this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
409 points (96.2% liked)

Greentext

4302 readers
734 users here now

This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

Be warned:

If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
all 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 107 points 11 months ago (3 children)

When you realise Hollywood is from the same country that held the microphone to the world for the last 80 years, repeating the same stories, over and over.

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 86 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

People outside the Anglosphere still have a different experience. I mean, the whole "UK refuses to give up, fights for what's right" bit is... not how that is played out elsewhere.

If you're from a big chunk of occupied Europe the narrative is more Star Wars-y. The Empire has won, it's about the plucky resistance. Only a lot more bleak. If you're from Northern Africa... probably no good guys in this one. If you're in Spain it's more of a Game of Thrones. It starts in 1936 and it ends in 1975 after a very long timeskip before which a bunch of resistance fighters wait to take back their country holed up in the mountains and are betrayed by the US and UK because they worry about their ties to the soviets. If you're from China, the narrative doesn't have many people from Europe at all, but it sure has a whole lot of Japanese bad guys and an entire holocaust spin-off that somehow you never hear about.

They all get the Hollywood version of it, most people are at least told one alternative take at some point in their lives. I sometimes forget that's not the case with many things in the Anglosphere.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Many major Star Wars main trilogy and prequel plotlines have real-world analogues.

  • Main trilogy plot line: French Resistance
  • Prequel plot line: Hitler's rise to power
  • Palpatine gaining emergency powers from the Senate: Reichstag Fire Decree
  • Dissolving the Old Republic and forming an empire: First French Empire, Augustus's rise to power as Roman emperor
[–] Nihilore@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Lucas is on record saying the OT was about the Vietnam war (in an interview he did with James Cameron I think)

[–] hydrospanner@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I thought that was very specifically referring to the ground battle on Endor in RotJ, not the whole trilogy.

In other sources he says it's a nod to WW2 (the trench run inspired by the Dam Busters, etc.) with imperial visual elements directly lifted from WW2 German designs

[–] Nihilore@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

You might be right yeh, I’ve only seen a clip of it

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

I'd say you guys are missing the point or the big picture, but I knew what I was getting into. Nerd away, it's cool.

[–] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

One of the episodes of Star Wars Visions was from a French animation studio and they very much emphasized that angle. It was great

[–] badcommandorfilename@lemmy.world 25 points 11 months ago

That's right - people who experienced WW2 would have been living a very different story.

It's only because it's been retold and edited and embellished over and over again that it fits our narrative arc so well.

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 76 points 11 months ago (1 children)

coincidentally perfectly timed

What does he think generals do? Does he think the Soviets and the rest of the allies couldn't talk to each other?

[–] lesseva96@lemm.ee 39 points 11 months ago

How would they talk? They speak different languages and there weren't subtitles back then.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 71 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Anon wants to deny the Holocaust

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

"It just sounds too good true to be true"

- Anon, probably

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

I don't think anyone has said that, actually

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 38 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Then in the sequel, the audience can no longer tell who is good and who is bad and slowly realize that the main cast who are neither good or bad and have all done horrible things are at the heart of the conflict while every one around them die needless deaths in order to continually drive the story into the next sequel.

[–] Skua@kbin.social 25 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That's more or less the default throughout history. The Nazis had to be a deeply horrifying kind of evil to make WWII have a clear good side that contained most of the world's biggest colonial empires

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago

Then the sequel to that was basically Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith ..... where we find out that the enemy we've been fighting is not a nation, or a military but a religious/ideological movement based on faith, wealth and historic power.

In our actual history, it's called fascism, a belief that power and wealth is entitled to only those who take it by force and more often that not, the movement is directly tied to certain groups, races or religions.

Art (if you can call the Star Wars movie franchise art) certainly does reflect life.

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

It really doesn't take that much to convince people the other side are the bad guys and we're the good guys.

I think you are vastly overestimating both the historical knowledge of people and their ability to act based on objective righteousness.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wait till they learn about the start of WW1

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"you're telling me the world went to war over two cousins?!"

[–] TheEEEdiot@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

And an absurd comedy of errors repeatedly botched but ultimately successful through absurd coincidence assassination

[–] reflex@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

“you’re telling me the world went to war over two cousins?!”

Les Cousins Dangereux.

So the poor old ostrich died for nothing.

[–] Pharmacokinetics@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Germany didn't almost win. They got extremely lucky with the invasion of France. The French thought it was gonna be trench warfare and unprepared, and the soviet invasion began right when the great purge happened. They got really lucky. Then the Yanks came.

[–] sushibowl@feddit.nl 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's a good case to be made that Germany would have lost the war even without the Americans entering. The defeat at the battle of Moscow was basically the end of German offensive capability; they suffered a disastrous shortage of resources.

If the US invasion had not taken place Germany would likely still have lost, and the Soviet Union would have occupied a large chunk of Europe.

[–] Kanda@reddthat.com 6 points 11 months ago

Germany would basically be all but guaranteed to lose against the Soviets and the English alone. It might have become a war of attrition sort of deal, but all was said and done after Stalingrad

[–] grandkaiser@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Nah. You're just repeating myths about the French. The French were not idiots and they did not think the war would be fought at the Maginot line. Despite how the myth goes, the Maginot line did exactly what it was supposed to do: funnel the Germans through Belgium and force them into a shitty river crossing at the Dyle River. This was known as the "Dyle plan". This actually could have worked out if not for the unexpected agility of the Germans and even more importantly: the fact that Belgium had left the allies after losing faith in them after the remilitarization of the reinland.

They didn't get "lucky", the Germans exploited fractured alliances and surprised the allies with their extremely effective and, at the time, novel use of the radio. Hell, they almost won the war before France even fell. Read up on the Dunkirk evacuation if you're interested. I'd wax on about it, but I've got surgery on about 20 minutes.

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The French thought it was gonna be trench warfare

Ironically enough, so did Hitler. In between the invasion of Poland and the invasion of France, he allocated an enormous fraction (around 40%) of Germany's war materiel production to artillery shells - the primary weapon of WWI and the fundamental limiting resource for both sides during that war. Hitler expected a reboot of the prior war, with Germany holding off the Western allies with a small portion of their armies on the defensive while carving off huge swaths of Russian territory. He was as surprised as anybody by the rapid collapse of France - and was left holding a gigantic surplus of artillery shells.

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm looking forward to WWII: Remastered.

[–] reflex@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm looking forward to WWII: Remastered.

Just the remaster? What about endless reboots?

[–] stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Now streaming on Disney+

Churchill: A World War II Story

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

In a bold new take, Chruchill is portrayed by a black man

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 11 months ago

"We shall fight them on the motherfuckin' beaches".

[–] stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

*woman even, she's also bisexual and autistic

[–] oak00@sh.itjust.works 12 points 11 months ago

That’s what a lot of what history is and all popular history. It’s crafted as a narrative.

[–] wick@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago

Don't mention this to the ml's, they will take it as a CIA plot to demonise Russia.

[–] kawa@reddeet.com 8 points 11 months ago

Sanest 4c user

[–] Something_Complex@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Stupid people can't create an empire that lasts and neither can cruel ones.

Eventually they hurt replaced or make one to many mistakes.

Usually in a war time is on the side of the intelligent side, because Nazis will backstab each other while Britain got more and more united

[–] gullible@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

neither can cruel ones

In modernity, yes, kindness denotes stability and opportunity for experimentation, but is that historically the case? Sincere question, I only remember the funny parts of history.

[–] Ummdustry@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

I mean, even in modernity cruelty is still a common feature in world leaders.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To answer this, one would have to define what "lasts" means. None of them exists as an empire any more. So if lasts=forever it was historycally the case they couldn't do it.

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

Since we're talking about the personality traits of an individual, "lasts" can only mean until their lifetime is over.

And there are a LOT of despots that ruled for their entire lives.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

They can, the real issue in ww2 was mostly that the US appeared. During the entire war, their economy was bigger than everyone else’s combined, so whatever their course of action was it would be defining

[–] dreamer@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

And the most cartoonishly evil villians

[–] Ddhuud@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

So... is Abed Nadir an influential thought-shaping character, or what?

[–] Hiro8811@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

If it wasn't we probably wouldn't be here