Star Wars Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel recently claimed that Star Wars is not about war.
As reported by Disney Star Wars Is Dumb, Hickel, who worked as a lead animator at Industrial, Light & Magic on The Phantom Menace made his comments after criticizing Ben Shapiro’s opinion about Star Wars.
Shapiro took a question from a caller about what he wanted to see for the future of Star Wars and answered, “I’ve said before I think there is a great series to be made on Darth Plagueis. I think there is a great series to be made on Darth Bane.”
He then stated, “The truth is that what makes the Star Wars universe interesting is the Dark Side of the Force. So, all of the focus on the Jedi is a lot less interesting than on the Dark Side of the Force and it’s seductiveness.”
He then begins discussing the recently announced publishing initiative titled The High Republic, “So, I guess that The High Republic is supposed to be their sort of prequels. It’s based on other Jedi, which is fine. That is all fine. They haven’t rolled out exactly how SJW this is going to be.”
Shapiro continued, “I know that the Disney Imagineers have decided that they are only going to have female heroes from now on, which is absurd because Star Wars is essentially a little boys property. If you look at the percentages of people are huge Star Wars fans, it breaks down pretty heavily male I would think.”
Shapiro then added, “But I’ll be curious to see what they do. To me the only redeeming feature of the sequels in Star Wars was they actually finally explained why Rey was such a Mary Sue.”
Ben Shapiro complains about Star Wars having women heroes: “Star Wars is, essentially, a little boy’s property” pic.twitter.com/COU6pnBPQi
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) July 29, 2020
In response to this clip, Hickel, who also worked as the animation supervisor on Attack of the Clones, stated, “Yep, not surprised in the least to find that Ben is just one more empty human who completely failed to understand what Star Wars is about. Kind of glad actually, that over and over I see correlation between political views, and trash opinions on pop culture.”
The Rogue One Animation Supervisor was then asked what was Star Wars all about by Twitter user Chi Huavara.
Huavara also included a quote from George Lucas he gave to Starlog in an 1988 interview describing Star Wars as a war film.
Lucas was asked about whether he would bring in more women for future Star Wars films.
He responded, “Well, what of Princess Leia? When you’re making a war film, how are you going put women in it? Think of other war films, think of The Longest Day, those films. Well, it’s your galaxy; I have to go with the rest of the world. And still make it believable. I’m not sure how many women will be in the rest of the films; that’s the kind of thing that plots dictate. What would Star Wars have been like if Han Solo had been a woman?”
Hickel would initially respond saying, “Well it sure as shit ain’t about exclusion, I know that much.”
Huavara then asked, “Are you suggesting that war is about inclusion?”
Hickel responded, “Star Wars, while set against the backdrop of war, is not “about” war.”
Interestingly enough just a few short hours after he called Shapio an empty human for his comments, Hickel would add, “Also, and I can’t stress this enough, I don’t care what you think of the films. It’s none of my business. Like them, don’t like them, doesn’t matter to me. All I’m saying is people shouldn’t be shitty about it.”
What do you make of Hal Hickel’s claims that Star Wars is not about war?