We landed on liberal complacency giving way to fascism being in there, yeah. (New Left vs Alt Right)

I thought it was hard to take seriously because it’s not coherently demonstrated, and you made a good point how it can still be held to its politics despite that.

But to just put it out there, and to my point about intentionality, a lot of that materially lives in scenes deleted from the final cut of TFA. Crucially, what we’re left with is broad enough to not really pin down specifically, especially in a contemporaneous moment where Obama was still president, with these ideas still functioning identically as narrative tropes. You could avoid the themes - I feel that these movies wanted you to - if not, so that you could project whatever you want onto them.

Maybe it’s all aged a little more potently in 2025 though, sure! I was going to talk about TLJ having an inert war profiteering bit, but in conversation with a more thematically salient TFA, there is something there (if not only about literal war materiel) about the nature of these political conflicts.