Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Evading the Dark Side

by Christopher Barr

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

The Empire Strikes Back is the most soulful adult, mature and philosophical of all the Star Wars films.  It is the darkest as well, which makes it, although science fiction, the most realistic and possibly the most relatable of them all.  The special effects for the time are beyond state of the art.  It’s a beautiful looking film and if you saw it at the theater in 1980, in all likelihood, it changed you for the good, forever.

The film starts out with Han Solo saving Luke Skywalker on the Ice World of Hoth but then it goes full on into battle, between the Rebel forces and the evil Galactic Empire, which usually would take place at the end of an action film.  This film gets it out of the way in the beginning so it can pursue what the story is really about – emotion.  This film is about our own battle within ourselves, it’s about fighting for what we think is right as well as who we are fighting for.

The evil Lord Darth Vader orders that the rebels be all destroyed.  The gigantic AT-AT Walkers advance on the rebel base like dinosaurs as Luke Skywalker, along with a number of fighter pilots battle the imperial armada to what turns out to be a losing battle.  Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia and C3PO escape on the Millennium Falcon while Luke leaves on an X-Wing Fighter, with R2D2 to the Dagobah system to meet with Yoda, a Jedi master that the disembodied Obi-Wan Kenobi advised Luke to seek out.

“Never tell me the odds.”

– Han Solo

The Millennium Falcon is being chased down by imperial forces.  Han Solo takes refuge in an asteroid field during a moment when you thought that John Williams’ musical score couldn’t get any better and it does.  They hide within the throat of some gigantic space worm before escaping its massive bite.

“Anyone who fights with monsters should take care that he does not in the process become a monster.  And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” 

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Luke crash lands on Dagobah, searching for this so-called Jedi master.  Soon he meets Yoda and begins training as a Jedi.  Here we begin to explore the philosophical elements of the film, the journey into unfamiliar territory one must take before becoming enlightened.  The Buddha sought defamiliarization in order to shake himself out of all that he was used to.     

We are not born necessarily good.  The Force isn’t something we automatically possess.  The Dark Side, the Jungian Shadow, is within us all.  The Force is what the Buddha wanted us all to aspire for, and that is to see our potential, our ability hidden underneath fear, tradition and complacency.       

Most people in the modern world are from the Dark Side, or they are distant components of it.  They labor for it and are living under the illusion of not being part of it.  They might be under the illusion of progress as a form of achievement, they might assume that if they succeed at the stock market that they are winners, they might think if they destroy an adversary they are the better for it.  This is the common attitude of the modern age, where often to win, others must suffer.  This is not true winning; this is rationalization for the sake of justification.

Yoda is right to be skeptical when first meeting Luke, who is passive and uncertain.  Yoda’s all too aware of what real power can do to a person, a motivated, controlling person.  Knowledge from the philosophical sense is ideally used for good, it’s taught to open the minds of those seeking it.  The philosopher has the Force, they possess the intellectual best-intentions when they regale philosophical stories of Plato and Socrates and the ethics of Aristotle.  The business man, the war monger, the politician all possess various degrees of the Dark Side, because they take profit, celebration, and power over the very species they are part of.  Hitler was a Dark Lord that only wanted to overthrow and destroy, dominate and assimilate.  

Luke enters the cave on Dagobah and faces his shadow, in the domain of evil, a place to be tempted by the dark side of the force.  During this test, he faces the darkness within him, he faces death, and he faces evil.  The mechanical man that killed Luke's master Ben Kenobi, is who he must face.  This is an encounter with the Real, an encounter with what’s most scary for Luke.  We face this in our lives when we must grow out of our old ignorant ways and strive toward awaking, doing what Dante did when he entered the Inferno and faced his fears.

Luke defeats him only to see himself in the severed head of Darth Vader.  Luke stares at his own face within the smoky helmet.  We have the potential within us all to be evil, and good is something that requires fighting.  Luke sees himself as potentially someone evil, which in life one must lose everything before one realizes what one is really fighting for.  Luke should have done what Yoda asked and leaved his weapons behind, as Yoda told him that he will not need them.  By taking his weapons with him, Luke has already failed the test because he relies on his accessories and tools rather than the power of the force.  In The Matrix, Morpheus told Neo, while in a training program on top of a building, to not “think” he can do it but rather “know” he can.  Neo has to run and jump off a skyscraper and land on the roof of another, quite a distance away.  Neo runs, jumps and falls to the ground, his problem, like Luke’s, was he didn’t believe in his abilities and in the laws of nature within his particular reality.

This is a psychological acknowledgment that we are flawed, we are often governed, point in fact, we can be bad, or selfish by nature, where we think about ourselves above all others.  This, the Buddha would agree, one must let go in order to achieve a path toward goodness, fulfillment, and purpose.   

Gollum in The Lord of the Rings was a tragic character that was never able to leave the Dark Side once he got there.  He wanted power, he wanted recognition, he wanted to be significant and that’s the dismal state here; often, and sadly, this all comes down to an infantile disagreement, where someone is getting their way and someone else isn’t.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

– Yoda

What is it to rise above one self, how is one elevated?  Athletes regularly experience the fruits of ‘knowing’ they can do it.  Plato, in The Republic believed that the physical ability of athletes and the mental capacity of the Philosopher were on different frequencies, different thought processes.  Here Yoda is attempting to join them, clearly in the tradition of the Asian martial arts, but never the less, allowing the strength of mind, body and spirit to co-exist as one.

One must convince themselves that they have the ability to achieve something.  Things don’t just happen; it’s up to the individual to help make them happen, through various forms of effort.  We need to study and train our abilities to advance them further toward an enlightened state of being.

“Do or do not, there is no try.”

– Yoda

Yoda lifting Luke’s X-Wing fighter out of the swamp and moving it to land with his Jedi mind, was a manifestation of what the mind is capable of doing.  It’s unable to actually move X-Wing fighters but it can elevate one to a higher level of being.  It can allow one to leave the petty, selfish, wish-fulfilling attitude behind and see the world as a form of joy and place of constant learning. 

The Millennium Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, lands in Cloud City for what they believe is a point of refuge from the Empire.  Turns out, Han Solo’s friend, his gambling buddy, the man he won the Millennium Falcon off of in the first place, has sold them out to Darth Vader.

In probably the most emotional moment in the series, Han Solo is frozen in carbonite as a test, so Darth Vader will know for sure if his real prize, Luke Skywalker will survive the freeze.  Boba Fett takes his frozen Han Solo bounty to Jabba the Hutt as Chewy, Leia, R2D2 and a broken C3P0 attempt to escape Cloud City.

“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many.  “Good” is no longer good when one’s neighbor mouths it.  And how should there be a “common good”!  The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value.  In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Luke arrives at Cloud City and faces off with Vader, while Lando Calrissian redeems his betrayal and helps get Leia out safely.  Luke at this point has clearly advanced in his training because he doesn’t fear his adversary as he once did.  The Lightsabers come out for a spectacular swordfight, Lord Vader during their epic battle, attempts to recruit the young Skywalker to come to the Dark Side.  Luke fights any desire he might have toward the dark side.  The symbolic battle between good and evil unfolds in the viscera of Cloud City, where Vader severs Luke’s left hand.

“Luke, I…am…your…father.”

The Empire Strikes Back is left with uncertainty, it was left with our heroes, save Han Solo, intact and safe, but it left us with a grim outlook for the future of the Rebellion.  Luke was wounded and still struggling with letting go of how he sees the world versus how the world truly is.  This is preventing him from becoming a full fledged Jedi Knight but he has learned that the journey is long and hard and will take time.  It took the Buddha six years to find his place calm and wake up to the realities of existence.

The mediocre Return of the Jedi is a throwback to the simpler times of the first Star Wars film, with all the wonky aliens and hip culture.  Return of the Jedi is a good film, especially the first quarter, but if we are to be honest with ourselves we could easily see that they bailed on Kerschner’s vision, big time.  Lucas pulled it back to the 12 year old crowd, turning it into a farce of sorts, where Han Solo is comedy relief.  What makes Return of the Jedi awesome is Luke’s growth, that’s the film, Luke finally stands up to his father, while the Ewoks help the land rebels defeat the imperial army. 

Empire will always be the favorite; it will always be the brightest part of that galaxy so very far, far away.  The film never has a dull moment whether it’s all the incredible chase sequences with Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon out smarting, out maneuvering the tailing Empire, the amazing lightsaber duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (the best in the series) or one of the biggest twists in movie history when Vader reveals that Luke is his son.

May the Force be with you.