Didn’t Lucas explicitly confirm the Vietnam metaphor? I remember him saying the “you’re either with me or you’re against me” line was written with Nixon in mind.
Yes he did. He said the rebels were based on the Viet Cong.
I'll just leave this here, where George Lucas explicitly confirms the rebels were the communist Vietnamese and the Empire is america: https://youtu.be/Nxl3IoHKQ8c?t=56
And he explicitly corrects the interviewer when they attempt to call them the "English Empire" instead.
Lucas brings up the American Revolutionary War (he said something about "hayseeds in coonskin hats") as a parallel to the Vietnam War, probably to smooth over the discomfort the lib interviewer has with characterizing the modern and 60's US as the evil empire. So I don't think that's a correction, more like an insistence on continuing the parallel.
Side note, that turn of phrase was a masterful way to prevent/delay the interviewer from dismissing the viet kong as "terrorists." Lucas is extremely sharp. I definitely couldn't have directed the conversation as effectively.
he corrects the interviewer
That is James Fucking Cameron.
I have no idea what he looks like lmao
Wasn't Lucas also the directer who said that even soviet filmmakers had more freedom of expression than he did?
IIRC he said they had greater freedom in what they could make because they weren't pushed to produce as much profit as possible like he was, even if they needed to steer clear of censors. It makes a lot of sense, he is from the era where the soviet filmmakers were putting out some excellent films. And obv because capitalism kills art.
"Don't make my favorite childhood story political."
You mean besides the fact that it is explicitly a political story?
I've had bazingas argue to me that fucking GI JOE was "nonpolitical" and even said "did anyone ever tell you... the curtains are fucking blue?"
staring at blue curtains
"Why do you have to make everything about interior furnishings?!"
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Empire Did Nothing Wrong memes and associated interpretations of Star Wars (cough palpatine was AKTUALLY preparing for the yuzang vong cough) are a result of people making the connection that the Empire = America but being unable to admit to or acknowledge America's many crimes around the world, so they decide that the Empire was actually cool and based for napalming Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, and Alderaan was harbouring terrorists so they git what was coming to them
Actually I'm just going to paste a previous comment of mine here since there's no point t it typing it out all over again:
Empire did nothing wrong memes are literally just a pipeline to fash ideology. I would say I don't understand why people began to sympathize with the obviously fascist stand in that is the empire, but I have a theory.
The empire, especially in the Lucas films, represents the American empire and their post-ww2 imperialist projects. Meanwhile, the rebels represent anti-imperialist fighters. In A New Hope, we see how the imperialist occupiers create or expand opposition to themselves through their actions. Luke at the beginning of the movie still dreams of going off to the imperial academy and joining the empire. However, reality ensues and he experiences firsthand violent oppression at the hands of the empire, losing his family and home in a napalm bombing drone strike stormtrooper attack. This of course begins his radicalization and causes him to commit himself to combat the empire.
Now of course this introduces a contradiction into the mind of the average american viewer. On one hand, it is obvious why Luke dedicates himself to the destruction of the empire, it is the force that murders his family and countless others (multiple american invasions Alderaan). However, this also causes the average american to think about why people around the earth hate america, and if it could be related to the decades of american military actions around the globe. For some, this may be the wake up call that causes them to think "hey, are we the baddies?". For others, they have to go in the opposite direction. The Empire's actions are America's actions, and america can't be the bad guy so the Empire can't be the bad guy! There must be more nuance™ to this empire who's stormtroopers murder an innocent farming family and later annihilate a planet.
Or they're just fash that loves the mainstream acceptability of fascist inspired symbolism
I bet one could also synthesize that with things like the trend towards darker and edgier antihero stories that hit its stride in the 90s and how much liberal storytelling has leaned on vapid aesthetic tropes to delineate villains and heroes.
The Empire is the US, and it acts like the US, and to drive home to American audiences that despite the Empire acting like the US they were the bad guys Star Wars steeps them in Fascist aesthetics. Then you get another generation of Americans raised on darker and edgier media where the heroes are also villainous, and lazy stories where instead of making the villains villainous they just toss some allusions to Fascist aesthetics on them and call it a day, and just outright Fascist media like CoD, so when they look at Star Wars they just see America doing normalized things and looking powerful doing it.
Like I think it's not exclusively a problem with Star Wars but rather an entire media environment that helps socialize people towards making fascist conclusions, caused by the collaboration of liberals and fascists in Hollywood, in the comics industry, and in the games industry, as well as liberal creations tending to be vapid and aesthetics based things that can never really criticize the status quo (to which the whole darker and edgier trend was also a reaction). There's also a point to be made about how much American counter-culture has been reactionary and libertine instead of liberationist, and as those reactionary and libertine elements got mainstreamed they pivoted towards fascism as they started to perceive the left as a threat to their treats.
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I always thought the whole Empire Did Nothing Wrong meme started out as an ironic attempt to deconstruct real world apologia by applying the same style of rhetoric to a case where the subject is inescapably evil because it's a fiction where that evil can simply be asserted. It's a testament to the propagandization of the West that even satire as blatant as 'Luke Skywalker was a terrorist who killed thousands of innocent stormtroopers stationed on the Freedom Star' is treated as a bridge towards decreasingly ironic expressions of support for cartoon fascism rather than criticism of the fascistic tendencies in America.
Then again I also thought for a while that the attack helicopter meme was supposed to be in support of the trans community and based on frustration at the otherkin phenomenon for appropriating and trivializing the language, experience and struggles of trans people.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Empire Did Nothing Wrong memes and associated interpretations of Star Wars (cough palpatine was AKTUALLY preparing for the yuzang vong cough)
I hate that too because it's stupid nerd shit in books that are not even canon anymore. Empire are literally space nazis in these movies, you're rooting for fascists.
It wasn’t even canon in the books! It was almost entirely speculation by empire apologist weirdos when in reality the empire throughout 99% of the EU was just cacklingly evil. That is, until they were “rehabilitated”, said they were really sorry, drained the swamp, and became a good and proper liberal democracy just like the new republic 🙂
There is definitely a correlation with people who like the prequels (just the movies I haven't watched the cartoons) and people who are drawn fascist ideology. I'm not sure if its because r/prequelmemes was frequented by fascists and it bled over, or if those are people who just like shitty media. Prequelmemes had its roots in Red Letter Media's Mr Plinkett reviews of the films. Almost all the original posts were aping quotes from their videos, but they were soon drowned out by people who thought they were in good company.
I'm pretty sure the prequels are, if anything, more leftist than the originals. they show quite clearly the problems inherent in liberal projects and how liberalism turns into fascism during periods of crisis. that doesn't stop the libs and fash from missing the forest for the trees, but the actual content does not support them.
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:are-we-the-baddies:
Please explain number 2
"War is the continuation of politics by other means."
Possibly the dumbest response I've ever seen lmao
"War is war and politics is politics"
-Some moron that always insisted the curtains were just blue
This clip, but for explaining how wars are political
Libs finding out they're actually cheering on Luke "Viet Kong" Skywalker.
He claims he was being ironic while also dismissing the allegory as something Lucas made up decades later.
"In order to not be political, you should be forced to follow the Haye's code even though it has been long abolished for the default political viewpoint's comfort."
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