Friday, December 9, 2016

Yeah, ok, we're the Empire...

Ok, first of all, no, of course Disney didn't go back and re-shoot parts of Rogue One in order to insert anti-Trump scenes. That's preposterous and anyone whining about it is being ridiculous. Ridiculous I say. Take this guy who went on Twitter to complain about how Star Wars has betrayed him.
Noted preposterous Twitter whiner, Jack Posobiec
whining preposterously about things that aren't real.
Rome had the forum, we've
got goddamn Twitter. 
Supposedly the impetus for reading anti-Trump social commentary into Star Wars was a Tweet from Rogue One screen writer Chris Weitz who compared the Empire from Star Wars to white supremacists because they're all white guys and the Rebels are a diverse group both racially and uh...species-ally. He did this after the election as a pointed criticism about how Trump rode a wave of xenophobia and Electoral College shennanigans to victory and now Trump fans are all butthurt because their guy is being called a racist.

Which, first of all, nobody's calling Trump a racist. Well, that's not true. Lots of people are calling him a racist, but that's not really the same thing as him being a racist. Although, in our defense he says and does a lot of racist things. Also, he's got the support of racists. Yeah, racists love him. Love him.
Pictured: non-racists holding totally non-racist signs
about how racist they're not. (source: irony)
Above: Kathleen Kennedy
not looking terribly worried.
Oh, right, well in the great American tradition of refusing to do even the slightest bit of self-examination, Prosobiec has started a hashtag: #DumpStarWars and is calling for a boycott of the new film. Obviously Disney is saying there's no truth to the rumors and that the reshoots were in no way aimed at Trump and of course they're not. They happened way before Trump won-uh, technically won? Electoral college won the election and besides, Disney likes money, so it doesn't seem super-likely that they'd deliberately set out to piss off idiots. On the other hand they stand to make approximately one hundred trillion dollars off of Star Wars, so even if they did want to stick in some Trump trolling, it's not like a boycott from a bunch of wall-building Trump-humpers are going to hurt their profits. 

But whatever, Prosobiec later went on to Tweet a made-up CNN story to reinforce how Disney has ruined his birthday so at some point you have to wonder if this guy is even for real. Like, I'm ragging on him because he's hilarious, but I'm not entirely convinced that he's not just screwing with us.
You hear that Disney? You've ruined this racist guy's birthday.
I hope you're satisfied with yourself...oh, you are? Well, that's different.
In this scene from Rogue One we first meet
Grand Moff Tarkin, Emperor-elect Papatine's
controversial pick for Ambassador to Alderaan.
Ok, so who cares if a bunch of white-supremecist asshats don't go see Star Wars? Nobody, of course, they can go fuck themselves, but what I don't get is why they're suddenly making a connection between Star Wars and political commentary? I'm not saying these movies were ever overtly political or terribly insightful, but the Empire is a totalitarian oligarchy made up of people who all look alike, and who impose their draconian will on a diverse population through violence. The Rebels on the other hand are a diverse group of beings who despite their differences, cooperate to make the Galaxy a better place.

Read into that what you will, but all I'm suggesting is that if you find yourself complaining about how the Empire comes off, the problem might not be with Star Wars.
Because for real, what could be more Republican-y than an old white guy
 maneuvering his way into office by promising to make the Galaxy great again?

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