Rising's Rapid Reviews: The Last Jedi

The bones of The Last Jedi have been picked clean by other reviews, but there are one or two interesting scraps I’d like to hold to the light.

At first, reviews of the film tended to be divided between “It fixed Star Wars” and “It broke Star Wars.” After going to separate corners to breathe, most reviewers settled on "It's a mixed bag."

A mixed bag is not the same as saying it is a mediocre movie. A mediocre movie never really obtains a high or a low. The Last Jedi obtains both. It is not a good movie, but it has the best lightsaber fight of any Star Wars movie.  It is not a bad movie, but it doesn’t know how to use half its characters. This is not mediocrity. This is inconsistency.

I suppose that the current political climate requires me to state my position on the nontraditional casting, although it oughtn’t. Let me be clear that I am firmly in the not-all-our-movie-heroes-need-to-be-white-men camp. (However, as an egg-shaped white man who will never be cast as a heroic protagonist, it costs me nothing to say this. My opinion on the funny, fat sidekick not needing to be a white man are identical, however.)

Mulholland was recast by the secret Hutt agenda

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what I consider the single best moment and the single worst moment of the movie. (Unfortunately, Netflix prevents you from screenshots, so I literally had to take pictures of my screen with my cell phone. I apologize.  Also, all images in this article are property of Lucasfilm, obviously.)

The Best Moment

The best part of The Last Jedi was this detonation remote from the bombing run scene:

Why? Because it’s filthy. There’s dirt and grease on it, but old dirt and grease. It's been stained by them over time. This detonator has a *history*. And because it has a history, the entire fictional galaxy has a history too.

Star Wars, before the prequels, was a universe you could live in. It was dirty and detailed. Not gritty, just worn out. Old. The prequels skimped on practical effects, and the universe lost its main charm. Say what you will about the new trilogy, but it brought this weightiness back to the galaxy.

Shut up, special editions, no one likes you.

The Worst Moment

The worst moment in The Last Jedi is this shoulder brush when Luke confronts Kylo:

Yes, it was funny. Yes, I know Luke was trying to distract the First Order while the rebels escaped. It doesn’t matter. Luke is finally facing his own mistakes (i.e. confronting a blood relative he tried to MURDER), yet the tone given to this moment of SALVATION is an extremely modern, dismissive, and berating gag.

I take no issue with Luke being a man who in a moment of pride/fear does horrible things. I have no issue with him being a crazy hermit on an island or neglecting his duty to the galaxy. All of these are motivated character choices. What isn’t motivated is physical sarcasm during an offering of grace to two souls.

These two moments encapsulate the spirit of the new trilogy.  The original trilogy’s character’s had gravitas on their moral journey; even when the moment called for comedy, they had as much weight as the aforementioned scenery. They were heroes in a universe where you could smell the greasepaint.  The prequel trilogy scrubbed away the greasepaint, but not the heroes.  This new trilogy gets the scenery right, but the heroes keep tripping and falling out of the mythic realm into our own.  This may be true to real life.  It may even be a better moral lesson for our time.  But it is bad myth-making.

Rising's Rapid Reviews: American Carnage by Tim Alberta

Link to Book

Link to Sample Chapter

Read. This. Book.

Whether you are an old-school Republican lamenting the state of the party, a Democrat wondering what the hell happened in 2016, or just a curious independent, this book is for you.

Riveting is the best word for Tim Alberta’s blow by blow (sometimes day by day) description of the federal Republican party from 2008 to 2018, and its steady march from Reaganism to Nationalism. Tim Alberta’s great advantage is that, as a capitol hill-based journalist for over a decade, he has built strong relationships with Republican politicians, aids, and special-interest groups which give him an inside view. Mr. Alberta is an eminently fair journalist (a title many journalists claim but few as truthfully). He paints (what appears to be with my limited knowledge of politics) the full and complete picture, from the moral cowardice to demagoguery to well-intentioned flubs to self-sacrificing heroism, often all in the same person.

This is not to say that Alberta is an objective journalist, merely that he is fair. Even he would agree he is telling a narrative.  Hardcore progressives will be frustrated by Mr. Alberta’s clear respect and affection for many of their bugbears (such as Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner). However, they may be mollified by how often he also “kicks them in the teeth” when he feels it is warranted.  Hardcore Trump supporters are unlikely to enjoy Mr. Alberta’s narrative either, as he makes no bones about believing Trump to be a dishonest, xenophobic boar (my words, not his). However, they might be mollified by how often he presents Trump not as a supervillain, but merely as a flawed human being with a certain (read: caustic) perspective of the world. Although he cannot (and does not attempt to) disguise his dislike where the Republican party is going, he is as fair as it is possible to be.

The book has plenty of levity despite its heavy subject matter. My favorite anecdote is an amusing text exchange between close friends Mike Pence and Senator Jeff Flake during the former’s campaigning for Trump in Arizona. Pence reminded Flake that he would be in the latter’s neighborhood.

"Can you help me trim some hedges?" Flake asked. Pence replied: "As long as we can carve in 'Trump-Pence' in the hedge." Flake [...]texted him back: "Small hedge. Only have room for 'Pence.'" (Tim Alberta, Politico)

The book is not all about Trump. In fact, the first half barely mentions him. Other interesting anecdotes include Boehner being (accidentally) pranked by the Pope, Paul Ryan hiding in the woods to avoid the speakership, and the lack of press coverage for of a bipartisan prison-sentencing reform bill.

If there is a conclusion to this book, it is that people tend to adopt philosophies that justify their self-interest. Operating against this impulse seems to be Mr. Alberta’s standard for heroism, and it is refreshing when his subjects do.  My main criticism is the book has many typos, but that is likely a byproduct writing 688 pages in 3 months. Overall, I found American Carnage informative and enjoyable. I recommend it for anyone from center-left to center-right, and I think even those further to the extremes can find something edifying in it.

Series Introduction: Rising's Rapid Reviews

The Voyage of Life: Manhood, by Thomas Cole

I have a lot to say, but not a lot of time. In Rising’s Rapid Reviews, I (“Epimetheus Rising”) briefly review all or part of a text (text being an all-encompassing word for movies, books, plays, podcasts, etc). This is not meant to be a thorough beat-by-beat (that’s what podcasts are for, silly) nor an academic article exploring a particular thesis, merely a way to share some thoughts I had about a text that I think are at least a little original or amusing. It may be that I see something I haven’t heard anyone else mention, or I may be boosting the signal of ideas I have heard elsewhere. Either way, I hope these quick reflections provoke both thought and amusement.

PS: Unlike my last series, this will not be done all at once with a specific end date, but sporadically, whenever the Spirit (at least, I hope it is motivated by The Spirit) moves me.

The 7 Desires of Halloween: #1 Death

Image Credit

(I expect this topic to be very life affirming, but just in case, if you are experiencing suicidal impulses, please call the national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-8255)

The goal of life is to die, one day at a time.

The purpose of life is to live forever.

I’ll break this down in a second. First, let’s talk about the undead.

We’re attracted to the undead. Whether it is an immortal singing skeleton king in an unchanging town, or a stylish vampire living in a remote castle, we love them, and often want to join them. I think there are two reasons for this, one healthy and one it's unhealthy muddling.

The unhealthy reason is that they do what they please. They have power and no obligations. On top of this they are often also wealthy (1% compound interest isn’t that bad when you have centuries) and/or attractive. They are at license to do anything, from indulge their darker sexual impulses to stay up way past their bedtimes.

Jack Skellington takes as many Milky Way fun size bars as he damn well pleases, thank you very much

(painting by Thomas Volpe)

The healthy reason is that they are fully themselves. They are eternal, like we will be in heaven. They have their niche in their little kingdom of night, like we will one day have our unique place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Their power extends from a natural reflection of their innate nature, like our own power extends from our honed gifts and talents. In some ways, they are more fully human than we are. 

Not to mention badass.  PS: I hate this show's portrayal of the Catholic Church, but I can't pretend it doesn't make us look cool.

There is a Christian devotion called “Memento Mori” or “Remember Death.” It means keeping a reminder of death nearby, such as a literal human skull.  It has seen a comeback in recent years (this time with plastic skulls) thanks to the work of Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble. (Like many of the ideas discussed in this blog, I am extrapolating from a tangential familiarity without doing extensive research. I have not read Sister’s books yet, and if I get something wrong please feel free to correct in the comments below). Remembering death, though, has more than one meaning.

1) The most obvious meaning, of course, is that our bodies will die one day. No person of reason (other than some very persistent rich people in Silicon Valley) disputes this point. Whether we are kleptocrat or clinician, president or priest, beggar or busboy, a cascade of various organ failures will one day put us in the ground. We all have that in common. We do well then not to take ourselves too seriously. The end in this realm of existence is always the same.

2) For a Christian though, this has an added meaning. While we must not take ourselves too seriously, we must take what we *do* more seriously in light of death. One day, we will stand before God, and must give an account of what we have done with the gifts given to us. What fruit have they born? And the fruit we tend to care about won’t necessarily be the fruit God cares about; (see Leaf by Niggle).

3) The meaning of Memento Mori which I most need (right now) is to remember that we have died to sin.  Every burden, every single piece of misery in our life which is self-caused (whether we are willing to admit it or not), we have the power to put down through the death of God. It doesn’t matter whether I am a fighting the temptation to murder (usually not) or I just would like to stop clicking “next episode” on Netflix (quite frequent). God gives us the power to put it down.

Note I do not say God gives us the power to fight those things which keep us enslaved. We will ALWAYS lose the battle against them. Sin is stronger than us. Rather the power of Christ’s death and resurrection is that we can give our lives to him, and then He can break our chains (thus giving us our lives back). Trying to break the chains ourselves, and only then turning to Christ, will end in failure. This is what we always try to do (this is what I always try to do) and we have it backwards. Part of this is a desire not to face Christ until we are perfect, and part of it is a desire to keep our lives essentially for ourselves. Neither can be done. This is what Christ means when he says “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). If we try to structure God around our life, we will die. If we structure our life around God, we will live. 

The Servant by Ron DiCianni

This is why every 12 step program in existence never mentions the thing that a member of that program is struggling with after the 1st step. Their battle is not with alcohol/media/drugs/lust/debt etc. God does battle with those things for them. This does not mean they are passively waiting for God to fix them. Instead they take on another battle: the battle to put their life in God’s hands.  That is, they strive to die, one day at a time.

4) The purpose of life is to live forever with God. This is made possible by another “Memento Mori.” We remember Christ’s death, the source of our hope. We have hope in eternal life because we have faith in Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ overcame death, and so shall we who bind ourselves to him. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3)

A corollary of the above was only brought to my attention recently, by Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire podcast: remember you have died already. As Christians, if we have died with Christ, death should not frighten us.  After all, we’ve had daily practice in it. 

 Perhaps this is the freedom, though distorted, that we see and love in the undead of Halloween. They’ve already faced the thing we fear most and come out of it better. Perhaps not better as a Christian understands it, but metaphorically more themselves. May the same be said of us.

A very happy allhallowtide to you all.  Thank you for reading!

The 7 Desires of Halloween #2: Spirituality

Francesco Botticini - The Assumption of the Virgin

Human beings desire to communicate with minds that are other than their own.  As

Lewis' extraterrestrial encountering narrator implies below, why else would we own pets?

“[…]the Malacandrians don’t keep pets and, in general, don’t feel about their ‘lower animals’ as we do about ours[…]One just sees why when one sees the three species together. Each of them is to the others both what a man is to us and what an animal is to us. They can talk to each other, they can co-operate, they have the same ethics; to that extent a sorn and a hross meet like two men. But then each finds the other different, funny, attractive as an animal is attractive. Some instinct starved in us, which we try to soothe by treating irrational creatures almost as if they were rational, is really satisfied in Malacandra. They don’t need pets.”--Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

"Please make it stop"--every dog in a Halloween costume

Much of our fiction uncovers a desire to discover extraterrestrial minds. In the context of horror, this usually turns out poorly for us. 

This conversation is going differently than I thought.

However, some of our most popular aliens are friendly ones. Look at how beloved ET is, despite not being able to converse fluently.  Human being want to discover another order of being that we can talk to as equals, and our fiction is full of it, whether we call them aliens, elves, or ghosts.

We don't have aliens yet, but if you assume nearly any theology at all, we do have alien minds in the spiritual realm.  But here’s where the danger comes in (and I would say the main danger of Halloween in modern society other than lust).  Spirits only come in two types (as far as we know): good (The Holy Spirit, angels) and evil (demons). 

What about gods and fairies, you ask? Well, here I must descend into opinion. *Some* people believe that other types of spirits exist between angels and men. Because they exist in the world and not in eternity like angels, they are neither entirely good or entirely evil. They run the moral gamut like us, just differently. C.S. Lewis notably included the Greek gods as servants of GOD in much of his fiction. In Out of the Silent Planet the basis for earth's legends of  the Roman god Mars literally rules the planet Mars. In Prince Caspian, Bacchus celebrates Aslan's victory by crazy-dancing with some dryads. 

You can't spell Bacchanalia without Bachus!

I find a view of reality which includes the pagan gods under God incredibly appealing. However, I also find it a) unlikely and b) dangerous.

A) I find it unlikely because any spirit that exists outside of eternity must exist in the cosmos.  And anything that exists in the cosmos we will eventually find empirical evidence for.  No matter how many science experiments I do, I will never publish a scientific paper on angels.  They exist outside of space and time, and thus even if I went to Mars, I wouldn’t find them.  Polytheistic gods (and those lesser sprites, fairies etc) are apparently here in the world. They wield lightning, or water, or metal, or wine. I can go to the top of Mt. Olympus and demonstrate that they are there, or not. Thus, I think if there is someone in between angels and men, we would have found them by now. (I am aware that I am not following current neopagan belief. While that is not my specialty, I have a vague notion that the current neopagan concept of “the Lord & the Lady” is somewhat more transcendent than the gods of old. But as I warned in my first article, I am taking this from a Catholic perspective).

B) I find it dangerous, because when you call upon spirits that are not allied with God, anything could answer. If the gods don’t exist, that means that "anything" must be demons. St. Paul clearly comes down on this side when he says "So what am I saying? That meat sacrificed to idols is anything? Or that an idol is anything? No, I mean that what they sacrifice, [they sacrifice] to demons not to God, and I do not want you to become participants with demons." (1 Corinthians 10:19-20)  Many Catholic exorcists have spoken on how they believe the rise in possessions they see currently is the result of the rise of occult practices. I even read an interview of a non-exorcist priest (not every priest is authorized or trained to perform exorcisms) who had to instruct a pair of Baptist women how to get a demon out of their lives after they used a Ouija board. (To Save a Thousand Souls by Fr. Frett A. Brannen pgs 19-20).

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”  --The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (Image Credit)

While I’ve never used a Ouija board, I do cross into gray territory sometimes. I’m not always sure where to draw the lines.

Where does one draw the lines? A solid place to start is to avoid things that are forbidden by the church: astrology, astral projection, magic (even white magic), worshipping idols etc.  But these things aren’t temptations for me. Ghosts stories are.

I love Halloween, so it’s no surprise I love ghost stories. But ghosts are bound up in séance culture, which seems to me like a pretty clear violation. (The giggling sounds you hear is all my protestant readers wondering what the difference is between a séance and praying to the Saints. The different is that 1) I know exactly who I am talking to 2) I know they are allied with God, and 3) I am asking them for help to become more holy, not for magic tricks). However, ghost stories around the campfire seems pretty safe. What about Ghost hunting equipment such as heat cameras….now we’re into fuzzy territory. I don’t have an answer, but I do think of C.S. Lewis “materialist magicians” when I see modern-style ghost hunters. I recently read this excellent blog article where a Catholic mother laments that none of her children are believers, and she wonders if she spends too much time on ghost stories, and not enough on the Saints.

I’m not trying to purify Halloween of any fun. Our desire for the spiritual aspect of life is good.  Outside of those things forbidden by the church, I think these are lines everyone has to discern for themselves. But it is good to remember that God, in His wisdom, has provided abundant minds who are perfectly safe to seek out, even if most of them are human (as fully human as it is possible to be). Remember that All Hallows Eve leads to All Hallows Day. The Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Justin, St. Francis, St. Cecilia and all the holy men and women are there willing to lend an ear (and to talk if, I could only learn how to listen). There are inhuman minds too: my guardian angel, other people’s guardian angels, and St. Michael wage their war, ever vigilant. We’re hardly alone.

Happy All Saints Day, everyone!  May one day we all be saints too!