Star Wars Logo Creator Explains Its Fascist Roots

There’s been an unusual amount of political turmoil surrounding the recent release of Rogue One: […]

September 5, 2017, 10:35pm

There’s been an unusual amount of political turmoil surrounding the recent release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Fans of the franchise have been pitted between the movie’s creators and the current political climate in the U.S. as they two continue to clash. Shortly after the writers of Rogue One openly criticized the results of this year’s presidential election, online campaigns began to spring up in protest of the movie. For some fans, Star Wars has no business getting itself involved with any country’s politics, but it seems like one of the most iconic pieces of the franchise could not avoid doing so.

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In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, designer Suzy Rice discussed the fascist roots residing underneath Star Wars‘ famous logo. The artist was commissioned by 20th Century Fox years ago to create a logo for the movie, and Rice said that George Lucas wanted the film’s art to to “very fascist” and “intimidating.”

To do as requested, Rice brushed up on German type design and learned how the Nazi Joseph Goebbels required all public signs at the time to have a uniform font. The idea was that the mirrored type would subtly enforce conformity, but little is know about which font Goebbles used in practice. However, history does often credit the creation of the Helvetica font with the fall of Nazi Germany, so Rice chose Helvetica Black for the Star Wars logo.

Ultimately, Lucas approved her work and even had it used as the official Star Wars logo barring a minor adjustment or two. In recent months, the logo and its political roots has become an topic of increasing controversy, and Rice said she feels like Star Wars gives little commentary on U.S. politics. Having voted for Donald Trump, Rice says if there is any crossover, then it would be in how the Rebel Alliance and hacker organizations like Anonymous share similar goals.

“If there’s any similarity from this Rogue One activity to the present, politically, it is simpatico with the Anonymous/WikiLeaks obtaining leaked documentation from U.S. political parties and making available to the public some quite grotesque correspondence among Democrats,” Rice explained.

“At no point, however, have I ever viewed the SW literary canon to be a comment on any phase or time in U.S. political history.”

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hit US theaters December 16, 2016. Directed by Gareth Edwards, it’s the first of the new standalone features from Lucasfilm and Disney, which take place outside the core “Skywalker Saga” of films noted by an Episode number. Rogue One tells the story of the small band of rebels that were tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star. The story spins directly off the opening crawl from the original Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. In that crawl, it read: “Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.”