
Fighting in the Wars of the Outer Worlds
“Lucas isn’t exactly doing anything unprecedented — the Empire is basically a bunch of space Nazis, and Lucas parallels the Empire’s rise in the prequels with the Nazi Party’s rise in Germany. But for as stilted and affectless as the films can be, they’re tapped into something raw and real about how often seemingly stable societies collapse into fascism, into revolution, into political upheaval.
I probably don’t have to connect too many dots between what’s happened in the US in the wake of 9/11, the economic collapse of 2008, and the presidential election of 2016 before you can see that, yeah, the Star Wars prequels eerily illustrate how tyranny can rise when good men do nothing, because “do nothing” too often means “ignore the people suffering right under your nose, because it implicates you in some way.” I’d stop short of calling the films some sort of communist or socialist manifesto, but Lucas, an old lefty, surely wouldn’t mind a Marxist reading of them.
In 1999, at the tail end of the American Century, that sort of scenario felt like a far-off horror, a reminder of a past we had thankfully escaped. Twenty years later … well, whatever might bring balance to our world feels very far, far away indeed.” – Emily St. James, The Star Wars prequels are bad — and insightful about American politics.
Class Wargames will be hosting a collective playing of Arty’s Clone Wars Game.
Entrance free. Bring your own food & drink.
Friday 28th February
6.30pm-10.30pm
Newspeak House
133-135 Bethnal Green Road
London
E2 7DG
Class Wargames will be using Arty’s Clone Wars Game rules. These rules are inspired by the World War 2 rules in Donald Featherstone’s War Games: battles and manoeuvres with model soldiers.
Class Wargames will be playing with 6mm sci-fi figurines by Irregular Miniatures and Brigade Models.