It Took Them Long Enough

It is surprising that it would take so long to see the paralells between SW and contemporary politics. Evil is on the rise here. Link

Alluding to Michael Moore's remarks about 'Fahrenheit 9/11' at Cannes a year earlier, Mr. Lucas joked, 'Maybe the film will waken people to the situation.' Apparently in all seriousness, though, he went on to say that he had first devised the 'Star Wars' story during the Vietnam War. 'The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable,' he told an appreciative audience. Peter Sealey, a former marketing chief at Columbia Pictures, said the partisan tug of war over the new 'Star Wars' episode seemed absurd, likening the political interpretations of it to a Rorschach test. But he said Mr. Lucas was probably savvy in adding sizzle and relevance to a movie that otherwise might have earned publicity only by its effectiveness as entertainment. 'He could've come out and said, 'That's ridiculous - this is the white hats and black hats of the 1950's in space,' and quashed it,' said Mr. Sealey, who teaches entertainment marketing at the University of California, Berkeley. 'Did he do that? No, and it was probably smart. If he can get 'Star Wars' brought into the debate over unilateralism and the Iraq war, it just brings a current spin to it. And I don't think it's going to rule people out.' Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that all the online screeds and boycotts put together will leave so much as a dent in the movie's box office results. Hollywood insiders have estimated that 'Episode III' will have ticket sales of $120 million or more in its first four days. But Mr. Sealey said other filmmakers and marketers might do well to inspect their pictures for latent political messaging before the public does it for them.