' friends who were close to her in age agreeing heartily. My parents, who were a little older than the parents of my friends said mildly "Well, there's the message in the story."

"Oh, it's all just Eastern Religion made over again, watered down for the masses" Mrs. Boomer informed them, assuming that my father, in spite of the fact that he was steps away from a Ph.d and my mother has read absolute tomes on the subject of comparative religion, were both totally unaware of eastern thought ( seeing as how they still called jeans "dungarees" and didn't wear them)

"Mmm. I think there were some core values there that transcended any particular faith, and their very simplicity makes them appealing." Mom offered mildly.

"I dunno. I just didn't get it." Mrs. Boomer replied.

I think my mom was referring to the plot which she said she found refreshing. Hero rescues princess from forces of evil. Critics then and now deride the whole series of movies as "too simplistic" a "space western", "melodrama", etc. But it had been awhile, at the time Star Wars first came out since there had been a movie in which you knew who to cheer for.

But, to me personally Star Wars reached me in the famous "bar scene" I can still hear that music playing, and walk with Luke, young, inexperienced, the bumpkin, the rube - in short just like me - into the perils of the adult world. And what was in there? Well, everything and everybody!! Some good, some not so good, some sly, some slick, and some with more than one head. That scene in that movie spoke to something young people like me had always suspected: The world was wide. And also very small.

It was my generation who grew up with pictures of the earth from outer space and looked at it and identified it as "home" Around it we saw vast vast blackness. No place easy to hitch up the wagon train, steal land from some natives, and get us some elbow room. This was it the planet, the one we had, and it might not hurt to do a better job of getting along with those people we had to share it with, no matter how different from us they seemed.

My generation was like Luke going into that bar. We didn't want trouble, we wanted to talk. We didn't want to get all worked up over what people were wearing on however many heads they had. We were willing to be a little more accepting, more tolerant than generations that had come before...in light of this small planet we had to share thing. We wanted to be like the Jedi. We didn't want to draw our light sabers until we HAD to, and then, of course we would.

Because this movie WAS about good vs evil and good has to fight evil. But it wasn't just about fighting external evil, it was about fighting "the dark side" in ourselves. Like the beatitudes, the ways of the Jedi aren't complicated.....that is until you try to put them into practice. It's all very simple, even a child can understand it. But only a child, or the person with the most pure heart, could walk that walk every day.

As the saga came full cirlce with Revenge of the Sith the movie brings home its core values. It answers the question that burned in our hearts ever since the-villian-reformed-in-the-end of The Return of the Jedi. We had seen Luke redeem his father from the dark side. "There's still good in you" Luke said confidently to Darth Vader - and this guy had blown up whole planets full of people, keep in mind. ( Luke's faith spoke to a lot of my friends who were fighting to keep their thrice-divorced-pot-smoking-parents from Making Another Mistake of one kind or another mostly driven by rampant strong emmotion) But how did he get there in the first place? How does ANYBODY get there in the first place?

The simple answer in Sith seems to be found in what Yoda says: "attachment" ( and, oh, didn't we kids LOVE Yoda! Those big ears! Luke talked and the teacher was listening to him, and answering what he asked, not just lecturing. How reassuring it was to hear "size matters not"!) But, through the flashing of the light sabers and the explosions and molton lava, another answer common to many of the worlds religions emmerges - we choose it for ourselves. We chose by our thoughts, as well as by our actions. We chose by what emmotions we feed and by those we let go. We chose by to whom we listen and who we allow to advise us. We decide, and we have to live with the consequences

And this is the story of our lives. It may not be a complicated story. It may be able to be told using very simple language. But it's still a good story. It's still very worthwhile