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give Luke something very special: “Your father’s lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster . . . An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.” On board the Millennium Falcon, Luke starts his (very Heideggerian) training. He must learn to think of his lightsaber not as some external and value-neutral object that’s present to him, but as a natural part of his body, an extension of his very being. In other words, he must make the transition from the “present-at-hand” to the “ready-to-hand.” And, more importantly, he must conceive both himself and his lightsaber as dynamic and fluid extensions of the Force itself. Luke practices his swordsmanship with a training remote (a small floating sphere), which hovers around him, stinging him with laser beams. Failing at first to defend himself, Obi-Wan suggests Luke wear a helmet with the blast-shield down so he cannot see at all, which Luke can hardly understand. But Obi-Wan instructs him: “Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.” Effectively, Luke is warned not to use the present-at-hand, but to feel the moment: “Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.” Luke re-engages the training remote and immediately succeeds. “You know, I did feel something,” Luke tells Obi-Wan. He has begun to learn that the Force is not at all a visual experience, but one of feeling, as though an energy field were flowing through him, connecting him to all things.

In the words of Yoda, Luke is beginning to “unlearn what he has learned”—and indeed, a lesson that will prove valuable later on, when Luke must battle a much greater artificial sphere: the Death Star. “Use the Force, Luke,” he hears Obi-Wan’s voice speaking through the Force—“Let go, Luke.” Quickly approaching his final target, and remembering his early training with the remote, Luke turns off his computer-controlled targeting system (much to the worry of his team), effectively blinding himself again. Aiming only through the Force, he fires a perfect shot into the Death Star’s core, blowing it to pieces.

Yoda as Being-in-the-Dagobah System

As great as this accomplishment is, however, Luke is not yet a Jedi Knight. He must continue his training under a new Jedi master, Yoda, who lives in the Dagobah system. Yoda appears as an organic extension of his natural environment, perhaps the best example of Heideggerian “attunement” in Star Wars. Yoda’s “being-in-the-world” is one entirely based in the “ready-to-hand.” With no technology to speak of, Yoda has only some basic equipment for cooking and living in his natural environment—and his dwelling is made of earth and mud. As a “beingin-the-world” (a being connected with his environment), Yoda lives as one with his surroundings, in perfect harmony with nature. Emerald green like the lush marshes all around him, he’s similarly filled with the natural light of the Force. He’s “at home” in the world, and nothing on Dagobah is “covered over”; his existence here is authentic.

Indeed, the contrast with the hard lines and right angles of the Galactic Republic is made quite explicit when Luke descends on Dagobah, covered in technology: his X-wing fighter, his high-tech uniform, his companion R2-D2, and even his food all appear very synthetic. Amused at the absurdity, Yoda asks Luke directly, “How you get so big, eating food of this kind?” None of this sort of thing is essential to Yoda—and still less is it essential for Luke’s own Jedi training in the swamp. Although Yoda apparently cannot help himself from stealing Luke’s little light pen: “Mine! Or I will help you not”—probably because it reminds him of the old days of the Republic and of his own lightsaber, an essential piece of Jedi technology that Yoda no longer wears on his person.

Only a few feet tall, long-eared and green, hobbling along on tridactyl feet with the aid of his Gimer stick,80 Yoda seems harmless . . . even ridiculous. And Luke cannot, for the life of him, imagine that this pesky little creature is a great Jedi warrior (not that wars make one great, as Yoda later notes).