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Post #1411117

Author
Servii
Parent topic
Prediction for Star Wars X, XI, and XII
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1411117/action/topic#1411117
Date created
17-Feb-2021, 11:01 PM

Smart man, that Tolkien.

I think part of the problem of the prequels is that they couldn’t commit to being one of two things. They could have been either:

a) A mature, political, character-driven story about the fall of democracy.

or

b) A fun, swashbuckling space adventure for kids

George had his basic outline for the fall of the Republic all the way back in the 70s and 80s. The original opening crawl for Star Wars was going to be much longer and more detailed about the political backstory of the galaxy. Lucas trimmed it down for the sake of streamlining the story and not overloading the audience with too much exposition at once.

So, when the time came to make the prequels, George had still kept that outline of a deeply political story in his head all those years, but now he wanted to make it a kid-friendly action romp with goofy aliens. So the prequels suffered an identity crisis where they tried to be both things at once.

George was definitely inspired by real world events and politics to a large degree. Not to the point of outright allegory, in my opinion, but enough for people to see allegory if they looked for it. I remember, when RotS was coming out, there was a news story suggesting that the film’s plot was a critique of the Bush administration. It’s interesting what people see when they want to.