Joe, that's an interesting one that I might tackle later. Interesting in the sense, at least, that you found a strange category/subsection there, and skimming over, it apparently roots various criticisms of the prequels in terms of sins allegedly started (I guess, as per the section title) in the OT. Of course, it's hyper one-sided, exonerating the OT almost entirely, while each time ladling copious criticism, by comparison, at the prequels. So, both a big yawn, but also an opportunity to blast whoever wrote that for being a massive flaming idiot, whose nostalgic, simple-minded apologetics for the OT don't hold up for the PT --
can't hold up for the PT, in fact, because the prequels are far more complex (from a certain point of view), requiring a more generous mindset, demanding greater intellectual probity.
That said, to tie this into to your just-posted video link featuring Marcia Lucas (more on that in a moment), let me pull out a few small pieces right now:
So this is how the section begins:
What? English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Okay, moving on:
Since this is literally the only direct entry for the OT itself, I'll tackle this now. Yeah, so, Threepio. Perhaps Threepio was more level-headed in ANH, but there are plenty of moments where he's comically flustered in the first movie. Moreover, he has probably experienced his share of near-misses since joining the Rebel Alliance at the end of ANH, and one can empathise with his PTSD-like plight in TESB (C-3PO with PTSD in TESB -- huh,
slam poetry, y'all). Additionally, TESB separates him from R2 for much of the movie, so one can argue that Threepio is out of balance, lacking the yin to his yang. Then there's the general gloom of the movie, not only requiring a bit of comedy to add relief, but as the crawl tells us: "It is a dark time for the Rebellion." Everyone in the movie feels constantly on the brink of capture/torture/annihilation, so it's apropos that Threepio should be even more worried and fretful than usual. Then there's the manner of the Saga oscillating and going through some dramatic seasonal cycles and tonal variations, and Threepio being very much an avatar of those changes, swept along by a fluctuating tide.
Lucas himself has even stated that Threepio being blown apart on Cloud City is a metaphor for Anakin's internal condition in the movie (after Luke rejects him). Both Vader and Threepio, the former having made the latter, of course, back when he was a young boy (i.e., before becoming Vader), are inexorably raised to a frantic, neurotic state, so that a kind of existential, quasi-Freudian climax can be reached -- the blowing apart being the climax, the reassembling marking a gradual return of clarity and normal functioning. At the very end of the movie, Threepio is steadily back together, calmly anchored at Artoo's side once more, while Vader in his final scene spares Piett, the dark dream of pursuing and turning Luke essentially being over. There is a cleansing quality to hearing Tatooine being mentioned at the end of the film, along with the promise of Luke and Co. going there to rescue Han. So the restoration of a measure of equilibrium and equanimity makes sense.
Of course, all these aspects are ignored by people who immediately look outside of the movies, as if external factors, like the ever-dreary audience-placation angle (an implicit assumption), is the real and more likely or significant reason for these changes. In other words, they ignore the pleated tapestry of the Saga as a valid stylistic feature in its own right, instead shrinking everything down to a crowd-pleasing George Lucas, ever concerned with raking in the big bucks, simply changing things up or reverting them to an earlier state after realising (again, implicitly) that things had drifted too far, or weren't landing with audiences properly: i.e., Lucas is guilty of constantly pandering and backtracking, in simpler language. (Except, of course, when he's instead being obtuse, eccentric, sexist, and racist). It's all the usual skull-and-cross-bones nonsense. Don't go near these movies without critically dissecting them. If you do, you are obviously okay with stupid storytelling decisions, and you must be an alt-right asshole, too.
Alright, now let's zip ahead to a relevant entry for the upcoming Marcia vid:
The last sentence is a total LOL.
Oh, wait -- they're not joking?
Delete humanity and start again. Jesus.
The only sentence that jazzes me up in that big pile of nothing is the following:
"The Prequel Trilogy put greater focus on Worldbuilding, which made it more obvious." I'm not even quite sure what they're saying, but they seem to be implying the grandeur of the prequels (at least there's a backhanded compliment in all that bilge for the PT) somehow rendered stereotyping unnecessary or egregious. But here's the thing (of course): stereotyping is in the eye of the beholder, just like whether you find a character likeable or not. In fact, I suspect that has always been closer to the real issue here: people were thrown by Lucas' worldbuilding
and storytelling (more the latter; although, world is story, and story is world), so they reacted like babies and started crying about nothing making sense, and anyway, the films are full of racist caricatures, etc., etc. Then, at some point, those same complaints effectively supplanted the notion that the films were confusing, or too labyrinthine in their plotting, or people being willing to admit that they were baffled/confused; as if in merely making the claim that the films are riddled with stereotyping makes
you (as the complainer) morally superior to them; and thus, all the difficulty of tracking along with them, or taking the allegorical nature of them seriously, is (conveniently) obviated.
A major issue here is that, if you take out all the allegedly "offensive" elements, you are left with a pretty desiccated story/universe. Star Wars, in other words, isn't Star Trek; let alone (ugh) "Guardians Of The Galaxy" or some other ripoff space fantasy snark-comedy entertainment. Sanitising the films is not a good idea (though that didn't stop Disney trying). It results in tedium and banality. Star Wars' very identity is rooted in colourfulness, brass-and-strings satire and grandeur (and brass-balls storytelling in general), a propellant and playful sense of boyish adventure, and a degree of startling, larger-than-life "Othering" to keep its sandbox lively and interesting and to help convey its resonant, life-affirming themes. When you flatten those things down, you just get contemporary, try-hard cinema or (worse) mundane television.
Boorrrrring. I really miss George because he was plainly and firmly above all this stupid, anal-retentive bullshit.
Harping on stereotypes also misses the profoundly anti-racist, power-to-the-people narrative at the heart of Star Wars. Ironically, the movie that cops most of the flak on this level, TPM, is a bright, shiny, $115 million (not adjusted for inflation) parable to that end. The basic story of the film is how a young, lonely girl defeats evil (at least for a short time) by putting her faith in a race of people that the villains of the movie consider to be "primitives" (echoing the speciesism of the Empire in ANH: "Where are you taking this... thing?"). It's a "podrace" to the finish between a scheming, dirty old man and a promising, virginal leader. Palpatine is the foil of Padme; and Padme (in true yin-yang fashion) is also his. She achieves her goal by pursuing a path of unification in the face of greed and oppression. Jar Jar, meanwhile, is the rootless, derided "Other". The banished, loathed outsider. The one who gets threatened, pushed around, choked, maligned, spoken down to, ignored. Both within the movie and without. Yet it is through embracing Jar Jar as an equal and valid helper/advisor Padme is able to broker an alliance with the Gungans, which enables her to successfully repel the Trade Federation. Then there is the metaphor of midi-chlorians where the theme of symbiosis is made explicit and concrete. Naboo, too, is clearly an idealized Earth: the "mother realm" the movie purposefully begins and ends on. The parable appropriately comes "full circle". And in the wider Saga too: i.e., the themes established in TPM are brought to conclusion in the OT when the motley Rebel Alliance forges its own alliance with a race of "primitives" and brings down the monoracial Empire.
But no, Star Wars is a racist film text full of stupid, poopy decisions, taken by a fat, coffee-drinking, out-of-touch recluse, too in love with the serials of the past to understand that racism has no place in modern society, and having a sense of humour or injecting any colour into your fantasy world is just reducing people to stereotypes.
Finally, let's get to Marcia:
Title: And Now Marcia Calls George Lucas RACIST
Channel: Open-Airlock Policy
Uploaded: 11 Aug 2022
Marcia:
"I thought the movie was racist."There it is, folks.
She continues:
"I mean, there were Chinese men (clip of Nute and Rune is played:
"Do you think she suspects an attack?"),
there were... what was he supposed to be, Jewish, I think? (clip of Watto talking to Qui-Gon is played:
"I'm a Toydarian! Mind tricks don't work on me, only money!").
And that's it.
Of course, Marcia has never been one to hold back. Is she just playing to a trend or has she felt this way since she first saw the movie? It's hard to say. Either way, TPM is an easy target for her to disapprove of, and there is clearly little love lost between Marcia and George. It should be pointed out, without meaning to sound nasty about it, that while Marcia is perfectly entitled to her opinions, she and George have been separated for almost forty years, and it's slightly ridiculous for an ex-wife to be publicly judging her ex-husband's work and throwing down with the crowd years after they last had anything to do with one another (both personally, for the most part, and certainly creatively).
The remarks are also about as hollow as Naboo's core. Proving, in fact, how hollow they are, Marcia says with regard to Watto: "What was he supposed to be, Jewish, I think?"
Supposed to be. I think. Even when she's being asked point-blank what she thinks, she hesitates and reaches for qualifiers. She might be trying in that moment for a drop of wry, dismissive humour. Either way, it's easy to dismiss something so casually. No thinking required. Of course,
as Lucas said many years ago, "Part of making movies is you get attacked". Watto is actually an amalgam of several film and literary characters, and he's clearly supposed to be a kind of streetwise, recidivist gambler and part-time father figure to Anakin. In ways both literal and metaphorical, he is Anakin's first real master; and already, when Qui-Gon lands on Tatooine, a new master has arrived. Yet one can see that Anakin learns a lot from Watto, including the confidence to take risks and even conceal things, like his podracer, compartmentalising and having a life that is distinct, without external oversight. These are key factors in his brilliance as a young Jedi and also instrumental in his downfall.
As for the Neimoidians, does Marcia think that all Chinese people look reptilian? Sounds a bit racist. Their mercantilism actually evokes Western colonialism, chiefly the Dutch East India Company and English/British East India Company. Their philosophies and actions, shall we say, were not particularly august; rather, they were autocratic and ruthlessly controlling -- just as the Trade Federation operates when it invades Naboo. Here's an explanation straight from Wookieepedia:
starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Trade_FederationThere's more at this archival link from the official Star Wars website:
web.archive.org/web/20190909220616/https://www.starwars.com/news/the-trade-federation-and-neimoidians-a-historyI originally pointed out these connections
in a lengthy discussion with
ArchdukeOfNaboo on Naboo News in 2019. Arch Duke himself
gave a good reply and I wish to quote a chunk of it:
The Trade Federations of this world haven't gone away. Major corporations like Amazon and Google now command enormous influence and generate astonishing revenue. Like the Trade Federation and the real-world examples of the East India Companies that preceded them, they consider themselves a law unto themselves; and this, as Lucas was warning in the prequels, is dangerous for democracy. Greed, as Qui-Gon says, is a powerful ally. It is also, as Yoda reminds us, a corrupting force.
The problem with rhetoric that bashes the prequels for deploying racist stereotypes is that it is historically and politically ignorant and encourages an ignorant mindset in others. It misses what Lucas was actually doing with these films in alerting people to threats to civilisation from within and without. It has nothing to do with one culture taking over another (unless you are talking of the culture of power). It has everything to do with greed being a despoiling force (Anakin, as Lucas has said, turns because he's greedy), plundering and destroying anything it likes; and if there aren't sufficient checks and balances to stop greed from taking over, you end up with an "unpoetic" state (a term used by Lucas when making ANH), which is bound to increase suffering and despair and eventually implode, potentially with disastrous consequences.
People who go after these movies don't understand the visionary qualities they possess; or the warnings they contain. This is not only regrettable, it is retrograde and stupid. It would be okay if they actually grappled with them a while and tried a more nuanced approach. But we almost never see that, do we? Instead, the films are lazily torn into as broken and idiotic, or insulting or offensive; when, in truth, they are actually trying to point out all those qualities in human beings and our societies, as a means of not only providing entertainment, but raising consciousness. Critics need to do better.
