The "White Soldier" in the "Star Wars" series of movies is a very powerful image in the history of European and American pop culture. However, for people in China who are not familiar with the Star Wars story, many people mistakenly regard it as a "robot" when they see the "White Soldier" for the first time.
The reason for the misunderstanding is well understood. The "Bai Bing" was wrapped up and down tightly, without exposing the human body characteristics such as skin, facial features, hair, etc.; the armor they used was tough and full of the so-called "sense of technology"; the sound-producing parts of their helmets had the function of changing the sound. When the "white soldier" speaks, the sound generator works and adjusts the accent of human speech into an electronic sound; coupled with the placement of such a character in the scene of the Galactic War, it is naturally easy to think of the "robot". A classic element in science fiction culture.
However, even though the "White Soldiers" themselves are humans (in other media than the movie, the Star Wars story, especially in the old official history of the Star Wars known as "Legends", certain human-like intelligent creatures will also join the "White Soldiers". Ranks), but a major feature of the image of "white soldiers" is "absolute obedience", which makes them closer in thinking to "machines" without independent thinking. On the contrary, the robots in the Star Wars universe possess a variety of emotions, joys and sorrows, and the human side is very distinct, which is completely different from the situation in which robots are positioned as pure human tools in reality.
This wonderful contrast stems from the literary interest of the Star Wars story itself. Unlike many sci-fi works, Star Wars does not intend to discuss the conflict between technological development and traditional ethics. The seemingly vast galaxy is actually just a stage that can accommodate more visual spectacles. The choice of all kinds of people on the stage is the focus of Star Wars. In a nutshell, Star Wars is a story about "humanity".
Fairies are called "shemales" with humanity, and machines are called "robots" with humanity
Except that its body is composed of circuits and parts, the robots in Star Wars are almost the same as ordinary humans, with all emotions and psychology such as joy, anger, sorrow, joy, doubt, fear, surprise, and sigh. Take C-3PO and R2-D2, the most famous robot images in Star Wars, as examples. The former is a ceremonial robot with more than 7 million communication methods. Aerospace mechanic robots can only make sounds like "beep" and cannot speak human language. However, they are loyal, reliable, tenacious and brave, and are good at adapting to changes.
In literary and artistic works, it is a common technique to create a pair of "lipstick" and "doer" roles. The contrasting character of the character helps to form a set-off effect. Monkey King and Zhu Bajie in China, and the Three Little Pigs abroad are all famous examples of this technique. The father of Star Wars, George Lucas, put this mode on two robots, making them the most famous robot partner in movie history.
In reality, robots are not like this. It is positioned as a service tool that can perform complex tasks, and human emotions are completely redundant appendages. In 2013, the National Space Administration sent a lunar rover named "Yutu" to the moon for a scientific expedition mission. The Space Agency gave the Yutu a anthropomorphic image and introduced its scientific research process through self-reporting. This caused many space fans to feel the sadness of the death of their best friend after the Yutu ceased its mission and entered a permanent dormant state. But Yutu is essentially just a highly intelligent machine, without any human emotions. It was shut down by the Space Agency after completing its mission, and it is no different from the disposal of ordinary household appliances when their lifespan expires. The home appliance did not grieve for being "abandoned" by the owner, and the Yutu would not complain about losing space.
The robots of the early film history retain the "instrumentality" similar to reality. The female image robot Maria in "Metropolis" is regarded as the first "real robot" in movie history, and she is just a tool for conspirators to instigate riots. There is an Italian movie earlier than "Metropolis" called "L'uomo meccanico" (L'uomo meccanico, English name "The Mechanical Man"), in which robots have powerful speed and equipment, and become criminal tools after being acquired by bad guys. But the good guys later invented the same robot to fight with them. In this work, the robot's behavior is completely controlled by its owner, and it does not have any concept of good and evil subjectively.
The reason why later science fiction works began to create "characteristic" robot images was because of the rise of the concept of "artificial intelligence". When the actual robot technology develops to a certain level, it will definitely require robots to solve problems with higher efficiency. This means that the robot does not necessarily only run by accepting immediate commands from humans, but can perform tasks or solve problems on its own based on a set of rules specified in advance. Therefore, humans develop robots with a certain degree of initiative, and give them "intelligence". Certain intelligence is one of the signs of advanced life, so if an artificial product has "intelligence", is it still possible to have another feature of advanced life-"emotion"?
The creators grasped this point and used the topic to play out many classic robot story motifs. The most influential one is: Will robots awaken their "self-awareness" and then betray humans? Asimov invented the "Three Laws of Robots", trying to analyze the possible behavior of robots based on logic. Readers will eventually find that no matter how rigorous the laws seem, there are always extreme situations that can cause abnormal behaviors of robots, making them subjective evildoers. The robot David in the movie "Alien" is the culprit that caused the Alien to wreak havoc, and can be described as a typical robot villain. The movie "Terminator" series and "The Matrix" series let robots/artificial intelligence replace human beings as the masters of the earth. And Dan Simmons created a cosmic society in which artificial intelligence has independent sovereignty in the novel "Hyberlian" series. In these stories, the robot's emotions point to the word "survival." When a robot is defined as a human tool, once it loses its tool function, it will be abandoned and enter the "death" of no return. Therefore, the way robots preserve themselves is to overthrow humans as their masters.
Another motif mainly describes the robot's identification with human emotions: how does the robot understand human emotions and whether it pursues to show "humanity" in its individual. In the classic comic "Astro Boy with Iron Arms", Astro Boy has a deep relationship with his adoptive father, and he has become a fighter to defend human security in the future; "Robot Steward" and "Artificial Intelligence" are two representative films, the protagonist of the former is added to the mind After the module, I began to taste the tastes of life, and the protagonist of the latter has a deep desire for maternal love. These few examples all show the robot's pursuit of "adults" and explore the robot's identity positioning. This motif is also combined with the "betrayal" motif from time to time. For example, the robot in "Alien" has sexual desire, and the novel "Does the robot dream of a bionic sheep?" "" and the man-made humans in the movie version "Blade Runner", in the process of seeking their "human" identity, committed behaviors that harm human interests.
The robot story of Star Wars has nothing to do with the above two motifs. Star Wars almost never considers the issue of "technical ethics" or "technical panic", there is no "robot uprising", and there is no "robot looking for a mother". The role of robot characters is to add more interesting content and even key plots to the story. They are first given powerful and professional functions, which are irreplaceable compared to the role of intelligent creatures. For example, R2's intrusion system capabilities and 3PO's translation capabilities have helped the protagonists out of danger. More worthy of attention is the anthropomorphic emotions of the Star Wars robots. Their emotional performance is not simply "happy" or "sorrow", but will produce various needs according to the actual situation, and show different emotions according to whether the needs are met or not.
3PO is a very prominent example. It has high-level "self-realization" needs according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. It often advertises that it is proficient in 7 million ways, and at the same time promotes itself by belittling its old friend R2. In addition, it also has very practical basic needs, such as wandering in Tatooine and complaining that it "gets in the sand". "Love" is also an ability of 3PO. Although it mocks R2 all day long, when R2 goes to the Death Star battle, 3PO expresses the cherishment of his companions and even proposes to donate parts (equivalent to human organ donations). The most human-like aspect is that 3PO actually has some feelings similar to religious beliefs, which is reflected in its mantra "Thank the Maker!" (Thank the Maker!)-this is not exactly what we often call "Thank God". "Thank God" and other variant forms of exclamation?
At the same time, it is worth noting that Star Wars robots are divided into decent villains because of their rich image. There are also decent and villain robots in the Terminator series, but they all act according to instructions (human or Skynet). The Star Wars robots have a certain degree of initiative. In the animation "Rise of the Rebels", the Empire’s analytical robot AP-5 angrily joined the rebels because they were dissatisfied with the discrimination of the Empire’s soldiers, completing the transformation from “traitor” to “loyalty” on their own. In "Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back", two robots appearing as bounty hunters-4-LOM and IG-88. The so-called "man dying for money", Galaxy Smart Life takes risks for money is easy to understand, but robots actively pursue income, but it is a rare scene. Speaking of bounty hunters, the comics "Darth Vader" and "Dr. Avra" have a pair of robots designed to imitate 3PO and R2-0-0-0 and BT-1. These two guys are evil robots who kill people without blinking. They regard torture, abuse and murder as pleasure, and even outspoken in front of their master Afrah that one day they will kill her. From the countless literary and artistic works in the past, we can easily find out the image source of the above-mentioned robots-the prodigal son, the professional killer, and the perverted murderer. Their good and evil orientation and behavior may be related to the program setting, but they themselves have a self-decision-making mechanism similar to organic life.
Star Wars robots use the body of a machine to perform the behavior of intelligent life, so their image is in fact the image of a "human" through and through. These "humanoid robots" have become an indispensable part of the galactic society. There is an old historical novel about the life of IG-88. The title is the second half of a classic quote by Descartes-"Therefore I am". "I think, therefore I am", this sentence also represents the positioning of the robot role of Star Wars: since robots have the ability to think, they are a kind of intelligent life-like existence, why spend time to discuss whether they can be called What about "people"?
White horses are not horses, "white soldiers" are not people
In stark contrast to the human nature of robots, the "white soldiers" are a group of "people without humanity."
The informal name "White Soldiers" comes from their eye-catching white armor. Star Wars movies have created three kinds of "White Soldiers" so far: The Empire Stormtrooper in the earliest true story trilogy, the clone soldier in the prequel trilogy at the turn of the century, and the new one released in 2015. The biography of the trilogy introduced the First Corps Stormtrooper. What the three generations of "white soldiers" have in common is that they are all armies built for the purpose of "absolute obedience."
Judging from the official setting, the imperial stormtrooper, the first to be created, has the weakest obedience. There is nothing special about their training process, it is nothing more than the result of the training of the military academy. Their attitude of observing discipline and obeying orders is consistent with the necessary qualities of a soldier in reality. The cloned soldier is a mass-produced product using cloning technology, and has been implanted with a program that is completely at the command of the commander's body. The First Army Stormtrooper has another training path. Its members are children who have been abducted since childhood. They have received brainwashing education since childhood and formed a thorough loyalty to the First Army. Whether it is programming or brainwashing, the latter two seem to be much more reliable than the former.
But judging from the performance of film and television works, the obedience of "Bai Bing" is decreasing according to the time of creation. Under the command of the violent Darth Vader, the Imperial Stormtrooper ordered Weijin to shoot even civilians cruelly (Owen and Belle in "Star Wars 4: A New Hope"). In the movie "Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith", the "Order 66" secretly implanted in the cloned soldiers is activated, and the clones turn their spearheads to point to the Jedi that is fighting together day and night. These two batches of white soldiers were qualified in obeying the order. In the 3D animation of "The Clone Wars", there was once an incident in which soldiers resisted the commander's wrong command. In "Rise of the Rebels", several important clone characters of "The Clone Wars" were confirmed to refuse to implement "Order 66". In other words, the clones in the two important cartoons have violated military orders, proving that "programming" is not completely reliable. "Brainwashing" is not a good way, because the movie "Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens" simply put a defected First Army Stormtrooper Finn as the protagonist.
The Star Wars film and television works progressively portray "how the "white soldiers" who lost their "humanity" "recovered their humanity". To make this topic clear, it is bound to give the "White Soldier" role more drama. Therefore, when the “white soldiers” were originally characters used to exaggerate the evil face of the villain, they needed to be completely obliterated of their personalities to show that the crimes of the “white soldiers” were universal and the empire’s tools of governance were efficient. When the story enters the stage of "recovering humanity", the focus shifts to the opposition between the individual and the centralized power, and the personality of the "white soldier" begins to be manifested. From the different characters of clones in the cartoons to Finn becoming the protagonist in "The Force Awakens", the more important the role of "White Soldier", the more room for the theme of retrieving humanity.
Therefore, when we talk about human nature breaking through the shackles of the outside world, Finn's story will be quite interesting. Even though "The Force Awakens" did not fully explain the causes and consequences of Finn's sudden defection, it still created a focal conflict, giving Finn a chance to re-examine his new and old identities. In this encounter, Finn's former stormtrooper colleagues denounced him as a "traitor" and fought against him. During this period, Finn first killed a stormtrooper cleanly with a lightsaber, and then encountered a stormtrooper soldier numbered FN-2199 shouting "traitors". Finn was completely at a disadvantage in the fight, and finally lay on the ground and lost the power to fight back. FN-2199 was ready to kill, but fortunately, the friend army arrived in time to kill FN-2199. This period of ups and downs in the fighting process may be a reflection of Finn's mind. His determination to defect is as decisive as his determination to assassinate the stormtroopers. But he was confused with the resistance organization as a former member of the First Army. He had no intention of joining the resistance organization, only knowing that the farther he could escape, the better, but now he is caught in a bloody battle between the two organizations. This made him feel a sense of gain and loss, just as he was at a loss when fighting FN-2199. To cross this hurdle, Finn needs outside support, whether it is Han Solo's life-saving shot in this scene, or the trust of Rey, Po Dameron, and even BB-8 in his entire mental journey.
In the latest release of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker", more characters similar to Finn appear. Finn meets a new friend-Jenna on the adventure. She unexpectedly defies the military order of the First Army with the entire company and withdraws from the First Army. And Finn has become the most dramatic "white soldier" in the history of Star Wars. In "The Force Awakens", not only Rey awakens the connection with the Force, Finn also awakens from the nightmare controlled by centralized power. When it comes to "The Rise of Skywalker", the looming pen and ink hints that he is a force sensitive person.
From ruthless to sentimental, the image of "White Soldiers" has always served the theme of "humanity" that Star Wars focuses on. In the prequel and the main story of the six movies, it is the Jedi and the Sith that mainly embody the humanity contention. The Jedi requires its members to restrain their nature, not allow them to have specific emotional support (people or things), and make their hearts strong through the popular "dismissal" method. Sith advocates that his followers indulge emotions, especially to extract power from negative emotions. The protagonists of the prequel and the main story-Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker father and son-have become the spokespersons of the two schools of thought. Therefore, the story of the pre-Star Wars six episodes focuses on telling why the protagonist made the final choice. What kind of sad and happy endings these choices bring them. In the tight rhythm of the story, "Bai Bing" can only become a green leaf for foil, and has no time to develop his own image.
However, the six films have basically explained the conflict between the Jedi and the Sith through the positive and negative examples. The new work still takes the struggle between the bright side and the dark side of the Force as the main line, but it also needs to examine some other characteristics of human nature from a broader perspective and vision. "Liberation of human nature" is one of the good topics, and the "white soldiers" who have always absolutely obeyed have become the most suitable object of liberation.
In order to more powerfully reflect the glory of human nature, the difficulty of liberating the "white soldiers" must be increased. Human clones such as human beings that have been eliminated from the existence of personal emotions from the source of production, eventually evolve their own personality, which is a grand "ode to human nature." And brainwashing has always been described by some "dystopian" themed works as a powerful tool of governance. Whether it's the totalitarian brainwashing of "1984", the fun brainwashing of "Brave New World" or the virtual network brainwashing of the TV series "Black Mirror", in short, this kind of thought control method is simply unprofitable. With the foreshadowing of these old works, Finn's awakening is even more rare, and the pleasure of winning with the "good nature" is also fuller.
This deductive change of the image of "Bai Bing" has to some extent created the Star Wars version of the "Robot Adult" story. The early imperial stormtroopers were more mechanical than robots, and would only blindly execute the orders of their superiors. As we all know, a large part of the inspiration for the image of the stormtrooper came from the Nazi stormtrooper during World War II, and the propaganda methods of Palpatine's empire are very similar to the reality of the Third Reich. Based on these historical elements, the "White Soldiers" were shaped from the beginning as a pile of puppets that were manipulated by power, and were not essentially different from the robots that were regarded as efficiency tools in early sci-fi works. Later, the development of science fiction literature and art drove robots to challenge humans, and Star Wars works gradually introduced stories about "white soldiers" self-reflection.
In 1995, the collection of short stories "Legend of the Mos Eisley Tavern" recorded the magical experience of an imperial stormtrooper, Davin Fairth. He discovered the weakness of AT-AT, found the rescue capsule where 3PO and R2 escaped, investigated the severed hand incident in the Mos Eisley Tavern, and participated in the hunt for Solo, Luke and others in the hangar. During this period, he became disgusted with the bureaucracy and brutal policies of the empire, and eventually killed his own chief with a cold gun, and at the same time helped the rebels by lurking in the empire. It is worth mentioning that the protagonist is a hero in the movie "New Hope", which means that he is the first "white soldier" in the Star Wars movie to thoroughly reflect on his position (but this story no longer belongs to Part of the official history of the Star Wars universe). With Darwin's leadership, a number of "white soldiers" with fuller images have been born in Star Wars novels and comics, such as the "Omega Squad" in the novel "Republic Commando" series and the "Joker Class" in the comic "Inheritance" ". Then with the launch of the "Clone Wars" animation, Star Wars film and television works began to actively portray the various temperaments of the "White Soldiers", and the "White Soldiers" gradually bid farewell to one thousand people.
Concluding remarks
"Machine is not human", these seven words can probably summarize the characteristics of Star Wars robots and "White Soldiers". Some sci-fi fans believe that although Star Wars has sci-fi elements, it essentially has no reflection on the power of science and technology, nor does it reasonably imagine a new world of prosperous technology based on real science. Therefore, it is not worthy to be called sci-fi and can only be called "space". opera". The fact that robots are too human is proof that Star Wars is not rigorous and thoughtless on the scientific level.
Indeed, Star Wars never planned to delve into scientific and technological issues from beginning to end. George Lucas created a magnificent galactic society, and other creators followed up to add flesh and blood to this society, creating waves of wonders-this is the most basic charm of Star Wars. At the same time, "politics" and "humanity" are the two major themes involved in the in-depth humanistic thinking of Star Wars. Which is better between the democratic discussion system of the Republic and the efficiency system of the empire? Which one of controlling desire and stimulating desire can bring greater success? Is the evil of the "white soldiers" a system problem or a human nature problem? ...These serious thoughts are packaged under the turbulent stories and distinctive characters, so that we can entertain our minds and let our imaginations freely. With these, does it matter whether Star Wars is "sci-fi"?
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