There is controversy about this movie. Fanboys were disappointed that they were so far wrong about what is really important in this movie. Fan theories were all way off base. And that was a good thing. The movie was the best Star Wars movie they have ever made.
I took my family to see this movie at a Thursday matinee a week ago on a regular screen so I could actually afford it, and we watched good battle evil once again. And all the usual things were set up to be a replay of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. But this smashed all expectations. The evil side very nearly won. And the good side lost almost everything. So, in many ways, this whole movie reflected reality in America. Except, of course, for the fact that Emperor Snoke is actually quite smart and crafty.
But the thing that makes this such a flaw-filled perfect Star Wars movie is how the story builds on everything that came before to make a coherent and very wise theme. Threads of ideas that exist in all of the previous movies (except the Christmas specials) are drawn together and woven into a whole thematic cloth. The Jedi tried to bring balance to the Force, and they failed because they thought balance was the same as the Light Side winning out over Dark. Anakin Skywalker brought balance to the force by bringing back the Dark Side, and then Luke came along to bring the Light Side into balance. Of course, the rise and fall of Light and Dark will occur over and over again.
This movie isn’t just another hero’s journey where Rey finds a master and learns what it will take to defeat evil. Master Skywalker does not actually take her on as a student. He is dealing with his own demons and refuses. So the hero must learn the lessons on her own. But she falls into the pattern naturally that Luke recognizes. And Luke’s hero journey has not yet concluded either. Luke recognizes his own past in Rey. Master Yoda reappears and still teaches him something he needed to know. “Failure is the greatest teacher.”
Rey shows signs in this movie of becoming the hero that win it all in the end. But this is Luke Skywalker’s moment. He learns from his personal failure with Ben Solo. He steps into his old role as the light that guides the rebellion. He creates a final duel with Kylo that calls upon him to use greater powers of the Force than we have ever before seen from a Jedi of the Light Side. And he doesn’t win the battle. He only delays Kylo and the First Order long enough to save Rey and the Resistance. It will be up to others to fight on in the next movie. But Luke has finally proved that the Jedi don’t always fail when the next power surge rolls through the Dark Side. Metaphorical victories count too. Surviving is a victory in itself. No movie has ever been so relevant to my own life and struggles. I have to fail so I can learn too how to win.
So, yes. I am a completely uncritical critic. I only report on the things I love about movies. I never quibble over how it should have been done differently, or how it disappointed me. I actually loved the prequels, and Jar Jar Binks was one of my favorite characters. But I loved this Star Wars movie more than any of the ones I have seen so far. And the next one may surpass it. Miracles do happen. But this movie was the perfect thing at the perfect time in my life to accomplish everything I want a movie to do for me. I loved it. I wouldn’t change a thing, even if I had the power in the Force to do it.
And, of course, I have hoarding disorder so bad that I can’t resist starting new collections of dolls when toy-makers are putting out the new stuff at Christmas, even though the Princess has thoroughly outgrown dolls. And I am not alone in having hoarding disorder. While we were cleaning bedrooms, my daughter found a fluffy rug that would be perfect for the bathroom. But no. My wife is saving it. It has to stay folded and put away where it won’t get dirty. We have closets stuffed full of clothing and other stuff that is rarely or never used. And I do not dare throw any of it out or move it to anyplace else. I can move my stuff, not hers.
‘There are dolls everywhere in my room, so any attempt to clean starts with picking them up off the floor and putting them somewhere safer. These four are now living behind the TV. I just wish they would stay put for a while and quit leaping off shelves when they come alive after midnight every night.
It seems I am rather good at it, too. Who knew that a life spent as a teacher would make you into the sort of Jeopardy genius that could earn a million dollars on a show that you will never ever have a chance to get on, and if, by some miracle, you did, you would get a first round question about the atomic weight of molybdenum and you’d say, “What is 42?” because that is the element’s atomic number (and the answer to life, the universe, and everything) instead of 95.94, the correct answer, which you knew, but you got nervous and went for the jokier answer.
Of course, there is the opposite problem too. Some writers are not hard to understand at all. They only use simple sentences. They only use ideas that lots of other people have used before. You don’t have to think about what they write. You only need to react. They are the reasons that words like “trite”, “hackneyed”, “boring”, and “cliche” exist in English. But simple, boring writing isn’t written by stupid people. Hemingway is like that. Pared down to the basics. No frills. Yet able to yield complex thoughts, insights, and relationships.
Catch a Falling Star 
Naked Innocence
To be clear, I will have to write a post called Naked Experience to go with this post. It is a William Blake style of thing. You know, that English Romantic Poet guy who was into drawing naked people even more than me? The writer of Songs of Innocence and Experience? You know, this stuff;
Well, maybe you don’t know. But Blake gave the world the metaphor of the innocent lamb and the tyger of experience (tyger is his spelling, not mine, and it didn’t blow up the spell checker, even though it made the thing unhappy with me again). There is a certain something I have learned about nakedness that I mean to innocently convey. I learned it from anatomy drawing class and spending time with nudists. Naked is not evil. Naked is not pornography. Nakedness, itself, is a very good thing.
At this point the avid clothing-wearers among you are probably saying to yourself, “This guy is nuts! If God had wanted us to be nude, then we wouldn’t have been born with clothes on.” And I must admit, I cannot argue with logic like that.
But on a more serious note, I believe nudity is a fundamentally essential part of the nature of art. After all, pictures of naked people are a central part of what people have been drawing since they first started etching them with charcoal on cavern walls. And all art, including this blog, is about the human experience. What it means to be human. What it feels like to be alive on this Earth and able to feel.
And there is nothing sinister and immoral in drawing nudes to portray that fact. I am trying to show metaphorically the music of existence, the pace, the symmetry, the musical score… It isn’t focused on the private bits, what some call the naughty parts, even when those things are present in the picture. “How dare that naughty Mickey show the naked back end of that butterfly! It ought to have pants on at least!” Yes, I am making a mockery of that outrage itself. I am not a pornographer. These pictures were not created to engender any prurient interests. These pictures are part of Blake’s lamb. They will not bite you. Though blue-nosed people who wish to control what others think may very well bite me for daring to say so.
I have posted a lot of writing and artwork on this blog that I held for the longest time to be completely private and personal. I hardly ever showed any of it to anybody before I posted it here. But I am old. I no longer have secrets. I am capable of telling you everything even though I have never met most of you in real life. And I have no shame. I have become comfortable with emotional and intellectual nudity. And when I am dead, the body I have kept hidden from the world for so long will be no more. It’s just a thought. It’s a naked thought. And it is completely innocent.
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Filed under artists I admire, artwork, commentary, humor, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as nudes, William Blake