There is a lot of moaning and criticism of the inconsistencies between Star Wars Episodes 1/2 and the more classic stuff-- A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. (See Yglesias, Yglesias again, and Last (note that this is separate from many of Pejman's complaints).

But all of these inconsistencies are nothing compared to the inconsistencies between Lucas's prequels and the non-movie Star Wars universe that cropped up in the intervening decades. My understanding is that Lucas demanded an incredible amount of oversight and veto power over the novels, card games, etc. The result was an incredibly rich, but generally consistent, shared world, with the elaboration of obscure movie characters like Wedge Antilles and Boba Fett, as well as the creation of important characters who were present only behind the movie's scenes (Mara Jade, Admiral Thrawn, Prince Xizor).

The prequels laid waste to all that careful work. Here's just one example: Boba Fett is supposed to be the newly assumed identity of a rogue law enforcer from Concord Dawn named Jaster Merleel. He is emphatically not named Boba Fett as a kid. [See Kevin J. Anderson, Star Wars: Tale of the Bounty Hunters. But see this very clever attempt to reconcile the Boba Fett stories. Even if you find it convincing, it's only the tip of the iceberg.]

For those of us who have spent embarrassing amounts of their time learning the minutiae of the Star Wars CCG and RPG, this stuff is the more serious betrayal. All of that work in collaborative world-building was admirable, and awesome, and made the Star Wars world a world worth sharing.

So. The solution is this: Episode I and II (And probably Episode III) as well as some of the revisionist history that marks the "remakes" of Episodes IV-VI, are simply wrong. Lies. Made-up propaganda. They are incorrect representations of the fictional world of the Star Wars universe.

What's going on here? Why would George Lucas so blatantly misrepresent the truth of the fictional world, when his original stories were true? If I may take the risk of making a Holmesian deduction (Sherlock, not Oliver) for a moment, George Lucas (as implied narrator, not necessarily human being) has been turned to the Dark Side.

Now what his actual aims are now, and what the truth is that he is trying to conceal, we don't yet know. But some careful detective-work and examination of the Star Wars universe elaborated in other Lucas-Arts-approved sources (the novels, cards, etc.) might lead us someplace. But that's a subject for another post. I just wish to emphasize that 1: The prequels betray more than just the original sequence of movies; they betray the shared world that was spawned by that original sequence. 2: It's pretty clear that the prequels are simply lies, propagated by a once-reliable narrator who now has some ulterior motive.

Apologies to all for the near-incoherence of the post below, and also of this one. (This is what comes of using a blog to tap out one's thoughts as fast as possible).

Con Law class today brought a reading of the famous/infamous Carolene Products, whose footnote 4 and part 3 suggest the adoption of a presumption of Constitutionality for economic regulation, but stricter scrutiny for laws that possibly infringe upon the guarantees of the Bill of Rights or rights of electoral participation.

I think I'm going to have to read John Ely's Democracy and Distrust again, which elaborates on this notion at length, but at the moment I'm struck by two rather skeptical thoughts (apparently alone among my classmates):

1: Why should we think that "discrete and insular minorities" who fail to get their due from the electoral process are unlikely to be economic entities and disfavored businesses? With lots of money at stake, the incentive to illegitimately work against people via economic regulation might be stronger.

2: Even if the Carolene Products dichotomy represents a roughly plausible and sound political judgment, is it a legitimate judgment for a court of law to make? It seems both outside of the Court's jurisdictional capacity and textual bailiwick.

Again, this (like the below post) is only a very tentative thought, but it's still a thought.

When-- if ever-- is it legitimate for a Supreme Court Justice to decide a case not based on what he thinks is the "proper" legal result, but based on his concern for the legitimacy of the court? For example: Is it legitimate for a Justice to change his vote for fear of a move like FDR's court-packing plan, reasoning it's better to save the honorable court, even if one has to sacrifice justice in one case?

There's a strong temptation to say yes, and I'll write more on this, but one of my classmates has just suggested an alternative-- wouldn't it be somehow more legitimate for that Justice to resign? That acheives the same substantive result-- FDR gets his appointment, the court is perhaps saved from a court-packing plan, and the "Wrong" result (from that Justice's point of view) is reached. But with cleaner hands.

Of course, consequentialists might say it's all the same-- same amount of justice or lack thereof is done either way.

Two UPDATEd thoughts (thanks to a Friend of Crescat). 1: They might not be the same to a consequentialist-- there could quite possibly (hopefully!) be serious consequence to political discourse if a Justice resigned over a matter of principle. 2: The notion that one should bend, not resign, in situations like these seems predicated on the notion that one must stoop to power now to stand against it later. I question whether this (standing up later) actually happens, as a historical matter.

...to sometime Crescatter Amber Taylor, who's just accepted a clerkship for next year with a federal appellate judge.

From Justice Robert Jackson's The Supreme Court in the American System of Government:

When the Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions. In five of Marshall's great opinions he cited not a single precedent.