{"id":16529,"date":"2022-05-04T11:38:35","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T15:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pley2win.com\/featured-news\/star-wars-needs-more-moral-ambiguity\/"},"modified":"2022-05-04T11:38:35","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T15:38:35","slug":"star-wars-needs-more-moral-ambiguity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pley2win.com\/?p=16529","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars needs more moral ambiguity"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Star Wars franchise is constantly producing a stream of profitable new merchandising and material, including<\/em> video games<\/em>,<\/em> novels<\/em>,<\/em> comics<\/em>, and<\/em> animated shows<\/em>. But the film and TV side of Star Wars feels like it\u2019s struggling. Over the past five years, Disney has repeatedly<\/em> announced plans<\/em> for<\/em> new movies<\/em>, then<\/em> unceremoniously canceled them<\/em>, or just kept them<\/em> silently back-burnered<\/em>. Disney Plus\u2019 recent Star Wars live-action shows keep<\/em> promising new directions<\/em> for the franchise, then<\/em> pulling back<\/em> and<\/em> mixing messages<\/em>. There\u2019s no clear vision or coherent narrative direction for the screen versions of the franchise, even though they\u2019re the most visible and mainstream part of Star Wars. Everybody seems to want something different out of this grand, sprawling story.<\/em><\/p>\n

So Polygon is gathering some thoughts about the franchise\u2019s future under the loose banner of What We Want From Star Wars. These opinion essays lay out what we love about the Star Wars universe, and where we hope it\u2019ll go in the future \u2026 or a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Star Wars is filled with people who lose everything, only to pick themselves up and fight back. From Luke standing in front of the smoldering wreckage of his family\u2019s Tatooine homestead to Rose losing her sister in the opening minutes of The Last Jedi<\/em>, the franchise is built on the backs of people who righteously refuse to give up in the face of tragedy \u2014 or even really take a beat to process what just happened. Times may be tough now, the Star Wars movies suggest, but you too can head straight to a local Resistance recruiting office and enlist, to turn that pain into something more. <\/p>\n

But after literal decades of watching the Star Wars universe, there is exactly one vibe I want from future outings into The Galaxy Far Far Away, and it isn\u2019t about noble suffering. It\u2019s Benicio del Toro\u2019s vibe in The Last Jedi.<\/em> His master hacker (or in Star Wars lingo, \u201cslicer\u201d) DJ is magnetic as he deals with the film\u2019s earnest protagonists. He folds in on himself like a snake, confident enough to lie in wait for his moment. In DJ\u2019s brief foray onscreen, he captures the future Star Wars needs \u2014 namely, moral ambiguity. <\/p>\n

DJ\u2019s arc makes good use of quick time: After Rose and Finn fail to make contact with the codebreaker recommended to them, they run into DJ in jail, looking like he\u2019s just wandered off an intergalactic Dickensian production. He\u2019s more impressed with their droid BB-8 than he is with them, and though he eventually comes to their aid, he constantly presses them to see the bigger picture. \u201cGood guys, bad guys \u2026 made-up words,\u201d he lectures Finn. \u201cIt\u2019s all a machine, partner. Live free, don\u2019t join.\u201d<\/p>\n

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DJ in The Last Jedi<\/em>, smelling a payday<\/figcaption>Image: Disney<\/cite><\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve seen this act before. DJ wouldn\u2019t be the first hard-scrapping swindler out for his paycheck, only to get sucked into the orbit of the Rebellion. When he takes Rose\u2019s necklace, then returns it to her (he only wanted it for its conducting powers!), his heart of gold shines almost too bright, and a new hero for the series seems to snap into place. Then Captain Phasma appears, Finn and Rose\u2019s slapdash plan crumbles, and DJ is offered his reward for betraying them. <\/p>\n

In a movie full of broad, simple, noble hoping and nefarious villainy, he\u2019s slippery, sliding out of any clear categorization. The best part of DJ is that we get so little explanation to justify his actions. He tells Finn that he expects the Resistance and the First Order to continue waging war. Then he\u2019s gone with his bounty. There\u2019s no third-act karmic retribution, or worse, a triple-cross where he veers back to the good side. He\u2019s allowed to stay self-serving and sneaky, rather than joining Team Black Robes or Team White Robes.<\/p>\n

Characters like DJ are the mortar between the building blocks of the Star Wars universe, the real people who can\u2019t do much of anything to shift the balance in a perpetual galactic war that mostly happens far above their pay grade. DJ may not be the best the universe has to offer as he assures Finn, \u201cThey blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow.\u201d But he\u2019s also a far cry from \u201cblowing up an entire planet to prove a point.\u201d The problem for the Rebellion isn\u2019t that he\u2019s evil, it\u2019s that he\u2019s cynical. <\/p>\n

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That nuance is sacrilege to a certain interpretation of Star Wars. The franchise has, after all, always been fairly straightforward in its good-vs.-evil storytelling. But in the battle for what Star Wars is<\/em>, there\u2019s always been a glut of gradation in terms of the kinds of characters and stories people are interested in. And the people telling Star Wars stories should take so much more advantage of that. <\/p>\n

Morally gray characters like DJ are splattered throughout the cosmos. In Rogue One<\/em>, <\/em>Saw Gerrera fights for the good guys, but he also readily tortures a man to make sure he can trust his information. Meanwhile, his militia uses civilians as cover for their insurgency on Jedha. The ever-stoic and intrepid Admiral Ackbar takes a beat after blowing up an Empire ship in Return of the Jedi<\/em>, knowing that he\u2019s just killed everyone on board, and that it can\u2019t fully be processed as a simple act of heroism. His pause in the battle is a small moment that speaks volumes about his philosophy of war. Treating Star Wars characters\u2019 actions as unequivocally simple and good makes their choice to fight seem easy, even as the writers clearly want to remind you that it isn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

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