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 ...
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.
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.
Agree totally.
You’re an idiot.
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.
You’re an idiot.
I'll keep an eye open for them on Amazon...
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.
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.
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.
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.
See what I mean? Just calling you an “idiot” saves me a lot more time.
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.
Turn off the light on your way out.
Lucas had a pretty strong hand in ‘American Graffiti’ which is great. THX1138 is pretty good too.
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.
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