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Star Words: Episode V, Part 29
Jul. 9th, 2020 01:53 pmAfter all of Yoda's eloquence, Luke remains unmoved. He stands and looks down at his master, speaking in a disdainful tone. You want the impossible. Still limited by his perceptions, convinced that he knows where the bounds of the possible lie.
He is wrong. With a great sigh Yoda recognizes that there is only one way to get through to such a hard-headed student. He lifts the ship from the swamp himself, slow but steady, with the Force as his unerring ally.
As many lines as I've covered from this scene, the best parts aren't from the dialogue. The sweeping score, building to a climax as the ship emerges and settles gently on the shore. The extraordinary expressiveness on the face of what is essentially a glorified Muppet. The subtle touches of the editing, shots of Yoda in deep concentration, a startled Artoo and a baffled Luke, intercut with the progress of the levitating ship. And note the shift in Luke's placement relative to his teacher. At first, when he slumps to the ground in defeat, they are roughly the same height. Yoda offers him a powerful lesson, but Luke's rejection is visually manifest in the way he stands up and towers over Yoda, believing these precepts to be beneath him. When he returns after the ship's ascension, however, he is positioned on a spot of land below Yoda's perch. He must look up at him, acknowledging his superior skills and knowledge. And still...I don't believe it.
"That is why you fail."
Simple words, yet so profound. This is what Yoda really meant about there being no try. Luke was approaching the task already convinced that he wouldn't succeed, so of course he failed. He had no faith.
Does this mean that the powers of the Force literally don't work if the user doesn't believe in them? That's a matter of debate. We could certainly consider the metaphorical applications in any number of believe systems in which faith is a key principle. Even outside of any religious context, however, it's a fact that we rely on acts of faith every day. We get up each morning with faith that the world still exists outside the bedroom. We reach out to our friends with faith that they will support us. We go to our jobs (or in the case of quarantine, work from home) with faith that we will be compensated for it. We go to bed each night with faith that the world will still be there when we wake up.
Well, you might say, it's hardly an act of faith when we've done those things all our lives and they've always had the same results. True...and yet they're still not completely guaranteed. Some acts of faith are easier, more reliable, than others, but every time we do anything with an expected result, there is some element of faith involved. Without that faith, we wouldn't perform the action in the first place.
So maybe Luke failed because he wasn't really trying, or maybe he failed because the Force doesn't respond to the faithless. Either way, belief is absolutely necessary. Without it, nothing is possible. With it...the possibilities might just be limitless.
Next, we finally move on to a new scene...
He is wrong. With a great sigh Yoda recognizes that there is only one way to get through to such a hard-headed student. He lifts the ship from the swamp himself, slow but steady, with the Force as his unerring ally.
As many lines as I've covered from this scene, the best parts aren't from the dialogue. The sweeping score, building to a climax as the ship emerges and settles gently on the shore. The extraordinary expressiveness on the face of what is essentially a glorified Muppet. The subtle touches of the editing, shots of Yoda in deep concentration, a startled Artoo and a baffled Luke, intercut with the progress of the levitating ship. And note the shift in Luke's placement relative to his teacher. At first, when he slumps to the ground in defeat, they are roughly the same height. Yoda offers him a powerful lesson, but Luke's rejection is visually manifest in the way he stands up and towers over Yoda, believing these precepts to be beneath him. When he returns after the ship's ascension, however, he is positioned on a spot of land below Yoda's perch. He must look up at him, acknowledging his superior skills and knowledge. And still...I don't believe it.
"That is why you fail."
Simple words, yet so profound. This is what Yoda really meant about there being no try. Luke was approaching the task already convinced that he wouldn't succeed, so of course he failed. He had no faith.
Does this mean that the powers of the Force literally don't work if the user doesn't believe in them? That's a matter of debate. We could certainly consider the metaphorical applications in any number of believe systems in which faith is a key principle. Even outside of any religious context, however, it's a fact that we rely on acts of faith every day. We get up each morning with faith that the world still exists outside the bedroom. We reach out to our friends with faith that they will support us. We go to our jobs (or in the case of quarantine, work from home) with faith that we will be compensated for it. We go to bed each night with faith that the world will still be there when we wake up.
Well, you might say, it's hardly an act of faith when we've done those things all our lives and they've always had the same results. True...and yet they're still not completely guaranteed. Some acts of faith are easier, more reliable, than others, but every time we do anything with an expected result, there is some element of faith involved. Without that faith, we wouldn't perform the action in the first place.
So maybe Luke failed because he wasn't really trying, or maybe he failed because the Force doesn't respond to the faithless. Either way, belief is absolutely necessary. Without it, nothing is possible. With it...the possibilities might just be limitless.
Next, we finally move on to a new scene...
