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How The Star Wars Franchise Started As A Commentary On American Imperialism
Task and Purpose ^ | December 16, 2015 | Angry Staff Officer

Posted on 12/17/2015 12:43:33 PM PST by Zhang Fei

George Lucas’ original intent was that his original trilogy be remembered as a striking blow against American imperialism.

In the run up to the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the latest addition to the franchise, there has been a flurry of blog activity making comparisons between current national security issues and a “galaxy far, far away.” Star Wars is a fruitful topic for writers everywhere, as it has a broad appeal and is general knowledge for most people because of its status in popular culture. What many people may not know, however, is that Star Wars creator George Lucas had national security issues in mind as he wrote and produced the first three movies in the series.

“Star Wars: A New Hope” was released in 1977, just two years after the fall of Saigon, Vietnam, and four years after the end of direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. These memories were fresh in movie audience’s minds as they viewed the on-screen struggle of poorly trained and equipped Rebels against the technological juggernaut that was the Empire. The analogy lay on the surface, and it was not unintentional. Lucas has since suggested that his work was meant as an allegorical protest of the Vietnam War.

(Excerpt) Read more at taskandpurpose.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: starwars
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To: JoeFromSidney
It was years later, in the late 1960s, when I finally got the time to write the story. It was published in ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION under the title Zero Sum.

Very impressive. You're the closest thing Free Republic has to Jerry Pournelle.

41 posted on 12/17/2015 3:42:13 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Zhang Fei
Very impressive. You're the closest thing Free Republic has to Jerry Pournelle.

Actually my friend Jerry Pournelle is a long way ahead of me. However, I have a couple of novels in the works. I expect to get them published early next year.

42 posted on 12/17/2015 4:20:55 PM PST by JoeFromSidney (,)
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To: Zhang Fei
Very impressive. You're the closest thing Free Republic has to Jerry Pournelle.

Actually my friend Jerry Pournelle is a long way ahead of me. However, I have a couple of novels in the works. I expect to get them published early next year.

43 posted on 12/17/2015 4:21:37 PM PST by JoeFromSidney (,)
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To: JoeFromSidney
Sorry f or the double post.
44 posted on 12/17/2015 4:24:27 PM PST by JoeFromSidney (,)
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To: pfflier
I have no idea what Lucas thought he was projecting. He failed dismally if he thought it was perceived to be anti-American.

Agree totally.

45 posted on 12/17/2015 6:22:07 PM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism. It is incompatible with real freedom.)
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To: discostu

You’re an idiot.


46 posted on 12/17/2015 7:33:51 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

You’re a fact challenged bully who can’t complete a post without insults. Meanwhile, you just proved again that you know I’m right.


47 posted on 12/18/2015 6:36:26 AM PST by discostu (Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start)
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To: discostu

You’re an idiot.


48 posted on 12/18/2015 11:00:12 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: JoeFromSidney
However, I have a couple of novels in the works. I expect to get them published early next year.

I'll keep an eye open for them on Amazon...

49 posted on 12/18/2015 1:28:50 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: DiogenesLamp

Repeating your sad need to insult doesn’t make it suddenly fact filled, persuasive or interesting. It just reiterates for all to see that you know you have no facts, no logic, and obviously are beneath contempt and useless.

Merry Christmas.


50 posted on 12/18/2015 3:37:30 PM PST by discostu (Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start)
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To: Zhang Fei

So nice that the freedom fighters prevailed in Vietnam, and then they murdered over 3 million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to celebrate their brand of freedom.


51 posted on 12/18/2015 3:41:04 PM PST by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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To: exit82
So nice that the freedom fighters prevailed in Vietnam, and then they murdered over 3 million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to celebrate their brand of freedom.

Lucas is obviously a great film maker and not much of a political analyst. I'm glad he stuck with his day job. We are better off for it.

52 posted on 12/18/2015 3:52:56 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: discostu
I've argued and debated with people for decades. I sometimes find people who are intelligent, knowledgeable, and rational... but more often I find people like you.

You strike me as a person that has no idea how much stuff you don't know, but which you ought to know if you intend to be arguing with someone like me.

You also strike me as a person who is content to remain ignorant. Indeed, to glory in your ignorance. You are content to see trees without seeing a forest. You are someone for whom the little picture is sufficient, and if you can't see beyond it, for you, it doesn't exist.

Why should I waste any effort trying to reason with such a person as I perceive you to be? You aren't amenable to reason, and don't even seem to have the tools for it.

I see your name on other threads from time to time, and invariably you have taken the idiot side of whatever argument is then in progress. I generally refrain from engaging you because I perceive the effort to be futile. Like trying to teach a monkey to do math or something.

Usually I just ignore you, but this last time I thought I might persuade you by giving you several obvious examples of how you were wrong.

I should have known, of course, that you lacked the knowledge or the wit to grasp any of the examples. You probably hadn't heard of all of them before I mentioned them to you. Which brings us back to this.

You don't have a sufficient knowledge base to argue with me.

You may regard what I said as an "insult" but from what I can see, it is just a simple statement of fact.

53 posted on 12/18/2015 3:53:26 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

Maybe out in the world you can debate. On the internet you’re just a flame war junky troll who can’t be bothered to put together a statement without insults.

And then you go on for a long diatribe of boring pathetic insulting crap.

Really you could save everybody time if you’d just man up, and admit you have no facts or logic to back your position, because your position is plainly wrong. I countered all your points and all you can muster is insults.

We all know you’re wrong.


54 posted on 12/18/2015 3:59:15 PM PST by discostu (Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start)
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To: discostu

See what I mean? Just calling you an “idiot” saves me a lot more time.


55 posted on 12/18/2015 4:06:37 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

It’s always funny to me how the ones that go on these long pointless insult ridden rants always include how the person isn’t worth their time. Really, think about it.

Meanwhile you still can’t be bothered to come up with facts, logic, or frankly anything worth reading... or even typing for that matter. Pretty much the only thing we agree on is that indeed you are completely wasting your time. Of course I think you’re wasting time on a much grander scale, like with every single pointless, factless, insult laden post you’ve ever made on FR.

Anyway. Bad Santa is way more entertaining than you could ever hope to be. Good bye, good luck.


56 posted on 12/18/2015 4:25:08 PM PST by discostu (Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start)
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To: discostu

Turn off the light on your way out.


57 posted on 12/18/2015 4:28:26 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

Lucas had a pretty strong hand in ‘American Graffiti’ which is great. THX1138 is pretty good too.


58 posted on 12/21/2015 9:24:05 AM PST by Borges
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To: Zhang Fei

Wedge was Scottish, at least in Return of the Jedi, and I think Red Leader was Scottish as well. Vader was also voiced by an American.

So far as your theory, actually, I think even that wouldn’t have made the intent more obvious. What WOULD have made the intent more obvious is if they cast the Rebels as Vietnamese people, though your point about Americans in the bad guy roles definitely works for the intent.

Anyways, it’s largely because of how the Rebel Alliance was inspired by the Vietcong as well as George Lucas’s bombshell about how Star Wars was not only anti-Vietnam War, but also pro-Vietcong propaganda that I’m an Empire supporter now (and I’m not even particularly happy that I have to support the Empire as of now, but thanks to that, my love the Rebel Alliance has been destroyed, possibly permanently, wrecking a large part of my childhood as a result.). I simply cannot in good conscience support something that was explicitly based on a Vietnamese communist rebel group backed by the hated USSR that, alongside other communist groups and even other atheists tried to wipe us Christians out (in case you’re wondering about that other atheists bit, the French Revolution did similar stuff and that predated Karl Marx’s birth), and that combined with the fact that George Lucas made the country that, if anything, tried to SAVE Vietnam from becoming a anarchistic/communist totalitarian nightmare, into a villain left me with a lot of disgust for the Rebel Alliance I had formerly looked up to as a kid, a naïve kid who believed they were the American Minutemen. Essentially, I started rooting for the Empire because right now that’s the only faction I CAN support. I can’t even allow myself to continue to believe that the Rebel Alliance was the Minutemen after Lucas explicitly trashed that, as I’ve pretty much been taught that, no matter what my personal beliefs of what a work is supposed to represent, they are INFERIOR and MEANINGLESS before the actual creator of said work. It’s ingrained into me so much that the only way my views would ever, EVER mean anything regarding that work is if I shove said creator off a building and take control of it myself, THAT’S how deep my feelings of inferiority before a person who creates something lie. And since I’m forced by the Ten Commandments to not kill, I can’t ever let myself be that.


59 posted on 03/26/2016 5:57:58 AM PDT by otness_e
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