Baby Smiling In Back Seat

This week’s Perfect Moment is more of a process than a single moment.

I’m a geek in many ways, but I’m not especially a Star Wars geek. I like Star Wars as much as any girl born in the 70s — well maybe just slightly more. After all, I own Star Wars Monopoly, and on years when we celebrate Christmas, there’s a Boba Fett ornament on the tree. Some of the following information is common knowledge or available through careful movie viewing, but some requires deep backstory research.

Although it contains universal (ha ha) themes like finding your niche, connecting to others, and searching for truth, Star Wars doesn’t have storylines that particularly resonate with most people. Your arch-enemy turns out to be your father? That person with whom you have a strangely strong connection turns out to be your twin? The murder of your adoptive parents is engineered by your biological father (who is the stepbrother of your adoptive father) and carried out by clones who once fought alongside your mentor? Not so universal.

I’ve always been aware, in a casual sense, that there are adoption themes in the story, and the boy-girl twin connection was been brought to my attention by more than one friend when we announced our babies’ sexes, but it was only last week as I watched all 6 movies on TV that the extent of the ALI themes has really emerged for me.

Boy-Girl Twins
Everyone with a passing awareness of Star Wars knows that Luke and Leia are boy-girl twins, separated at birth.

Only a few people know, since it’s part of the Star Wars universe outside the movies, that Leia and Han Solo later become parents of “Jedi twins” Jacen and Jaina. (It’s not as cute as it sounds — Jacen eventually turns evil and Jaina has to kill him.)

When we announced that we are having boy-girl twins, our normally geeky friends said, “Luke and Leia!” and our extra-geeky friend said, “Jedi twins! Jacen and Jaina!”

Adoption
It’s a key plot point that when Luke and Leia are separated at birth, they are each adopted.

Kin adoption: Luke is adopted by his uncle Owen and aunt Beru. Owen is the step-brother of Luke’s father Anakin. Luke is aware that they are his aunt and uncle, but he is told that both of his parents have died, when in fact his father is alive but is a threat to Luke’s survival.

Open adoption and closed adoption: Leia is adopted by Prince Bail Prestor Organa and his wife Breha. In Revenge of the Sith, Prince Organa says that he and his wife have “always talked of adopting a baby girl.” This is open adoption in one sense — the Organas are aware of their daughter’s origins and knew both of her birth parents. But, it’s closed adoption for the rest of the triad. It is not open for the birth parents because the birth mother dies in childbirth and does not know the fate of her children, and the birth father does not know of Leia’s existence because he was not aware of the twin pregnancy. (What, they can fly through space at light speed but they don’t have ultrasound?) It’s also not open for the adoptee because although she knows she was adopted, she does not know the identities of her birth parents nor the existence of her twin brother.

There are also informal adoption themes, with many references to people being “like a son” or “like a father” as part of a mentoring relationship.

Reproductive Technologies
The stormtroopers are clones of Jengo Fett, genetically modified for accelerated growth and docility (except for one unmodified clone, whom Jengo kept to raise as a son, and who later went on to become my Christmas ornament). Although most of us don’t deal directly with issues of cloning or genetic modification, there are a lot of debates right now about genetic selection and modification, particularly as they relate to reproductive technologies. The media (and public at large?) seems pretty freaked out about human cloning.

Infertility and Pregnancy Loss
This is the part that I didn’t learn until this week, because it requires delving into the Wookiepedia (yes, that’s what it’s called). The Organas had “always talked of adopting a baby girl” because they were infertile, and had lost at least two pregnancies. Breha was told that another pregnancy could kill her. A couple of years pass before Leia enters their lives.

The full quote from Prince Organa when he agrees to adopt Leia: “We’ve always talked of adopting a baby girl. She will be loved with us.” Now, his statement resonates so much more.

Perfect Moments
We already knew that people dealt with adoption, loss, and infertility everywhere on earth, but it turns out that these themes are also prevalent in a galaxy far far away.

It’s your last day to vote for always-inspirational Lori from Weebles Wobblog for the Most Inspiring Blog Award.