The scene when the First Order fires their weapon the first time in Star Wars: The Force Awakens uses an image language which clearly references the national socialism in Germany during World War 2, with a general making gestures and shouting like Hitler. This even depicts the storm troopers raising their arm and shouting in a way untypical from the original triology.
Has the reason why the director of the film chose this style ever been explained?
It isn’t just in The Force Awakens that this is the case. The original trilogy drips with it.
Including:
- Colours of Red, white and black throughout the empire (The main colours of Fascism are Red, Black, White and Brown)
- The symbol that can be seen as akin to a swastika
- The Empires troops being called Stormtroopers (The name given to Hitlers brown shirts during his rise to power. Integral in Krystalnacht and disposed of in the Night of the Long Knives)
- The uniforms of Imperial Officers looking rather SS like
- An almost obsessive belief in the need for super weapons Death Star / Death Star 2 vs V1 / V2
George Lucas has also stated that he sees the rise of the Empire as an allegory to the rise of Nazi Germany
http://www.starwars.com/news/from-world-war-to-star-wars-rise-of-an-empire
And that the uniforms are based on German Officer Uniforms
http://www.starwars.com/news/from-world-war-to-star-wars-imperial-officers
The Force Awakens is just carrying on the theme previously set in the original trilogy that the Empire is a Fascist regime and as such borrows from the most famous fascists of them all, the Nazi’s.
The force awakens may lean more heavily on this as they are the remnants of the empire made up of the ultras, the true believers and as such want to push the ideology to the front of what they do. (though looking at the two pictures below only the scale has changed and flags have been added, probably to make up for the red missing due to the absence of the Imperial guard).
Return of the Jedi – Palpatine arrives 
The Force Awakens – speech on Starkiller base 
| Because the original trilogy also used that symbolism. It may be a bit more exaggerated due to the breakdown of the empire. The First Order seems to be more into ideology than the empire which was basically "just" about power. But no doubt the symbolism is just a continuation. – his 2 hours ago | ||
| Why not? The original trilogy already did it, too. And if you want to make a point about an evil dictatorship it seems like an obvious choice, even if a little bit "in your face". – Napoleon Wilson♦ 2 hours ago | ||
Darth Vader always wore something quite clearly modelled on a WWII German steel helmet – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stahlhelm – Tetsujin 1 hour ago | |||
While the symbolism may be a continuation, in my opinion it is much stronger (too much for my taste) and clearer in the new movie. – TheEspinosa 34 mins ago |
