One of the most incredible spectacles in a movie that loves spectacle, is the brief but mind-bending scene of the colossal, deep-space worm. The galaxy in which Star Wars is set is vast beyond imagining and is so successfully portrayed in the films by the extreme diversity of worlds and peoples; ranging wildly across deserts, iceland wastes or floating cities, all inhabited variously by industrious pigmy’s, tyrannical slugs or neurotic machines.
But this scene captures something else; briefly, as the narrative collects itself, we encounter the ‘wilderness.’ On the edge of civilised space, of the things known familiar within the fictional world of the film, we look out over an expanse alien to the heroes, and we become suddenly aware of a world older and greater than the setting of the film, and more unnerving still, a world unaffected and unconcerned with the events of the story. It is an odd inclusion- does it diminish the tale, or does it enrich its context? The wonder and fantasy of the ‘space opera’ is described in the epic naval conflicts, clustered shipyards and space-stations and long inter-planetary journeys, but here, a bit of strange, uncertain horror intrudes- a moment where wonder is chilled, and wide-eyes quiver. The scene with the titanic and blind worm, sunk within a lightless and silent asteroid, introduces a vague and unnerving glimpse of a dismal eternity, of appalling scale, and of a grotesque and abominable consciousness awake in the furthest corners of the galaxy.
The worm is not part of the narrative- is seen in its horrid entirety for only a moment and is not even directly referred to. It may have been created as an uncertain and overblown ‘environmental threat,’ unbiased and unintelligent, to remind us of the wonder of the exotic setting. The sequence skilfully paces the action, giving the crew and audience time to rest and reflect while the tension builds for the next development. After the Millennium Falcon escapes the Imperial attack on the ice-planet Hoth, it attempts to evade the pursuing warships by negotiating a swarming asteroid cluster and setting down within the monumental caverns of one of the floating derelicts. When the moment is right, the threat is there to drive them out and kick the story onward; the worm is revealed, the crew are driven onward and in that moment, we are incidentally exposed to the frightening setting beyond. Even more disturbing in the surprise and dismay of the heroes, who belong to this world, and their reluctance to describe or even acknowledge what they have seen;
Han; jaw-clenched and cagey, desperately races the Falcon out of the asteroid, in stoic comprehension of the magnitude of the horror:
“This is no cave.”
Leia; wide-eyed and briefly maidenly in her terror of the descending jaws, whirls on the grim pilot:
“What?!”
What is this thing? What is it doing here? How can this be possible? In the remotest and most inhospitable place imaginable, this monster lives, but it is not a familiar monster, not a slashing insect, or a shuffling cyborg that are so commonly found within the galaxy- but a worm. A worm; the eternal symbol of decay, of coming death, destruction, and forgetfulness, the consumption of all things, slow and faceless, the attendant of graves, persistent and meticulous. The worm is here –eating- sunk within its meal- feeding blindly and insatiably and eternally, grown to ghastly size by endless gluttony. In a dark corner, buried, hidden from the light even in this lightless realm, it finds sustenance, consuming dust and ancient rock, gnawing on the galaxy's old bones, nibbling at the very fabric of space itself.
Is this literally Poe’s Conqueror? The metaphor for not only human mortality- that these advanced people are not yet immune to, or the mortality of all things? Or space and time itself? What have the heroes stumbled upon? The slow destruction and dissolution of the galaxy begun in this dark corner? Or a manifestation of a primordial element of the universe itself- like the deep-space gods of Lovecraft- a god of decay or un-doing- patient, eternal, with a mind that count only eons, eyes that see only galaxies- quietly adrift out here, awaiting a change.
Had the crew stopped to consider this thing- the primordial connotation of rock and worm, of the immensity of time that shifts asteroids, or the impossible patience of a creature adrift in the void- if they had contemplated the mind of such a being, how would it have affected them? Being suddenly presented with a tangible slither of the true vastness of the universe, would they have had the spirit to continue? What is one brief war between indistinct creatures in the entirety of all conflict? What is the point of saving and safeguarding mortal lives when death is assured? What is the motivation of acting at all when the knowledge of any deeds will be lost and so thoroughly forgotten that it might never have happened? What it the purpose of any happening at all when the universe itself is mortal, and so with it- time, space and the totality of existence?
Shall the Worm be the only witness at the end of existence? In the last moments- at the end of time- when its size now fills all space, and what remains- merely dust and energies- are contained within its insides, shall the Worm turn and devour itself, tail first in stupid insatiable gluttony?
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Image credit; (images cropped as needed)
1. http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080201041921/starwars/images/8/85/Hothslug.JPG;
2. http://spaceships.30doradus.org/main.php?g2_itemId=576
3. http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/ep5/sslug2.jpg;
4. http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/25200000/Star-Wars-Episode-V-The-Empire-Strikes-Back-star-wars-25222428-1280-720.jpg;
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