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With the imminent release of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, many theatergoers are re-watching the original movies to reacquaint themselves with those stories from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. This time, however, they may find themselves surprised by how much the film's characters and themes echo the current War On Terror. According to Jonathon Last, in the Star Wars films (not the Expanded Universe) the Empire is good and is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction. Now an interesting article on the Star Wars films at Decider takes the re-interpretation a step further, arguing that the films are actually the story of the radicalization of Luke Skywalker. From introducing Luke to us in A New Hope (as a simple farm boy gazing into the Tatooine sunset), to his eventual transformation into the radicalized insurgent of Return of the Jedi (as one who sets his own father's corpse on fire and celebrates the successful bombing of the Death Star), each film in the original trilogy is another step in Luke's descent into terrorism.
According to the article Luke Skywalker is just the kind of isolated disaffected young man that terror recruiters seek out. Obi Wan — a religious fanatic with a history of looking for young boys to recruit and teach an extreme interpretation of the Force — tells Luke he must abandon his family and join him, going so far as telling a shocking lie that the Empire killed Luke's father, hoping to inspire Luke to a life of jihad. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is ordered to travel overseas to receive training and religious instruction from Yoda, an extremist cleric who runs a Jedi madrasa on Dagobah. Yoda's push to radicalize Luke, rob him of an identity, and instill obedience are apparent when at various points he instructs Luke to "Clear your mind of questions," "Unlearn what you have learned" and, most grimly, "Do, or do not, there is no try." Armed with new combat training and cloaked in a hardline religious fervor, Luke leaves Dagobah, impatient to put his terror training to use.Finally in Return of the Jedi, we see a darker, hardened Luke, fittingly dressed in black and eager to use violence as a tool to enforce the twisted "judge, jury, executioner" value system of the Jedi. "With Darth Vader the final casualty of Luke's jihad, Obi-Wan and Yoda have succeeded in catching yet another young man in their web of Jedi extremism," concludes the article. "Star Wars is clearly a cautionary tale of the dangers of radicalization, and how even a seemingly harmless young man who kept to himself on Tattooine can become the terrorist next door."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday December 14 2015, @04:08PM
Why do you think there is nothing but military personnel on the death stars?
Especially the second death star, which is undergoing construction. To build something the size of a large moon(the second death star was much bigger than the first) would have involved millions of construction workers working around the clock.
Besides, if you're like most Americans, you'd view the USS Cole bombing, the pentagon attack on 9/11, and the Fort Hood shooting all as terrorism in spite of being military targets.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday December 14 2015, @04:42PM
Seabees? The story is pretty vague on economic systems, aside from there seems to be a lot of smuggling. A lot of law breaking would imply theres a lot of laws to break. My guess is limited nationalization. If everyone works for the state there's very little difference between a civilian and military personnel.. maybe some minor details WRT retirement plans (LOL) but that's probably about it.
Things get very fuzzy with secret military projects. If a Manhattan Project site were attacked in WW2 by commandos or spies, are those .gov employees civilians or military? Does it Really matter?
I could see DS2 being full of construction workers, but DS1 was done and built. Its like assuming an iowa class battleship had to have been full of civilians during its wartime deployments. Thats confusing the first death star with the Enterprise from ST:TNG. Time to derail with "who wins in a battle, the Enterprise or an Imperial Star Destroyer" where winner is defined just for today as fewer civilian casualties... well I think the SD wins.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday December 14 2015, @05:23PM
Han Solo was explicitly a Spice(illegal drug) smuggler.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday December 14 2015, @08:43PM
Spice is from an entirely different SciFi epic.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday December 14 2015, @08:45PM
No, no it isn't.
It's even a substance you mine for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:10PM
Ugh. You know what sucks about the new moderation system? You can't un-moderate by posting a reply any more. Your post was inane, not insightful and I only up-modded it because any moderate button applies all moderations on a page, not just the one next to the moderate button.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @01:32PM
Un-moderating by posting a reply was a hack anyway. If anything, there should be a separate "undo moderation" function (anyway, just selecting "moderate" on another post will not moderate that post "Insightful"; you must have selected "Insightful" on that post beforehand-
But having the moderation button apply only to the post where it is would be reasonable improvement; unfortunately I remember some SN staff member having posted that this would be hard to implement with the existing code base.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @09:28PM
If everyone works for the state there's very little difference between a civilian and military personnel.
Thanks a lot, dude. My wife's a teacher (state, public-funded school) and I used to work in the Public Sector myself, generating CO2-free electricity FTW.
Bloody American propaganda...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday December 15 2015, @12:15AM
Yes, it's time.
The saucer section separates, and those SD are big, huge, and slow. Not to mention the SD is staffed purely by military officers, and the Enterprise is staffed with engineers and scientists... some of which double as executive officers (Picard is often senior lecturer in the field of archeology). The Enterprise also has a massive supercomputer for firing control, which is largely overkill if you just wanted better firing control than what the Imperials have... aka "Spray and Pray".
I'm nearly positive that LaForge would reverse engineer the SD faster than an entire planet of Bothan spies, and inform Picard about a "beam of energy" that can be produced from the primary deflector dish to cause a sympathetic resonance in the SD's big ass engines, almost wholly unprotected at the back. Worf smiles and prepares firing control while Picard debates the philosophical value of mercy and first contact situations.....
Forget phasers, or high tech beams, The Enterprise could take out the Death Star with a modified torpedo from well outside of the star system. Their torpedoes are small (about the size of wamp rat), self guiding, and warp capable all on their own. A TriCobalt torpedo would only require impact with the Death Star, not actually hitting any specific vent. I'm sure LaForge could "pump up the volume" significantly if required. Can the Imperials modify their own weapons with R&D mid battle? Don't think so. That requires a bunch of military industrial complex negotiations on Coruscant before the new weapon can be approved, and of course, the Emperor needs to sign off on everything (control freak).
If it were really war? It wouldn't be the Enterprise, but Defiant and other battle class ships. The Enterprise is a ship of peace and exploration after all....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday December 15 2015, @11:33AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @04:51PM
You've got to see the Phineas and Ferb Star Wars version [wikia.com]. Just after the Death Star blows up:
(Score: 0, Troll) by Soybean on Monday December 14 2015, @05:49PM
Besides, if you're like most Americans, you'd view the USS Cole bombing, the pentagon attack on 9/11, and the Fort Hood shooting all as terrorism in spite of being military targets.
Also the murder of Lee Rigby near his barracks, [theguardian.com] the killings of marines at military recruiting office and a navy reserve center in Chattanooga, [cbsnews.com] the killing of a soldier at the recruiting center in Little Rock, [nytimes.com] the attacks on the pentagon and other military facilities in north virginia. [washingtonpost.com] And then there are all the attacks on similar targets that were supposedly thwarted in the planning stages. [militarytimes.com]
The list of attacks on military targets that have been widely called terrorism is not short.