This discussion begins with me laying out the principal assumption of my argument. I am assuming that perception can be accurate and that perception can be inaccurate. While this may seem like an oh duh statement, I am applying it here to taste. Just because you don't like something at first blush or even second or third, it doesn't naturally follow that you aren't missing out on something important. Despite what the smug critics and the poser entertainment journalists say, Star Wars is a sophisticated work of art, all of them are a part of this value description. I will endeavor to show you why Star Wars is worth your attention. Its complexity is hidden by a deceptively simple surface which makes it one of those intellectual gifts that you can just continue unwrapping through the years.

The most important form of art in our age is not music nor painting nor sculpture, it is movies. Most people who are making movies today are just out to make a few dollars. That unfortunate trend is part of a movement that is degrading the fabric of our culture and leading us down the road of increased violence, increased national arrogance, and increased dissolution of the social order. With the movies that take violence and make it the ultimate means of dealing with difficulties, we are increasing the dependence of our nation on violent solutions to problems.

Also, there is an increasing trend to dumb down movies so that the public will not have to struggle with the concepts being presented. All of this hurts our culture. There is also an unfortunate tendency by people of my own stripe (liberals) to criticize directors for not being sensitive enough to some group that may or may not be being represented in the film. Take Mel Gibson's the Passion of the Christ, it is saying something very powerful and yet that message is lost on so many people because he represents the Jewish leadership in the same way that the bible does. The anti-bigots are becoming offenders for a word and missing the larger message of the piece.

Anyway, back to our discussion; there are some directors who take their calling seriously. Rather than see it as a pulpit to say whatever they feel like in the moment or whatever earns them a buck, they use it as a way to improve culture and enrich the personal lives of their audiences. There are none more dedicated to this than George Lucas. His Star Wars movies are saturated with literary greatness and cultural lessons. Violence rarely if ever leads to an ultimately satisfying conclusion to the problems facing the movie's heroes. The great acts that redeem the story's characters, including Luke, Anakin, and the Republic, are acts of self-sacrafice and love.

Such a story deserves not only attention but respect. It deserves our analysis and our best criticism. What we have seen instead is the critics--even the best ones--compare this set of movies to movies that are not comparable to it. Folks like Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin take Star Wars to task for not having enough gravitas, for having "poor acting", or for not having enough serious philosophical content.

And this is where such critics miss the boat. I intend to initiate you, my reader, as best as I can into the network of inferences and assumptions and symbols that make up the fabric of the six Star Wars movies. It is this network of assumptions that most viewers are missing as they view the prequels. The unexpected fact that most of the audience for the original Star Wars doesn't even understand what they are really about is fascinating to me. They never realized what was going on and loved them anyway. However, the new movies rely much more heavily on an understanding of some basic underlying assumptions that most people have yet to acquire. Without understanding the language that George Lucas is speaking, critics and audience participants alike see greatness right before their eyes and call it mediocrity. Hopefully, when I am done, you will see things differently.