I had a very interesting discussion with an old friend of mine, a religious scholar, and she had a very interesting take on the ST. Her belief was one very different than proposals I've heard here as to why the ST was made the way it was, but there's parts of her theory that jumped out at me as chillingly accurate - so much so that I had to bring it up here.
At the core, her argument was that while Star Wars itself is for the most part non-secular, it teaches valuable lessons that are timeless, and, much like the Three Virtues in Ultima, can easily be used as the basis for a sense of morality - a good one - that goes beyond the movie itself. That's what makes these movies so enduring: the stories they cover and the underlying themes in them are so good. Every single major character in the OT (and even the PT) that has a coherent character arc also teaches lessons to the viewer in the process as part of the storytelling. By any accounting, there's absolutely nothing objectionable in any of this.
....Unless you're a progressive utopian trying to usher in the glorious superior future, that is.
Many of the re-occurring themes in Star Wars are very straightforward: Don't take the easy way, because you'll suffer for it. Hard work and perseverance will carry you farther than you'd ever think. You can help people become better than they were just by being their friend and rubbing off on them. It's important to be brave. If you lose yourself in anger or fear, you'll lose sight of what's important. You can become more than what you were before, if you will yourself to it. Even the brightest prodigy may have a dark spot they are not proud of, and even most despicable person may be redeemable. Sometimes a little hope can go a long way.
Now note how these are directly the opposite of Progressive orthodoxy: The easy way is good. Hard work is for suckers. Fuck everyone else, you're the important one. You should be angry and afraid all the time, of everything, and ready to go completely off the chain based upon that anger and fear. You have no meaningful agency in your own life, so give up and revel in helplessness. Anyone guilty of original sin is forevermore guilty and irredeemably evil, except for those at the top of the progressive stack, who can do no wrong. We are all fucked if you don't do exactly what we want.
Her argument is thus that the ST was specifically intended to undermine and destroy Star Wars entirely because these simple values pose an existential threat to the Progressive world-view, which is already on the decline. It certainly explains their hatred of the fandom. If they'd just made terrible movies, but didn't do what they did in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, they'd just be one more piece of shitty Star Wars content in an ongoing landfill, ignored by the fandom entirely. The franchise endured worse in the past. That's not what they did. They went out of their way to unmake the previous movies. To destroy the messages and characters of old. You can't have someone who essentially became a hero from nothing and accomplished things on his own merits in current year, especially when the hero that accomplished this was a white male. Ergo, they turn one of the most optimistic, idealistic, beloved characters in a generation into a grumpy, vicious, murderous old hobo and without any payoff, and then gave him a meaningless death.
Kathleen Kennedy has made zero bones about her fucking hatred of the original fandom, as well as her progressive bonafides on Social Media, and if there's anything more autistic than the House of Mouse, it's the progressives and the entire pathological need for vindication. While I don't know if I fully buy it, this theory does, if truthful, makes a great deal of sense.
www.charlottestories.com
