Doji Grovesai

George Lucas == Michael Moore?

Probably not. But over at Cannes (why does this stuff always happen over there?), Lucas had some things to say:

Lucas, at a Cannes film festival press conference yesterday, said he first wrote the framework of Star Wars in 1971 when reacting to then-U.S. president Richard Nixon and the events of the Vietnam War. But the story still has relevance today, he said, and is part of a pattern he has noticed in history.

Contrast this to his interviews when the very first Anniversary special set came out (only on VHS, no DVD yet), where he says that "Kids didn't have a fairy tale of their own...I wanted to write a modern fairy tale." This was also his motivation in trying to keep everything PG - he wanted it to be kid-friendly.

And then:

"Because this is the back story (of the Star Wars saga), one of the main features of the back story was to tell how the Republic became the Empire,” Lucas said.

...

"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?"

In real life (and Lucas cites Ceasar and Hitler as examples), people get reactionary and want somebody who will be decisive and take control. Further historical digging (which I'm sure Lucas hasn't done) reveals that these dictators had plans in the works that would make Machievelli himself swell with pride. Quite frankly, I think most politicians (people in general) are too short-sighted these days to pull something like that off. And that's the only similarity between real democratic turnovers and Star Wars. Except that the Sith plot was done over a much longer period of time than anything that happened in reality. His comparisons to Nixon, Bush, Vietnam, and Iraq/Terrorism are just not valid.

Personally, I think that Lucas is just trying to make himself sound relevant. Remember, it's en vogue that celebrities (real or pretended) have some kind of political voice. And really, TV series or not, Star Wars is pretty much over after Episode III. The books (novel or comic) will continue, but as a media enterprise, it's over. And Lucas just wants his last minutes to be "relevant" instead of "quality." But, to quote Dennis Miller, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Hat tip: Monday Miscellany from Michelle Malkin