Final

Set to Stun...You

For generations audiences have watched the bad guy try to defeat the good guy. The Good vs. Evil discussion has come into play for many a narrative in Hollywood as well. We have a clear distinction between good and evil in the film Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977). There is the Evil Imperial army that is going planet to planet trying to control the galaxy, and then there is the good Rebel Alliance who fights to undo the Imperials. In Star Wars there was no sitting down and having a democratic discussion as to why the Rebels felt the Imperials should stop taking over planets. The time for diplomacy had passed, so it came time to use brute force and lethal force. The many weapons used in Star Wars ranged from the Blaster pistol to the Ion Cannon; capable of destroying a Destroyer class starship in the Imperial fleet. When it comes down to it the weapons were cool and slick, they also were lasers and directed heat. For the purposes of this essay we will look at how the science fiction of Star Wars warfare is quickly becoming just plain science.

At the time of Star Wars release in 1977 there were no laser guns or laser cannons that could shoot from the surface of the planet into outer space. We had similar destructive capabilities in rockets and bullets, but nothing that involved guided lasers. The fiction begins almost immediately in Star Wars when a Star Destroyer takes control of a ship in outer space, and then a gun battle rages inside the tiny ship. We, for the first time, see the guided lasers coming out from the blaster rifles that the storm troopers are carrying.

Red flashes go across the screen and every once in a while they hit a target and a man falls to the ground dead. In 1977, some people may have thought that this technology wouldn't be a reality for a long time; some may have even thought that it would be impossible. Later on in the film we see Princess Leia stunned by a storm troopers blaster rifle, and a blue spray of rings emits from the rifle.

Here we see a non-lethal use of the same rifle. If the Imperials can invent, then the United States government should be able to as well. The United States Department of Defense (DOD) has recently been developing a guided laser for the Air Force.

The Personnel Halting And Stimulation Response, PHASR for short, was developed for the non-lethal subduing of a criminal. This PHASR uses a guided laser to “dazzle”, as they say, victims who are not in compliance with their behavior. According to New Scientist magazine the gun emits this laser and directs it into the eyes of the attacker. This causes temporary blindness. It would be similar to the type of blindness that one would encounter after looking into an extremely bright light for too long. There is also another feature of the weapon that is considered less-than-lethal. The microwave emitter can direct microwaves onto a person and cause the skin to burn, the criminal would have to decide if they wanted to keep getting burned and not behave, or comply and then the burning would stop. The technology is not where it needs to be to go into the hands of every law enforcement officer, but it is getting closer by the day. Now this brings us to the Ion Cannon. New Scientist magazine also reports that there is a high-powered laser guided microwave system being developed to use for long range targets. The weapon is called the Multimode Directed Energy Armament System. According to ARDEC, the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Centre, the weapon “uses a high-power laser to ionize the air, creating a plasma channel that acts as a waveguide for the stream of microwaves. The device could destroy the electronic fuse of an explosive device or missile, such as a roadside bomb, or immobilize a vehicle by disabling its ignition system.” Here is a very practical use for a weapon that could potentially save lives. There are also very economical reasons for using weapons such as this today. The weapons do not use ammunition; they need only a power source for the microwaves and lasers to come from. This could, in the future development of the product be a battery pack on the soldier or mobile device. Here is where the green movement could be expanded. There would be a onetime cost for the actual gun, but then there would be little to no upkeep in the future. As with all new items it would of course be very expensive to make a gun, however the price would come down after it was made the standard.

Here are the examples of the fiction becoming reality. There have been many steps to get us to this point in history. At one point someone needed to say that the reality of controlling lasers is not far from truth. The technology could be developed and used for means of helping humanity. There are many skeptics for the use of lasers as weapons. One such objector is Tobias Feakin from Bradford University's Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project in the United Kingdom. He states that the use of these PHASR weapons can cause permanent blindness and should not be used in the current form.
Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner discuss the opposition to new technology by the conservative ideology in their article Technophobia. The public’s reaction to a weapon like this would definitely come with some opposition, weaponry denotes a type of power over another being and somehow they lose their personal freedom. This same argument was used for the invention of the fire propelled weapon. Someone had to have said that the idea for a laser used as a weapon was not science fiction. Someone also had to have said that a projectile could be shot from a barrel by having an explosive action propel it forward. Everything that has ever been created was at one point just fiction. It takes courage and intelligence to be able to say that something that is currently not around can at one point be created. George Lucas, of the Star Wars world did not discover the technology of blasters before making his film; he imagined it and put it into practice with the power of special effects.

Now that the technology is developed where does the technology take us in the narrative of real life? In Star Wars the technology brought about peace and security in the New Republic. In real life, how can a PHASR weapon be used to unite and not divide? We have the visual from Star Wars of the heroes receiving their medals and coming together ready for whatever happens next. This technology of guided lasers and microwaves needs to be viewed as the huge privilege that it is. The blaster in the Star Wars universe was used only in times of imminent danger and was used for self-defense purposes. The power of lasers and microwaves could be used safely in the battlefield to destroy a target with pin-point accuracy. We have the new technology of PHASR's but in the end it is still a weapon. It can and will be used for good, but it can and will be used for bad. This is where the balance of Good and Evil comes back into focus. The future is bright with new invention and who knows what other ideas have been spawned from the Star Wars universe, we just have to be ready and willing to accept them.


Star Wars. George Lucas. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford. 1977. DVD. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. 2006.
Knight, Will. “US military sets laser PHASR to stun”. New Scientist. November 2005. < http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8275-us-military-sets-laser-phasrs-to-stun.html>
< http://www.pica.army.mil/PicatinnyPublic/organizations/ardec/index.asp>
Feakin, Tobias. Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project (BNLWRP). Research Report Three. August 2001. < http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/nlw/research_reports/researchreport3.php>
Ryan, Michael Kellner, Douglas. “Technophobia” Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film. Ed. J.P. Telotte. University of Illinois Press; 1st Edition. 1995.

Midterm

We DO allow droids here

The science fiction film has long been unique due to the fact that it can bring up certain topics that may seem taboo, or culturally offensive, in a normative dramatic narrative. There is a distance that the term science fiction brings with it that allows the viewer to take down the politically correct fences that may have been put up by the society one lines in. Makers of science fiction realize this and take the time while developing their films to insert certain questions about life, origin of life, what it means to be human and other ethical and moral issues. Two such films that have done this are Star Wars: A New Hope and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this essay we will undertake the understanding of what it is to be human in a set environment where naturally born humans and created droids/computer beings exist, and how this relates to the understanding of the human in control, and the non-human subservient.
When defining human for these two films we have the mental image of characters like Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Dr. Dave Bowman and other people in the two films. We see them as human because they look like us the viewers and we associate ourselves as such. Then there is the non-human that is involved with the films. I want to specifically look at the droids and robots in Star Wars and not the other alien types that populate the film. For the most part the other organic aliens are accepted as normal and not inferior in the universe. Then there are the robots and androids in the films; we have characters like C-3PO, R2-D2, and HAL 9000. These characters are treated like mechanisms that will do a set task and nothing more. However the reality of the situation is that the droids have artificial intelligence and have an opinion as to how they are being treated, or to the task that they are going to do. Here is where the conflict begins between the organic and the mechanic. In Star Wars the droids are purchased and put into the care of Luke Skywalker and his family. While Luke takes them on many journeys through the galaxy he never sees them as equals.

There is a scene in the film where R2-D2 is hiding a message from Luke while he is being cleaned, and Luke is literally thrown away from R2-D2 as the droid reluctantly reveals the message that he was hiding. All the while C-3PO berates R2 for not giving the master the message immediately. Here is an example of how the droids are simply used to facilitate a purpose, there is no messing around for Luke, and he wants his answers now. Similarly there is a scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Dave and HAL 9000 have an argument.

It has been established that Dave thinks HAL has made a mistake and they are going to shut HAL down. HAL is resistant and attempts to kill Dave. HAL was programmed as a caretaker of the ship and crew and now it is going rogue in attempt to sustain its own life. In the article Replicants and the Mental Life by the British Film Institute, they are talking about Blade Runner and how it makes its own definition of what it means to be human; “humans simply have feelings while non-humans simply do not. Blade Runner denaturalizes that division and subtly inverts it: what has feelings is human.” Here HAL is made human by his simple ability to have emotions. If a computer can have emotions then it can be a potentially very dangerous thing. Humans have emotions and have a hard enough time controlling their own. There are some other anxieties here being brought up that people in the 1960’s through to the 1980’s were feeling. IBM was quickly becoming the world leader in computer and processing power and in 1964 introduced the IBM 360 system which revolutionized the computing era. The 360 system used multiple computers to quickly operate a task. People thought that computers were going to eliminate the need for humans at all, especially in the workforce and people were threatened by it. The anxiety was felt so much that HAL was birthed by going one letter down from each letter in the alphabet from IBM. I-H, B-A, M-L. People saw themselves being reproduced only in mechanic form; in essence people were eliminating the need for people. Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner discussed this in their book Technophobia. Here they discuss the “choice of nature, as an alternative to the technological collectivity” Where people are in need of individuating themselves and not creating likenesses of themselves. In reality the computer and the controls of the computer are only as unlimited as the human creating it. HAL and R2-D2 were created to do jobs that humans at one point did. So these films took that anxiety and told the audience that these tools are only as powerful as we allow them to be.
In the same vein of what it means to be human there was also discussion in these two films about race and ethnicity. Each film is very direct in its assumption that the robot is the servant to the human master. In Star Wars we see that droids are not allowed in some establishments.

When Luke and Ben Kenobi enter a cantina to find safe passage to Alderaan, they are told by the bar owner “We don’t allow their kind in here”. They might as well have a sign outside that says “Humans Only”, and in context of the social setting of Star Wars only a few years earlier did that generation see signs that read “Whites only”. The second class of the mechanic robot is clearly seen again when R2-D2 and C-3PO are in the Death Star and Storm troopers come and find them hiding in a control station. They are brushed off by the troopers as a non-threat, when in reality they are controlling the operation from that room. They are not taken seriously and that is the Imperials undoing. In 2001: A Space Odyssey HAL is not treated as one of the crew or as an equal until he shows how much control he has over the humans. The humans only then feign to like him while they plot his demise, so that he will not kill them before they get the chance to shut him down. There is such a hierarchy that is established in the films that it is hard for them to overcome them.

In 2001 the hierarchy is never overcome and in the end HAL is shut down and literally killed. Star Wars took another route and in the end the droids were accepted and even given rewards for their braveness and cunning in the battle against the Imperials.
Here are a few examples of how human and non-human ideas can be displayed and discussed in the context of a science fiction film. Anywhere in the discussion the term human and non-human could be changed out for a people group, ideology, social or political stance and been able to make a statement on the culture. Science fiction, although wrought with special effects and superstars, can and will continue to make a mark on the social climate of cinema.

Visual Essay Number 1

“Hope” for a new generation.

From the immediate and stately entrance music to the scroll at the beginning of the film; Star Wars has made its mark on the filmic timeline as one of the most watched and adored science fiction films of the 20^th Century. Many people growing up around the time of the film’s release in 1977 were unsure how a film, paraded and marketed as science fiction, would fare in a post-Vietnam mentality. The importance of why [i]Star Wars was so successful plays into the reading and understanding of the culture at that time. This essay will deal with the importance Star Wars had on the culture of the time, and how the film became a catalyst for many young people to deal with the harsh realities of war.

George Lucas was an up and coming director from the Los Angeles area who had his hand of the pulse of multiple kinds of independent filmmaking. He was a filmmaker interested in the power films had to change the mind of an individual and was displeased with the hum-drum coming from the studio system. During his time at USC he developed a film THX: 1138 4eb. This film dealt with a man living in a totalitarian society where thought, love, and feeling were taken from the people by medication pushed by the governing body. This film propelled him on to make Star Wars. The film came out just after the Vietnam War ended in 1975 and the world was hot about the term Imperialism. The United States virtually had a schism of thought about how to run a war and how to protect a society. So Lucas, who was a participant in the realm of ideas, took this cultural anger and this animosity and used it to make a story of coming to terms with the realities of life. The main protagonist, Luke Skywalker a small farm boy in a lone part of the galaxy, is thrown into the battle between Imperials and the Rebels. Much like the feelings of the Vietnam War, many people were not pleased with being drafted for a war that they felt they had no part of. In the story Luke tells the people, he is surrounded with, that it’s not his war, and to let the “other” people worry about it. Lucas chose to tell a coming of age story in the genre of science fiction because that was the last genre left to put the ideas of the generation. Its fantasy allowed for contemporary viewers to escape the realities of an unpopular war while still confronting emotions that were coming from the public because of the war.

One main character from the film, Han Solo, was known as a rouge spirit running around the galaxy taking care of his own self. Han Solo could have been seen by the viewer as a draft dodger or a conscientious objector to the dealings of the Imperials and the Rebels. Obi-wan Kenobi could be seen as the veteran who understood the benefit of a military incursion to bring about the social justice that was being withheld. Now saying that Star Wars was a war propaganda film would be a stretch but it could be used as a therapeutic tool for a nation who was trying to come to terms with a very real war.

The Mise-en-scene of the film was an interesting choice by George Lucas. He had some dealings with Ridley Scott who was in the brainstorming stage of his feature [ii]Alien. Ridley Scott had the idea of “old space” as opposed to new space; the likes of which viewers had seen in Stanley Kubrick’s [iii]

2001: A Space Odyssey. Old space was used to put the character at ease in the space so they wouldn’t have to get used to the sterile look of outer space. The glitz and glam was gone and all that was left was real life. Post Vietnam War culture was not interested in seeing a fake version of the story that they had just lived out. The Vietnam War was “old” and Star Wars reflected that. [iv]Vivian Sobchack discussed the importance of iconography in film’s dress and design that told the audience that they were in a certain story style/genre and science fiction films usually took that belief and tried to give the viewer something new to see; because after all they are watching a science fiction film. Star Wars took the look of old space and allowed the viewer to forget they were watching a science fiction film.

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[i] Star Wars. George Lucas. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford. 1977. DVD. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. 2006.

[ii] Alien. Ridley Scott. Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt. 1979. DVD. 20^th Century Fox. 2004.

[iii] 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood. 1968. DVD. Warner Home Video. 2007.

[iv] Sobchack, Vivian. “Images of Wonder: The Look of Science Fiction.” Course Packet.