Star Wars - The Empire Won

It's 3:30 in the morning, my MS is acting up and I can't sleep - so why not go on a bit of Star Wars rant.

Recently, Greenpeace produced a satirical commercial - poking fun at the Star War - Darth Vader Volkswagen commercial that appeared in Super Bowl 2010.

I happened to like the Volkswagen commercial - It was cute.



Tonight, I Stumbled Upon an article in AutoBlog titled, Greenpeace parodies Little Vader ad to show dark side of Volkswagen. The article, in a non-biased way, explains that Greenpeace is upset at Volkswagen trying to squelch the EU laws on CO2 admissions and created a fake commercial, where Volkswagen is the new Empire. There's even a huge VW logo on the Death Star. To tell you the truth, it's not that funny - I mean it's okay I guess - but that's not what this post is about.



Even though the article was published a few days ago, it seems that George Lucas got his panties in a wad, a real tight wad and demanded the video be removed. Now, I'm not going to go into the political argument of whether Greenpeace is right or wrong about Global Climate Change. And it is a political arguement, because the science is conclusive. Maybe the CO2 laws in the EU are too strict .. I have no idea.

Here's what this post is about. Greenpeace suggests that Lucas has sold his soul to the Dark Side commercial marketing and become the Empire of capitalization. So, what does George Lucas do? He immediately turns around and proves it's all true by lawyering  up and forcing GP to shut down the video. It is the highest form of douchebagness to shut down a parody. 

In Star Wars 4 - A New Hope, which is really chronologically the first Star Wars movie.  There's a great line by Princess Leia. 

The Empire a-hole, Governor Tarkin says "... No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now."

To which Leia replies, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Is this not a perfect analogy of what Lucas is doing to GP? The video Lucas is so desperately trying to shutdown is popping up all over the Internet.


The purpose of a parody is to provoke thought and conversation using comedy. And look, I don't really think the content of the GP's parody succeeds - first, I don't consider VW to be one of the big offenders of CO2 emissions and the video is too far reaching and over the top to be effective.


However, George Lucas reacting to the video in such a draconian way validates the parody. In sense VW may not be the evil empire but Lucas my be the Emperor. 


Article in AutoBlog