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Jack Graham

Jack Graham writes and podcasts about culture and politics from a Gothic Marxist-Humanist perspective. He co-hosts the I Don't Speak German podcast with Daniel Harper. Support Jack on Patreon.

10 Comments

  1. Daniel
    February 17, 2017 @ 1:45 pm

    You are on fire, sir. Bravo.

    Reply

  2. darkspine10
    February 17, 2017 @ 1:55 pm

    Some other links regarding Saw Gererra. The character was originally created for the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars. There, he was part of a small rebellion on the planet Onderon, against the Separatists, who were in control of the capital city, Iziz.

    The Jedi decide to train and supply the Onderon Rebels in secret, hoping to use them to avoid a full scale invasion of Onderon. They use terror tactics to try and convince the populace of Iziz that the Separatists do not have their interests at heart.

    Saw therefore eventually comes to rebel against the very government that led to his training.

    Reply

    • darkspine10
      February 17, 2017 @ 2:03 pm

      Though I must say that the link between Iziz and ISIS is likely unintentional, as the name comes from the old Star Wars EU in 1993, while the episodes of The Clone Wars pre-date the founding of ISIS by about 6 months.

      Reply

      • phuzz
        February 17, 2017 @ 4:06 pm

        So what you’re saying it, it’s possible that Daesh got their name from Star Wars?
        It’s more plausible than Archer I suppose.

        Reply

  3. David Ainsworth
    February 17, 2017 @ 2:54 pm

    A few lines would have sufficed to explain why Kenobi suddenly mattered. After all, the weakness in the Death Star was internal and called for someone who could infiltrate a target and set off explosives, not a military attack. With Saw dead, Kenobi would look like an excellent alternative, though (as noted here) one aligned with Old Republic values.

    I’m sorry the filmmakers didn’t take that route, as it creates the ironic situation in the next film of Kenobi, on the Death Star, being focused on getting the others out instead of blowing the damn thing up himself. If he’d bothered to read the damn plans instead of training Luke, he’d have been the hero right there.

    That also would add thematic weight to Luke’s own “infiltration” in RotJ, as well as strengthening a reading where the Imperial and Rebel become dangerously interchangeable.

    Reply

  4. Tim B.
    February 17, 2017 @ 10:23 pm

    It’s no surprise that the first President that America elected after the release of Star Wars focused a lot on positioning the Americans as the plucky Rebels against the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union despite the massive US military spending.

    Reply

    • Jack
      February 18, 2017 @ 1:47 am

      Albeit with talk of having a very Empire like “Star Wars” missile defense system.

      Reply

  5. Ross
    February 17, 2017 @ 11:57 pm

    There’s a sense in which the most radical thing you could do with Star Wars would be to show us what citizens of the Empire watch on their holographic infotainmentscreens.

    Surely we’ve already seen that. Bea Arthur as a singing barmaid in Mos Eisley and cooking shows with Harvey Corman.

    Reply

  6. AntonB
    February 18, 2017 @ 8:35 am

    I’m no great fan of the Star Wars franchise so forgive me if I’m stating the obvious here but isn’t the phrase ‘The Old Republic’ a kind of linguistic meme that infiltrated the franchise from early on? Wasn’t Lucas very fond of invoking “the old Republic serials” in early publicity for Star Wars? A project that positioned itself initially very much as an homage to the Saturday morning movies of his youth. As blatant an exercise in nostalgia as his previous movie American Graffiti.

    It’s telling that the most successful Sci-Fi franchise in Western cuture has always looked backwards for its inspiration never forwards. But of course even I know that these events all took place ‘long ago in a galaxy far away’

    Reply

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