“Politics” do not [necessarily, or often] work via the same mechanics as a fable’s moral or lesson. These aren’t ‘messages’ at the end of an after school special or Saturday Morning Cartoon episode.
They are manifest in all work, as a reflection of the author’s perspectives, the context in which work is created. It can be as simple as the Empire dissolving the Senate being portrayed as bad, or as thematic as Leia being portrayed counter to conservative femininity. There are things you wouldn’t write, and things you likely would, if you were to write your own story. That is politics.
Lucas can go back outside of his initial intentions and verbalize what precisely might have inspired him. It’s no different than Spielberg realizing how his parents inadvertently inspired how the aliens communicate in Close Encounters. But instead of making The Fabelmans, Lucas makes the prequels.
Having political inspiration inherent to oneself doesn’t even have to interplay with intention. I absolutely believe Lucas intended to just make a fun, swashbuckling space opera. I absolutely believe Lucas was more influenced by Flash Gordon than he was Vietnam. But the context from which the story arose from him is worth talking about, especially for himself to analyze. There are aesthetics and what a story is (its genre form, its intention), and then there are the values a story inherently has.
Right, I’m mostly reacting to the (implied) idea that Lucas began writing Star Wars (either the OT or the Prequels) with some clear, historical/political allegory in mind, in the way that, say, George Orwell did while writing Animal Farm. I think it was more like, Lucas was thinking “I want to write this cool story with space ships and lasers and wizards and fairy-tale endings, and I sure love those old WW2 movies and serial adventures where they fight Nazis. But I also think my cool film-school friends are on to something with this anti-war and revolutionary stuff that’s going on now. I feel like I have something to say about all this, so I’ll sprinkle in some thematic fragments here and there.”
I mean, these perceived allegorical dimensions of Star Wars always seemed way more “tacked on” to me, and much less organically emergent from the story itself, than other comparable sci-fi like Dune or Star Trek.
I think what pulls me away from the idea that he just threw disparate stuff into a stew - is how notoriously overwritten and specific his (pre-edit of ANH, the prequels) writing was/is with proper nouns and fictional jargon. (In a way that is closer to Dune or Star Trek). While also, paradoxically not really being very precise about it all personally. He’ll still call lightsabers “laser swords” in interviews, and as seen with the prequels, is never married to his own story if he has a different idea.
I think Star Wars DOES live in a very metaphorical/allegorical space for Lucas in that way; a canvas for what he wants to say on topics from politics to cosmology. It’s not lore to him. I often think back to how unintuitive it is for Lucas to want to emphasize, that, no the Trade Federation are not Separatists actually during the Clone Wars. This, to the bewilderment of people working under him (including Filoni!) I think it’s clear Lucas has intention, he’s just usually all over the place as a storyteller. But that idiosyncrasy is the political dimension. He’s more consistent to the politics than the story.
So sure, it’s not clear, specific allegory but it is all freighted with his own views about any number of topics from conception. He’s not throwing a bone to his peers - he’s literally one of them, and just found his own way to express an ethos. An expression can be more than one thing. Revolution as a fairy tale is not a hard synthesis to parse out. It’s easier for me to take his word for it than it is keep downplaying what’s fairly obvious. He does THX before Star Wars. The Empire in Star Wars is a far closer to home dystopia than the one depicted there.
Anyway, for a clear example of Star Wars with (mostly obvious and intentional) political messaging done correctly, see Andor.
I think Andor is amazing, and in a lot of ways I prefer it to Star Wars proper, but it is jumping off of a state of play that is completely consistent to George’s Star Wars.