Regards, Ivan
They're just not That Big A Deal.
I have never seen any Star Wars movie and I never will. From the hundreds of clips I've seen over the last three decades, it appears to be geared for 10-year old boys. I never understood the big deal.
ohfercryinoutloud.
LMAO, the Bush haters can't even attend a movie anymore without perceiving some ridiculous back-handed affirmation for their Bush hating mental illness?! It's a Sci Fi movie but they somehow have to incorporate their own sickness into the movie to feel better about themselves! How pathological are these people?? They go to a Star Wars movie and read into Lucas' hackneyed dialogue affirmation for their pathetic Bush hating mental illness?? Do their diseased minds even possess the capability of freeing themselves even for 2 hours from their roiling Bush hate?? Good gosh, get these people some therapy! I'll put it on my credit card!
Oh come on.
I never woulda guessed that Dubya was such a badass Evil Sith master! Hope he meets up with Kim Jong Il and Osama and slices them in half with his lightsaber!
More review excerpts from rottentomatoes.com
Lucas couldn’t resist the temptation to impose his political views on the audience, especially since they are so Hollywood. During the climactic battle between Darth and Obi, Darth says, “If you are not with me…you are not for democracy.” Obi responds, “Only a Sith would deal in absolutes.” Grow up, George. While you had apparently stacked the screening audience with your employees (cheers went up for the opening titles, as well as for these lines!), hard as it may be fore you to believe, nobody cares how George Lucas feels about George Bush and Iraq. You are making a comic book entertainment and you demean your product by advertising the comic book level of your political opinions.
-- Tony Medley, TOLUCAN TIMES
One of the most surprising elements of this film is Lucas' political statement. "Any one that's not with me, is my enemy," Anakin says at one point, paraphrasing the famous line from a George W. Bush speech. "Only a Sith believes only in absolutes," Obi-wan replies. "So this is how liberty dies,” Padmé points out in another scene as Senator Palpatine is laying out his new political strategy. “With a round of applause."
-- Scott Nash, THREE MOVIE BUFFS
Lucas' screenplay is his strongest in years, and even contains a few barely-concealed critiques of the Bush Administration and the Iraq War. The commentaries on democracy are offered in direct counterpoint to a government that is clearly overstepping its bounds, and the parallels are obvious to anyone looking for them. While Bush might not be an evil emperor (yet), it's not that far a trip from Senator Palpatine to Tom DeLay.
-- Gabriel Shanks, MIXED REVIEWS
I imagine that Revenge of the Sith is very much the film Lucas's fans want to see, but are some of them ready for an anti-Bush diatribe? Though every Star Wars film until now has existed in an insular comic-book world, a lot has happened since 1999 and 2002 in the real world and Lucas dares, for the first time, to address how the hollow political conflict in his franchise correlates with the reality outside its panels. (It would have been stupid not to strike a parallel.) Revenge of the Sith's two greatest moments tap into the uncertainty of our own political climate: the dazzling battle between Yoda and Darth Sidious (an outstanding Ian McDiarmid) inside the beautifully spiraling Senate hall evokes Democrats and Republicans scrambling for power and the with-us-or-against-us Anakin's obscenely over-the-top final duel with Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) is prefaced none-to-subtly with the Jedi master declaring, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." Lucas's political gestures would be easier to appreciate if he himself didn't trade in absolutes and generalities (you know the drill: the darker the couture, the closer you are to the dark side), but it's still a welcome step forward. Pity we had to wait so long for it, but, as they say, better late than never.
-- Ed Gonzalez, SLANT MAGAZINE
This statement by Obi-Wan sounds a bit similar to one he made in Return of the Jedi. He said something like "Many of the truths you cling to depend greatly on your own point of view." Which sounds quite a bit like relativism.
It is amazing what some people will imagine and interpret. Having read the novelization of the movie I can confirm that it is NOT anti-bush. The only parellel is the one that existed since the first movie: Leader brainwashes people (largely based off Hitler and how he came to power) and stokes up nationalism to distract the masses away from his own aims and other problems, this is what every tryant has done ever since the invention of Fascism and Communism.
Lucas is very left and he throws a lot of leftist hints in his movies, especially the latest trilogy. For instance, Nute Gunray who came from a race that lived the "survival of the fittest", where those that couldn't compete were left to starve. (Liberal idea of a Republican nirvana)
And the reason the Trade federation started the problem with Padme's world was they didn't want to pay their fair share of taxes.
And of course, there is lots in the latest movies on how great planets who work together (United Nations) are enlightened, while all problems should be 'talked' out by reasonable people. And in the first movie a Clintonite president is "falsely accused" of corruption. And there's lots more.
However, I've noticed that the more Lucas gets enmeshed in that garbage the worse the movies get. The original trilogy, which is not so skewed and more traditionalist in philosophy, is far superior.
come on.
Weren't some people commenting a couple years ago about how the Lord of the Rings trilogy was somehow pro-Bush, or anti-terror or something (we have to band together and resist evil, no matter the cost, etc.). I don't know if that, too, was a case of reading too much into things...
But perhaps Lucas wanted the liberal counterpart to the more militaristic, realpolitik message from LOTR?
Uhh, Lucas himself makes clear that this is an anti-Bush movie in interviews. He is quite the jerk, in fact. He admits that the technological Empire is America, and the low-tech rebels defeating them are, say, Vietnam. At least that's what he says he was thinking when he made Episode IV. What a jerk. This is not to say that his movies can't be enjoyable. But someone who reads anti-Americanism into his movies isn't reading too much into things, but rather too little. Lucas' sounds like Sean Penn when he talks. He is an unmitigated leftist jerk.
Holy crap. Did Ed Gonzalez run out of stuff to write about or is he serious? Time to step away from the keyboard, Ed. Go get some iced tea and a Tylenol.
This has to be the most assinine thread ever.
Regards, Ivan
I'm not reading this thread for fear of spoilers, but I have talked to someone who has seen this--someone whom I understand is no fan of the President's--and it is not true that the movie is intentionally anti-Bush. Palpatine's arc has been discussed by George Lucas as far back as the original Star Wars novel, and this movie simply realizes what has been stated for nearly 30 years now. I'm sure Lucas and company are proud that life, in their minds, is imitating art, but it isn't a newly-invented slam against Bush.
Can't wait to see it myself.