'Star Wars' Caves in Woke Mob Battle: Iconic Battleship 'Slave I' No More
Has the “Star Wars” franchise turned to the dark side?
That’s what fans seem to think after Lucasfilm’s most recent “woke” charade.
For years, the armored Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett traveled across galaxies in his iconic starship known as Slave I, which first appeared during its pursuit of the Millennium Falcon in George Lucas’ iconic 1980 film “The Empire Strikes Back.”
But things have changed over the 41 years since and, in some ways, arguably not for the better.
Thanks to woke Twitter mobs and Lucasfilm’s glaringly leftist ownership, the ship’s title is no more — and fans aren’t happy about it.
To someone like me, whose love for “Star Wars” began even before I can consciously remember, who grew up playing with hand-me-down original trilogy action figures from the 1970s and eagerly anticipated each prequel release as a child, it’s sickening to see what the franchise has become.
Watching one of the most iconic science fiction franchises fall to the wayside during the “Disney era” proves not only the left’s grip on society but also that nothing can exist without political undertones anymore.
And, of course, there’s no room for dissent (just ask former “Mandalorian” star Gina Carano).
According to the New York Post, the glaring change to Boba Fett’s Slave I came with a Lego release of the cruiser now simply dubbed “Boba Fett’s Starship.”
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“We’re not calling it ‘Slave I’ anymore,” Michael Lee Stockwell, the lead designer of Lego “Star Wars,” told Jedi News. “Everybody is [dropping the name].”
Lego “Star Wars” design director Jens Kronvold Frederiksen agreed.
“It’s probably not something which has been announced publicly but it is just something that Disney doesn’t want to use anymore,” he said.
The change sparked intense backlash, even from actor Mark Austin, who played Boba Fett in the 1997 “Special Edition” release of “Star Wars: A New Hope.”
“I felt a great disturbance in the force… As if a million voices suddenly cried out in terror at a heinous renaming,” he wrote in a Monday tweet, playing on an Obi-Wan Kenobi quote from the film.
I felt a great disturbance in the force… As if a million voices suddenly cried out in terror at a heinous renaming… ?
— Mark Anthony Austin (@BobaFettANHSE) June 28, 2021
“You have to consider who’s ship it is. A bounty hunter. A hunter of dangerous targets. Somebody like that imbues mystery, darkness and brooding,” the actor added in a follow-up. “Slave1 is a perfect name for such a character’s spaceship. It too imbues a dark and ominous threat to be feared by any fugitive.”
You have to consider who’s ship it is. A bounty hunter. A hunter of dangerous targets. Somebody like that imbues mystery, darkness and brooding….
Slave1 is a perfect name for such a character’s spaceship. It too imbues a dark and ominous threat to be feared by any fugitive.
?
— Mark Anthony Austin (@BobaFettANHSE) June 28, 2021
Of course, Disney has avoided publicly addressing the name change.
Instead, the company focuses on reworking other aspects of its image, according to The Daily Wire, including “refurbishing” theme park rides to accommodate modern sensitivities and “updating” classic films to better suit a “woke” audience.
And now, after 41 years, “Slave I” suddenly has a racist connotation.
What will the left decide to cancel next? Britney Spears‘ “I’m a Slave 4 U” or any of the other numerous pop culture references that involve the word?
Still, it’s safe to say that Disney won’t stop here with the newfound “wokeness” of “Star Wars.”
Let’s look at what other changes Disney could potentially make to the franchise, shall we?
For starters, George Lucas, who owned all rights to the franchise before selling Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, has historically noted the fascistic inspiration behind the Empire’s aesthetics, most notably Imperial officers’ uniforms.
According to a “Star Wars” webpage, Lucas even referred to Imperial officers as “Nazis” while offering commentary for “The Empire Strikes Back.”
“The Nazis are basically the same costume as we used in the first film and they are designed to be very authoritarian, very empire-like,” he said, referring to “A New Hope.”
But parallels between Nazis and the Galactic Empire extend further with the term “stormtroopers,” which can best be traced back to Nazi Sturmabteilung, a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, according to another article from the site.
We do want to erase all traces, all implications of Nazi fascism in popular culture, don’t we?
Even the title of the Empire itself could send leftist heads spinning if they decided to focus their outrage on that long enough.
The “woke” cancel culture and renaming culture are killing the entertainment industry and free expression.
How else will Disney decide to change “Star Wars” in the future?
We can’t be sure just yet, but to quote a recurring line from my most beloved franchise, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
