On Star Wars Episode II and The Searchers by Mark Croft

      The author is not qualified to comment on the intrinsic 
artistic merit of Star Wars Episode II.  Whatever the perceived 
quality of art, whether designed simply to entertain or to motivate 
thought, one should not turn ones back on the thought it 
stimulates.  One should not turn ones back on the urge toward 
insight into the human condition or toward trying to identify 
patterns in the world no matter what the stimulus. The following is 
intended in this spirit. 
      One of the strikingly familiar images in Sat Wars Episode II 
(and the seed of this essay) was that of the young and emotional 
Anaken Skywalker standing on a desert rock outcropping, backlit by 
the sun below the horizon, overlooking the village of the "savages" 
who had kidnapped his mother.  Following this image he descends 
directly from the rock, with a superhuman Jedi jump.  This scene is 
a paraphrasing of the scene from the classic Jon Ford/John Wayne 
movie "The Searchers".  In that movie the emotional, young Martin 
Pawley (the co-searcher/apprentice to Wayne's character, Ethan 
Edwards), overlooks the village of the Comanche "savages" who had 
kidnapped his "sister".  Martin is then lowered, and dropped a 
substantial distance, over this precipice (as opposed to the Jedi-
bound).  Skywalker's subsequent creeping from tent to tent, 
complete with the backdrop of the encampment's domesticated 
carnivores (dogs in the Ford image), and his entrance into a tent 
by cutting a hole in its back with his light-saber (knife) was 
predestined by this imagery.  
      "The Searchers" revolves around a 5 year search, across the 
west, by Eathan and Martin,  for the Ethan's niece who had been 
kidnapped by a marauding band Comanches.  Indeed prior to this 
scene Anaken also went through a brief "search" for the savage 
nomads, in the desert, astride his airborne motorcycle.  In "The 
Searchers" of course the search took years and the mounts were 
horses, nonetheless some of the same imagery is present.  
      On some level the character of Anaken appears to be a blend 
of the main characters in "The Searchers".        Wayne's character 
is one of the most deeply layered and complex in the western genre.  
Ethan Edwards is a case study in isolation, alienation and 
disconnection from the world and its rules.  The core of his schism 
from the world appears to have been the terrible death of his 
mother (16 years before) at the hands of the Comanches, the same 
tribe that kidnapped his niece. [This should of course be kept in 
mind when thinking about the SWE II case.]  Ethan's revulsion and 
helpless furry at the brutality in the violation/torture/slaughter 
of his brother's family, and the older kidnapped niece, is also 
emphasized.  The alienation of his long years in the Civil War, 
culminated by the devastating defeat of the South, is also blended 
into his character.  
      There is also a subtext that runs through the film's early 
scenes.  Ethan had been in love with his brother Aaron's wife 
(Martha), and their interactions subtly convey that they still love 
each other.  There are some suggestions that Martha had chosen to 
marry Ethan's solid family oriented brother.   Thus Ethan had also 
lost the woman he loved twice, first to his brother, and second to 
the terrible end at the hands of the Comanches.  He blamed himself 
for both losses.  The first by virtue of his loner-personality, and 
the second by his being lured away (with the local ranger 
contingent) from protecting his brothers farm by a decoying cattle 
theft.  
      Wayne's character is an incredibly strong one possessing: 
great courage; a profound/hard-won knowledge of the west/Indians; 
dogged perseverance (tenacity); loyalty to family and the 
vanquished South; a code of personal honor; and a deep sense of his 
own code of morality.  This morality did not extend to the 
laws/institutions the victorious North, by which, it is implied, he 
may be wanted as an outlaw.
       Ethan is however, deeply scared by hatred, anger, and an 
unrequited need for vengeance. In a sense he has within him a 
deeply "dark" side.  He has a grim respect for the shear toughness 
of the Indians, but there is no doubt in his abiding hatred for 
them.  His hatred is best exemplified by the emerging clarity that 
he intends to kill his own niece for her forced cohabitation with 
her Indian captive.  He is a man at war within himself.  In the end 
the morality within him triumphs, albeit by the skin of its teeth.  
He spares her life and allows her to reenter his heart.  In the 
true end however; although he has been able to regain his moral 
basis and partially reopen his heart, he turns away from the 
doorway of the home into which the rest of the reunited family 
enters; still in isolation.  Indeed Eathan's "framing" in the 
doorway both at the beginning and end of the movie tends to 
emphasize the symmetry of his isolation both before and after.
      In "The Searchers" Wayne is accompanied by his half-breed 
nephew (Martin Pawley) who had been adopted and raised with his 
brothers family.   Martin is young, impetuous, apt to be governed 
by his emotions, and always chafing under the hard-handed 
supervision of Ethan.  He is capable of the sort of deep love that 
had been killed in Ethan by loss.  Ethan can, and does, love but 
his isolation does not allow him to express it, let alone embrace 
it.  Martin struggles, within himself,  between the love of a woman 
and his devotion to duty (rescuing his adopted sister from the 
Indians).  This duty is compounded by his growing realization that 
he very well is the only hope of rescuing her from death at the 
hands of Ethan's hatred.    
      Anaken is in many ways a blend of these two characters.  Like 
Martin's he is headstrong, impetuous, and smitten by the love that 
comes in youth.   He also has a deeply "dark" side like Ethan.  
Like Ethan he is born to leadership and eventual isolation.  He has 
a tendency toward arrogance and a sense of greatness forestalled by 
his mentors.  The sin of pride so to say.  This is not one of the 
prominent elements of "The Searchers" characters.  Ethan has a cold 
calculated confidence bred of experience.  He has a 
courage/decisiveness-of-action grounded in this confidence, and 
possibly a lack of concern with dying should he miscalculate.  
Indeed, the inner quiet pain with which carries himself leaves one 
feeling that Ethan might regard death as a welcome release form 
that which he can not otherwise escape.
      The core of the dark side Anaken, and the seed from which 
Darth Vader grows, is the consuming need for (and act) of vengeance 
that follows from the terrible touture/death of is mother at the 
hands of the "savage" nomads.  This is of course analogous to the 
character-defining-loss of Ethan's mother (and the woman he loved) 
in "he Searchers".  There are at least two disparities between 
these two characters that lead Anakin to succumb to immorality / 
"darkness" and Ethan's withdraw into an inner hatred/struggle with 
a core of morality/honor preserved.  The first is the combination 
of trauma and opportunity.  Immediately upon the terrible trauma of 
his mothers death Anaken is presented with both the opportunity and 
the means to take revenge.  He acts  without time for moral 
consideration.  In Ethan's case the acts of brutality occur in his 
absence ant the objects for revenge are removed in both time and 
space to an unknown location.  It is very possible that, had Ethan 
seen the act and had the perpetrators at hand, his vengeance would 
also have been terrible.   Still one has the feeling, while Ethan 
may have extracted a terrible vengeance,  his roots would have 
eventually stayed his hand.  That he may have crossed the line in 
rage and grief but, would have recognized it and stopped short of 
being consumed.  That in short he might have stopped short of 
killing the women and children as he spared his neice.
      The second point less quantitative but is arguably much more 
important, namely depth of character.  Ethan is very mature, having 
lead a long life of morality, duty and honor.  He also had a 
background of family.  He has a character with deep longstanding 
roots.  He has undergone great hardship and loss but his roots run 
too deep to be toppled completely.  He is a man who has lived the 
best part of his life, but he has lived a real life and is not 
prone to wringing his hands with qualms about the "slings and 
arrows of outrageous fortune".   
      It could be argued that Akinen is a character in a vehicle 
ripe with two-dimensional cartoon –like characters, and therefore 
that such a questions are irrelevant.  Placing this aside, Anaken 
is basically an unformed child.  He simply hadn't had the time or 
opportunity to sink roots of understanding into life.  He had done 
some things but he has not really lived.  His youth and family were 
stolen by fate.  He was drawn by destiny into a monastic-like order 
with a religious set of principles and duty to all of the Galaxy.  
He has not lived as an individual and appears to have no prospect 
of living like a man in the future.  He is fighting feelings of 
bitterness at the loss of a real life.  He could well complain he 
was robbed.  It must be somewhat worse than being born heir of a 
kingdom with all the concomitant duties but none of the worldly 
conveniences/pleasures.  This, compounded with his love of a woman, 
torments him. 
      Anaken's sense of his mother's plight must also have played 
upon his  sense of guilt.  How, after all, could a person of such 
privilege and power (and his powerful associates) let his mother 
persist in an uncertain a state of slavery?  Could he, they, not of 
spared some infinitesimal resources/time from saving the galaxy to 
raise his mother out of degradation and exposure to disaster.  He 
had every right to feel fraught with guilt and reasonable 
bitterness with his mentors to let such a thing persist.  
       Despite such things, Anakin seems to have struggled to take 
on his holy duties, renouncing life and family, as most mortals 
know it.  He was inculcated in youth into a system with a mountain 
of ritualized duties but which provided no life-roots of character 
as in Ethan's case.  Thus when burdened by unbearable denial-of-
life, grief, guilt, anger, and finally trauma his unformed 
character crumbles beneath the weight.