Introduction
It is now almost three decades since the first publication of this thesis in book form, three decades in which the prescient observations of the author have been largely verified by the hard work and good fortune of many historians. It is surprising how few of the author’s suggestions have turned out to be wrong. Or rather, it is not surprising at all for those of us who had the good fortune to have the acquaintance of Dr Tzu. The editors have chosen to reissue this work without alteration, despite the many discoveries of the past twenty years, and with the permission of Dr Tzu’s estate, in order to display her intellectual achievement to the fullest. A brief afterword summarising the recent work that has so abundantly verified this thesis - in particular the ‘Lord Koroth Diaries’ - has been appended, an afterword which it has been my particular honour to prepare.
Introduction to the First Edition
The ‘Star Wars’ films were produced in a society - like all societies - where control of the present rests on an ability to control the past. When you impose your own vision of history on another person, you create the world they must live in from that moment onward. The ‘Star Wars’ films were created at a time in which the events they portray had passed out of living memory, but perhaps were not nearly as distant as one might assume from the words ‘a long time ago’. They were also not produced at the same time, but over a span of time of at least a generation, as is abundantly clear from stylistic, cultural and technical trends across the six films.
Why were these films produced? What was the true nature of the events to which they refer? What was the nature of the society which created them? The aim of this thesis is to present plausible and self-consistent answers to these questions and stimulate further research into these neglected and important historical documents.
The ‘Star Wars’ films cover a period of approximately forty years and follow the fortunes of members of the Skywalker family as they rise from obscurity to positions of political prominence on a multi-stellar scale, first in one generation and then in the next. The powers attributed to these two, first Anakin and then Luke, are nothing short of godlike, and the divine origin of the family is broadly hinted. There are strong indications that the films were planned to follow the Skywalker clan into a third generation, but for whatever reason this project was not completed.
The hypothesis presented here will be that the ‘Star Wars’ films were produced in order to rehabilitate the Skywalker dynasty; to place its undoubted historical achievements in a more heroic context than that in which they actually occurred; and to normalise beliefs concerning this dynasty which were previously held by a marginalised group within society. This process of reconstructing history has been abundantly documented in numerous societies. In the case of the ‘Star Wars’ films, it will be suggested that the project - an ambitious experiment in social engineering extended over decades - was finally abandoned when the society was absorbed into a greater society in which it was no longer necessary or desirable to glorify the Skywalker dynasty.
A number of trends are clear within the films, doubtlessly reflecting both changes within the society that produced them and shifts in the precise motivations of their creators. The most important of these are as follows:
* The internal consistency of the world presented declines steadily. While physical impossibilities are rife from the beginning of the series, suggesting that the society that produced them no longer engaged in space travel on a regular basis, the plausibility of the mythologised events becomes less and less. The behaviour of the characters becomes less consistent and believable, and more and more often events are presented as poorly-scripted farce or mindless chase instead of drama. While this trend is consistent with a society becoming less concerned with historical truth, I will argue that it reflects to a greater degree the ease with which the historical record was manipulable to serve the purposes of the creators of the series. ‘Many a true word is spoken in jest’; and farce and mindless action may serve to render palatable memes that, if presented baldly in a dramatic context, would be rejected out of hand.
* The technical competence of the films improves. This is consistent with increasing contact with more technologically advanced, if not more scientifically literate, cultures. Of interest here is the depiction of the xenomorphs: an evident trend across the films is that their appearance becomes less human (reflecting either increased technical capability, or improved knowledge) while at the same time their behaviour becomes not only more human, but more subhuman, in that they are increasingly made figures of fun without fully human characteristics. While this trend is evident from the beginning - and unfortunately few of the xenomorphs are shown with sufficient accuracy in order that their species can be assigned with certainty, with the exception of the rHghai - it is most likely that the time in which the films were produced spans two periods: in the first, an isolated society had memories of non-human intelligences which were relatively respected and feared, but no direct knowledge; in the second, that society was in contact with a powerful humanocentric society in which xenomorphs were systematically ‘dehumanised’.
* The worldview of the characters becomes steadily more materialistic. In the first three films, an overtly soulist, pantheist worldview is expressed and strongly argued by characters such as Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi; in the second, this worldview is marginalised and a parallel, overtly materialistic (though still mythological) worldview is assumed.
The overall stylistic, technical, and cultural trends suggest a relatively small, isolated society, probably restricted to a single planet, but with active memories of a ‘glorious past’ in which the ancestors of at least a portion of the population were part of a dominant society on the kilo- or megaworld scale. In all probability these ancestors included both partisans and victims of the Skywalker dynasty.
What were the true achievements of the Skywalker dynasty, and why was it necessary to rehabilitate them? The best way to answer these questions would clearly be to identify with certainty the world that produced the ‘Star Wars’ films, and by examining its other historical documents, achieve a consensus picture of the origin of its inhabitants - doubtless, if the supposition above is correct, including eyewitness accounts by both pro- and anti-Skywalker factions. Unfortunately, such an approach would be prohibitively expensive given the current cost of interstellar communications. Instead, answers must be sought within the films themselves.
Each trilogy follows a similar pattern in first humanising, then rehabilitating, a Skywalker despot. The younger Skywalker is shown initially as a somewhat ridiculous but essentially good-hearted individual, is revealed to have extraordinary abilities, commits mass murder in a good cause, and is portrayed in such a way as to retain the sympathy of the viewer while scorning the advice of his spiritual leaders and gradually becoming estranged from the rest of humanity. His garb externalises his inward journey, being first white, then grey, and finally black. It is probable that the real Luke Skywalker underwent this same process while involved in a rebellion against the Empire in which his estranged father was an important figure, and that both the broad story of the first three films and many of the details are based in historical fact. In all probability, the early years of Luke Skywalker were relatively unblemished, and could be presented with changes primarily of emphasis and motive, rather than content, in order to make him a sympathetic character.
The conclusion of the ‘Return of the Jedi’, however, bears unmistakable signs of fictionalisation. Is it credible that two leaders such as Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine would, together, take into combat a battle satellite of very similar design to one already destroyed by the rebellion? Is it credible that the Imperial Storm Troopers, as originally described by Obi-Wan Kenobi, could have been defeated by a rabble of primitives? It is far more likely that the events of the ‘Return of the Jedi’ ended with Luke Skywalker joining with his father, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, to defeat Emperor Palpatine and institute a period of Skywalker rule. The confused ending of the first trilogy is in all probability a clumsy effort to render Luke Skywalker’s ascent to power completely innocent.
In a similar way, the second trilogy seeks to humanise and rehabilitate the elder Skywalker. This is the more difficult task, as the dark and inhuman Darth Vader of the first trilogy no doubt was the most sympathetic portrayal of Anakin Skywalker possible at the time. However, the final ‘redemptive’ act of Anakin Skywalker at the end of the first trilogy created - after an appropriate time for maturation in the collective unconscious - appropriate conditions for portrayal of the young Anakin as a good-hearted if somewhat sullen prodigy. In turn, he is revealed to have extraordinary abilities, commits mass murder in a good cause, and is portrayed in such a way as to retain the sympathy of the viewer while scorning the advice of his spiritual leaders and gradually becoming estranged from the rest of humanity.
This thesis will examine in detail the six ‘Star Wars’ films to justify the statements made in this introduction, discuss possible locations where the events of the films may have taken place, present a tentative timeline of the Skywalker dynasty, and discuss the probable nature and location in space and time of the society in which the ‘Star Wars’ films were created.
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