A Catholic Film Critic on Sith

Steven D. Greydanus at decentfilms.com gives approval to the Star Wars series, including the one coming out this Thursday. Link. Concluding paragraphs:

Ultimately, what the Star Wars films offer is not a coherent philosophy of life, morality, or spirituality. Rather, they offer rousing storytelling suffused by themes of moral struggle and transcendence. They aren't Christian, and not without their problems – any more than the classical Greco-Roman myths that generations of Christian children have grown up reading. Yet, like those classical myths, they give imaginative shape, albeit imperfectly, to basic human insights, and like the classical myths they have become a part of the cultural landscape.

If the adventures of Hercules and Odysseus can be enjoyed by Christians and shared with their children, those of Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi have a place as well. Star Wars is pop mythology – a “McMyth,” as a recent critical article put it – but in our McCulture even a McMyth can be vastly preferable to no myth at all, and certainly to other, less wholesome mythologies (e.g., the Matrix trilogy). Even for those who generally prefer more traditional fare, there is still much to enjoy and appreciate in these half-baked, stunningly mounted fantasies of good and evil in a galaxy far, far away.