Sometimes, the dark side has to win for the world to move forward. One of the more radical things about these films is the way they suggest that the rise of the Sith Lords (here represented by Palpatine, a figure whose unlikely political success is one of the spines of the trilogy) is a necessary correction to the pompous self-regard of the Jedi Council.Īnakin, after all, is supposed to bring balance to the Force - which effectively means that the prophecy of him doing so very well might imply that the rise of the Sith was necessary to counterbalance the Jedi. The Sith are rising, and the Jedi either don’t know or don’t care. In The Phantom Menace, that entry point is the Jedi Council, an ossified collection of warriors whose staid certainty of their own righteousness largely renders them oblivious to a massive threat growing right under their noses. When working on the original Star Wars, he thought of the overbearing Empire as his analog for America.)īut the Star Wars prequels are most fascinating when their political commentary enters through the side door.
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(Lucas clearly thought of the Star Wars series as a chance to comment on the aspects of US foreign policy he didn’t like. Bush administration’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its bungling of them. to thunderous applause,” was explicitly spoken of by Lucas as commentary on the George W. In 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, Amidala’s line, “So this is how liberty dies. The trilogy makes a few somewhat clunky attempts to equate itself to then-contemporary politics, especially in the later films.
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(Also, the plot of the first movie hinges on trade disputes, which remains hilarious 20 years later.) Try not to think about it too hard.)Īnd there’s a democratically elected Senate, which Jar Jar Binks ends up on in the later films, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. (Queen Amidala actually holds elected office. In the prequels, there is some sort of galactic governmental organization called the “Republic.” However, individual planets have their own local governments, many of which are monarchies, hence Princess Leia, etc. Mapping the Star Wars universe onto our own via any one-to-one comparisons is essentially impossible. The world of the Star Wars prequels is about the rise of fascistic evil amid democratic complacency Look out! He’s going to become Darth Vader! Lucasfilm, Ltd. I’m not a fan of any of these three movies, but they just might help us understand the present.Īnd they just might help us understand - sorry for the very 2017 headline I’m about to drop on you - the rise of Donald Trump. In some bizarre way, The Phantom Menace - the first Star Wars prequel, released 20 years ago, on anticipates every major sociopolitical and cultural movement of the 21st century, something that only becomes more obvious with the two movies that follow it (2002’s Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Revenge of the Sith). If the first Star Wars trilogy was a rousing adventure tale about a boy who becomes the promised leader, the prequels are a dark meditation on how chosen ones can be evil, too. It’s a little stomach-churning to watch the prequels and realize that you’re seeing the mega-blockbuster glut that’s currently running rampant over Hollywood begin its mutation into its current form.īut look past all of that - and it’s a lot to look past - and you’ll find three films that are weirdly concerned with political questions, with ideas about how best to divvy up power, and which tell a strangely prescient story about how inequality can breed fascism.
Some of that timeliness stems from something Emily Yoshida wrote about at Vulture, which is the extreme confluence of commerce and art they represented when they were made, and which has since taken over Hollywood. The obvious next step for the Star Wars franchise: reboot the prequels
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