Regards, Ivan
Posted on 05/29/2005 3:49:16 AM PDT by MadIvan
Politics gets into everything these days, even "Star Wars." "George Lucas must be a Democrat," said our 15-year-old son as he arrived home from the opening day of the latest Star Wars movie, "Revenge of the Sith," a film with the unfortunate initials, "ROTS."
Ah, The Force is strong in this one, I thought, echoing Darth Vader. For, without the benefit of any advance word or special Jedi abilities, our young Jedi easily detected the anti-Bush propaganda that some liberals, to their delight, and some conservatives, to their fuming outrage, allege is imbedded in Lucas' new flick.
In keeping with today's polarized politics, some of the culture warriors are not as amused by Lucas' message as my son was. "Our country is at war and Lucas spouts off this crap?, blasted a Web site called "Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood," echoing some other conservative sites.
"Lucas has basically all but said Vader is George W. Bush," conservative columnist John Podhoretz wrote in the National Review blog The Corner. In a Weekly Standard review, he also slammed the film and Lucas as "the final chapter in the sad degeneration of a vital, vivid, and highly amusing moviemaker into a dull, solipsistic, and humorless incompetent."
On the flip side of the political fence, Slate.com critic David Edelstein praised the film's "anti-fascist politics" for taking a "palpable swipe at our own Darth Dubyou."
How subversive is it? Not very. But, like a Rorschach ink-blot test, people will see what they want to see, or, for those who imagine Hollywood-liberal propaganda embedded in every movie not produced by Mel Gibson, what they don't want to see.
"If you're not with me, you're my enemy," declares Anakin Skywalker in the new "Star Wars" tale as he drifts over to the "dark side," morphing into the evil Lord Darth Vader and echoing Bush's warning, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Ouch.
His mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi, retorts, "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." Double ouch.
Bad-guy Chancellor Palpatine exploits war fears to consolidate his power, suspend democratic rule and turn the Republic into a dictatorship. It's not hard to hear echoes here of Congress' rush to pass the Patriot Act that expanded government search and eavesdropping powers after the Sept. 11 attacks. Sen. Padme Amidala, played by Nathalie Portman, laments, "This is how liberty dies: with thundering applause." Triple ouch.
But, has Lucas' prequel trilogy drifted all that far from the original "Star Wars" trilogy (which even then was labeled Episodes IV through VI) that then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) praised back in the 1980s for anticipating President Ronald Reagan's epic struggle against the evil empire of the Soviet Union?
I think Lucas has a larger, age-old message: If democratic societies like ours are not eternally vigilant, the next evil empire might be us.
In a news conference at the film's premiere in Cannes, Lucas said he wrote the framework of his double-trilogy way back in 1971 when President Richard Nixon still was building his "enemies list," long before George W's presidency.
"The issue was: How does a democracy turn itself over to a dictator? Not how does a dictator take over, but how does a democracy and Senate give it away?"
He also said, "I hope this doesn't come true in our country. Maybe the film will awaken people to the situation of how dangerous it is . . . The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we are doing now in Iraq are unbelievable."
Whether you agree with the Iraq-Vietnam comparison or not, Lucas did not need Bush or Iraq to come up with the Sith. Try the Roman Empire, the French Revolution or Adolf Hitler's Germany for many examples of democracies that willingly yielded power to dictators who used fears and suspicions of outside threats, internal disorder and assorted scapegoats to gain popular support.
The message of "Star Wars," then, is not much different from the heroic themes that energized the Saturday matinees when I was a kid. Freedom depends on ordinary people who are willing to fight for it, even when the dark side looks like an easier choice.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Triple ouch, actually...as Obi Wan has made an absolute statement. Obi Wan is therefore either a Sith or a liar. To be honest, I found this part amusing...just like the Left, the jedi turned out to be hypocrites.
Kool, if we hang out with you, you might rub off on us, i'll have to go crawl thru the mud to get officially "dark sided" :)
Regards, Ivan
Personally, I hope Hollywood keeps on churning out obviously leftist hit pieces disguised as "movies."
We all saw just how well that worked for them in the last election.
Yep, keep the base fired up and ticked off and soon there won't be many so called democrats left, Hillary notwithstanding.
It seems pretty innocuous to me. I think I'll go with some folks who aren't political and don't follow news such as this. If they spout off with anti-Bushisms based on the above, then they will have really read into the flick.
But it is obvious that Lucas did have to get from a republic to a dictatorship in some fashion. It is not a revelation that turmoil has caused changes in governments in the past. (Germany, Russia, China....just recent examples.) To go that route doesn't seem particularly ingenious to me.
Nor is it a picture of the US. Last I checked, I voted last November. So far as I know, I'll be voting again shortly if the Lord tarries.
It's only May of 2005 and already Hollyweird is running against W in 2008.....
The Jedi don't seem to want to "just get along" with the Sith.
Well, Obi Wan never was the sharpest tool in the shed.
Let them. They'll be wasting their energies on a guy not even running.
Oy.
Did any of these people actually SEE the movie?
Yeah , life's just a Star Wars movie , man !!! .... ;)
He should have finished off Vader when had the chance.
I can't wait to see the face of them in 25 years time, after we have Presidents Rice, McClintock, and Jindal in quick succession. They will very likely have labelled our time as "The Darkest Generation" after one conservative US president after another in succession, each even more progressively conservative on all three legs (foreign/defence/WOT, economic, social/religious).
I don't think Bush is smart enough to be on the dark side , but I am sure he appreciates the thought.
Touche`
one of the lamest scripts of all time, notwithstanding the opening day box office and the hype surrounding the movie...somebody oughta tell these hollywod types the truth...
We know Obi Wan is a liar or at least someone who does nuance when he didn't tell Luke what really happened to his father. Also he never told Luke that by holding up your lightsabre you can neutralize the force lightning that Palpatine had.
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