Derek Binsfield PHIL 478 Is There Philosophy in the Technology of Star Wars?

For years, adults and children alike have flocked to the movie theaters to get away from the everyday normal life and jump into a hyper reality that leads them into another world. Time and time again, patrons leave the theater and either loved or hated the movie they saw. Sometimes, however, there is more than just a plotline to the movies; there is a thought process that goes in the writers head and the directors head, which leads to underlying ideas inside of a story. In terms of Star Wars, technology is the basis for all thought. Every antagonist and every protagonist finds themselves entrenched in a philosophical and material technology that is hard to break free of, in the case of Darth Vader, or becomes your lifeblood, in the case of Luke Skywalker. In Episode IV: A New Hope, the movie begins with technology and never strays from its path. As the Empire and Darth Vader arrive on the ship that Princess Leia is on, you see C-3PO and R2-D2, two droids. Right away, C-3PO talks and is attempting to get away from any harm caused by the Empire. He and R2-D2 get into a travel pod after Leia records a video message on R2-D2, which is to be sent to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine. C-3PO is uncertain about the pod because they could get caught by the Empire, but there is an important line correlating C-3POs worries. Hold your fire. Theres no life forms. It must have short circuited. (Empyreal Commander 1 in A New Hope) In this moment, the Imperial cruiser is convinced that nothing is aboard the travel pod. As the movie goes on, it is realized that C-3PO and R2-D2 have the qualities of a normal human being, according to John Locke. There were five qualities a thing would need to have to

be considered a person for Locke. These were the ability to reason, the ability to have mental states like beliefs or intentions, the ability to communicate via language, be able to enter into social relations with others, and be a responsible moral agent. (Locke, p.349) C-3PO is the better of the two droids to describe what Locke means. C-3PO has rationality, which can also be correlated to intelligence, and the ability to communicate via language. He is a protocol droid, therefore, is capable of speaking and clearly understanding several thousand dialects of language in the galaxy that is Star Wars. He also has clear mental states and valid reasoning throughout the movies, as well. C3PO has a line that occurs in every movie that you would never think a robot to say: Ive got a bad feeling about this (C-3PO in A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi). He has the ability to feel and has beliefs that are similar to a humans. Each time, something is in the slightest danger, he wants no part of it; because he understands the pain that someone or something would go through in the situation at hand. C-3PO also sees how R2-D2 could be in trouble while playing chess with Chewbacca. A wookie, such as Chewbacca, is less resistant to the idea of hurting something to address a problem. In this situation, R2-D2 is beating Chewbacca at chess and C-3PO suggests that R2-D2 allow Chewbacca to win, so he keeps all of his limbs intact. It is deductive reasoning at its best, because he does not want to see R2-D2 in danger due to a win in chess, therefore, Chewbacca should win the game by default. (Arp, p.6) Due to the ability to reason for R2-D2s safety, it is safe to say that C-3PO is also a responsible moral agent. The issue for C-3POs eligibility to be considered a human is in the last detail: the ability to have social relations. According to Arp, there are simple social relations one can have. One can have family relations, economic relations, and allegiance in a lifetime (Arp, p. 10). C-3PO,

as a droid, does not have a family. He has no genetic material, like DNA, in his metallic body that would posturize him as a human being. This also means he cannot procreate as a human would. However, C-3PO treats R2-D2 like a brother, in watching out for his every move and making sure that R2-D2 is sure of what he is doing. The act of an older sibling leads to the mirage of family in C-3POs life. He also has economic relations; however, they do not directly involve him. When C-3PO is sold to the Skywalker family in the beginning of A New Hope, the Jawas have created an economic relationship with Luke and Uncle Owen indirectly involving C3PO and R2-D2, as the sold materials. As droids, they are also not allowed to buy or sell things as seen in the cantina in A New Hope. As Luke, Obi-Wan, R2-D2, and C-3PO enter the cantina; the bartender specifically points out the droids and says We dont serve their kind here (Bartender in A New Hope) Because they are droids, they have a cloud of inhumanity around them that does not give them the right to be served in areas of the galaxy. Droids also have an allegiance towards their masters, or whoever has purchased/stolen them for the time being. Before being purchased by Luke and Uncle Owen, C-3PO and R2-D2 had retaining bolts attached to them by the Jawas who attacked and droid-napped them. Of course, as they are being sold and are restricted, droids were cast as slaves, meant to do the bidding of a master. C-3PO mentions to Luke about a former master several times in Episode IV and has decidedly moved his allegiance over to the Skywalker family. C-3PO is enough of human to be able to choose who he calls his master over time. When Luke gives R2-D2 and C3PO to Jabba the Hutt in return for Han Solo, C-3PO still considers Luke his master while serving Jabba. Other droids do not have this ability, as it is a rarity among droids. In Attack of the Clones, the Empire builds droid armies, which are created as soldiers and slaves, in order to fight a war against the Republic. There is easy manipulation behind these droids, which lead them to a

less autonomous life span compared to C-3PO and R2-D2. They cannot pick and choose who they obey or call master, because they only succumb to one master overall, the Emperor. Even though, it seems as if C-3PO has a general humanistic ideal, there are still several problems that blur the line of life and technology. C-3PO, or any other droid for that matter, is like a mechanical toy given to a child. There is no growth in a life time, nor are they naturally produced. They each have interchangeable parts like that of an automobile or a computer, thus making the thought of a droid as a human irrelevant. The idea of C-3PO is that he is a social robot that may have an effect on anyone he deals with, because he would interact with us in a positive manner. However, his body may not matter as much, because he is programmed in that way. He has several different dialects that he has not necessarily traveled and learned, but that have been plugged into him. He knows how to work with machines, because he has been programmed to work with machines. While he acts and reacts like a human, his ways have been dehumanized by the body he lives in and works with. His technology is the norm for what is done with droids and creating a droid army. In fact, the Empire uses technology as a standard bearing on life. The Empire has a way with technology, to say the least. Everything that surrounds them is a new technological feat, whether it is the creation of the Death Star or the use of AT-ATs on Hoth to attack the Republic. The theory that the Empire uses is what Heidegger called enframing. Enframing is the reorganization of elements of nature, carving them up, and placing them into so many artificial frames, all to be used up as resources. (Abrams, p.1) The Empire sees the world around them as a place that they can use as their ground and nothing else. The technology they thrive upon, such as the Death Star and general weaponry, like a blaster, can lead to corruption within their dependence. A Jedi, on the other hand, depends upon what

they need to survive and the use of the Force. Yoda tells Luke that Darth Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, because it was quicker, easier, and more elusive. Anger and fear can take over a person with the Force and cloud what they have learned already, thus leading them to be taken in by the Dark Side and shown the ways of enframing. The use of enframing develops very quickly in A New Hope as Darth Vader shows the planet of Alderaan to Princess Leia through the Death Stars glaring window, much like an eye over an entire galaxy. Darth Vader bribes Leia to give him valuable information about the Rebel base and threatens Leia to destroy her home planet. Leia gives him the information and Vader says to blow up Alderaan because it is of no use to him (Darth Vader in A New Hope). This idea of a planet becoming useless is one of corruption in a human mind, also known as standing reserve. This reality is converted by technology into mere means and nature has become lifeless and ready to use to the Empire. Enframing isnt the only Heideggerian ideal in Star Wars. Darth Vaders transformation from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader was all due to technology. Anakin started off with technology at a very young age. He built C-3PO to help his mother with chores around the house and to translate for her. He was also in depth with ship repair and building a pod racer out of parts left behind by Watto, his master. When Padme asks Anakin about being a slave, he replies by saying that I am not a slave, but I am a person! (Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace) If this is the case, then Watto is using Anakin as his personal tool and develops an idea of what is a person and what is a slave. When Anakin is training to become a Jedi under Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, he finds out that his mother had been killed. His ultimate goal was to become the strongest Jedi in

the galaxy and be able to free any and all slaves, such as his mother. This obsession of his mothers death leads to a clouded future and sight within the Force. Becoming enraged, Anakin attacks Count Dooku, who cuts off his arm. With no one willing to help, the Empire takes Anakin in and builds him an arm, making him a cyborg, but also present-at-hand. Present-at-hand is an ideal that the Empire chooses to follow, compared to the Jedi who follow the idea of ready-at-hand. Ready-at-hand is the idea of primitive tool use, or experiencing tools and their external environment as a natural extension of the body. The world is attuned through equipment and how it flows through ones self. Present-at-hand, however, is becoming a lord of being and becoming detached from ones environment through technology. The attitude of present-at-hand is that the more we can see, the more we can control, and technology can challenge nature as a superior being. In Lukes training as a Jedi with Obi-Wan, Luke must move from present-at-hand to ready-at-hand. Present-at-hand is the more natural, easier, and more seductive route to fixing ideas and judgments, thus Obi-Wan must tell Luke that your eyes can deceive you. Dont trust them. (Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope) The Force, for a Jedi, is through feeling and not through the visual world, such as the image of the eye of the Death Star. Anakin, however, did not receive this sort of training through Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan, because he transitioned to the Dark Side and was impatient with the Force and the reaction of feeling compared to visual. He did not feel the difference, because he could not see it as he did with the Dark Side repairing his arm. As Anakin became Darth Vader, he did not have the strength of the Force with him as he fought Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan proceeded to maim Anakin and the transition to the Dark Side and an

enframed mind set was complete. The Emperor gave Anakin a new lease on life as Darth Vader and was pushed into the world of natural resistance. This push leads to a distortion in Lord Vaders life as the Emperors right-hand man and must follow through with the Empires ideas and loses track of who he once was. This distortion is prevalent in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker calls out Darth Vader as Anakin Skywalker, who then says That name no longer has any meaning for me! (Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi) Clearly, Lord Vader has been so taken aside by the Dark Side and technology that he has lost all sense of who he used to be. He has been enframed by the Emperor as something that was just mere means and only of use to him as a slave. This contradicts what he said to Padme in The Phantom Menace as he had, in fact, become a slave and was being a master over the Empire, thus being hypocritical of his childhood existence. As Obi-Wan says to Luke about Vader, Hes more machine than man. Twisted and evil. (Obi-Wan Kenobi in Return of the Jedi) Luke Skywalker, after finding out that he is the son of Lord Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, suffers nearly the same fate as Anakin did, however, he had been taught enough by Yoda and Obi-Wan that he did not fall into the trap of the Dark Side. Darth Vader cuts Lukes hand off in a lightsaber battle near the end of the movie. As the movie ends, with Leia, Lando, Chewbacca, and Luke on a ship, it is realizes that Luke has a mechanical hand that will allow him to use his functionality and his lightsaber still. Luke knows the ways of the Dark Side are stronger than he can imagine and goes to Dagobah to have Yoda train him in the ways of the Force. Yoda tells Luke that he has learned all he needs to learn to be a Jedi, however, he made a mistake by facing Vader and coming closer to him. Yoda does not mean that he became closer as the son of Vader, but that his hand represents what had happened to Anakin in the past, allowing him to become Darth Vader.

There is a scene in Return of the Jedi that sums up the relationship between Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, and Luke Skywalker. As Luke turns himself into the Empire, Darth Vader confronts him. Luke tells him that he has accepted the fact that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker and that there is still some good in him; that perhaps the Emperor has not drained it all from him. Luke proclaims that it is the reason that Vader did not kill him in The Empire Strikes Back and that it is the reason that Vader will not take him to the Emperor. For a brief second, Lord Vader seems as if there is compassion towards Luke, perhaps as Anakin, yet Vader changes the subject to a technological stance. He notices that Luke has rebuilt the lightsaber that Vader destroyed in Episode V. I see you have constructed a new lightsaber. Your skills are complete. Indeed, you are powerful as the Emperor as foreseen. (Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi). The switch to a technological conversation shows that Darth Vader only sees the Force as a technology that he uses. In rebuilding the lightsaber, Vader thinks that Luke has started to transform to the Dark Side and is ready to join Vader and the Emperor, as if Luke has started standing reserve. Therefore, Vader makes the choice to take Luke to the Emperor and fight him, unless he becomes enframed and joins the Dark Side. When Vader and Luke finally battle, Luke precedes to cut off Vaders arm, revealing no arm, but pure copper wiring that sticks out. No blood, but just electricity running through Vaders body. In this moment, Luke understands what his present-at-hand connection with his father is. It is more than being a man, it is being a cyborg, and being technologically sound with him and less about the readiness-at-hand. Luke connects the dots between the Dark Side and the Force via the technological downfall of his father. In Luke surrendering himself to the Emperor, he has admitted to being present-at-hand as he was on his home planet of Tatooine, before he

met Obi-Wan Kenobi. He looks for the transfer to ready-at-hand and drops his lightsaber to save himself from turning into his father. Right away, the Emperor details how Luke has made his choice and must pay via technology and the Dark Side of the Force by electrocuting him with his Dark power. Darth Vader has a clear realization and understands that he was once Anakin Skywalker, not Darth Vader. He has a chance to save his son of the doom that he was placed in for several years. Vader picks up the Emperor, which electrocutes him as well, and throws him down a large gorge in the floor. After this is done, Vaders breathing becomes different, as if he has had a change. Darth Vader, in one moment, went from Emperors right hand man, where technology was keeping him alive through the power of the Dark Side to Anakin Skywalker, the once-Jedi Knight, who would have done anything to stay out of the Dark Side and save others instead of himself. The technology he once depended upon through the Emperor had started to fail him, because he was no longer present-at-hand or standing reserve, he was ready-at-hand, willing to find a way out of the technology he possessed. Anakin professes one thing to Luke as he moves from present-at-hand to ready-at-hand and that was the idea of seeing Luke with his own two eyes, instead of through the mask the Emperor gave him in his rehabilitation. When Luke opens the mask, Anakin tells him to go on without him and Luke says, No. Youre coming with me. Ill not leave you here. I have to save you. (Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi) In which Anakin replies, You already have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right. Anakin had admitted to being engulfed by the technological world that is the Empire. All Anakin needed was someone to show him that he was not Darth Vader, but that he was trapped in a technological world that

would keep him alive. It was not about what he used to want, but how he had to keep himself alive and instead of freeing the slaves, he ended up being the master. Anakin Skywalker, as Darth Vader, was practically a droid. In fact, he was as much a droid as C-3PO was, but he was also as human as C-3PO was. Following Lockes ideals, Vader had the ability to think, have social interaction, be a moral responsible agent, the ability to communicate, and have mental states. He may have been more machine than man as Obi-Wan Kenobi stated, but in fact, technology and its deception in Star Wars had taken over a young Jedis mind with hate, anger, and obsession. Technology can do more damage in Star Wars then it can do to bolster good work. The release of it can only be a good thing as Anakin and Luke Skywalker found.