To be clear, I’m a Star Wars fan. I’ve seen all of the movies and most of the TV shows, including the animated ones. I enjoy its entertainment value.
However, first and foremost, I’m a disciple of Jesus. A dangerous worldview lurks within the Star Wars universe. Christians, particularly parents tasked with teaching their children, need to be on guard against being sucked into it. While I enjoy the Star Wars franchise with my kids, we are also intentional in our family about teaching the Truth and letting Star Wars be what it is—a series of entertaining stories with a contradictory worldview.
Within the worldview of the Star Wars stories, the fundamental reality of their universe is that the Force is in a constant balance between Light and Dark. In the Star Wars universe, good and evil, light and dark, are locked in an eternal balancing act, like a cosmos-sized grandfather clock whose pendulum never ceases to swing. In a universe like this, the very integrity of the cosmic fabric is dependent on this balance.
And should this balance of their universe swing in one direction, it must inevitably course correct. If darkness grows, light must eventually counteract it, and if light grows, darkness must someday grow in opposition to it. If light or dark should ever fully vanquish the other, the very building blocks of the universe would collapse in on themselves.
But is this fictional reality of the Star Wars universe true to the stories told in the Star Wars trilogies? Except for the prequels (more on that trilogy in a moment), the movie opens in a time when the Dark has so overtaken the Light that it seems that even hope has been extinguished. And every Star Wars trilogy ends with the Light overtaking the Dark. (Again, except the prequels which, being written after the original trilogy, are only setting up the inevitable victory of light over dark that we already know is coming.) In fact, the final trilogy ends with what appears to be all the Dark (“all the Sith”) being vanquished by all the Light (“all the Jedi”). Rey, the “last Jedi,” then buries her lightsabers deep in the sand, seemingly indicating they won’t be needed again.
This is where George Lucas and Disney can’t help themselves. In the stories they write, they indicate a belief in a universe that is structurally meaningless—where hope of an eternal happy ending is impossible because the fundamental reality of existence is a balance between good and evil, light and dark. But what they cannot hide in their story writing is something buried deep within all of us: the hope for a happy ending.
And so, the fundamental reality of the Star Wars universe—a never ending struggle and balancing act between good and evil—is contradicted in their narratives. Every grand storyline is about the rise of hope ending in the victory of Light over Darkness. To be true to the Star Wars universe, the existing trilogies should be balanced by a series of movies where the primary storyline and movie endings build up to the inevitable victory of Darkness over Light. But who wants to watch a movie like that?
The underlying reality of our universe—like Star Wars, both visible and invisible—is quite different. In our cosmos, the Creator God, Who is Light, created all things and is the Source of all Life and power. Therefore, there is no existence apart from Him. In the end, only what is aligned with His Life and Light will remain in the new heaven and earth described in Revelation 21.
Death and Darkness will be vanquished forever because the future reality of our cosmos is bound to the very nature of its Creator and Sustainer (Heb 1:3). The hope for a happy ending is buried deep within all of us because it is the reality we live in, and we can’t escape it.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
Romans 1:19-20a ESV
Epic Gospel 