Political warning - US is going to the dark side...

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2005)

Actually you could read this in a variety of ways. Emperor Palpatine's consolidation of power and rule seems to dovetail with what Putin seems to be doing in Russia.
However being an American, I of course read most of the parallels as it relates to our current political situation. There are a lot of examples of this. Palpatine controlling the Senate and the Courts and thus all the power gave him the freedom to do what he wanted --a direct parallel to Republican's stranglehold on our government. Pretending that he waged war for peace. Controlling the populace through fear, removing their rights - demonizing those who spoke out against him, etc. etc. Dialogue from the movie- "You are either with me or any enemy" is just a little too close to Bush's (Nov. 2001) speech - "You are either with us or against us". Ewan McGregor's response about Siths seeing things in a simplistic binary was an excellent retort. There are probably a dozen other examples, but I don't remember off the top of my head.
After watching the film, I was mulling over these parallels and wondering how internationally they were intended to critique the current American political system. I read an article that said Lucas had made this parallel on purpose and he was concerned about the danger of losing our democratic ideals.
I doubt this will serve as a great wake up call for all Americans but it is another reminder that we are losing our democracy too, and are turning into the Empire!
Anyway, aside from the political warning/satire, I thought the movie was pretty good. (Almost made up for the first one!)
*****SPOILER******* One thing that really bugged me was why they revealed that there were two children. This would COMPLETELY ruin the surprise in the later films. I assume Lucas wants to think that people will be watching these films in order 1-6 - and this one minute of film ruins the suspense of the other films. It should have ended with the birth & not knowing who was born.