The Star Wars Doppler Theory

I’m sitting here in Denny’s—where else?—having just—once again—seen REVENGE OF THE SITH. I’m starting to lose count how many times I’ve seen it (it’s been a hectic 48 hours), but no matter. What’s important is that I can finally talk about it.

Before I get there, I wanted to touch on a couple of other Star Wars Topics. First off, while your younger audiences greatly prefer the newer trilogy, people my age almost all tend to like the original three. The reasons given are legion. However, I maintain that whether or not the newer movies are objectively better or worse, it is impossible to tell. So imprinted is my generation by the original Star Wars movies, that it wouldn’t matter what happened in Phantom Menace; fans were going to be disappointed. A young Han Solo could have shown up and had Padme and Leia in a sex sandwich; the fans would not be appeased.

I call this the Doppler Theory. Most of you know a tad bit about how the Doppler Effect works: it has to do with any wave phenomenon, and the change in their vector of movement. The most best example is a police or ambulance siren. It sounds one way when it’s coming toward you, and the moment it passes you, it sounds completely different. If for some reason you’re interested in the math, the basics can be explained thusly:

The non-relativistic Doppler shifted frequency of an object moving with speed v with respect to a stationary observer, is:

and the Doppler shifted wavelength can be shown to be:

This is, I believe, what largely explains much of the criticisms leveled at the newer trilogy. They have moved to a different spot, as have we, and the waves sound different to us now.

As an offer of proof for this assertion (just one of many we could discuss, but I have much to get to, so I will limit it), I give you the case of one Jar Jar Binks. With the possible exception of Sofia Coppola, so woefully miscast as Mary in GODFATHER III, never has a character been so universally reviled.

The knocks against Jar Jar are: he speaks with a bad accent, his syntax is horribly mangled, he walks jerkily and he’s always getting into trouble. Using this criteria, I want to examine the four most beloved non-human characters in the original trilogy: C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, and Yoda.

C-3PO – I’ll grant you he has perfect diction, but the accent? [Side Note: Originally he was supposed to sound like a cab-driver from Brooklyn. How weird would that have been?] Let’s face it: unless you work in the International House of Scones, “effeminate Englishman” is unusual to hear. 3PO walks like a man in search of a hemorrhoid cream, and he gets into a fair amount of trouble.

R2-D2 – Everyone seems to understand him, but by default his syntax and diction are awful. He moves as smoothly as he can, but still stumbles around, and he’s the KING of getting into trouble.

CHEWBACCA – Again, can’t understand a word he says. Chewie’s walk is fairly smooth, and he stays relatively trouble-free, but he does have a tendency to solve his problems by removing limbs.

YODA – Probably my favorite movie character of all time, so I say this with love: Yoda is the prototype for fractured syntax. And the accent? Close your eyes, and you wouldn’t be able to tell him and Grover apart, at least in EMPIRE. Yoda’s initial scampering is more cute than inspiring, and think back: before you knew he was a great Jedi Master, you thought he was a little trouble maker, rattling around in Luke’s supplies for food.

So, it seems clear to me that if Jar Jar were in the original three, he’d fit right in and probably be just as loved. And as a topper, I offer this: Jar Jar is the third most popular toy in terms of sales. This is because the kids love him. And while we may have co-opted Star Wars as our defining cultural experience, we must remember that the adventures were created for kids, as were the new movies. It’s not Lucas’s fault so many came to love the franchise and adopt it as their own.