From Sidious to Nixon: The Parallels Between Star Wars
and Vietnam
A Senior Project
presented to
the Faculty of the History Department
California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Bachelor of Liberal Arts
By
Brennan Simpson
March, 2021
© 2021 Brennan Simpson
1
In the case of a film franchise that features twelve movies, five television series, and
various other forms of media by the time this paper was written, many people may be surprised
to hear that Star Wars
was actually inspired by one of the most questionable moments in
American history. However, the time period in which Star Wars
creator George Lucas first wrote
what became this world’s ‘‘first step into a larger world’’ actually greatly reflected what ended
up on the big screen. Even though the Star Wars
movies take place ‘‘a long time ago in a galaxy
far, far away….,’’ it has been publicly stated in interviews that Lucas based both Star Wars
media on the Vietnam War and their main villain, Darth Sidious, on former U.S. President
Richard Nixon. Though there have been a few scholarly works since the first Star Wars
movie
was released in theaters in 1977 that have attempted to explore these parallels, none of them has
directly explored how Lucas’s long-standing views on the Vietnam War affected certain key
moments of the first six Star Wars
movies. This thesis explores George Lucas’ antiwar activism
before creating Star Wars
to demonstrate how remarkably similar the films and related media of
this franchise truly are to both various aspects of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon’s rise to
power.
Historiography
In over forty years since the first Star Wars
movie’s release, there have surprisingly only
been a select few scholarly works that have tried to explain how those movies may actually be
connected to both the Vietnam War and U.S. President Richard Nixon. These scholarly works,
while not always fully focused on just Star Wars
, have taken the forms of both journal articles
and chapters of scholarly volumes. With the earliest work having been released around the same
time that Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
premiered in 1980, one of the most common trends
of these works was for them to analyze how these movies helped the American public deal with
2
controversial events like Vietnam and Watergate. Another common trend, however, also
appeared by the mid-1980s in which scholars analyze how these movies actually gave American
audiences an alternate and more uplifting portrayal of the Vietnam War. The third and perhaps
most relevant trend goes a step further by arguing how these movies actually presented American
audiences with certain themes and concepts that have often been seen throughout history. To put
it more simply, regardless of any potential shortcomings, past academic scholars have focused on
the supposed helpful intentions, delusional projections, and historical themes of the Star Wars
film series to understand the exact effect that both the Vietnam War and U.S. President Richard
Nixon had on them.
For the first trend for scholarly works that have tried to explain how the Star Wars
movies were potentially connected to both Vietnam and Nixon, one example, a 1980 journal
article by Carolyn Sumner, expressed how she believed that the first Star Wars
movie allowed
her and others to escape into a more uplifting reality because, most likely due to depressing
events like the Vietnam War and Watergate, “it was the season of death here in this galaxy when
I first walked into that other one.”
1
A similar 2005 article by Lincoln Geraghty of the University
of Portsmouth also explored how Star Wars
was able to become extremely popular because, due
to events of the 1970s: “America was in definite need of a cultural tonic that would inspire
people and speak to their concerns…”.
2
Another journal article from 1997 by Andrew Lewis
Conn argued that the original Star Wars
trilogy also helped Americans deal with certain issues
brought up by aforementioned events by sneaking them, “into a flagrantly entertaining popular
framework and sold them to a huge popular audience of children (much like the medicine pill
1
Carolyn Sumner, “A Meditation on Star Wars
,” Southwest Review
65, no. 3 (Summer 1980): 304,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43471310.
2
Lincoln Geraghty, “Creating and Comparing Myth in Twentieth-Century Science Fiction: "Star Trek
" and "Star
Wars
",” Literature/Film Quarterly
33, no. 3 (2005): 197, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43797228.
3
served on a heaping spoonful of apple sauce)...”
3
In summary, these articles argue that the Star
Wars
movies supposedly helped the American public deal with the heavy issues from when they
were created and released.
Other scholars have taken a step further by arguing that they additionally help people by
presenting an alternate portrayal of the Vietnam War. For instance, a chapter from the 1986 book
American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam
by John Hellmann argued that the original three films
were actually about, “the traumatic passage of the American self-concept through the
self-discovery of the Vietnam horror, and its potential power is to energize Americans to move
forward from that experience with a modified conception of their ideal character and destiny.”
4
This literacy provides this alternate portrayal of the Vietnam War when it explained how the
scene from Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
in which Luke Skywalker recklessly leaves his
Jedi training with Yoda to try to rescue his friends, “duplicates the essence of the American error
in Vietnam of making a momentous decision on the basis simply of right intention and past
luck.”
5
A chapter in a 1999 book entitled The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance
by Stephen
Paul Miller additionally focused on how, not including the fact that the theft of the Death Star
plans in the first movie calls to mind Watergate, “Star Wars
concerns a fantastic ideological
alternative to Vietnam.”
6
In other words, these book chapters highlight how certain academic
scholars have shown how the Star Wars
movies delighted American audiences with a more
pleasurable portrayal of Vietnam.
Other scholars have argued that the Star Wars
movies subtly expressed concepts of
underdogs and injustice from certain events of the 1970s. For example, a 1980 journal article by
3
Andrew Lewis Conn, “Star Wars
: always,” Film Comment
33, no. 3 (May-June 1997): 7,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43455275.
4
John Hellmann, American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 212.
5
John Hellmann, American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam
, 216.
6
Stephen Paul Miller, The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance
(New York: Duke University Press, 1999), 99.
4
James M. Curtis of the University of Missouri expressed how he believed, “that the subliminal
associations with Watergate had a good deal to do with the widespread, intense reaction to Star
Wars
.”
7
A chapter of a 2007 book entitled American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and
Variations
additionally explained how the first Star Wars
movie mixed various film genres, “to
present a parable of the American myth of origins, in which a rebel army successfully fights
against a vast Empire (overlooking, of course, that by this time America was the empire).”
8
A
similar 2011 journal article by Carl Rubino of Hamilton College also argues that the struggle
between the Rebel Alliance and evil Empire in the first three films, “recalls the opposition
between the Roman republic and empire that animated the founders of the United States.”
9
A
chapter of a 2015 book entitled Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction,
History, and Media
additionally made the bold statement that, “Star Wars
is a parable about the
Vietnam War, in which the Rebellion plays the part of the North Vietnamese, and the Empire
takes the role of the United States.”
10
To put it simply, these works highlight how certain
scholars have argued that the Star Wars
movies were subtly expressing ideas from various
historical events.
Despite the extensive scholarly literature, none of these scholarly works actually make
direct connections between the Star Wars
character Darth Sidious and U.S. President Richard
Nixon. There was, however, a 1983 book entitled Skywalking: The Life and Films of George
Lucas
by Dale Pollock that describes Sidious as always having been meant to be, “an elected
7
James M. Curtis, “From American Graffiti to Star Wars
,” The Journal of Popular Culture
13, no. 4 (Spring 1980):
600, https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.calpoly.edu/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1980.1304_590.x.
8
Paula J. Massood, “1977: Movies and a Nation in Transformation,” in American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and
Variations
, ed. Lester D. Friedman (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 187.
9
Carl Rubino, “Long Ago, But Not So Far Away: Another Look at "Star Wars
" and the Ancient World,” The
Classical Outlook
89, no. 1 (Fall 2011): 2, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43940227.
10
Abigail De Kosnik, “The Mask of Fu Manchu
, Son of Sinbad
, and Star Wars IV: A New Hope
: Techno-Orientalist
Cinema as a Mnemotechnics of Twentieth-Century U.S.-Asian Conflicts,” in Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia
in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
, ed. David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta A. Niu (New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 2015), 98.
5
official who is corrupted by power and subverts the democratic process-Lucas modeled him after
Richard Nixon.”
11
Besides the common lack of connections drawn between Nixon and Sidious,
scholars have failed to examine how certain scenes throughout these movies actually represent
specific aspects of both Vietnam and Nixon with the mere exception being Hellman’s
aforementioned Episode V
scene breakdown. Regardless of all these lacking areas, the examining
of Star Wars
’ reflection of history approach that has been used by James M. Curtis and Carl
Rubino is perhaps the best one to help explain how these movies may actually be connected to
the Vietnam War and Nixon. In summary, the fact that comparisons have hardly been made
between either Richard Nixon and Darth Sidious or select scenes and select historical subjects
demonstrates the need for a proper Rubino-inspired scholarly study.
There additionally has been other scholarly works that do not actually talk about Star
Wars
that can contribute to this study. For example, according to the twenty-eighth chapter of an
online textbook known as The American Yawp
, the United States was in a big uproar by the 1968
election because many Americans were angry and fearful at the fact that more and more
American troops were fighting in Vietnam. Additionally presidential candidate Richard Nixon,
similar to how Darth Sidious used people’s fear of both the Clone Wars and Jedi in Episode III
Revenge of the Sith
to assume absolute power, “played on these fears, running on a platform of
“law and order” and a vague plan to end the war.”
12
A similar 2014 book entitled Richard Nixon
and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
by David F. Schmitz argued that Nixon
believed that, similar to how Sidious claimed that he did not want the Galactic Republic to be
split in two in Episode II Attack of the Clones
, “Vietnam was indistinguishable from the rest of
11
Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1984), 158-159.
12
“The Unraveling,” in The American Yawp
(Redwood City: Stanford University Press),
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/28-the-unraveling/.
6
Asia and was significant due to the potential consequences of its loss to communism.”
13
Another
book from 2007 entitled Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
by Conrad Black can also further
connect this U.S. President with dark side villain Sidious by claiming that, similar to how Yoda
claimed that fear led to both the dark side and suffering in Episode I The Phantom Menace
, “a
piercing fear, a terror, that he was aspiring to too much, was already perceptible in Nixon as a
boy, and it became more disruptive to his equanimity as he aged…”
14
These three scholarly
works can help to further demonstrate how the Star Wars
movies are actually influenced by both
the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon.
Since the first Star Wars
movie was released in theaters in 1977, there has been a limited
amount of scholarly work done on what exact kind of influence both the Vietnam War and U.S.
President Richard Nixon had on the Star Wars
film series. One of the most common and earliest
trends in these scholarly works was that they examined how these movies tried to help out
American audiences in the 1970s. Another equally common trend was the approach first adopted
by academic scholars by the mid-1980s which explores how these movies actually presented
people with, “a fantastic ideological alternative to Vietnam.”
15
While the third and final trend of
directly comparing these movies with certain historical events might be the best approach for a
proper scholarly study, both it and the other two trends have failed to focus on the character
Darth Sidious or how Star Wars
creator George, “Lucas modeled him after Richard Nixon.”
16
Therefore, to continue this project, it is only logical that one uses both the aforementioned third
trend as highlighted by academic scholars such as Curtis and Rubino in addition to other
non-Star Wars
focused scholarly works on both Vietnam and Nixon.
13
David F. Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
(Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2014), 1.
14
Conrad Black, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2007), 13.
15
Miller, The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance
, 99.
16
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 159.
7
Background: Lucas
Before exploring how the Star Wars
movies represent history, it is helpful to first explore
how a young George Lucas openly expressed his displeasure with the ongoing war in Vietnam
during his college years at the University of Southern California (USC) in the 1960s. For
example, Lucas’s USC roommate Randal Kleiser recalled in the 1983 book Skywalking: The Life
and Films of George Lucas
by Dale Pollock, “that Lucas disliked USC students who felt it was
necessary to die for one’s country to defend democracy.”
17
Anti-war notions would later appear
to inspire the very similar ideals of famous Star Wars
character Yoda. USC instructor Mel Sloan
additionally argued that Lucas and his other students were greatly affected by Vietnam. He
specifically claimed in Pollock’s book that, “they had to grow up in a different way than other
students had before, because this was the first time we were involved in an unpopular war. I
think it influenced the kinds of films that they did and the seriousness with which they
approached what they were doing.”
18
After graduating from the University of Southern California on August 6, 1966, with a
bachelor of arts degree in Cinema, George Lucas’ plans for the future were thrown a curveball
due to the continued fighting in Vietnam. For starters, he was rejected when he tried to become
an officer in the United States Air Force’s photography unit due to his past racing experience.
He, however, later reflected how he, “wasn’t really that enthusiastic about going in the first
place… I was just doing it out of desperation.”
19
Lucas’s experience is similar to how a young
Han Solo in the 2018 movie Solo: A Star Wars Story
only joined the Imperial Navy to get off of
his home planet of Corellia and claim that he, “got kicked out of the Imperial Academy for
17
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 61.
18
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 61.
19
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 64.
8
having a mind of my own.”
20
Even when Lucas was eventually drafted, he was able to get out of
fighting in Vietnam due to having diabetes. He was truly glad about this since he did not like the
idea of government officials, “lining us up for the butcher block.”
21
This line of thinking
strangely seems to connect to how, like the millions of Americans who were drafted during the
Vietnam War, the genetically engineered clones troopers of the Star Wars
prequels were forced
to fight in a war to only later start to ask themselves things like, “where is the honor in marching
blindly to our deaths?”
22
In summary, the Vietnam War nearly engulfed a young George Lucas in
two different ways to only later appear to influence future forms of Star Wars
media.
Even though he escaped the draft and entered the filmmaking business, George Lucas
would continue to have an urge to comment on the Vietnam War through film. For instance, this
is why Lucas originally insisted that the final image in his 1973 film American Graffiti
, “be a
title card detailing the fate of the characters, including the death of Milner and the disappearance
of Toad in Vietnam.”
23
The other two screenwriters of this movie argued with him over this since
they felt that this ending would be too depressing. Even though he really started to desire to
make a movie on Vietnam after American Graffiti
’s release, according to collaborator Walter
Murch in 2010, “it was still too hot a topic, the war was still going on, and nobody wanted to
finance something like that. So George . . . decided, ‘I’ll put the essence of the story in outer
space and make it happen in a galaxy long ago and far away.’”
24
This desire to indirectly address
Vietnam in what ultimately became Star Wars
can be seen in a deleted scene in which the film’s
protagonist Luke Skywalker is talking with his childhood friend Biggs Darklighter on the planet
Tatooine. To explain why he decided to seek out the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Biggs told
20
Solo: A Star Wars Story
, directed by Ron Howard (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018).
21
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 64.
22
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 4, episode 9, directed by Kyle Dunlevy, aired November 11, 2011, on
Cartoon Network.
23
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 115.
24
Kosnik, “The Mask of Fu Manchu
,” 98.
9
Luke that he would not, “wait around for the Empire to draft me into service. The Rebellion is
spreading, and I wanna be on the side I believe in.”
25
Considering both this indirect commentary
on the U.S. draft during the Vietnam War and the aforementioned proposed ending for American
Graffiti
, it appears that George Lucas was very determined on commenting on the Vietnam War
through film.
With this desire to make a very anti-Vietnam War film, it was not until after the
successful release of American Graffiti
in 1973 that Lucas really started to nourish the notice of
what essentially became Star Wars
. By the fall of 1973, he had a rough idea of what Star Wars
would be since he described it in a newspaper article as being, “a big space opera-opera as in
horse opera. It’s a combination of ‘2001,’ the Bond films and ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’”
26
Due to
the untraditional and weird nature of Star Wars
, both Lucas and his idea for this film were
initially rejected by both Universal Pictures and United Artists. According to the 1992 book
George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
by Charles Champlin, however, “Alan Ladd, Jr., then a
development executive at Twentieth Century-Fox, had seen a screening of Graffiti
and was
convinced it would be a huge hit. He gave Lucas $15,000 to develop a Star Wars
script.”
27
Ladd
would further elaborate after Star Wars
’ release that it was Lucas’s integrity that ultimately
convinced him and others, “to commit $8.5 million to a picture without a presold book, without
stars, a picture that had nothing conventional about it, that would probably be one of the most
unconventional pictures ever made. But I believed in Lucas.”
28
Having earned Ladd’s faith and
financial support, Lucas would ultimately turn in the script for what became Star Wars: Episode
IV A New Hope
in, “the fall of 1974, a year and a half after he’d started work. Preproduction on
25
Andy Snowslayer
, “Star Wars EpIV - Deleted Biggs and Luke Scenes,” June 28, 2018, video, 3:35,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaS_0oVJvio, accessed March 16, 2021.
26
Wayne Warga, "'Graffiti's' Lucas Sees Handwriting on Studio Wall: 'Graffiti's' George Lucas Sees Handwriting on
the Studio Wall,” Los Angeles Times
, August 12, 1973, ProQuest.
27
Charles Champlin, George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992), 42.
28
Aljean Harmetz, "...And It Almost Didn't Get to the Screen,” New York Times
, May 26, 1977, ProQuest.
10
Star Wars
began in the spring of 1975.”
29
In other words, George Lucas was finally given his
chance to address the Vietnam War through film by impressing Alan Ladd Jr. with his 1973 film
American Graffiti
.
Even though he was able to sell Star Wars
to 20th Century Fox, Lucas always had
another film in the back of his mind that more directly dealt with the Vietnam War. Specifically
since his time at USC, according to Dale Pollock, “Lucas had wanted to make a movie about the
bizarre media circus the Vietnam War had become. John Milius had also worked on the idea at
USC, going so far as to interview returning veterans who told him fantastic and colorful
stories.”
30
This similar interest between Lucas and Milius would eventually result in what
became the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now
. Like in Star Wars
, Pollock additionally argued that
Lucas originally saw Apocalypse Now
, “as an updated Dr. Strangelove
, a case of trying to kill an
ant with a sledgehammer, only to discover that the ant is winning.”
31
Unfortunately, due to
having already agreed to make Star Wars
for 20th Century Fox and feeling the pressure that this
film needed to be made, Lucas reluctantly gave his friend and mentor Francis Ford Coppola the
honor of bringing Apocalypse Now
to the big screen. At the time, he felt upset about this chain of
events since, “it was my
picture, and I didn’t have any control over the situation…”.
32
Coppola,
however, did seem to keep in mind some of Lucas’ anti-war intentions since it would later be
argued in the 1999 book The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance
by Stephen Paul Miller that
this film, “can be seen as an analogue of the unassimilated political results of the Vietnam War
and the wayward governmental decision-making processes implicit within the crimes and
misjudgments of the Watergate affair…”
33
29
Champlin, George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
, 42.
30
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 140.
31
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 140.
32
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 142.
33
Miller, The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance
, 104.
11
While he was never actually able to make Apocalypse Now
himself, there are several
ways that this 1979 film has honored and influenced George Lucas’ legacy. For example, Han
Solo actor Harrison Ford briefly played an intelligence officer in only one scene in this movie.
Besides featuring one of the main cast members of Star Wars
, this appearance is significant
since, “as the Ford character removes his glasses, Coppola zooms in for a closeup of Ford’s
green army shirt. The name tag clearly reads, “Col. G. Lucas.””
34
Many years later, this film’s
famous "Ride of the Valkyries" scene involving helicopters would also inspire a specific scene in
the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awaken
s. Concept artist Doug Chiang
explained that the film’s scene featuring sun silhouetted TIE fighters was basically the crew’s,
“riff on 'Apocalypse Now.' Some of those moments are so powerful that all we have to do is put
in something different like TIE fighters, and it totally works.”
35
Apocalypse Now
would
additionally inspire a quick little scene in a 2019 episode of The Mandalorian
television series in
which the main character, Din Djarin, walked past a bunch of dirty Imperial stormtrooper
helmets on pikes. In the premiere episode of the documentary series Disney Gallery: The
Mandalorian
, executive producer Jon Favreau revealed that the helmets were meant to be, “like
Apocalypse Now
. It adds a little menace. It also gives some backstory.”
36
Considering all of George Lucas’ early anti-Vietnam sentiment during and after college,
they ultimately resulted in the 1977 release of the unconventional and successful film Star Wars:
Episode IV A New Hope
. Even though many people at 20th Century Fox did not seem to
understand Lucas’ vision, it quickly became one of the highest-grossing films of all time and was
called by one critic as being, “the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial
34
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 142.
35
Kirsten Acuna, “One brief scene in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is based on a shot from ‘Apocalypse Now',”
Business Insider
, December 29, 2015,
https://www.businessinsider.com/star-wars-force-awakens-apocalypse-now-influence-2015-12.
36
Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian
, season 1, episode 1, directed by Bradford Baruh, aired May 4, 2020, on
Disney+.
12
ever made.”
37
As explained in greater detail below, Lucas’s intention of criticizing the Vietnam
War through Star Wars
appears to have been largely missed by the people who first watched it in
1977. This point was made perfectly clear after the release of the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode
III Revenge of the Sith
when one critic wrote how Lucas has been for decades, “blamed
(unjustly) for helping to lead American movies away from their early-70's engagement with
political matters, and he deserves credit for trying to bring them back.”
38
Also in 2005, however,
Lucas explained in an interview that his 1977 film, “was really about the Vietnam War, and that
was the period where Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term, which got me to thinking
historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies
aren't overthrown; they're given away.”
39
Since this interview, other forms of Star Wars
media
have been created that appear to further stress Lucas’ anti-Vietnam views. For example, the
famous Star Wars
character Leia Organa was made to ponder in the 2016 novel Aftermath: Life
Debt
by Chuck Wendig, “how do you form an Empire? By stealing a Republic. And how do you
steal a Republic? By convincing its people that they cannot govern themselves-that freedom is
their enemy and that fear is their ally.”
40
In other words, even though the original release of Star
Wars
was very successful, it was not until a few decades later that the true intention behind it
really started to come into focus.
While his 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
may be more subtle in
criticizing Vietnam, George Lucas tried to be more direct with the 1979 sequel of his successful
1973 film American Graffiti
. While neither the actual director or writer for this film, according to
37
Vincent Canby, "'Star Wars' A Trip to a Far Galaxy That's Fun and Funny.,” New York Times
, May 26, 1977,
ProQuest.
38
A. O. Scott, "Some Surprises in That Galaxy Far, Far Away,” New York Times
, May 16, 2005, ProQuest.
39
Mark Caro, “`Star Wars' inadvertently hits too close to U.S.'s role,” Chicago Tribune
, May 18, 2005,
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-05-18-0505180309-story.html#:~:text=Bush's%20presidency%
20is%20triggering,Empire%20ruled%20by%20him%20alone.
40
Chuck Wendig, Aftermath: Life Debt
(New York: Del Rey, 2017), 219.
13
the aforementioned book by Dale Pollock, Lucas still, “wanted to film second-unit Vietnam
action scenes, using a long camera lens for the rough-and-ready look of combat footage, thereby
providing the film’s most dramatic moments. The Vietnam scenes became Lucas’s own little
Apocalypse Now
…”
41
Since Lucas was technically just the producer on a film that would
eventually be called More American Graffiti
, his actions would ultimately result in Lucas butting
heads with actual director Bill Norton. Unfortunately for both Lucas and Norton, the film
inevitably became a commercial failure due to, “the incongruity of the creator of Star Wars
producing a movie about drugs, death, war, and promiscuous sex. Maybe audiences weren’t
ready to laugh at LSD and the Vietnam War and the liberation of housewives.”
42
It is interesting
to consider how the direct anti-Vietnam message of More American Graffiti
was not well
received in 1979 while the more indirect one of Star Wars
made it extremely popular. It was best
put in 1997 by Andrew Lewis Conn that Star Wars
was able to basically sneak these,
“complexities into a flagrantly entertaining popular framework and sold them to a huge popular
audience of children (much like the medicine pill served on a heaping spoonful of apple
sauce)...”
43
The Original Trilogy
Now that the story behind the creation of Star Wars
has been explored, it is now time to
explore just how wrong initial reactions about the original trilogy were in terms of its
then-relevant connections to Vietnam. For example, a 1977 newspaper review of Episode IV A
New Hope
described it as being, “the first science-fiction film since, “Flash Gordon Conquers the
Universe,” a 12-episode 1940 serial, that makes absolutely no meaningful comment on such
contemporary concerns as nuclear war, overpopulation, environmental pollution,
41
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 222-223.
42
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 224.
43
Conn, “Star Wars
: always,” 7.
14
depersonalization, and sex.”
44
The then relevant connections to Vietnam were additionally
overlooked by 20th Century Fox’s international distribution business affairs director Mark W.
Pevers who felt that, “this film deals with the relationships between the humans and the robots
and is strictly a good guy-vs.-bad guy film.”
45
The hidden meaning behind this epic movie
additionally was missed by many of the people who worked on it. Han Solo actor Harrison Ford
admitted in a 1977 New York Times
article that he, “didn’t really know what we were doing, but
the characters are clear.”
46
It is, however, interesting to note how Princess Leia Organa actress
Carrie Fisher once challenged that this film had, “to be set in another time and place because we
can find no heroes in our own.”
47
It is now time to examine who exactly did each side of the galactic conflict in Episode IV
A New Hope
and its first two sequels represent in the real-life scenario of the Vietnam War. For
starters, in the case of the heroic Rebel Alliance, George Lucas admitted during a 2018 interview
with James Cameron that, when he first began to dream up Star Wars
, these fictional rebels,
“were “Viet Cong.””
48
As explained in the 2015 book Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in
Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
, the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese were highly
undersupplied and funded during the Vietnam War but still, “triumphed over the United States
by relentlessly using guerrilla and low-tech tactics that harassed, surprised, subverted, and
demoralized the Americans sufficiently to make them withdraw their troops after a ten-year
engagement.”
49
This underdog sense of the North Vietnamese can easily be seen in the Rebel
44
Vincent Canby, "Film View: Not Since 'Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe'... Film View The Robot Stars Of
'Star Wars',” New York Times
, June 5, 1977, ProQuest.
45
Cecil Scaglione, "‘Star Wars ’ Is Phenomenon,” Desert Sun
, November 22, 1977, California Digital Newspaper
Collection.
46
Robin Brantley, "New Face: Harrison Ford: A Star Warrior,” New York Times
, July 1, 1977, ProQuest.
47
Anna Quindlen, "Carrie Didn't Get 'Carrie' But 'Star Wars' Makes Up for It,” New York Times
, July 13, 1977,
ProQuest.
48
amc
, “George Lucas on Star Wars Being Anti-Authoritarian | James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction,” April
25, 2018, video, 1:12, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv9Jq_mCJEo, accessed March 16, 2021.
49
Kosnik, “The Mask of Fu Manchu
,” 98.
15
Alliance since they, according to Rebel Princess Leia Organa in the 2015 novel Smuggler's Run:
A Han Solo & Chewbacca Adventure
by Greg Rucka, “don’t have resources… And what we do
have is never enough.”
50
Despite often lacking sufficient supplies or even great odds of winning,
the Rebel Alliance continued to fight because, as explained by rebels Cassian Jeron Andor and
Jyn Erso in the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
, “rebellions are built on hope.”
51
This
sense of unyielding hope was definitely present in the troops of the North Vietnamese since they
felt that, according to General Vo Nguyen Giap, “it was a myth that we could not fight and win
[against American combat forces] because they were so powerful.”
52
This idea of underdog forces going up and ultimately defeating superior enemies is a
common theme that continues to be seen in Star Wars
media to this very day since the 1977
release of Episode IV A New Hope
. For example, in the 2008 pilot episode of the animated series
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, famous Jedi Master, Yoda, was able to rally three clone troopers
into using very little ammunition to defeat a battalion of numerous battle droids. He was able to
do this by explaining to one of them that, “weapons do not win battles. Your mind, powerful it is.
Hmm. Outthink the droids you can.”
53
Another group of highly disadvantaged fighters was the
brave Resistance who only had by the climax of the 2017 movie Episode VIII The Last Jedi
,
“rotting munitions, rusted artillery, some half-gutted skim speeders.”
54
Despite their dire
circumstances, the Resistance utilized both those ‘rusted artillery’ and ‘skim speeders’ against
the evil First Order long enough for them to be saved by both the Millennium Falcon
and a Force
projection of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.
50
Greg Rucka, Smuggler's Run: A Han Solo & Chewbacca Adventure
(Glendale: Disney–Lucasfilm Press, 2015),
27.
51
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
, directed by Gareth Edwards (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016).
52
Kosnik, “The Mask of Fu Manchu
,” 99.
53
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 1, episode 1, directed by Dave Bullock, aired October 3, 2008, on Cartoon
Network.
54
Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi
, directed by Rian Johnson (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2017).
16
If the North Vietnamese were actually the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars
’ original trilogy, it
would stand to reason that this makes the United States the evil Galactic Empire. While some
may think that an American trying to paint this country as being evil is unlikely, George Lucas
admitted during the aforementioned interview with James Cameron that he believed that the
U.S., “was the Empire during the Vietnam War.”
55
With this in mind, the Galactic Empire’s
military superiority over the Rebel Alliance was similar to how, according to the 2015 book
Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
, “the North
Vietnamese forces had only a small fraction of the armaments and funds of the American
military…”
56
Considering how in the movies, all of the Empire’s machinery such as star
destroyers are clean and huge while the Rebellion has to utilize dirty and rundown machinery
such as the Millennium Falcon
, it can be argued that Lucas was able to express his view on the
U.S. during Vietnam. This notion is made even clearer when considering how Lucas and others
had, according to a 1977 newspaper article, “total freedom to come up with their own
landscapes, housing, vehicles, weapons, religion, politics - all of which are variations on the
familiar.”
57
If this was not enough, this connection was further reinforced in a 2016 episode of
the animated series Star Wars Rebels
in which a character declines another character's offer to
join the Rebellion because he believed that the Empire had, “the strength to defeat you and the
resources to back it up.”
58
Beside similar physical and financial characteristics, there were additionally very similar
philosophies behind both the evil Galactic Empire and the United States during the Vietnam War
that further connect the two. For instance, to justify getting involved in Southeast Asia, the U.S.
55
amc
, “George Lucas on Star Wars Being Anti-Authoritarian | James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction,” April
25, 2018, video, 2:17, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv9Jq_mCJEo, accessed March 16, 2021.
56
Kosnik, “The Mask of Fu Manchu
,” 98.
57
Vincent Canby, "'Star Wars' A Trip to a Far Galaxy That's Fun and Funny.,” New York Times
, May 26, 1977,
ProQuest.
58
Star Wars Rebels
, season 2, episode 13, directed by Brad Rau, aired January 27, 2016, on Disney XD.
17
National Security Council declared in 1952 that they hoped to prevent the countries there, “from
passing into the communist orbit, and to assist them to develop will and ability to resist
communism from within and without and to contribute to the strengthening of the free world.”
59
Similarly, Imperial Lieutenant Bolandin explained in the 2018 movie Solo: A Star Wars Story
that the Empire’s objective was to, “bring peace and prosperity to the galaxy, install a regime
loyal to the Emperor, and eradicate the hostiles.”
60
While still speaking about Southeast Asia, the
National Security Council additionally declared in 1952 that the U.S. should firstly, “strengthen
propaganda and cultural activities, as appropriate, in relation to the area to foster increased
alignment of the people with the free world.”
61
This notion of the importance of propaganda is
also present within the Empire since Imperial officer Ferric Obdur expressed in the 2016 novel
Aftermath: Life Debt
by Chuck Wendig that the goal of their propaganda was, “to infer the
connection between the rebels and criminal organizations. But we need to do more
than infer.
We need that connection to be clear, concise: a hard slap to the face. Dose of reality.”
62
Since the evil Galactic Empire represented the U.S. during the Vietnam War, who exactly
does that make its leader, Darth Sidious? Even though he looks nothing like the infamous
president, George Lucas explained in a 1981 Episode VI
story conference that Sidious, “was a
politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and
became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He
sucked Luke’s father into the dark side.”
63
While this connection was not made very clear for
audiences at first, he made sure that the people both behind and in front of the camera knew this
59
Neil Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, E.W. Kenworthy, and Fox Butterfield, The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of
the Vietnam War
(New York: Racehorse Publishing, 2017), 28.
60
Solo: A Star Wars Story
, directed by Ron Howard (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018).
61
Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War
, 29.
62
Wendig, Aftermath: Life Debt
, 39.
63
Mike Ryan, “‘Star Wars’ Prequels Were Mapped Out By George Lucas & Lawrence Kasdan In 1981: Exclusive
Excerpt From ‘The Making Of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’,” HuffPost
, May 22, 2013,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/star-wars-prequels-return-of-the-jedi_n_3313793.
18
presidential connection during the filming of Episode VI
. For instance, Sidious actor Ian
McDiarmid revealed in a 2005 interview that he remembered, “when I sat there in the Evil
Emperor's swivel chair and George [Lucas] said things like 'does it remind you of the Oval
office?' And I realised that at that time Richard Nixon was in his mind.”
64
Even though Nixon was arguably not as evil as Sidious, Schmitz argued in his 2014 book
Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
that:
From the time he was in Congress urging President Harry S. Truman to support France,
through his 1953-1961 tenure as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president and then his
years outside elected office as a critic of Presidents John F. Kennedy’s and Lyndon B.
Johnson’s policies, until his candidacy for president in 1968, Nixon advocated an ever
larger American commitment to Southeast Asia and role in the fighting in Vietnam.
65
Considering that Nixon had such a powerful influence over American policy, it is really not that
big of a stretch to compare him to a fictional leader who also greatly helped to shape another
huge conflict. From playing both sides of the Clone Wars to finding a way to return from the
dead, Sidious’ role as the main villain of Star Wars
is best summarized when the Resistance pilot
Poe Dameron claimed in Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker
that he had, “been out there all this
time. Pulling the strings.”
66
An old Leia Organa quickly follows this up with, “always. In the
shadows. From the very beginning.”
67
Similar to how Nixon had long affected how the United
States chose to challenge communism in Vietnam, Sidious basically manipulated how both
intergalactic politics and conflicts played out for over sixty years in a galaxy far, far away. In
64
Lindesay Irvine, “In the shadow of Evil,” The Guardian
, November 7, 2005,
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/nov/07/theatre1.
65
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 1.
66
Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker
, directed by J. J. Abrams (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
2019).
67
Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker
, directed by J. J. Abrams (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
2019).
19
short order, the three preceding quotes help to illustrate how remarkably similar the evil Darth
Sidious and questionable Richard Nixon truly are based on each of their actions.
Beside the rebels’ and Empire’s connections to Vietnam, there is another important
aspect of the original trilogy that helped to further stress Lucas’s anti-Vietnam sentiment. To be
more specific, it can easily be argued that the appearance of the ancient Jedi Master Yoda in
Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
is an indirect way to challenge the whole point of the war.
Unfortunately, at the time, certain critics in 1980 felt that Yoda could only be taken, “in small
doses, possibly because the lines of wisdom he must speak sound as if they should be sung to a
tune by Jimmy Van Heusen.”
68
They even continued to criticize Yoda and his philosophical
messages even though Irvin Kershner, director of Episode V
, claimed that he wanted the movie
to have, “some Zen...because I don’t want the kids to walk away just feeling that everything is
shoot ‘em up…”
69
Since these film critics ignored the intention of Yoda and judged him harshly
based on his appearance and manner of speaking, they inadvertently made the same mistake as
Luke Skywalker in seriously misinterpreting the true importance of this Jedi Master.
While some may have viewed Yoda as being a complete oddball at first, one should
better see his true antiwar nature by examining his words and actions in 1980’s Episode V
. For
example, after learning that Luke thinks that Yoda is ‘a great warrior,’ the old Jedi master
responds by saying, “Ah! A great warrior. Ha ha ha! Wars not make one great.”
70
Yoda is
actually trying to teach both Luke and the audience at this moment that there is truly no glory to
be gained by taking part in any war. Later in the movie, Yoda would further his pacifist
philosophy when he pointed out to Luke, as he was entering the Cave of Evil on Dagobah, “your
68
Vincent Canby, "Film View: 'The Empire Strikes Back' Strikes a Bland Note Film View A Bland 'Empire',” New
York Times
, June 15, 1980, ProQuest.
69
Michael Wood, "The True Story of 'Star Wars': The Myths Strike Back,” Los Angeles Times
, August 17, 1980,
ProQuest.
70
Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
, directed by Irvin Kershner (20th Century Fox, 1980).
20
weapons...you will not need them.”
71
Instead of heeding his advice, Luke, like many American
politicians who were so fearful of communism gaining a foothold in Southeast Asia, would
ultimately decide to face the unknown with violence and risk becoming even worse than what
he’d feared.
Since the release of Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
in 1980, Yoda has gone on to
appear and spread his antiwar message in eight other Star Wars
movies and four animated
television series. For instance, after fellow Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi claimed that they had achieved
victory by the end of the 2002 film Episode II Attack of the Clones
, Yoda mournfully responded
with, “Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has
fallen. Begun the Clone War has.”
72
Speaking of the Clone Wars, in the aforementioned pilot
episode of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, Yoda tells a clone trooper named
Thire to, “rush not into fights. Long is the war. Only by surviving it will you prevail.”
73
Despite
being both strong in the Force and skilled in lightsaber combat as seen in Episode II
and Episode
III Revenge of the Sith,
these quotes show that George Lucas still wanted antiwar messages in
Star Wars
media that chronologically takes place years before Episode V
. It is also intriguing to
note how the latter one seems to connect to how Lucas’s USC roommate Randal Kleiser recalled,
“that Lucas disliked USC students who felt it was necessary to die for one’s country to defend
democracy.”
74
To put it simply, the character of Yoda was always meant to be a personalization
of Lucas’s antiwar sentiment as seen in the characters’ lines and actions since his 1980 debut.
Three years after Yoda’s debut in Episode V
, the third and final film in Star Wars
’
original trilogy, Episode VI Return of the Jedi
, is released in theaters and introduces another
71
Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
, directed by Irvin Kershner (20th Century Fox, 1980).
72
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 2002).
73
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 1, episode 1, directed by Dave Bullock, aired October 3, 2008, on Cartoon
Network.
74
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 61.
21
group of characters called the Ewoks who were also wrongly judged by critics. For example, one
critic challenged the intention behind the Ewoks, based on their cute teddy bear-like appearance,
and other creatures in the movie by arguing that they were, “probably already in your corner toy
store and will make a mint in subsidiary rights for Lucasfilm Ltd., the “Star Wars” parent
company.”
75
Another critic, however, challenged the purpose of the Ewoks’ inclusion in Episode
VI
by commenting that, “the sight of the Ewoks, zipping around those huge, ancient trees on
what appear to be jet-propelled air-sleds, is marvelous but, like the rest of the movie, it doesn’t
lead anywhere.”
76
These critics failed to even consider how they may be another critical way that
the Star Wars
movies parallel the Vietnam War. This issue is also present ‘in a galaxy far, far
away’ since the forces of the Empire underestimated the Ewoks by pondering, through an
Imperial stormtrooper in a 2017 episode of the animated series Star Wars: Forces of Destiny
,
“can you believe it? These things are everywhere. Primitives. I’m surprised the Empire didn’t
deal with them when we arrived.”
77
The North Vietnamese were very much like the Ewoks during Vietnam since they also
achieved victory over a more advanced military power, according to the 2015 book
Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
, “by relentlessly
using guerrilla and low-tech tactics that harassed, surprised, subverted, demoralized the
Americans sufficiently to make them withdraw their troops after a ten-year engagement.”
78
This
connection becomes even stronger when one considers how Episode VI
screenwriter Lawrence
Kasdan recalled in the 1992 book George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
that, “you can look at
Jedi
and see the Vietnam War there. You can see the Ewok guerillas hiding in the jungles, taking
75
Vincent Canby, "Film: Lucas Returns With 'The Jedi',” New York Times
, May 25, 1983, ProQuest.
76
Vincent Canby, "The Force Is With Them, But the Magic Is Gone: Film View Film View Where's the Magic?,”
New York Times
, May 29, 1983, ProQuest.
77
Disney
, “Star Wars Forces of Destiny | Ewok Escape | Disney,” July 5, 2017, video, 1:05,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL6OPMp4IUY, accessed March 16, 2021.
78
Kosnik, “The Mask of Fu Manchu
,” 98.
22
on this improper force of mechanized bullies-and winning.”
79
The Ewoks were basically able to
achieve the same thing that the North Vietnamese achieved in 1973 by utilizing rocks, ropes, and
pieces of wood to defeat an evil and more technologically advanced intergalactic Empire.
Beside the Ewoks, it can be argued that George Lucas and other filmmakers introduced
other underdog aliens in future Star Wars movies that were equally mighty and mocked initially
by critics. For example, the amphibious Gungan race first appeared in the 1999 movie Episode I
The Phantom Menace
in which one member of this species, Jar Jar Binks, was criticized by
supposedly being, “made noxious by his obsequious Caribbean-sounding patois.”
80
Having
additionally been called ‘pathetic lifeforms’ and ‘primitive’ by other characters in this film, both
Jar Jar and other Gungans certainly deserve some credit since they were able to distract the evil
Trade Federation’s army long enough in order for their allies to fix everything. Another group of
highly underestimated aliens are the porgs from the 2017 movie Episode VIII The Last Jedi
who
a critic described as being, “saucer-eyed mewing creatures with plump, puffinlike bodies that are
mainly on hand for easy laughs.”
81
Even though many scenes involving the porgs in this movie
are arguably very funny, it is the fact that a porg was able to spot where the last remaining
members of the Resistance were at the end while neither powerful Rey nor resourceful R2-D2
could not simply prove their worth. In other words, the inclusion of aliens like Gungans and
porgs in the later Star Wars
films helps to continue the Vietnam message that underdogs can be
victorious.
The Prequel Trilogy
79
Champlin, George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
, 96.
80
Janet Maslin, "In the Beginning, the Future: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace In the Beginning, the Future: 'Star
Wars' as a Swashbuckling Genesis Story,” New York Times
, May 19, 1999, ProQuest.
81
Manohla Dargis, "Old Friends, New Faces, Cute Critters: The latest 'Star Wars' finds peace elusive and the dark
side strong,” New York Times
, December 13, 2017, ProQuest.
23
Before exploring in what ways the prequel trilogy represented the conflict in Vietnam
before Richard Nixon came to office, it is now time to answer whether or not these films were
actually about Vietnam. This is a fair question to ask since, while George Lucas created the
original trilogy just as the Vietnam War was ending in the 1970s, the three prequel films were
released in a six-year period from 1999 to 2005. Perhaps the best proof for this connection is
when George Lucas expressed during the making of Episode III Revenge of the Sith
in 2004 that
Jedi Master Aayla Secura and a group of clone troopers should be walking in a certain scene like
one would in, “well, Vietnam…”
82
This connected association with Vietnam can also be seen in
the fact that he basically had the entire plot of Episode III
in 1981 during the aforementioned
Episode VI
story conference since he explained that Darth Sidious, “was a politician. Richard M.
Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy
and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the
dark side.”
83
The reason behind how he could have possibly planned out the prequels years
before their release is that, according to a 1995 interview with Leonard Maltin, the first script of
Episode IV
required him, “to write a backstory about where Darth Vader came from, uh, how the
kids evolved, you know his wife, how Ben related to all that, how the emperor came to power
and that ended up being the basis for the projects that I’m working on now.”
84
With a better understanding of both how the original trilogy represented the Vietnam War
during Nixon’s presidency and how the prequels are similarly connected, now would be a good
time to explore in what ways they represent the conflict in Vietnam before this era. For starters,
the origins of this war are very similar to the origins of the fictional conflict that began in
82
J. W. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
(New York: Del Rey, 2005), 168.
83
Mike Ryan, “‘Star Wars’ Prequels Were Mapped Out By George Lucas & Lawrence Kasdan In 1981: Exclusive
Excerpt From ‘The Making Of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’,” HuffPost
, May 22, 2013,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/star-wars-prequels-return-of-the-jedi_n_3313793.
84
Star Wars
, “Leonard Maltin Interviews George Lucas, Part 1,” February 5, 2014, video, 2:58,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb0c_9zc7Zg, accessed March 16, 2021.
24
Episode I
and ended in Episode IX
; they each involved a foreign entity trying to control
unwilling subjects. Having taken complete control of the Indochina area of Southeast Asia by
1893, France turned Vietnam into a colony, according to the 1965 book Our Vietnam Nightmare
by Marguerite Higgins, “not by virtue of superior civilization, but superior gunpower.”
85
In a
similar fashion, the evil Trade Federation took over the peaceful planet of Naboo in Episode I
since the planet’s security volunteers were, according to a character named Quarsh Panaka, “no
match against a battle-hardened Federation army.”
86
Additionally very similar to how the Trade
Federation made the people of Naboo starve and destroyed parts of the planet’s forests, the
aforementioned book by Higgins described that by the time that Vietnam’s French, “colonial
regime ended, sixty-three percent of the peasants in the North were landless, and in the South,
where land had been in far more plentiful supply, seventy-five percent of all peasants were
landless.”
87
Even though both France and the Trade Federation had taken control of very huge pieces
of foreign territories, their control each came undone when the people of these territories desired
to be independent. To be more specific, the Vietnamese desired to be free from French influence
after World War II and this worried many American politicians who feared that Vietnam would
fall under the influence of communism. Similar to how Darth Sidious disliked Naboo’s
resistance and desired to make the Trade Federation’s invasion there legal, then U.S. vice
president Richard Nixon started to advocate in 1953 for, “US involvement in Vietnam and
inserted himself into the debate about the French presence in Indochina.”
88
Unfortunately for
both Nixon and other politicians like him, according to the aforementioned book by Higgins, the
85
Marguerite Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare
(New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 12.
86
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 1999).
87
Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare
, 11.
88
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 3.
25
French ultimately became, “fed up with Vietnam and determined to negotiate their way out.”
89
The fact that France eventually lost interest in continuing to fight is similar to how the Jedi
Master Qui-Gon Jinn claimed that members of the Trade Federation were, “cowards. The
negotiations will be short.”
90
To put it simply, the main source of conflict at the beginning of
both the conflict in Vietnam and the Skywalker Saga are remarkably similar.
Beside the Trade Federation, the 1999 movie Episode I The Phantom Menace
additionally featured another important aspect of the origin of conflict in Vietnam in the form of
a leader of questionable competence. In Vietnam, the U.S. ultimately decided that a man named
Ngo Dinh Diem would be, “appointed premier of South Vietnam by Bao Dai on June 17,
1954.”
91
Since he was appointed with the intention of helping to carry out U.S. intentions in the
area, according to the 2016 book Vietnam: A New History
by Christopher Goscha, some
individuals such as Pulitzer Prize winner Frances FitzGerald, “wrote Ngo Dinh Diem off as an
American puppet, no more legitimate than the colonial emperor, Bao Dai, had been under the
French.”
92
This notion of a puppet ruler connects to the Star Wars
character Finis Valorum who
is both the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic in Episode I
and the person the heroes
sought out to help free Naboo from the Trade Federation. Unfortunately, Sidious challenged the
chancellor’s power in James Luceno’s 2014 novel Tarkin
by claiming that he did not win the last
election to become chancellor since, “he was merely allowed
to win. The Senate’s
special-interest groups require a chancellor who can be easily entangled in bureaucratic
double-talk and arcane procedure.”
93
89
Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare
, 10.
90
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 1999).
91
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 8.
92
Christopher Goscha, Vietnam: A New History
(New York: Basic Books, 2016), 312.
93
James Luceno, “Tarkin,” in The Rise of the Empire
(New York: Del Rey, 2015), 116-117.
26
Beside their perceived limitations of power by outsiders, Ngo Dinh Diem and Finis
Valorum also were connected through similar ways in which they lost their political power. For
Diem, the United States was starting to question the effectiveness of having him in charge of
South Vietnam by 1963 that a cablegram from the White House claimed that, “there should...be
urgent covert effort with closest security, under broad guidance of Ambassador to identify and
build contacts with possible alternative leadership as and when it appears.”
94
This is very similar
to how Padmé Amidala of Naboo brought about the end of Valorum’s political career by
claiming that, “if this body is not capable of action, I suggest new leadership is needed. I move
for a vote of no confidence...in Chancellor Valorum’s leadership.”
95
Fortunately for Valorum,
Amidala’s radical proposal did not lead to the violent end that Diem experienced on 2 November
1963 when, “with a green light from Kennedy, Vietnamese military and security officers
overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Nhu.”
96
Strangely enough, while Sidious encouraged
Amidala to oust Valorum for a ‘stronger chancellor’, Nixon actually tried to defend Diem by
arguing that, “the choice is not between President Diem and somebody better, it is between Diem
and somebody infinitely worse.”
97
Regardless of this, the ways in which both Ngo Dinh Diem
and Finis Valorum were ultimately betrayed by their political organizations further show how
remarkably similar these expendable leaders truly are.
While Valrum’s inability to do anything about the Trade Federation’s invasion of Naboo
was his undoing in Episode I The Phantom Menace
, the origins of the issues that ultimately
proved to be Diem’s undoing introduces sinister-sounding individuals to historians. To be more
specific, what really undermined Diem’s rule was when on May 8th, 1963, according to the
94
Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War
, 222.
95
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 1999).
96
Goscha, Vietnam: A New History
, 318.
97
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 11.
27
aforementioned book by Christopher Goscha, “a clash between government forces and Buddhist
demonstrators calling for religious equality resulted in the death of seven young Buddhists.”
98
This religious conflict eventually caused radical Buddhists to immolate themselves and their
actions bothered other Buddhists since they believed, according to the aforementioned book by
Higgins, “no true Buddhist would commit suicide. It is written in the verses of Buddha that
suicide is wrong.”
99
This religious conflict that ultimately resulted in the death of Diem is similar
to how the 2002 movie Episode II Attack of the Clones
started with an assassination attempt on
Padmé Amidala. She quickly made the assumption that the former Jedi Count Dooku was behind
it while the Jedi Ki-Adi-Mundi dismissed Dooku as being just a political idealist. Similar to how
the actions of the aforementioned Buddhist monks were treated with disbelief, another Jedi
named Mace Windu reminded Amidala that, “Count Dooku was once a Jedi. He couldn't
assassinate anyone. It’s not in his character.”
100
While the actions of the aforementioned group of self-immolating Buddhists were truly
very disturbing, they had a leader named Thich Tri Quang who is very much like the
aforementioned Star Wars
character Count Dooku. In her 1965 book Our Vietnam Nightmare
,
Marguerite Higgins reflected how she had a two-and-a-half-hour-long interview with Thich Tri
Quang in 1963 that left her feeling that, “he was, and is, a true demagogue. Hate emanates from
the man.”
101
Dooku actor Christopher Lee similarly revealed in J. W. Rinzler’s 2005 book The
Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
that, “not many people realize that dooku
is Japanese
for ‘poison’... Which is very appropriate, really, because he’s lethal.”
102
It is additionally
interesting how Higgins recorded that Thich Tri Quang felt betrayed by the United States since,
98
Goscha, Vietnam: A New History
, 317.
99
Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare
, 41.
100
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 2002).
101
Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare
, 30.
102
Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
, 112.
28
“President Kennedy spoke far too favorably of President Diem. . . . We had reason to believe that
President Kennedy was on our side.”
103
In a similar way, Count Dooku was completely caught
off guard in the 2005 movie Episode III Revenge of the Sith
when his Sith master, Darth Sideous,
allowed the Jedi Anakin Skywalker to behead Dooku right in front of him. As explained by
George Lucas, Sidious/Palpatine had told Dooku one plan to make Anakin evil when, “behind it,
obviously, is Palpatine’s real intention: If Anakin is good enough, Anakin can kill Dooku and
become Palpatine’s new apprentice. But he didn’t tell Dooku that.”
104
To put it simply, in terms
of their similar personalities and sense of betrayal, radical Buddhist Thich Tri Quang is
remarkably like the Star Wars
character Count Dooku.
While Thich Tri Quang may have been delighted at the death of Ngo Dinh Diem,
tensions in Vietnam would only continue to worsen in a way similar to how the actions of both
Count Dooku and his allies affected the Star Wars
universe. Things really came to a head when
on 2 August 1964, according to the 2007 book Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
by Conrad
Black, the U.S. intelligence-gathering, “destroyer USS Maddox
was attacked by three North
Vietnam torpedo boats; three torpedoes and some machine-gun fire were aimed at the
Maddox
…”
105
The reason why the Maddox
was attacked in an area called the Gulf of Tonkin is
explained in the aforementioned 2016 book by Christopher Goscha when he mentioned that the
U.S. by this time had, “increased their surveillance of the north by sending vessels into the Gulf
of Tonkin…”
106
In a similar fashion, while seeking the bounty hunter who had tried to kill Padmé
Amidala in the 2002 movie Episode II Attack of the Clones
, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was
able to tell his allies in the Galactic Republic that Count Dooku and his allies in the Confederacy
103
Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare
, 27.
104
Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
, 41.
105
Black, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
, 466.
106
Goscha, Vietnam: A New History
, 322.
29
of Independent Systems was secretly building a massive droid army on the planet Geonosis
before being captured. In response to these shocking revelations, it was declared by Sidious’
loyal Vice Chair, Mas Amedda, that, “this is a crisis. The senate must vote the chancellor
emergency powers. He can then approve the creation of an army.”
107
This is very similar to how
the attack on the USS Maddox
eventually led the U.S. government to draft the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution a few days later which declared that this country was, in terms of responding to North
Vietnam’s actions, “prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including
the use of armed force...”
108
There additionally was a memo by Assistant Secretary of State for
Far Eastern Affairs William P. Bundy from August 14th, 1964 that detailed how:
A solution in both South Viet-Nam and Laos will require a combination of military
pressures and some form of communication under which Hanoi (and Peiping) eventually
accept the idea of getting out. Negotiation without continued pressure, indeed without
continued military action will not achieve our objectives in the foreseeable future.
109
Like how Count Dooku’s actions led to his secret master’s gaining the power to create an army,
the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964 additionally led to the U.S.’s determination to commit
American troops to war in Vietnam.
While not exactly the same, the ways that both the Galactic Republic and American
government decided to quickly create legions of troops additionally share some characteristics.
For example, according to the aforementioned 2007 novel by Conrad Black, then U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson decided, “to intensify the war in Vietnam, believing the optimistic
predictions of Robert McNamara and of the commander on the spot, General William
107
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 2002).
108
“Transcript of Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964),” OurDocuments.gov
,
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=98&page=transcript.
109
Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War
, 303.
30
Westmoreland, that victory could be had by escalating.”
110
McNamara’s specific views about the
importance of more American troops is similar to how the mysterious Jedi Sifo-Dyas secretly
created an army of cloned soldiers on the planet Kamino because, according to fellow Jedi Plo
Koon in a 2014 episode of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, “he said he foresaw a
great conflict, and that the Republic would need to raise an army.”
111
While Sifo-Dyas was killed
a decade before the Republic’s new clone army was used, according to the aforementioned book
by Christopher Goscha, President Johnson accepted in July 1965, “General Westmoreland’s
request for more men, bringing the total to 125,000.”
112
Things only got worse when the
government decided to seriously increase the number of American citizens being drafted into
service. It was even described in a newspaper article from August 5th, 1966 that, “with
enlistments lagging and Vietnam casualties mounting, the Defense Department issued a call
Thursday for 46,200 draftees in October-the highest for any month since the Korean war.”
113
Like how American politicians started to rely more on unwilling citizens for Vietnam, it was the
alien Republic senator Ask Aak who first claimed after learning about Obi-Wan’s
aforementioned discovery in Episode II
that, “the debate is over! Now we need that clone
army.”
114
In summary, the ways that both the Galactic Republic and the American government
decided to quickly create legions of troops were truly very similar.
Even though they were not exactly the same, both the clone troopers of the Grand Army
of the Republic and drafted American soldiers during the Vietnam War were truly very much
alike in several different ways. For instance, since the clone soldiers of the Republic were
110
Black, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
, 491.
111
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 6, episode 10, directed by Brian Kalin O'Connell, aired March 7, 2014, on
Netflix.
112
Goscha, Vietnam: A New History
, 325.
113
Robert Barkdoll, "Viet Casualties Up Draft Call: Lag in Enlistment, Vietnam Casualties Boost Draft Call Draft,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 5, 1966, ProQuest.
114
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 2002).
31
genetically engineered to be just interchangeable soldiers without consent, certain people like the
alien Republic senator Christo disregard the millions of clones who died during the ensuing
Clone Wars by claiming that the Republic, “created them for just that purpose.”
115
In a very
similar fashion, Presidential assistant for national security McGeorge Bundy seemed to fear
communism more than losing American lives when he related in a 1965 memo that a certain
policy:
Implies significant U.S. air losses even if no full air war is joined, and it seems likely that
it would eventually require an extensive and costly effort against the whole air defense
system of North Vietnam. U.S. casualties would be higher-and more visible to American
feelings-than those sustained in the struggle in South Vietnam. Yet measured against the
costs of defeat in Vietnam, this program seems cheap. And even if it fails to turn the
tide-as it may-the value of the effort seems to us to exceed its costs.
116
The fact that certain American politicians like Bundy would be perfectly willing to sacrifice
American troops to try to keep communism from gaining a foothold in Southeast Asia truly
connections them to equally heartless Star Wars
characters such as Christo. With this military
mindset exposed, it is truly of little wonder why many Americans like George Lucas would start
to despise the draft due to not liking the idea of government officials, “lining us up for the
butcher block.”
117
In a very similar fashion, various clones such as Cut Lawquane would start to
see themselves as individuals over the course of the Clone Wars and reach the conclusion that
each of them was, “just another expendable clone waiting for my turn to be slaughtered in a war
that made no sense to me.”
118
It is additionally intriguing to consider that, like how communism
115
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 3, episode 11, directed by Duwayne Dunham, aired December 3, 2010, on
Cartoon Network.
116
Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War
, 433.
117
Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
, 64.
118
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 2, episode 10, directed by Robert Dalva, aired January 1, 2010, on Cartoon
Network.
32
would eventually take over Vietnam by 1975 despite the ultimate sacrifices made by thousands
of American soldiers, retired clones after the Clone Wars would later question, “the point of the
whole thing. All those men died and for what?”
119
Despite occurring at different lengths of time, both the Clone Wars and the Vietnam War
during Johnson’s presidency would continue to escalate until a single event would help bring
about the end of these massive periods of conflict. In the case of Vietnam, as described in the
aforementioned 2007 book by Conrad Black, American forces were completely caught off guard
when in early 1968, “an enemy suicide squad had penetrated the U.S. embassy compound (but
not the chancery itself) and fired at close range at the presidential palace. Intense fighting was
under way, in what became known, after a local holiday, as the Tet Offensive, in almost every
city and town in South Vietnam.”
120
Almost as shocking as the Tet Offensive was for Americans,
Episode III
begins with a word crawl that describes, “in a stunning move, the fiendish droid
leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor
Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.”
121
The Republic was completely caught off guard since,
as explained in a 2020 episode of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, they were
already dealing with the Outer Rim Sieges which saw Separatist forces launch, “a major
offensive. Led by the evil droid General Grievous, Republic forces are pushed to the brink. In
response to this overwhelming attack, the Jedi Council has dispatched its Generals, sending them
far from the Core Worlds to bolster the beleaguered clones.”
122
After the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi
and Anakin Skywalker were able to ‘rescue’ a disguised Sidious, he would describe how, “they
killed Count Dooku, but General Grievous has escaped once again.”
123
While Johnston may have
119
Star Wars Rebels
, season 2, episode 3, directed by Dave Filoni and Sergio Paez, aired October 14, 2015, on
Disney XD.
120
Black, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
, 511.
121
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 2005).
122
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 7, episode 9, directed by Saul Ruiz, aired April 17, 2020, on Disney+.
123
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 2005).
33
claimed victory after the North Vietnamese were eventually beaten back, similar criticisms were
made about Vietnam since people such as General Earle G. Wheeler reported that although many
of the enemy’s, “units were badly hurt, the judgement is that he has the will and the capability to
continue.”
124
Even if these comparisons between the opening battle of Episode III
and the Tet
Offensive are purely coincidental, no one can deny the latter event’s importance to George
Lucas’ vision for Star Wars
since J. W. Rinzler’s aforementioned 2005 book revealed that he
believed that, “the entire opening sequence should last about twenty minutes.”
125
Regardless of
Lucas’ vision, the ways in which both the Tet Offensive and Episode III
’s opening played out
shows just how remarkably similar these surprising events truly are.
By showing just how vulnerable and non-controlling their current military leaders truly
were, the aforementioned events would help pave the way for certain political figures to amass
power in a relatively fast manner. For example, American citizens really started to oppose the
war after the Tet Offensive since Black explained that:
They had been assured that after the huge draft calls and the endless body bags returning
at the rate of two to four hundred a week (spiking up to over eight hundred during Tet
and a thousand in one week in May in post-Tet mopping-up operations), the United
States would prevail, and yet it had barely been able to keep the enemy out of its own
embassy.
126
Having already announced his presidential candidacy in early 1968, according to the 2014 book
Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
by David F. Schmitz,
former Vice President Richard Nixon would begin his campaign by seizing on people’s anger
and criticizing President Johnson’s leadership since this country, “could not defeat a fourth-rate
124
Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War
, 629.
125
Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
, 30.
126
Black, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
, 515.
34
military power.”
127
Similar to how Johnston greatly encouraged and drove American
involvement in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the Jedi would betray their
ideals of being ‘keepers of the peace’ by leading the Republic’s clone army during the Clone
Wars to only be villainized by Darth Sidious. Even before the events of Episode III
, citizens of
the Republic such as Letta Turmond were starting to feel that, “the Jedi Order is not what it used
to be. The Jedi have become warmongers. They’ve become military weapons. And they’re
killing when they should be keeping the peace.”
128
With the Jedi becoming warmongering
monsters in the people’s eyes, Sidious was able to declare both himself Emperor and the Jedi
enemies of the newly formed Galactic Empire because of, according to famous Star Wars
character Leia Organa in the 2016 novel Aftermath: Life Debt
by Chuck Wendig, “how easy it
was for him to prey on the anxieties of the galaxy. How simple it was for him to turn system
against system by stoking the fires of xenophobia, anger, selfishness.”
129
In a very similar
fashion, according to the online textbook The American Yawp
, Nixon was able to win the 1968
election by playing on people’s, “fears, running on a platform of “law and order” and a vague
plan to end the war.”
130
In summary, the ways in which both Richard Nixon and Darth Sidious
utilized people’s anxieties to achieve political power show how similar these questionable
politicians are.
Once they each achieved ultimate political power, both Richard Nixon and Darth Sidious
would each envision destructive strategies to make their enemies feel the need to surrender in a
very quick fast. For example, according to the online textbook The American Yawp
, “Nixon
pursued a “madman strategy” of attacking communist supply lines across Laos and Cambodia,
127
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 27.
128
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, season 5, episode 18, directed by Danny Keller, aired February 16, 2013, on
Cartoon Network.
129
Wendig, Aftermath: Life Debt
, 218.
130
“The Unraveling,” in The American Yawp
(Redwood City: Stanford University Press),
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/28-the-unraveling/.
35
hoping to convince the North Vietnamese that he would do anything to stop the war.”
131
Even
though he did this “madman strategy” with neither public knowledge nor congressional approval,
according to the aforementioned 2014 book by David F. Schmitz, he simply desired:
To create as much doubt in the minds of the enemy about what we will do in Laos and
Cambodia and complete doubt as to what South Vietnam will do. We won’t be pinned
down on what interdiction is. I want to be sure we give no signal to the enemy. We will
continue the bombing in North and South Laos. . . . Leave the enemy concerned.
132
Similar to how Nixon’s strategy was very secretive and destructive, Darth Sidious secretly
started building during the Clone Wars what the opening crawl of Episode IV
called, “the
Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.”
133
Its exact purpose was explained when Imperial Grand Moff Wilhuff
Tarkin expressed to other Imperial officers in this movie that, “fear will keep the local systems in
line. Fear of this battle station.”
134
Like how the knowledge of the Death Star’s existence made
its main designer desire to build a fatal flaw in it, Americans were truly upset after learning about
Nixon’s “madman strategy” since a 1970 newspaper article called out his, “monumental blunder
in reversing the whole course of what he said was his Vietnamese policy with the invasion of
Cambodia and the reopening of the bombing of North Vietnam. That is real violence.”
135
Even
though neither strategy really worked out, Darth Sidious and his allies would try out various
other versions of his strategy to the point that Resistance pilot Poe Dameron realized in Episode
IX
that every ship in Sidious’ new fleet, “has planet-killing weapons. Of course they do. All of
131
“The Unraveling,” in The American Yawp
(Redwood City: Stanford University Press),
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/28-the-unraveling/.
132
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 105.
133
Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 1977).
134
Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 1977).
135
Tom Wicker, "In The Nation: The Dead at Kent State,” New York Times
, May 7, 1970, ProQuest.
36
them. This is how he finishes it.”
136
Regardless of this, the ways in which the strategies of both
Richard Nixon and Darth Sidious focused on creating quick surrenders from their enemies shows
how similar these strategic plans are.
While some people may have criticized both Richard Nixon and Darth Sidious for their
questionable actions, the ‘thief’ and distribution of select sensitive material that would
completely undermine their strategic plans additionally connected the two. In the case of Nixon,
according to David F. Schmitz, The New York Times
challenged him in 1971 when they:
Began publishing excerpts from the Pentagon Papers
, a classified study of the Vietnam
War from the Harry S. Truman administration until May 1968, containing over three
thousand pages of analysis and four thousand pages of documents. Commissioned in
1967 by then secretary of defense Robert McNamara, the Pentagon Papers
revealed the
credibility gap between what four administrations had told the American public about
Vietnam and their actual policies, actions, and knowledge of the war.
137
Like how The New York Times
used McNamara’s work to shed light on the government’s actions
in Vietnam, the rebel Jyn Erso stole plans to the Death Star in the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star
Wars Story
in order to fulfill her, “father’s revenge. He built a flaw in the Death Star. He put a
fuse in the middle of your machine...and I’ve just told the entire galaxy how to light it.”
138
While
Erso was not able to live long enough to see the Death Star’s destruction, The New York Times
continued to publish excerpts from the Pentagon Papers
even after the government tried to stop
them in court on the grounds that, “the continued publication would cause “grave and irreparable
injury” to the national interest.”
139
In a very similar way, Imperial General Cassio Tagge
136
Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker
, directed by J. J. Abrams (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
2019).
137
Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century
, 131.
138
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
, directed by Gareth Edwards (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016).
139
"The Pentagon Papers Decision,” Los Angeles Times
, July 2, 1971, ProQuest.
37
expressed concern over the thief of the Death Star’s plans in Episode IV
when he explained that,
“if the rebels have obtained a complete technical readout of this station, it is possible, however
unlikely, that they might find a weakness and exploit it.”
140
While the rebels were able to ‘find a
weakness and exploit it’ to destroy Sidious’ ultimate weapon, the Pentagon Papers
helped to
limit Nixon’s ability to wage war with both the War Powers Resolution and the Paris Peace
Accords in 1973 which marked, “the official end of U.S. force commitment to the Vietnam
War.”
141
Similar to how Sidious’ Empire was officially brought to its knees with the destruction
of its second Death Star in Episode VI
, Nixon’s political career would officially end due to the
infamous Watergate scandal and how, “thanks largely to two persistent journalists at the
Washington Post
, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, information continued to surface that tied
the burglaries ever closer to the CIA, the FBI, and the White House.”
142
In other words, the ways
in which the downfalls of both Richard Nixon and Darth Sidious occurred due to the unveiling of
sensitive information shows how remarkably similar these questionable leaders truly are.
While the sci-fi fantasy Star Wars
film series may at first appear to have no real
relevance to any real-world events, this essay has shown how remarkably similar it truly is to
both various aspects of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon’s rise to power after considering its
creator’s antiwar nature in the past. In order to explain such a phenomenon, based on similar past
academic work, the looking for ways that history is reflected in these films approach that has
been used by scholars like James M. Curtis and Carl Rubino has been proven to be most helpful
in doing so. One could thus determine that the prominence of the conflict between the Rebel
Alliance and the Galactic Empire, Jedi Master Yoda, and the Ewoks in the first three films
140
Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
, directed by George Lucas (20th Century Fox, 1977).
141
“The Unraveling,” in The American Yawp
(Redwood City: Stanford University Press),
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/28-the-unraveling/.
142
“The Unraveling,” in The American Yawp
(Redwood City: Stanford University Press),
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/28-the-unraveling/.
38
released reflect how George Lucas had wanted to make an anti-Vietnam film since college to
only eventually decide to, “put the essence of the story in outer space and make it happen in a
galaxy long ago and far away.”
143
The following three prequel films and related media also help
to explain how Lucas had intended them to show how two ambitious politicians eventually
achieved ultimate power during wartime by playing on people’s, “fears, running on a platform of
“law and order” and a vague plan to end the war.”
144
It is important for researchers of today to
study such similarities in popular films in order to truly understand filmmakers’ original
intentions for them.
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