this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Star Wars is literally space conservatives rebelling against the galactic communist (1970s US propagandized version of invented communism-fascist aesthetic*) empire...
Firefly is to an even greater degree, like libertarian Browncoats rebelling. I love the fan fic take that the Alliance were the "good guys."
ok but the empire were literally fascists trying to rule the imperial senate with absolute authority......
Yeah it's not actual communism but more like a reflection of the fears of communism in pop culture from the time when it was written in the late 70s. Comment was a bit inprecise but amended.
Even the empire's uniforms were pretty obviously based on nazi uniforms, what makes you think the empire is supposed to represent communism?
George Lucas said Vietnam inspired the writing, and communism in American pop culture was synonymous with basically every "bad" thing.
He said the Ewoks were inspired by the Viet Cong. Were the guerilla fighters fighting against the guerilla Empire?
The empire was the US
is it a coincidence that vader is derived from the german word for father?
Is that the case? It's both written and pronounced differently
well i did say "derived from" and not "the exact same word" but as it turns out the connection to vater was a rumor george lucas himself started, likely to make originating vision for the series appear stronger and more planned. there is evidence that the name existed in the scripts before he was changed to be lukes father, so that does contradict the later assertion.
I'm not sure about Vader being more than a coincidence, but the roots of the word for "father" goes a lot further back than German. Linguists have traced it back through many cultures into prehistory. It's probably more ancient than we can ever discover. This blew my mind the other day.
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Why are you spreading this around like it's true? Also, this is you:
George Lucas mentions Vietnam as an influence
Fascism is clearly represented as well
Star Wars is not a politically consistent universe or critique
It's a typical story arc where the antagonist is an amalgamation of things that were considered bad at the time
It's Star Wars so I ultimately don't care that much
that makes sense! fair point!
It's just based on what other's have said about the Vietnam allegory but it's also whatever, I'm sure Lucas' wasn't thinking of it as a primarily political mission to produce Star Wars, since it's very much a standard plot with your usual archetype characters and roles.
There's a similar fan take on Lord of the Rings too which is interesting.
Not really. It's still just a surface level depiction of space nazis.
Space Nazi aesthetic is definitely key to Star Wars.
George Lucas has said that it was the Vietnam War that inspired the conflict in Star Wars, with the Empire representing the US, but also the rebels could represent the US against the British Empire from the Revolutionary War.
I don't recall reading that anywhere. I do remember seeing WW2 referenced, especially with respect to the dogfights.
Very interesting! I knew the Vietnam thing but I'm not into Star Wars.
It's also heavily Nazi coded with the uniforms and marching formations. And you know, Stormtroopers.
The Empire was in no way representative of Communism, it's a fascist Empire with literal "Stormtroopers." Lucas has shown more antifascist sentiment, and no anti-socialist sentiment. Lucas said the Empire represents the US, and the rebels the Viet Cong, in inspiration.
One time, he even said despite the censorship in the USSR, he felt that move directors and writers were more free to make what they wanted without the profit motive getting in the way, specifically citing artistic freedom being higher (in his words).
You know, it's totally possible that George Lucas has no fucking clue about history and just said "it was a metaphor for Vietnam" to sound smart. There is no version of Star Wars where the Empire does communism. Fanfic take that the Alliance were the good guys? Did we watch different movies? One side literally makes all their decisions based on the whims of an ancient evil wizard, and the other side are trying to stop the evil wizards from destroying planets.
That's where I got this view from but I'm not personally into Star Wars, I just know this very timely Vietnam influence but Lucas could be bullshitting who knows.
Palpatine isn't ancient, although you could argue he represents the apex of the rule of two thus dating back to at least Darth Bane.