Choosing Between Good and Evil in a Galaxy Far, Far Away (NPR)

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The Star Wars movie saga “is an allegory for our own collective history with themes like imperialism and the inevitability of war dominating the narrative,” writes Dartmouth’s Marcelo Gleiser in a commentary on NPR.

Gleiser, a professor of physics and astronomy and the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy, writes that “the same battles recur endlessly, reflecting an unstable balance between good and evil.”

The newest installment in the series is a great success, Gleiser writes, despite some of what happens being impossible in real life. “Better not to take the science seriously.”

“No one wants a physics lesson when they go to watch a movie like this. People want to have fun and to be moved by the characters and their adventures. In this, Star Wars delivers, telling us a story that is close to our own, to our capacity to create and destroy, to succumb to the seduction of power, about the inevitability of good and evil.”

Read the entire story, published 1/6/16 in NPR.

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