We should just admit that “terrorism” and “resistance” has a subjective component based on perceived worth. “Resistance” = “terrorism” plus virtue and “terrorism” = “resistance” + villainy. The involved parties are obviously very aware of this fact and are always trying to achieve their goals while keeping their “perceived virtue” score up while their foes are trying to push their “perceived villainy” score up.
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Didn’t the Nuremburg Trials determine that “just following orders” is not a defense? Those contractors were paid to build a planet-killing weapon.
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IIRC no non-combatant contractors were ever tried for war crimes at Nuremberg. Heck, we even brought a bunch of their best weapons guys over to help run NASA.
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How were they supposed to know what the “Death Star” was going to be used for? /s
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Further, as the video points out (quoting a character from TNG) the separation of “terrorist” from “founding father” is based on how successful the campaign is. An excellent modern example is Menachem Begin… head of Irgun when the King David Hotel was bombed, killing 91 people.
Bibi of course said this wasn’t terrorism because they say they called in a threat in advance, so I guess the IRA bombing of Canary Wharf was also not terrorism?.. Begin said that the goal “was never to take lives” and blamed the British for not evacuating. But of course, then they could have just called in the threat and not planted the bomb.
Anywhoo, some terrorists later get the Noble Peace Prize if they are successful enough.
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A better analogy is the USS Cole bombing
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“Israeli murderers are called ‘commandos’. Arab commandos are called ‘terrorists’. Contra killers are called ‘freedom fighters’. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?” – George Carlin
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Actually, the tricky thing about the Empire is that it isn’t the only legit authority in the galaxy, and in many places it has no authority. It’s a little bit like the situation of the Holy Roman Empire - overlapping areas of authority and not really sovereignty in our sense. As a result, if the rebel alliance is a uniformed military force (“Red Five”) with an organized structure (“Admiral Akbar”, “General Solo”), the attack on the death star is at a minimum an organized attack by an insurgent military force on a military target and not an act of terrorism, and could even be looked at as two military forces in a normal military conflict.
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I am not nerd enough for this.
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I don’t think you can make that argument about Leia’s activities on the Tantive IV. She wasn’t uniformed, and at the time of the Rebel attack on the base at Scarif the Death Star had not yet blown up any planets. (Although the holy city of Jedha did get a bit singed beforehand)
I mean, Vader may be evil but he wasn’t wrong here…
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one galaxy’s terrorist is another galaxy’s freedom fighter?
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Enterprise was doomed from inception from the universal truth: prequels suck.
In most cases they are narrative kryptonite and spend too much time reinforcing trivial things which are now canon.
The 3rd season was its best. The last episode, “Terra Prime” was also quite good. I’m glad they ended the series there and didn’t do any episodes after that high point
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The French and Dutch Resistances WERE terrorists as were the two Greek Resistance forces, and Yugoslav Partisans. I am not going to sugarcoat their actions by calling them “freedom fighters”.
The Nazis had their own versions in many places. They were useful in carrying out mass murders and reprisals.
In many cases these forces fought each other. The Greek resistance forces started shooting each other the moment the Nazis vacated. Soviet partisans could be as brutal to civilians as the Nazi occupiers.
Also it is noted that Soviet aligned partisans formed the backbone of oppressive Iron Curtain governments postwar.
As for the 2 Westerns, I think you are missing/omitting key parts of their setting to fit your thesis. You could easily transpose The Magnificent Seven to a US setting with no difficulty (as the recent remake did). The Wild Bunch is grounded to the Mexican Revolution.
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I do understand where it is set, of course. But the idea that it’s an allegory for the Vietnam War isn’t, er, revolutionary nor is it original to me. It’s a fairly common interpretation. That the allegory is used in a way to make a commentary on the futility of America involvement in foreign wars is pretty obvious, I think. Even at the time, it being filmed during the RFK and MLK assassinations (and during the My Lai massacre and Major Colin Powell’s subsequent “whitewashing”), and then released soon after Tet. American moviegoers saw the connection.
That the Magnificent Seven can also be seen through the lens of “what happens when Americans get involved in foreign conflicts” is also pretty easy, I think, and again I’m not the first to come up with this. Sure it could be transposed to any other setting, but set where it is, and with Mexican farmers portrayed as they were portrayed, it’s a story of “heroic” American mercenaries coming to rescue incompetent foreigners. Specifically about Vietnam? No. But it did encapsulate an attitude about the so-called benefits of American involvement in a foreign country. The Wild Bunch was a recognition of how events in the intervening 8 years changed those attitudes.
Anyway, I’ve probably started repeating myself. Interesting conversation, and I appreciate the exchange of ideas and viewpoints.
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How specific actions are labeled largely depends on who is telling the story, and who or what cause ended up coming out on top.
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Incorrect. Entire companies were brought to trial.
Granted it was largely for using slave labor in their efforts.
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My problem here comes from being very familiar with the original Kurosawa Seven Samurai. I think the Western version does a ham handed job in adapting the themes of the original.
One being that the Seven have far more in common with the bandits than they are comfortable acknowledging. Under different circumstances, they would be part of that group. Even the villagers being defended don’t really trust the Seven.
Also the social class/humbling nature of their “job”. Normally they would be defending rich land owners and the ilk. But they are disgraced or down on their luck. Poverty and desperation drive them to support farmers. It is a suicide mission.
Also Horst Bucholtz is nowhere in the same league as Toshiro Mifune by any stretch.
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Speaking of… This year is the 29th anniversary of DS9:
My personal favorite Trek, in part because they never gave you easy answers to these complex questions (about issues like political violence/terrorism) that they were asking…
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I feel like that is a pretty important caveat.
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For the terrorist “There are no innocent bourgeois”.
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