Tusken Raiders: Mindless Monsters or More?

You're an expert on Lucas quotes. Has he ever commented on the Tuskens? To my knowledge he hasn't talked about them much. We know that they were going to appear in The Clone Wars, and a Tusken shaman would have been introduced. Is there any information regarding that episode?

I think the Tuskens in the Disney shows do largely fit what we see in the films, though this new tribe in The Book of Boba Fett is slightly different. The people on Tatooine see them as savages, like Cliegg did. Even the Tuskens that are cooperative thanks to the Mandalorian's ability to speak with them are said to have raided Mos Pelgo and killed their people. The tribe in BoBF are also torturers and slavers, and they mention that all the other tribes survived by killing. I don't think the Tuskens are suddenly good guys. I think that is just the media misrepresenting the material.

There's now been talk of sand people being problematic and all that. I think Lucas is making a point with them, that the galaxy, or at least Tatooine, is still somewhat in a state similar to the western idea of cowboys vs. Indians. I definitely don't think that he is in any way malicious. Those accusations were made against TPM as well, which is just absurd.

There is a great quote from the "archival interviews" commentary track of ANH, where Lucas talks about prejudice against droids. Though I think he forgot about the Tuskens when making the comment.

"It's about the prejudice against droids, which is again symbolic of people intolerant of things that aren't similar to themselves. In this case, life-forms. Obviously there was a wide variety of life-forms in this movie - and this scene in particular - who are very, very different and very odd. But they're prejudiced basically against non-life-forms. So at least one of the ideas here is we've gotten to the point of accepting life-forms, no matter how different they look. They're all part of the same life process."

True. It's a moral statement, not biological.


lol I don't really want to since it's so pervasive and depressing, but I think you touched on it. Those same amoral narcissists that find everything and everyone "problematic" have left the factory and entered the workforce, and are now in positions of power in the corporate world, which in turn owns the pop culture cornerstones of which Star Wars is but one example. So Star Wars is now one of the many victims of the on-going cultural vandalism that has been going on.

there's no right and wrong / all cultures are equal / they have feelings too / blah blah blah

*sigh*

Yes, Lawrence of Arabia is probably a big influence to begin with, not just in The Book of Boba Fett. So yeah, it could be a little silly, despite being inspired by certain real-world peoples, to say that the Tuskens are somehow a literal value judgment about those real-world peoples.

And He would Probably be expelled from The Jedi Order.

When it comes to the Sand People, I highly doubt Lucas had much development in mind for them when they were introduced in ANH. They were a storytelling tool that he used to introduce the hero to his mentor. The dangers of the world that Luke was not yet ready to face, and thus had to be saved by the old and wise mentor.

Any development of the Sand People, as Lucas does with almost anything Star Wars, came over time.

Then came the Prequels. It is Lucas that attaches the mirroring of the indigenous peoples of America to the Tuskens via the connection to the movie the Searchers.

We see the Sand People are not monsters, or animals. This is something I talked about in depth on the Force.net boards years and years ago. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousands words:





Clearly these are not "animals" they are sentient beings that are behaving very much like humans would. Children playing with pets, tending to a fire, doing chores, etc etc. 



This is Lucas showing us that these are not animals that they are more than just monsters or animals. Something I wrote on TFN years ago:




With that one shot of the Tusken Camp, Lucas sets up that these are more than just animals living in the desert. The use of technology, fire, building materials, domestication of camp animals etc etc shows us that the relationship between the "settlers" and the Sand People is vindictive at best, thus there is no room for understanding. Each side sees the other as the "animal".

Lucas sets up this. Lucas sets up that there is more to the Sand People than just nomadic marauders. I am no fan of the Book Of Boba Fett. However, it's pretty clear from AOTC what Lucas was trying to tell us about the Tuskens. They may not have the same civility as the settlers of Tatooine, however, morals is just something everyone constantly changes when they see fit. 

Here is a question I often put to people when this conversation comes up. What do any of YOU think the Lars rescue party would have done to the Tuskens had they found them with Shmi? As people try to pigeon hole the Sand People into a specific category, they have to ignore that the obvious answer is that the rescue party, those that are supposed to be NOT Tusken like, would have probably killed, slaughtered, taken prisoners, even probably tortured. How do we know this?

Because that is how Lucas has Anakin respond. Anakin becomes that which he "fears" or is "angry" at. He becomes the very animal that he claims the Tuskens are. He acts on emotion.. instinct. Not on rational or reasonable behavior. So those that are supposed to be more "humanlike" on the level of morality not biology, become the animals themselves when they see fit. 

Lucas opened the door to the Tuskens being more than just animals, that there is a culture at work, another side to the story, not Disney. 


Lucas absolutely wanted us, at least in part, to reach the conclusion that the slaughter of innocents was part of this atrocity, and not just about revenge. Since Lucas is the one that wrote the dialogue for AOTC, we have Anakin saying this after he returns:



With Lucas speaking through Anakin, Lucas is drawing a distinction between the men and women and children. That there might be some kind of flawed justification for killing the men, but, killing the women and children on top of that, well now we are no longer in revenge territory, now we are into the killing of innocents by association. That is evil. That is where the dark side takes you. 

Yes, Anakin enacting revenge on the males is not the Jedi way, however, it went past that. It went deeper than that. He killed the women and children too..  Lucas pointing that out through Anakin is supposed to illicit a response from us, the audience, that any flawed justification is gone because he did slaughter those that are innocent of the crime of killing his mother. 

 I realize what your point was/is because you have said this:



I disagree with this because it is clear by Anakin's dialogue, which Lucas wrote, that the issue of guilty or innocent is something important here. It is not just about revenge. It is about a terrible revenge. Why the extra descriptor by Lucas? Because this is about something more than just revenge, it is more than just going out and finding the person or persons that are guilty of the wrongdoing, it is going beyond that. That Anakin went beyond just revenge, he enacted a terrible revenge by killing the women and the children because they were innocents. 

The sentience (or at least level of) is also a factor. If it was a Krayt Dragon that horribly and savagely mauled Shmi to death and Anakin went out into the desert to exact his revenge on that Dragon, and in his bloodlust he killed the young dragons as well, that has no where near the same impact that killing the Tuskens, especially the women and children, has. Why? Because as Lucas shows in AOTC, the Tuskens are more than just mindless monsters, or animal predators that need to be thinned out to protect a community. That is why Anakin, even though he admits to the difference between killing the men compared to women/children, has to dehumanize the Tuskens all to way down to the levels of animals in order to justify his actions. It is the same thing he does in ROTS with the Jedi. He has to bring the Jedi all the way down to the level of being evil in order to justify his own actions, which he knows is still wrong.

The Tuskens might not be on the same level of "civility" than the human settlers, but clearly Lucas wants to get across to the audience that even though the Tuskens are treacherous and dangerous, there is also more going on to the story than just them being mindless monsters or animals to be slaughtered. There is a cultural structure going on that Lucas clearly links to Native American Indians. The settlers are using the same terminology and mindset that European settlers used to describe Native American Indians. There is a clear "two sides to every story" element going on here. 

Yes, revenge is bad, it is not the same thing as Justice. However, this went far beyond revenge and that is why Lucas writes these scenes as he does. He shows that Anakin went beyond what might be an flawed, but understandable reaction. 

As I pointed out above, Lucas shows us what happens when those that are supposed to be more "civil" convince themselves that another culture is lesser or evil, or animals. Those that are more civil treat the other culture the way they convince themselves the culture as being. They make them march for hundreds of miles, they ride down entire encampments, including the women and the children. 

Like I said, Disney did not start the conversation about the Tuskens by linking them to the American Indian. Lucas did. I am no fan of Book of Boba Fett, so far the best episode didn't even have Boba Fett in it, but, it is clear from AOTC that it is Lucas that opens this door. 

The Star Wars – Episode One – “The Star Wars” – Second Draft
Jan 28, 1975
"
30. INT. POWER STATION OFFICE – ANCHORHEAD SETTLEMENT

In the shadows of the dingy little office sits a large, burly Imperial “Tusken”. His reddish eyes are sunken in a larger than normal, dust-covered face. He sits up in his chair.

MECHANIC
Now there’s something “out of the ordinary” for you. I wonder what they want with Lars?

The gray Tusken thinks about this for a moment.

TUSKEN
I’d better make a report.
"