Revenge of the Sith = Political commentary?
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Jedi Master Spock
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Revenge of the Sith = Political commentary?
Did you think ROTS was a little full of obvious reference to current political events? If so, Iranian television agrees with you, citing (as critics did) Anakin's line about being either with him, or against him.
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2046
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If the Iranians are just noting that then they're behind the times . . . there was a lot of talk about the absolutism line around the time the movie came out.
Honestly, though, the prequels . . . and by extension all six films . . . represent such a philosophical mish-mash with such grand variability that, like Trek, it can be all things to all people . . . you can hardly fail to find something you like (or want to ascribe to it anyway), politically speaking.
There's the well-known David Brin piece wherein he talks of the elitist fantasy Lucas seems to espouse in SW. Some would view it as anti-capitalist given the wicked greedy Separatists, while others could view it as pro-capitalism given that the Separatist destruction was Palpatine's evil goal, eventually undone by the Rebels. Some SW fans seem to take the idea that the Empire's authoritarian order is a good thing. Others take the "wag the dog" scenario and the "absolutes" line and view it as anti-Bush. And curiously, some people jones off both of the latter without recognizing the contradiction that entails.
(Trek has similar issues with different views being espoused over its 40 year history, and given SW's 30 year history it's little wonder that there would be some variation. But then, Trek had has many more cooks to spoil the broth.)
Honestly, though, the prequels . . . and by extension all six films . . . represent such a philosophical mish-mash with such grand variability that, like Trek, it can be all things to all people . . . you can hardly fail to find something you like (or want to ascribe to it anyway), politically speaking.
There's the well-known David Brin piece wherein he talks of the elitist fantasy Lucas seems to espouse in SW. Some would view it as anti-capitalist given the wicked greedy Separatists, while others could view it as pro-capitalism given that the Separatist destruction was Palpatine's evil goal, eventually undone by the Rebels. Some SW fans seem to take the idea that the Empire's authoritarian order is a good thing. Others take the "wag the dog" scenario and the "absolutes" line and view it as anti-Bush. And curiously, some people jones off both of the latter without recognizing the contradiction that entails.
(Trek has similar issues with different views being espoused over its 40 year history, and given SW's 30 year history it's little wonder that there would be some variation. But then, Trek had has many more cooks to spoil the broth.)
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Mr. Oragahn
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CrippledVulture
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Revenge of the Sith, as far as this is concerned, has the same problem that the New Caprica episodes of BSG had. They both went beyond allegory to direct references to the real world situation. I forgave Battlestar for it. I don't like those episodes, but I love the show otherwise. (am I the only one who really liked the "All Along the Watchtower" season finale?)
Anyway, it's one thing to set up a similar situation in your fiction and make statements about what the real thing and your fictional portrayal say about human nature and so forth, but these two instances fail to do anything new with it. All they did, really was take cheap shots by borrowing the terminology of the current real-world situation.
Seriously, folks. I'm something of a politics junkie. I've heard and mocked the talking points myself. I like my sci-fi to be a little more imaginative than that.
In ROTS, Palpatine's little coup, using emergency powers to seize total control of the people does not mirror George Bush's foibles enough to justify the language. Not to belittle Mr. Bush, but let's face it, this has happened before, and we're not doing a bad job of holding him and his followers accountable and returning things to their normal level of crappyness.
When I saw the movie, I cringed when those lines were delivered. It wasn't a pointed, well-integrated commentary on the current political situation, it was a gimmick used to stir up a little controversy. Lucas was just trying to end the series with some kind of intellectual punctuation. I do respect the man for many of the things he's done (Star Wars was quite and adventurous film when it was first released, and he is a very influential filmmaker when it comes to the technical side of things), but a philosopher he is not. The politics in ROTS don't take the theme anywhere new, they're just a hastily-applied, cheap veneer of intellectualism that detracts from the story he's trying to tell.
That's just my opinion.
It's hard to tell just what we're supposed to take out of it. Darth Vader, pre-prequels was a bit of a mystery. We know he fell from grace, but we always assumed it was because he wanted power "He was seduced by the dark side of the Force," Now that we know exactly how that happened, we are much more sympathetic. Was his totalitarian vision corrupted by Palpatine, his own emotional anguish, and/or the loss of Padme? Suffice it to say that things didn't work out the way anyone had planned. In this way, Lucas doesn't let us nail him down. Is democracy best? Is the good monarch a good idea that is hard to pull off? Who knows? We know that the Republic was corrupt, distant, and ineffectual, and we don't know anything (in the canon) about the new order established by the Rebels, so Star Wars doesn't really present us with a clear picture of what we're striving for. The advantage of science fiction is that you can actually see the utopia or dystopia (whichever it is that you're going for) but every installment of Star Wars presents a social order that is decaying or has been eradicated. We can't glean a whole lot from that chaos, so it's hard to say just what we're supposed to think, if anything.
It's always been more about lasers and explosions than politics and philosophy.
Anyway, it's one thing to set up a similar situation in your fiction and make statements about what the real thing and your fictional portrayal say about human nature and so forth, but these two instances fail to do anything new with it. All they did, really was take cheap shots by borrowing the terminology of the current real-world situation.
Seriously, folks. I'm something of a politics junkie. I've heard and mocked the talking points myself. I like my sci-fi to be a little more imaginative than that.
In ROTS, Palpatine's little coup, using emergency powers to seize total control of the people does not mirror George Bush's foibles enough to justify the language. Not to belittle Mr. Bush, but let's face it, this has happened before, and we're not doing a bad job of holding him and his followers accountable and returning things to their normal level of crappyness.
When I saw the movie, I cringed when those lines were delivered. It wasn't a pointed, well-integrated commentary on the current political situation, it was a gimmick used to stir up a little controversy. Lucas was just trying to end the series with some kind of intellectual punctuation. I do respect the man for many of the things he's done (Star Wars was quite and adventurous film when it was first released, and he is a very influential filmmaker when it comes to the technical side of things), but a philosopher he is not. The politics in ROTS don't take the theme anywhere new, they're just a hastily-applied, cheap veneer of intellectualism that detracts from the story he's trying to tell.
That's just my opinion.
It's hard to tell just what we're supposed to take out of it. Darth Vader, pre-prequels was a bit of a mystery. We know he fell from grace, but we always assumed it was because he wanted power "He was seduced by the dark side of the Force," Now that we know exactly how that happened, we are much more sympathetic. Was his totalitarian vision corrupted by Palpatine, his own emotional anguish, and/or the loss of Padme? Suffice it to say that things didn't work out the way anyone had planned. In this way, Lucas doesn't let us nail him down. Is democracy best? Is the good monarch a good idea that is hard to pull off? Who knows? We know that the Republic was corrupt, distant, and ineffectual, and we don't know anything (in the canon) about the new order established by the Rebels, so Star Wars doesn't really present us with a clear picture of what we're striving for. The advantage of science fiction is that you can actually see the utopia or dystopia (whichever it is that you're going for) but every installment of Star Wars presents a social order that is decaying or has been eradicated. We can't glean a whole lot from that chaos, so it's hard to say just what we're supposed to think, if anything.
It's always been more about lasers and explosions than politics and philosophy.
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SailorSaturn13
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