"He's a teacher, not a real Jedi."

Is Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker the most expensive movie ever made in which the top-billed star—in this case, Carrie Fisher—died almost three years before the movie was released? It almost certainly has to be the most expensive movie ever made in which the top-billed star was never even on the set during filming: all of Fisher's scenes in The Rise of Skywalker are reportedly outtakes from 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (Both sequels were directed by J.J. Abrams. Fisher completed her scenes for 2017's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, before she passed away on December 27, 2016.)

Six years ago I bought a copy of the November '13 issue of the UK movie magazine Empire, which includes excerpts from J.W. Rinzler's book about the making of Return of the Jedi (1983), the third installment in the Star Wars series, in particular transcripts of story conferences between series creator George Lucas, who executive-produced Jedi and cowrote it with Lawrence Kasdan; Kasdan, who also cowrote The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the second installment, as well as The Force Awakens and the underrated spin-off movie Solo (2018); Richard Marquand, the film's director; and Howard Kazanjian, its producer. 

I love reading these kinds of transcripts, where you get to see ideas being generated, batted around, argued over, and sometimes discarded. What's especially fascinating here is Lucas saying that the Force can be accessed by anyone and that Yoda is "a teacher, not a real Jedi," who wouldn't be able to take on someone like Darth Vader in a physical fight.

Lucas had obviously changed his mind by the time of the three Star Wars prequels he created. For instance, a person can only harness the Force if he or she has a high concentration of "midi-chlorians" in the bloodstream, an idea introduced in 1999's Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace. Then there's Yoda's lightsaber duel with Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), also known as Darth Tyranus, in 2002's Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones, which is impressive—most impressive, in fact—for an 874-year-old.

The Jedi story conferences are also a reminder that the first Star Wars movie (1977) was inspired in part by the Vietnam war, but with the evil Empire representing the United States, not North Vietnam, in Lucas's mythological worldview.

Lucas: Anakin Skywalker starting [sic] hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official.

Kasdan: Was he a Jedi?

Lucas: No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the Senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the Dark Side.

Kasdan: The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?

Lucas: Yes, everybody can do it.

Kasdan: Not just the Jedi?

Lucas: It’s just the Jedi who take the time.

Marquand: They use it as a technique.

Lucas: Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing. Also like karate. Also, another misconception is that Yoda teaches Jedi, but he is like a guru; he doesn’t go out and fight anybody.

Kasdan: A Jedi Master is a Jedi, isn’t he?

Lucas: Well, he’s a teacher, not a real Jedi.

Kasdan: I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t believe it; I am in shock.

Lucas: It’s true, absolutely true, not that it makes any difference to the story.

Kasdan: You mean he wouldn’t be any good in a fight?

Lucas: Not with Darth Vader.

Kasdan: I accept it, but I don’t like it.

I often pronounce the word "route" as "root."

But "route" is the wrong word in the call to action below, unless the writer means that one can reroute the good guys of the Star Wars galaxy by firing glowing plastic darts in their direction. I'm a coward, so that strategy would work on me, but I don't know about the Rebel Alliance.

"Rout," not "route"—you're in a rut, writer, but you'll right yourself soon enough.

a Force-ful argument

"In a provocative moment from the 2012 Festival, cultural critic Camille Paglia argued, 'nothing in the last 30 years—in any of the arts—has been produced [that is] as emotionally compelling and significant as the finale of Revenge of the Sith.'"

—from an e-mail sent to past Chicago Humanities Festival attendees (in this case, my girlfriend)

Paglia remarked, "Listen, I've watched Star Wars: Episode III at least twice—once without a bottle of red by my side—and I can easily say it's the least sucky of the three prequels. I can less easily say what I'm about to say about the movie's climax, but I'm pretty sure someone else will say that what I'm saying is 'provocative,' so here goes ..."