SPECIAL COMPARATIVE STUDY - STAR WARS: ChildCare Action Project (CAP) Media Analysis Report MAR07599

ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)
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Entertainment Media Analysis Report

MAR07599
Special Comparative Study
Star Wars
Thomas A. Carder
CAP President

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ALERT: To fully understand this report you should first visit the topics suggested by the CAP Site map (Table of Contents).

SUMMARY / COMMENTARY:

Nearing our fifth year of studying the impact of the entertainment industry on our youth, we have found that while sex, drugs, and violence are negatively influential to be sure, they are NOT the most influential. Indeed, the most negatively influential presence in the entertainment industry is much more basal than sex, drugs, and violence: rather, these influences are products of the more basal influence. The most invasive and value-shaping property of modern entertainment, which is for the most part invisible, especially to the young and impressionable, reaches far deeper into the values and beliefs level of the human character. Since 1955 the entertainment industry has incorporated into their programming the most powerful of influences: impudence and hate⁽¹⁾. Impudence and hate are character choices which best feed and indeed satisfy the innate foolishness bound in the heart of youth (Proverb 22:15). The following ignominy represent elemental features of impudence and hate which the entertainment industry has incorporated into their media at an exponentially increasing severity and depth:

freedom from accountability

freedom from fair authority

freedom from consequences

stealing childhood from children

self importance and self esteem at the expense of self respect

unmerited acceptance, unrighteous permissiveness, and excessive tolerance

dissonance as a manipulation or proselytizing technique

usurpment of and abandonment of parental teachings/authority

moral relativism

pansexualism

situational, emotive, and behavioral ethics

lowering the threshold of acceptability and inhibition

rebellion and arrogance

the "Go ahead and do the wrong, as long as you are sorry for it afterwards" rationale

excusing unacceptable and vicious behavior by embedding it under warm and loving themes

manufacturing justification for poor behavior

too much independence and autonomy too soon

-- but not so with George Lucas' Star Wars movies as revealed by our analysis of them.

Through the 22-year history of the Star Wars movies, Lucas has maintained an amazingly even distribution of ignominy. Clearly, he has not suffered the trend of many and even most other producers have fallen victim to: to incorporate progressively invasive and corruptive material into their programming since 1955. All four of the Star Wars movies fell well within the scoring band earned by PG movies in the comparative baseline database.

While impudence and hate are the strongest presences in the entertainment industry, they were among the weakest of influential presences in all four Star Wars movies. Please note the image to the left which presents the averages of the scoring distribution for the four Star Wars movies.

But in significant opposition to the positive feature of limited presence of impudence and hate in the Star Wars movies, they each presented a clear disregard for the Holy Scriptures. The Star Wars movies presented separation and independence from God's Sovereignty and Omnipotence and rightful Authority, in particular:

Counterfeiting and mockery of the Scriptures .
Repeated use of the "force" as equatable to the Will of God and ignoring His supreme Authority.
Gaining power, strength, and protection from the "force."
Manipulating objects and minds by the power of the "force."
Portrayal that Anakin was a virgin birth.
Portrayal that Anakin was "the one" to bring community between good and evil.
presentation of ethereal beings in after-death presence to the corporeal world, and submitting to and seeking counsel/guidance/rescue from them.
unholy powers to control, manipulate, and kill and mystic sensing.
disappearing bodies.

These influences are clearly confusing and counterproductive to the impressionable trying to grasp the mystery of the Gospel, of God's Omnipotence, and of His inescapable Authority. While other influential presences in the Star Wars movies may be redirected by caring and *participative* parents, these anti-Christian and mystic ethereal portrayals in the movies are indeed influences that must be reckoned with and reconciled.

While violence was a saturating presence in each of the Star Wars movies, the violence presented was described by one of our subscribers as "clean violence." I may not agree entirely with that description, but the point is made. Subjectively speaking⁽²⁾, the kind and scope of violence in the Star Wars movies was akin to that with which we as parents today grew up with: cowboy, military, and cops & robbers violence -- the kind that does not typically drive itself so deeply into the behavior choice warehouse of the adolescent who is aflame with prepubescent or pubescent fire as does the popular style of steely cold violence inflicted with orgasmic satisfaction. Except for that expressed by the emperor in The Return of the Jedi as he tried to kill Luke and in the face of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, there was no lust for or joy in inflicting violence noted in the Star Wars movies.

The more graphic invasive elements of ignominy included in the Star Wars movies should be relatively re-directable by caring and participative parents, but it is especially important that you share with children the possibly dangerous common invisible or translucent sub-theme of discarding the Sovereignty of God and His Word.

The scoring distribution and findings of our comparative study of the four Star Wars movies are presented in the following table.

FINDINGS

Wanton Violence/Crime (W):

battle deaths

attack by aleins

Jawa bodies strewn about

incinerated bodies

series of alein 'monsters'

bar room fight with injury

deaths by fire, explosion, battle

Impudence/Hate I⁽¹⁾:

argumentive attitude toward fair authority

lie

Sex/Homosexuality(S):

female anatomy ghosting through thin clothing

Drugs/Alcohol (D):

drugs to control

bar drinks

Offense to God (O)⁽³⁾:

submission to unholy authority

levitation

Murder/Suicide (M)⁽⁴⁾:

murder of starship captain by Vader

FINDINGS

Wanton Violence/Crime (W):

animal attack

gutting a dead animal for warmth

battle violence with deaths

glimpse of mutilated scalp

an huge animal trying to eat the heroes

use of weapons to control

"sword" fights with amputation and decapitation

human torture with screams

forced hibernation

choking to avenge wrongs

attempted suicide to avoid submission

Impudence/Hate I⁽¹⁾:

one use of the three/four letter word vocabulary

Sex/Homosexuality (S):

inappropriate touching

Drugs/Alcohol (D):

none noted

Offense to God (O)⁽³⁾:

unGodly powers to control, manipulate, and kill

clairvoyance

seeking of guidance/rescue from non-holy ethereal entities

presentation of ethereal beings (after-death existence outside of Heaven)

"Pray [to me - Vader] I don't alter [the deal for the cloud city] any further."

Murder/Suicide (M)⁽⁴⁾:

two murders (non-graphic and no blood)

FINDINGS

Wanton Violence/Crime (W):

threatening-looking alien "monsters"

threats with a firearm

beast consumption of a live being

death

a long series of battle deaths with injuries

a fall scene

some gore

chase by a flame front

Impudence/Hate I⁽¹⁾:

rationalization of a lie and encouragement to lie

Sex/Homosexuality (S):

inappropriate dress and touch

partial nudity

sexual implication

Drugs/Alcohol (D):

none noted

Offense to God (O)⁽³⁾:

disappearing body

unholy ethereal beings

seeking counsel from unholy ethereal beings

levitation and mystic sensing

clairvoyance

Murder/Suicide (M)⁽⁴⁾:

none noted

FINDINGS

Wanton Violence/Crime:

orders to kill

eating of animals by animals

child slavery

multiple deaths in a race and in battle

"sword" fighting

exceptionally evil character

a being being cut in half (non-graphic, no blood/guts)

Impudence/Hate I⁽¹⁾:

lies to deflect accountability

a small issue of a little boy's arrogance against mother's authority re: going to bed (sound familiar?)

Sex/Homosexuality:

Scant clothing

statue nudity

Drugs/Alcohol:

none noted

Offense to God (O)⁽³⁾:

repeated talk of subservience to gods

calling on a nonholy force for direction, protection, and strength

claim of a virgin birth

foreseeing the future

repeatedly equating "the force" with God's Will and His Control

repeated references to a human as "the chosen one"

levitation/psychokineses

Murder/Suicide (M)⁽⁴⁾:

graphic murder by sabre (impalement through body)

murder by Sand People shooting racers

(1) As noted in CAP Special Report-001, "Investigation Area and Scoring Trend," of the six CAP Investigation Areas, Impudence/Hate was the strongest presence in all four movie classifications. It has a strong revelation about the entertainment industry.

(2) Remember that the CAP numeric scoring is raw mathematics and is both uncompromising and unforgiving. While this statement may be relative to the observer, i,e., cowboy violence may be disaterous for some but harmless for others, our numeric findings can be neither manipulated nor adjusted for the sake of opinion or manufactured justification for aberrant behavior.

(3) The use of the three/four letter word vocabulary without God's name in vain is incorporated into the Impudence/Hate Investigation Area. The use of God's name with or without the four letter expletive is incorporated into the Offense to God Investigation Area. There is no duplication. As required of the Holy Scriptures, unless God's name is used with reverence to His glory and praise, its use is considered in vain.

(4) Only portrayal of successful murder or suicide are incorporated into Murder/Suicide. Portrayal of attempts to commit murder or suicide and deaths by police action or war are incorporated into Wanton Violence/Crime.

Additional reviews of this movie may be located at "Movie Review Query Engine at Telerama."

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In the name of Jesus:
Lord, Master, Teacher, Savior, God.

Thomas A. Carder
President
ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)

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