That would be because some people are idiots and some people are being dishonest... And you get a mix of dishonest idiots who are talking out of the other other side of their mouths.

Its even more surprising because the opinions are just the most basic thing ever. Like no shit destroying the planet and anarcho capitalism are bad

@@dertyp1769 Sadly some nerds didn’t get the memo

The Empire itself was based around multiple irl nations, mostly WW2 era, the colonialism and accent of UK, fashion of Germany, the power/influence of U.S and even the whole militarism of Japan You could argue the bad relationship between the Imperial Navy and Army is directly inspired by the same relations of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army

​@@Cappuccino_Rabbit Another historical country that the Empire (and the Republic) is heavily inspired by, especially in the Prequels, is Rome. Palpatine's rise to power and the transition from the Galactic Republic to the Galactic Empire is very reminiscent of Julius Casar's and Octavian's rise to power and the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. A very flawed democracy lead by a very corrupt senate gets taken over by one person who uses an assassination to reorganize this democracy into essentially an autocracy with the senate really only being symbolic after that.

Well for those of us who do watch Star Wars, Avatar The last Airbender,and so on and so forth, some of us understood that those shows were very political. For those who didn't, were either: denying it or they were lying or they were idiots or some combination

@@seeleunit2000 😆😅 be nice now

I would have picked Batman and Superman: The Animated Series rather than X-Men and even Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

​@seeleunit2000 I wouldn't call those shows political in the modern day sense. They're kids shows, first and foremost. They were written excellently by a team of talented writers that wanted to tell a story that espoused the universal values that anyone could get behind. These values were then executed with superb writing, and fit perfectly into their stories, adding nuance and encouraging people to be thoughtful. What happens nowadays is divisive propaganda, that espouses black and white reasoning and encourages people to be more dogmatic and tribalistic. This is done by poor writing, which is then defended by accusing anyone who ppints this out as an ist or a phobe, ie Disney for past 10 years. Progressive posturing.

@@silverprimus321boi9 Good points. Still, would love to see content that demonizes Communists and possibly the Chinese. Am sure such content will age just as well as the anti-Hitler propaganda back in the day, like The Great Dictator.

There’s a difference from political themes and the author’s personal politics taking over the media.

@@VinluvAntonHandesbukia Nothing inherently wrong with the latter, though.

@@mikkosimonen yeah,but it has to be a good piece of media.

@@VinluvAntonHandesbukiaNo. There’s no law they some author’s thoughts HAVE to pass a threshold to justify its existence. They have the right to put in anywhere. Freedom of expression, baby.

@@LilacSreya When don't express it badly.

Also in a deleted scene Biggs Darklighter says "You know they're nationalizing commerce in the central systems" or something like that.

It's pretty easy. Strip it down to drama and myth, which is what it is. Everything is Star Wars is an old archetype that has been around for thousands of years, long before Nixon.

@@panamajack5972 Drama and myth are perfectly capable of being political too, it's just that in a lot of cases they're so old that the political context of the times they were made in has been lost, or at least is the kind of thing most people wouldn't know about. The ones that we still like, of course, are good even without that context. But also... drama, and especially myth, often tries to communicate to the viewer the way things should be, the way people should behave, just like political shows do. In that regard they aren't so different.

I honestly agree, SW to me actually needs more politics in it.

Thats more due to the skill of the people writing these new stories more than anything. Having already mediocre writers trying to weave in more explicit political messages would only result in more bad media.

@@Nihoolious Disney's corporate control has taken most of the actual partisan, specific politics out of Star Wars and opted for the most milquetoast, banal politics it can muster, and that's a big part of why that stuff kind of sucks now. The more niche animated shows have the most direct political messaging, and that, in my opinion, is part of the reason why the animated stuff isn't as bland as a lot of the live action shows and movies, other than Andor which was far more directly political and interesting because of it.

Exactly! Could you imagine how the sequels would have looked like if they embraced the political landscape of the 2012-2020 years. They could have said so much, but lacked that backbone Lucas had as a king maker and not a corporate executive

@@Nihooliousmediocre writers? Force Awakens was written by Lawrence Kasden who did rewrites for ESB, wrote Jedi and The Indy movies, TLJ was written by Rain Johnson who wrote Brick, Looper and the Knives Out Movies and Rise of Skywalker was written by Chris Terrio who wrote Argo. Then you have JJ Abrams who wrote Fringe, Super 8, Regarding Henry, Mission Impossible III. I wouldn’t consider any of these mediocre scripts.

The senate was a gleaming gigantic visual triumph in the 25th anniversary reissue 4 days ago. You had to really concentrate to register what was going on, it looked so overwhelming.

Agreed. It had depth especially if you were younger.

Same. I really hated how scared the sequels were of going into the politics of the setting and it made the films a lot weaker for it. The New Republic just gets destroyed and we had no context for it until later lore was added. It felt very lazy as a means to avoid what some fans hated in the prequels.

"YIPPPEEE!!!!"

Granted, most of Legends' nuanced politics is in the side material outside the films.

Wait…you’re right!

Andor) Am I a joke to you?

@@LexYeen with the exception of andor

@@LexYeen which also fucking rules

​@@LocalCryptidGhostdollfinally, common ground with another person on the internet - and I was told it couldn't exist

"I know writers who use subtlety, and I think they're cowards" just keeps being better and better sci-fi writing advice...

The problem is Lucas doesn't understand politics and so his criticism of it in the films just comes across as uninformed and amateurish.

@@HYDRAdude Oh c'mon, lol. Lucas is more politically literate than like 95% of Americans, which isn't saying a lot, but he's still ahead of the curve.

@@MatthewOstergren Ouch. I felt that.

@@sambridgers9543 I'm sorry. I'm an American myself. I majored in political science and economics in college, and even a lot of the stuff I learned there was just empty fluff where we watch election polling as if it were horse races.

Yeah, this is why I think conservatives need to take a humility class. They think that, if they can't spot a theme with five minutes thought, then it obviously doesn't exist. That and their constant bitching that whatever they think is "apolitical".

That Lucas so believed he sold SW to one

@@gups4963well George was retiring and while he was definitely opposed to entertainment conglomerates (he ever referred to Disney as “white slavers” lol), Disney also has a fairly good track record with keeping franchises alive. There’s a reason that movies the company made nearly a century ago are still immensely popular and are being remade every few decades, and their mascots are among the most recognizable in the world. Theyre really good at branding. If I was divorcing my creation and retiring, I too would sell it to Disney, knowing at the very least they will keep my creations legacy alive. I mean, I hate most of Disney Star Wars, but it also can’t be denied that the franchise is as popular as ever, due in no small part to Disney marketing.

I mean, the sequels had no politics in them whatsoever (other than the vaguest first order allusion to not-see Germany), so quite literally _any_ implementation of politics in the sequels would have been better than what we got.

@@SarastistheSerpent That is true. I meant it more like how it was examined in the video, considering any references and parallels to modern politics and talking points. Something like Canto Bight in the TLJ feels poorly done compared to The Trade Federation in The Phantom Menace. the trade federation fits into the movie and it’s plot fairly well while Canto Bight feels jammed in there for its message. Removing it from the movie doesn’t change anything really, Finn and Rose could go to any other planet.

Reminds me of when CinemaWins said "pretend that it's what you wanted and see how you feel" while reviewing TROS kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l7uEbNeQyc2zpKs.htmlfeature=shared&t=356

The problems with the Sequels: 1. Rip off of the Original Trilogy 2. Incoeherent story 3. Treated the legacy heroes as Trash 4. Rubbed too much identidy politics in the face of the audience while the original 6 films all they talked about where military political matters

​@@dboygamer8184no they didn't. Remember when the robots weren't allowed in the bar? That was about racism. "you're kind ain't allowed in here" is something blacks were used to hearing. The empire targeting non humans was blatantly racist. And what identity politics? You act like Finn wears a black power medallion or Rey is LGBT. You show how star wars fans are racist idiots by complaining about identity politics. You idiots hated Finn as soon as he popped up in the trailer for force awakens when that meme came out about how stormtroopers can't be black. So no, Disney didn't start the identity politics, you losers did. And again, can you please explain to me how these movies had identity politics without sounding like a conservative white chauvinist?

There have been attempts to label STAR WARS as right-wing because of its clearly defined "Light Side"/"Dark Side" morality. And the Rebels are seen as the "traditional" type of revolutionaries.

@@SeasideDetective2 yeah I've seen that. Which is idiotic. But those ppl are just mad that their worldview isn't supported in the stuff they loved. So they try to only see the qualities they like while blatantly ignoring others

Hear hear!

Right-wingers refusal to find common ground* Left-wingers have been trying for decades, it's just that in the last few years most of us have finally realised how pointless it is with right-wingers and given up

Yeah but they're both just long standing tropes, especially in star wars. Hell the clone wars had what felt like several episodes per season dealing with those exact issues

​@@tracytron7162Almost like trying to negotiate a middle ground between "can we get rid of people who don't look like us" and "we just want to live" is an impossible task that will only end in tragedy...

@@LexYeen Exactly

​@@tracytron7162leftists literally call everyone and everything slightly right of Karl Marx fascist, racist, and throwing around every other ist, ism and phobe all the time. The last thing you people are doing is trying to find common ground.

Yes.

“Somehow, Nixon has returned.”

I mean, we've all see Futurama right?

As@@rolanddeschain5161 mentions, we have a documentary on it actually happening called Futurama *aaahoooooo*

But after what right-wingers have done and stand for, why should we care that they get "hurt" by modern movies?

@@Lentil-SoupAnd what’s that exactly?

@@Lentil-Soup Two wrongs do not make a right.

You can be surprised.

True. Just as Tolkein for example wrote lord of the rings in a specific way with definitive political and religious themes but people still insist on things like Frodo and Sam being gay for example

30 years, at best.

Say what anyone will about his takes on video games, he did have some good platforms.

I think it has to do with the fact that the conflicts in Star Wars tend to result from universal political issues. A politician promising peace and security and transforms a republic into an empire. Am I talking about Caesar or Hitler? A band of resistance fighters overthrowing a government that attacks their religion. Is this the Jewish Maccabees revolting against the Seleucids or Iranian fundamentalists staging a revolution against the Shah? Star Wars draws parallels from history to make political points. The good guys can range from officials of a liberal democracy, a benevolent king, or indigenous partisans. Villains often take the form of sinister masterminds, greedy businessmen or crime lords, and tyrannical lords who slaughter their subjects. The circumstances of the historical references are removed to focus on the core messages of freedom and peace.

@impcit5717 That's all certainly part of the intention, but there's nothing inherent about socialism as a political system that makes things feel dated or historical as opposed to different systems. The Republic (old and new) can be an allegory for the Roman or French republics even though its form of government is clearly a liberal democracy and, specifically, modeled on the United States. Similarly, the Empire can be any tyrannical or authoritarian power from ancient Rome to Persia to the Aztec Empire, despite being clearly modeled on the Nazis and being canonically called a "fascist" government. Based on that, I suppose my thought is that a contemporary and complimentary ideology to those two that offers a lot to the actual inspiration for Star Wars can also be present in some form, even if those who espouse it or rule by its principles don't use that exact word very often or if their politics stay vague to allow other interpretations and stay "timeless." By that criteria, some aspects of the Rebellion in the Andor series might fit, but not much else -- and certainly not the New Republic they end up creating or any rival to it that we know of.

@@luxemburgist1635 The Rebellion fits the kinds of core values underneath socialism. Even with all its focus on workers and economic redistribution, the core is freedom from undue oppression. Freedom is different to an American Revolutionary, a Basque Separatist, or a member of the Russian Red Army, but they all fight for the concept of freedom.

The idea of a kind of Stalinist socialism gets criticized a bit in the Darth Bane trilogy, as the Banite Sith’s preceding order is called the Brotherhood of Darkness, which is an egalitarian dark side Sith cult where all members are of equal standing. But the criticism of that concept comes in the form of a “true Sith”, ie Darth Bane, who is an _extreme_ social Darwinist and believes that equality is a lie, and that the strong have not only the right, but the _obligation_ to murder, enslave and torture all those who are weaker than themselves. Darth Bane establishes the Rule of Two, which dictates that there can only ever be 2 Sith at any given time: one master to embody ultimate power, and an apprentice to crave it and eventually steal it. When a Sith apprentice becomes more powerful than their master, they have to kill them. That way each generation of Sith becomes stronger than the last. The One Sith (Kraytian Sith) from the Legacy comics also kinda mimic Stalinism, in that there are dozens if not hundreds of Sith Lords (many of whom are very popular with the Star Wars fanbase, in particular Darth Talon, Darth Maladi, Darth Nihl and Darth Wyyrlok) who are all essentially equal in rank and follow the “Rule of One”, meaning they are mindlessly and fanatically loyal to a single Sith master (Darth Krayt) in a cult of personality. The One Sith order also seeks to destroy all governments in the galaxy, including the Galactic Empire (which still exists almost 2 centuries after Darth Sidious dies). Theyre pretty zealous anarchists, but most members of the One Sith are also clinically insane and delight in rampant torture and genocide for no real reason at all.

@@impcit5717George said the Rebels were primarily based on the Viet Cong, who were communists.

While I don’t disagree, I don’t think it’s really realistic these days for a large company to actually believe in social egalitarian values, particularly now when extreme social conservatism is going through a renaissance, and when a huge portion of said company’s profits come from socially conservative markets like China and the Middle East. Without China’s box office, Disney would lose at least a quarter of any potential profit on a film, and the Chinese Communist Party will censor or outright ban any movies with Black or LGBTI characters. For George Lucas, Star Wars was a passion project, so he could get away with putting his own values in his films without having to answer to anyone else. But Disney is beholden to shareholders and to their bottom line. So that means ridding their films of any actual politics, while pandering to both social conservatives (especially abroad) and western liberal audiences simultaneously, throwing bare bones to the latter with minimum representation, while censoring even that minimal representation for foreign conservatives. Bottom line is money poisons everything.

What makes you say the politics are forced checkboxes via investors?

@@blam320 A. Lucasfilm/Disney is a corporation of the entertainment industry whose sole concern is profits, not politics. B. Lucasfilm/Disney would not be so two-faced in their promotion of say diversity if they genuinely cared: demoting the main black character to the annoying friend of the white lead, shrinking said black character's presence on international posters, having Lando inexplicably disappear until he was the only surviving OT cast member left, because two major black characters would have been too much, then editing out the lesbian kiss scene in TRoS, all to appeal to the PRC market. This is virtually the same that occurred with Black Panther and the live-action Mulan remake. C. Blackrock alone is worth ~10 trillion USD; Disney failing to recoup what they paid for Lucasfilm in 12 years is an acceptable loss when their backers are worth half the highest national GDP on Earth. D. Blackrock and other investor companies are the ones that are pushing "identity" politics onto smaller entertainment companies. What would a corporation be without investors anyway?

"checking off a list to appease investment companies like Blackrock or foreign markets like the PRC" On Blackrock, I agree. But PRC? I think you are just trying to throw in everyone's favorite scapegoat. Star Wars is practically unknown in China, even the OT. And the politics of KK would not find any agreement with the Chinese.

@@chrisstahl2653 Why else would Fin's image shrink on the PRC poster if not to appease the PRC market? Corporations as a whole have been attempting to appeal to their growing market; it would be foolish of Disney/LucasFilm not to try the same.

Nailed it! They think shows have changed, but in reality THEY grew up and just notice it now. Or cartoons for example. (Avatar The Last Airbender, X-Men, Static Shock, many others. I'm rewatching some shows and they have episodes that these people would hate lmao)

Same crowd has gone after modern Star Trek as well saying that Star Trek “didn’t used to be political.” Sounds like they didn’t see episodes like “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” where two characters are painted half black and half white and cannot reconcile their differences because one is black on the left side while the other was black on the right side. And that aired during the civil rights movement of the late 60s. It’s so on-the-nose and not-subtle that it was probably viewed as being ridiculous when it aired as well as now on streaming.

​@HotDogTimeMachine385 To add to the point, I've also noticed how often war shows up in shows that I never noticed as a kid, like Avatar: The Last Airbender. Obviously Star Wars, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Lord of the Rings are all about wars, but even series like Pokemon have war spread throughout them in snippets like the major war in the Kalos games that AZ basically built a nuclear cannon to stop, the scenes of medieval warfare in the Lucario movie, and military men like Lt. Surge showing up who have actually seen combat

Even Avengers Infinity War is polítical, since Thanos ideas kinda happened in real life. ( or is still happening)

@@ChrisVillagomez well, what many irgnored with Lord of the Rings and Rings of Power is: Tolkien never stated the skin pigmentation of elves, only that they had Fair skin and well, that the guy that not even liked to travel by train because it was to modern build the shire around the nostalgic "Deep england" and that the destruction or tainting at the end of the book by Saruman was quite a statement against the heavy industrialisation. Quite inspired by "Jerusalem" and the "dark Satanic Mills" ... besides the point on how isn't Galadriel allowed some tricks without getting called a "Mary Sue" when we had Legolas in the Movies? but well, Episode 4 and 7 showed us that People that uses certain Key phrases have no Idea what they are meaning

But I thought it was a slur! That's what [insert yelling man here] keeps saying! /s

@@LexYeen lol

Not a fan of secessionists. Even I wasn't too keen on supporting the NSF in Deus Ex.

@@michaelandreipalon359 freedom

@@wa-bu3ke What's that mean? A on overrated lie to ease people's minds like a futile bandaid?

The prequels were great at integrating politics smoothly into the plot and showing, not telling the audience what the creator thinks about a certain topic. In the sequels, you get Holdo forced in, refusing to act as a competent leader, not briefing her XO on the plan, so you get to see "toxic masculinity". That's not really the same, is it?

@@lucanicolasstefan4788 What are you even talking about? Poe was being levied with more layers as a character - being provided flaws, such as being conveyed with arrogance and being presumptuous. Poe was demoted and was not a part of Resistance High Command. If you were to conduct yourself akin to Poe in a military context, you would be put into your place.

What does it mean to have a character "forced in"?

You're making the very co fusion that is criticized. There's a world between "this universe has inner politics" and "this setting is full of modern day political takes"

​@@AshanBhatoa that's the thing, everything you've said is wrong. Poe wasn't arrogant or presumptuous, in any military, he would have been commanded for his actions in the movie.

Alexsander Hamilton

Sandra Day O'Connor

@@CoreysDatapadshe’s that Hispanic Supreme Court justice right? Wait no I think that’s condeleza rice

@@CoreysDatapad Based lol.

Trying to have multiple directors with different visions, as well as that punishing every-two-years release schedule were the big culprits IMO. Disney took a “quantity” approach to Star Wars which is frankly exhausting.

@blam320 quantity is not the problem... it's was the quality... I feel like people who actually understand star wars could make all kinds of awesome shows and movies in no time... problem is diversity hires... and the lack of vision for an overall story and direction they are going.... story is key without a good narrative its just doesn't hit like it should... but yeah who knows... all we know is Disney is doing a terrible job...

@@GeneralTantorThe quantity was the problem they didn’t give the writers and directors enough time to make a good script it’s the reason TroS came out the way it did it was very rushed after the director left and they needed to find a new one. Lucasfilm even asked Disney to delay the release but where given no as a answer.

chess

​@@mb9484chess is a game "about" war between monarchies, therefore it's political by definition - checkmate.

@@ironinquisitor3656 no they hate politics that don’t agree with theirs

@@mb9484 what

@@goldenfiberwheat238 favorite game

Who’s he named after?

I would suggest that it is a result of Lucas’s political perceptions. The Vietnam War was started because the government claimed the American military was attacked at the Gulf of Tokin. So there was fear of the government using war as a justification to increase their own power. The assumption was that the politicians were just stooges to ensure more corporate power. George W. Bush had the conflict along with an increased push for deregulation of the economy. Lucas probably saw Bush as an extension of the problems he saw in Nixon.

Eh?

Is there any wonder I actually wonder a Multiversal crisis to happen in Star Wars, so to justify the Celestials or a defense force to finally intervene and make things as they should be?

I definitely recommend watching Jessie Gender’s video on Star Wars. There is a common theme in the franchise of how history repeats itself in a vicious cycle, and liberal democracy and fascism feed on one another’s failures and in turn empower each other.

@@michaelandreipalon359there was supposed to be in the concept of Anakin Skywalker, as he was originally meant to be the messianic figure that breaks the cycle and ends the Sith (and therefore fascism) once and for all. George was pretty adamant that in his version of Star Wars, Anakin fulfilled the prophecy and the Sith and the empire never came back. The force created and sent Anakin to restore balance. That’s why he embodied the whitest and blackest elements of the cycle, both a hero of light and villain of dark as Darth Vader. He’s the embodiment of the cycle.

This might sound like a cop-out, but what might seem like a solution to one might be impossible to another. There's many problems in the world right now where there's not an obvious solution.

Well, the good guys are literally called 'the rebellion', so, y'know, I think it's clearly NOT saying preserve things as they are, regardless.

do you understand the concepts of "metaphor" and "media literacy"? because it doesn't seem like it.

When I say that's what things are about, I am saying they pulled their inspiration from real-world issues or figures and were used by Lucas in an intentional way to comment on those.

@@LexYeen Most people don't sadly.

@@CoreysDatapad My point, Corey, is that I don't think you're accurately representing the opposing position you're trying to refute. You're presenting something of a false binary: broad principles versus in-your-face contemporary references. But Star Wars can draw on contemporary references (whilst also drawing on timeless references - in my same example above Lucas also references the war of independence), whilst still being about broad principles. I think you have your work cut out to demonstrate that Lucas intended any of the six films to be "about contemporary problems". I think it's more likely that he wanted to tell stories, largely around timeless principles, and drew inspiration from a wide net, including contemporary problems, to tell them.

The whole point is that it can be about broad principles but accomplishes that by referencing specific events. But then people think (or pretend to think) it's *only* the broad principles and try to use that as a straw man to talk about why the new stuff is bad, because they say the new stuff shoehorns in modern references, and claim the older stuff didn't, which is absolute nonsense, and that is what I'm addressing. I never set it up as the binary choice you're claiming I did here, and I'm very clear about that in the video. Anything they''re saying about the new content can be said about the old, and vice versa. They try to deny any kind of broader principle about diversity or whatever else they're villifying and claim that including that is self-evidently bad because it's "shoving politics down their throat." The universal themes George included are the same ones newer material like the ST included, it's just a new generation of people feel attacked by it that don't feel attacked by earlier stuff because they don't identify with the War on Terror or the Contract With America the way they identify with a border wall or the alt-right. You're engaging in some massive mental gymnastics if you think those themes, with those references, were not set up with the intention of commenting on those events, especially given how much the specifics of those events within Star Wars were influenced throughout the production of the prequel trilogy in particularly by the events that were unfolding in the real world. If you try to divorce the Phantom Menace from the results of the 1994 midterms, and especially things like Palpatine's emergency powers from what Lucas thought was happening with Bush and Cheney, then you have absolutely no leg to stand on. I don't "have my work cut out" to demonstrate that, the man is very much not subtle about it being the case, in the same way he directly calls Palpatine Nixon.

Disney Star Wars at the very least better bring that back, alongside "stang" and "kriff".

Based

That's what our entertainment used to be like, but now ambitious activists see it as merely a platform to spread their agenda.