Star Wars: Lucas’s ‘evil Galactic Empire’ and Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’

Five years ago, I asked Tony Dolan, who wrote most of President Reagan’s 1983 Evil Empire Speech, if the words “evil empire” came from the “Star Wars” movie.

He said no. But I still believe the words “evil Galactic Empire,” from the first “Star Wars” film of 1977, had so deeply imbued themselves into American culture that Dolan borrowed the idea, even if subconsciously.

In “Star Wars,” an alliance of democratic good guys, represented by Luke Skywalker, battles the dictatorial evil empire, represented by Darth Vader. Two years after South Vietnam fell to the Communists, the film premiered when doubts, confusion and shades of gray painted America’s moral judgments. Audiences and reviewers were startled to see a Hollywood film that so starkly contrasted good against evil.

Identify with good. Americans even dared to identify themselves with the good guys.

Back then, George Lucas, director of “Star Wars,” kept the film’s meaning to himself. Generally, it appeared he had made the movie to bring wildly better special effects and a faster pace to the genre of science fiction films popular in the 1930s, films Lucas saw on TV in the 1950s.

Now, Lucas says the original “Star Wars” was about Vietnam. And Iraq. And who was the “evil Galactic Empire”? The United States, he implies.

Death of democracy. At the Cannes Film Festival on Monday (May 16), Lucas was talking about his new film, “Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,” when he said:

“Because this is the back story, one of the main features of the back story was to tell how the Republic became the Empire. At the time I did that [first movie], it was during the Vietnam War and the Nixon era. The issue was: How does a democracy turn itself over to a dictator? Not how does a dictator take over but how does a democracy and Senate give it away?

“The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we’re doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.

“On the personal level it was how does a good person turn into a bad person, and part of the observation of that is that most bad people think they are good people, they are doing it for the right reasons.”

Empire building. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Communist ideologues were hammering their way into nation after nation, enslaving a third of the planet. The United States fights back in Korea and Vietnam, and that’s empire building? The United States transforms West Germany, Italy and Japan into free countries, and that’s empire building? The United States protects Taiwan, and that's empire building? More recently, the United States liberates Afghanistan and Iraq, and that’s empire building?

In “Revenge of the Sith,” just before Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, he tells Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.” This is supposed to be clever dialogue by Lucas, alluding to President Bush’s statement nine days after the Sept. 11th attacks, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

To hammer the preachiness home, Obi-Wan says, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes” -- as if the leave-Saddam-alone viewpoint, which equates the expansion of democracy to dictatorship, isn’t itself absolutism in the extreme.

Thunderous applause. Earlier, as Chancellor Palpatine takes power from the Senate, Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), says, “So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.” The Republic had become the First Galactic Empire.

In Cannes, Lucas also said,

“[In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? 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.”

With Hitler especially, Lucas has a point. Hitler, whose Nazi Party won only 37 percent and then 32 percent of the vote in two 1932 elections, was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Hindenberg on Jan. 30, 1933, in a backroom deal.

Hitler at the Reichstag. On March 5, 1933, the Nazis won 44 percent of the vote in elections for the Reichstag (legislature). Within the next three weeks, the Reichstag, intimidated by Chancellor Hitler’s Brownshirted goons, abolished all political parties except the Nazis’ and gave Hitler supreme power. That’s when Hitler heard the thunderous applause. The Weimar Republic had become the Third Reich.

That real historic catastrophe, not the recent controversies and debates of a healthy democracy, is what should give chilling power to the “Star Wars” scene.

Not even Lucas believes the U.S. is in serious danger of falling into dictatorship or becoming an empire. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free opposition parties, an independent judiciary and free elections (despite that stupid Electoral College) remain intact in America, and the U.S. has no intention of annexing or robbing any nation it has defended or liberated.

Plot versus reality. But in Hollywood, where skepticism and paranoia inspire the best movie plots, and in Cannes, a world of posers, you’re supposed to pretend you hate the biggest guy on the block, even if he’s the only one on the block doing any good.

Lucas is not allowed to admit the evil empire was the Soviet Union. In Hollywood, there was no evil Soviet Union, there were no mass killings by Stalin, no Iron Curtain enslaving Eastern Europe, no bloody invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, no totalitarian push into China, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and around the globe.

In the real world of the mid to late 20th century, however, there was an empire that took territory, subjugated the people, murdered millions and intended never to set the survivors free. The dark spinoffs of that empire remain today, in such nations as China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Burma (Myanmar) and Cuba.

The unfilmed empire. But in general, the story of that evil empire never made it to the silver screen. In the movies, the liberators get the Darth Vader mask. The post-Hitler totalitarians are written out of the script.

Frank Warner

SEE ALSO: Star Wars: Darth Vader says “NOOOOOOOO!”

Comments

[Red Star]

Germany, Italy, Japan, Afghanistan, and Iraq were all out of NECESSITY. It wasn't America's will to go on some kind of rightous cruesade and convert these "evil empire" states into a "good empire."

Need I remind you (again) that the USA entered the war only after it began after 3years?! It was willing to stand idle and watch as Europe was a killing zone.

If anything, Germany and Italy has to thank Japan for enticing the Americans into the war.

As for Korea and Vietnam...mmm....let's see...Vietnam is entirely a communist state and Korea is divided. What was the point of that? If the conviction is so strong, both by you (Warner) and the USA's rightous/noble cause, then go and start another rightous/noble war with Vietnam and N.Korea to back up your reasons because the Job was NOT done. It is not complete.

[George]

You are spot on in one assessment: some jobs are not complete.
All righteous/noble causes cannot be done overnight.

[Frank Warner]

Certainly South Korea was saved from the totalitarian invasion.

Today, South Korea's freedom and life stands in stark contrast to the repression and death that Communism brought to North Korea.

In Vietnam, despite President Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden" in the cause of freedom, the war was fought too tentatively, North Vietnam never was invaded, and eventually U.S. will was strained by the cost of a prolonged, limited war, in which the goal was never to defeat the enemy.

Nevertheless, the U.S. did win the Hanoi dictatorship's written promise, in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, that hostilities would cease and "The South Vietnamese people shall decide themselves the political future of South Viet-Nam through genuinely free and democratic general elections under international supervision."

The south Vietnamese people, and the north Vietnamese people, still are waiting for those free elections and the democratic freedoms that were supposed to go with them. For them, freedom now is always a necessity.

Instead, the Vietnamese government occasionally celebrates its "victories" by freeing thousands of political prisoners it never should have arrested in the first place.

A fully free world is a necessity. The democrats are in a race with the totalitarians. If the dictators and dictator-worshippers acquire the technology to conquer whole nations before all nations are free, the liberties we enjoy can slip away forever.

We all can suffer like the North Koreans and Vietnamese. Or we all can be free.

[jj mollo]

Red,

You boggle my mind. I think you just said that our post 9/11 wars were analogous to WWII, forced by the necessity of a rearguard defense. Is someone else using your name? Were you being sarcastic. This does not seem to fit with your past persona.

If that is what you mean, then I am in complete agreement. Not to break off the embrace too fast, but I have to disagree on Korea vehemently and on Vietnam less so. Looking at the present wealth and contentedness of South Korea, contrasted with the poverty and suffering of North Korea, it seems to me that our only mistake was not insisting on the whole peninsula. We did everything we could to help those sad people.

Judging by the consequences of our embarrassing departure from Vietnam, I have to conclude that things would have been better for everyone if we'd taken the trouble to win it. Once again, we should have insisted on the whole peninsula. In particular, maybe we could then have stopped the Khmer Rouge.

If we had wanted to be practical, maybe we should never have gotten involved in Vietnam to begin with, but fact is, communists do not generally create nice governments and someone needs to resist them. Who's it going to be?

[jj mollo]

Is there any reason not to take Lucas at face value when he says the evil empire is us? He lives in La La Land. How can he avoid picking up the vibe?

As to whether it can happen to us, Senators do not like to run against the herd. They are all suceptible to peer pressure. And they are all susceptible to extortion. A single person like J. Edgar Hoover can cause an incredible amount of havoc behind closed doors. Reid's recent comment about a candidates FBI record chilled me to the bone. Consolidation of power in one area is always risky. Homeland Security's access to information certainly represents a consolidation of power. Corporate influence is always a danger, especially now that corporations owe so little loyalty to the US.

The ways we can lose our nation, rule by the people, are limitless. The choices necessary to retain it are finite and difficult. It requires strength of character and courage, not always available. Big fund raisers have remarkable power in US politics and politicians always try to hide that power. Crises can be manufactured. Remember the Bay of Tonkin? Alternative sources of information can be silenced. Check out Bill Moyers speech concerning Right Wing control of PBS. Check out creationist shenanigans in Kansas. The "nuclear" option is not a joke.

It scares me that people are so clever and deliberate about controlling messages and modifying the language. Republicans made up the phrase "nuclear option", but now you will never hear it out of a Republican mouth. I heard some pol repeat the phrase "Byrd option" about 10 times in two paragraphs. How much human effort went into designing that particular spin wad. I think any imbalance of power can lead to the dissolution of the Republic if we don't stay on our toes.