Semiotics, Sabers, and Star Wars, Oh My! (Patreon)

I made the mistake of tweeting about Star Wars again. 

I know that makes it sound like I’m being flippant, but it tends to be a pretty overwhelming experience. Star Wars is a lightning rod, if only for the simple reason that it is important to people. But it’s important to me, too. And talking about it comes with the acknowledgment that so many of the people who love it have also become frustrated with parts of it. We’ve developed such strong opinions that there are these certain moments that pop-out and act like proverbial bellwethers because they tell us a lot about how we feel. To that, recently I was playing “Jedi: Fallen Order” (which has a really strong story and a few rough game mechanics) and I was sitting there picking my lightsaber color to match my outfit, and I suddenly remembered a moment from the most recent film. In my rush of blood, I decided to tweet the following, “I still can't believe it ended on the reveal of a yellow lightsaber like that meant anything.”

I am, of course, talking about the end of Rise of Skywalker. And this, of course, is an aggressive, strident tweet. Because it seems to shut down the opinion with a kind of finality. To be clear, that’s often not what tweets like this are meant to do. It’s supposed to be a strong hammer of an opinion. But in this case, it needs a little bit more of a nuanced bit of understanding. Especially because Twitter makes people assume a lot of hyper-literalism in those we don’t regularly read. So people read that and think I’m saying that it can’t mean anything. But what I’m really saying is I don’t think the moment means anything in a specific way that is important for movies. 

Damn Hulk, you’re really gonna go all in on the piss saber!?!?!?!

No. This is really just a good jumping off point to talk about deeper story mechanics and thoughtful interpretation. Which means we’re coming back to one my favorite topics that I like to revisit every once and awhile…

A DISCUSSION OF FUNCTIONAL SEMIOTICS!

*pew pew* *shoots finger guns*

Okay. Please know that whenever people bring up “semiotics,” I understand that people roll their eyes. After all, it’s mostly just a fancy word for symbolism and all that English paper crap half of you hated in high school. I get it. But on the broadest level, semiotics is just the study of meaning-making, which also means it’s the single most important arenas of study in the world. Why? Because it’s everything. It goes all the way back to the origin of speaking and communication. It’s how people were able to establish the notion of “information” in and of itself, interpret our movements, then derive further information from pictures and shapes, then develop language, like hieroglyphics. Semiotics is about how we look at something and agree what the hell it is. So while understanding that “what things mean” may seem simple and obvious, it’s actually part of the complicated baseline of how we function as a society. 

Bringing it all the way up to the present, the truth is that we do so much subconscious semiotic work on a daily basis. From the way we read signs, take in visual information, interpret somebody’s works, or, hell even properly use emojis. But there are few arts that allow for the deep dive of semiotics quite like cinema. It’s not just that cinema provides visual symbols and objects that we can dive into, it also provides facial expressions, moments in time, an understanding of space. It’s in the way compositions create feelings and proper juxtapositions can create new themes. You could argue that the endless study of cinema’s permutations is an extension of semiotics itself. And it’s a beautiful one I love like few other things.

But at the center of this exploration is understanding the inherent push-pull of subjectivity: everything is a matter of interpretation. Which means, yes, I know what I’m just stating is my opinion. And yes, I know you are bringing your own. But the critical juncture comes in equally understanding that just because we all have a right to an opinion does not mean everyone is inherently “right” about their interpretation. I’m sort of loath to bring a measure of “strong versus weak” arguments into this (if only because we all have PTSD from “debate me” bros who show up in our mentions with abject certainty of themselves because they took one logic class freshman year of college). So know this: a strong argument is a damn given. But it must come with the understanding you can make strong arguments for lots of abhorrent things, so it’s not the be all and end all of anything. Far more important is the underlying humanity to that semiotical discussion.

So what I’d argue that what is far more important for healthy communication is that we all understand what kind of interpretation the other is making, and what those interpretations have to do with different kinds of storytelling. Because when we get into the nitty gritty of semiotics, we understand the crux of what most of us are actually arguing about. Because this field has different and critical rules for what makes for “fair” inferences and what makes for “unsupported” deductions. 

Starting with…

IN-TEXT SUPPORT

This refers to when something is supported “in the text,” where the meaning is clearly stated within the media itself. For example, when watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the shards of Narsil are the remnants of the broken sword that managed to sever the one true ring from the enemy Sauron. We are shown all this in the opening prologue, but their added meaning is then reinforced through the story. We see the sword and are informed that Aragorn is last in the king’s lineage and the swords’ rightful heir. But we are also shown that Aragorn knows that taking this sword would mean taking up his title as the King of Gondor. This makes him afraid to wield it, worried that he is too weak and susceptible to the ring’s power (FWIW, we also learn that the sword commands the army of the dead, which is a neat bonus that will pay off). So with this information clearly set-up, it then becomes a big catharsis moment when the sword is reforged as “Andúril" and, having seen his strength and ability to resist the ring, he takes up the mantle of his title.

Is all this information a little dense? Sure! But the important thing is we are told all these things explicitly within the story. As a big reader of the books, I understand there’s lots of other lore that ties into these objects, but it’s important that this stuff is in THE TEXT of this particular version of the story itself. Because it’s what allows a viewer, more importantly, any new viewer to watch along and understand what that sword is all about. To make the comparison simple, if Rise of Skywalker had directly stated about “a yellow lightsaber means this” or even “the color yellow speaks to X” within the story, then the final moment would have had in-text support for its meaning. Now, we’ll get to other ways that final moment can be interpreted in a second, but for now that in-text difference at least makes sense, right? Cool.

Now what makes for good use of in-text support is not just when those meanings are verbalized, but dramatized. For instance, you could have your characters utter the words that “violence never solves anything,” but if the main character is using violence to solve every problem in the movie, then there is a clear difference between the verbalized moral and what the story itself is actually advocating. We call this “lip service” and while this example may seem obvious, you’d be shocked how many films do some kind of variation of this. The story has to double and back up the lesson (unless being ironic is the point, but that’s a whole other discussion for a very different kind of movie). 

One of the great popular examples of dramatizing in-text is within the MCU, where they establish how Thor’s hammer works. It is said that “only one who is worthy” can wield the weapon and this magical construct provides the entire backbone for the character’s arc in the first film. Thor must learn humility and regain his sense of worth in order to wield it once again. But this meaning even continues well into the series. Not just in the moments where Thor must test his own worth, but in Age of Ultron we got to see the other Avengers attempt while having fun at a party. Turns out Captain America is such a decent person that he, even as a mortal, can actually make it budge! It’s a fun beat, but actually just set-up for the climactic moment in Endgame, where Steve wields the hammer against Thanos in a dire moment to save Thor’s life. When this happens, the moment itself feels like a joyful surprise. But it is not out of left field. Its possibility is something that has been completely set-up within the dramatic bounds of the story. it’s success comes from the fact that it is within the text. It requires no additional explanation.

But you’ll notice the success of this moment isn’t about a singular moment meaning a singular thing. It’s about the…

OVERALL IN-TEXT COHERENCE

When Jordan Peele’s Us was released last year, it provided great fodder for so much analysis. Because it provided a text rich with dense symbols, provoking questions, and hidden meanings. But one of the common trends I noticed in essays about the film was a lot of the interpretations and observations about this film were scattershot, meaning the observations didn’t necessarily have a lot to do with each other. One observation would be about THIS and another about THAT, and it was never really about tying THIS and THAT together. And it’s not that a film “can’t” be about a lot of different things, it’s just that strong semiotics is about creating a symbolic backbone that feeds on overall meaning. Which is often done through the use of extended metaphors that allow the audience to build additional meaning of what has been established. 

For instance, you watch a film like Inside Out, it provides a detailed framework to understand so much about psychological behavior and memory. It carefully dramatizes the use of so many different emotions, it shows the islands of our personality, and even the way that core memories drive us. So when the “adventure” starts and Joy and Sadness are off on their own? The story can largely just operate and we understand what it means when the physical objects start falling apart within the main character’s brain. The power of the extended metaphor is not just that it’s logical and makes for good interpretation, but that it makes for good drama and audience connection. Because they’ve already established the meaning of the memory colors, the audience can openly weep when Sadness takes the controls and we see a “blue / yellow” core memory being formed. It’s a total catharsis of their two characters and the little girl’s growth of emotional understanding, too. And it’s a moment possible because of the film’s overall thematic coherence. 

It’s so important to remember as we analyze on a semiotic level, we have to stay close to the text throughout its length. I remember when we were all watching LOST, I would see this popular column come out every week and it would capitalize on tangential thinking. This is just a hypothetical example, but it would make an observation about some symbol in the background, let’s say it’s a staff from an ancient culture. And it would remark about how that staff is the symbol of reincarnation. And it’s like, oh that’s neat! I didn’t know that! Reincarnation plays into so many ideas about the show and the moment happening on screen! But then the column would talk about how the tribe of that symbol had some other belief that could apply to the scene, but with no symbolic one to one and it’s okay, I guess we’re still in the ballpark. But then that would lead to another tangent and another tangent. And so it’s trying to argue about how A means B, but then takes you all the way to Z. So instead you are now several lengths away from what is actually being supported in the text, which originally, was just the staff symbol. But the essayist thought this was all “connected.”

To be clear, I totally get the appeal of this kind of thinking. It’s fun! You learn things! It often leads to interesting places and ideas that can feed into larger ideas! But I would see so many people take a tangent from a tangent and use it for supporting analysis. But that’s not supportive semiotics. What you are technically getting into is the field of…

OUT-OF-TEXT REFERENCE POINTS

This section comes with a key acknowledgement: there are so many things we bring with us into a movie. Sometimes it’s a pre-established love of characters. Sometimes it’s a similar life experience. Sometimes it’s a negative bias for a certain kind of behavior, personality, or actor. And sometimes it’s a raw emotional state that makes us more vulnerable. These things unquestionably affect our viewing. But being able to parse what “we’re bringing with us” versus “what is in the text” is such a crucially important part of understanding narrative construction. Because so much of writing and appraising narrative is about deciding “what information do we really need to explain?”

For instance, we have to accept that there are just some things you just don’t need to explain in a movie. I mean, when I go into a film and a character dies on screen I don’t yell, “hey, this movie didn’t explain what death is!” There are innate things of our experience that we bring into a viewing and we can connect the events on screen to our common life experiences with fair deduction. But on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes a film might be dealing with incredible complex sciences or specialized knowledge. That’s when picking important information is critical. I mean, I’m not paleobiologist but I can still understand Jurassic Park. Largely because the narrative does a good job of cutting through the mumbo jumbo B.S. and deciding what is really important to understanding how we brought dinosaurs (cue the DNA mascot) and also how they’re breaking free (cue the set-up and payoff about the frogs).

We instinctively know this stuff, but you’d be surprised how often it’s fumbled in script development. People will often say things like “this should be more clear!” But if you write a speech where the character is explaining what they’re doing as it’s happening? It never works because 1) it’s boring and 2) you actually want to explain things beforehand so that when the events DO happen, the audience gets it and the drama can just play out (again, it’s all set-ups and pay-offs). This is all crucial. Because if the audience HAS to bring in outside information to understand a big story moment? Well, then you are in trouble.

 Which brings us the subject of lore management.

The core appeal of lore is that fleshes out a story’s history. It makes a fictional world feel big and lived in. For ravenous fandoms, it provides them a chance to go deeper and deeper and deeper into the property they love. But so often I see young writers fall into the “the trap” of putting lore above all else. It is as if they believe the more they fill in, the more lifelike their creation will therefore be. But when it comes to storytelling? We only need the key information that drives the drama and will be integral to the big story moments (like understanding how Thor’s hammer works). Far more important are the character motivations, the dramatized conflicts, and the resonant thematic work. The unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of lore is extraneous. Even for the movies that work from I.P.s with mountains of story, most of it exists to serve up these little easter eggs. Only the core parts come to drive the story.

Which brings us back to the yellow lightsaber. 

Don’t worry, I’m not going to rehash Rise of Skywalker (you can read here for the larger take). But the film’s final moment makes me think a lot about what lightsabers actually “mean” in the text of the story. In the prequels, they’re sort of decorative, fun, and not of much story consequence. And so I think of the moments of lightsabers we saw before in the original trilogy. When Luke first is handed the weapon in A New Hope, we understand that he’s being handed his father’s weapon and it’s like he’s getting into his shoes for the first time. There’s a mix of wonder, fear, and connection on his face. It’s also like he’s testing limits. In the second scene in Return of the Jedi, Luke has just surrendered and told Vader that he believes there is still good in him. Rather than acknowledge that, Vader turns on Luke’s new lightsaber and muses about his power and growth, also how he’s now ready for the Emperor to turn him. In a rather telling way, the interest in the saber becomes a literal matter of deflection. 

But when the final moment came in Rise of Skywalker as a supposed climax to this nine-part story, it just happens as this quick final gesture, as if was some broad declaration that was clearly supposed to wow us. But immediately I knew the more lore-inclined part of the fan base would likely go digging. This article does a good job of embodying the disposition:

“Anyone who has seen the Star Wars films and dug into the franchise's vast canon knows that lightsabers — elegant energy swords, weapons for a more civilized age — come in a variety of colors. For the most part, Jedi wield sabers that are blue or green — colors that represent the two biggest schools of thought within the Jedi Order. Green is most commonly chosen by the Consulars, who focus on their mental knowledge of the Force. Blue is most often seen in the hands of the Guardians, who focus on learning combat and becoming warriors.”

Now, I’ve been watching these movies for over three decades. When I was younger I dove deep into the lore. I know A LOT about this world. But consulars? Guardians? Not only are these outside of the text of the movies, but I never encountered them at all (my best research seems to indicated it more came out of the Knights of the Old Republic comic series that came around 2006, which is mostly after my time of hardcore fandom). The article then goes onto address the subject in question, arguing for why the yellow would make sense for Rey at the end:

“Just like the blue and green lightsabers, the yellow lightsaber is associated with an important school of thought within the Jedi Order: that of the Sentinels (via Ubersabers). Star Wars lore explains that the Sentinels seek a balance between the Consulars and the Guardians, and also wish to educate themselves on other more practical aspects of life such as tracking techniques and espionage. Unlike some others in the Jedi Order, Sentinels recognize that the Force isn't actually the solution to everything.”

It’s just… none of this is in the movie. 

None of this is any of the movies. I want to reiterate the importance of that. It’s all out of text. Moreover, there isn’t anything else that even really hints at these kinds of ideas aside from the vague notion of her (mishandled) identity struggle in this film. All we have is the wikipedia articles for the viewer to pour into afterward (which again, are not text). And if that weren’t enough, there are actually other conflicting bits from the extended canon, which actually suggest different meanings, so this isn’t surefire lore anyway. And so it all leaves a general viewer completely in the dark, without a clue as to all of this. This would all be one thing if it was just a casual moment in the movie if it went on its business. But this is the capper of the film. It’s a gesture that’s supposed to be loaded and triumphant. But instead, like so much of Abrams work, serves as just this big cryptic wow-neato tease. 

To be clear, I understand that I could make a lot of obvious guesses about the intention. It’s not hard hard to grasp that a new lightsaber color therefore gets at this idea of newness or starting over. Or to prop up a few guesses on the association of the color yellow. But for myself and the overwhelming vast majority of people viewing, it doesn’t really mean anything to them other than these vague stabs. And that’s a problem if in-text support makes for rousing drama… But from my original tweet, and from so much discussion I see online: you can’t help but notice that a portion of the audience likes this kind of speculation. Which brings us to…

OUT-OF-TEXT GUESSWORK

There are some people who hate being told what something means. 

They like to do it themselves. They like to figure out what’s happening. Which often means they tend to come at media with left brain logic. They want to attack the story like it’s a puzzle in need of solving. Which also means they like to be smarter than most of the characters and want the main character to be as smart as them (and if they aren’t, this is a problem and the media is therefore bad). Which means that, at their most rigid, they want media they consume to exist not as a narrative, but as a state of clues. And as an understandable counter-point, they also tend to like being fooled by “smarter” media and hit with things that are completely unexpected. But the truth is that, most of the time, they prefer to play video games or other activities that satisfy those urges much more succinctly and purposefully.

Again, I would like to reinforce the idea that this is not “wrong.” In fact, I totally get it. I also love puzzles. I do the NYT crossword everyday. If your’e looking for a good puzzle video game, Baba Is You is one of the best I’ve ever played in my life. With films, I think Shane Carruth makes incredible, fascinating, opaque films that require incredible attention and logical guesswork. There is so much puzzle media that I adore… but I recognize puzzles don’t really make for great dramatic experiences. They’re great at inviting curiosity, but traditional “in-text” media feeds the basis of drama so much better. Because when you can understand fully what’s going on, then you can lean in and have a dramatic experience.

Most mystery-based media has to deal with this push-pull. As a massive fan of detective fiction, I’ve learned that good mystery stories create a few curiosity-inducing questions, then are mostly driven by the clarity of dramatic conflicts and artful misdirection. But I feel like we’ve gotten further and further away from that. I feel like so many mystery narratives try to build off vagueness or withholding information or even outright confusion. While reviewing Westworld, last season I had to keep notes in order to even make sense of timelines as a casual viewer. And for this season it seems like people don’t even know which character is secretly who. These shows seem to be betting hard on the space of guesswork over dramatic clarity. While I think Jonathan Nolan has a wonky average with this tactic, I actually think his brother Christopher is pretty good at it. He plays fair and leaves clear clues, he’s good at misdirection (if a little too over-reliant on it), and he tends to imbue the biggest moments with emotion and catharsis (stuff like the pinwheel moment is Inception is just good old fashion set-ups and payoffs). 

Christopher relies less on having the audience guessing in his actual work, but is really kind to the interpretative instinct. He even said one of my favorite quotes on the subject of art and audience: “their answer is as good as mine.” Which brings me to an observation I find kind of hilarious is that even though Jonathan’s work relies on a TON of guesswork, if you follow his interviews / Reddit relationship he is very quick to seemingly hide it more and THEN explain all of it himself in detail. For whatever it’s worth, I think it’s a problematic instinct. And it’s part of why guesswork has a surprisingly short lifespan.

Which brings us back to the problems of the Abrams mystery box. When you come out and say “the answers don’t matter,” you effectively are taking the push-pull of guesswork and pushing it as far as you can go. You are creating only set-up with no pay-off. You are also pushing the audience’s dramatic interest away, as there’s so little with in-text clarity to connect to. You are making them supply the answers. Want people to be in a constant state of argument. Which means the guesswork he’s giving you is purposefully vague. You feed ambivalence over resonance and meaning. You are thumbing your nose against the very notion of good semiotics while embracing all of its most chaotic possibility. But there are viewers who eat this dynamic up, which brings us to the marriage of “thinking on my own” puzzlers and the deep lore lovers… 

The Headcanon Troop! 

In case you are unfamiliar, Google defines Headcanon as “a fan's personal, idiosyncratic interpretation of canon, such as habits of a character, the backstory of a character, or the nature of relationships between characters.” Spend any amount of time on the internet and you’ve likely come across fans who travel in these waters, whether its fan theories, Tumblr shipping, or just some good old fashioned speculation about the next episode. And the key to understanding the desires of this kind of hyper-fan is understanding how much the headspace is really all that matters. 

The adored media in question? The text? That’s important, obviously, but it’s more a building block. And not nearly as important as the fan’s headspace in which it now lives. Because that’s the space where the viewer finds incredible happiness and purpose and friendship and so much more. It creates a narrative world where everything you want is catered to you. Believe me, I understand this appeal so much! Hell, I used to draw and design lightsabers for imaginary characters when I was a kid! But I’ve also come to understand its limits with broader application. It can sometimes lead to the most indulgent of viewing habits. It can make us rigid and unforgiving when the text goes to places that upset us. And it can make us proprietary and defensive in equal measure. 

But the truth is that most viewers don’t ever get to the place of headcanon, let alone have time to do so. Which is not to say they don’t love the media in question, nor fail to fall completely into its world. It’s just about the core difference of approach. This matters so deeply because, in the end, none of these is a “wrong” way to watch a movie.

It’s just about…

UNDERSTANDING THE LIMITS OF PREFERENCE

You’ve probably noticed, but I spend a lot of time thinking about how stuff works. It doesn’t matter whether it’s writing about movies for the last decade, doing script stuff, watching a million movies, or watching other people’s reactions to these movies. All of these interests have to do with the core element of functional understanding. It’s asking “what is the purpose behind the choice being made right now?” and “how will it affect an audience? And why?” The great thing about these questions is that they don’t inherently serve a particular audience member more than another. I want to know how things affect all of them. And in all that observation, I’ve noticed two core truths.

1) There is space for all of these ways of interpretation and pieces of media that cater to each of them really well. And…

2) In-text clarity works for the most amount of people.

And it always has. Because at the root of communication is understanding. It’s how we ascribe emotional value to the meanings being made before us. And drama is based on the audience clearly understanding what’s happening in front of them, what the stakes are, and feeling the anguish of the conflict unfolding. It doesn’t matter if the lore of Lord of the Rings is denser than the O.E.D. The storytellers know how to load in the most important relationship information and turn them into swelling emotional beats. When Elrond brings Aragorn the reforged Narsil, we get that he’s not just giving him an old sword, he’s giving him direction, purpose, and courage to take on what’s ahead. The scene doesn’t just feel that way, it expresses those feelings verbatim. 

This is how impenetrable lore crosses over and becomes mainstream success. It doesn’t rely on conflicting Wikipedia articles that are outside of text. Nor does it depend on willfully extrapolated guess work. It depends on itself. So when I write about what “works” in traditional narrative, this so often the direction I’m coming from. Because trying to argue that in-text clarity, delivered dramatically is exactly what turns an okay film in into a Star Wars in the first place. It’s makes so many classics like Toy Story, Casablanca, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, Avengers, Singin’ in the Rain, Alien, Jurassic Park, or Spider-Verse. It’s not pandering to the lowest common denominator. It’s trying to help create the largest baseline function that drives popular appeal.

Now on the other hand, when I’m evaluating something as a specialized entertainment that is outside of those standard dramatic purviews, it’s important to come at the discussion with that understanding. For instance, I like all that dumb English papery stuff so I absolutely love David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. But I understand it has limited appeal. As a fan, I know all I can do is I put forth my most coherent argument and about everything within the text (you can read that article here). But I’m never going to put Mulholland Dr. in front of someone and then be angry if they don’t understand it or don’t bother to dive deeper. I mean, why would they like something so seemingly obtuse? Why do they *have* to engage a film in an esoteric way that they aren’t interested in exploring? I can encourage it, but fully acknowledge the limits of preference and accessibility.

But this is exactly why it is sometimes a little frustrating when left-brain lore-divers don’t understand that the way they’re coming at media is equally limited in its appeal. Making a popcorn movie’s big moments depend on pre-existing knowledge? Having to figure it out based on tiny clues? Honestly, that just leads to more gate keeping bullshit. Again, you didn’t fall in love with Star Wars the first time because of it’s gate keeping, lore-ridden nature. You fell in love with it cause it’s an fun, accessible, and clear dramatic story (video essay on that subject here). To be clear, it’s one thing if they come into the yellow lightsaber discussion and go, “I understand how there’s nothing in the text of this, but I have fun going into headcanon!” Because that’s totally cool! But, instead people tweet me a Wikipedia article and go “UH, YOU ARE CLEARLY WRONG.” 

Please, please understand: my goal isn’t to take away what you like and how you like it. Nor is my goal to uphold english paper semiotics as “the one true way” of engaging art. My goal is to help us realize that we’re in the proverbial Tower of Babel and we need to start understanding our different languages. We need to get better at understanding what we talk about when we talk about things. For we have so many different ways of absorbing movies and we not only need people understand our way, but understand others' way, along with the limits of our own. Because if we don’t?

We become further divided by the media that supposedly brings us together.

But as I write those flowery words, you’re probably saying something to yourself: Wait, that all makes so much more sense! Then what the heck! Why was your original statement so divisive? Why didn’t you say all that in your initial quick, reductive, and strident tweet? 

Well, I could make some argument that at least my words were what provided the dire miscommunication to begin with and therefore allowed us to deep dive into this subject matter that is oh so important for critical discussion! 

But more so, I just forgot the age old lesson…

Never tweet.

<3HULK