5. Palpatine’s Politics
If you boil it down, the struggle in the original trilogy is of a righteous band of heroes versus space Nazis. There isn’t a ton of nuance or topical social commentary to it.
Comparatively, the prequel trilogy seemed very much in line with the political climate of the United States in 2002, when “Attack of the Clones” came out. We watch as soon-to-be-Emperor Palpatine manipulates the political landscape from behind the scenes, playing the two sides against each other to level his own power. This culminates in Episode II, where the galactic republic decides to relinquish some of their free reign over proceedings in order to expedite the growth and execution of military might against what amounts to a terrorist group. The allusions to the Patriot Act and War on Terror couldn’t have been more obvious unless the Emperor’s Sith name was Darth Bush or something. Still, subtly or not, the prequels dared to present a more ambitious and morally ambiguous depiction of good versus evil.
Additionally, the political machinations did a lot to highlight the cunning of Palpatine. In “Return of the Jedi,” all we know of the emperor is that he’s wrinkly, evil, in-charge, and can throw more lightning around than Zeus on a bad day. But we don’t know why he of all people is the emperor, or how he held on to power for so long. The prequels squash all questioning. Through his political mastery, we see how Palpatine was able to manipulate people even more skillfully than he can manipulate the dark side of the Force, and that is an evil even more frightening than just a red lightsaber.
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