Jonah Goldberg uses Star Wars in a piece on moral certainty and gets hammered by the author of the novelization of Episode III, who claims that Luke's "sole purpose in life is to slay his father."
While many Star Wars afficiandos comment, Jonah is kind enough to print my response.
Expanding on the last sentence, while I really, really like all things Star Wars, I simply had the hardest time reading the crap that Stover wrote. It was absolutely horrible prose and had a style that would have failed him in a second year Lit class. A buddy loaned me the book and it was all I could do to finish it.
After stamping that piece of shit with the Star Wars logo, he thinks he is an expert. To prove he is an expert he makes a point that is demonstrably wrong. If he had stuck with his broad point - that Star Wars did not divide the universe in light and dark sides - he might of had some basis, but George Lucas started out making three films (Episodes IV - VI) about good vs. evil and redemption. The Jedi were "guardians of peace and justice" and it was clear that they were always tempted by the Dark Side. (In fairness to Stover, there is no "Light Side" of the Force in the movies. That is unofficial short-hand that evolved in the Expanded Universe.) There is never a claim that Jedi are "good," but it is clear that the Sith are "evil" and that the Jedi fight evil. You draw your own conclusions.
I think Goldberg's use of the metaphor is apt: moral certainty does play a huge part in Star Wars. But "certainty" does not mean "correct," and Luke's journey through Episode's IV - VI is about come to grips with enormous changes in his "certainty."
As Obi-wan says, "many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view."
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