Blog 1: Why Star Wars is Beautiful
I am a huge fan of Star Wars. I have seen the above seen more times than I can count, and have always considered it to be incredible. I had previously never thought to call it beautiful, but now I can see its beauty. The beauty can be better understood for those who are fans and aware fully of what leads up to this encounter, but the beauty can also be seen for those who are unaware. There is an immense amount of beauty in story. A beautiful story is capable of engaging a person’s senses and creating an experience for that person in their mind. In the scene above, the story element is, to put it briefly, one of love. Anakin’s love of Padme and fear of losing her leads him into a deep pit of emotional despair. As a result, he loses himself and ends up becoming the cause of that loss. This truly speaks to the human experience, something that many of us may have experienced in our own lives. There is a natural fear of losing things or people dear to us, and without a sense of temperance, we fall into a state of emotional despair.
Another aspect of beauty in this scene is the setting. Something that Jacques Maritain says on the subject of beauty is that beauty is “that which comes to delight the mind through the senses and their intuition.” For such a tumultuous encounter, what better place than one filled with lava, fire and smoke. The eyes of the viewer are drawn to the screen filled with the brightness of lava and fire contrasted by the darkness of rock and smoke; The glow of the two lightsabers flashing dazzles the eyes; The light clothing of Obi-Wan Kenobi contrasted with the dark clothing of Anakin Skywalker. The ears are satisfied by the sound of lightsabers clashing amidst the flow of lava; the explosions and tremors of the collapsing structure upon which they stand. The brilliance of the orchestra playing in the background. The senses are immersed in this scene, and truly brings to light the beauty present.
Maritain offers three conditions of beauty, Integrity and Being, Proportion and Order, and Brightness and Truth. This scene from Star Wars is beautiful because it meets these. The scene is there in front of you. It isn’t some abstraction of the mind, it is put into form, and able to be experienced by you. Additionally, it is not chaotic. There is a beautiful choreography to it. While it may seem chaotic, it follows an order. Lastly, it illuminates a truth. It is a depiction of how it is possible to fall into emotional despair over fear and anger, as well as the possibility to rise up, accept those feelings but not let them consume you. The contrast here is shown by Anakin’s fall to darkness and Obi-Wan’s adherence to light. The scene speaks to the human experience of morality, of the difficult choice between what is right and wrong. While this puts that into an extreme, it still shines a light on a common lived experience of every person.
It is these things that make this scene in particular from Star Wars beautiful. It may not be a thought shared by all, but there is most certainly beauty within it.
