Posted on 04/10/2018 5:57:04 PM PDT by EdnaMode
If there’s something The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood knows about, it’s life imitating art.
And now, in a wide-ranging interview with Variety, which recognized the celebrated author as one of its Power of Women honorees, Atwood has made a surprising claim about the way she thinks pop culture influenced another event: She said the 9/11 terrorists attacks were borne out of a plot point from Star Wars.
Atwood was recounting how a 2000 opera of her acclaimed novel (and now Emmy-winning Hulu series) began with “a film reel going across the top of the stage and showing various things blowing up” including the Twin Towers. She then said that, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, this aspect of the production needed to be removed. “They didn’t get that idea from my opera, don’t worry,” she added, referring to the terrorists. “They got the idea from Star Wars.”
When Variety asked Atwood if she “really believes that,” she clarified why she, in fact, does. “Remember the first one? Two guys fly a plane in the middle of something and blow that up? The only difference is, in Star Wars, they get away,” she said. “Right after 9/11, they hired a bunch of Hollywood screenwriters to tell them how the story might go next. Sci-fi writers are very good at this stuff, anticipating future events.”
Atwood seems to be referring to a scene in the original Star Wars in which Luke Skywalker and fellow Rebel pilots launch an attack on Darth Vader’s planet-destroying weapon, the Death Star. Guided by the Force, Luke fires a proton torpedo that sets off a chain reaction and blows up the battle station; he then maneuvers away.
A representative for Atwood did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time Atwood, who shared in The Handmaid’s Tale‘s PGA Award win for Episodic Drama as a supervising producer, has attracted controversy for her comments. She recently drew criticism for promoting Andrew Sullivan’s New York magazine essay railing against the #MeToo movement, as well as for her own article in which she asked if she was a “bad feminist” for, among other things, being concerned about the movement going too far.
Who?
WHAAA?? The idea of terrorist using an airliner as a weapon goes back to a Tom Clancy novel.
Thanks a lot, Tommy...
She’s a Canadian author. Two of her novels (The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace) have been adapted as TV series during the last year.
Yes, it was Debt of Honor.
It was Clancy’s way of having his protagonist become President.
Clancy would have been a Trump supporter, I think.
The attack on the Death Star is risky but NOT a suicide mission. Warcraft are used firing weapons. Civilian airliners are NOT used. The Death Star is NOT a civilian building full of innocent people working their ordinary daily jobs.
Oh, but aside from a few such variations the 9/11 attackers were just like Luke Skywalker!
sheesh, Margaret Atwood really is a stoopid as we thought.
I’m pretty sure the OBL plan didn’t include the towers collapsing pancake style....
but never mind that was GWB plan all along / S
Well, then she’s an obvious expert in these matters.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
And it’s my belief Ray Stevens got the idea
for Guitarzan from the lyrics of Popsicles, Icicles.
It’s where they sing “he loves bright stars and guitars and...” They run guitars into ‘and,’ getting guitarzan.
She’s correct that during the Bush Administration the pentagon hired writers to conceive of possible scenarios related to attacks. That’s not anew technique though, it’s been done for awhile (See 3 Days of the Condor - a movie from the early 1970s which involves a writer of such)
Bin Laden wanted a visible target that would equate to movie-like disasters and make an impression on the American people.
All of this is readily available info - but she’s stupidly wrong on Star Wars.
She’s not as amart as she thinks she is.
Stephen King used that plot device as well in The Running Man.
“If there’s something The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood knows about, it’s life imitating art.”
Margaret Atwood doesn’t know much about anything except writing popular but ridiculous novels.
Kirt Russell
Executive Decision???
Terrorist attack using a jet...
Of course the inspiration for my “Star Wars” was “The Dambusters”.
Which in turn was inspired by the real life OPERATION CHASTISE to destroy the Ruhr dams.
Which in turn was an event in World War II.
So she’s actually blaming 9/11 on Hitler…
That makes sense!
Or anything else for that matter. In fact if you made a list of what Atwood knows about it would fit on a postage stamp.
I guess they did not cover kamikaze attacks in WWII in whatever poor excuse for education she got.
Seriously stupid.
She is a complete idiot but minds of mush, especially those who believe the Earth is flat, eat this stuff up as this will ooze from absurdity into what people want to believe. Maybe Snopes will even reinforce this.
It actually predates Clancy. It was in the Book The Running Man written by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982. It was later made into a film of the same name where the hero (Schwarzenegger) lived and did not crash the plane.
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