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No Mods No Masters
Oct 3, 2004

Blowing up the new republic planets was a lovely thing to do but hard to call particularly nazi. I think that's about as close as you can get in terms of tangible actions

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Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer

euphronius posted:

First order is not particularly Nazi . They definitely aren’t Nazi cosplay.

They are specifically wearing the uniforms, aping the structure, and adopting the iconography of the Empire. The Empire were very clearly Nazi analogues (Stormtroopers and whatnot.)

YOLOsubmarine
Oct 19, 2004

When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

Maxwell Lord posted:

Again when does Ben Solo do anything about galactic inequality?

When does the first order, who are “literal neonazis” talk about the perfidious treachery of the Jew and crank up the death camps?

There’s very little ideology directly stated the film so you have to try to make sense of what little there is. We only see glimpses of Ben Solo but when he asks Rey to join him break free from the cycle of war he is effectively denouncing both the a FO and the ineffectual liberal democracy of the republic.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Maxwell Lord posted:

Again when does Ben Solo do anything about galactic inequality?

He sacrifices himself to help kill Palpatine at the end of Episode 9, and possibly convinces Rey to not be the antichrist.

The film ends before we can see what Rey actually stands for, but Ben does his best anyways.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer

YOLOsubmarine posted:

When does the first order, who are “literal neonazis” talk about the perfidious treachery of the Jew and crank up the death camps?

There’s very little ideology directly stated the film so you have to try to make sense of what little there is. We only see glimpses of Ben Solo but when he asks Rey to join him break free from the cycle of war he is effectively denouncing both the a FO and the ineffectual liberal democracy of the republic.

Break free of the cycle of war by... killing everyone?

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

Maxwell Lord posted:

They are specifically wearing the uniforms, aping the structure, and adopting the iconography of the Empire. The Empire were very clearly Nazi analogues (Stormtroopers and whatnot.)

Uh. They don’t wear Nazi uniforms or speak German . They don’t evidence anything like Nazi ideology.

You are right the storm troopers share a name with the SA. But they look nothing like the SA so it isn’t “cosplay”

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Maxwell Lord posted:

Break free of the cycle of war by... killing everyone?

This "just asking questions" thing isn't accomplishing much.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

The SA was a paramilitary political force more akin to the proud boys or cops anyway

Stormtroopers in Star Wars are just troops

Most importantly stormtroopers in Star Wars wear white with black and not brown .

No Mods No Masters
Oct 3, 2004

Maxwell Lord posted:

They are specifically wearing the uniforms, aping the structure, and adopting the iconography of the Empire. The Empire were very clearly Nazi analogues (Stormtroopers and whatnot.)

We probably need to let go of the empire is nazi thing as well honestly, I know it has a lot of intuitive appeal and is hardened in the collective consciousness but it basically just boils down to uniforms. Destroying eg alderaan was equally lovely but not really nazi- as has been widely observed elsewhere, the closest thing in the world war 2 context was allied atom and fire bombing

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

No one looks at a storm trooper in Star Wars and says “that is a person cosplaying a member of the SA”

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

euphronius posted:

I had this discussion in another thread or maybe this one ? I’m sorry

The only even vaguely Nazi thing that I can see is some of the banners in the military formations .

This is certainly evocative of something, and I don't think it's the Black Power movement.



Maxwell Lord posted:

They are specifically wearing the uniforms, aping the structure, and adopting the iconography of the Empire. The Empire were very clearly Nazi analogues (Stormtroopers and whatnot.)

I would argue that the ST slightly amps up the Nazi imagery for the First Order in order to downplay the Empires parallels to the American military apparatus in the OT.

General Dog fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Apr 5, 2021

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010


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Ultra Carp

euphronius posted:

No one looks at a storm trooper in Star Wars and says “that is a person cosplaying a member of the SA”

jesus christ you are the biggest loving dumbass on god's green earth

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

General Dog posted:

This is certainly evocative of something, and I don't think it's the Black Power movement.



Are you arguing that is a Nazi salute ?

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010


If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling
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Ultra Carp

euphronius posted:

Are you arguing that is a Nazi salute ?

what the gently caress do you think it's supposed to invoke

are you loving blind

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
The thing is, military parades with a bunch of people marching and saluting are hardly exclusive to Germany 1933-1945.

euphronius posted:

Uh. They don’t wear Nazi uniforms or speak German . They don’t evidence anything like Nazi ideology.

You are right the storm troopers share a name with the SA. But they look nothing like the SA so it isn’t “cosplay”
The rally in TFA is a clear visual reference to the Nuremburg rallies, but you're right that that isn't the same as clearly expressing any beliefs. Hux says that they want to destroy the Republic because it "acquiesces to disorder."

When a studio tries to make a blockbuster with political themes but no clear stance, they typically do this moronic garbage where the villains stands for "too much order" or some other vagueness.

Maxwell Lord posted:

They are specifically wearing the uniforms, aping the structure, and adopting the iconography of the Republic.
Right. If they're trying to make the First Order look like Nazis with costuming and set dressing, that's a silly idea in light of the OT, which mixes such elements freely to make a point. The Nazis didn't wear plate armor or carry British machineguns, nor did they have a monopoly on military parades and really big flags.

Like, Li'l Jynn Erso carries around a toy stormtrooper to establish that a figure in white plate armor is just this setting's banal image of a policeman, and make the point that police are imperial stormtroopers.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Apr 5, 2021

No Mods No Masters
Oct 3, 2004

I think it's more interesting to talk about actions than aesthetics. The nazis hardly have a monopoly on having lined up troops salute

efb

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010


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Ultra Carp
you are either blatantly trolling or are so incapable of understanding visual metaphors that I'm not sure you should be allowed to discuss visual art

please go to your local art gallery and stare at some pictures for a while, if you're capable of differentiating them from the potted plants in the corner

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

And to be clear I’m arguing with someone who called them Nazi cosplay. They are not Nazi cosplay

If you have Nazi inferences that’s fine. You control your own inferences

We sadly actually have people in 2021 cosplaying nazis and they don’t look like anyone in Star Wars

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

This "just asking questions" thing isn't accomplishing much.

It's not just questions. You don't break the cycle of war by wiping out the enemy to the last man, especially since that pretty much never happens. Someone always gets away. And at the very least Ren taking control of the First Order changes the complexion of the conflict to the extent that it's worth taking like five seconds to figure out what your new regime's priorities are. And again, saying to the remnants of your enemies that you're literally not the same side anymore. When there's a regime change like this you don't just do business as normal.

Kylo just seems trapped in a state where he only knows how to respond with violence. Now that is on Luke, Leia, and co., he's got a lot of trauma. I'm not saying he's irredeemable. I'm saying the First Order kinda don't get to be the good guys when their entire act is "remember the guys who blew up Alderaan and murdered moisture farmers, well, we're back baby!" Even if Kylo does have better ideas than Snoke he's kind of at the head of an army of child slave troopers and that was bad enough for the Jedi.

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010


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Ultra Carp

euphronius posted:

And to be clear I’m arguing with someone who called them Nazi cosplay. They are not Nazi cosplay

If you have Nazi inferences that’s fine. You control your own inferences

We sadly actually have people in 2021 cosplaying nazis and they don’t look like anyone in Star Wars

please for the love of God stop being so loving stupid before I have a stroke

YOLOsubmarine
Oct 19, 2004

When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

General Dog posted:

This is certainly evocative of something, and I don't think it's the Black Power movement.



I think they are coded as “bad” by evoking some superficial similarity to the popular perception of Nazis but I also think that the movie is so devoid of overt ideology that it’s silly to say that they are literal Nazi’s as if the things that made Nazi’s bad were wearing black trench coats and holding rallies and not their specific racial politics which is completely absent from the movie.

They aren’t literal Nazis as far as we can tell, but the easiest way to code them as bad authoritarians without having to actually put politics in the movie is to draw on certain loaded imagery.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
Right, they have the iconography of typical authoritarian boogiemen, but, as fun as I find SMG's analysis, I find the First Order and the person(s) of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo to be meticulously and by design void of any coherent ideology. The First Order wants "order" but its unclear who or what, other than the Resistance, they believe to represent disorder. Kylo Ren believes he needs all the strength and focus and will he can acquire to accomplish... something. I don't know what it is, but he was willing to kill his father and also 1 trillion other people for it, so I've got to take it on faith that it was important.

YOLOsubmarine posted:

I think they are coded as “bad” by evoking some superficial similarity to the popular perception of Nazis but I also think that the movie is so devoid of overt ideology that it’s silly to say that they are literal Nazi’s as if the things that made Nazi’s bad were wearing black trench coats and holding rallies and not their specific racial politics which is completely absent from the movie.

They aren’t literal Nazis as far as we can tell, but the easiest way to code them as bad authoritarians without having to actually put politics in the movie is to draw on certain loaded imagery.

Right, we're saying the same thing; I was responding to hoofty-goof's assertion that the iconography wasn't even especially evocative of Nazi Germany, but I'm pretty sure at this point that he's pulling our leg.

I do agree that Nazi imagery set the template for Western portrayal of generic bad authoritarianism, so if you want to make a semantic argument over whether something is specifically invoking Nazi imagery or whether it's just indirectly invoking Nazi imagery as filtered through Cobra in GI Joe or whatever, that's fine.

General Dog fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Apr 5, 2021

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

euphronius posted:

We sadly actually have people in 2021 cosplaying nazis and they don’t look like anyone in Star Wars
Playing devil's advocate, stormtrooper cosplay is pretty popular with cops and soldiers.

Acebuckeye13 posted:

please for the love of God stop being so loving stupid before I have a stroke
https://twitter.com/dril/status/972534838057230336

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer

General Dog posted:

Right, they have the iconography of typical authoritarian boogiemen, but, as fun as I find SMG's analysis, I find the First Order and the person(s) of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo to be meticulously and by design void of any coherent ideology. The First Order wants "order" but its unclear who or what, other than the Resistance, they believe to represent disorder.

Which is why I don't have tons of patience for the "Resistance are actually fascist counter-ops" narrative- like, you live in this sector of the galaxy (the regional nature of the conflict in TFA is one thing they don't define very well), suddenly this group comes along dressed like the old bad guys and they want to Take Control and they've got troops marching through the streets and maybe you're not down with that, but that... makes you an even worse guy for defending the status quo?

Surely even an ineffectual neoliberal government has the right to try and not be ousted by guys saying "The Emperor had some good ideas."

YOLOsubmarine
Oct 19, 2004

When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

Maxwell Lord posted:

Which is why I don't have tons of patience for the "Resistance are actually fascist counter-ops" narrative- like, you live in this sector of the galaxy (the regional nature of the conflict in TFA is one thing they don't define very well), suddenly this group comes along dressed like the old bad guys and they want to Take Control and they've got troops marching through the streets and maybe you're not down with that, but that... makes you an even worse guy for defending the status quo?

Surely even an ineffectual neoliberal government has the right to try and not be ousted by guys saying "The Emperor had some good ideas."

The resistance has essentially no support though, so the stance of the movie is that the populace they are ostensibly fighting for don’t actually want them. People only turn up to fight when Palpatine comes back. The galaxy as a whole doesn’t arguably seem to view the FO as the second coming of the empire and the Republic doesn’t view the FO as an overt enemy given that they are only willing to oppose them via under that table funding of a militia aligned with the ruling party.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Maxwell Lord posted:

You don't break the cycle of war by wiping out the enemy to the last man, especially since that pretty much never happens. Someone always gets away.

I don't know what you mean by "breaking the cycle of war" but, in Episode 9, the Resistance is shown to have been permanently crippled. They've gotten a few dozen more people, I guess, but that's nothing. Any war that did exist was instantly lost partway through Episode 7.

Then Lando goes out on his own, and - offscreen - successfully gets trillions of people amped up to die fighting Palpatine's influence over the Space Soviet Union. And that was basically Ben Solo's goal all along.

This is why 'just asking questions' doesn't work. You're effectively asking us re-explain the entire narrative of the three movies for you instead of offering any sort of coherent interpretation of your own.

General Dog posted:

The First Order wants "order" but its unclear who or what, other than the Resistance, they believe to represent disorder.
The Resistance is already a sufficient example: the New Republic is using Leia's militia as a proxy to undermine democracy in the Outer Rim. Even fascist dork Hux is vocally against deceit:

"At this very moment, in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the galaxy, while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance!"

He may be all shouty and ginger, but he's not wrong here. Hux is taking advantage of the people's calls for true democracy - and the fact that this works is proof of the New Republic's failure. Why don't the good guys 'take advantage' of the people's egalitarian sentiment the same way?

SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 5, 2021

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

I think it might be more accurate to say that the First Order is Empire-coded (Maz Kanata specifically denotes them as the spiritual successor to the Empire, but of course she is far from an unbiased source of exposition), and they are portrayed using a bit more specifically nazi-like imagery than the Empire was.

The Resistance, meanwhile, is a paramilitary organization specifically opposed to the First Order, disavowed by the Republic, whose membership consists mainly of veterans of the Rebel Alliance and victims of violence inflicted directly by the First Order. Within the First Order, there is a secret faction of Imperial revanchists who are mobilized into the Final Order, a continuation of the Empire, when it is learned that Palpatine is still alive. The Resistance received no aid when they called for help against the First Order, but a spontaneous mass uprising to defeat the Final Order occurred as soon as their vulnerability was publicized.

We are forced to conclude that most people in the galaxy view the First Order and the Final Order (and, by extension, the Empire) to be two distinct entities, and like one and dislike the other. The Resistance considers them effectively the same, and by using similar aesthetics for the two, the films privilege the Resistance's perspective on the matter, and then make the plot hinge on a contradictory perspective.

It's hardly surprising that it's difficult to get anything obvious out of a series that practices such sleight-of-hand. It's almost obscurantist.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Bongo Bill posted:

It's hardly surprising that it's difficult to get anything obvious out of a series that practices such sleight-of-hand. It's almost obscurantist.

It’s ultimately not hard to reconcile the issues, though: the Resistance and New Republicans ascribe to horseshoe theory, while the rest of the galaxy does not.

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

Yeah, there's only one conclusion that fits: the Star War depicted in The Force Awakens is not a Manichean clash between good and evil after all, but a simple power struggle between two factions, one of which attains victory by force of arms, although the war disrupts the continuity of government. In that sense it's an echo of the civil war of the prequel era - and just like that time, one of the factions turns out to have been manipulated by the Dark Lord of the Sith, intending to install himself as a dictator - only this time, the galaxy is ready to band together to prevent it from happening again, which they are apparently persuaded to do because it's literally the exact same guy.

Like the prequels, the sequels even start with a movie told from the perspective of a side that is convinced there's a higher moral purpose to their conflict, though there's a lot less time spent in the later trilogy on calling that conviction into question for the audience.

Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Apr 5, 2021

Blood Boils
Dec 27, 2006

Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS
The ST definitely uses some fascist imagery to characterize the FO (mostly through Hux) but also theocracy and communism (Snoke, all the "brainwashing", DJ's treatment) and I suppose even a bit of feudalism with the Knights of ren. Just a grab bag of authoritarian signifiers. It's hard not to interpret the FO as a coalition, even more so than the resistance!

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

I can agree with fascist imagery sort of. They look and sound like Americans and British after all.

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010


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Ultra Carp

YOLOsubmarine posted:

The resistance has essentially no support though, so the stance of the movie is that the populace they are ostensibly fighting for don’t actually want them. People only turn up to fight when Palpatine comes back. The galaxy as a whole doesn’t arguably seem to view the FO as the second coming of the empire and the Republic doesn’t view the FO as an overt enemy given that they are only willing to oppose them via under that table funding of a militia aligned with the ruling party.

My counterpoint to this is that while "the galaxy doesn't care about the resistance" is a common interpretation in this thread, imo a far likelier one (and the one I think the film is *trying* to get across) is that the First Order has already successfully cowed the galaxy into submission. Keep in mind, it's only been a day or two since the entire galaxy witnessed the Hosnian system get blown up—a horrific display of power that the old Empire could have only hoped in their wildest dreams to achieve, and one that demonstrates quite clearly what's going to happen to anyone who's not completely on board with the First Order's seizure of galactic power.

For a historic parallel, the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia is somewhat apt. In both cases, the Galaxy/wider world stood idly by as an opponent to the First Order/Nazi Germany was crushed and subjugated. However, the reason why wasn't because France and England didn't care—it was because their leaders saw themselves as lacking strength and being unprepared for a war, and the scars of the previous conflict running so deep that many wished to avert another war at all costs. Like Churchill in England, there may have been forces throughout the galaxy that wanted desperately to intervene—but the cost of intervention was instead deemed too great, and the salvation of Czechoslovakia/the Resistance fleet a lost cause.

Also, it's worth keeping in mind that for as much as Leia was begging for support, her situation was effectively hopeless. The First Order's fleet was roughly as large, if not larger than the Empire's fleet at Endor, and had the ability to track their opponents through hyperspace. As much as anyone might have wanted to help, they had to have realized that trying to save Leia would have almost certainly meant their own destruction. And at that point, it's better to sit back and build up your own forces to try and resist the First Order yourself, or otherwise meekly accept subjugation and hope the First Order is merciful.

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.

Bongo Bill posted:

The films contain so little evidence of what's at stake in this star war that I can find almost any interpretation credible.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
These movies play very coy when it comes to the First Order's ambitions and the scope of the war. I'd say it's unclear whether they ever actually expand and occupy beyond the portion of space that Republic allowed them to legally govern.

The relative military strength of the First Order are also a moving target- TFA and TLJ represent the First Order's resources as essentially bottomless, which doesn't really make sense, but okay. In Rise of Skywalker, it's tantamount that they secure a fleet of 1000 Final Order Mini Death Stars, lest the existing First Order Fleet be routed by a passel of privately-owned fishing boats.

General Dog fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Apr 5, 2021

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

Rey says quickly in 8 that they are expanding quickly and will ah w conquered the known galaxy in two weeks

Who knows if she is lying . Probably not

garycoleisgod
Sep 27, 2004
Boo

euphronius posted:

Rey says quickly in 8 that they are expanding quickly and will ah w conquered the known galaxy in two weeks

Who knows if she is lying . Probably not

That stuff should probably be shown onscreen, but alas.

A question about the FO being Nazis. A lot of fuel for that argument comes from the Nuremberg Rally on Starkiller base, where Hux is the character giving the speech and basically frothing at the mouth. He seems a true believer.

He is also the one who betrays the FO in ep 9 and helps the resistance. Without him, Poe and Finn are dead. What does it say about our heroes that they accept the help of a nazi?

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

euphronius posted:

Rey says quickly in 8 that they are expanding quickly and will ah w conquered the known galaxy in two weeks

Who knows if she is lying . Probably not

I couldn't remember if that was ever stated explicitly, but if so that's dumb as hell.

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.
I'd like a film where the two sides are fighting but where the conflict is affected and resolved by a small furry alien animal trying to find a piece of fruit. Like the ewoks, but he never has any stake in anything and no army wins.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

garycoleisgod posted:

That stuff should probably be shown onscreen, but alas.

A question about the FO being Nazis. A lot of fuel for that argument comes from the Nuremberg Rally on Starkiller base, where Hux is the character giving the speech and basically frothing at the mouth. He seems a true believer.

He is also the one who betrays the FO in ep 9 and helps the resistance. Without him, Poe and Finn are dead. What does it say about our heroes that they accept the help of a nazi?

I have no problem with people saying the FO makes them think of nazis. My point was they are explicitly not Nazis, are not cosplaying nazis (someone literally said above “cosplaying nazis) and do not have any nazi imagery, express any Nazi ideas, have no Nazi symbols, uniforms etc. the Movies at no point are saysing the first order are the NSDAP. The movies aren’t even set on earth !!!! It’s fine if you think they are nazis. I don’t know why you do but whatever. A lot of people these days think anarchists or communists are nazis !! It’s a strange world.

Compare to a film like I don’t know, Hellboy which has depictions of actual (fictional) Nazis

euphronius fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Apr 5, 2021

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General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
Do you think it's possible that the Earth-based production designers, cinematographers, costumers, etc, are familiar with Nazis and could have consciously or unconsciously taken inspiration from their very well-known aesthetic, or from other media that itself took inspiration from said aesthetic?

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