Lucas jabs at ‘Bush’s empire’
CANNES — The last episode of the seminal sci-fi saga “Star Wars” screened at the Cannes film festival Sunday, completing a six-part series that remains a major part of popular culture — and delivering a galactic jab to U.S. President George W Bush.
“Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” was seen ahead of a celebrity-laden evening screening to be attended by its creator and director, George Lucas, and its cast, including Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen.
Reaction at advance screenings was effusive, with festival-goers, critics and journalists at Cannes applauding at the moment the infamous Darth Vader came into being.
But there were also murmurs at the parallels being drawn between Bush’s administration and the birth of the space opera’s evil Empire.
Baddies’ dialogue about bloodshed and despicable acts being needed to bring “peace and stability” to the movie’s universe, mainly through a fabricated war, set the scene.
And then came the zinger, with the protagonist, Anakin Skywalker, saying just before becoming Darth Vader: “You are either with me — or you are my enemy.”
To the Cannes audience, often sympathetic to anti-Bush messages in cinema as last year’s triumph here of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” attested, that immediately recalled Bush’s 2001 ultimatum, “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”
Lucas, speaking to reporters, emphasised that the original “Star Wars” was written at the end of the Vietnam war, when Richard Nixon was U.S. president, but that the issue being explored was still very much alive today.
“The issue was, how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship?” he said.
“When I wrote it, Iraq (the U.S.-led war) didn’t exist… but the parallels of what we did in Vietnam and Iraq are unbelievable.”
He acknowledged an uncomfortable feeling that the United States was in danger of losing its democratic ideals, like in the movie.
“I didn’t think it was going to get this close. I hope this doesn’t come true in our country.”
Although he didn’t mention Bush by name, Lucas took what sounded like another dig while explaining the transformation of the once-good Anakin Skywalker to the very bad Darth Vader.
“Most bad people think they’re good people,” he said.
Full: japantoday.com
May 17th, 2005 at 9:51 am
George Luc(as)ifer follows through with typical aryan sentiments by splitting the world into a duality – this is the whole premise of his movies, right?
". . . coming from a guy who divides the Force into a "light side" and a "dark side". Was there a grey side of the Force I missed back there somewhere?"
– source: http://ridingsun.blogspot.com/2005/05/episode-iii-anti-bush-diatribe.html
Lucifer, like most Hollywood writers is right up there with the corporate/military/governmental complex – the story lines follow a certain programming – indoctrination tools for the masses.
Another example – no irony was lost on me watching "Lord of the Rings" – especially the installment curiously entitled ‘The Two Towers’
Lucifer tows the same American dream bullshit line which seperates the "evil" of Bush from the 200 odd years of "democracy" in the U.S.
As you noted in your article "Hitler Won" -interesting parallels, no?:
"Anybody who has sufficiently informed herself knows that Hitler was no odd man out in European history. Like the centuries of European imperial bandits before him, he sought ‘breathing room’ for his cramped country. By the time he came along, the more exotic places like Africa and South America were taken, so he looked East. The idea of ‘racial purity’ was the one-note song of the previous centuries of European thought and action. Hitler neither invented the notions of Aryan supremacy nor of world conquest and the mass extermination of groups of human beings: 8 million in Leopold’s Congo, 50 million in South America and the Caribbean, 50 million in the years of the slave trade He had centuries of European science and philosophy to back him up. He didn’t have to dream up a thing."
We are reminded of the Harry Potter series – with its occult overtones reflecting the obsession of the British Empire with these concepts(remember John Dee was the father of the idea of "Britannia" or "British Empire")
I just don’t buy Lucifer’s sudden conversion to the "light side" of the force – he’s been working with the "dark side" operatives his whole career – maybe George Soros has something to do with it – he is after all, an angel of light, right . . . ?!