With its Third Reich-ish uniforms and related iconography, the Empire practically takes you by the shoulders and screams “SPACE NAZI” at your eyeballs. George Lucas wasn’t particularly subtle about this. So, let’s answer Abramson’s question, and see why the Empire and First Order is wrong, why the Rebellion/Resistance is the side you should root for, and how all of this ties in to American history. That’s when I realized that beyond blowing up planets and the practicing dark magic, most people probably don’t know why the Empire (and now, The First Order) is bad. He wants to know why there aren’t non-humanoid Stormtroopers specifically. “Why are all Stormtroopers human (or humanoid)?”Ībramson isn’t asking why the Stormtroopers aren’t clones. While I quibble with the title (your annoyance that there wasn’t more Captain Phasma does not a plot hole make), the biggest complaint that stuck out at me was the following: Amongst the myriad of “This is why The Force Awakens sucked” op-eds that popped up over the last couple weeks, this one from The Huffington Post’s Seth Abramson seems to be one of the most popular. Then, the flood of backlash articles started.
At first, no one said a bad thing about the movie.
Star Wars itself entered the realm of Cold War history after it was adopted by the media in the 1980s as a nickname for President Ronald Reagan’s proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, which would have used lasers to defend the United States against incoming nuclear missiles.If you’re anything like me, you spent the first 24 hours after viewing of The Force Awakens reading every article and review you could get your hands on. The threat to the planet posed by nuclear weapons was encapsulated on screen in the ultimate weapon of mass destruction-the Death Star-which destroyed Princess Leia’s home planet of Alderaan, a blue orb that closely resembled Earth. The tense relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the threat of nuclear annihilation lurking in the background, was hardly history when Star Wars first premiered in 1977. Much like the Great Jedi Purge ordered by Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, France’s King Philip IV annihilated the Knights Templar after arresting hundreds of them on October 13, 1307, and subsequently torturing and executing them for heresy. Like the Jedi, the Templars practiced individual poverty within a military-monastic order that commanded great material resources.” A 12-member council of elders headed by a grand master governed both the Jedi and the Templars, and Jedi clothing even resembled the hooded white robes worn by the Christian warrior-monks who took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. But he pretended to be a really nice guy.” He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, when asked if Emperor Palpatine was a Jedi during a 1981 story conference, Lucas responded, “No, he was a politician.
The final scene of the original 1977 Star Wars in which Princess Leia awards medals to Rebel heroes Luke Skywalker and Han Solo while soldiers stood at attention echoed the massive Nazi rallies in Nuremberg captured in Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 propaganda film “Triumph of the Will.” Richard NixonĪlthough there are parallels between Emperor Palpatine and dictators such as Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte, the direct inspiration for the saga’s evil antagonist was actually an American president. The Empire wasn’t the only side in Star Wars that cribbed Nazi imagery, however. The Imperial officers’ uniforms and even Darth Vader’s helmet resemble those worn by German Army members in World War II, and the gradual rise of Palpatine from chancellor to emperor mirrored Adolf Hitler’s similar political ascent from chancellor to dictator. After all, the elite assault forces fanatically devoted to the Galactic Empire share a common name with the paramilitary fighters who defended the Nazi Party-stormtroopers. There’s nothing subtle about this historical allusion in Star Wars.
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