Space Buddhism: The Adoption of Buddhist Motifs in Star Wars

Abstract

The Star Wars film-series has been an unprecedented commercial success in the history of cinema and has made a huge cultural impact. This is not least because of its creator George Lucas making wide use of religious and mythological elements, in his search for a new spiritual and moral guidance for a young audience. In this process, Lucas also adopts Buddhist symbols, values, and ideas in his concept of the order of the Jedi and their spirituality. These include sitting meditation, mindfulness, compassion, interdependence, or the overcoming of attachment. Thus, Star Wars represents and promotes Buddhist elements, but deprives them of their Buddhist origin, as Buddhism as a tradition does not exist in Lucas’ ‘galaxy far, far away’. Although Star Wars might serve as a vehicle to bring Buddhist ideas to Western audiences, in fact Lucas uses the distance of Asian and Buddhist culture to the Western world to also enact the Jedi as the Other, mysterious and fascinating, in an approach that can be defined as orientalistic.

Notes

^1. Cited from Cagle 2002.

^2. See Baudrillard's (2006, 1–142) concept of the simulacrum.

^3. Original English quote in Leap 1999.

^4. For a comparison of The Hidden Fortress and Episode IV: A New Hope see Wetmore 2005, 104–107.

^5. George Lucas in the short documentary report, ‘The Birth of the Lightsaber’, on Star Wars Trilogy . Bonus Disc. DVD. Produced by Gary Leva. San Francisco: Lucasfilm Ltd., 2004.

^6. For further information on wuxia see Teo 2009.

^7. ‘And over the years I have been pondering that question ever since. And it would seem to me that the conclusion I have come to is that all of the religions are true; they just see a different part of the elephant. Religion is basically a container for faith. Faith is the glue that holds us together as a society. Faith in our culture, our world—whatever it is we are trying to hang onto. It is a very important part allowing us to remain stable—remain balanced’: George Lucas, quoted in Hearn 2005, 78; original English quote inLeap 2002.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christian Feichtinger

Christian Feichtinger is a university assistant for religious pedagogy and a lecturer for religious studies at the University of Graz/Austria. His main research fields are religion and film, religion and the body, religious pedagogy, and ethics.Address: Institut fu¨r Katechetik und Religionspädagogik (Institute for Catechetics and Religious Pedagogy), Heinrichstraße 78B/II 8010 Graz, Austria. Email: [email protected]