How can we explain the ongoing mass appeal of Star Wars? Of course they are great action films, and of course the sci-fi elements of aliens, lightsabers and intergalactic travel spark our imagination. But what really distinguishes Star Wars from its rivals are its mythical themes. We have the perennial fight between good and evil, the saga of the David versus Goliath fight between the plucky rebels and the powerful evil empire. And most unusually for a sci-fi action film we have a prominent role for religion. Indeed, if our official records are to be believed, the mystical religion of the Jedi has moved from myth to reality: 390,127 people in England and Wales declared their religion to be Jedi in the 2001 National Census, making the Jedi religion the fourth largest reported religion (in 2011 it slipped down to seventh place, but of course that was before the latest series of Star Wars films, so who knows what we will find in 2021).
The religious focus is even more prominent in The Last Jedi. This is not a religion based on belief in a personal God, but in an impersonal reality known as “The Force”. As Luke Skywalker trains Rey in the Jedi ways, he explains that The Force is an energy that runs between all things, a balance that holds the universe together. In the West we tend to associate religion with the hope for personal survival beyond the grave. But the Jedi religion seems closer to the Buddhist belief in Anatta, or “no self”. As Luke explains to Rey, it is vanity to imagine that one has a unique soul – a special “light” – that distinguishes you from the rest of the universe. The hope of the Jedi when her time comes is to be absorbed back into The Force from whence she came.
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