I don't recall ever reading of Star Wars creator George Lucas having made a big deal of his political leanings. Possibly I missed them, or Lucas is too busy being creative to bother with such nonsense, or he's simply an outstanding businessman who recognizes the wisdom of avoiding certain subjects that could alienate potential customers while bringing no additional revenues to the bottom line.
Lucas may be publicly apolitical, and movies often lend themselves to many interpretations. The newest Star Wars installment, however, left me with a distinct impression that Lucas "gets" modern history. Perhaps it was just a case of timing.
You see, I went to see the latest Star Wars installment at right about the same time the History Channel was running a documentary about the largest engines of modern warfare, the aircraft carrier. Star Wars and a nuclear aircraft carrier – what on Earth could they have in common, you ask?
In the interest of not giving away the movie, I will stick to generalities.
In a nutshell, this installment has the bad guy fomenting war between two entities, using this as a pretext to justify a power grab. The movie was jammed full of special effects, costumes, all the stuff we expect from Lucas and his people, but one scene stuck with me more than any.
Toward the end of the show was a scene depicting a valley covered, and I mean, covered by soldiers. Throngs of troops in gleaming armor marching row upon row up the entrance ramps to those monstrous battleships that those of us in the 40-plus range first marveled to in 1977. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of soldiers in the process of boarding massive engines of destruction, bound for who-knows-where.
The old republic is dying, to be replaced (presumably in the next movie) by the Empire.
Enter the History Channel and its ode to modern marvels. The program described the history of the aircraft carrier from World War II through the present, offering footage of air operations starting with propellers and ending with F/A-18's. Experts detailed the dimensions, the capabilities, and the costs of these floating cities. One discussed how some of the most modern innovations came from the British, though the United Kingdom lacked the finances to build the enormous ships capable of using their inventions. It took the US, with its seemingly bottomless pit of taxpayer's pockets, to successfully render the most modern concepts.
Viewers were given as justification of the expense was that America could now project its forces around the globe and the thirty-year life span of these marvelous works of military art would mean money well-spent.
Of course no one at the History Channel asks why such engines of destruction are necessary. Presumably we’re already up to speed on the need for a strong defense.
But that takes me back to our latest Star Wars film. When our enemies are created by the very "defense" our leaders so desire, when an active and interventionist foreign policy is backed by three-quarters of all the military hardware in the world, it takes but to open one's eyes…
Lucas awed the world in the opening sequence of the original Star Wars movie in 1977 with warships of overwhelming scale whose bulk moved across the screen…and across and across, and across.
Today's carriers are truly the emblems of modern America. So too are they the proverbial elephant in the living room, the uninvited guest too gross to overlook but too terrifying to see. The republic is dead, long since replaced by Empire.
I don't know about you, but I think George Lucas has his eyes open.
May 21, 2002
