It has been a few years since I saw one of the most important movies of my life, The Last Jedi. When I first saw the movie in theatres I could only say one word afterwards: "Huh". This threw everyone off. My friends had known me to be a proponent for the entirety of the Skywalker Saga since The Force Awakens, which had ignited a love for the prequels in my heart; it was previously the fires of deepest loathing. Using the seven films we had at the time I fully immersed myself in them, writing Facebook posts that bordered upon raving lunacy.
Okay, maybe they didn't border.
When I got out of The Last Jedi I called a friend of mine. Now, for those of you of a certain political persuasion, this was no liberal I called; she had been bullied horribly for her pro-life stance in highschool and considers her Catholic faith to be the bedrock of her soul, similarly to how I consider my Orthodox Christian faith to be the bedrock of mine. Still overwhelmed, I asked her what her opinion was.
"Nathan, they get it. The director gets it. The movie gets it."
I sat silently, overwhelmed, as she cried on the phone with me.
I was still trying to process what I felt when the requests for my opinion of The Last Jedi began to pour in. I couldn't just open my brain to them. The only thing I remember saying at the time was: "It's true. It's truth." People were a little put off by that. They wanted a rant and I not only didn't give it to them but stated an opinion that most folks don't want you to have these days: that art is not an end in itself, that its worth is in its service to the truth. And if there is one thing The Last Jedi is, it's true.
Eventually the floodgates opened, and I proceeded on a whirlwind to try and describe what I thought of The Last Jedi. It took me eight months and covered every movie of The Skywalker Saga at that point. It transcended religion, politics, family, mental health. To even write the darn thing I had to become more steeped in the earlier stories of yore. Mythology and Christian scripture were my major touchstones. And by learning to watch Star Wars, to take seriously the "It rhymes" saying that so many people love to mock, my own faith opened me to a coherence I would have never believed. Scripture made sense, because as it turns out it was compiled with the same intent that Star Wars was, but on a whole different scale: a series of repeating images, with differing contexts that whirled about in a dance of deep meaning. Commentary from the Fathers corresponded to the TV shows like The Clone Wars and Rebels: explanations and filling in the gaps that made the dancing images mean more than they could alone.
The Rise of Skywalker strengthened and concluded the themes I'd seen in The Skywalker Saga: how the interconnected nature of creation led to the creation of life where there was none, connections that worked despite all seemings, and that while good created and was fruitful evil committed suicide. I've not written much on The Rise of Skywalker and the entirety of The Skywalker Saga because my original eight month treatment was hardly contradicted; the spots where I was wrong (or on the right track) were so obvious to me that I felt little need to expound, despite a few abortive attempts.
So I dove into interiorizing my faith using the tools Star Wars had helped me develop. An entirely new world had opened for me, one that I had always suspected, but could never quite put my finger on, not alone. I found myself becoming less liberal in a classical sense, a process that is very hard to describe unless you've done it; it's like moving from the ocean to the land or vice versa. At some point it occurred to me that the view of humanity espoused in the Bible and that of classical liberalism were almost diametrically opposed to each other.
Since then I have always felt a stranger in a strange land, no matter where I go or what I do. There have been times I've gotten sick of this permanent sense of alienation and have tried to end it; one wants to feel like he belongs where he lives, after all! Nevermind the fact that such alienation is essential to the Christian life and that it has born me much fruit. The flesh is weak, after all. One wishes to rest on the world, even when you know you shouldn't.
And y'know what? I thought I'd found it with the neo-reactionaries. I stumbled acrost The Distributist first, and then Curtin Yarvin, and then Morgoth's Review. Out of all the political views I've studied neo-reactionary thought is the closest to what is espoused in the Bible. Man is viewed as a self-treacherous creature, in need of guidance, but not beyond hope. There is the demand for order and cultural cohesion that is foundational to all of the Bible. I've generally found neo-reactionary thought to be the most accepting of how the world operated, as opposed to how we wished it to be; God can only save the sinner you are, not the rational and free creature you pretend to be.
At the same time I just so happened to stumble acrost Jonathan Pageau. Talk about a dude I'd just like to sit at the feet of and learn. Pageau's knowledge is incredible and most of the time I find myself slotting more and more facts into a the worldview I've sorted just... assembled... haphazard like. Universal history, information about the Grail, a thousand other things I've learned from The Symbolic World.
But I find myself in a continuous state of bewilderment. Because these people I've found who have taught me quite a bit, whose worldview has enriched my own, hate The Last Jedi, not to mention The Rise of Skywalker. It's like the logic they follow just vanishes at that point. Considering that The Last Jedi is the start of what brought me to this point... I find it more than a little odd. Maybe it's a holdover from my own slowly-dying liberalism?
I don't know.
But at this point I need to find out.
Is The Skywalker Saga something I need to jettison to have a coherent worldview?
Keep in mind I didn't say be a neo-reactionary or a follower of Pageau. I'm a stranger in a strange land and that's going to go double with people I feel comfortable with. But a lot of people I have a great amount of respect for have spent a not inconsiderable amount of time talking this thing down. And if I'm not willing to re-examine what I think and try to arrive at greater truth then what's the point in having a mind in the first place? Even something as important to me as The Skywalker Saga?
Next time we'll get into the neo-reactionary and Pageau's arguments, as I understand them.
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