"Oh come on! Those were just some silly space movies made ages ago" and yet they have some very good points to make. Now just go with me here..to a galaxy far, far, away and closer than you think....
The basic story behind Star Wars is very approachable because of that very reason: It is basic.The story was developed by George Lucas with the classic mythical archetype characters
Luke Skywalker (or Starkiller, as was originally written): Naive farmboy who dreams of being somewhere else, who ends up becoming the hero he never knew he could be. Pure of heart, noble, all around good guy.
Han Solo: Smuggler, rouge and pirate. Does bad things (smuggling) for its the only way he can earn a living. Reluctant hero, doesn't want to let others know he really does care about others, and is not just a self centered jerk.
Princess Leia: Royal blood, who has dedicated her life to fighting the worthy and noble battle, wouldn't think twice about the fact that if she would sacrifice herself it would end it. She would do it. Seems unapproachable, testy, but is hiding her true feelings that she doesn't know how to cope with.
You have the aged, wise mentor figure (Obi-Wan in the original trilogy, and to an extent Yoda, especially Yoda in the prequels), even some classic comedic elements in the form of C-3PO and R2-D2. (and unfortunately...Jar Jar Binks.)
Then...then there is Darth Vader.
Until we saw him as a smal child in The Phantom Menace (Episode I) all we knew about Vader was very simple: In Episode IV, we see him as the bad guy, pure evil. We are told that Obi Wan trained him before he turned tot he dark side and betrayed Luke's father. However, in Episode V we learn this: Darth Vader is Luke's father! ( And then a genre cliche was born..) and we learn even more from Obi-Wan in Episode VI.....
"Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and "became" Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."
Here is parallel the first.
We, originally were not meant to be sinful, fallen people. As God originally made us, we knew nothing of evil. When we were tricked into going over to the 'dark side' by eating daring to be like God, we were destroyed. Our good nature was killed and replaced with a cold, dead heart, almost machine like in its operation of self destruction.
As he later tells Luke when he says that there was still good in him :
"He's more machine now than man. His mind is twisted and evil."
2nd Parallel:
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it
Vader is, the classic Greek tragedy. However, he also reminds me of a figure from the Bible. There was this fellow by the name of Saul. Now, Saul was all the things they thought a man ought be. Handsome, muscular, a scrapper, a mans man. He was made king of all Israel, and the first one to boot. He was a man who sought the Lord, who wanted to be a good servant and ruler.Yet he soon became corrupted. it is said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when you are king, well...is that not absolute power in this world?
Soon, he is going crazy with random spells of madness, where he tries to kill his own son in law David, and hunts him repeatedly throughout a ten year period. He finlly loses his life to his own sword after it being foretold he would die in such fashion.
Vader begins as a small child, who cares deeply for others around him and wants nothing more to help people any way he can. As he grows and trains as a Jedi, his power grows. It is foretold in a prophecy that he is to bring balance to the Force, and he is struggling to control his ambition and his growing feelings for Padme, former Queen of Naboo and now Senator. He succumbs to these feelings, and secretly marries her after losing a part of his arm in battle, and continues to deal with his anger over the fact that he cannot control fate, and soon falls to the tempting offer of Palpatine. He offers him, in exchange for his loyalty to him and his way that he will be given absolute power, and be able to do anything, including keeping those he cares about from dying.
So here, we bring another similarity..Palpatine, is a lot like the Devil. He makes this offer, promising Anakin that which he wants the most, and the cost in nothing practically, just do whaty i want. He then keeps baiting him with this promise, and slowly Anakin destroys all that meant the most to him: He destroys the Jedi Temple that had been his home for almost all his life, turns those he trusted against him and kills them, and then, kills his own wife in a twisted series of events that he feels were not his doing. He then takes on his former master and father figure, who tells him as he lays fallen how he loved him, and that he has abandoned all that he knew was good. Kinda like Adam and Eve he had all that he needed but was tricked into believing he could do things he couldn't and now he lost it all. We had paradise but lost it when sin entered the world. The role Palpatine takes on in place of Obi-Wan becomes that of the temptor, the snake who tricks him into destroying everything that he stood for and loved and then manipulates him further, much like how we fell temptations from the Devil.
Now, we come to the original trilogy, where Anakin is no more, he is now Darth Vader, a former shell of the man he was once, trapped by his own doing in a suit that he cannot function without. Much like sin entangled and binds us, there is nothing he can do about it. Enter Luke, his own son who trains the way of a Jedi, and confronts Vader to find out he is his father. Luke is determiend to redeem him, even at the cost of his own life, and in Episode VI, we see him and Vader have an exchange where Vader acknowledges his former self...and reveals how he no longer identifies with that person.
When we are reborn in Christ, we die to our former selves, and no longer identify that as ourselves, and thus we are new beings.
Perhaps I am reaching way too far, but its just some observations I have, and felt like voicing. The story of Star Wars is drawn from many things, mythical archetypes and much greater stories, and history but there is these connections to the Christian faith at least to me.
