"Sith" > "Jedi"

I must give Kevin Drum full marks for bravery. It can't be easy to admit that you think that "Return of the Jedi" is the greatest Star Wars film, especially when it so obviously isn't, and when there are so many blogging dorks out there who rightly understand "Empire" to be the best of them.

I will give "Jedi" some credit -- it neatly ties up a complex story with a very satisfying conclusion. It has a solid story arc: Luke's quest to save his father without losing his own soul. And while I find the whole plot to rescue Han absolutely ridiculous, it does, as noted in this epic No Machete Juggling post, demonstrate some important aspects of Luke's development as a Jedi. He's clearly developed some mad skills by the beginning of the film, but his lightsaber is still writing checks his midichlorians can't cash. He assumes he can win any fight, and he assumes his mind tricks will work on anyone. He's also flirting with some dark side stuff, Force-choking one of Jabba's guards. And the final space battle in "Jedi" remains quite awesome, and I still love Admiral Akbar, no matter how stupid he looks.

And I suppose there are simple matters of personal taste here. But I think Drum goes too far when he tries to get us to ignore the Ewoks, which he admits are loathesome:

There are, basically, two extended Ewok sequences. The first, when the Ewoks capture Luke and Han, is inexcusable. I won't even try. But it's only ten minutes of a two-hour movie. The second sequence is the battle for the shield generator station, and in that one the Ewoks really don't matter. It's a set-piece fight, and the Ewoks are just the extras — small, furry extras, but still extras. Ignore them. If someone recut the film to excise most of the first, infuriating Ewok sequence, I honestly think a lot of people would see the rest of it in a whole different light.

No, the Ewoks were not extras in the battle for the shield generator. The Rebels went down to the moon with somewhere around 20 soldiers, right? Everyone was packed into one Imperial shuttle. They expected to find only a small group of guards and stealthily destroy the shield generator. But they instead found hundreds of stormtroopers who were waiting for them. These Rebels were about to get slaughtered. What saved them was the Ewoks. The Ewoks were essential to the Rebels' victory on Endor. And that is among the things that makes "Jedi" irredeemably bad. It is as though three Roman legions were wiped out at the Teutoburg Forest by gerbils.

I would submit that "Revenge of the Sith" is actually a better film that "Return of the Jedi." I recognize that this view, while probably not as controversial as Drum's, is still not the mainstream one. But the "Sith"story is much more coherent, staying fully focused on Anakin's fall. And the fall is masterfully executed and so complete in its outcome. The entire movie is basically a sting, with Palpatine constantly playing on Anakin's weaknesses (his failure to save his mother, his fears over losing Padme, his insecurities over his treatment by the other Jedi) to bring about a crisis. Why did Palpatine demand that Anakin be seated on the Jedi Council, if not to force the Council to resist, adding to Anakin's insecurities? Why did Palpatine so easily slaughter three Jedi in his council chambers but leave Windu -- whom Anakin knew didn't trust him -- appearing to be beating him, even though Palpatine could have killed him at any moment, if not to force Anakin to rise up against Windu?

And Anakin's final fall is so complete, leaving him a smoldering, limbless pile of hate, screaming impotently at the best friend he'd been manipulating into despising, while the woman he was trying to save lays dying. And Obi Wan's final words to Anakin involve (finally!) something like acting. Ewan MacGregor somehow achieves the impossible, delivering an impassioned performance in a George Lucas film, venting both his disgust in Anakin and his own remorse for having trained him.

Mercifully, "Sith" doesn't try to distract us with humorous or furry creatures. Jar Jar is silent. The droids do their jobs. The film is dark and bleak and allowed to remain that way. The few final scenes not focused directly on Anakin -- finding homes for the twins, the remaining Jedi going into hiding, the Death Star under construction -- serve only to set up Episode IV.

I won't call it a perfect film ("Nooooooo!"). But it's really very good, and apart from "Empire," probably the most adult film of the whole series.

Update: Dan Drezner jumps in to assert that "Jedi" > "Sith" and that every film of the original trilogy is better than every film of the prequel trilogy. Fine, be that way.

You can't afford *not* to buy a Death Star!

A few years ago, someone (I can't recall who -- the link is dead) estimated it would cost $15 septillion to build a Death Star. I estimated it would cost several orders of magnitude less, considering that the original estimate was based on Earth's primitive and costly methods of transporting material into orbit. Now some students at Lehigh have estimated the cost at about $850 quadrillion. Kevin Drum points out that this is far less intimidating than it might look. If we wait about 500 years to build it (at which point our technology might have advanced to Star Wars-like levels), this figure will only be about 65 times world GDP. Spread the project out over 20 years, and that's only 3 times world GDP. Moreover, spread it out over the wealth of tens of thousands of star systems in the Galactic Empire, and suddenly this is looking quite affordable.

Drum concludes from this that building the Death Star was "totally worth it." Well, that's not obvious. One must ask, compared to what? I mean, what was the point of the Death Star in the first place? To intimidate planets that might have considered undermining the Empire. It couldn't be everywhere at once, but the example of destroying Alderaan had to have served as a deterrent for other planets. Notably, the Rebellion had few options for bases after that. They stayed on an ice planet briefly, and after that had to wander space in a few random ships. But, of course, the deterrent value was limited, since the Death Star had been destroyed. Everyone knew the Empire could build another one, but until they did, the threat was going to wane. So they threw together another one, which again got destroyed.

Now, just as building a Death Star sent an important message to non-compliant planets, destroying a Death Star sent a powerful signal, as well. It was a huge public relations coup for the Rebellion. So the Death Star, while a devastating weapon, was also a tempting target. There were some basic conceptual design flaws (both versions were destroyed by a small smuggling ship and a handful of single-person fighters), but really, even if it had survived Yavin, it was doomed to spend much of its operational time fighting off attackers, simply by virtue of being such a big fat target.

Had the Empire instead used that money to build thousands of additional star destroyers, that likely would have been a much wiser investment. Then they really could be everywhere at once. Hell, park one in orbit around every system in the Empire. Then when Leia says, "They're on Dantooine," Tarkin can just call up the ship hovering over Dantooine and say, "Are there rebels there?", and the captain can say, "Uh, no. She's lying." Saves a lot of time. Plus, even if the rebels could down one or two star destroyers, that doesn't provide them with anywhere near the public relations value of taking down a Death Star.

So, on balance, I'd say it was a bad investment, even if an affordable one.

One other point: It was really stupid to put both the Emperor and his chief enforcer on an uncompleted Death Star right before an attack they knew was coming. Had Vader and Palpatine been back on Coruscant when that went down, the Rebels would have won an impressive victory, but the Empire wouldn't have fallen. It would have been like Al Qaeda sinking the USS Nimitz -- serious, to be sure, but hardly death to America.

The debt ceiling metaphor I was looking for

Last week, I did a post comparing John Boehner with Indiana Jones pointing a bazooka at the Ark of the Covenant. In retrospect, I think the better metaphor would be the bounty hunter in Jabba's Palace using a thermal detonator as a negotiating tool. Interestingly enough, Obama's response was almost exactly the same as Jabba's -- pay the price demanded, and let the bounty hunter spend the night in the palace.

A Dune Sea of red ink

If you haven't read this discussion on the economics of using the Death Star to destroy a planet, you really, really ought to. The writers have some very useful insights on why destroying Alderaan might make sense as a warning to other systems, even if it was costly in the short run. (Ever wonder why the Rebels were holed up on Hoth in Episode V? Because all the decent planet were too scared to give them shelter post-Alderaan.)

But there's a bigger issue here that I think needs addressing. Where did Palpatine get all the money? He apparently authorized the creation of the Clone Army (and all of its equipment, including some very large and costly star destroyers) before he was even emperor. And neither the Senate nor the Jedi Council knew about these expenditures until the clones just showed up. Surely the cloners wanted to see some kind of money up front.

On top of that, by the end of the Clone War, Palpatine's begun construction of a Death Star, something that is estimated to cost $15 septillion (although I think could be purchased for a few quintillion). Sure, it's far from completed, but he still would have had to purchased the raw materials, hired the laborers, etc. And we still see no sign that the Senate or the Council knew anything about it. (Remember how shocked Obi Wan was to learn of its existence in Episode IV?) Where did this money come from?

Frankly, it's amazing the Republic lasted as long as it did with such horrible budgetary oversight.


Update: Good point from David Bernstein that a vibrant media (all but invisible in Lucas' movies) would have shed light on this scandal early on. Similarly, the Trade Federation's denial of their invasion of Naboo in Episode I would have found fewer adherents had there been a single news crew there.

The politics of the Jedi

I was trying to avoid posting about Drezner's post on the Jedi, but then Bernstein goaded me.  I crumble under that kind of pressure.

Anyway, Drezner is trying to categorize the Jedi Order politically.  Are they libertarians or big government liberals?  As he says,

I think it would be more accurate to describe them as cartelistic -- they refuse to permit a free market in learning the ways of the Force. After all, the Jedi Council's initial inclination is not to train Anakin Skywalker despite his obvious talents, using some BS about fear as a cover. Only when Qui-Gon threatens to go rogue do they relent. The Council does not inform the Senate that their ability to detect the force has been compromised. They're reluctant to expand their assigned tasks -- they're keepers of the peace, not soldiers. Just as clearly, their anti-competitive policies weakened their own productivity, given the fact that they were unable to detect a Sith Lord walking around right under their noses for over a decade. [Emphasis in original]

I think his categorization is accurate, although I'd hasten to point out that the Jedi Council's original decision not to train Anakin was, in retrospect, the right call.  So there's something to be said for elitism.

There are no great analogues for the Jedi in modern American society.  They are a secretive, powerful religious sect contracted by the Republic to do vital governing tasks that include policing and diplomacy.  Perhaps the Knights Templar were similar in some ways, although I don't think the Knights had any real authority within European society.  Their jurisdiction was the Holy Land.  In some ways, the Jedi sound more like the Taliban than anything we've got going in the U.S.

Politically, it's really hard to categorize the Jedi, or the Galactic Republic in general, because Lucas gives us so few policy issues to work with.  The Republic turns a blind eye to slavery, not so much because they like slavery but because they just largely ignore what goes on on the Outer Rim planets.  That's not so much liberal or conservative as weak.  It's also largely unable to resolve a trade dispute among its own members.  Bernstein's analogy to the Articles of Confederation is spot on.  But the Jedi don't really seem to take positions on any of this stuff.

Update: Welcome Atlantic Wire readers!  Wait, I'm a libertarian?  How will I tell my children, Rand and Galt?