So another new Star Wars movie comes out in a couple of months, Rogue One. So far so good. I even like the Star Wars movies I don’t like, so even though it’s this weird just-before Episode IV prequel-thing, and even though I really don’t like the idea of the coming Han Solo and Yoda spin offs — What the hell? — for this one I’m thinking I don’t know, there’s Mon Mothma on Yavin IV, I’ve got a stomach full of member-berries, and oh, hey, there’s Forest Whitaker. That’s interesting, I thought. Maybe this can be a real thing here. That guy’s got some gravity and some acting chops and stuff, right? So maybe he read the script and it was good or something.
I can’t say it makes much sense to me to have a master of Chinese Kung Fu make a cameo in it. Seems a little be too specific to Earth, right? Like Han saying “See you in Hell”?
But anyway, so then I read a thing. And what it said was that the Forest Whitaker character wasn’t originally, but is now based on this other character from the Clone Wars cartoons, Saw Gerrera. They even reshot his scenes after the movie was done to give him hair and everything — in the original trailer he’s bald. But then I forgot about it.
But then I remembered again. So I searched it, and it turns out that Saw Gerrera is the worst character from the worst story line in all of dang Star Wars. You know who he is? He’s Abu Mohammad al-Julani.
And do you know who Abu Mohammad al-Julani is? That’s right. He’s the leader of Jabhat al Nusra, aka Jabat Fateh al-Sham — al Qaeda in Syria.
In the fifth season of The Clone Wars, from 2012, there’s an episode where Obi-Wan Kenobi is John Brennan, sent to arm and train al Qaeda terrorists to overthrow the fascist dictatorship in Syria. We’re so sorry. The War on Shi’ite Droid Separatists has got the Old Republic’s people all crippled and broke and they just don’t want to commit to overthrowing Assad just now, but we’d be happy to send some advisors to train your moderate rebels. It’s so unfair that the regime calls these great freedom fighters terrorists. Haven’t they read The Redirection?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98IP68w1GR8
And who’s the leader of the “moderate rebels”? From Wookiepedia:
“In the early resistance against the Separatist Alliance on Onderon, Gerrera and his fellow soldiers were outnumbered and out-fought by the Separatist Droid Army. They requested help from the Jedi High Council, which led the Grand Army of the Republic in its fight against the Separatists, but the Jedi Order chose not to become actively involved in the fighting on Onderon. Instead, they sent a team of advisors — Generals Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Commander Ahsoka Tano, and Clone Captain CT-7567 (“Rex”) — to train the Onderonian fighters. The Jedi and Captain Rex taught them proper techniques and strategies for taking on the battle droid army, and, through their efforts, the rebels began to turn the tide. …
“He later became a key member in the fight against the Galactic Empire and the formation of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. His tactics against the Empire led him to be seen as an extremist, one whose notoriety was recognized by the Empire and, many years later, the New Republic.”
This was especially a disgrace because if the writers had been smarter about what was going on in Syria, they could have made a better Star Wars story out of it anyway. Here again is another example of the Sith using the Jedi to create the evil world empire that ultimately will destroy the Republic and them with it. Instead of Anakin and the Jedi’s moralizing about helping the poor FSA, they instead could have had the whole plot develop in the Chancellor’s office in collusion with corrupt foreign and special interests, and more blatantly use the Jedi for evil ends, further alienating them from the Chancellor, and demonstrating the effect the Galactic Clone War had on the institutions of the Republic — as corrupt as it already was. Instead there’s really no lead up to the Empire in the Clone Wars cartoons, the government just goes from day to night, heroes to villains the moment Sam Jackson is out of the Emperor’s way. But this isn’t how it is supposed to be! It was the Clone War that turned the Republic into the dictatorial Empire over the course of three or four years, the former’s Jedi warrior leaders the latter’s willing dupes.
That’s what Star Wars was supposed to be about in the first place: Us. The evil American Empire. The Star Destroyers are Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet; the Emperor is Nixon; the Ewoks, the Vietnamese. It’s the story of how a war destroyed a galaxy before another became necessary to save it.
Whether the director of this new movie gets it at all or we’re just in for a two-hour argument for a Tie-Fighter enforced no-fly zone to protect the rebels who wish to blow up the Death Star because that’s what Grand Moff Hillary wants, remains to be seen. I don’t know. They can’t do that, right? It would be just too crazy of a storyline for anyone to believe.
