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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: 5, Funny) by romlok on Monday December 14 2015, @05:23PM
But how did Luke find out it was Imperial stormtroopers that killed his aunt and uncle? Was it not, in fact, Obi-Wan who simply told Luke that this was so?
"Those blast points; too accurate for sand people. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise"
And yet every time we later see actual Stormtroopers in combat, they can barely hit a star destroyer while standing inside it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @06:29PM
"that would lead them back home..." and well they were quite melted were they not?
And they swung by the local hell hole and lo and behold what were the storm troopers canvasing the area for? The two droids... Out of the storm troopers own mouths.
Even at the beginning he was planing on joining what became the rebels ('i to submit my application to the academy this year'). The 'rebels' were what Senator Palatine turned the remnants of the gov into. The rebels had on their hands some heavy duty military equipment. Not exactly a couple of piper cubs. It was basically a civil war.
If you pick things out of context you can tell a whole different story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSnx4V_RewE [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @10:08PM
Replace missing droids with IEDs. The US military has done the same. Canvas an area door to door looking for weapons. When someone is suspected of owning them but gives resistance they kick down the door and throw a couple grenades inside during the raid. SOP
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:33PM
Accuracy is not the same as precision. The Stormtroopers were extremely precise, just not at all accurate when things heated up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:42PM
I think Luke caught that episode of "Troops"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bocmVZXXY8w [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by archshade on Monday December 14 2015, @09:41PM
And yet every time we later see actual Stormtroopers in combat, they can barely hit a star destroyer while standing inside it.
At some point I heard a theory, and Im not sure where. That essentially the Storm Troopers aboard the Death star where trying to lead the heroes round the death star in such a way they that the empires technicians had time to fit the tracker that lead them to the rebel base before pushing them back onto the Falcon and letting them escape. They had to give enough of the fight to make it believable but avoid killing so many as to make the return to the rebel base unlikely. Leia even alluded to it after the escape.
At the time there where two high value rebel targets. Obi Wan who was dispatched of, and Leia who would be too dangerous to kill. If Leia died the empire would have lost political support or at least passive acceptance by some of the more powerful people (I'm extrapolating but I hardly think the senate would have been happy about being dissolved killing the daughter of a dignity is usually a foolish move). Han and Chewie were known rouges without Leia they would not have gone to the rebel base, in fact even if it was just Han Leia and Chewie maybe they would not have gone back. May as well let that other rebel tag along it's not like he has any significance.
The empire only sent out a few Ties after the Falcon, If they did not want it to escape they could have fired volley after volley of the the Death Stars guns or sent hundreds of fighters after them. No I do not think the Storm troopers were bad shots, they performed well at there task as sheep dogs.