The Billiken's Bluff

Last Night Fox News' Geraldo Rivera postulated that George Lucas might be this year's Michael Moore. No, George Lucas has not put on 200 lbs, and taken to wearing ill-fitting Michigan State Baseball Hats. But he is coming out with an early summer movie that is being read by many critics as a political commentary on the current US administration.

Many in the media are making "Return of the Sith," out to be as divisive as last summer’s scorcher, "Fahrenheit 911". Geraldo brought this up because the no-longer-so-young Anakin Skywalker turned Darth Vader issues the very familiar edict that:

"You are with us or you are against us."

Which sounds more than a little bit like another George's (Bush, not Lucas) strong- handed stand against the Darkside, I mean The Axis of Evil.

New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott gives "Sith" a rave review, and notes that Lucas "grounds it in a cogent and (for the first time) comprehensible political context."

" 'Revenge of the Sith' is about how a republic dismantles its own democratic principles, about how politics becomes militarized, about how a Manichaean ideology undermines the rational exercise of power. Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders. At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, 'If you're not with me, you're my enemy.' Obi-Wan's response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: 'Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.' "

I can see how the media is drawing a parallel between the two films, Fahrenheit 911 and Return of the Sith . But my real question isn't why George Lucas is writing script based loosely on George Bush, it's why George Bush’s speeches can be so easily adapted to Darth Vader’s dialogue.



I mean come we're talking Darth Vader, he’s at the very pinnacle of super-villiandom!

I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, but I am excited about seeing this film. Consider this line from Natalie Portman, who plays Queen Amidala of Naboo:

"This is how liberty dies -- to thunderous applause."

What a great line. Something right out of Gladiator or Braveheart, but with the added advantage of coming out of the mouth of Natalie Portman.

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George Lucas responded to the controversy:

"I wrote these films during the Vietnam War and the Nixon era and the question was: how does a democracy turn itself over to a dictator.

"It is a recurring theme in history and I hope it doesn't come true in our country.

"When I wrote Star Wars, Iraq didn't exist. We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction, we weren't worried about him.

"I was writing it at the time of the Vietnam War but the parallels between Vietnam and what we are doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."

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And in Natalie Portman-related news...



Natalie, at the Paris "Return of the Sith" Premiere.

What's with the haircut? Still looking sexy, but a bit too much like Sinead O'Connor.