Star Wars: Revenge of the Mullahs

Nute Gunray

The upcoming 30th anniversary of Star Wars is generating all sorts of coverage. Variety has a full slate of stories on it, the History Channel has put together a feature-length project titled Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed, featuring interviews with Dan Rather, Newt Gingrich, and Nancy Pelosi. And now our friends at MEMRI report that Iranian television is getting in on the act, too.

MEMRI notes that on March 22, Iran's Channel 3 aired a commentary on the final installment of George Lucas's prequels, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Here's the transcript:

The Revenge of the Sith is, in fact, a political film about a free world facing a satanic empire. The film shows that even this evil empire was an ordinary republic in the beginning. This is why many film critics draw a parallel between the plot of The Revenge of the Sith and political events in the U.S. One of the statements cited by these critics is uttered by Anakin Skywalker when he becomes Darth Vader. He says: "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." This sentence bears a strong resemblance to the famous statement by American President George Bush, following the events of 9/11. Then, he officially declared: "In the war on terror, you are either with us or with our enemies."

The use of these words in the film undoubtedly demonstrates how clever and up-to-date Lucas is. In what seems like a children's film, he predicts the dark and gloomy future of the U.S.A. Elsewhere in the film, the discussions between Lord Sith and Anakin remind the viewer of the opinions held by White House politicians. It shows that for the sake of popularity, regimes talk about the rule of the people and democracy, but, in fact, they are tyrannies and dictatorships. Elsewhere in the film, Lord Sith says to Anakin and others: "We must bring democracy to every part of the world, and we must never allow the world to turn back on democracy."

In Star Wars, the characters who abandon the light side for the dark side believe that they will achieve great power and wealth this way. But in fact, they are misled by power and money. The same is true with regard to the American soldiers sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's an interesting interpretation. The conventional analogizing has always supposed that the Imperial forces in Star Wars were modeled on an amalgam of ancient Rome and Nazi Germany. Some dorkofascists have argued that the "Evil Empire" was actually the force for good when viewed objectively in the broad sweep of all six films. And some noted that the early prequels contained ham-handed swipes at modern Republicans (one minor baddie is clumsily named "Nute Gunray").

But I've never seen anyone suggest that Sith is an attack on the Bush Doctrine. The Iranian commentator's "Lord Sith" (one assumes this refers to Senator Palpatine) quote--"We must bring democracy to every part of the world, and we must never allow the world to turn back on democracy."--does sound an awful lot like something President Bush might say. Except that nowhere in the film does Palpatine say any such thing. (The closest anyone comes to this misquotation is Bail Organa, one of the early rebels, who exclaims, as Palpatine assumes imperial powers, that "We can't let a thousand years of democracy disappear without a fight.")

In fact, very much counter to President Bush, Senator Palpatine distrusts the efficacy of democracy because the Galactic Republic has grown so large as to be ungovernable. And while Palpatine has other motives, by the evidence, his analysis of the Republic is at least close to the truth. Democracy is never shown to function well in the Star Wars universe and many of the epic's heroes--Bail Organa, Princess Amidala, Princess Leia--are royals, not democratic leaders.