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Jar Jar’s Law

By Neil J. SquillanteJuly 2002 Although the Star Wars saga has some realism problems (e.g., planets tend to have many native sentientspecies rather than just one or two), it's extremely realistic when it comes to technology. Rarely doestechnology work without a hitch in that galaxy far far away.I refer to this depiction of technology in the Star Wars films as

Jar Jar's Law

. If anything can go wrong withtechnology, it will. Jar Jar Binks, of course, is the inept amphibian with a heavy accent whom Star Wars fanslove to hate. Jar Jar's mishaps in

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

pale in comparison to what he does in

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

, the latest installment. Now a senator, Jar Jar is duped into starting a warthat will claim millions of lives, destroy the Jedi order, give rise to the Galactic Empire's reign of terror … andsell lots of popcorn and action figures. The Star Wars saga brims with technology-related problems.In episodes IV, V, and VI, the Millennium Falcon never quite works properly. Perhaps the most Sisypheanfigure in pop culture, Chewbacca endlessly applies temporary fixes to the ship’s notoriously unreliablehyperdrive to get the crew out of imminent danger. Chewbacca gives new meaning to the term

quantum mechanics

.By no means does the Millennium Falcon have a monopoly on problems. In just about every scene showingan immense hangar of fighter ships, maintenance crews abound, and it looks like they're doing much morethan just checking the oil and refilling the windshield cleaner. In addition, every fighter ship requires a robotsidekick (or

astromech droid

in the Star Wars vernacular) to continually make adjustments and repairs.We all know about the Death Star's infamous design flaw. However, it wouldn't have become a fatal flaw if Darth "Anakin" Vader's weapons targeting system had more quickly locked onto his son Luke's ship. Forget

the force

. I know buggy software when I see it.Ships and weapons aside, Star Wars technology also fails on a level with which we can identify. Forexample, the holographic video-conferencing technology is certainly drool-worthy, but in Episode II, Obi-Wancannot phone home because he's out of range. I suppose it's just as well given those ridiculously highgalactic roaming charges.Obi-Wan does manage to contact Anakin on Tatooine, but when Anakin retrieves the message from voice-mail, it suffers from static and drop-outs. Where's that Sprint PCS guy when you need him ("I ordered somemango scones, but ended up with an army of Jango clones!")? Also in Episode II, Obi-Wan discovers that a rogue Jedi has deleted some data from the Jedi Library's Archives. Apparently, we're not the only ones who have to worry about hackers breaking into our computersystems. Adding to the realism, the Jedi Library does not seem to have a backup copy of its Archives.