I wonder about George's political awareness sometimes. One curious event in his early career is rarely remembered. During a rolling stones concert the Hells Angels were "innocently" hired as security where they would murder a black teen in broad daylight. There were people filming the concert and this crime, one of which was a young film student named George Lucas. Very strange. He even used local cultists, Synanon iirc, to be in his THX-1138 film, as well as base some of his characters on mk ultra type professors he must have seen around campus.
I think he grew up in political times and I don't doubt his sentiments being more left leaning or anti-authoritarian, its just very laughable when people try to champion his works, especially later works as being this grand statement when they are so politically smooth brained. THX-1138 may be his most actually politically interesting work and even there it is mostly a general 70's dystopia with great visuals.
@@argonbolt Yeah Star Wars 1977 was pretty much the last film he actually made and well THX-1138 was probably Lucas's peak anyways. Not sure if he had much more to say after that. Oh yeah forgot to say the stated reason he got Synanon cultists was because they shaved their heads and he couldn't find any actors who would do that iirc. The 70s & 60s were spooky as hell. Who knows what spooks he met during his early days.
@@argonbolt Poor lady. At least she wasn't being directed by John Landis. If you're interested in that wild era I recommend the book Weird Scenes inside the Canyon. That whole era was weird as hell full of even weirder characters.
Nice one! But jokes aside, I don't think that Lucas was THAT terrible at depicting the general political motivation behind the various factions. The problems is that every circumstantial aspect got left under the curtain, and the characters kind of act in a world that "makes sense" at the moment, but feels like a fever dream if you think of it retroactively. Well of-course, Nute Gunray was driven by commercial gain, but how the trade federation got into its privileged position, to begin with with is abstract. But there is definitely a certain appeal (and role) of such "under-curtain" politics. After all, most people aren't even well versed in the politics of their municipal government and tend to vote for whoever ran the louder campaign, rather than the the person who presented (conceptually) better policies. The SW Prequels are filled to the brim with such "big speeches", something which in reality gathers much more publicity than "boring congress sittings fixated on lawmaking". I believe that such portrayal of politics was very appealing to Russian audiences (in Russia the Prequels are far more popular than the OGT), partially because their government (for over a hundred years already) operated in such an "under-curtain" style, where the real agenda of the running party is so ambiguous, that even gov-operated propaganda channels cannot depict a consistent version of their narrative, ultimately hinging on presentable and charismatic figures, rather than specific ideals. Some installments of that franchise (Clone Wars, KOTOR) managed to tackle this well enough, though the series was generally better at depicting religious morality systems, rather than politics IMHO.
Interesting comments about the Russian thing. A good joke is that Lucas wanted to portray a decrepit system weighed down by bureaucracy, but the senate is simultaneously a Unicameral system with one house, which also works as executive branch(the supreme position is chancellor not president or prime minister) also the diplomatic agency(they are all diplomats), and the supreme court rolled into one. So basically a ludicrously efficient system TOO good at passing laws TOO quickly. Lucas has no patience for politics.
@@argonbolt It's funny because the senate was depicted as a global unified government without any major ideological opposition (before the confederacy), whereas the Separatists are presented to be greedy, incompetent and oppressive. Lucas' vision of an idealistic democracy, seems to be basically "the empire but less malevolent". The films also insist on painting it in a positive light, with the only "convincing" counterpoint being that the Separatists are simply more viscous. To draw a real life parallel, the senate is not only the UN and the G7 in one body, but also a politically powerful enough force to successfully enforce major restrictions on global and commercially independent corporations. Simultaneously, the senate allows Palpatine to officially reform itself as an empire, for no adequate reason (I.E. the war is almost over, and an assassination attempt by local monks doesn't seem to be convincing enough.) Palpatine's entire plan seemed to work because everyone else around him was either naive, corrupt or plainly idiotic.
George's commitment to salad knows no bounds
George talking about salads with impeccable memory is honestly what really sells the impression.
Happy to be here within this niche community before this channel really blows up!
Watched all of Young Indy just for this moment
Proud to say I read the whole thing (at double speed) ... ok, time to go searching for that life I'm apparently missing.
It's like poetry
do you think the funny looking dinnerplate at the end could beat up a star destroyer
I wonder about George's political awareness sometimes.
One curious event in his early career is rarely remembered. During a rolling stones concert the Hells Angels were "innocently" hired as security where they would murder a black teen in broad daylight.
There were people filming the concert and this crime, one of which was a young film student named George Lucas. Very strange.
He even used local cultists, Synanon iirc, to be in his THX-1138 film, as well as base some of his characters on mk ultra type professors he must have seen around campus.
I think he grew up in political times and I don't doubt his sentiments being more left leaning or anti-authoritarian, its just very laughable when people try to champion his works, especially later works as being this grand statement when they are so politically smooth brained. THX-1138 may be his most actually politically interesting work and even there it is mostly a general 70's dystopia with great visuals.
@@argonbolt Yeah Star Wars 1977 was pretty much the last film he actually made and well THX-1138 was probably Lucas's peak anyways. Not sure if he had much more to say after that.
Oh yeah forgot to say the stated reason he got Synanon cultists was because they shaved their heads and he couldn't find any actors who would do that iirc.
The 70s & 60s were spooky as hell. Who knows what spooks he met during his early days.
@@RoyalKnightVIII Yeah I remember the female lead in THX-1138 cried when they shaved her head.
@@argonbolt Poor lady. At least she wasn't being directed by John Landis.
If you're interested in that wild era I recommend the book Weird Scenes inside the Canyon. That whole era was weird as hell full of even weirder characters.
Nice one!
But jokes aside, I don't think that Lucas was THAT terrible at depicting the general political motivation behind the various factions.
The problems is that every circumstantial aspect got left under the curtain, and the characters kind of act in a world that "makes sense" at the moment, but feels like a fever dream if you think of it retroactively.
Well of-course, Nute Gunray was driven by commercial gain, but how the trade federation got into its privileged position, to begin with with is abstract.
But there is definitely a certain appeal (and role) of such "under-curtain" politics.
After all, most people aren't even well versed in the politics of their municipal government and tend to vote for whoever ran the louder campaign, rather than the the person who presented (conceptually) better policies.
The SW Prequels are filled to the brim with such "big speeches", something which in reality gathers much more publicity than "boring congress sittings fixated on lawmaking".
I believe that such portrayal of politics was very appealing to Russian audiences (in Russia the Prequels are far more popular than the OGT), partially because their government (for over a hundred years already) operated in such an "under-curtain" style, where the real agenda of the running party is so ambiguous, that even gov-operated propaganda channels cannot depict a consistent version of their narrative, ultimately hinging on presentable and charismatic figures, rather than specific ideals.
Some installments of that franchise (Clone Wars, KOTOR) managed to tackle this well enough, though the series was generally better at depicting religious morality systems, rather than politics IMHO.
Interesting comments about the Russian thing. A good joke is that Lucas wanted to portray a decrepit system weighed down by bureaucracy, but the senate is simultaneously a Unicameral system with one house, which also works as executive branch(the supreme position is chancellor not president or prime minister) also the diplomatic agency(they are all diplomats), and the supreme court rolled into one.
So basically a ludicrously efficient system TOO good at passing laws TOO quickly. Lucas has no patience for politics.
@@argonbolt It's funny because the senate was depicted as a global unified government without any major ideological opposition (before the confederacy), whereas the Separatists are presented to be greedy, incompetent and oppressive.
Lucas' vision of an idealistic democracy, seems to be basically "the empire but less malevolent". The films also insist on painting it in a positive light, with the only "convincing" counterpoint being that the Separatists are simply more viscous.
To draw a real life parallel, the senate is not only the UN and the G7 in one body, but also a politically powerful enough force to successfully enforce major restrictions on global and commercially independent corporations.
Simultaneously, the senate allows Palpatine to officially reform itself as an empire, for no adequate reason (I.E. the war is almost over, and an assassination attempt by local monks doesn't seem to be convincing enough.)
Palpatine's entire plan seemed to work because everyone else around him was either naive, corrupt or plainly idiotic.
@@argonbolt BUT MUH LEGENDS SIDE STORIES THAT EXPAND ON THIS!!!!
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this isnt star trek. whatever.
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