The Empire -- the good guys?

[yendi]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp

Hee. I've already seen plenty of articles talking about how Star Trek is the democratic universe, and SW the elitist one (based on the original trilogy), but this is a nifty read as well.

Comments

[two-star.livejournal.com]

I'm rather disturbed that this author finds the destruction of Alderan even a little justifiable. The message that it is OK to cause large numbers of civilian casualties because a city/country/planet is harboring terrorists is, I think, extremely harmful right about now.

[melintur.livejournal.com]

Actually, I see this article as a uninteded satire, based on the cognative dissonance created while watching the 2nd movie. Instead of a serious look at the US/UK terrorist policy and how it is wrong (as per example in AOTC) we instead seek to make the Empire OK.

Guilt and Denial.

-=C

[yendi]

I definitely see a little of this there, but I see more of the article as a simple attempt to get folks riled up without any specific agenda. And, as is often the case, it's impossible to write an article attempting to impose real social commentary on something that was written without any social direction in mind (and I'm defintely one of those who believes that Lucas's original trilogy was written as such), as you encounted the various contradictions or stumbling blocks in trying to pick apart everything that one side does.

Then again, that's the whole fun of film commentary in the first place.

Since I've yet to see AotC, no comment on whether it succeeds on any meta level, of course.