# WOW Conservatives Hated Star Wars

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-conservatives-hated-star-wars/842258>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [October 24, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-conservatives-hated-star-wars/842258 "2019-10-24T22:18:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-conservatives-hated-star-wars/842258/101 "2019-10-29T19:44:45Z")

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> [@Colibri](#):
>
> On what evidence?
> 
> People who are downplaying Michael’s idealism as a motive for enlisting are ignoring the fact that this is a drama, and that Puzo and Coppola had a dramatic point in making him idealistic at the beginning: As I said before, it makes his fall more compelling and the character more interesting. In the opening, Michael as a clean cut noble war hero is contrasted with the sleaziness of the goings on within the family behind the scenes. Clearly Coppola intends to characterize him in this way. If Michael’s idealism was intended to be superficial, Coppola would have indicated that. Of course, you can believe whatever you like about a character’s “real” motivations, but you’re ignoring what Coppola actually shows.

The tragedy of the Godfather is the fall of Micheal. The beginning scene is the mortician coming to the Don after the American justice system fails. The theme of the movies is set their. The conflict between the old ways of the mafia and the modern way of the citizen.  
Micheal enlisting in the army is his rejection of the old way of family above all and his embrace of his citizenship and its duties. When he comes back he plans just to visit and then go marry the outsider, leave the family, and be a regular american. The Don wants this too because he knows Micheal is the smart one in the family.

However, the recklessness of Sonny gets his father attacks and Micheal then embraces the old ways of mafia and family life. He kills McCloskey, the symbol of the government, and leaves Kay. He eventually marries a Sicilian girl, symbolizing his full embrace of that lifestyle. At the end the ethos of family above all leads to the death of Sonny, the murder of Fredo, and the estrangement of Connie. That is the tragedy, by trying to protect his family, Micheal ends up destroying it.

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