This is somewhat related to discussion regarding the opening crawl we’ve been having on Nevarar’s TFA thread, but I wanted to move this conversation over here since it isn’t necessarily just about his edit. I wanted to have a conversation regarding how the politics in the films reflect real-life politics, and how this perspective can affect one’s approach to editing the Sequel Trilogy.
The political situations in the previous films seem to reflect real-life American politics in very general ways. In the OT, the Empire was America. Nixon was the Emperor. The rebellion was like the Viet Cong or the objectors/protestors in America, like the hippie movement.
In the prequels, George made parallels between Nute Gunray and Newt Gingrich, Bush and Vader and Cheney and Palpatine. Seeing a democracy become a dictatorship. “You’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists”.
In the sequels, what could that parallel be?
The rise of nationalism and the alt-right?
The election of Donald Trump?
So, which angle to by which to handle the New Republic would fit most appropriately with a contemporary American political analogy?American politics seem totally divided between two sides. The idea that the Republic has been split into two parties, one allied to Old Republic ideology vs another that wants to restore Imperial strength, would seem to reflect the total division of the Democratic and Republican parties today (in a more extreme away obviously). The “death” of the New Republic could parallel the democrats losing the 2016 election and leading to the political upheaval we’ve see on a daily basis the past few years.
Not trying to say this interpretation is fact. George openly made liberal parallels with his films, so I figure it would be appropriate to strengthen similar parallels that are in the sequels as well.
And you can make parallels between the GFFA and the US, but the rise of nationalism globally has been a major talking point in recent years, so the ST fitting with that in a general sense fits too.So I guess the question boils down to how the opening crawls could be worded (or things in the films themselves) to match this metaphor? Should the First Order be an open “nationalist” movement or be something hiding in the shadows and then striking from the cover of darkness? Should the Republic be trying, but struggling, to deal with this movement, or are they not taking it as seriously as they should be? I’d like to get suggestions that consider the real-life parallels.
What makes the most sense for the ST, in regards to how the OT and PT also reflected the real-life politics of their times?
I’m liking the way Nev is currently leaning with his, but I just wanted to carry that discussion over to here in order to talk about it more generally.
I hope that this discussion doesn’t run afoul of the new-ish political rules of this forum, but I definitely had worldwide rightwing movements in mind when trying to write the crawl. As you say, it was already an aspect of the originals so it made sense to continue that tradition. This paragraph in particular is probably the closest I’ve dared come to making an explicit reference to American politics:
In his absence, leaders from a thousand worlds have forsaken the fragile Republic in favor of the IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER, which has vowed to return strength to the galaxy through the designs of the once mighty Empire.