THE Star Wars movie franchise is a nostalgia trip for many of my generation. It was actually the first movie I ever watched as a young boy at the old Meralco theatre way back in the early 80s in a special premiere screening. Seeing moving and talking pictures for the first time left a lot of primal imprints on my consciousness I guess. Decades later, I can say that there is a natural affinity to the characters and, of course, the merchandise. I can still remember my red lunch box with the plastic thermos inside it, on its cover the logo “the Empire Strikes Back” emblazoned. I wonder how many payments my mother made to SM Shoemart to acquire that.
Every Star Wars movie that Disney churns out therefore attracts an audience of forty- something men. Almost of them would have father issues just like the protagonist of the series had that the franchise milked to the hilt. This could explain the attraction and the success of the franchise, perhaps to a certain extent. A lot of men with troubled father-son relationships could relate to their family patriarchs coming from the dark side and most could only wish for the same kind of regretful redemption at the end of the first three installments of the film.
Since then, the celluloid universe that George Lucas invented with the Star Wars franchise had since branched out from this simple tale of good and evil and family progeny to prequels and sequels pushing the narrative arcs to new story-telling terrains. In a previous review, I have expressed frustration over how the franchise mimicked the local telenovelas in using family progeny to explain the origins and transfer of the fabled Jedi powers. Coupled with the question of who is Luke’s father was the issue of who gets to inherit the mind tricks and superhuman strength as if it were private property passed from a patriarch to an heir. I was almost tempted to move over to the dark side because of this, noting that the first order was more modern and actually had clear socialist goals.
I am relieved that last year’s installment “The Last Jedi” (2017) eludes this tired issue altogether with the female character Rey, acquiring the fabled Jedi powers from sheer force of will and strength of character. Finally, the Jedi magic is not some family heirloom to be passed around by patriarchs to their male sons. This appears to be so until the next movie unravels and reveals anew explanatory answers to the complex celluloid Star Wars universe.
So what does the latest installment “Solo” (2018) offer amidst the increasing number of Star Wars movies, a safe bet is that there would be one every year? A lot actually. It provides a very essential explanation on the basis of the allied rebellion or the “resistance,” a revelation of the political economy that fuels the whole Star Wars franchise, all the while, entertaining us with the back story of Hans Solo and his trusty partner Chewbaca among other notable original characters.
From “Rogue One” to the “Last Jedi”, the recent installments had always hinted at a kind of romanticism about the “resistance.” But there was hardly any explanation what was the bone of contention between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance apart from the caricature depiction of Coldwar era archetypes - the rugged American individualism of the rebels and the, god forbid, regimented communist-style ways of the Dark Side. But this most recent film, “Solo” reverses this formula upside down and finally locates the franchise at the correct side of the ideological fence.
Here, in the early years of the rebellion that would eventually spawn the likes of Princess Leia and General Organa and Luke Skywalker and even Rey, the film reveals the roots of the rebel resistance particularly among the oppressed peoples of large business conglomerate Crimson Dawn protected by the military might of the Empire. The first rebels were the indigenous peoples of planets ravaged by the extractive industries seeking to profit from their natural resources! In the film, they are waging a fledgling but nevertheless courageous armed resistance against the conglomerate and the Empire that protects their operations. Finally, the film “Solo” clarifies that the Rebel Alliance was a proletarian army, and not a feudal one, out to emancipate the universe from the oppression and economic exploitation of the Dark Side.
This radical reading of “Solo” also has the effect of redefining what Jedi powers actually are. Could it be that the sought-after state of mind that can move objects, create and destroy illusions, and allow one to wield light sabers is nothing really but the symbolic representation of proletarian revolutionary consciousness?