No, this isn’t a movie review. I won’t see Star Wars Episode III until tomorrow. I’m just bugged by George Lucas’ injecting blatant politics into the last Star Wars movie. And since I try to confine my political opinions to other outlets, I haven’t really been talking about it here.

I know, some of you are reacting, “Wha? Who are you kidding, Michael, you bring up politics a lot.” Yeah, over on our forum and on Dixonverse’s board I talk a little more freely. Still, I could be running a political blog and talking politics every day. I love a good debate, and it’s pretty much denied in my life because I keep mum at work, I bite my tongue around my best friends who are all of the “I only listen to NPR so I’m more informed than you” persuasion, and talking with my wife is preaching to the assistant pastor. Here at Monitor Duty, our contributors and our visitors are of many different political backgrounds, and I don’t want to create an unwelcome atmosphere for anyone. I love an actual discussion, but often on the Internet things devolve quickly into anonymous flaming and knee-jerk calls of “Nazi!”

So, this is going to be a bit off-topic and a bit lengthy, and I’m going to tuck it all into the Extended Entry for those who’d like to proceed to other items.

First, let’s talk George Lucas himself. He’s a liberal. No big surprises there, and he’s welcome to believe whatever he wants. Furthermore, whatever his secret messages were in the previous Star Wars movies, they were either cleverly well-hidden or he failed miserably at properly conveying his real intentions. He may have seen Star Wars as the Viet Cong bringing down the much more technically capable U.S., but nobody else did…and he didn’t do much to publicize that this was his real message.

For one thing, Lucas is completely wrong. The weak underdog Viet Cong did not succeed against the technologically superior force. We always had the ability to turn Viet Nam into a cinder from border to border; we didn’t, because we’re not evil. The V.C. was largely crushed after the Tet Offensive, but that was also when America’s media war against the Viet Nam conflict heated up. To hear “the most trusted voice in America” tell it, according to Walter Cronkite America was losing. The war was easily winnable except for political meddling, and as a result of that meddling the morale of both soldiers and the public sank over the years. Plus, America had to fight the V.C. while trying not to provoke the U.S.S.R. into all-out war. It’s not as if the Rebellion in Star Wars is backed by a full-size superpower with a Death Star of their own.

Another thing standing in the way of sharing Lucas’ vision: the victory of the Rebellion in “Return of the Jedi” did not result in massive death camps and purges. We have an imposing black memorial of names in Washington where we mourn the dead veterans, but 50,000 dead in a war that lasted a decade is actually not an atrocious rate. We gave up on winning Viet Nam and returned home to have group therapy over it for the next few decades. Meanwhile, our failure to see things to the end properly resulted in MILLIONS dying in Nam, in Cambodia, in Laos. World War II had an appalling cost in human life, but we consider it worth it to have ultimately saved millions more from tyranny and extermination. Viet Nam could have had the same outcome, where perhaps it would have taken 5-20,000 more U.S. soldiers dead to win but it would have resulted in millions more people being alive today.

Yet, Lucas still talks admiringly of the V.C.’s effectiveness in fighting off the powerful U.S.A., which means he hasn’t reflected on any of this in 30 years. It does cast “Return of the Jedi” in a new light; the Ewok weapons parallel the kind of boobytraps the V.C. would rig up. So Lucas looks upon Jedi as a successful historical parallel, while most of his fan-base has had to grit their teeth watching armored Keystone Storm Troopers being defeated by anthropomorphic Shih Tzu dogs and thinking, “Oh, yeah, right. My grandma’s quilting society could beat these ewoks. What in the WORLD is Lucas thinking?”

I don’t really want to dwell on this for fear that it will forever warp my ability to enjoy the original trilogy. It doesn’t matter how Lucas intended it; we took it to mean something else and turned it into a major success. Consider the way EVERY STAR WARS FAN IN AMERICA had no problem with Han Solo shooting Greedo first, because we all knew Han was in a situation where he’d be shot by Greedo in a moment. Then Lucas went back and altered the scene in such a way that we may not have liked it if we’d known what he really wanted to do.

And I don’t care how anti-Nam you think sentiments were in America back in 1977, there is no way “Star Wars” would have been the hit it was if Lucas had preceeded it by telling everyone how “It’s the Viet Cong kicking our butt in space.” Not that America would have rejected Star Wars unanimously, or that there would have been successful protests…just that it would always be nagging in the head of many a fan who could have been escaping into what he thought was another world.

That’s what’s wrong with what Lucas is doing now. I’m going to see “Sith” tomorrow and Lucas’ statements are going to be nagging at me. Everything’s going to be poisoned, now, because I’m going to be wondering what this statement really means. And it’s not because some paranoid conservatives have been reading too much into an escapist fantasy; the movie’s creators and stars have pre-publicized this film as being an intentional slam at the President, the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, etc.

It doesn’t help that Lucas’ analysis is again horrendously off, and it still appears that he has lost his grasp of what it is he created. Of how it is possible for good men to turn bad, Lucas says, “Most of them think they’re good people doing what they do for a good reason.” Obviously, this is an excellent topic for a philosophical discussion, since a reasonable follow-up would be, “Then how can you ever know your reasons are good? Are you supposed to never do anything out of a paralytic fear that you’re wrong about the soundness of your reasoning?” But a more basic question is, “If that’s true, why does your guy wear black and say that his way is ‘the Dark Side’?”

Lucas once made a trilogy about fighting against tyranny for freedom and liberty. The good guys and bad guys weren’t hard to tell, and their aims were diametrically opposed. One guy in white clothes served the good side of the Force, and the dude dressed in black served the dark side. Now Lucas tells us that “Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.”

Oh really, George? So, is it possible to serve the Dark Side of the force just a little bit? Is that what Yoda cautions? “Go, it’s okay, use the Dark Side. Just don’t use it too much. Remember, everything in its place. Lots of people dabble in the Dark Side of the Force when they’re in college and then later get married, take on a career and put the Dark Side behind them.”

I could expend a hundred paragraphs on Lucas’ faulty premises, incorrect analysis, and his ineptitude as a filmmaker. (“Ineptitude?” I hear Jason Apuzzo say, “He’s made billions of dollars so he must be doing something right!” Of course. He’s a genius at special effects, atmosphere and marketing. Take ILM out of the picture and give these movies the budget of an old Flash Gordon movie and few would watch them.) I’m not going to waste my time on what’s wrong with Lucas’ thinking…or the incorrect analysis of the New York Times’ and Washington Post’s take on all this. (For some reason, both papers quote Lucas at length and then criticize conservatives for seeing political statements in the new Star Wars film. It’s almost baffling.)

My final opinion? The previous Star Wars films were all more or less great despite Lucas’ intentions, and tomorrow I’ll just enjoy this film for the escapist fantasy it is. Lucas can think whatever he wants.

Watch this space for my review tomorrow.