Saturday, December 23, 2017

Pathetic Reappearance of Luke Skywalker in THE LAST JEDI Could Be a Sad Commentary on What Became of George Lucas


George Lucas was one of the Movie Brats greatly influenced by Westerns, esp John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS.

Of course, his big success was STAR WARS, and it is in the news again. The latest installment LAST JEDI has been lambasted in many quarters. Not just the Alt Right but from the fanbase.

Mark Hamill himself wasn’t happy about what was made of Luke Skywalker. I haven’t seen it and don’t want to, but maybe the latest installment is really a commentary on George Lucas’ betrayal of his own destiny.

Not for nothing was the hero named Luke Skywalker. Luke was the alter ego of Lucas.

Like Luke, George Lucas was divided between his destiny as an artist and the temptation of business and money. He began as an experimental film-maker, and Coppola prized him as his favorite protege. His first feature film was THX 1138, one of the boldest sci-fi films ever. And he continued in the personal vein with AMERICAN GRAFFITI. And even the first STAR WARS was quite an imaginative leap and derring-do as science fantasy spectacle. With the success of STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES, Lucas had the money to make more personal films. He could fulfill the destiny of his hopes and dreams in the heady days of New American Cinema of the 1970s. After all, the original plan had been for Lucas to direct APOCALYPSE NOW with John Milius.

Lucas was supposed to succeed in business ONLY TO accumulate the necessary funds to serve his true calling as a great American auteur of personal film-making. He would be the new Welles-Kurosawa-Kubrick-New-Wave. He would go even further than Coppola, his Obi-Wan.
One day, with enough money, he would do what he was meant to do and become a great auteur.

Alas, he just went for the Empire of Greed. He just stuck to STAR WARS franchise and made them ever more infantile to rake in the bucks from young ones. He squandered adventure for advertisement.
I mean, after all those blockbusters, did he not have enough money to FINALLY fulfill his destiny as a great personal film-maker? So, what did he do with his power and means?
He sold STAR WARS to Disney for billions and trashed his Destiny for good. He financed junk like RED TAILS.

So, maybe the broken-down and apathetic Luke Skywalker in LAST JEDI is supposed to be a commentary on George Lucas. Lucas’ myth as a personal artist who took on Hollywood and did his own thing proved to be empty and hollow. He just became a greedy mogul who turned Force into Formula, and when he got through with the whole thing, he just sold it to Disney. It was like the pigs in ANIMAL FARM deciding finally to turn the Horse into Glue.
He threw away his baby just like Luke Skywalker tosses away the light saber and burns the sacred texts in the new movie. When Lucas gave up his vision(however already compromised) to Disney, he might as well have burned the myth. It's like a politician who'd gained a reputation of being a maverick just selling his prestige to the Neocons. And when Yoda tells Luke to go ahead and burn the text, it’s as if even Yoda lost faith in the myth. Why not burn it when Lucas sold his lifework to Disney for more money than he could possibly spend? When the creator no longer believes in his creation, the creation no longer believes in itself and the creator. With STAR WARS having been sold to Disney, Yoda is right to advise Luke-Lucas to just burn the whole thing.

So, Lucas’ selling his mythology to Disney was like Luke in LAST JEDI burning the Jedi Canon and destroying the remnants of the Jedi order. He is conceding futility and failure as a true believer in art and mythos. And it is fitting that another empire is menacing the galaxy in the new series. It's the way of power.
Ultimately, the empire will always win. And this ‘empire’ is useful as a metaphor of universal and eternal lust for power. The ‘empire’ is not some great Other Evil. It is the powerlust within oneself, even among the 'good guys' who just become the New Boss to replace the Old Boss. The logic of power continues regardless of which side wins.
So, even though the Rebels won in RETURN OF THE JEDI, the victory only led to the rise of a new power that birthed a new empire. So, even if the Resistance wins, it will lead to yet another empire. It’s like the US won WWII and defeated Nazi empire and Japanese empire. And the US even defeated the Soviet Empire. But the US became another empire with insatiable power lust. And the boomers who opposed Nixon and war just grew up to take power and run the empire themselves. So, even if the empire is defeated, the winners just create a new empire. Consider how Jews, who were victimized by WWII, became the ‘new nazis’ of globalism fomenting wars and crushing Palestinians.

Once upon a time, long long ago, Lucas was one of the young turks of Hollywood. They were the rebels and upstarts. They challenged the Studio and the old way of doing things. But as they gained success and power, they became the New Empire, indeed bigger and brasher than any empire before. And if they’d begun with energy and idealism, they eventually grew cynical & corrupt and came to favor money and power as the only metrics that mattered.

So, the fact that Luke Skywalker is presented as a has-been phony who no faith left in Jedi mythology in the new movie reflects what happened to George Lucas. Lucas became a tired cynical man who just milked his mythology for shekels and then sold it to the Jews for more shekels. His talk of realizing his true destiny as a personal filmmaker just became self-serving nonsense. He became the empire that settled for 'been there, done that' formula peppered with better special effects but worse inspiration. He betrayed all the Jedi principles of 70s cinema. He gave up on daring auteurism and became a comfy mogul. He went over to the dark side while pretending to be on the side of light.

George Lucas grew stale, cynical, and bored.
And Luke Skywalker in the latest movie, as if to channel the corrupted and faded Lucas, is presented as a tired soul who no longer believes in anything. His cynicism has arrived at only one conclusion. No matter who wins, good guys or bad guys, the empire will always win since the new boss will eventually become like the old boss. It's only a matter of time. Power has its own logic. Eventually, it purges naive and utopian ideals and becomes a naked power-grab. The new empire is just an outgrowth of the Rebellion that became the Republic that became the Empire.

And the fact that Luke beams himself as a hologram? It goes to show that Lucas has become a phony myth. The real Lucas is a greedy cynical old man who believes in nothing. The Lucas myth is a hologram beamed to the world. Lucas has become a hype than hero.
Being a faded and corrupted soul in reality, the only trick left is the manipulation of his 'virtual image' in the electronic media. Because Lucas' legend is now so undeserving, it requires ever more strain to keep it going... until of course, it collapses from sheer exhaustion... like Luke in the new movie who dies from the strain of projecting his ego onto another world.
The fact is Lucas failed even to fully realize his STAR WARS universe. And worse, he even sold his baby to Disney to make billions when he already had billions. He gave up and just turned it into vehicle for merchandising and special effects.

So, it’s fitting that the Luke in the latest movie is as tired and cynical as Jabba the Hutt.

This is actually a fitting commentary on what has become of boomers, counter-culture, Lucas, and the dream of New American Cinema of the 70s that was supposed to be about the rise of the auteurs. But the auteurs just became the tired and cynical moguls of a new empire more soulless than previous ones.

The original STAR WARS just became sure profits and greed. Those who bitch about how Disney ruined are being somewhat disingenuous. Lucas had already given up on the vision and just pursued it as a business venture. A part of Lucas always felt a certain shame since he betrayed his destiny of following the footsteps of Ford, Kurosawa, and Coppola. So, after awhile, he didn’t even try to hide the fact that STAR WARS became STAR WALMART to keep him relevant in box office competition. What else was he to do when he'd given up on his personal projects, whatever they may have been.

So, even prior to the sales to Disney, STAR WARS had essentially become franchising. Disney paid big bucks for one reason only. MORE MONEY. It was driven only by greed. But lest Disney be accused of shameless Greed, its globo-corporate capitalists wrapped the franchise with ‘progressive’ tropes of Girl Power, Diversity, Jungle Fever, Purple-Haired Lesbian Narcissism, and etc.
Of course, this supposed Space Socialism cost $200 million for one reason and one reason only. To rake in billions of bucks from around the world. For noble & idealistic young souls to watch this ‘progressive’ manifesto of ‘resistance’, they gotta fork out $20, big bucks for kids without jobs these days. Some socialism. To see Space Socialism, get in line folks, and hand over your hard-earned cash to see Social Justice long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Just like Wall Street wraps itself in ‘progressive’ homo colors to evade proper scrutiny, Disney squeezes the cash cow of STAR WARS for milky way galaxy amount of dough, and it easily suckers ‘progressive’ critics with the pretense of spreading a message of Hope against Literally Hitler Trump. Corporate Disney, a force of ‘progress’. LOL. What a clown world we live in.

Also, the media are owned by Jews, and they are kinder to STAR WARS since The Tribe at Disney now own it. It now belongs to the Jawas.

Jews in the media were hostile to Old STAR WARS because it was owned by gentile Lucas who admired the aesthetics of Leni Riefenstahl. But now that it is firmly in Jewish hands, Jewish media and critics praise it to the sky. Jews now own Space Nazism and can remold into into Safe Space Fantasy to rake in billions from around the world.

No wonder cynicism keeps growing.

Ultimately, blame George Lucas. He created his own vision, and good or bad, it was his baby. He had control over it and was indelibly associated with it. Lucas = Luke. It was like a fantasy autobiography, about being torn between fulfilling his destiny as a true artist and the temptation to just go for the money.

In a big way, Lucas betrayed himself and just went for the money. Still, he remained true to himself at least in the sense that he maintained absolute control over his biggest success, STAR WARS, as personal property. And his Industrial Light and Magic did revolutionize cinema that is the most technological of the arts.
So, even though failed to become a Kubrick or Kurosawa(not even a Coppola), he made his own movies in his way and owned all the rights; he had personal control over his empire. He remained independent of Hollywood even as he made movies for the mainstream.

But he totally betrayed himself by selling STAR WARS to Disney, an unscrupulous whore factory. He was as foolish and deluded as the Lord in Kuroswa’s RAN who believes his domain and his prestige shall remain intact even after relinquishing power to his shady sons. He soon realizes that his sons, the first and second, are sharks who will even betray their father to further their own naked ambitions.



Lucas was surely assured by Disney that his original vision won't be tarnished or compromised: The new sequels would carry on with the original thrust of the story and the meaning of the Force.
But once Disney got a hold of the material, it showed its true colors. Disney trampled all over the original vision and made it into a total freakshow closer in look to STAR TREK. Disney went for STAR WEIMARS.
Thus, Lucas gained the world but lost his soul. It’s all the more ludicrous because he already had more money than he could possibly spend. If he were strapped for cash, it would have been understandable. He just got so addicted to money as the only sign of success because he failed as an artist. He became not so much Darth as Jabba. Darth, evil as he may be, still have some vision of the world. Jabba has nothing but appetite.

Lucas is a rich man in business but a poor man in art. He has no integrity left. He has no respect from any quarter. He’s a total joke, like the lord in RAN after ceding authority.
The old man Luke in the new movie seems as lost and disoriented as the fallen Lord in RAN.

It is so fitting that Luke makes himself into a hologram in LAST JEDI because that’s what Lucas is in the New STAR WARS. With the original hexalogy, Lucas’s spirit was all over the movies. He made them with his own mind, heart, and hands. His body and soul were directly connected to those works.

But, Lucas’s presence in the new series is totally an illusion. He sold the rights, and Disney can do whatever it wants to. And Lucas’ presence is merely ‘virtual’, a projection. It maintains the mirage of life of something that is dead.
Just like Disney is no longer what it used to be — a gentile oasis in an industry dominated by Jewish moguls — and only exists as a brand controlled by Jews who have no respect for its founder, the STAR WARS franchise is now associated with Lucas in name only. Lucas is used a hologram in the new series, like the fake CGI Leia in the end of ending of ROGUE ONE.

Just like Clu takes over from the real Flynn in TRON LEGACY, hologram faux-Lucas has replaced the real Lucas in the new STAR WARS. Without ownership of the franchise, Lucas’ power over the material is purely illusory. It’s like the fallen lord in RAN is weaker than the jester. And in LAST JEDI, the old Luke is pushed around by some silly girl.
It’s either the director sadistically rubbing it in or lamenting Lucas' betrayal of personal vision by selling and ceding the rights to Disney. In that sense, the new movie could be as subversive as Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi epics. It may be straight on the outside but mocking on the inside. The director could be sending telepathic messages to Lucas, "You dummy, how could you have done this to yourself?"

George Lucas had the Force as long as he held onto the rights of the original. But once he sold the rights and gave up authority, his Force was gone. It was now owned by others, and his role in the New STAR WARS was purely titular and ceremonial. It’s the Farce.

Worse, the new series proved to be regicidal because Disney did to Lucas’ vision what the Bolsheviks did to the Tsar and his family.

Lucas helped Kurosawa realize the project of KAGEMUSHA where the original lord is replaced by a shadow. Lucas made himself into a shadow in the New STAR WARS.

http://www.unz.com/article/all-i-want-to-do-is-enter-my-house-justified/#comment-2128776

http://www.unz.com/article/all-i-want-to-do-is-enter-my-house-justified/#comment-2129740

1 comment:

  1. "Luke is pushed around by some silly girl." While am not a feminist by a long shot & not a supporter of their inanities it seems like the author of the blog feels threatened by a female having power & or importance.
    Also:
    People like the author of this blog who choose to be ignorant of true history & instead spout propaganda of xenophobic territory ravenous religious-intolerant Jihadists should keep out of politics. The Jews returned to their ancient homeland which was mostly vacant at the time. The original borders by international legal approval extended from the seashore to the Hejaz Panhandle. When the Jihadist states complained about it in 19919-1920, the Jews agreed to a 2 state solution giving up 78% of the Mandate land to the newly created Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, which was the land from the Jordan river to the Hejaz Panhandle. That newly created state was to be the state for any Palestinians who did not want to be in the Jewish state. The 22% of the land remaining to the Jews by decree of the League of Nations as Internationally Legal borders. Those borders were adopted by the UN in its founding charter, which included a law that the UN is forbidden to change any borders set by the League of Nations. The Jews invited the Palestinians to remain & those who did became full fledged citizens with ALL same rights as Jewish citizens.
    Those who chose to flee to Trans-Jordan, & those who were in towns in Judea & Samaria which was illegally violently captured-occupied by the Jordanian Legion were the ones who were crushed. Jordan refused to give them citizenship, kept them in ghetto style closed towns with restricted entry & exit, or concentration camps wherein they kept the refugees the caused by ordering via radio all Muslims who chose to stay in Israel to flee eastwards into Jordan or be slaughtered along with the Jews. The hygienic conditions etc, water sewage systems, medical care, & schooling in those camps were below any & all standards, demonstrations of protest were mowed down with machine guns - AND NO ONE IN THE WORLD SAID A WORD AGAINST IT!
    When Israel took back their legal right to the West Bank regions they brought free electricity, piped in water, normal sewage systems, brought free medical clinics, free schools, college - industrial centers to provide jobs with good pay & social amenities. Things which the Jordanians refused to do for 19 years that the West Bank was under their illegal control. To this day any Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq are still refused citizenship there!
    so who is crushing them?!

    ReplyDelete

HAIL CAESAR(by the Coen Brothers) and MOTHER(by Darren Aronofsky)

http://www.unz.com/isteve/a-tw itter-exchange/#comment-218947 4 The world spins around the axis of Jewish neurosis. And it’s not just ...