Yoda Yoda Yoda

It’s important to keep up with current events . That’s why my son and I went to see the latest Star Wars movie on the big screen. We didn’t sit outside the theatre for weeks, as some dedicated news junkies always do. We just paid for tickets, and went right on into a theatre near us, to witness Episode II, which, like Episode I, precedes all the Episodes that came forth years and years ago. My son and his friend like to sit right up in the front. I prefer the back. So off we went to our respective seats. Confident we were (if I may quote Yoda) that our quest for knowledge would be fully satisfied. And we were not alone in this quest. The Episode was playing on four screens, a new showing every hour and fifteen minutes. Many hours later, we emerged in-the-know, and two out of three - a clear majority - thought it was great!

One by one, I regard Star Wars movies as Woody Woodpecker with humans. All together, they present a Big Picture. Observe:

Obi-Wan, who used to be old and now is young, is responsible for training Anakin Skywalker to be a Jedi knight. (Jedi knights are very energetic and adventurous male persons, who use light sabres and "The Force.") Anakin used to be Darth Vader, the asthmatic bad-guy in black armor, who killed Obi Wan, and later turned out to be the father of Luke Skywalker, who was a young man and now is not yet born. Luke Skywalker was the fruit of the impending marriage between Anakin and a woman who used to be a queen and is now a Senator.

 
Star Wars: Episode II - Anakin
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Episode II finds Anakin, on the brink of manhood, proving the proverb that idle hands are the d....’s workshop. He must protect the Senator, who is in grave danger for some reason. The Senator, accustomed to sitting around making bold decisions about the social order, and being not allowed to hang around in the Senate while she is in danger, occupies herself by making decisions about elaborate fashion statements. She sets a high standard for herself. One complete fashion statement per scene. This takes up all her between-scenes time, leaving Anakin with nobody to play cards with. Having no fashion-statement skills on account of having only the clothes on his back his whole life, Anakin is left with nothing to do but reflect on injustice as it applies to him personally. Naturally, having discovered firsthand how little they have in common, they get married.

"What did you think of the fight?" my son asked me, when the movie was over. He meant the scene in a cave, where the very capable Obi-Wan/Anakin team were so easily overcome by some guy with a light sabre, (I don’t know who that guy was) whereupon Yoda popped in and, handing off the cane upon which he always leans with both hands, proceeded to leap about quite nimbly, before dragging himself out of the cave, all crippled up with age, or whatever it is that cripples him up.

"Well," I said, "it was OK, but my favorite scene was the wedding scene "Why?"

"Because the credits began to roll immediately after it."

"I told you that’s what she’d say," my son told his friend.

Actually, that was not the exact moment when my son revealed that he had read my mind from afar. It was when, upon emerging from the auditorium, I asked what day it was.

Episode II has a moral, even if it doesn’t have a plot. If you’re going to go to some planet or other to fetch a child so he (or she, let’s pretend this is a different story) can be trained as a Jedi knight, because he (or she) is clearly the Chosen One, do not take him (or her) to a place where there are no families, and leave his (or her) mother (or father) behind. If you do, here is what will happen:

That child is going to grow up, get involved with some organization where they make him dress in a way that is just all wrong for him. Next thing you know, he’ll be breathing so loud you can hear him on the next planet. So now, you, too, are in the know. You’re welcome.