I've seen some debates here over the last few days about what George Lucas really meant.
Whereas Star Wars is probably the most well-documented film in history. We don't just know what Lucas explained after the fact, but what he was saying at the time of creation.
We often forget that we bring our own cultural capital, our own history to our interpretations. I remember perfectly when I became a fan. It was in Star Tours, during the attack on the Death Star. It was the thrill of being able to take part in the destruction of...
...fascists who looked exactly like the ones who devastated my country. I grew up with stories of oppression. SW made them accessible, understandable to the child I was. So for me, the space battles and lightsaber battles were just the exciting part of a background that told a personal story.
That's why, at the same time, I was fascinated by “V”.
For some people, the political context of stories is just a detail, or even a childish take, but for me, it's always been important. I'd even go so far as to say it's the original reason for my love of sci-fi.
A lot of V went over my head as a kid. When I revisited it as an adult, I thought the "scientists are evil" was so ham-handed and, to me, unlikely. And then COVID happened, and I saw it all play out even dumber than a mediocre teleplay...
I wish that people would’ve listened to any of these stories. it would’ve made the constant stream of anti-authoritarian sci-fi worth it, but clearly they didn’t. I wonder what other kinds of stories we could’ve told if we weren’t always trying to warn people about something they wouldn’t listen to!
I don't disagree, but the guy who sparked all this likes to claim that interviews like that are simply Lucas retconning meaning into his work that wasn't there in the text. It's, frankly, Some Bullshit, but yeah.
I have had the enormous fortune of never having had to live through any sort of war, famine, or extremist -isms, I just don’t like the idea of bastards, spaceborne or terrestrial.
“Nazis are bad” (even if they dress cool) isn’t such a complicated concept.
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Whereas Star Wars is probably the most well-documented film in history. We don't just know what Lucas explained after the fact, but what he was saying at the time of creation.
For some people, the political context of stories is just a detail, or even a childish take, but for me, it's always been important. I'd even go so far as to say it's the original reason for my love of sci-fi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbmyIzsCpk0
Rex (RX-24) did it !
"Infinite energy sounds good, what are we going to use it for?"
"So we can blow up planets that don't do what we tell them to do."
“Nazis are bad” (even if they dress cool) isn’t such a complicated concept.