"Nothing will stand in our way. I will finish what you started."
The premiere of the
latest trailer for
Star Wars: The Force Awakens literally broke the internet the other night. The events of
The Force Awakens occur about 30 years after the destruction of the the second Death Star and the Ewok conga line in
Return of the Jedi. And the trailer suggest the events of the original trilogy are treated as myth and legend by the factions which took the place of the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, with the Force itself being something that people doubt and think of as just a "story." Although, even in
Episode IV, the Force is called a "hokey religion" by Han, and the Imperial officer tells Vader he has a "sad devotion" to an "ancient religion" before
Vader chokes his ass.
Beyond these big picture details, this preview features some trademark J.J. Abrams lens flare, and hints that all three new characters spotlighted in the trailer are united by a quest for identity. Rey (Daisy Ridley) seems to be hiding from something, or longing for to get off bumfuck desert planet. Finn (John Boyega) is a stormtrooper unsure of what he has "to fight for." And Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is not a Sith, but has some serious idol worship of Darth Vader.
However, there was a little political news tied to all of this. With Twitter abuzz about Star Wars, Bill Kristol, conservative pundit and editor of The Weekly Standard, decided to wade in and defend the honor of Emperor Palpatine.
Continue below for more.
For those not up to date on their
Star Wars history, the
Galactic Empire rose out of the Galactic Republic. Senator
Palpatine of Naboo, secretly a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious, manipulated events to become Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. As Supreme Chancellor, his policies become more and more authoritarian in response to a
separatist threat, which he himself is behind. Once the separatists are crushed and
the Jedi realize his subterfuge, Palpatine and his new apprentice, Darth Vader, begin
a massacre of all Jedi, and Palpatine
declares himself emperor of the first Galactic Empire.
The Empire itself is depicted as a sort of space-ified version of Nazi Germany, with elements of the Roman Empire's history too. It's a regime created through quasi-democratic means. It's run almost entirely by white (humanoid) men in Nazi-esque uniforms or stormtrooper gear, who enforce rigid conformity to a dictatorship. And Palpatine, like Hitler and Augustus, takes advantage of the public's longing for security and order to legitimize his rule. The prequels depict the Republic as bureaucratic, corrupt, and weak shortly before its fall, and there have been semi-serious articles written about how the Galactic Republic's failing was not having a multiparty system with checks and balances. And there have been other articles critiquing the Republic's lack of federalism as being the cause of its downfall.
However, with Palpatine being the antagonist of both the original and prequel trilogies, it should be a clear cut indication the Empire is not something to be admired. But Bill Kristol says we have it all wrong.
Now, lest anyone forget, the Empire was a regime that blows up a planet full of innocent people in the first hour of the original
Star Wars (i.e., "A New Hope"). Unless Kristol thinks Alderaan had it coming for Princess Leia's "treason," I think we can pretty objectively label it "evil."
And if one thinks maybe Kristol was just joking, doubt was cast on that when he decided to follow up with
a tweet linking to
an article in The Weekly Standard arguing the merits of the Empire.
From Sam Barsanti at the
A.V. Club:
The article in question was written before the release of Revenge Of The Sith, so it’s wildly outdated, but it’s based on the premise that the Galactic Empire is a more efficient, more regulated, and overall superior system of government than not only the Republic that it replaced, but also whatever the Rebel Alliance planned to institute in the Empire’s absence. That argument is all well and good, but it ignores the fact that the Empire—at the very least—tends to give power to people who are known for having streaks of vicious cruelty. In fact, based on what we see in the movies, it’s probably more likely that the Empire purposefully puts people in power because they have streaks of vicious cruelty. So claiming that you’d rather live under the Empire’s rule than the Republic’s is like saying you’d support a regime that executes people for no reason simply because it keeps the trains running on time. Actually, it’s not “like” that, it’s literally that.