Ethical Dualism and the Anti-Yoda

As painful as it might’ve been, in the previous review, I defended the notorious compressor scene. I didn’t say it was good, but I did say it was fair. That’s the last compliment I’m going to give this film because it’s about to lose its mind.

I want to pause here because, up to this point, while the movie has had problems, it’s still presentable. Yes, there are too many coincidences, unanswered questions, and plot holes, but if one were to remove the final act of this film and just keep what’s been reviewed so far, the movie would only have issues that need to be polished. It has yet to cross over into the territory of complete catastrophe.

Interestingly, the turning point seems to be the introduction of Maz Kanata, who I’m referring to as the Anti-Yoda. There’s a very specific reason for this. Maz Kanata, either intentionally or unintentionally, represents a philosophical departure from Lucas’s original vision, a final and most destructive departure from that vision.

Maz doesn’t say this directly, but her introductory scene marks an escalation in the script and trilogy’s issues, and I believe this might be due to an implied thesis by the writers. This thesis helps explain the thought process behind Rey’s later absurd jumps in power.

Oddly, and perhaps tellingly, this potential thesis is one of the few aspects of the film that Rian Johnson kept for his sequel. And it also explains the total collapse of the structural narrative. This goes back to genre expectations.

The Sequel Trilogy is an interesting case study for how philosophy and genre expectations might interconnect. The bottom line is that once Maz enters the scene and possibly implies the thesis, the choices in this film—and trilogy as a whole for that matter—go from poorly constructed to flat out bizarre.

The group enters Maz Kanata’s fortress, and the scene is clearly a knockoff of the cantina scene in A New Hope. Once inside the not-cantina, Maz screams Han’s name. She meets the group, then asks about her “boyfriend.”

She means Chewie, who has stayed behind to see if there is anything else wrong with the Falcon. I’m not sure why she says this. It’s weird, but moving on, Han asks Maz to take BB-8 to the Resistance. She refuses and says Han needs to return to the fight. Rey asks: “What fight?” Here is what Maz says:

“The only fight, against the Dark Side. Through the ages, I’ve seen evil take many forms: the Sith, the Empire. Today, it is the First Order.”

This line by itself seems pretty standard, even generic. So much so that I’m not sure Abrams meant anything particular in the beginning. But if you look at what Rian Johnson did in The Last Jedi, and in particular Snoke’s line, “Darkness rises and the light to meet it.” And Abrams’ later invention of a Force Dyad—two Force users, one light and one dark, who are bound together—I think the true meaning of the line begins to become clear.

And I say I’m not sure, but when looking back on the ending of The Force Awakens in light of the entire trilogy, I strongly suspect that Maz’s words had a definite meaning in the writer’s mind. And I suspect this meaning was meant to serve a specific purpose.

Maz is basically saying that the light and the dark are always rising up in different forms to fight each other. From a business standpoint, it’s easy to see the dollar signs protruding from the Mouse’s eyes.

What Maz is essentially setting up is an endless line of Lukes and Vaders constantly fighting each other while the Force struggles to maintain balance. One can see visions of endless sequels pumped out one after another as good and evil attempt to balance one another the same way a banker attempts to balance his budget.

In effect, what Maz is articulating is a form of ethical dualism, where good and evil are equal competing, causal forces. Really, I think this is why Rey was so strong. Kylo was strong, so Rey had to become strong by necessity to counterbalance him.

This is made pretty clear in the other two films, but I suspect this was always Abrams’ intention, and it seems that this understanding of balance was the only thing Johnson understood.

But this is a major departure from what Lucas meant by “bringing balance to the Force.” Lucas’s version of balance meant no dark side because the dark side is defined by the fact that it is not the light. It is not a competing faction.

The Force offers power, and, to maintain that power in a non-destructive manner, one must learn virtues and not give in to temptation. To listen to the darker impulses like anger would be to bring the Force out of balance, and in so doing that Force goes from light to dark.

In a word, the light is the default; the darkness is simply a distortion of the light. In philosophical terms, this has been referred to as the Privation Theory or the Privation Theory of Evil. It’s the same idea, only with science fiction window dressing.

Look back on Lucas’s prophecy in the prequels. Anakin is supposed to bring balance to the Force. How does he do this? He does this by killing the Emperor, and once he and the Emperor die, the only Force user who remains is Luke, who chose the light when he rejected the Emperor’s offer to kill Vader and stand by his side.

Granted, the Jedi did not envision their entire order being wiped out and winning the fight by only one when they first heard the prophecy, but the point remains. Balance to the Force means the eradication of the Dark Side—or evil.

Abrams took the word “balance” and warped it. Whether because the story was a mess and he had to come up with something to explain the nonsense Rian wrote down or because Maz was a harbinger of his true intentions, Abrams gave the word balance a dualistic meaning by having one dark side user and one light side user become connected by both having a telekinetic link and powers that were always going to be equivalent to each other, rendering the distinctions between good and evil practically worthless.

After all, evil cannot be evil as we understand it if it’s needed to create “balance.” But what did this do to the story? Were there ways that the story was affected that go beyond Rey’s inexplicable power?

And would these alterations undermine the genre expectations an audience might have as they look for payoffs to all the narrative promises they’ve been given? We’ll explore that question in the next review.