The Evil Empire

I am not a huge Star Wars fan - which is to say, when the first film came out, back in the seventies, I and my friends went nuts. I couldn't tell you how many times we went to see that movie - we'd never seen anything like it before, and we couldn't get enough. Star Wars seemed like the first film for our generation of youths and adolescents. Who knew it would prove to be a template for an endless succession of mediocre space shoot 'em ups?

After that first film, it was diminishing returns for me. Yeah, I know the second movie is supposed to be the best one, but when I saw it, I was annoyed by the cliffhanger and thought the warmed-over Zen schtick was kind of silly. By the third movie, forget it. Between the spear-waving koalas living in the Marin redwoods, formerly dead people reappearing with blue haloes around them to fill in essential plot points, and dialog like, "Join the Dark Side!" "No, I won't join the Dark Side!", I was done.

So I didn't even go to see the two newer films. They looked pretty dumb. The third film, Revenge of the Sith, looked promising, however. And one of the advantages of being an entertainment industry drone is that I do have frequent opportunities to see movies for free. Sometimes, even during my working day. Which, if you think about it, kind of means I'm getting paid to see them.

So anyway, when the opportunity to see Revenge of the Sith came up this week, I decided to go for it. I even managed to squeeze in a viewing of Phantom Menace the day before (it was on broadcast TV). Boy, that is one bad movie. It really is. But it helped set the bar pretty low for my viewing of "Sith."

Revenge of the Sith is not a perfect film. George Lucas can't write dialog very well; nor can he direct actors. You're on your own, guys! And there are silly things throughout, like: an asthmatic robot General. I'm sorry, how can a robot have asthma? Are there no robot inhalers?

But still...there is a grandeur to this film. The sets, the effects - they really do create an all-encompassing world - series of worlds, more accurately. Some of the scenes are stunningly beautiful.

But what was really resonating just a bit too much for me were the film's themes. Not so much the "how does a good man become a bad man?" one. The "how does a good government, a republic, devolve into an evil Empire?" part. The part where the rule of law is subverted, where we are told to sacrifice freedom for security, "in defense of democracy."

It got pretty obvious as the movie went on. Darth turns way bad and threatens: "You're either with me, or you're my enemy." By the time we reach a climactic battle between Good and Evil in the august Senate chamber, all that was going through my head was: "My god! It's the nuclear option! May the Force protect the filibuster!"

I'm far from the only one to have noticed these parallels. The New York Times and the Washington Post both cover the story at length, including reactions from the foreign press ("Agence France Presse reports that the movie delivers "a galactic jab to US President George W. Bush," according to the Post). Lucas himself has done little to dispel this impression, says the Times piece:

Alluding to Michael Moore's remarks about "Fahrenheit 9/11" at Cannes a year earlier, Mr. Lucas joked, "Maybe the film will waken people to the situation."

Apparently in all seriousness, though, he went on to say that he had first devised the "Star Wars" story during the Vietnam War. "The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable," he told an appreciative audience.

Naturally, the Right wing blogosphere is going nuts, with calls to boycott the film (to which I can only say, "good luck with that, guys") and much opprobrium over Lucas' daring to criticize our Dear Leader.

Now this is what gets me: why is it that Bush's hardcore supporters are so quick to see Lucas' movie as a criticism of Bush? I mean, if we are fighting for democracy and keeping the Homeland safe from terrorists, these are good things, right? Why aren't these guys saying, "hey, this movie isn't about our President and our America? It's about, you know, ancient Rome! The Soviet Union! Those evil empires!"

Instead, they take it as a given that Lucas intends a critique of Bush and the United States. I find this peculiar. Have they so little faith in their cause?

Or do they, on some level, deep down somewhere, fear that Lucas is right?