Disney CEO Says Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Contains No Political Statements

While Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may embrace diversity, and while its writer has taken to social media to criticize U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump using imagery from the franchise, Disney executives want audiences to know that it is not an overtly political film, at least as far as real-world, modern-day politics are concerned.

"I think the whole story has been overblown and, quite frankly, it's silly," Disney CEO Bob Iger told THR at the film's premiere. "I have no reaction to [this] story at all. Frankly, this is a film that the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film. There are no political statements in it, at all."

It is a difficult conversation to fully avoid, in part because of the scope of Star Wars's cultural influence: whoever is the party in opposition, they can claim Star Wars's themes of rebellion and resistance as their own. John McCain, during his 2000 election campaign, famously compared navigating the Republican primaries to being Luke Skywalker -- a single, seemingly-easy target for establishment Republicans who wanted him out.

Those same establishment Republicans -- or at least their supporters online -- have had eight years of Obama-as-Vader memes, and moments after Trump was declared the winner of the U.S. Presidential election, that narrative flipped to the Republicans being the Empire -- a version of events supported on Twitter by Episode VIII director Gary Whitta and franchise star Mark Hamill.

While conservatives have threatened a boycott of Rogue One, presales have outpaced early estimates, prompting some speculation that it is actually enjoying a post-election surge in audience enthusiasm.

Of course, the film is still expected to open south of last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which may suggest that there is no response to the political climate at all and that what is happening with a surge in ticket sales is more accurately a leveling off of sales to bring this movie more into line with franchise expectations.

On top of it all, these things are virtually impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy becuase it involves so many variables: people who would have bought tickets but haven't; people who wouldn't have bought tickets, but have; people who want to make a statement so who would not answer such questions honestly; and so on.

It is also difficult to defend a position as far in the other direction as Iger went, claiming that there are no politics in the movie at all; the Star Wars franchise has always had sociopolitical undertones, and the movie was marketed on the idea of "rebellion" and "revolution" at a time when candidates like Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders were using that same rhetoric in their campaigns. Implicit or explicit, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where some reasonable readings of the film won't be used to advance a political agenda on one side or the other (or, more likely, both).

And while Iger identifies Rogue One as one of the most diverse blockbusters ever made -- again insisting that is not a political statement -- there is a vocal contingent of the audience who sees diversity in casting as inherently political. While not everyone within that contingent can agree on whether it is an inherently positive or negative thing, it is essentially guaranteed that race and gender will continue to dominate the conversation, as they have since the first teaser revealed a female lead in the film.

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits theaters on December 16.

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