Danny and Derek welcome back Daniel Immerwahr, professor of history at Northwestern University, to talk about about his new essay, “The Galactic Vietnam: Technology, Modernization, and Empire in George Lucas’s Star Wars”. They discuss the ideological projects of Lucas’ early work,
Aug 22, 2022·edited Aug 23, 2022Liked by Daniel Bessner
Love it, nice work guys.
Re: Lucas's re-edits of Star Wars 'special editions': it may be that Lucas is not actually a very good director. The original Star Wars was 'saved in the edit' by a collaboration of several directors and editors that really tightened up the film. American Graffiti and THX 1138 are also quite well edited films, so it makes me think he may have benefitted from an excellent editor on those films too. But once he got 'fuck you' money from the completion of the original trilogy, you can see his directing and editing started to suffer when he had complete creative control.
Love it, nice work guys.
Re: Lucas's re-edits of Star Wars 'special editions': it may be that Lucas is not actually a very good director. The original Star Wars was 'saved in the edit' by a collaboration of several directors and editors that really tightened up the film. American Graffiti and THX 1138 are also quite well edited films, so it makes me think he may have benefitted from an excellent editor on those films too. But once he got 'fuck you' money from the completion of the original trilogy, you can see his directing and editing started to suffer when he had complete creative control.
fascinating. i loved it.
Engels did do his mandatory service in the Prussian Army and was August Willich's Aide-de-camp during the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany.
Bessner X Panitch would’ve been the Marxist collab of the century. RIP Leo Panitch.
My brain turned inside out at the description “to the right of Mao.”