THE REALITY OF MEETING YOUR HEROES- LUKE SKYWALKER AND THE GENIUS OF THE LAST JEDI

Star Wars was born out of politics. It's a story based off of Lucas' dislike for the Nixon administration.

 

I'm not sure why you'd extrapolate

as a theme from the movie.
Maybe you just observed that the apathetic war profiteers gambling in the movie were rich.

Politics is anything relating to views about social relationships involving authority or power.

Almost everything about SW centers around politics.

It seems to me that when people usually say things like “I don't like politics in SW” it's generally code for “I selected to read certain aspects of this fictional narrative in a way that is offensive to my ideology.”

edited to try and sound less grumpy

 

@Moral Hazard, I'm giving you a like just for this. ^^ I shall try to emulate your aesthetic.

Carry on, sir, carry on.

 

One of my favorite things about Star Wars is this "anti-capitalist" thematic it portrays while being written and run by arguably one of the best capitalist entrepreneurs of the 20th century

 

But he's different.

 

Riiiiight wink wink.

It's the same pass Apple gets from college hipsters who are sooooo anti-capitalist or so they say in a tweet from their new iPhone.
Weird how that works.

 

I think some of this stuff is overstated to a certain degree. The struggles of a bureaucratic Republic to deal with foreign issues are certainly more political than the OT. I have never really found it heavy handed though.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
*scratches chin*

I'm not so sure how accurate or useful reading SW through a lens of real world economic systems would be.
(Although it would definitely be the sort of examination/discussion I would be up for - yes, this nerd has too much spare time!)

I do often find myself thinking about how SW deals with themes of power, authority, and despotism vs democratic ideals.
Generally I come to the conclusion that it touches on such subjects but never long or deep enough to stand as solid critique on anything too specialized.
I guess it's part of it's charm.

Sure there are fair comparisons to be made between the actions of the autocratic Empire/FO war-machine and the severe negative social and environmental effects of today's really-existing-capitalism.
I just feel it's less about how each side manages resources and finances and more about the rag-tag band of hopeful freedom fighters sticking it to an oppressive regime.

Or as Chick Wendig put it in his ROTJ heist explainer...

Then again I could be completely wrong!
I'm primarily just a follower of SW on screen these days and aren't left with much info about the nuances of how capital, labor, and private ownership work in the GFFA!

 

Actually, Luke and Yoda are acting like that for different reasons. Yoda is acting like that to test Luke that his idea of what a great warrior is, where Luke was not testing Rey, he wasn't interested to talk to her from the get go.

Once Luke realizes who Yoda is, he never talks crazily again as he becomes more stoic. As for Yoda staying disinterested in fighting for the Rebellion, he was a Teacher and always was. Yoda's job in ESB was to train Luke so he eventually would kill Vader, and then kill The Emperor. That is why he didn't want him to leave early because he was not ready to take on Vader. That is also why they never told Luke about Vader being his father, because they were afraid there would be some emotional attachment. In the end, Luke was right in that the emotional attachment is what turned him back to the light. Yoda's arc ended in ROTJ as he died of old age, so he never really gave up on the rebellion, he and Obiwan thought a young and POWERFUL Luke was the savior.

The Last Jedi was different in that Luke was never on board with Rey, as she left the island without the type of training he got from Yoda. In the end, Luke saves the Resistance for now, but is that really the point of the Trilogy? Is the Trilogy really about another First Order vs Resistance retreaded plot from the Rebels vs Empire OT story? Is this Trilogy really about tearing down our heroes? I don't begrudge anyone who likes this story, but as of right now, it just doesn't do it for me. If Episode 9 is essentially another battle between Resistance vs First Order and Rey vs Kylo Round 3, then it will be a disappointment to me. But I will atleast give them the opportunity to prove me wrong as I was a big fan of TFA.

 

I still can't like things due to my newness and low posts but this was a great read.

 

Whoops!
The Internet - nuance's natural predator - strikes again!

 

I understand why people don't want to be hit with heavy handed political messages in a piece of escapism entertainment. This is a especially true in an age where politics seems to be relentless injected into everything. That aside, I don't think we've seen that kind of heavy handed storytelling in a Star Wars film. There's an element of "I want to be offended" going on if a person thinks TLJ was overtly political.

 

I think Canto Bight flirted very hard with being heavy handed, for me personally, it was too close to it.

 

Sorry to everyone... one additional off topic question. I'm curious what specific hot button political issue is mentioned at Canto Bight? I never said Star Wars was 100% free from politics. A bunch of war profiteers is along the same lines as a bunch of useless politicians or the trade federation that was touched on in the PT.

 

Its just that it wasnt handled as deftly as it could have been and came off more preachy than natural. We know animal abuse etc is bad. We dont need excessive dramatic pauses for it .

 

i think the problem i have with how the "message" of Canto Bight was handled is that it got reduced to animal abuse and the selfish rich people who do it.
i think it was simplified for the younger audience, in part, and maybe that works okay, but yes, i also think it's both a bit thick and also too watery ~ hahahaha.