Handmaid’s Tale Author Margaret Atwood Says Star Wars Inspired 9/11 Terrorists

Margaret Atwood
LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 17: Margaret Atwood arrives at the 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 17, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images)

As you might know, Handmaid’s Tale is a hit Hulu TV show inspired by author Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name. Since the 2016 elections, many on the left have used the imagery associated with the show as a rallying cry against what they deem as the encroachment of their rights.

Now Margaret Atwood is claiming that Star Wars helped to inspire the terrorists behind the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, that propelled America into the War on Terror.

In an interview with Variety, Atwood elaborated on how an operatic adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale debuted in Denmark in 2000.

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?

Atwood then explains the terrorists didn’t get the idea from “my opera.”

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

She then went on to explain her reasoning as to why she believes Star Wars inspired the terrorists on September 11 when Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh asked her, “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.”

The parallels to Star Wars: A New Hope are limited to say the least if existent at all. Luke Skywalker and his Red Squadron lead a bombing run on the Empire’s Death Star. Before Skywalker leads his run a number of other squadrons attempted their runs and failed. They were shot down by Darth Vader or they completed their run, but the targeting computer missed the target. During Luke’s run, Vader takes out the rest of his squadron. But before he can take out Luke, Han Solo appears in the Millennium Falcon and knocks him flying out into space. It gives Skywalker enough time to trust in the Force, on the advice of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and destroy the Death Star with a pair of proton torpedoes. It’s absolutely nothing like what occurred in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. If you saw 9/11 unfold before your eyes, you would know the two aren’t comparable.

To try and compare the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11 with Star Wars is just insane. But this isn’t the first instance of Margaret Atwood saying insane things. In the same interview, she went on to claim that famed aviator Charles Lindbergh had been a fascist.

I assume because, like most Americans, Lindbergh had become scarred from the first world war and felt that the United States was best served if it took care of itself. At the time most people didn’t want to be dragged into another European centric war. So if this makes him a fascist, then that would be most Americans today.

What she doesn’t mention is that he felt it be better if the Germans and Russians slugged it out instead of another continental war with the western powers. It’s unclear if that would have been possible with what we know now, but I cannot imagine calling anyone who is anti-war a fascist.

Margaret Atwood seems to be at the very least both confused about history and cinema.

 

 

 

 

 

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