Religious Themes in Film

Lesson 5: Star Wars: The Godfather of Archetype Films

Babylon and the Empire: Evil Political Regimes

Messiah

The “galaxy far, far away” is under a cruel dictatorship. The people of that galaxy are hoping for a political and spiritual overthrow. Although there is a small rebellion that seeks to overthrow the political system, it lacks the military power to do so. More than that, however, the rebellion lacks the spiritual power to do so.

That spiritual power is embodied by Luke Skywalker. For all intensive purposes, Luke becomes the last known practitioner of an agent spiritual system: The Force.

At the time of Jesus, the Jews, too, were hoping for a political overthrow of the oppressive ruling system, the Roman Empire. Politics is religion in Judaism, however, and so the political overthrow would be a spiritual and moral overthrow as well.

Messiah means “anointed One” in Hebrew and it originally refers to the anointing of Israelite kings, starting with Saul and exemplified by David, both of whom were anointed into office. (I Sam 9:27 – 10:8, I Sam 15:34 – 16:13) Jesus’ anointment is considered to have taken place during his baptism by John, except Jesus was anointed not by John but by the Holy Spirit. (Acts 10:37)

So, first and foremost, the Hebrews at the time of Jesus were hoping for a literal king; a man who would could lead a rebellion against Rome. It was hoped he would then reclaim the lands that were under David and establishes a political system that revolves around the Law or Torah handed down to Moses. For some, this new king would also usher in a spiritual revival in the Israelite religion, a time of peace, perhaps even a return to a Paradise-like state. (Is 11:1 – 9) “The wolf shall live with the lamb…”

(Note as well, in Is 11:3,4, that this king shall not “judge by what his eyes see,” just like blind Neo.)

Most likely, the Messiah that many Jews were waiting for at the time of Christ would look much like Luke: Spiritually driven, morally just, but his powers (given by Yahweh) would enact a change on a historic scale. Like the rest of the Hebrew Bible, God’s work would be done on THIS earth.

Thus, there was much confusion about Jesus’ mission during the time of his life and after his death. Jesus himself corrected his followers when they used the term “messiah” to describe him, in order that he not be misunderstood:

Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (Mk 8:29-31, Lk 9:22)

This must have confused people. It didn’t sound like the victorious warrior David and the king they were waiting for. Consider, at this point, the crowning of Aragorn at the end of The Return of the King. This was the kind of “anointing” that people were waiting for: a victorious king who would usher in a new era of spiritual goodness, but only on Middle Earth.

What Jesus proposed was much grander. The kingship would not happen on a microcosmic scale involving the Roman Empire; it would happen on a cosmic scale involving heaven and earth and all the cosmos. As we have seen, just one element of Christ’s victory was his overthrow of Death for all of humanity, past, present and future. (Read Campbell 374 – 378)

Ironically, of course, the Roman Empire did become “Christian” about 400 years after Jesus’ death, so Christ’s establishment of a “kingship” did become actualized – just as we imagine the galaxy far, far away will be governed with respect to The Force after The Return of the Jedi.

Babylon

In New Testament writing, the Book of Revelation takes the place of the Hebrew prophets by warning the world that an evil political system governed by immorality will eventually fall. The word used to describe this evil government is Babylon. (Remember evil Nebuchadneezer, the king of Babylon, who destroyed the temple and made the Hebrews slaves?) At the time of its writing, the writer of Revelation was referring to the city of Rome when he wrote the word “Babylon” since Rome was the new enemy at that time.

Readers of Revelation today can now find other evil empires to refer to as Babylon. Read Revelation 18 and see if you can make parallels between Babylon, Rome, Middle Earth under Sauron, the Empire in Star Wars, and, perhaps, a political system today that is “a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.”

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