Fascism is an ideology that emphasizes that bloodlines (ancestry and ethnicity) should determine a person's place in the world.
Star Wars is a story about defeating fascism.
The word Fascism literally comes from Mussolini referencing the Roman Empire, ie. referencing the empire of the ancestors of Italian people. Fascism relies on on creating a narrative that a it's supporters deserve to have the things their ancestors had, and they've been wronged because they no longer have the things their ancestors had. That it's destiny they should have the power their ancestors had.
Of course fascism is mostly about lying to people to gain power, there are many more facets to fascist narratives (misogyny, fear of minorities, a sense of humilation, etc). But RoS focusses on the relationship to the past element, because it's the final part of a Sequel Trilogy that's obviously going to be about the relationship to the past in general.
One of the myths about the JJ Abrams movies is that they don't go into politics like other Star Wars movies have. But the reality is his movies go into the emotional reasons for fascism more so than any of the other movies. Indoctrination, ancestry, traditionalism, these are tools that fascists use to manipulate people. There's a particular focus on relationships to the past, they are sequels picking up the story decades later after all. The ending says "remember the past, but the past doesn't define who you are." If you understand that, then you will be immune to a whole lot of fascist propaganda. Not allowing the past to define how things should be in the present kills fascism.
Idk man I feel like i'd be radicalized too if my government killed 2 billion people at the push of a button
It's definitely an early example of the genre, but stuff like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court pre-dates it.
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Don’t want to sound too “Acktually”-ish, but usually the father of the genre is considered Alice in Wonderland, which pre-dates both.
I was just giving an example to refute the claim that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first of its kind. I never claimed that my example was actually the first.
Dune Messiah is the story of a guy who has a vision of his lover dying and tries everything he can to stop it. But she ultimately dies giving birth to twins, a brother and sister. An evil guy associated with cloning offers to bring her back from the dead.
God Emperor of Dune features a despotic worm like creature (body of a worm, but has a face and hands) that lives in a desert who has crazy orgies in his palace.
Yeah, Star Wars took shit from Dune constantly.
Dune had the Landsraad, but it was more like a House of Lords kinda deal, not an elected thing.
If they weren't a bunch of idiots and united against the Emperor they could have gotten rid of him. But the Landsraad was ineffective in preventing the Emperor from having unchecked power. I think the God Emperor (the worm) abolished the Landsraad. But it's just kinda not mentioned anymore.
So yeah Star Wars is kinda like this too, with the Senate being ineffective in preventing the Emperor from having absolute power and eventually so pointless it's only given one sentence about it not being a thing anymore. Though I think Star Wars takes a lot of cues from the Roman Empire because it's Emperor and Senate. Dune is more feudalistic with great houses and a house of lords.
Wasn't dead just fewer practioners of the major sect.
The minor sect enjoyed a higher amount of practioners during the period.
There are ancient religions still alive today. A religion being ancient isn’t how long it’s been since people stopped practicing it, it’s how long it’s existed.
George Lucas literally said it was: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-05-18-0505180309-story.html
Maybe next time spend 15 seconds googling instead of acting like a jackass?
So is George Bush a Sith?
Yup! Pretty much! The next Republican president was more like a combination between Jabba the Hut and Sarlacc.
Dune is more like his mom manipulated an established religion to place her son as the figurehead to utilize these people for power, and they eventually fight a holy war in his name
Nah. Dune mostly starts out on a desert planet, and the kid ends up leading a resistance to make a full strike against the current Imperial power structure. And in later episodes of Dune, the boy's visions of the future threaten to send him down a path toward evil, but he chooses to risk everything to save a dear friend...
So it's completely different. /s
Isn't it cannon (well legacy or whatever its called now) from the books that the death star had over a million people on it?
Is it even a religion if the magic and the lore are actually real and not just propaganda slogans to rule the gullible masses? It always bugged me how people draw these kinds of parallels. I mean come on.
Yes. The religion is the mythology and mysticism built up around the scientific fact of the force.
It's the same way that the church uses the "feeling of the spirit". I.e. the euphoria that people get when singing loudly together. That doesn't require religion either, but it's been co-opted by it.
Yes
The Jedi order is predominantly a paradigm- a way of seeing and perceiving the Force.
There’s other Force traditions that have existed- most of which were in fact stamped out with a few being absorbed into the order.
Predominately, the Order did that by taking force sensitive children and brainwashing them to follow their own paradigm rather than the paradigm of the culture they were “born to.”
Not, in point of fact, like how Christian churches forced indigenous children into their schools and brainwashing them to follow their ways. Or trying to.
If we knew for a fact that the Judeo-Christian god was real, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, etc would still all be religions. Just because the force is real in Star Wars doesn't change the fact that the doctrine around being a Jedi makes it a religion/faith.
Jedis aren’t the only ones with the magic and every religion’s lore is presented as real so I think yes
Another small detail, the "terrorism" here is destroying a planet killing device which had already been used on a peaceful civilization.