One of the charms of Star Wars was the contrast of robots and serfs, space ships and lords. High technology and feudalism.
If you follow US politics (don’t, it’s a really really bad season), you’re seeing the beginnings of something quite similar: a 21st century version of medieval culture and power dynamics.
Instantaneous access to every fact – and any fiction disguised as fact. World-ending weapons in the hands of a cabal propping up a cult.
Our popular imaginary for the last ~15 years has been so busy re-staging the 9/11 attacks, (suppressing the invasion of Iraq), that it has failed to express the emerging dystopia.
Every blockbuster ends with the literal destruction of the world, rather than its substitution with a deadly simulacrum.
In short, we’ve had too much of this:
And not enough of this:
