Geopolitical Storyline in PT: False Flags

A little over a year ago, I started a thread in the Saga forum called, "Obi-Wan Kenobi: Whacko Conspiracy Theorist"? The thread has now expired, but it triggered enough debate and interest that I've always had the interest to go back and expound on the ideas in it. So, in the past few days I created a video called, well, 'Obi-Wan Kenobi: Whacko Conspiracy Theorist?'

The video simply summarizes how Palpatine rose to power and the true nature of the Clone Wars. (Incidentally, the CW is another motive for the video: I think the show is frustratingly whitewashing the Clone Wars. I like the show a lot, and I understand it's for kids....but I think they're, almost intentionally, eliminating the dynamics of conspiracy and corruption that was in the real PT). Because most screentime is devoted to the heroes (people are still griping that Darth Maul was underused!), I think that this absolutely critical element of the PT (which actually dates all the way back to Lucas's 1975 draft of 'Star Wars') often gets overlooked.

I hope that you'll take 9 minutes and 32 seconds to view the video, and hopefully we can have some fruitful discussion here!

 

Unfortunately, I don't have the technology needed to watch the video, but I'll remember this thread in case I acquire a new system. Sounds right up my alley.

Let me say this: I have no interest in a television series that aims to pervert the most subversive and provocative popcorn movies released in decades into simplistic, Manichean war adventures. We didn't need to see more of the Clone Wars; it was to be understood that they were engineered for the sole purpose of weakening a republic to such an extent that a mad autocrat could gain absolute power. What is to be gained from watching 100 episodes of Jedi fighting the toy soldiers of their free enterprise enemies? The Jedi were schmucks, end of story. They didn't ask enough questions, they sold out their principles, and were rightfully smacked down for their moral/spiritual obtuseness. As far as I'm concerned, every episode should end with Palpatine blithely picking his teeth with a toothpick?-that's how important all those battles are.

Imagine Oliver Stone making a political thriller about the Gulf of Tonkin cover-up, navigating us through Johnson and McNamara's mendacity, only to churn out a TV spin-off, where we follow a bunch of naïve American kids, high-fiving each other as they shoot Vietnamese in the rice patties. It'd be absurd. I mean, when is a victory not a victory?

 

Drg4,

My reservations of the CW cartoon are a little softer than yours. While I agree with everything you said in principle, I still think that it's valid (and good entertainment) to show some of the battles themselves, because it can be assumed that 99% of the war's participants weren't aware of the larger false flag element of it. But I would still expect that the show would at least acknowledge the Clone War's phoniness here and there....but they're not even doing that. They've turned this giant scam into a schlock WW2 movie. (Although, I admit, I'm still enjoying it.)

But your analogy of the Clone Wars and the Vietnam War is spot-on. Lucas has not veered from the comparison at all, and so I cite it in the YouTube video.

Also, I don't think that the Jedi were total "schmucks". Yes, they were suckered into supporting and fighting in the Clone Wars (and, thus, set themselves up for their own murders), but in AOTC they explicitly say that the Dark Side was clouding their vision and they did just want to support the society they so believed in, which you can hardly hold against them.

 

The Jedi did not ask the right questions, which makes them schmucks in my eyes. (For Heaven's sake, they fought beside soldiers who were modeled on Dooku's deceased bounty hunter cum bodyguard!) They weren't heroes; they were Palpatine's ?useful idiots?. Billions died because of their blindness--their victims including Anakin, Padme, and the younglings. And ain't that the story of history: the young are thrown into the meat-grinder because their dim-witted elders couldn't transcend their authoritarian mindsets.

There's only one CW story I'd ever be interested in. Some Qui-Gon type?-i.e., he doesn't have his head up his tuckus?-leads his own investigation into the impetus for the Clone Wars. He takes more than a cursory glance at Palpatine's past, creeps around the corridors of Kamino, is hunted by Tarkin, and is wasted just after he has his epiphany. It'd make for a nifty two-parter.

 

I think that's a good story idea (actually, that's a broad enough idea that it could make several stories). And really, the makers of CW are losing every bit as many stories as they're gaining by re-imagining the Clone Wars as WW2, rather than as the false flag they were in the movies. In addition to the stories possible from your suggestion, I was thinking that they could have all sorts of stories about Palpatine's surrogates: how they funnel information to the Jedi (and to the Separatists) without arousing too much suspicion....and what their psychological makeup would have to be.

And your observation that the Jedi should've noticed that Dooku's bodyguard was the template for the clones is a good one. (Last time I watched AOTC, I wondered whether Jango Fett knew that "his" army was actually going to be fighting for the Republic. If he'd lived just one more minute, I wonder if he'd have been very, very confused.)

 

The jedi in the PT were always supposed to be very flawed. The only ones that are supposed to be portrayed as learning from the mistakes of the past are the ones that survive- obi-wan and yoda.

People should not assume that the jedi in the PT were portrayed to be too much of ANYTHING because guess what? It is not over after the PT ends- there is no "PT" its ONE STORY, ONE SAGA and as the viewer watches this saga in the order that it has always intended to be seen (1-6) you will see how the jedi were flawed at first and they learned from there mistakes and "reinvented" themselves through luke and the newer training he is given by yoda coupled with the life lessons that he learns by himself to make the audience rightfully assume that he passes on what he has learned and helps rebuild the "new" jedi order to protect the "new" republic. That is what the happy ending of star wars is- or at least the political part of the happy ending and you cant ever fully experience this without watching the SAGA in the CORRECT order.

 

Thats one of the best posts i've ever read.

 

I don't agree with your hardline stance on viewing the six movies as one indivisible storyline. First off, we know that the story was changed countless times in development and editing (just look at all the deleted scenes!), and so therefore there to imbue SW with the nearly divine holism you seem to suggest is just silly, in my opinion. (And you seem to contradict yourself by citing the EU right after talking about how it's "One story, one saga." If there's just one story, then the EU cannot be used as evidence, in my opinion.)

Secondly, as far as Drg4's criticism of the Jedi, and your defense, I think that both sides should concede that this element of the story is largely interpretive: it's a void, and viewers can see into it whatever they want.

And Obi-Rob....thanks for the YouTube comment!

 

I wasn't talking about EU, I was talking about the end of ROTJ and how the end of that movie implied a happy ending, the happy ending being that luke "passed on what he has learned" like yoda said right in the movie and i think its safe to assume with out any EU that they brought the republic back and did away with the empire.

 

Hey, I'm not berating the PT; I love them as much as ANH and TESB. What I'm complaining about is that lousy Clone Wars show, where we're asked to root for the sorriest cadre of monks in the galaxy.

They'd of been better off giving custody of Anakin to Qui-Gon's ashes.

 

Imagine Oliver Stone making a political thriller about the Gulf of Tonkin cover-up, navigating us through Johnson and McNamara's mendacity, only to churn out a TV spin-off, where we follow a bunch of naïve American kids, high-fiving each other as they shoot Vietnamese in the rice patties. It'd be absurd. I mean, when is a victory not a victory?


You are sublime. In a few sentences, you managed to convey why I don't bother with the TV version of the "CLONE WARS".

 

And it's even stranger given that Lucas and Filloni have both agreed the Jedi were 'corrupted' during the war.

 

Wars not make one great.

 

Now that would make for a good novel.

 

Assumption that the Jedi didn't do such things is merely assumption. In fact, we know the Jedi went to Kamino. It was in the films.

 

I'd imagine TCW will eventually get into investigations of Palpatine. It's already part of the EU and Filoni is an EU fan, so I can't imagine him leaving that out. The Jedi are already suspicious of Palpatine before Anakin tells them he's the Sith they'd been looking for. They take Dooku's claims about Darth Sidious seriously, so they'll probably be pursuing that... plus the suspicions as Palpatine keeps expanding his executive powers through the course of the war. They don't put 2 and 2 together until Anakin tells Mace, but they're definitely looking into it. Hasn't Palpatine already expanded his beyond his term limit by AOTC anyway?

In the CW comics there's already a story of a Jedi working to do midi-chlorian tests on everyone in the Senate... Senators, aides etc. This Jedi was a close friend of Palpatine... and Palpatine arranges for him to get sent to a deadly mission and he dies. I don't see how that could be ignored in the show. Maybe that particular story, but not the whole idea of an investigation into these allegations about a Sith in control of the Senate and the concerns over the expanding powers of the Supreme Chancellor. Even the micro-series implied these suspicions on the part of the Jedi..

 

That sounds like a pretty cool tale, although way too sophisticated for the CW as the show has been structured so far. (Further, I think that, after TPM, Lucas has consciously tried to downplay the whole midichlorian component of the Force, maybe because it leads to the obvious issue that you're proposing: coerced DNA testing. Also, it really makes the Jedi's job seem very easy. All they have to do to get an apprentice is pluck a hair or get a drop of blood.)

But in a larger sense, even if the show begins to touch on Palpatine being a double agent, they're still going to downplay the larger element. I highly doubt, for instance, that they'll ever discuss Palpatine's co-conspirators. They seem pretty happy with their CW=WW2 formula, so that's what I'm expecting for the next few years. (Remember, they've also done away with the clones' genetic modifications and the fact that they're going to murder all the Jedi and be, basically, SS agents. So don't think that the makers of CW are beholden to the SW movies at all.)

 

I fear you misunderstand what the SS were, if you're calling them agents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS

 

By ROTS.

 

Well, if we are to assume a standard two terms along the lines of the American Constitution Palpatine should've already been 2 years past his term limit by AOTC. I do believe the crawl says he's already enacted emergency powers.

 

It's not in there according to the Wook.

 

Why would we assume Palpatine was adhering to the American Constitution? You've lost me.

 

Wasn't the Gulf of Tonkin incident more a result of leaders being paranoid and trigger-happy than them actually having malicious intent? If President Johnson intended to use it as a power grab, he failed pretty miserably considering he didn't even bother to run for re-election.

 

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: Passed by Congress on August 4, 1964.
Lyndon Johnson elected President: November 3, 1964.

So, no. There's nothing at all that can be said to downplay or reduce the lies, corruption, and conspiracy with the Gulf of Tonkin. It was a huge lie, everybody knew it was a huge lie, we still know it's a huge lie, and that's all there is to it.

 

It was a complete lie.

One factor, among others, was that the liberal Johnson wanted to appear ?tough on defense,? as his opponent was a right-wing malcontent by the name of Barry Goldwater. Yellow people were expendable, in such a case.

Expect the not-quite-as-liberal Obama to do the same to the people in the Middle East.