The whole series is giving meaning to every one of the six films

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2010)

To present the six episodes is of course a challenge. I will not present them one after another in any order (historical or chronological). I will make a few general remarks. First, why did the last three episodes come first? It was necessary for the suspense to remain intense about the only important element which is that Dark Vader is the father of both Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa, both on the side of the rebellion against the Empire. These three episodes were more naturalistic and they did not need the special effects, not possible at the time, necessary for the conception and shooting of all the artificial and very strange creatures of the first three episodes. The happy ending would have been ruined by our knowing the genetic filiation between the two young heroes and the arch-enemy of freedom and democracy. Dark Vader had to be black and dark right to the end for the surprise effect of his fathering the two young heroes to be effective. Then the first three episodes arriving afterwards in time did not have the same function they can have today when we watch the six episodes in chronological order. They created a frame of reference. It is the demonstration that the Republic can only fall because it is totally engulfed in corruption, red tape bureaucracy, the incapability to take a fast decision and to act promptly, the constant waste of time because of political maneuvering. On the other side, that of evil, swift and surprise attacks and violence are the rule. The Republic has been infiltrated to the top and the Force itself embodied in the Jedi order has been drowned in bureaucratic impotence. Then the dark side of the Force can easily convince and capture those who are suffering from that impotence and are frustrated by the refusal to act straight away. It is also necessary to think that those first three episodes that came last needed a technology that was not available before and that is the technical justification of the inverted order, though then the director plays on it and with it. Some of the scenes of these three chronologically anterior films are absolutely breathtaking and only because they use the full array of computerized effects. The race in the first film is amazing, the underwater world is fascinating and the clones and their war against the strange giraffe human species is phenomenal and were not possible without the late 1990s and early 2000s technology. And the battles would never have been that impressive without these special effects. Then we can wonder about the meaning of the whole series back in chronological order. A Republic dies in red tape bureaucracy and corrupted calculation and is taken over from the inside by the main leader who is an infiltrated putsch maker and his military coup is based on the full destruction of the only protection the Republic had, the Jedi order though this one had been made impotent by the red-tape dictatorship of the democratic Republic. The Empire that takes over is based on effectiveness, swiftness and the absence of any waste of time due to useless discussions. To the point of any decision taken by one man. Then you can speak of efficiency. But that Empire that is going to impose an absolute one-person dictatorship is not able to control the grass roots movements and the local dynamisms of all the planets and peoples of this galaxy. That's what the rebellion against this Empire needs to be effective in its turn. Underground rebellion and resistance. Yet they cannot succeed if they do not re-conquer the Force because the Empire is founded on the dark side of that Force and is embodied in the father of the main heroes and leaders of the rebellion. The Force has to be re-learned by Luke Skywalker in order to be able to face his father and defeat the emperor who is manipulating Luke's father. This Force is the only real defense and conquering power of any resistance against any dictatorship. Without a Force of that magnitude no resistance can succeed. But then the meaning changed completely from that of the last three episodes that came first and could appear as a simple metaphor of the rebellion against a dictatorship, hence a metaphor of the defeat and disintegration of the Soviet Union for one. Later on when the first three episodes that came last were available, the meaning was no longer the same because history had changed in the mean time. The meaning then is that any democracy when it forgets it has to be fast and courageous in its decisions that should refuse red tape and bureaucracy will automatically fall in the hands of potential potentates or dictators. That is a common myth and political theme in the USA: the Roman Empire died after two centuries. Unluckily the Roman Empire was not the Republic of Rome and here Lucas is playing with our references. Are the USA a target of that decay of democracy? Yes indeed. That's the message today of this set of six beautiful films with great actors, even the perambulating carpet.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID