Which parts of Rogue One could be seen as political propaganda? originally appeared on Quora - he place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Which parts of Rogue One could be seen as political propaganda? I felt the movie deeply anti-American, identifying the US with the “Empire.” Jedha is an obvious reference to Afghanistan, Saw Gererra is an obvious positive nod to Osama Bin Laden etc.
Answer by Mike Prinke, Freelance Video Game Programmer, on Quora:
Created for the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in the late 1970’s, The Galactic Empire was conceived as both a throwback to villainous factions in cheesy 1930’s serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and also influenced by real-world totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany. This vision is true especially in Nazi Germany, in fact, who inspired much of the design of the Galactic Empire’s uniforms. Meanwhile, some equipment and props are real surplusses from World War II, and much of the choreography for the battles in the original films are copied-and-pasted from World War II movies and stock footage.
Nazi Germany is not by any means the only inspiration, merely the strongest. They also draw a lot from the naval and occupational tactics of the British Empire, seeking to conquer and exploit. The United States deals more in projecting force as a part of a geopolitical intervention, a device that I have yet to see used by any faction in the Star Wars universe.
Bearing this in mind, the only way you could interpret the Empire as representing the United States is if you want to draw comparisons between America and Nazi Germany. Believing the United States is an imperialist power and that if it is, then this is a quality that should be embraced rather than criticized.
Remember: the United States was not always the greatest military in the world, there have been plenty of other imperialist factions. The whole world isn’t all about us.
Otherwise, it is more accurate to state that Rogue One is a period film designed to capture the same tone and cinematic style of the first film and elaborate on one of its most iconic elements. The capture of the Death Star plans and the various sacrifices made for its destruction to take place. In that light, it’s more similar to a film revolving around the French Resistance against Germany during World War II, which, at least in fiction, often does revolve around desperate acts of espionage.
Jedha is an obvious reference to Afghanistan, Saw Gererra is an obvious positive nod to Osama Bin Laden etc.
Neither of these things is entirely correct. Partially, perhaps. You have some of the what right, but not the why. Let’s examine each of these.
Jedha is an obvious reference to Afghanistan.
Jedha seems to have some middle-eastern influences, and I believe inspired specifically by Mecca, but do remember that most of Jedi philosophy and social structure is derived from Japanese culture, inclusive of Buddhism and Taoism, rather than middle-eastern culture. And do bear in mind that Jerusalem, too, is in the middle-east.
As such, Jedha is not meant to be sympathetic towards any one religion so much as it is to be evocative of our most basic concepts of ancient religious imagery.
Meanwhile, I would also like to point out that Darth Vader’s original designs include both samurai influences and also Bedouin warriors — IE, Arabic nomads.
Star Wars has taken and will continue to take influences from numerous cultures around the world to inform the designs of both its good guys and its bad guys. No one group within its universe has a monopoly on designs from distinct cultures. It simply does this to seek creative designs and to make the world seem as big and as varied as possible. It is space, after all.
Saw Gererra is an obvious positive nod to Osama Bin Laden etc.
This statement is perhaps more important than superficial set and costuming details.
On the one hand, I think Gererra’s tactics are drawn directly from those of extremist terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Queda. On another hand, I’m rather dead confident that Saw Gerrerra's portrayal wasn't in a positive light.
A common theme in Rogue One is the moral grayness and imperfection of all of our protagonists, who, while fighting for what the film frames as a noble cause in resisting the Empire’s tyranny, each barely cooperate and frequently undermine one another.
Gererra is the most emblematic of this theme, driven so much by paranoia, fear, and bitterness towards the Empire that he has become what he hates, torturing allies and enemies alike with no discretion. He’s so far gone that he’s come to physically resemble Darth Vader, reduced to little more than an impotent brute in a walking respirator. Except where Vader’s anger helps him focus, Gererra’s has crippled and blinded him, to the point that he now has easily done more harm than good to the Rebellion and its cause.
His only sympathetic note is in the pathos of this personal failing, and in the fact that the reprisal that he earned from the Empire came so swiftly and devastatingly that he would never have the chance to redeem himself. It is sad, but less because we’re seeing anything that could constitute a “good guy” and more in the sense that such extents of hopelessness and, dare I say, evil, is sad.
As such I think the terroristic influences in Gererra’s character are specifically there for the sake of setting him up as our very first sampling of a Rebel who is an antagonist rather than a protagonist. Gererra becomes presented to us as a cautionary tale of pursuing overt extremes in the service of an ideal or cause; a picture of what our heroes could become if they lose themselves in the fight against the Empire. He’s here not to be a martyr, not to be sympathetic, but to approach the task of defining the line between real freedom fighters and terrorists, with Gererra falling expressly on the side of terrorism.
Although the second half of the film makes martyrs out of a huge number of the cast, I don’t see Gererra as being among them. If anything, you should take him as a walking, talking criticism towards the likes of the world’s Bin Ladens; an indictment, not a glorification.
In summary, I see your reading as overly superficial, although it’s hard to blame you. Up to this point, the Star Wars films have been like war drama with the training wheels on, framing each side with unambiguous good and evil. This framing has been such a constant that it’s difficult even to process the idea that there could be a Rebel villain, yet Rogue One decided to make a Rebel a bad guy. I don’t particularly see it as being politically motivated, though, so much as an unusually bold effort to break the mold of the rest of the series and present us with something we hadn’t seen before.
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