“Who are you?”
“I’m no one,” responds a woman, the one we see walking across desert sand accompanied by a “new” android, this time with a ball-rolling body. Cool.
We hear a disembodied male voice. “I was raised to do one thing. I’ve got nothing to fight for.”
He appears, looking out across a vast desert holding his coat in his hand. Our heroic black bodybuilder does indeed have the physique of a soldier.
War is imminent.
Already, we see a continuing Hollywood trend whereby kids (this is a children’s movie after all) are indoctrinated toward a wartime mentality that has infected American society, which is supervised by a militarized junta that came into place after Bush stole the 2000 presidential election from Gore.
9/11 ushered in another power and money-grab that continues to feeds on any scrap or tendril of monetary value it can suck from its citizens, all data included.
Anyway, we already know from the trailer that we’re in for some pro-war propaganda, which may or may not be anywhere near as scathing and derisively sarcastic as Paul Verhoeven’s classic example of war satire “Starship Troopers.”
Darth speaks. “Nothing will stand in our way.” That sounds familiar; wonder where I’ve heard that kind of talk before.
Revenge is in the air. “I will finish what you started.” We see Darth’s grotesquely deformed face, whose eyes are absent.
A woman’s voice announces, “There were stories about what happened.”
We see low altitude air battles between familiar spaceships.
Harrison Ford, framed in a lushly lit fantasy vision of glories past, chimes in, “It’s true, all of it.”
“THIS CHRISTMAS” flashes on the screen. I’d rather see Tarantino’s “Hateful 8” rather than suffer through what is certain to be a picture, which however competently written and executed, remains a pro-war propaganda product to be consumed like so much ritual medicine by an American public struggling with its own wartime reality of daily mass shootings, and a police force on schedule to kill over 1,100 citizens this year.
“A dark side. A Jedi. They’re real. The Force. It’s calling to you. Just let it in.”
Wow. Damn if that doesn’t sound like an offer you can’t refuse. And I mean that in the “Godfather” intent of delivery. “Let it in,” is just creepy. Do you have to be entered? Will it hurt?
“Star Wars.” The title says it all. Come get you and your family a dose of revved-up fantasy war violence in a context of a coming-of-age story amid possible global annihilation. Be sure and buy lots of popcorn and Cokes. George Lucas loves you.
