Fixing Star Wars: Rey’s Mindtrick
I haven't written much about Star Wars: The Force Awakens because the truth is that I haven't had all that much to add. I like Star Wars but I'm not the type of super-fan that has much new to add, but there was one part in The Force Awakens that bothers me and I came up with an explanation that not only largely fixes the problem but makes one of the side characters far more interesting.
Everyone knows by now knows that Daniel Craig had a cameo in The Force Awakens as JB-007 a Stormtrooper that gets the Jedi Mind trick used on him by Rey. There has been a lot of talk about Rey being too strong in the movies. I tend to discount this in most cases because most of what she did in the movie could be explained away by her being a fairly good fighter and pilot which are both skills anyone could learn.
But the Jedi Mind trick is a bit more problematic for me. They have established in other sources (primarily the Clone Wars cartoon) that it isn't easy to do and takes practice for people who are training under Jedi and while I know there are other theories, but the movie doesn't show that Rey has any Jedi training and that makes the Mind Trick a step to far.
So how do you fix that? Simple enough. She didn't actually use the Jedi Mind trick on him. She didn't have to because JB-007 is a spy for the republic. (Not the rebel alliance which is why the rebels didn't know he was there.) He simply pretended to let the Jedi Mind trick work because it gave him cover for helping Rey to escape. He likely even helped more by dealing with some of the other guards that would have certainly be left to guard the incredibly important prisoner but we didn't see in the movie.
This would also be a great way to set up a spin off spy thriller in the Star Wars universe that could create an interesting way to explain and explore the politics in the new Star Wars universe. Basically Daniel Craig would be a spy infiltrating the organization of the evil mastermind Supreme Leader Snoke and stop him from using his master weapon.
The movie would happen largely in parallel to the events of The Force Awakens. It would explain what the Republic is doing and explore The First Order. You could also have some entertaining and funny moments like him turning off the shields to Starkiller Base at the same time that Captain Phasma meant to lock them out of the system.
I understand that there are likely to be people who question the need to have a movie length back story for small side characters that were never meant to be the center of a story. I would tend to agree, but it seems clear that isn't going to stop Disney for long and taking advantage of an actor who is clearly fond of the source material and is able to play the part that would be required.
god, yet these six movies are about a religious order and this disconnect from God allows us to look at the ideas without the debate.
The chief religious idea of Star Wars is that there is a force outside of us. Something that connects all living things and allows for a priesthood who can perform miracles. One of the important aspects of this mysticism is that it is unexplained. This is something that just is.
This idea that there is something greater than us is the universal center of all religion. We may disagree on what that force is or what it wants of us but the core of religion is its existance and Star Wars has that core.
The Enlightenment
Star Gate, though it is almost exclusively about religion, deals with it very little. The Egyptian gods are safe because very few people on earth belive in Ra and they don't watch science fiction TV series. but it does examine one aspect of religion very carefully in later episodes through the character Daniel Jackson.
That idea is that of enlightenment. The idea of ascendancy through some type of moral or physical purity is as idea of great importance to religion and yet even through this enlightenment we soon find that they are imperfect. Even those with true godlike power can make mistakes and be corrupted like the Ori.
Another important concept in the idea of ascendancy in Star Gate is the idea that people are unable to archive it on their own. Humans, at least in their current form, are not ready to become truly enlightened beings.
The Inclusion
There is an episode of Babylon 5 where every alien race is showing off their religion. This puts the commander of Babylon 5 in a tight spot because the idea of choosing a single religion from Earth is basically offensive.
In the end the solution of bringing representatives from all of earths religions could be considered avoiding the problem but on
ly if you don't understand the point he was making.
The religion of the humans in Babylon 5 had at least for that moment moved beyond a petty argument over who was right(not to be confused with enlightened debate which is good and healthy) to the uplifting of the ideas of diversity and love as the true religion of humanity and that idea wasn't lost throughout the series in which humans, who were far from the most advanced or powerful of the races became important more because of their ability to unite people than anything else.
Darko and Primer which are excellent movies which are farther on the drama side of the equation than the action side.
3. depressing movie
People tend to want to escape into science fiction. This is where movies like Edward Scissorhands and Bicentennial man break down. These are reasonably good moves, but they also tend to make you want to cut your own wrists which doesn't make you want to watch them over and over again.
4. Action is Scifi is easier than in other genres
Part of this "problem" is that if you're going to make an action packed movie science fiction is a natural place to go. Movies like the matrix and independence day were able to be far bigger in their action because of the science fiction elements so if you want to make a summer blockbuster science fiction seems a natural choice not because you like science fiction but because it allows for you to have giant robots fighting other giant robots in the streets of new york.
5. Science fiction is expensive
Special effects cost money so if you're going to have robots, or spaceships you want to get your value out of them. Action movies draw bigger crowds to the theaters so you put in your big chase sequence and a couple fights to draw in the crowds.
There are certainly other reasons that science fiction falls on the action side rather than the drama side of movies most of the time, and I wouldn't want to cut down on the number of good science fiction action movies because I really like them, I just want to see a few more science fiction movies that don't have explosions and gun fights too.
