Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was one of the biggest impacts on popular culture in 2016, despite it being released just weeks before the year’s end. Aside from it being one of the most commercially and critically successful entries in the Star Wars saga, what does the film say about the world we live in today?
Controversy over the claim that Rogue One would be an anti-Trump film after one of the film’s writers, Chris Weitz, spoke against Trump after the results of the 2016 presidential election attempted to manipulate Star Wars into a tug of war of political debate, yet hasn’t Star Wars always been a political film at its core?
The saga tells the story of an ordinary child and his allies binding together to destroy a tyrannical government, and the character of the Emperor draws many parallels to some of history’s greatest, sinister leaders, such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Kim Jong-un, to name a few. Many of the disasters that occur throughout the saga draw inspiration from some of our world’s worst tragedies, such as the use of weapons of mass destruction, genocides that wipe out entire races, and the sinister accumulation of power by a tyrannical and fanatical leader.
Despite the lessons and warnings regarding war, rebellion, government, and hope that Star Wars has always sought to teach its viewers, a certain line in Rogue One has resonated with me more and more each time I’ve watched the film (unashamedly, it has been three now, and counting).
Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) asks Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) how she can stand to see the Imperial flag brandished across all of the galaxy in response to her apathy towards the Rebel Alliance against the Empire and what it stands for, to which she replies, “it’s not a problem if you don’t look up.”
This, right here, is one of humanity’s greatest flaws in the world we live in today: our intentional ignorance of the current state of the world we live in. Though Jyn eventually recognizes the importance of joining the Rebellion and fighting the Empire for the greater good in order to ensure that the future is brighter than the present she lives in, there are too many people in our reality that turn the other cheek as to the plight of those less fortunate because they feel distanced and unaffected by it.
Just because we do not experience a struggle in our lives does not mean that it is not very, very real in someone else’s. Burying our head in the sand does nothing to help those that are in trouble, and though there may not be much we can do to help them in our lifetime and/or in our given situations, the least we can do is acknowledge that change needs to be made. Progress never moves forward until it is recognized that progress is needed.
“It’s not a problem if you don’t look up.” Tell that to the LBGT+. Tell that to the minorities in America that are persecuted by fanatics and racists . Tell that to people that do not feel free and safe to practice their religion because of the few evil radicals that tarnished their reputation as a whole. Tell that to the thousands of people suffering in Aleppo , and to those that will survive once the conflict is over, only to never be able to return to the cities they once called home. Tell that to the ones that are suffering, but we refuse to acknowledge their suffering because we have not seen it with our own eyes or experienced it with our own skin.
I urge us to begin taking a stand in the simplest of ways: let us pull our heads out of the sand. Let us begin spreading the word and advocating for the ones that cannot advocate for themselves. Let us learn from the characters we have known and loved for years on the big screen as they battled the evil Emperor Palpatine and fight for hope, for the people that have run out of hope for themselves.
It is rebellious in this day and age to speak our minds, especially those of us “dumb millennials,” as our elders often like to paint us. So let’s be rebellious and start the conversation.
