TY - JOUR AU - Richey, Jeffrey PY - 2019/12/18 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The Power of Fan: Reversal, Rebellion, and Return in the Star Wars Saga JF - Unbound: A Journal of Digital Scholarship JA - Unbound VL - 1 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - 10.12794/journals.ujds.v1i1.59 UR - https://journals.library.unt.edu/index.php/unbound/article/view/59 SP - AB - <p>The latest <em>Star Wars</em> film, <em>The Last Jedi </em>(2017), unflinchingly embraces tragedy and the nobility of failure – themes and values that resonate with traditional East Asian thought, especially Daoism.&nbsp; This is what makes it, along with&nbsp;<em>The Empire Strikes Back</em>&nbsp;(1980) and&nbsp;<em>Rogue One: A Star Wars Story</em> (2016), among the most spiritually mature and philosophically consistent chapters of the series. &nbsp;These films celebrate the (not unlimited) power of the feminine, the hidden, the receptive, and&nbsp;the organic — in a word, what traditional East Asian thought names as <em>y?n</em> ? — in ways that help the warmed-over cafeteria Zen Buddhism/Daoism that is George Lucas’ Jedi mumbo-jumbo to actually hold together and work to provide a meaningful worldview. If these movies work as art — as opposed to fun action fantasy or fanboy service — then they do so as <em>y?n</em> tragedies.&nbsp; If their protagonists function as authentic heroes – as opposed to adolescent wish-fulfillment or mere signifiers of hegemonic power – then they do so with <em>y?n</em> nobility.&nbsp; That is, they acknowledge and embrace the realities of weakness, obscurity, vulnerability, and fragility in order to discover and develop the virtues of adaptability, resilience, transformation, and growth.&nbsp; The Daoist concept of <em>f?n </em>? – which combines the meanings of “reversal,” “rebellion,” and “return” – not only helps explain the power of the best <em>Star Wars </em>films, but also explains why some audience members have reacted so negatively and violently to the evolving saga.</p> ER -