Anti-spoilers (revelations that something does not happen in a movie, show, or book) can not only help folks who haven’t seen/read it yet from getting their hopes up. They can also help them not to needlessly worry about what the fear the work might contain.
You may have read press accounts that try to interpret Star Wars Episode III as an anti-American parable of some kind.
Don’t worry ’bout that.
This story was apparently set off following the debut of the film at Cannes, France.
Now the thing about France is, they just loooove America over there. So much so that they want to be a "counterweight" for us.
They love our President even more.
They’re so pro-American and pro-Bush that they’re obsessed with them, so any time they see anything in the movies that can plausibly be interpreted as being a symbol of America or Bush, that’s how they interpret it.
Their affection for us is touching.
That’s what’s going on here. T’ain’t nuthin’ to it.
I feel a bit sorry for the folks over yonder who are so caught up in Bushmania that they lept to this interpretation. It reveals that they don’t know their own history–European history–which is what Lucas is really playing off of.
Ever since Episode IV originally came out, Lucas has been playing off the history of ancient Rome. Y’know how in Episode IV Grand Moff Tarkin (sounds like Tarquin–an important name in Roman history) announces that "the Emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate–permanently–sweeping away the last vestiges of the Old Republic."
That’s straight outta Roman history. Any time you get an Emperor, and Empire, a Senate, and a Republic being supplanted by an Empire, you’ve got an allusion to Roman history.
In fact, the term "Emperor" comes from the reign of Augustus Caesar. In Latin the word for "Emperor" (Imperator) was voted a title to Augustus (nee Octavian) as a substitute for the term "king," for Romans were very proud of the fact that they didn’t have a king. They could have one in reality–as long as they didn’t call him a king–so they called him an Imperator. Their subjects, some of whom shouted "We have no king but Caesar!" a few years later–were not fooled by the different in terms.
The term "empire" also comes from this.
The "Senate," of course, was the body that ruled Rome and voted folks titles like "Emperor."
And the "Republic" was what Rome became once they kicked out their last king (Tarquin the Proud). The term is Latin for res publica or "public thing"–a reference to the political order or "public thing" of Rome.
Now, the Roman Republic proved not to be stable. With time it became corrupt, with ineffective leadership.
Eventually a guy named Julius Caesar showed up and decided to provide strong, decisive leadership, even if it meant backstabbing his colleagues on his way to absolute power. This led to . . . civil war (dum! dum! dum!) . . . and to avoid perpetetual civil war, the Senate voted Caesar progressively more dictatorial powers until he became "dictator for life."
His successor, Octavian (later Augustus), became the first Emperor and continued with dictatorial powers lest civil war break out again.
Any of this sound familiar?
Yeah! It sounds just like what we’ve been watching (in an altered form) in Episodes I-III.
Palpatine’s rise from Senator to Chancellor in Episode I mirrors Julius Caesar’s rise. The Roman Civil Wars that led to Julius being voted dictatorial powers are mirrored in the Clone Wars. And Palpatine’s creation as Emperor mirrors the voting of the title to Augustus. (Oh yeah, and <SPOILER SWIPE>there was an assassination of Julius in this time, mirroring the attempted assassination of Palpatine</SPOILER SWIPE>.)
Rome, not contemporary American politics, is the central organizing framework for what Lucas is doing.
That’s not to say that there’s no reference to American history in there. In Episode II the separatist movement is modelled on the Confederacy. It’s even called "the Confederacy of Independent Systems" (also an allusion to the Commonwealth of Independent States that used to be the Soviet Union) in the script.
As to allusions to more recent American history, there ain’t many. Maybe an individual line of dialogue here or there, but that’s it.
When episode I came out in 1999, Clinton was still on the throne and the Monica Lewinsky Scandal was still big news, and I couldn’t help thinking that Palpatine’s line that Chancellor Finis Valorum (Latin = "Last of the Valiant") was a good man brought low by scandal derived from "baseless allegations" had an echo of Lucas’ views of the Clinton-Lewinsky mess, but I couldn’t prove it in court.
The timing of this also puts the lie to the anti-Bush interpretation. The "corrupt Senate > civil war > empire" stoyr was overtly set up in Episode I, which came out in 1999 and was written at least 3 years earlier than that. Waaaay before 9/11 and the events that followed.
Episode II came out in 2002 (and was written no later than about 1999), making it too early for the manufactured Clone Wars to be an allusion to the Iraq War, which happened in 2003 (and it would be silly to suppose that they were an allusion to the toppline of the Taliban).
So when Episode III comes out and we see the endgame of the scenario played out on screen, it just ain’t based on contemporary American history. It’s Roman history redux.
The single line of dialogue that could plausibly be read as a riff on contemporary American politics is Anakin’s line at the end of the film about "If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy." That maybe, kinda, coulda be interpreted as a riff on Bush’s line post-9/11 (or on Jesus Christ’s pre-9/11 line), but you couldn’t prove either one of these in court.
In any event, it’s too slim a basis on which to interpret Episode III as some kind of anti-American parable, no matter how awitter our French friends may be.
(And yes, Obi-Wan’s reply about only Sith dealing in absolutes is stupid; the Jedi clearly have absolutes. This is why Lucas really needs a good script doctor. It would be so easy to fix that line. Even "Only a Sith deals with that kind of absolutes" would do it.)
So yeah, Lucas is a Lib, but he’s not doing any kind of serious anti-Bush or anti-America riff here.
In fact, press reports report:
Lucas said he wrote Portman’s line ]about liberty dying to thunderous applause] and the screenplay’s other
politically pointed elements [like Anakin’s with me or agin’ me line] before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks and the subsequent war on terror.
Lucas’ yes-man Rick McCallum also is quoted as saying:
"First of all, we never thought of Bush ever becoming president," "Star
Wars" producer Rick McCallum said, "or then 9/11, the Patriot Act, war,
weapons of mass destruction. Then suddenly you realize, ‘Oh, my God,
there’s something happening that looks like we’re almost prescient.’
And then we thought, ‘Well, yeah, but he’ll never make it to the second
term, so we’ll look like we just made some wacky political parody of a
guy that everybody’s forgotten.’ "
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Good analysis Jimmy. I would like to finesse your point a bit, however, in regards to Obi-Wan’s line concerning “absolutes.” What’s being missed in some of the discussion is the fact that Palpatine had just accused the Jedi of the very same failing not long before! In the Opera House scene, he tells Anakin that the Jedi are “too dogmatic”, too prone to see everything in terms of black and white. So both orders are making the same accusation at each other! This underscores your own point — that while Lucas may, in fact, be a political liberal he seldom makes broad, cartoony generalizations or cheap, elbow-in-the-ribs analogies in these films. Whatever their faults, these “Star Wars” flicks are actually very much more subtle than either their friends or enemies make out — maybe a bit too subtle for their own good, at times.
Hi Jimmy,
i have just seen the movie : disappointing on many levels to my mind…
However what you speak here stand at an other level… I was told that before writing his first Trilogy (and perhaps his whole saga) Lucas had briefly studyed myths.
Well, on the piece you discuss, it seems he has partially reached his goal : his opus seems to already have an echo in today’s lifes and interpretation of the world events….
Oh, one more bit of supplemental info: Palpatine’s statement (in Phantom Menace) that the charges against Valorum were “baseless” went quite a bit further in the shooting script. We were originally going to be told that the Chancellor’s enemies had cooked up a “manufactured scandal” to bring him down. Lucas himself dropped this additional line in the final edit — possibly when President Clinton got around to admitting that his own scandal wasn’t entirely “manufactured” after all. I know from personal experience that many sincere liberals really were shocked and grieved by this belated admission — one thinks of Tom Hanks, who discontinued his regular contributions to Clinton’s defense fund at that time. When asked about the decision by the media, he replied simply “I had been told the accusations were false.”
Rod! I’ve been looking for you. I enjoyed your “Cracking the Star Wars Code” article, and I’ve been impressed at how well you forecast the main themes of AotC and RotS.
Jimmy, there’s one other historical parallel that I think was intentional: Hitler’s rise to power. There’s the position of “Chancellor” and the Senate granting “emergency powers”, along with the creation of an army (which also connects somewhat to the Civil War).
Hi Matthew — nice to hear from you. And thanks for the compliment. Actually, there are many more historical parallels than these. Lucas is a great student of history and very sympathetic to the past, something he doesn’t share with many cruder brands of “liberal.” A good example is the whole “Trade Federation vs. Queen Amidala” plotline from Episode One. It’s largely based on the 1893 overthrow of Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani by a group of American financial adventurers (against the strenuous objections of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, I hasten to add). Just about everything in the whole series has something like this — not to mention the many literary and biblical allusions. Anyways, if anyone is interested the speeches Matthew mentioned can be found at http://www.cornerstonemag.com/imaginarium/features/starwars/
In an interview that I read at the time, Lucas did compare Valorum to Clinton as “a basically nice guy” who got nailed with some bogus accusation. I flinched at hearing a pillar of my childhood display sympathy for Clinton’s ways…
I think the idea of both sides making the same accusations against each other (dogmatic vs. absolute) reveals a real understanding of how people take similar fruit from the cafeteria of ideals using nothing but their own personal desires as their discerning guide.
In my apologetic confrontations, I get this all. the. time.
For example, many people criticize the Church’s suppression of heresies as a sign of institutionalized narrow-mindedness. But when you read about the heresies, in most of them, like the Donatist and the Luciferian heresies, the Church was actually taking a very harsh stand AGAINST those who sought to unnecessarily limit the scope of God.
Then there is Galations 2:16. Protestants often quote it out of context as proof that Catholic theology on works is fatally flawed when the real purpose of the verse is to chastise those Jews who boastfully believe they have it made because of their status as Jews. Contrast this with Evangelical once-saved-always-saved theology, and which group suddenly is in danger of violating the spirit of that verse?
Tim LaHaye criticizes Catholics for spiritualizing Scriptures yet when it comes to the Church of Christ maintaining unity so the world may know we are from Him, as a Protestant he can only believe in a “spiritual” church and not a literal, physical one.
A fallen away Catholic I met ridiculed people who are faithful as being gullible dupes. Catholicism, she said, likes to take facts, twist them into lies, and tell people they are true. I asked her provide one instance and she could not. Yet she believed it with all sincerity anyway — just like all other faithful.
Homosexual activists cry out for civil rights but actively work to illegalize Catholic teachings around the world — duly trampling on people’s rights to worship and speech in the process.
Nine times out of ten, when someone makes a criticism against the Church, the truth is the exact opposite and usually the person making the criticism is guilty of the very crime they seek to punish.
So when Annakin said he could not tell whether the Jedi or the Sith were evil or good, the idea really resonated with me as being a common experience.
Of course Lucas didn’t try to make an “anti-American parable,” but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some disturbing parallels.
I’m pleased to see that Rod (who, right after Episode I came one, pointed out that Vader’s obsession is with Obi-Wan, a prediction borne out by Ep III) showed up so that I don’t have to point people to his web site.
It is worth pointing out that the whole I-III storyline maps pretty well onto the history of Nazi Germany–maybe even better than it does onto Rome.