Episode I going to Cuba

[DarthAce]

The following came from Reuters;

"Star Wars'' heading for Cuba, thanks to Lucas
13:56 06-30-00

HAVANA, June 30 (Reuters) - Since the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Cubans might be forgiven for thinking the only wars Americans would direct at President Fidel Castro's communist-run island are the military kind.

But Cuban state media was trumpeting on Friday a more welcome invasion -- this time via the cinema screens -- with the imminent arrival of ""Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace,'' thanks to its U.S. director George Lucas.

The long-standing U.S. embargo prevents trade with Cuba, so Lucas donated the Hollywood blockbuster without fees to the cash-strapped Caribbean island, said state news agency Prensa Latina, quoting Cuban cinema institute ICAIC's vice-president Benigno Iglesias.

The 1999 ""Star Wars'' film will be shown across the island, where Cuba's cinema-loving nation have traditionally enjoyed more Latin American, East European and old American movies, than recent Hollywood productions.

Since its release last year, ""Phantom Menace'' has become the second-highest grossing motion picture of all time.

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This is what makes Lucas NOT hollywood-he cares!

[Bromine]

That was really cool of him. 'Nuff said.

[ReaperFett]

What annoys me is how GL is like Bill Gates. They give loads of money to charity, and do things like this, which he didnt need to do, but they will still be spoken of like money grabbers.

[Bromine]

That's very true. (Although, from what I've heard Gates was criticised for years about not donating money to charity. He's changed that in recent years, though.)

I think people are just jealous of other people's success. They look at anyone who's rich and assume they got that way by being greedy and generally evil. Ironically, the same people that think this way are probably greedy themselves and if they ever did get rich they'd act the same way that they accuse rich people of acting.

[DarthAce]

George cares!
Vote GeorgeLucas for president<!

[mez7]

i had an arguement with my buddies girlfriend about gates and other very rich folks the other week,
why is it thought that if someone has lots of money they HAVE to give lots to charity??
it is moeny they worked hard to get, (at least gates and lucas) so why do they have a responsibility to save the world.

i think that they do lots of charity work but people just read or watch the news about them being in court or something bad and dont even try to find any good news about them.

[Doc Milo]

Yeah. I always thought if you HAVE to do something like that (whether forced to by a gov't agency through taxes and redistribution programs or pressured by your public image) then it really isn't "charity." It's more like "Public Relations."

True charity is "silent." The public may criticize someone for not making charitable donations but do they really know whether or not that person did? Maybe that person is truly charitable and makes such donations anonymously, wanting the donation to work for the charity, instead of for him/herself...

[Bromine]

I remember some really rich guy (his name escapes me) donated an obscene amount of money to various UN charities, and then criticised other millionaires and billionaires BY NAME for not donating. Just because he made his donation public, how does he know that all the people he named haven't contributed money? And what business is it of his how they spend their money?
What really bugs me is that, from a global standpoint, all of us posting here are very rich (I could be wrong, but it's a pretty safe assumption since we're on computers). How rich do you have to be before you're responsible for fixing the world's problems? Instead of criticising someone else for not donating enough money, donate more yourself!

The same argument about being too rich exists with Star Wars fans. There's the old opinion that George Lucas has made so much money off of people that he "owes" them. Baloney. You don't pay $8 for a movie ticket as a favour to GL. You pay $8 so you can go see a movie and enjoy yourself. No one has "given" their money to GL; they exchanged their money for entertainment, pure and simple. Yes, I'm getting a little OT.

[ReaperFett]

Bill gates last year gave £17 billion to charity, leaving him a total of £81 billion. That means he gave about 20% of his money away. Who else does that?

[DarthAce]

GeorgeLucas is a humanitarian!

[Jedi Master Kyle]

he's swell

[JediWilliam]

-Bill gates last year gave £17 billion to charity, leaving him a total of £81 billion. That means he gave about 20% of his money away. Who else does that?-

Who else has 17 billion to give. Whether he gave 20% or 90% he still coming off pretty well.

[Bromine]

Yeah, that's true. When you've got that much money, you're not going to miss a few billion. I think after a couple billion, you're just plain stinkin' rich and any more doesn't really matter.

[Jedi Master Kyle]

i read somewhere that it wasn't worth bill gates' time to bend over and pick up a $100 bill if he saw it laying on the ground. that's ridiculous!

[Bromine]

If he lost 99.99% of his money, he'd STILL be a multimillionaire!

[Jedi Master Kyle]

that is out of control!

[Jedieb]

I take it by everybody's comments that I'm the only Cuban who has read this thread. Now as a Cuban-American born and bred in the US, I'm not nearly as fanatical in my Anti-Castro stances as my parents, but I can tell you this; this will not make Lucas popular with Cubans in Miami. In fact, they'll chastise him for it. They won't see this as a humanitarian gesture that will help Cubans. They'll see it as support for Castro and a public relations coo for his government. If I read that bit of news to my father he'd probably call GL a communist and refuse to see EP2 & 3. I'm not joking, I'm totally serious.

I'm not agreeing with my father or other Cuban exiles. I just thought you guys might be interested in "a certain point of view".

Personally, I wish GL had not done this. In the grand scheme of things it's a trivial matter, but it does actually help that cigar smoking scumbag in a small way. Hopefully, nature will take it's course and Fidel will find himself 6-feet under soon and Cuba will go the way of the USSR. I just hope my mother and father are alive to see it.

[Jedi Master Kyle]

just curious, but why would people see it as support for castro? how does it help the cigar smoking scumbag? i totally believe you, i'm just curious as to the sociological reasons why it would help fidel...

[DarthAce]

First sorry if i make some people in here hate me bec what i am going to to say now,Jedieb will not want to talk to me again...first of all i am a marxist thats almost a red for you Jedieb,you have said your opinion and i agree with you on some of the things you said.Castro made some errors but he also made some goods(here comes the hating part).Do you say that its better the people of cuba not to watch the magic of StarWars?Do you say that the things that the racist,fasist right wing gov.of the u.s did to the cuban people helped them,f*ck me sorry i don't buy it.Did you know that one of the real reasons that they killed kenedy was bec he wanted to be friends with the cuban!I don't know maybe you know things better than me bec your cuban and you inside the things(even if you say you were born and raised in the u.s).I do not hate amercan people i love them but i hate there gov. becouse they are fasist and the brainwash their peoples head...sorry once again if i said things that you din't like but i just had to tell it!
Bec you hate castro isn't a reason for you to wish that TPM never went to cuba.

[Bromine]

The whole U.S. embargo thing always bothered me. It only ends up hurting the citizens of Cuba more than the government, IMO. I also don't like it because it ties in with to the whole Cuban Missile Crisis that the U.S. created, which really gets on my nerves. But that's another story, I guess. I'm sure everyone's already heard the truth about Cuban Missile Crisis so I won't repeat it.
The embargo just isn't working. Castro is still in power, and Cuba isn't going to allow itself to be conquered by the U.S. Some people believe that the embargo is a moral stand the U.S. is taking, but the fact is the U.S. has the embargo because it can AFFORD to. It couldn't afford to place an embargo against the USSR or China, but Cuba was no problem. If Cuba had important resources, dollars to donuts the U.S. would drop the embargo.
What also bugs me is that a lot of people think Cuba is an evil, terrible place. Now, I admit I have not been there personally and my only knowledge comes from books. Although I personally would definitely not like to live there, many people do lead happy lives there. It is a poor country, and it is opressive in many respects, but what annoys me is that some people (especially many Americans) that I've talked to immediately hear the word "Communist" and think the UN should march in and blow up the entire country. They don't bother to look any further.
To cut the rant short, GL did a nice thing for the Cuban people, but I agree many people will not see it as such.
I'd like to add that I apologise if my statements are at all incorrect. I am certainly not an authority on geo-political affairs, and I hope I don't come off as a know-it-all. I'm just a guy who reads a lot, so weigh the value of my posts accordingly.