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Longtime Dakkanaut





 Gert wrote:
Star Wars had a group of freedom fighters going up against an empire that had, at the very start of the movie, just abolished its democratic representative. It's literally saying authoritarian regimes are the bad guys.
How in gods name is that not a political stance?


Hmmm, I missed the musings on the difficulties of democracy, the complexities of multi-planet rule and the need for a strong central government to maintain order.

It was made in the 1970s for an American audience that assumed democracy = good, empire/dictatorship = bad.

And just to make it blindingly obvious, there is a Dark Side and a Light Side.

It is about good guys vs bad guys using contemporary labels. Zero political discussion.

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Germany

 Gert wrote:

How in gods name is that not a political stance?




American exceptionalism - Freedom! is so extremely the 'background radiation' of their national narrative that they do not realize that it is a conciously chosen stance at all.
   
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Toronto, Ontario

 Gert wrote:
Star Wars had a group of freedom fighters going up against an empire that had, at the very start of the movie, just abolished its democratic representative. It's literally saying authoritarian regimes are the bad guys.
How in gods name is that not a political stance?


That's literally just window dressing... Star wars has never been anything more than a good vs evil story. Luke Skywalker is hardly preaching the merits of democracy when he takes down the emperor, he just wants to save his dad from the evil space wizard.
   
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Leia was making political statements. "The more you tighten your fist, the more slips through your fingers" is a very apt criticism of any fear and control based policy and it applies to way more than just authoritarian regimes.
   
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Zero political discussion.

Not everything needs to be a discussion and not every stance needs to have intense levels of nuance. Taking a side in an ideological fight between freedom and oppression is taking a political stance and Lucas chose to represent the authoritarian militarists as the oppressors.
   
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 creeping-deth87 wrote:
That's literally just window dressing... Star wars has never been anything more than a good vs evil story. Luke Skywalker is hardly preaching the merits of democracy when he takes down the emperor, he just wants to save his dad from the evil space wizard.


Yep. Leia throws in some political metaphors to show she's a senator and does politics and stuff.

But there is no actual politics, just a conflict between good and evil.

Because Lucas is American and so is his audience and the film came out the year after the Bicentennial celebration, the language he uses is that which associated with goodness.

A European version might have the rebels standing for the "true king" vs the usurper, but that's just local color.

The prequels tried to insert politics, and it was terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to hammer this home to non-Americans, 1976 was a huge national celebration of the Declaration of Independence. The film comes out in 1977.

So the decision to have "freedom fighters" (who are played by Americans) fighting against an eeevil Empire (uniformly British) was basically playing to the crowd.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/04 14:37:39


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It is more about good vs evil than which political ideology is the best one.

The Empire isn't the bad guy just because they are authoritarian but because they are doing really evil gak. The focus is obviously on the good vs bad and not on morally light grey democracy vs morally dark grey absolute authoritarianism. There are politics in it but the details are more related to the background of the setting rather than being a commentary of the current political climate. A similar story told in a medieval fantasy world would also have some form of "politics" in it but rather try to use something a bit more subtle than trying to make the bad guys look like space nazis(I use this a bit as shorthand for any ideology we see as evil like various version of Fascism and Communism and not just WW2 German nazis). Nazis makes more sense in a more modern or futuristic setting compared to a medieval one so a more common bad guy is instead a variation of the Mongols or some religious fanatics modeled after some of the crusades or jihads. In reverse those troupes wouldn't have worked as well in Space which is why Nazis is more common theme for that. It could be a political decision but it is more likely not and just as apolitical as mongols or crusaders even though unlike them is a "current" political ideology.

Depending on how you see it everything is political and a lot of people today see the world through that lense. The people who complain that movies today are too political or have politics in them aren't literally complaining that the movie has actual politics in it but what kind of politics and how it is displayed to the audience. We want the politics in the movie to feel like they are there for the world building or plot and not to have them feel connected to what is happening in our modern world. We want escapism, not more media propaganda. If a movie subtly (or not always so subtly but still not breaking verisimilitude) can educate or give us different views on current political topics while still being escapism then most people wouldn't complain. Being political can be a good thing and might be a good way to help people learn and progress. But only if the audience feels like they aren't talked down to as being evil people. Then they will be on edge and feel resentment to characters they could otherwise have felt empathy for if the message was just more subtle and better interwoven with the rest of the movie.

A lot of current media advertisement campaigns do involve a lot of political messages which can be annoying. It also influences the products they make in bad ways. Diversity in a movie isn't good or bad for example. But the current method of focusing on that aspect before world building, script and talented actors gives subpar products that involves a lot of current day politics (that are quite divisive lately due to social media). You can't see an interview about any new Disney product, or barely anything else either, that just talks about the content of the media itself without starting out with talking about how diverse it is, how it will save lives, how it will reflect "a modern audience", how it will represent minority group X or other things like that. They even make up divisive responses to hate comments before the hate even starts and make it all about politics. Like it isn't just what is in the media but in the creation and marketing about it that tells you as the audience member that this is current year politics. These products won't age well at all since they are too reflective of the current discourse and whatever politics it is handling is so narrow in scope that if you go back in a few years and rewatch it, it will feel age just on the topic and language alone. The old Star Wars movies aren't aging badly in that regard since it is broad enough to have its politics be relevant in any time period of human history and you don't even need to have heard of Nazis to fully understand what it is all about.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/04 14:43:37


 
   
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USA

 Haighus wrote:
Also, rebels fighting an authoritarian empire is a political stance.


At risk, yes.

But also no.

Lets call it 'shallow politics.'

Literally everyone (left, right, Nazi, commie, anarchist, libertarian, socialist, whatever persuasion) thinks of themselves like a rebel fighting a corrupt regime. Be my guest. Go ask them. They're all going to frame themselves the exact same way. Especially in the modern virtue-flaging rhetorical hoops politics common on the Internet where everyone has 'figured it out' and 'knows how to fix the system' but the system is too corrupt. You will find this perspective, or something like it, is basically completely free of political boundaries to the point it's the one thing everyone actually agrees on; that they are a tiny cog being trodden on by a much bigger world they don't control but would really like to.

To codify 'rebel vs authoritarian' as a political stance is such a vague and non-descript political stance me pointing at the distance and saying 'over there somewhere' is more specific.

Especially people who make their politics a central aspect of their lives. Avatar is rebels fighting authoritarians, but it's also vague enough and shallow enough, that you could view it as socialists egalitarians fighting souless capitalists. Or free peoples fighting centralizing control. Or Anarchists fighting the military-industrial complex.

People say the politics is a big part of Star Wars and I kind laugh a little because Star Wars is 'political' only in the sense that it says it ist. It has no real overriding political message. It advocates nothing except that evil is evil and good is good but evil and good within Star Wars' 'politics' are so milquetoast that you're not going to get a useful or practical perspective on politics from Star Wars. Star Wars is a morality play. Not a political drama. And you see the aspect of this in its fandom where there are literally as many people who think the Jedi were evil as Anakin could possibly imagine.

These works are far too vague, far to bland, and far too shallow. They're John Everyman politics where Hitler is obvious bad and freedom is clearly good, which works well enough for a mass audience's appeal factor but you'll probably find as many interpretations about what the politics of John Everyman are as you'll ask people on the Internet.

And maybe that's part of Avatar's issue. Star Wars at least puts the battle of obvious good vs obvious evil so front and center that it works on a moral level because it's specific enough to stand on its own even if you notice the politics of the prequel series are kind of gobbledegook. Avatar is far less clear. There is an obvious good and an obvious bad side, but the elements that define good and bad within Avatar are even blander than the conflict between the Sith and the Jedi. None of it stands out against Sully's personal story where Silly himself seems to just be along for the right (or he's just chasing some hot blue chick) and Sully never makes any sort of moral stand or realization that stands out because he just kind of goes along with the motions of the plot at every turn.

TLDR: The 'politics' of this story are so nondescript as to be basically anything, which can mean anyone can find meaning in it but also means there's so little direction in the story it never builds up the board cultural momentum to carry itself compared to something like Star Wars, which has its Good vs Evil narrative that is vague enough to be argued over but also clear enough that it can't mean whatever you could possibly want it to mean.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2023/06/04 14:53:43


   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







There is political stance/position, and then there is political procedure. The original Star Wars trilogy may have a fair dollop of the former, but none of the latter, while the prequel trilogy has the latter in spades and I’m not convinced it made them better films.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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 LordofHats wrote:
And maybe that's part of Avatar's issue. Star Wars at least puts the battle of obvious good vs obvious evil so front and center that it works on a moral level because it's specific enough to stand on its own even if you notice the politics of the prequel series are kind of gobbledegook. Avatar is far less clear. There is an obvious good and an obvious bad side, but the elements that define good and bad within Avatar are even blander than the conflict between the Sith and the Jedi. None of it stands out against Sully's personal story where Silly himself seems to just be along for the right (or he's just chasing some hot blue chick) and Sully never makes any sort of moral stand or realization that stands out because he just kind of goes along with the motions of the plot at every turn.


Yeah, it feels like Sully is played too much as the brainless Marine following whoever happens to give him orders at the time*. The only time he assumes leadership he goes along with what his new tribe has been advocating for in the first place, so even then there's never an opportunity to explain "why we fight". It's more of a "let's do it" because everyone's on board already.

That kind of leaves me puzzled why people seem to look more favorably on Colonel Quidditch. He's a cardboard cutout whose solution is military confrontation from start to finish. It's implicit for a while, but halfway through the movie he's just overtly disgusted by the idea of a diplomatic solution and... it doesn't make a difference. He has no more need to explain why he's doing the right thing and everyone should go along with it than Sully does.


*Kind of like Luke in A New Hope. He moves on from that in the following movies, but if you compare first movie to first movie, he doesn't strike me as any different, really. But he seems to have come out just fine compared to Sully/Avatar.

 Flinty wrote:
There is political stance/position, and then there is political procedure. The original Star Wars trilogy may have a fair dollop of the former, but none of the latter, while the prequel trilogy has the latter in spades and I’m not convinced it made them better films.


I call for the formation of a committee to investigate this unsubstantiated claim.

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Considering as to what the Empire is modelled after in SW, authoritharian isn't even the correct label. The correct one is totalitarian, which is quite distinct from mere authoritharianism.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/06/05 09:26:05


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USA

Not to the Americans who made it.

In the US those terms might as well be synonymous (which really just goes back to why trying to gleam any meaningful political from Star Wars is a crap shoot when it comes from a culture that has a very binary/one-line mode of thought on political ideology).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/05 20:43:39


   
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Klickor wrote:
It is more about good vs evil than which political ideology is the best one.


Yes.

It is worth recalling that the tiny bit of politics that occurs in Star Wars is entirely absent from the next two films. It was there to give a little context, tell us that the Empire is super-duper bad, and that's it. There is zero reference to politics in the rest of the original films. This is why they work so well, because the story moves into the development of the characters, who each follow a different arc. Is there an arc in Avatar? Seems like there's the one Kevin Costner type who is capable of thought, and everyone else is basically static.

Avatar is also far more political because of that.

The prequels started out as explicitly political, with Lucas even dropping "current day" references into the films. Huge turn-off for people trying to escape into a galaxy far, far away.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/05 22:11:54


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MN (Currently in WY)

My "favorite" Star Wars take was that the Rebels were the Vietnamese and the Empire was the US and the whole movie was a front for anti-Vietnam war propaganda!

So wrong, but so deliciously wrong. It is like the idea that the Roman Empire fell due to lead in the plumbing. So wrong, but deliciously so.

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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Klickor wrote:
It is more about good vs evil than which political ideology is the best one.


Yes.

It is worth recalling that the tiny bit of politics that occurs in Star Wars is entirely absent from the next two films. It was there to give a little context, tell us that the Empire is super-duper bad, and that's it. There is zero reference to politics in the rest of the original films. This is why they work so well, because the story moves into the development of the characters, who each follow a different arc. Is there an arc in Avatar? Seems like there's the one Kevin Costner type who is capable of thought, and everyone else is basically static.

Avatar is also far more political because of that.

The prequels started out as explicitly political, with Lucas even dropping "current day" references into the films. Huge turn-off for people trying to escape into a galaxy far, far away.


Well, there was a lot wrong with the prequels. They were (according to Lucas directly) 'for children' but also about the taxation of trade routes (real kid fodder, obviously) done really poorly. Then government corruption is presented as fact, without any real legwork and finally a 'moral dilemma' that puts the protagonist murdering children (multiple times) as just a shade of grey so he can pontificate that others are true evil. Because reasons.

Its not even a 'good vs evil' story, its just an incoherent bridge to the starting point of the original films. 'Good,' as a value, needs a bit more than just being on the side of... not murdering children. I can walk around for decades without doing that. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.

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 Easy E wrote:
My "favorite" Star Wars take was that the Rebels were the Vietnamese and the Empire was the US and the whole movie was a front for anti-Vietnam war propaganda!

That was Lucas' take btw.

Of course, death of the author and all that.
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

Then he is an idiot and worse writer than I thought.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/06 15:25:39


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Lucas was a visionary, but he also was a very poor writer and director.
   
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Columbus, Ohio

To be honest? I'm really just tired of getting hit over the head with the eco-stick.

That, and it just wasn't a great film.

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Deleted.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2023/06/07 05:33:33


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 Tyran wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
My "favorite" Star Wars take was that the Rebels were the Vietnamese and the Empire was the US and the whole movie was a front for anti-Vietnam war propaganda!

That was Lucas' take btw.

Of course, death of the author and all that.


Lucas offered that take AFTER the movies were over and Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." He had to distance himself from it, and did so in a particularly stupid way. At the height of his success, Lucas spun vast webs of lies about his future intentions, origins of the films, their meanings, etc.

But let's go with it. The Ewoks are the peaceful people of Vietnam who are stirred into rebellion by a bunch of foreigners who create a false god using a magic trick who have their own hidden agenda and no real interest in them. Heck, the rebels didn't even know they were there until they (literally) tripped over them.

Not the take I think he meant it to be.

George Lucas has many admirable qualities, but he's got the political sense of a wet dishrag.

And then he went on to make Howard the Duck.

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And we're no longer even talking about Avatar in the Avatar thread...

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 ZergSmasher wrote:
And we're no longer even talking about Avatar in the Avatar thread...


It's almost as if Avatar is good enough to hold one's attention in the moment but in the long run there are more interesting things to talk about. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme.

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Well there's that, but we are at 8 pages long and there isn't a fresh Avatar film that we are all rushing to go see right now. So with no actual new content and the same people mostly chatting its inevitable that the topic would - drift

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 Geifer wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
And we're no longer even talking about Avatar in the Avatar thread...


It's almost as if Avatar is good enough to hold one's attention in the moment but in the long run there are more interesting things to talk about. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme.


The most meta ending to a thread if ever there was one.

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It could also just be as simple as the Colonel is the only actor with screen charisma.


It's bit of a same thing as why Palpatine feels cheer-able in the SW prequels, as he is almost only character who is not bland, CGI, or bland CGI.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gert wrote:
I'm not saying it isn't good, far from as it is one of my favourite movies but it is not subtle about its criticisms and satirical nature yet people still think the humans are good guys because they have flashy guns, spiffy music, and the bugs are scary.


Hah, I once knew a guy who hated 'Starship Troopers' because it was 'so clearly Anti-American'

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/06/07 21:58:38


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I’ve just watched the second avatar film, and after I finished it I realised I have no idea what the theme tune is!!

I wonder how much this has a bearing on the cultural impact. Even people who haven’t seen the movies can generally recognise John Williams’ scores from Superman, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
   
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Aash wrote:
I’ve just watched the second avatar film, and after I finished it I realised I have no idea what the theme tune is!!

I wonder how much this has a bearing on the cultural impact. Even people who haven’t seen the movies can generally recognise John Williams’ scores from Superman, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.


I have the same problem with the majority of the Marvel movies. I can't recall any of them for the life of me.

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There's a line between producing a theme song and producing background music. Both are highly talented and there's often a lot of music, even in films like Starwars, that's emotional and powerful that isn't the theme song everyone remembers.

That said I think also the way films start has changed. So many of the films that have big iconic theme songs, often had a fairly long intro before you got to the actual film itself. So the music for those parts had to be more of a theme than background because there was often just a few scenes or the pre-credits and such rolling.

I think as films have moved toward starting faster, with just the two or three company icons appearing and then boom right into the "film proper" we have slowly lost a lot of theme song options nad leaned more into background music that can be very dominating and powerful, but not as catchy.



It's not just an Avatar thing, I'd argue its a cinema thing in general right now.

I'd also say there's a touch of magic in it too and also in how music is blended into the film. I think some music stands out as music with the film whilst others blends right into the background and is part of the scene but isn't telling the story of the scene, its just noise. Esp in action films.

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 warhead01 wrote:
Aash wrote:
I’ve just watched the second avatar film, and after I finished it I realised I have no idea what the theme tune is!!

I wonder how much this has a bearing on the cultural impact. Even people who haven’t seen the movies can generally recognise John Williams’ scores from Superman, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.


I have the same problem with the majority of the Marvel movies. I can't recall any of them for the life of me.


Iron Man has a good theme based on the Black Sabbath song, while the Avengers theme is pretty iconic as well. Guardians doesn’t have one theme as such, but calls on all the period pop and rock used as its particular motif.

I think Marvel has done ok in terms of delivering good themes. There are so many films though that I don’t think it’s feasible for anyone to remember all of them.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/16 11:54:32


Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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