"Ugly comparison." Topic

This is a site about WW2, but there is an article with a ungly comparison between Star Wars IV a New Hope and Hitler!
See at the beginning of the page under the tittle "Zeppelinfield"

tracesofevil.com

Seems very crazy.

Amicalement
Armand

No. Not really. Movie making is the process of making spectacle and the Nazi regime was one of the best at creating them, filming them, and then using them as propaganda. Film makers have studied the films and you can see how they have utilized the theatrics of the regime to impress upon people the magnitude and scope of the event. Hitler was a master manipulator and his artistical side comes out in his ability to shape and mold things into spectacle to impress and amaze the viewers (and participants). So, I don't think the comparison was "ugly" but more informative as it demonstrates how powerful that imagery was at the time – that it is still used in modern practices as well (movies primarily) and in such things as the "million man march" and other political rallies (Occupy Wall-Street comes to mind as well – without the organization and grand-standing).

Armand,

I have been to many of those locations, Nuremberg was still that way in the 1980s. You could feel it.
VR
James Mattes

You can see it in GW's Space Marines and IG as well, even some of the artwork and symbols. Not that they are trying to emulate it rather than borrowing from it stylistically. Then again the nazis were trying to echo the militarism of the Roman Empire among others.

"You can see it in GW's Space Marines and IG as well, even some of the artwork and symbols"

The Imperium of man in 40K shares far far far more with the Byzantine empire than with the nazis. A big starter in differences, though perhaps not entirely a link to the Byzantines, being the government. The Imperium is supposedly headed by The Emporer, but he's pretty much a rotting corpse on life support(The Emperor protects, but he protects me better when I'm wearing carapace armour. :P ), so the real government is the Ecchlesiarchy, a collection of religious and usually short sighted bureaucrats.

The first thing that comes to mind though regarding the aforementioned similarities, both the Byzantines and the Imperium were great empires, later besieged on all sides by foreign invaders, plague, famine and pestilence. Slowly rotting away territory by territory.

The Nazis borrowed from the Byzantines among others.
Though, I suppose this would be a good time to state as well that the symbolism behind the skulls (Or…Skullz as some not-so-affectionately call them.) represent the ideal that only in Death does Duty end.

The "totenkopf" though, has slightly differing connotation to it and I can't claim to know anymore on it than what I read in this wiki article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totenkopf

"…that it is still used in modern practices as well (movies primarily) and in such things as the "million man march" and other political rallies (Occupy Wall-Street comes to mind as well – without the organization and grand-standing)."

I thinks that it's drawing a long bow to compare any popular rally, no matter how large or from which side of politics, to a military/paramilitary parade with units in uniform and marching in step.

Kosta

In my Film Study class back in college, we studied Triumph of the Will because of Leni Riefenstahl's incredible skill as a filmmaker, which established innovations in camera angles, use of light and shadow and more that have greatly influenced cinema ever since. An image is an image, which can be used for good or evil; it is seldom evil in and of itself. If anything, Lucas's ending scene in Star Wars is a direct effort to turn the imagery from Triumph of the Will around, making it a scene about true heroism rather than Nazi glory. Notice also that the Empire's various uniforms and props are clearly derived from German and Nazi uniform styles in WW2— even Darth Vader's helmet combines elements of a German army helmet with a Samurai helmet in its design. So this really isn't that big of a deal.