A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger. Nor Hatred. Nor Love ― The Jedi Code

Three years ago, the media was filled with stories about fanboys lined up outside of theaters weeks before the release of The Phantom Menace. This time, in the run-up to Episode II: Attack of the Clones, it’s different. Not just because (as the online magazine Slate pointed out) there’s no need to do so, thanks to advance ticket purchases. There is something different this time around. There isn’t the sense of excitement. Part of it was the difference between a 16-sixteen year wait and a three-year one. Even more of it, to be frank, was the fact that Episode I was, for many people, a major disappointment.

For what it’s worth, I think that Attack of the Clones is not only far better than Episode I, it’s the second-best film of the Star Wars saga, trailing only The Empire Strikes Back. I know that critical notices were, shall we say, mixed, but this fanboy and everyone else at the first showing on opening day applauded when the final credits appeared on the screen accompanied by the Star Wars theme.

But even if the critics were right, it’s Star Wars we’re talking about. It’s not just a movie; it’s not even a mere cultural icon. As I argued in “Elves, Wookies and Fanboys,” Star Wars is the closest thing many Americans have to a myth—by which I mean the stories that help us make sense of our lives and the world around us, and the traditional means by which cultures transmit their values and beliefs.

Clones picks up the Star Wars story approximately 10 years after the end of The Phantom Menace. The Republic is threatened by a secessionist movement. In response to this threat, President Lincoln — I mean Chancellor Palpatine — proposes the establishment of an Army of the Potomac — I mean Republic.

The proposal has drawn strong opposition led by Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) who, after serving two terms as their Queen, now represents Naboo in the Senate. After she barely escapes an assassination attempt, the chancellor and the Jedi Council assign Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and, more importantly, his apprentice (or, in Lucasspeak, Padawan Learner) Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) to protect her. Anakin’s abilities and powers are off the charts. The Force is so strong with him that he now appears to have made up the age difference between Padme and him. He is also beginning to manifest the character traits and flaws that will eventually culminate in his transformation into Darth Vader: arrogance, impetuousness, and a disregard for authority.

While accompanying Padme back to Naboo, Anakin can scarcely contain his feelings for the woman he asked “are you an angel?” in their first meeting. This is a problem because the Jedi Code I quoted above prohibits these kind of attachments. As Qui-Gon Jinn warned him, the life of a Jedi is hard. Of course, this wouldn’t matter as much if Padme didn’t share these feelings, but she does.

At first they agree, as Obi-Wan would one day counsel their son, Luke, to bury their feelings lest they interfere with their other commitments: his as a Jedi and hers as a political leader. But when events lead them back to his home planet of Tatooine and to a world called Geonosis, the shared experiences bring them together as you knew it would. (After all, Luke and Leia need parents.)

There are other parts to the story, including an intriguing, albeit probably unintentional, cautionary tale about the dangers of human cloning, and there are many instances where the original trilogy is foreshadowed in this film. After seeing Clones, you’ll never look at the original three in the same way. The good news is that Lucas has succeeded in fleshing out the Star Wars universe. The bad news is that, as I said about The Phantom Menace, it’s a moral universe that doesn’t work, at least not on its own terms. It doesn’t provide the audience with a basis for judging the characters’ actions. In case you’re thinking I should lighten up, remember it was Lucas who called Star Wars the story of a man’s fall from grace and his subsequent redemption. These are terms with moral, if not religious, significance.

While watching Attack of the Clones I couldn’t help but notice the parallels to Sam Raimi’s adaptation of Spider-Man. It wasn’t only the fact that both are parts of trilogies that are going to make a lot of money, more than a little of it from me. Both films are about young men who learn that they possess unique abilities and great powers. Both are told that, as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, “with great power comes great responsibility” ― responsibility that demands sacrifice. And in both cases, the greatest test of their willingness to sacrifice centers around the girl they have loved for as long as they can remember.

That’s where the similarities end. In Attack of the Clones, as in the rest of the Star Wars saga, renouncing love is part of a larger pattern of detachment. This is different from the vow of celibacy that priests take. It’s a flight from human attachments themselves. (Recall that the reason Anakin was initially refused entry into Jedi training was that he was “too old,” that is, already attached to his mother.) The “hard life” Anakin was warned about isn’t so much a function of the risk and danger a Jedi faces, although they certainly form a part, but of the way that Jedi stand apart from those that they are ostensibly protecting. A Jedi forsakes love and other attachments because the Jedi are taught that these attachment lead to suffering, which in turn leads to fear and hate. These are what, as Yoda would tell us, lead to the Dark Side. Indeed, without giving too much away, what seals Anakin’s fate is his love for two women: his mother and Padme.

The problem is that we know that these kinds of attachments are not only good for us, they are the best things in life. Take romantic love. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, romantic love is what teaches us what it means to love another person as ourselves, and place someone else’s interests at the center of our being. Given all that, Anakin, and we, need a better reason than the need for detachment or the risk of suffering to forsake love. After all, as Lewis said “the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

Spider-Man provides a glimpse of that reason: Sacrifice doesn’t have to mean forsaking love. Rather, it can mean loving someone so much that we are willing to go without love for the sake of the one we love. When Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) walks away from Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), the girl he’s loved all his life, he’s not doing to protect himself from evil and suffering, he’s doing it to protect her from evil. Another cinematic example of sacrifice as an act of love is the end of From Hell, the Hughes brothers take on the Jack the Ripper story. Abberline (Johnny Depp) refuses to join the woman he loves because it’s the only way that her safety can be assured and pays a terrible personal price for his love. Sacrifice for love’s sake doesn’t make walking away any easier or any less painful, but it’s a reason that acknowledges love and meets it demands.

Not that a good reason would have made much of a difference in the Star Wars universe. We are told throughout Episodes I and II that Anakin is the “chosen one,” the one who will bring “balance to the Force.” Having watched all five episodes multiple times, I’m still not sure what that means. But it at least means this: Anakin’s life and choices have been predetermined. We are told that “there are no coincidences” and that what you see in front of you is unfolding according to some plan. Anakin was destined, ordained, if you will, to take this journey. In Attack of the Clones, as in The Phantom Menace, there is the pervading sense that the various characters are pawns in a game being played by larger forces — or should I say “Forces?”

This is hardly unprecedented. Greek myth, as well as the stories of the ancient Near East and India, all portrayed men as either the playthings of the gods or as trapped by an inexorable fate. That puts Anakin in good company. But it also leaves us with no basis for judging his actions. He has no free will. He is little more than a victim. The suffering and death he will inflict on the galaxy is really the doing of an impersonal “energy field created by all living things.” In a moral universe where you’re little more than a puppet and where missing your mother and loving Natalie Portman are the first steps to the Dark Side, why should we root for him to come back to the Good Side?

To do that we need to introduce something else into Lucas’ pop-Zen universe: the ideas about love, redemption and sacrifice bequeathed to us by Christianity. As Lewis’ The Four Loves reminds us, most of what we consider most noble and worthwhile about being human ― our capacity for love and sacrifice, the idea that we are free to choose good and reject evil ― come from what Christianity taught us about what it means to be human.

It’s a story about a love so strong that it will not give up on anyone, no matter how far gone they may seem. It’s a story about a love so persistent that it will follow the beloved into Hell itself to rescue him (or her) from death and eternal damnation. This story doesn't belong to the universe Lucas conceived of, but it's why Star Wars ultimately makes sense to us.

Star Wars isn’t unique in its mixing of Christian and Eastern elements. The same is true of The Matrix, among other films. While it’s a combination that doesn’t withstand scrutiny ― not if you take both traditions seriously ― it is one that audiences find satisfying. But that’s because of what the audience brings, whether it acknowledges it or not, to the theater: an understanding of what it means to love and be loved shaped a faith where something much more personal than the Force is with us.