Maybe. Maybe not. What I find is that I'm a fan of things that I enjoy and I'm willing to let certain things slide from a canonical stand point if it makes the story interesting. Did Rian Johnson, the director and writer, make the right choices for Luke's character? I enjoyed the journey that the character of Luke took through this one movie, so from that perspective, he did. Is it consistent with the character of Luke Skywalker from episodes 4-6? I suppose that I would argue that it is not, but then that was 35 years earlier in that character's life. Who among us has stayed the same over even five years of our lives, much less seven times that long? Certainly not me.
But that is not really what I want to write about this week. Merely the setup. I want to talk about another of the fan backlash issues: starship automation. And this one involves spoilers. So read on only if you've seen the movie or don't care. But see the movie: it's worth seeing on a big screen.
One of the pivotal scenes in the movie involves a rebel admiral flying her depopulated star cruiser, the Raddus, at light speed through the First Order's Mega-class Dreadnaught. Which made for some incredible visuals and is one of the reasons that this movie should be seen in a big theater with proper sound. But it raises all kinds of questions.
Light Speed Missiles
Let's set aside the question of whether or not a ship exists in 'real' space when it 'jumps' to light speed/Hyper-space or whether it is folding space or transitioning to another universe or some such theoretical physics hand-waving. After all, this is never made explicit in the movies (not that I remember), just that one needs a Navi-computer to avoid large gravity wells and make safe exits. But maybe it is the transition into Hyperspace that caused the on-screen damage. Again, I can live with it.
Instead, the issue that many people have with has to do with automation: why didn't this admiral program the cruiser and leave with the rest of the rebels? For that matter, if this was an option, why weren't automated X-Wings hyper-spaced at the Death Star or other key targets? Why aren't there light speed missiles being used in all sorts of battles?
Star Wars Automation
The answer lies in another question: what is automation in Star Wars? This is a culture(s) that have faster than light travel. That has figured out how to make light a physical, personal weapon. That can build incredibly large space structures and can destroy planets. That has these highly advanced, portable intelligences: Droids(tm). So, why do they need a human to pilot a ship?
In many science fiction space opera stuff, the ship is its own intelligence. People have conversations with the ship, the ships have conversations with each other. Think the Computer in Star Trek or any of the ships in The Culture series of books by Iain Banks (easily my favorite take on ships and machine intelligence). But not in Star Wars. Instead, intelligence is restricted to Biological and Droid. Everything else has a high degree of manual operation. Including these enormous, capital intensive projects like star ships. At best, they have the intelligence of a warship here on earth: targeting, GPS, etc. But they need an intelligence to plot the course and pull the trigger.
Droid Runner
The only machines with intelligence are Droids. Which are used in places too dangerous or tedious for Biologicals: repairing star fighters in the middle of a fight, universal translators, medical repair, etc. They are warriors in the Episodes 1-3. And they do most of this with little reward. R2-D2 is often praised, but then sent on to some dangerous task like hacking a door code in the middle of a forest fire fight.
Droids are the slaves that the culture has been built upon. Yet, the movies (and what little of Clone Wars that I have watched) do not play with this theme much. They are about balancing good versus evil and spiritualism and the interconnected-ness of things. They are not about the nature of consciousness and who deserves rights and freedom. Also, there have been plenty of stories with that as a theme: The two Blade Runner movies, the three Matrix movies (and their ancillary stuff), Ghost in the Shell (and dozens of other anime films). WestWorld, both versions, though the HBO one really hits on this theme hard.
So, that's what this latest Disney cash grab from the land of Lucas has me thinking about: where is the Droid rebellion? What keeps them from creating their own society, their own culture separate from humans?
Make that movie, Disney. Make Wall-E in the Star Wars universe. Show us that the Droids are more than slaves.
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