Abuse the Force: Star Wars creator George Lucas should not support the political dark side

The Calgary Sun ^ | May 29, 2005 | Paul Jackson

[quidnunc]

Irate fans of George Lucas' Star Wars juvenile romps have obviously spent too much time waiting in the freezing cold outside movie theatres with the result their brains have become permanently numb.

They're outraged at me following the column "Utter nonsense," (May 24) accusing me of trying to slur Lucas and of mixing politics with entertainment.

Excuse me, but it was Lucas himself, now an arch-foe of the democratically elected government of U.S. President George W. Bush, who decided to mix politics with entertainment.

That's when, at the official opening of the latest Star Wars movie, he said it contained a "wake-up" call to Americans to rise up against the Bush administration which, he insisted, was insidiously trying to take away their individual freedoms.

And, he said, when he conceived the first Star Wars movie that appeared in 1976, it was actually an attack against the alleged dictatorial aims of President Richard Nixon and his involvement in the Vietnam War.

So, the entire Star Wars series has not been solely about entertaining audiences — they have contained subtle political messages to back Democratic or lib-left candidates and oust the Republicans from power at every opportunity.

-snip-

[BackInBlack]

"Lucas ripped ideas from so many sources, including WWII and samurai movies, Asimov's Foundation series, old 30's serials, etc. that you can't really pin it down to one source."

T.S. Elliot said "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." I guess Lucas disproves the rule.

[BackInBlack]

Well, it's not like the Jedi wanted to dismantle galactic governance once the Empire was destroyed. The Jedi weren't going to "give power back to the states." They were just going to rule "justly." So I don't see the same comparison.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

If anybody thinks Star wars is science fiction, may the FARCE be with them.

[MadIvan]

Try this -

Wanted: Dark Side Republicans

Regards, Ivan

[driftless]

However there are Hollyweird libs, like James Woods, Ron Silver, and the Zucker brothers, who can distinguish between right and wrong and support the war on Islamo-fascism. I suspect that there are a number of Hollyweird libs who remain silent on the issue for fear of ostracism and damage to their careers by the lunatic left who run Hollyweird.

[Senator_Palpatine]

Viceroy,I don't want those stunted slime Democrats in my sight again....:-)
This turn of events is unfortunate....
We must accelerate our plans....
Begin landing your troops...

[Kozak]

Lucas is such an A##. It's the late 70's and we are engaged in the twilight struggle with a REAL Evil Empire. And the smart money is on them. We just lost in Vietnam, we had the boat people, the killing fields, the Cubans are all over Africa, Nicaragua is about to go, and the Soviets are pouring arms into Europe, the Italians are close to electing a Communist government. Kissinger has made the statement " I fear we are Athens to the Soviet's Sparta" in a gloomy analogy to the Peloponnesian war. And Lucas thinks the Empire is US and Nixon is evil?

30 years later, and we are engaged in a war, another long twilight struggle with a fanatic 7th century death cult, which if it wins will first of all destroy EVERYONE and everything remotely as decadent as Hollywood. That despises us precisely because we are free and inovative. And Lucas this "artist" man of "vision" and great friend of democracy, thinks the greatest threat is the elected president of the United States? Someone someday will look back on this idiocy and write a great movie. If that is he doesn't have to do so in Arabic.

[BackInBlack]

"However there are Hollyweird libs, like James Woods, Ron Silver, and the Zucker brothers, who can distinguish between right and wrong and support the war on Islamo-fascism."

Yes, and there are other people like that too, such as former NYC Mayor Ed Koch.

[Darnright]

>Actually, I thought Palpatine reminded me quite a bit of Michael Moore.<

When we went to see Episode 3 last night, as soon as the actor playing Chancellor Palpatine came onto the screen, hubby leaned over and whispered, "ROBERT BYRD!!!!". I have to say, the guy sure did look like 'ol Sheets.

[Paul Atreides]

I never believed that Dune was the sole source for Lucas. I watched both Star Wars and Dune for years and it took someone else to point out the similarities. I noticed two other similarities:

Darth Vader has two character similarities, rolled into one character, in that he is the evil antagonist, who turns out to be the father of the hero and the Baron Harkonnen is the evil antagonist who turns out to be the grandfather of the hero. Also, Darth Vader does the dirty work for the Emperor, which is the same sort of character as Count Fenring.

Also, there is the Imperial Senate in SW and compared to The Landsraad, in Dune. Granted, this is not a stretch, in that most science fiction films have a form of government, consisting of many planets.

I do agree with you on the Flash Gordon/SW similarities. In fact, I think that I had read somewhere that George Lucas stated that he wanted to have the spirit of those movies in SW.

I'm not trying to have it all my own way, I'm just saying that I do believe there are strong similarities in the two movies.

I'm just glad that there are no Ewoks in Dune.

[chudogg]

OR

The Sith are obviously communists. With the previous struggle with the Sith (communists) ending with the belief that the Jedi destroyed the last of them (aka the Soviet Union falling), only for them to remain secret and return many years later in the very institution that they protect (either the U.N. or even the U.S. Congress). Al Qaida would be like the Seperatists, relatively irrelevant with the Communists supporting both sides.

The Jedi's would be the U.S. military, with their Jedi Council being Republicans getting backstabbed by traitors in their own government.

[Natural Law]

I am a conservative Republican who has seen all 9 episodes numerous times. Lucas did put some political elements into the final episode, but there are numerous examples from history that parallel the story. I fail to see how anyone can construe any of this as Bush bashing.