I have seen too much Star Wars. I'd seen every movie once, before our children became fans. I've now seen episodes I, IV through VI, and the two "Clone Wars" animations many times. The children are not allowed to see episodes II and III, so my eldest is obsessed with them. He studies related picture books intensely.
I am, then, an expert in the story the movies tell. I can thus confidently declare that the story is deeply weird, dark, and disturbing. Do not be deceived by the words, observe the actions.
The Jedi enslave clones and droids alike, tear apart families, abandon their failures, never show remorse or admit error, treat non-Jedi as pawns, and deny the bonds of love. They are deeply flawed. The Sith aren't much better, thought they at least know themselves.
R2D2 knows far too much, he's involved in every intrigue. C3PO has his memory wiped (another crime), but nobody remembers the harmless little tin can that chirps and beeps. R2D2 must have learned everything C3PO knew, and everything the cunning droid has been personally involved in. He can penetrate and control any AI system, even that of the Death Star. He's hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.
The case for R2D2's power is irrefutable. Taking the movies at face value, any neutral observer would have to wonder if the real manipulator is R2D2, not Palpatine and Yoda.
Luke forgets the family that raised him with barely a second thought, is tempted by the Sith, and joins the morally bankrupt Jedi. Chewbacca never tells Han what he knows about Yoda, and pretends to know nothing about the Jedi. Leia's world is destroyed, but she shrugs it off as an acceptable sacrifice. She's perhaps not quite as flawed as her brother, but, really, it's only a matter of time.
Anakin is a child who becomes a sociopathic killer (episode II) -- long before he joins the Sith. It's a horrid story; it's another indicator of the immorality of the Jedi that he "redeems himself" by merely offing the emperor.
Han Solo is the only remotely moral character, a decent, albeit simple, man surrounded by amoral plotters and schemers.
I wonder how subversive, or even diabolical, Lucas really is ....
Give me Spielberg any day.
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