R2-D2 is Birth Control and other Lessons from Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Stikes Back was the very first movie I saw in an indoor theater as a kid back in 1980. Before 1980 my dad would take us to the drive in and that's the way I saw the first Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the greatest movie ever, Laserblast. I was six years old when ESB came out. Six years old was a magical age when I was old enough to understand that the sequences of events in movies were connected and the larger whole of those sequences was a story. At five years old I really had no concept of continuity. At five years old every movie I saw I percieved as a wild series of explosions caused by talking dinosaur aliens in UFOs blowing things up (which coincidentally explains in a nutshell the greatness that is Laserblast).

At six years old I could make judgements about whether or not I liked characters in movies, and with Empire I decided that Ben Kenobi was a big dweeb. Up until that point Ben Kenobi gave desert hermits a good reputation in my boy mind. Growing up in El Paso meant I saw lots of strange old men in the desert when I was walking to first grade. Thanks to Star Wars I was not afraid of wandering desert vagabonds. But then I fell out of love with that liar Ben Kenobi halfway through watching Empire and thus began my rivalry with the desert people that continues to this day.

As a kid I was aware that adults were constantly lying to me about important things like Santa Claus and baby creation but I felt that no matter what, I could believe in the internal consistency of the story of the Force and Luke Skywalker. I identified with Luke so hard because we had the same haircut and we were both from Tatooine. Star Wars didn't try to convince you that it happened, unlike the Santa Claus crapola that they embellish with actual earth locations and technologies that really existed like the North Pole and flying reindeer. It was easier for me to emotionally invest in a story like Star Wars because there was no expectation that I believed any of this crap actually happened. I'm glad Star Wars let ME decide if it was true or not and at six years old I concluded that it did. But even at that age I figured that the legend of Santa Claus was a total crock of shit.

Then Darth Vader drops the bomb and it turns out Luke's dad is not dead and Ben Kenobi is a big liar. Adults in real life had lost all credibility with me and now adults in Star Wars World where I spent most of my time were at least suspect. From the moment Darth Vader revealed the horrible truth, I decided he was the only trustworthy person left in the galaxy, which is something I still believe to this day. My mind reeling from the possibility that Star Wars could be a fictional story made up by some guy, I decided to try to salvage any sort of truth I could from the fragments of my childhood that lay shattered in the wake of that desert bum Kenobi's multiple reality disorder.

So if Star Wars didn't mean what it meant, then what did it mean? After Return of the Jedis when Kenobi said you can make up crap to fit your point of view, it dawned on me that Empire Strikes back could have whatever meaning I wanted it to. I in no way am implying that Lucas intended my views as the only possible interpretations of the characters and events in Empire, but I do think that approaching from a subjective reality standpoint yields certain alternative interpretations of ESB's themes. All of this may not be canon, but interpretation is entirely supported as suggested by Ben Kenobi's "certain point of view" speech in Return of the Jedis. In fact, if you wanted to stay true to the spirit of Kenobi's argument you are almost obligated as a fan to come up with the most batshit crazy interpretation of Star Wars that you can. So in light of Ben's unraveling of the story's credibility, the only salvageable lessons I get from Empire Strikes Back are that girls are furry, angry monsters and masturbation will turn you into a robot.

So here's miscellaneous hidden meanings and lessons behind many of the events in Empire Strikes Back. You don't even have to try very hard to see it my way. A lot of this just pops out at you once you realize that many of the characters are metaphors for venereal disease and masturbation.

What I have figured out is that Luke and Han are the only characters that represent actual human people like me. The other characters are all abstractions of intrapersonal relationships or they represent women. For example, as the film opens Luke is riding a Tauntaun and he gets attacked by a Wampa monster. In my interpretation the Tauntaun represents his hoochie girlfriend and the Wampa is a wife or jealous other girlfriend. So Luke in essence is caught riding a hoochie by his wife, who then proceeds to knock him out. So she takes both of them to her cave and she starts eating the Tauntaun, which admittedly is hard to make fit in my analogy but it drives home the lesson of this scene, which is that bitches be hatin'. Don't get caught messing around! So then Han comes around and saves Luke by stuffing him inside Han's own tauntan. This noble act reflects an admirable sharing of girlfriends that really does happen in real life. Lesson? Bros before Hos. If your friend gets kicked out of his cave by his jealous woman, you have to be a man and share your tauntaun.

I think the battle of Hoth with the big ATAT and the snowspeeders is a portrayal of each man's fight against venereal disease. The snowspeeders are those germs that make herpes and the ATATs are penises. If you wear your 'armor' on your ATAT it will be too strong for the 'blasters' of the herpes snowspeeders. Plus the lasers from the ATATs are spermies. You need the condoms to keep the spermies from reaching the power generator. So the condom is protective on a number of levels. Lesson? If the herpes gets you the head of your ATAT explodes. I don't know for sure if that's true because it's been a long time since I've had herpes.

R2-D2 I think can be seen as the hobbies and interests a nerd has throughout his life that he proudly shows off with outward displays of geekiness. It could be wearing Star Wars shirts or costumes or sharing your blog where you write about your collection of toy robots, but whatever you do that belies your enthusiasm for geeky things is your personal R2-D2. Never show a woman your R2-D2 if you intend to hit that. Notice how C-3P0 takes R2-D2 everywhere with him at the beginning of Empire and is rejected by girl robots. No girl robots are anywhere to be seen. It is only after R2 leaves with Luke that C-3P0 starts making genuine female robot contacts like that silver girl robot in Cloud City. Once Luke starts hanging out with R2 all his luck goes right down the crapper the whole rest of the movie. At first Princess Leia is all kissing him and then he gets R2 and his life turns to crap. This is perhaps the most important lesson of Empire Strikes Back, that R2-D2 is birth control. When I say birth control I mean you will never have to worry about getting anyone pregnant if you constantly remind everybody what a big dork you are.

Having decided to carry R2D2 around, Luke finds himself learning stuff from Yoda. Yoda is obviously supposed to be porn and Dagobah is the bathroom. I figure the Force is the mysterious chemical reaction in your pants that gives you a hard weiner. You can learn a lot from Yoda about the Force but you will be all alone in the bathroom a lot. It will just be you by yourself fighting your Darth Vader in the tree. Darth Vader is a metaphor for masturbation. I am so sick of Darth Vader and all the fist shaking and other hand gestures he does that are reminiscent of masturbatory technique. So he gets the wank metaphor. When Luke fights him in the tree it is his victory against wanking. But that victory would be short lived. At Cloud City Luke tries valiantly to fight Vader but in the end of the movie when he's on that plank and Vader is bearing down on him Luke learns a powerful lesson. And that lesson is masturbation takes your right hand. Ultimately Luke gets a robot hand, which is sort of a 21st century take on the idea that masturbation will make you go blind. In Star Wars, masturbation turns your hand into a robot. And that's the only reason Star Wars is better than Laserblast.