Star Wars is about the battle against fascism.
Which is indeed why the Imperial officers all wore Hugo Boss nazi uniforms.
George Lucas did also say at one point that he based the red and green laser fire of the Imperial and Rebel forces on the tracers being fired by the US and Viet Cong, which was an iconic bit of imagery that was widely televised. Also:
However, when Lucas sat down with director James Cameron in 2018, he revealed how the Empire was also meant to resemble America — particularly the way it prosecuted the Vietnam War. Cameron pointed out how the Rebels are a small group using asymmetric warfare against a highly organized Empire. Today, Cameron added, the Rebels would be called terrorists. "When I did it," Lucas replied, "they were Viet Cong."
In other words, Lucas viewed the Vietnamese as the rebels and America as the invading villains. He further explained that Star Wars was a "vessel" in which to place his worldview that the United States had become an empire during the Vietnam War, doomed to fail like every empire before it. Cameron noted how those views carried over into the Star Wars prequel trilogy, especially in Padmé's line, "This is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause." Lucas replied, "We're in the middle of it right now," referring to the country's political state.
(Via.)
People who consume sci-fi and fantasy thinking there should be no politics, don't understand the genre at all.
Can we really point to a single instance of a good sci-fi/fantasy that doesn't touch on politics/societal commentary at all?
I doubt it.
I'm waiting for someone to say that Babylon 5 never got "political"
Once I realised it was Twitter, it all makes sense. It's a hellsite let it die.
Yeah who tf is still scrolling that shit unless they're thumbs can't unclick the dumbass X icon on their phone
To be fair, the Rebels weren't Asian stereotypes, how were the dummies supposed to recognize that?
he followed up to simultaneously say he was joking while also doubling down 🤦
Lol, he's literally doing the "I was just pretending" comic.
i like this version
https://xcancel.com/theronster/status/1919491001296552311#m
He trebled down a year later. I think he is actually trying to be ironic in his bio. But he's still just an idiot.
I actually thought he was being ironic. I thought, someone who was actually engaging with the allegory enough to acknowledge the correct answer and so quickly—this couldn't have been their first time thinking about it.
This second reply is very confusing if that's true, though.
Wow what a fuckin ass.
Sure Aaron... You were being "Ironic"...
Besides of the "Wars", it also has a lot of explicit politics, it's just the Intergalactic Empire isn't being controlled by the National Socialist Sith Party.
War is politics
"Noooo, war in entertainment media should be good guys fighting bad guys!"
"Americans fighting middle easterners for example.
Non-political stuff like that."
By other means
Yep. Politics by other means is still politics.
Really there's nothing that's not political in some way. Politics is the expression of human wills and desires and people tend to say something is political when they disagree.
Literally. Politics is all about the power dynamics between people. If there are two or more people there will always be a power dynamic even if the two are on good terms and do not exert power over each other.
It’s like how you can always describe the color in any given painting, even when the painting is monochromatic.
Woah there, that's leftist woke propaganda, talking about human wills and desires. I was brought up apolitical so I'm sensitive to these things - I can only vote for the Republicans because every other party is just too political.
/s
Every so often I wonder how people could be so stupid and/or heartless to bring the world to where it is today and then I see an American tweet something outstandingly silly/inmoral and I remember, lol.
Also, Americans use the word "political" to mean ethical nowadays. And whenever they recoil because you said something like "hey, wars for profit are wrong" or "gay people shouldn't be killed just because they're gay" and ask you to stop being 'political', they're just admitting they don't stand for anything, no self-restraining rules nor lofty ideals. This is why the Nazis could also go as far as they went: "just follow the leader and I too will succeed, I don't believe or stand for anything except what has been told to me and I'm a good boy for following". They want/got the bag, and fuck you, basically.
Also, Americans use the word "political" to mean ethical nowadays.
A certain segment of our population has been told to equate words like "political" and "woke" with "That person is saying or doing something that might influence someone about something I've been told to disagree with".
It's incredibly horrifying how quickly this same segment of the population has been conditioned to view the rest as "weak, sensitive, entitled weirdos who can't handle even the slightest criticism without seeing it as a existential threat" while simultaneously being conditioned to throw a tantrum when anyone takes an action to support something they've been told they should disagree with.
Americans use the word "political" to mean ethical nowadays.
This is wonderfully succinct and I will be stealing it, please and thank you.
See also: anything that challenges the status quo and/or my worldviews.
Every so often I wonder how people could be so stupid
Most of the world's large predators are extinct or on the verge of extinction. Interpret that how you want.
Did you know there is a vegan heavy metal artist that named one of his songs your username?
🤘
Region locked, unfortunately.
Region locked :/
It's astounding any living thing which is that deeply stupid can survive to adulthood.
We've made it so easy.
I wonder why BioWare was pressured to cut out so much of Juhani’s content in KOTOR. I don’t think that was a BioWare decision - Jade Empire and Mass Effect both had lesbians. I’m not really willing to give George Lucas rainbow a lot of rainbow points.
If Finn and Poe’s chemistry had been allowed to blossom naturally, I think the sequels would have been much better. The attempted “theme” of “it doesn’t matter where you come from, you can shape your own destiny” just would be so much better if the story had been about Finn’s growth and reconciliation with his past work for the First Order. Then you don’t have Rose (and the subsequent ridiculous internet harassment that poor actress received) and the aborted character/subplot.
You can even do Palpatine returning, just have it be more like the Thrawn clone shit. Less Jedi stuff, more people stuff. You’re even copying the structure of the original trilogy that way - Rey is off doing her Jedi training stuff, while Poe and Finn are on related adventures that lead them to growing closer and closer.
Like I’m 99% sure the actors for both characters have even said that they agreed with the fact that those characters were needing each other.
I'm not denying that Finn and Poe had an interesting chemistry, I just think that Poe should have stayed dead.
The lingering question of what could have been would have been a way to deepen Finn's character.
And if you want to keep the actor, well. When Poe comes in to land after rescuing Finn and the group, his first words to Poe are "why are you wearing my brother's coat?"
And now you have another interesting character dynamic to explore.
The author of the novelization confirmed it was originally supposed to be Rey and Finn, but I think everyone can agree that FinnxPoe and ReyxKickingKyloInTheBalls is what should have happened.
Personally I think ReyxFinnxPoe was a pretty natural evolution but Disney would never have had the balls for it.
this post is cool and right but remember that disney is complicit in genocide
they are far from progressive
Which is why you should pirate Andor and ignore the rest of the franchise.
This is sort of wrong, though. lucas has said he drew inspiration from all the tiny country vs. giant empire fights - american revolution, vietnam, the winter war, Yi Sun-Sen's defeat of Japan, etc.
Vietnam was the most culturally prominent in the US, but beyond the superficialities (little force defeats big force) the stories don't really track at all. Like: there was no deathstar moment, there wasn't even a single decisive victory (the US just got sick of the meatgrinder and public pressure overcame the political will to continue). The US also wasn't defeated then replaced New Republic style, the NV weren't going it alone in their fight against the empire and nobody threw Kissinger off a cliff at the end (mores the fucking pity),
He drew ideas from a LOT when writing it; presenting it like it was inspired by a single event is pretty disingenuous.
Lots of good points here. It would have been cool if Star Wars had a more complex geopolitical (galactopolitical?) environment, including more instances of multilateral politics.I feel like this was touched on in the prequels, but it still kinda boiled down to "good guys vs bad guys." The general audience will get what it wants. That's how markets are supposed to work.
Still, I feel like it was a missed opportunity to have a politically complex sequel rather than just dialing up the space-wizard lore. We could have also gotten some more complex characters rather than just bad guys or good guys that change at the end. People are way more complicated than that.
It probably would have been better if Warner Bros. Had acquired the IP rather than Disney. I'd watch HBO Star Wars all day long. I get why that wouldn't work for their marketing position, but it would have been worth it to me to hear an Ewok say, "Yub yub, motherfucker" before offing the imperial officer that burned his village.
Also, we learn that Tibbit the Ewok has a bad glowroot problem, wasn't entirely faithful to his partner, Nubni, and was a bit of a negligent father. His character doesn't really improve, but he does save the village. The resultant fame nearly destroys him, and he goes back to spicebark farming with his toxic affair partner. The Alliance turns out to be as oppressive to the Ewoks as the Empire, but they have better PR. The other Ewoks label Tibbit as a traitor for protesting the Alliance he fought for. Ewoks boycott his spicebark. He loses everything. Grikk finds his body, glowroot seeping out of his mouth. Clutched in his lifeless paw is a child's drawing. It was the one Grikk gave him on Father's Day over a decade ago. Tibbit had yelled at Grikk and thrown the drawing away in an intoxicated rage. That was the last time Grikk had seen Tibbit. To think he had dug it out of the trash and carried it for ao many years. Grikk held his dead father's paw with tears in his eyes. "Yub yub, Dad. Yub yub."
Okay, Shakespeare it's not, but tell me if it's worse than any scene in the sequels.
I thought I remembered hearing that the Endor fight was pretty explicitly Vietnam
I could certainly believe it, there's lots of parallels. Dense jungle forest, ancient ruins, small brown... natives...
...
... hey wait a minute.
Really though I could believe it. I was only commenting that the idea all of OT star wars was an allegory for vietnam is a stretch. The existance of allegories in the OT is totally reasonable.
One could make the argument that the Death Star is a stand-in for nuclear weapons, as literal weapon of mass destruction. There was notable political push to use nuclear weapons in the Vietnam war
This was not too long after there was notable political push to use nuclear weapons for heavy excavation and similar engineering purposes. Thankfully it was never actually performed since the results would obviously have been devastating
Man, I know everyone was doing cocaine basically continuously in the 50s/60s but even for that era Teller was one coked up lunatic. His plan to "deflect earthquakes" by burying a mesh of nuclear weapons across basically the entire west coast has gotta be my favorite. Just absolute insanity.
I prefer the 18th century Carl Von Clausewitz's definition of war:
War Is politics by other means
!selfawarewolves@lemmy.world (non-.ml community for those that prefer)
In case anyone is remotely unclear, the empire was the Nazis/Axis. The rebel alliance was the Brits/Allies. Look at the films it borrows from. The Battle of Britain (1969), The Dam Busters (1955). It's a sci-fi setting WWII.
What a strange snippet. I've seen more articles about how Star Wars is based on samurai movies. Which is also true. George Lucas took inspiration from loads of places.
Exactly, the original star wars was basically WW2 movies with Flash Gorden. By the time of RTJ, Lucas has specifically said it was his intention that the Ewoks were the viet cong, and the empire was the USA. And then in RotS, Vader says "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy!" which is a pretty direct quote from George W. Bush who said "Either you're with us or you're against us in the fight on terror".
Yes, Bush said that but he’s just quoting the Bible. Matthew 12:30 “He that is not with me is against me” so by Obi-Wan’s subsequent assertion that “only the Sith deal in absolutes” Jesus is more Sith than Jedi.
