Star
Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, the first of
three prequels to the "Star Wars" series is not a film for
mature adults; it is for children who read comic books and
be counted upon to attend the film multiple times. The tagline
of the film is "Every generation has a legend. Every journey
has a first step. Every saga has a beginning." Nevertheless,
strange adult ideas permeate the script, albeit vaguely. Early
in the story we learn that our galaxy is for free trade, but
a rival galaxy insists on collecting tariffs in the manner
of the robber barons of the Rhine River who retarded Germany’s
rise by a few centuries. Our hero Qui-Gon Jinn (played by
Liam Neeson) is an invincible Jedi warrior out to serve a
noble cause, namely, negotiating tariff reduction. However,
he is secretly sent by advisers to weak Queen Amidala (played
by Natalie Portman) because the Federation’s parliament is
in gridlock, unable to make up its mind what to do about the
conflict. In short, democracy is too slow, so covert action
is preferable. George Lucas, the film’s director and scriptwriter,
continues to provide medieval garb and undemocratic conceptions
of politics to young filmviewers in which decisive, executive
power is preferable to the slow, consultative processes of
representative government. Thus, filmviewers get action instead
of reason, the hallmark of fascism. "May the force be with
you" is still the highest ambition of the few. The original
Star Wars film of 1977 tantalized youth to
the glory of warfare in the post-Vietnam era, though with
Cold War discourse. Indeed, in due course President Ronald
Reagan justified extraordinary deficit military spending for
an unattainable "star wars" shield to defend against the "evil
Russian empire" a few years after the "evil Galactic empire"
was first identified in Star Wars. Now, Episode
I retrospectively justifies the political process that gave
us Iran-Contra, the Grenada invasion, and countless covert
actions. We even find that fatherless but precocious child
Anakin Skywalker (played by Jake Lloyd) can be taken away
from his mother (played by Pernilla August) in order to fulfill
his Lucasesque destiny as a star warrior and future father
of Luke Skywalker. With no sentimentality about leaving his
mother, it is no wonder that Anakin is later transformed into
Darth Vader. With a weak queen as the ruler of the Federation,
destined to marry Anakin, there is no positive role for women
in Lucas’s preferred undemocratic world. Lucas appeals to
fatherless children to abandon their mothers without tears
in order to join a violent gang, as if they needed any inducement
to do so in the inner cities. Moreover, Jinn’s valet, a bumbling
Stepin Fetchit, can only annoy African Americans, one of whom
(Ahmed Best) plays the part. Nevertheless, the political implications
of Episode I will probably sail over the heads of the audience
and the politicians, and Lucas’s candidate for president,
whoever that may be, is not yet on the political horizon.
Why the prequel? Lucas, director of American Graffiti
(1973), knows the box office power of nostalgia. But just
think: the third of the prequels will come in the year 2005,
when the original cherubic Star Wars fans will
be in their thirties, and a new generation of fascistic racist
sexists can be cultivated all over again to hate their parents.
MH
I
want to comment on this film
