Evil Star Wars

There are few authors I actually pay attention to as people, unless the books are of extremely high quality. Thankfully Margaret Atwood is a thousand miles from being one of those authors.

I just heard about this so sorry for being a bit late with it. I’m talking of course the Variety interview Atwood did recently, which is a fairly straightforward, marginally interesting interview until she bizarrely makes the claim that Star Wars was to blame for 9/11.  I mean we all know it was Back to the Future that predicted it, but idiocy aside, what is the world coming too?  Here is the section in question (with my italics):

You attended one of the women’s marches last year. What do you make of this latest wave of activism? 
Typically, waves are waves. They hit the shore and then they recede and then they hit the shore again. How many backlashes have we been through? We used to have a race going on, to see which would win, between “1984” and “Brave New World.” It looked as if “Brave New World” had won. That turned out not to be true. Just to give you a very creepy feeling, there was an opera of “The Handmaid’s Tale” that premiered in Denmark in 2000. It started with a film reel going across the top of the stage and showing various things blowing up. And one of the things that blew up was the Twin Towers. But it hadn’t blown up yet. They did the opera again, and they had to take it out, because it was no longer in the future. Does that give you a creepy feeling?

Yes, it does.
They didn’t get that idea from my opera, don’t worry. They got the idea from “Star Wars.”

Do you really believe that?
Remember the first one? Two guys fly a plane in the middle of something and blow that up? The only difference is, in “Star Wars,” they get away. Right after 9/11, they hired a bunch of Hollywood screenwriters to tell them how the story might go next. Sci-fi writers are very good at this stuff, anticipating future events. They don’t all come true, but there are interesting “what if” scenarios.

Where do you start with this car crash?  Most importantly her play was not a catalyst at all, it couldn’t have been. We don’t know why not, and as usual interviewers won’t do their job and ask probing questions so I guess that will remain a mystery.  Star Wars gave them the idea – presumably not the original film – not one of the many books or films where hijackings and attempts to do damage with planes are central plot points..

I’m not offended because it’s Star Wars,  I’m not one of those people. I enjoyed the original trilogy but think the new films are utter rubbish. but why would anybody who seems intelligent come up with something so downright odd?  Maybe it was an odd bit of failed sarcasm, although it doesn’t read like it.  The more cynical may suggest it is because the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale is due to air on the 25th April.  If this is the best she has, then maybe save it for the marketing team.  Whatever the reason, I’ll save my money and not encourage such people and their inane ideas with book/DVD sales.

13 Replies to “Evil Star Wars”

  1. She should have chosen that novel by Tom Clancy….. can’t remember the title ….. the terrorists use 2 airplanes to hit Congress while the President of the US is delivering his State of the Nation Address.

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      1. The novel is” DEBT of HONOR ” , by Tom Clancy. The enemy ‘s a clandestine group of Japanese businessmen and politicians….. every else who matters in the government were killed when a plane with bombs hits the Capitol building while the President is delivering his yearly State of the Nation Address. The only person left in the government next in line is………. spoiler.

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  2. The Tom Clancy book was Debt of Honor. Man, that was a pretzel, onion book if ever I’ve read one. It might have been fiction, but having watched Air Crash Investigations, it happens in real life too, and sad to say, I don’t think it will be the last time a regular, bone fide airline pilot commits an act of terrorism.

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    1. The Star Wars fans have enough to cope with, with the terrible direction the series is going let alone crazy conspiracy theories. I would be intrigued to know why a visual representation of the twin towers being hit by a plane was less of an inspiration than an old film set in space.

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  3. Dear Ste J, Sorry, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Margaret Atwood fan, and though I haven’t read all of her books, I think possibly she just was having a day on which she didn’t fully articulate the thought she was thinking, which probably made it more confusing. Even writers don’t always edit when they speak. Anyway, I’m just likely to cut her some slack because she’s such a positive model for women and girls, and such an imaginative presence on the world writer’s stage.

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    1. I think, perhaps after putting her own opera in the frame for possibly inspiring 9/11 she desperately clutched at anything else to blame. I suppose the right question isn’t, why pick Star Wars? It’s why couldn’t your opera have been a catalyst? I hear she is a writer that puts her foot in her mouth quite a lot as well which probably explains it. I now think she should do more interviews to amuse us, how quickly my opinion reverses.

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  4. I read that interview in Variety! I was ho hum about it.
    I’ve never been a fan of Atwood, although I have read a couple of (yawn) books out of respect for our glorious Canadian writer.
    I hate Handmaid’s Tale. .. UCK … boredom…barfo!
    Now, if you want to read a fab Canadian writer, please read the underrated Joy Fielding!

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    1. I didn’t manage to finish The Handmaid’s Tale, there wasn’t much to recommend it. I get that it was supposed to show the world and how terrible and boring it was for the main character but it wasn’t done with style or anything to interest me. Other writers like Marquez and Orwell can write the subject of boring in a really interesting way. I haven’t come across Fielding and the choice over here is sadly very sparse compared to what I am used to but will have a look out, as every so often a gem does present itself.

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