That makes it really easy to have the empire represent anything you want.
Isn’t that kind of the point? When you make villains too specific then it’s easy to differentiate the villains in a movie from the evil in real life. Donald Trump doesn’t resemble the villain from the movie so therefore I can hate the villain from the movie while still liking Donald Trump because they’re not the same person. The evil that happens in the movie is because of that particular bad guy, now that bad guy is dead and it’s all wrapped up in a nice little bow.
When a movie is about archetypes it’s a little more difficult to ignore the ideas. The Rebellion is a diverse group of people, even a fish guy can be an admiral. A little green weirdo could be the powerful Jedi. The imperials are not all that diverse, are they? It’s harder to rationalize that you’re on the good guy side because that means taking orders from Admiral Ackbar which is contradictory to your political views which would be about wanting Ackbar fired because he must be a DEI hire.
Also Lando making a deal with fascists and constantly getting screwed over because fascists don’t give a shit about doing as they promised seems a little relevant now. Lando was fine with some random guy called “Luke Skywalker” getting screwed over as long as he and his friends came out ok. Seems a lot like people voting for Trump knowing immigrants would get screwed but that’s fine because they would come out alright. There’s a lot of Landos on Wall Street right now. Trump altered the deal, pray he doesn’t alter it further.
The ones made by JJ Abrams are really great about showing all of the reasons for people getting sucked into fascist movements… indoctrination (Finn), wanting to eliminate freedom to have order (Hux), bad relationship with their father (Kylo Ren), nostalgia for past greatness (Pryde), and ancestry (Rey). With Hux we even get to see how fascists are really just spiteful assholes that don’t actually believe in anything, they just want power.
With Rey we see hesitation about being part of the movement against fascism because of her ancestry. Maybe she’s unworthy because of her ancestry? Nah that’s bullshit, you don’t need to identify with the shitty people in history because they’re your ancestors, it’s up to you how you identify yourself. The repeated message of “they [fascists] make us feel like we’re alone” seems particularly relevant given how social media divides us now.
And Palpatine… yeah fascism has come back to life again even though it’s been defeated before. But ok, I guess we gotta do this shit again. People get all butt hurt they didn’t explain the details of how Palpatine came back, but that’s the point. Fascism comes back and you gotta oppose it when it does. Somehow fascism returned, and it doesn’t matter how, because we have to oppose it no matter what. And if you really want to know how fascism returned, just look at the motivations of the fascist characters in the movies.
Isn’t that kind of the point? When you make villains too specific then it’s easy to differentiate the villains in a movie from the evil in real life. Donald Trump doesn’t resemble the villain from the movie so therefore I can hate the villain from the movie while still liking Donald Trump because they’re not the same person. The evil that happens in the movie is because of that particular bad guy, now that bad guy is dead and it’s all wrapped up in a nice little bow.
When a movie is about archetypes it’s a little more difficult to ignore the ideas. The Rebellion is a diverse group of people, even a fish guy can be an admiral. A little green weirdo could be the powerful Jedi. The imperials are not all that diverse, are they? It’s harder to rationalize that you’re on the good guy side because that means taking orders from Admiral Ackbar which is contradictory to your political views which would be about wanting Ackbar fired because he must be a DEI hire.
Also Lando making a deal with fascists and constantly getting screwed over because fascists don’t give a shit about doing as they promised seems a little relevant now. Lando was fine with some random guy called “Luke Skywalker” getting screwed over as long as he and his friends came out ok. Seems a lot like people voting for Trump knowing immigrants would get screwed but that’s fine because they would come out alright. There’s a lot of Landos on Wall Street right now. Trump altered the deal, pray he doesn’t alter it further.
The ones made by JJ Abrams are really great about showing all of the reasons for people getting sucked into fascist movements… indoctrination (Finn), wanting to eliminate freedom to have order (Hux), bad relationship with their father (Kylo Ren), nostalgia for past greatness (Pryde), and ancestry (Rey). With Hux we even get to see how fascists are really just spiteful assholes that don’t actually believe in anything, they just want power.
With Rey we see hesitation about being part of the movement against fascism because of her ancestry. Maybe she’s unworthy because of her ancestry? Nah that’s bullshit, you don’t need to identify with the shitty people in history because they’re your ancestors, it’s up to you how you identify yourself. The repeated message of “they [fascists] make us feel like we’re alone” seems particularly relevant given how social media divides us now.
And Palpatine… yeah fascism has come back to life again even though it’s been defeated before. But ok, I guess we gotta do this shit again. People get all butt hurt they didn’t explain the details of how Palpatine came back, but that’s the point. Fascism comes back and you gotta oppose it when it does. Somehow fascism returned, and it doesn’t matter how, because we have to oppose it no matter what. And if you really want to know how fascism returned, just look at the motivations of the fascist characters in the movies.