[SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the Star Wars movies, and think that someday you might, be aware that there are some minor spoilers below.]

It has occurred to me that it might be fun to write a satiric piece on the Star Wars saga as a non-Christian religious parable. I've read a number of satiric reviews of well known books and movies that reframe them in terms of hard-line Christian parables (google, for example, Gilligan's Island and the Seven Deadly Sins, wherein each of the cast members represents one of the deadly sins -- except for the Skipper, who represents two, thereby freeing up Gilligan to step into the role of Lucifer, who will eternally torment the others...), and I had thought it might be funny to do the same with Star Wars, only I'd reframe it as a parable from a different major religion.

Of course, satirizing certain religions in any form results in international bedlam and fatwahs and other unpleasantries. Witness Salman Rushdie and the recent Danish Debacle. I'm all for freedom of speech, but do I really want to risk my life or well-being just to make a humorous observation? Perhaps some other day, but not today.

The idea for this satire-that-I'm-not-writing came to me when I realized that Lucas has a thing about chopping off people's hands, and his saga features a religious order that insisted on trumping the political order of society. Many have argued (effectively) that this could describe any of the world's major religions (and there are *many* overtly and uniquely Christian references throughout the scripts, what with Immaculately conceived Anakin going around spouting New Testament quotes hither and yon), but with the hand-chopping-off-kink that Lucas kept returning to, I thought it might be fun to explore a non-Christian angle.

Are you not familiar with the hand-chopping-off motif in Star Wars? Here's a handy guide.

In Episode I, nobody's hands get chopped off that I recall. But...

Episode II, Attack of the Clones:

• Obi-Wan, in a bar, cuts off the assassin's right arm with his light-sabre (just as in the original Star Wars).
• Mace Windu, during the climactic battle scene in the arena on Geonosis, cuts off Jango Fett's right hand as a prelude to decapitating him.
• Count Dooku cuts off Anakin's right arm in their duel at the end of the movie.

Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (The last one filmed)

• Anakin cuts off *both* of Count Dooku's hands with his light-sabre before decapitating him (the first and only Star Wars movie where the left hand goes as well as the right).
• Obi-Wan chops off one of General Greivous's left hands. Then one of his right hands....
• Anakin chops off Mace Windu's right hand.
• Obi-Wan cuts off Anakin's remaining arm (the left) and both legs, just to be complete about it.

Episode IV, A New Hope (The original Star Wars)

• Obi-Wan, in a bar, cuts off the thug's right arm with his light-sabre (just as he does in Attack of the Clones).

Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back

• Luke Skywalker cuts off the ice monster's right arm with his light-sabre.
• Darth Vader cuts off Luke Skywalker's right hand with his light-sabre.

Episode VI, The Return of the Jedi

• Luke Skywalker cuts off Darth Vader's right arm with his light-sabre (only to discover that Darth Vader's right arm was already entirely mechanical, as we know, since it was cut off already in Attack of the Clones back when Darth Vader was still Anakin Skywalker).

In my next pop culture critique, I'll examine the endorsement of fascism found in Toy Story and Toy Story 2.