Star Wars and Spirituality

(Imported from my old weblog 29.5.2005)

Sujit: Saw Starwars yesterday. Was bowled over by it. I had liked the First (fourth) part, 'The Phantom Menace'. I couldn't appreciate the next one 'Attack of the Clones.' But this one I like even better than the first. Great special effects, great dialogues, and most importantly, great spicing up with spiritual fundae!


Sujit: Yesterday was a hectic day for me. Had made some junk research presentations for effectively 5 hours: first at Philips, and then at Rational. Night, I had been to a boring wedding party, and then the movie. I had decided that I would just drop dead on my bed after finishing the movie. But its concepts moved me into having an animated discussion with my friend here for two hours after coming back, till 3 am. No wonder my day started at 3 pm today.


Sumantro: Couldnt stop myself... today we went and saw the movie . But to be frank, other than the graphics, the story was quite insipid . The dialog-delivery was monotonous, and the acting, quite stiff. But I liked the emperor's acting, so what does that say about me?!


Sujit: hmm. I too don't rate the acting very high. Graphics was very good indeed. But as I said, the allusions to spiritual stuff kindled thoughts. Perhaps, you don't give all that much to such things. For me, the idea of the dark side, harnessing its power, its decaying effect...all these have special meaning. The discussion that I wrote about in the previous scrap was in
fact about that. I will try to blog them down and send you the link.


Sumantro: I do give the philosophical stuff a lot of thought. But, the Star Wars philosophy is very basic (good vs. evil, son redeeming dad's wrongdoings, some prophecies gone wrong)... I really liked the ideas in the Matrix Trilogy much much better .


Sujit: Uhm! I thought there were other things apart from those things. For instance,
the discussion about the basic difference between a Jedi and a Sif. The
discussion mayn't have been very cleverly done. But what it alluded to is
very profound I feel. The fundamental difference between a good and bad
person doesn't as much lie in what they do, but in the source from which
they derive their vital energies. Is it love, joy, beauty; or is fear, anger,
jealousy, and hatred. Of course, whether someone rates them as really wise
stuff, or just cliches picked up from scriptures is a personal matter. I
thought, they have blended it cleverly with sci-fi. Yes, the Matrix concept
was also good. But I felt, it failed to hold on to the gravity of the
subject through all the episodes. I felt that the first one was the best one,
and more or less contained all the conceptual novelties that trilogy had to
offer. The other two looked more like the producers attempt to break even.
[;)]


That's not a scap; it's a blog! [;)]