9/11: The day the Death Star fell.

For week 10's blog task of finding a popularly made video to commemorate 9/11, I found a video that commemorate's 9/11 in a different way to most videos. It is humorous, yet does rely on the real world reactions to 9/11 to not only entertain but also to create another way to think about 9/11. This video is a somewhat parody or more of a homage to 9/11, as it is set in a galaxy far far away. Its a video of Stormtroopers discussing the destruction of the Death Star, in the popular film Star Wars. It can be found here.

From the start, it shows three Stormtroopers discussing the incident, saying it was a year tomorrow that the Death Star was destroyed, the video itself was released by Collegehumour on October 15th 2009, so a month after the 8th anniversary of 9/11. One of the troopers says "It was a huge thing I can't believe it took a couple of X-wings to take down." This is an obvious reference to the two planes that were flew into the Twin Towers. It does seem quite unbelievable that two planes did manage to annihilate two of the tallest towers in New York.

It then goes on to ask the question "Where were you when it happened?" Which anyone can answer about 9/11. They all have their own personal stories about where they were when the Twin Towers fell. One trooper describes that he was on his way to the Death Star but was caught in "space traffic". This personal view of the destruction of the Death Star, correlates to some survivors stories, who may have been on their way to the Twin Towers but survived due to being stuck in traffic or just chance.

"You look at that part of the galaxy where the Death Star used to be, and just... nothing, yeah still waiting on that memorial..." This is clearly using real world contexts, of the skyline of New York being drastically changed by the destruction of the Twin Towers, and waiting on the memorial that is going through development hell, and it still looks to be far off from completion. They go on to say that they are thinking about rebuilding a new one, 8 times as big, which is of reference to the Freedom Tower that is in planning to replace the Twin Towers.

The video does go onto to comment about the Jedi's who in this case are the fictional representation (at least in this video of Al-Qaeda). One of the troopers says "The Jedi's hate our way of life." He is the rebuked by a reply which states that because someone believes in the force doesn't mean they are going to blow up a space station, which is an obvious comment on the fear that all muslims are terrorists and are willing to destroy areas of American cities.

Towards the end of the video they comment on not being able to find Luke Skywalker "Some guy in a cave on Tatooine." Which shows the frustration on not being able to find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan or Iraq for the past ten years, and not being able to gain this closure from the attacks on 9/11. Finally they discuss the conspiracy theories stating "I've seen the schematics, there is no way one X-wing could have taken it out." Which caters to the view of the hundreds of conspiracy theories that there is about the destruction of the Twin Towers, and that it was an inside job on some sort to justify the invasion of Iraq.

This video is obviously made to entertain, but it does show in its 2 minutes, the very essence of the everyday views of 9/11. It looks and likens it to something millions of people would understand, and grounds it in a fictional universe, where people will be able to look at it and be able to critically compare it what actually happened 10 years ago. All in all, this video is a light heartened way to commemorate 9/11, and showing that people shouldn't forget about it.