mythology

Chris Knight's avatar

 

GeekTyrant, one of my favorite websites, reminds us that this week is the tenth anniversary of the release of the trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  I will never forget that night.  I was reloading YouTube every ten seconds, waiting for the trailer to publish.  And when it finally dropped…

I guarantee you that I watched that thing at least a dozen times before going to bed.  Oh sure, there had been the teaser earlier that April, but this was the full-blown serious look at what the first chapter of Star Wars’s “sequel trilogy” was offering.  And it was glorious!  Everything about that trailer was spot-on perfect: the glimpses, the dialogue, the music… just completely epic.

Here it is if you haven’t watched it in awhile (or if you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing it at all until now):

It had been seven ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Law, we are told even in fifth grade, is something that applies to all without respect to wealth or status.  And then a few years later the same notion gets drilled into our mushy skulls during civics class as high school freshmen.  It’s a noble ideal, and we like to think that the world follows America’s example as a model of how under the rule of law, there are none deemed greater than others.  Rich or poor, celebrity or obscure, politically affluent or peanut gallery… it doesn’t matter.  Here we are all equally accounted and equally accountable.

And it is all a damnable fantasy and we all know it.  Even if we don’t talk about it.
I suppose the current situation with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is in my mind tonight.  As of this writing some former classmate during the early Eighties is alleging that Kavanaugh did something, or
...
Read more

Chris Knight's avatar


The History Channel re-broadcast Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed last night. It’s a two-hour documentary about the film saga, its mythic roots, and the timeless values that it’s tried to share with the modern audience.

As the program was winding down I thought, and not for the first time lately: after all of these years of being a devout Star Wars fan … well, what is the point of it? What has been the point of any of the loyalty that we as fans have shown these movies?

Guess what I’m wondering is: in spite of the multitude of morals and lessons that this movie series has given us, what have we actually done with them, at all?

F’rinstance, George Lucas intended for the recent Star Wars prequels to be a parable about the decline of republican government: that democracies invariably become dictatorships. The final step toward tyranny usually happens ...

Read more