Quote:
Originally Posted by Rickenbacker
Don't forget the Bible. Star Wars is in essence a Christ story.
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Eh, that's probably overanalizing it a bit too much. There are religious undertones, sure.
But I don't think Luke Skywalker is meant to be a Jesus figure or anything, he doesn't die for anyones sins or anything like that, he's just a humble hero who grows into a powerful warrior throughout the story, that's an age old plot device that predates even the bible.
I do see how The Force could be seen as a commentary on faith and the supernatural, but I don't think that's a strictly Christian thing, if anything I see more paralels to Buddhism than with Christianity.
I do know that people think LOTR had some Christian undertones, which would be no surprise since Tolkien was a very devout Christian. But eh, I think people ruin the mysique of great stories when they have to draw paralels to everything.
"This is about WWII", uh, NO IT'S NOT. It might be influenced by such events but last time I checked there were no hobbits in WWII, Lord of the Rings is set in another world, sure there has to be paralels between middle earth and the real world in order to make the story relatable, but it's still a world of it's own, saying LOTR is nothing more than just a metaphor is a bit insulting to what Tolkien was really trying to do. Which was to create his own wonderfully detailed world, which he did.
But whatever, there aren't really implied metaphors it's just the conclusions people make, that can be done with any work of literature if often goes WAY past what the author originally intended. LOTR uses tried and true archtypes that always make a story more effective. These same archtypes can be used to describe countless historical and religious figures.
But really, why is it that every time you have a noble hero with divine powers, that means he's based on Jesus? Or everytime you have a tryanical ruler that means he's based on Hitler? These archtypes predate both religion and significant historical events. LOTR is brilliant in that it could have been written at any point in time and people would still find it's themes powerful and relevant, it could have been written 1000 years ago, or it could have been written yesterday. It's not one of those stories that is strictly representive of their time.
If there are Christian metaphors in Star Wars and LOTR, or even Harry Potter, at least they are subtle. That makes them all superior to that Chronicles of Narnia stuff.