• wjrii@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I think it’s very possible to read too much coherent political thinking into the soup of influences that Lucas was tapping into for Star Wars, particularly the first one. He was anti-Vietnam War, absolutely, but he also got to the point of filming a scene where Biggs is decrying the Empire’s nationalization of industry, and the aesthetics were absolutely good Allies versus bad Nazis.

    He was basically a pretty average left-leaning American boomer. He loved big oil guzzling cars, but also rooting for the little guy. He hated Richard Nixon and mapped him onto Palpatine, but in his initial thinking was an ominous but naive shut-in who was manipulated by his advisors; hardly the apologia any serious analyst of Nixon would have gone with. Lucas had us rooting for the Rebels to overthrow the Empire and replace it with the Republic, but also wove in an absolutely medieval fondness for royalty.

    All of it was because the fairy tale was more important than the specifics of the politics, which were basically anti-authoritarian vibing.