Star Wars Raises Questions on US POlicy
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0517-07.htm
Published on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 by the Associated Press
'Star Wars' Raises Questions on US Policy
by David Germain
Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this
time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over
the state of world relations and the United States' role in it.
Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to
preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III < Revenge of the Sith" by
almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday < and Lucas himself < noted similarities
between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.
The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq
now are unbelievable.
George Lucas
Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" < the
story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor
through warmongering < to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion
of Iraq.
Two lines from the movie especially resonated:
"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala
(Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting
Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin <
soon to become villain Darth Vader < tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi
(Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the
Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a
23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a
politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war."
Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly
there," Engle said.
The film opens Wednesday in parts of Europe and Thursday in the United
States and many other countries. At the Cannes premiere Sunday night, actors
in white stormtrooper costumes paraded up and down the red carpet as guests
strolled in, while an orchestra played the "Star Wars" theme.
Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from
freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in
the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.
"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this
close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes
news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country.
"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked.
That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush
documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.
Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign
stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his
mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story
long before the Bush-led occupation there.
"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing.
"We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass
destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going
after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam.
... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in
Iraq now are unbelievable."
The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the
mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes
percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.
Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with
full consent of the electorate.
In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and
give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they
got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to
Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.
"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into
a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with
the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more
control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly
because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."
© 2005 The Associated Press
Published on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 by the Associated Press
'Star Wars' Raises Questions on US Policy
by David Germain
Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this
time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over
the state of world relations and the United States' role in it.
Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to
preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III < Revenge of the Sith" by
almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday < and Lucas himself < noted similarities
between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.
The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq
now are unbelievable.
George Lucas
Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" < the
story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor
through warmongering < to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion
of Iraq.
Two lines from the movie especially resonated:
"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala
(Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting
Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin <
soon to become villain Darth Vader < tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi
(Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the
Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a
23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a
politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war."
Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly
there," Engle said.
The film opens Wednesday in parts of Europe and Thursday in the United
States and many other countries. At the Cannes premiere Sunday night, actors
in white stormtrooper costumes paraded up and down the red carpet as guests
strolled in, while an orchestra played the "Star Wars" theme.
Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from
freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in
the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.
"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this
close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes
news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country.
"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked.
That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush
documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.
Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign
stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his
mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story
long before the Bush-led occupation there.
"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing.
"We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass
destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going
after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam.
... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in
Iraq now are unbelievable."
The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the
mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes
percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.
Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with
full consent of the electorate.
In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and
give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they
got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to
Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.
"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into
a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with
the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more
control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly
because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."
© 2005 The Associated Press
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