Why Rogue One is a Rebel in the World of Hollywood

For this first time since seeing the original three Star Wars movies, I went into seeing Rogue One without any spoilers or knowledge (besides what was in the trailers and the premise that it occurs during the time right before the third episode).

With that being said, there are SPOILERS ahead.

One thing is clear about Rogue One: it is a war movie. I watched it on December 15th, after spending several days reading and watching the horrors that were unfolding in Aleppo. As Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor dove in and out of the desert roadways destroyed and blown up by imperial forces in a city on the moon Jedha, all I could see were the images of Aleppo’s destruction superimposed over them. The scene where Jyn dives through a fire fight to rescue a small girl screaming and crying only reflects in  a small part the terror that orphans in Aleppo have experienced, with bombs going off all around them night and day, before finally being forced to abandon their home.

I almost walked out at that part, as those scenes, the wide pan shots stolen from Syria’s border-country Jordan in Wadi Rum, reminding me of my own time there in Wadi Rum and in the northern part of Jordan, peering over the Golan Heights to Syria, which, in 2014, was actually in better shape than it is now. I looked around, expecting to see other people bawling their eyes out, or eyes drawn in horrified recognition of the parallels this movie was drawing, but I saw nothing.

The reason why Rogue One is such a deviation from what Hollywood typically has to offer is it tells a story that rarely gets told. It tells a story that ends in death, and for the main characters, despair. Their only comfort comes in the knowledge that they had given their all for a chance, a sliver of a chance that their actions would lead to a slip in the Empire’s grip and that their rule would be abolished. Despair is quite a common theme in Hollywood, yes, but the overarching believe in the cause that Jyn and Cassian (and the rest of the cast) lived and died for give their deaths a significance and meaning for the audience, even if it doesn’t for the characters themselves.

They lived their lives in faith, acting upon a belief in their flawed cause, but [just like the matriarchs and patriarchs the author of Hebrews discusses in chapter 11] they died before seeing the fruits of their faith and action.

Rogue One is a good reminder to all that doing good when nobody sees it is not a waste; and to Christ-followers, it is an encouraging reminder that no good deed will go unpunished in this life, have an eternal reward for our actions that cannot be seen this side of heaven.

It tells a story of why, even when there is no benefit to us personally, and indeed great harm, we should persist in doing good even when we will not be praised, we will not be sung about or talked about in blogs or TV shows or books. Instead of pursuing the humanistic philosophy that “you should do what feels right,” it pursues a harder line of inquiry: “You should do what is right regardless of how it makes you feel.”

Rogue One was also a reminder that no matter how epic the space battles look, no matter how sweeping the vista or impressive the special effects, people are dying. People who may make a wrong choice on the “right” side of the war, or a right choice on the “wrong” side of the war.

Jyn Erso’s father, Galen, spends years laboring for the Empire simply because he knows that he is at the right place at the right time, and has a slim [but better than anyone else’s] chance of saving lives. But he gives up his life in the process, both the quality of his life and the existence of it. Despite his absence from Jyn’s life, and her consequential resentment of him, he is willing to make that sacrifice and accept the consequences of his choices– choices that to Jyn seem hard and unfeeling, but for Galen are the best way he can show his love for her and his dedication to fighting the corrupt Empire.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may not say this outright, but this message is woven into the fabric of the story:

Your quiet sacrifice and selfless deeds may never make it on the front cover of Times magazine, but there is a lasting impact to them. Rogue One shows that a life like that is worth living,  and worth dying for.

The stories most worth hearing are the ones never told.

 

Photos are all From Rogue One, copyright Lucasfilm and other what have yous. All rights reserved (to them).

 

 

In Syria, Wars rage; in Amman, Falafel Fries.

It was hot in the open-door falafel shop near the seventh circle in Amman. As we entered an Irishman looked up from behind the counter, and shock mixed with the mouth-watering scent of frying batter embraced me. He had dark red hair cropped short and fair skin lightly splattered with freckles. The illusion was shattered when he greeted us in Arabic with an accent that was different from the lilting, distinguished city dialect. He wore an emerald-green shirt emblazoned with the word “CALIFORNIA.”

I sneaked a picture of him while he was making the falafel… He looked up right after I took the picture, and he didn’t look real pleased but he basically ignored me.

I expected him to laugh at any moment, and in a staunchly American manner, say “Just kidding, guys! I’m not really Arab. What’s up?” But he didn’t. Instead he stared blankly at us while we fumbled through our Arabic dictionary to find the right words.*  I forced myself to find the right words, combatting the oppressive June humidity and communicated to him that we needed some 40 falafel for the evening meal.

I watched him scoop up the falafel batter into a half-sphere mold, shaping the top of the ball with a spoon in his left hand, trimming the excess dough with six sharp movements. The spoons clacked together with each movement, six clicks forty times over, popping each ball into the sizzling oil. The rich smell of greasy, deep-frying falafel filled the air.

We learned that he was from Syria, and he’d come to Amman two years before to work in his brothers’ falafel shop. We didn’t ask him if it was the war that had forced him to move, mainly because we didn’t have the vocabulary to do so; partly because he didn’t seem open to discussion. He didn’t seem very chatty, beyond our initial conversation. He was reticent, focused on the task at hand. But half of Syria’s population has been displaced in the fighting that has enveloped the country; there really wasn’t much of a question as to why he was there.

Today I learned of the suicide bombing in Syria attributed to the Nusra front: two dozen loyal to Al-Assad were killed in Aleppo. ISIS has also retaken the city of Ayn Issa (which means “eye of Jesus”) in the past few days. I thought of the Syrian falafel maker I met last June; I wonder if he lost any friends or relatives in the latest skirmishes. I wonder if he had anyone left to lose.

You can learn a lot about someone by their actions; more so than by their words. So when I watched the Syrian make the falafel, forming the mounds with as much efficiency as a machine and far more grace than one, I got a glimpse into who this man was, if not what he’d been through.

As the falafel finished cooking, he handed us samples. The falafel was so hot it burned my fingers through the paper wrapping he handed it to me in. Once I got it in my mouth, it melted, a perfect crispy shell crystallized by the hot grease, surrounding a soft center gritty with spices and full of flavor.

We thanked him profusely in our horrible Arabic, and as we left a hint of a smile pushed up on his mouth.

Postscript: I have recently been doing a lot of reading on the conflicts involving ISIS and resistance groups in the Syrian and Iraqi area; this post is the result of that research (and my time in Jordan, of course). One of the reasons why ISIS has been so successful in its advances is the general instability that has plagued the region for years—generations, really. Factions, tribes, and religious sects have been largely unable to unite for a very long time, and ISIS, with their focus and drive, has taken advantage of the splintered infrastructure to gain holds in Syria, Iraq, and even along the Turkish border (not to mention Libya). This is to say nothing of the political strife in Egypt, or further east in Afghanistan and Iran. Pray for the people of Syria, Iraq, and all of those living in the region; pray for relief workers and resistance groups. Most of all, pray that many would be exposed to the peace of the Gospel and come to know Christ.

If you want to help Syrian refugees in need, consider donating to the Nazarene Syrian Relief Fund.

*As this was only my second or third day in Amman, Jordan, I had no idea that red hair and fair skin is actually not a horribly uncommon combination to see in the Levant, esp. (?) for Syrians.

An Inside Out World

My previous post was on why Inside Out made me cry; this post is about what happened when I cried.

I tried to pretend I wasn’t crying.

I mentally berated myself for taking so seriously the death of a furry, pink imaginary friend who chatters like a dolphin and cries candy.

After the movie, my sister, niece and I were walking out of the theater when I heard my sister say, “Man, I can’t believe I cried!” I was quick to assent that “I cried too!” and my niece softly chimed in “Me too…”

I was so relieved to find out that my niece had cried at the same time as I had in the movie. But I had tried to avoid and hide the fact that I’d cried; so did my family. But what was the big deal? Why did I feel such a pressing need to hide my emotions? And perhaps more disturbingly, why did my 11-year-old niece already have a similar compulsion in place?

There is a huge societal stricture in place that tells us we must not show our (true) emotions in public (or even at all). There is this obsession with appearing happy, even when we may not be. This may seem an extreme statement to link with shedding a few tears over a kid’s movie, but if I don’t feel comfortable showing my emotions in such an environment, why would I be at ease showing emotions in more “adultish” situations? I think we in the western culture are consumed with the idea that everything must look at least alright, good, or preferably, perfect.  If someone peels away the false nacre of superficial happiness, we immediately scatter. We call it depression. We avoid “those poor people.” We call it a “phase.”

We are scared to admit that our lives are not perfect when our lives are comically, Michael-Bay-is-helming-the-next-Oscar-winning-drama- far from perfection. We refuse to abandon the hallucination that the world is okay, that things are fine. Things are not fine. This world is f—ed up. There are more mass murderings, more slavery than ever before in history, more human trafficking, more wars, diseases spreading every day, and it doesn’t stop. It has never stopped. This world has always been messed up. And only when we abandon our false idea that the world is ‘okay,’ and only when we acknowledge the sheer, quivering morass of depravity of our world can we maybe turn from our delusions of ‘rightness’ to the real solution.

The solution isn’t more government; there have been good governments and bad governments, but they all fail. The solution isn’t a redistributed social or economic structure. It isn’t religion; religion has been used and tried and found as empty as ever.

There is only one thing that I have ever found to still my trembling heart, to take the weight off my soul of a million sins. And that thing is a relationship with Jesus, the Christ, God’s son. I don’t mean Jesus as some paint him—the harbinger of hatred and doom. I don’t mean Jesus as some milquetoast man who preached a vague sermon on acceptance and love that accepts everything, even things that will kill the soul. I’m talking about the Jesus who loved fiercely, extravagantly, and who hated sin and death, those things that would dare steal away his beloved, messed up humans who he died for.

It says in Corinthians that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. So maybe it is foolishness (or seems like foolishness to some) to place my trust in Christ, but when compared to the choice of trusting in a world that has always let us down, is always broken and decaying… Well. I don’t think I’m the foolish one.