The Art Neuro Weblog

He Ain't Half Dumb
Pleiades sent in this link to Cannes Film Festival's reaction to 'Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'. In it you will find George Lucas discussing his take on how democracies fail and turn into dictatorships. There must be a reason apart from economics and development that the films have come out in this order. That is to say, the backstory to the original trilogy is turning out to be far more disturbing in its excursions into darkness, re-contextualising the events of the first 3 films as they unveil themselves.

In a way it is fitting that six films of Star Wars movies culminates with the revelation that George Lucas has had a life-long fascination with fascism after all. That the liberation politics of the Original Star Wars movie of 1977 is in a way, the mirrored bookend to a progressive journey into darkness. There will be no more Star Wars films from George Lucas, no 'episodes 7,8 & 9' that have been rumoured for years. So 'Revenge of the Sith' leaves us in the darkness with a vague awareness that Democracies fail and give way to Fascism to thunderous applause. That fascism can only be confronted by everybody commiting to a near-futile resistance and well, 'Letting go' and 'Trusting the Force' and other acts of faith. That in the end, furry foul-mouthed primitive-punk Ewoks shall rule the universe in a vast marketing campaign... It's a sad, depressing picture.

Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.

"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing. "We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. ... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."

The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.

Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate. In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler. "You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

George Lucas clearly is uncomfortable with the current US Administration's foreign policies and he is clearly uncomfortable with his films' part in the US cultural imperialsim; and wants to be considered part of the Left in spite of his success and vast wealth and small-business liberal attitudes. I mean, he is the one-man 'Trade Federation' of the cinema, but he knows it, and he's uncomfortable with it. So, I guess he ain't half dumb in the wash of things.

I guess Conservative Weasel will now disown his love of the Star Wars movies because of George Lucas' Leftist leanings. . :)
Sad, sad, sad.

- Art Neuro