Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith
Directed by George Lucas
Starring Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen & Ewan McGregor
REVIEW BY DAVE RILEY
Just when you thought you'd had enough of the throbbing fluroescence of light sabres hovering over the heads of intergalactic villains, along comes this latest and maybe last offering in the Star Wars franchise. Busier than its predecessors, Revenge of the Sith has enough pumped up activity to patent merchandise aplenty. Sith-related stuff is sure to be cropping up everywhere.
This time around though, it's a long ride or warp drive to the outer star systems. I guess a lot of what you get out of the journey depends on what you came for. Star Wars is now so much a prized artefact, that you have to be able to say at some time that you're one of those who has seen it. And see it millions will.
What you don't expect from the franchise is the gripping analogy between today's "war on terrorism" and this once-upon-a-time galaxy far away. As Lucas himself has noted, "When I wrote it, Iraq (the US-led war) didn't exist ... but the parallels of what we did in Vietnam and Iraq are unbelievable."
Other observers have been digging up George Bush homilies, such as "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terrorism", and matching them with such takes as "You are either with me, or you are my enemy" from the fledgling Darth Vader. While Lucas excuses the analogy as coincidence, because the story was conceived back in the 1970s, there's a nasty dark parable being played out on screen that is horribly close to reality. In the eyes of many people in the US, the question posed by this Star Wars — how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship? — seems remarkably relevant to their anxiety over the current occupant of the White House. This may be simple hand wringing to go with the popcorn, but there is even a darker message there on screen.
If it hasn't twigged with you yet, in this episode the dark side of the force triumphs. Despite the Jedi Knights and their sustaining temple (I guess that's a new attribute of Jedism), galactic democracy, such as it is, gets a drubbing. So as endings go, you could call this one a bummer.
But hey! we know how it ends, don't we? With young Luke Skywalker yet to come, the forces of good triumph (circa 1983 of course!) when Return of the Jedi puts all to right and corrects that grave disturbance in the force we all knew about.
If the film of that victory was first screened a generation ago, in a different political period, Revenge of the Sith embraces its time not with a potent rallying call for resistance, but with the filmic note that the galactic zoo of extraterrestrials must wait at least 20 more years until Luke and his twin sister Princess Leia come of fighting age before resistance can begin to triumph.
If this film is a parallel with the terrestrial now, its message is bleak indeed. If Bush's permanent war for permanent peace is cross-referenced in a galaxy far, far away, then we are sentenced by dint of the medieval mumbo jumbo that Star Wars trades in, to patiently wait until a Jedi Knight comes our way.
From Green Left Weekly, June 8, 2005.
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