The Politics of Star Wars: Episode IV
In 1977, a phenomenon reshaped cinema. Star Wars, later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope, wasn’t just an unprecedented visual spectacle—it was a mythic tale infused with raw political undertones, a warning wrapped in adventure. While its genius lies in its embrace of the hero’s journey and its technical innovations, part of Star Wars’ enduring legacy is its disturbing familiarity. Science fiction? Hardly.
George Lucas didn’t create a world of escapism; he mirrored the worst realities of our own, crafting a narrative so tangible and so damning that it continues to resonate nearly five decades later.
Lucas has stated repeatedly that Star Wars, particularly the original trilogy, is an allegory for the Vietnam War. The early warnings of President Dwight D. Eisenhower regarding the military-industrial complex, the erosion of due process and civil liberties under President Richard Nixon, and the guerrilla warfare of the Viet Công fighting against a technologically superior imperialist force—all of these were condensed into a seemingly straightforward narrative. But Star Wars was never just a simple story. Beneath its blockbuster exterior, A New Hope is an excoriation of empire, a scathing indictment of authoritarianism, and a wake-up call for those willing to listen.
“We're fighting the largest empire in the world, and we're just a bunch of hay seeds in coonskin hats that don't know nothing" - George Lucas
The Galactic Empire isn’t some abstract villain. It is a militaristic, authoritarian dictatorship, enforcing control through surveillance, fear, and brute force. It doesn’t ask for loyalty—it demands obedience.
The Death Star, a weapon of mass destruction, is a direct parallel to the atomic bomb and the looming threats of nuclear war during the Cold War. It exists not to defeat armies, but to annihilate entire populations as a tool of political suppression. Grand Moff Tarkin himself makes the doctrine chillingly clear: “Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.”
Stormtroopers—their name lifted directly from Nazi Germany’s Sturmabteilung—represent the unthinking, uniformed enforcers of totalitarian rule. Darth Vader and Tarkin function as the Empire’s Himmler and Goebbels, the enforcers of Palpatine’s absolute rule, carrying out mass executions and overseeing the dismantling of democracy. The Imperial Senate is dissolved, removing any remaining illusion of representative government, leaving regional governors—military overlords—fully in charge. This reflects the rise of dictatorships throughout history, most notably Caesar Augustus, who reduced Rome’s Senate to a ceremonial puppet while consolidating power in his own hands.
Beyond Nazi Germany, the Galactic Empire reflects the Soviet Union’s authoritarian grip over satellite states, Imperial Japan’s militarized expansionism, and even the modern erosion of democratic institutions in favor of oligarchic rule.
“To fight and oppose you and your forces, by any and all means at our disposal; To refuse any Imperial law contrary to the rights of free beings; To bring about your destruction and the destruction of the Galactic Empire; To make forever free all beings in the galaxy. To these ends, we pledge our property, our honor, and our lives.” - Mon Mothma, Star Wars Rebels
The Rebel Alliance’s struggle isn’t just an action-adventure trope—it’s a blueprint of historical insurrections against empire. Like the Rebellion, the Viet Công faced an enemy with superior firepower, relying on asymmetrical warfare, sabotage, and hit-and-run tactics.
The French Resistance operated in secrecy, relying on scattered support networks, and fighting against impossible odds. The French Resistance bears striking resemblance to the Rebels on Yavin 4.
And the Rebel Alliance echoes the colonial militias—an underdog force rising against an empire that viewed them as insignificant during the American Revolutionary War.
The genius of A New Hope is that, despite its fairy tale trappings, it doesn’t glorify war. It forces us to ask: Who are the heroes? Who are the terrorists? Because history has repeatedly shown that today’s resistance fighters are tomorrow’s revolutionaries—and that the difference between a hero and an enemy often depends on who writes the history books.
“Power! Unlimited power!” - Chancellor Palpatine, Revenge of the Sith
Palpatine doesn’t just seize power overnight—he manipulates the system, eroding democratic norms step by step. The prequels explored his quiet erosion, preying on the vulnerabilities of an exhausted, corrupted government to attain his goal of unrestrained power. Make no mistake, the Republic featured in the prequels, in particular The Phantom Menace, is already a quagmire long before Palpatine’s influence. Its vulnerabilities and blatant corruption was purposefully exploited, used to his advantage. The political bureaucracies were already in play, stemming from a thousand years of existence that has grown exhausted by its own weight. It’s the bureaucracy that has diminished its own power, and Palpatine—as Darth Sidious—garnered support in the conglomerate’s and enterprises that sought to end the Republic’s regulatory legislation that stripped them of their capitalist greed. Taxation, tariffs, bylaws, and restrictions aimed at preventing businesses from exploiting labor, public workers, and environmental resources all rallied behind a puppeteer who fueled the flames of apparent injustices in the government. This mastermind benefited and reaped the rewards of this manufactured chaos. By fanning the flames and creating discord on both sides, they developed an ‘us-versus-them’ mentality, ensuring that there could only be one true victor in the inevitable conflict.
By the time we reach A New Hope, the process is complete. The Empire is in full control, and no one can stop it. Historically, we have seen this play out before. The fall of Rome’s democracy wasn’t an abrupt coup—it was a slow transformation, using crises as justification for increased executive power. Adolf Hitler didn’t start by declaring himself Führer. He used existing democratic institutions to consolidate control, turning a fragile republic into a dictatorship through legal means. The gradual chipping away of democratic norms—whether through mass surveillance, political purges, suppression of opposition, or media control—echoes the erosion of freedoms seen in the Star Wars universe.
And if this pattern sounds uncomfortably familiar, it should. History has repeatedly shown the slippery slope, and has laid the groundwork for what is likely to come next. Rebellion.
“Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!” - Luthen Rael, Andor
The Star Wars series Andor strips away the mythic grandeur and exposes the gritty, bureaucratic horror of authoritarian rule. If A New Hope warns us of dictatorship, Andor shows us how it becomes normalized—not through grand battles, but through paperwork, regulations, and the slow suffocation of individual freedoms.
The Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) is a chilling mirror of the KGB, Gestapo, and Stasi—operating through informants, arbitrary arrests, and secret prisons like the brutal labor facility on Narkina 5. Ferrix, a working-class planet, reflects countless real-world examples of industrial communities crushed under imperialist control, from British-occupied Ireland to Nazi-occupied France.
Mon Mothma’s political dilemma highlights the impossible balancing act of resisting tyranny from within the system—much like moderates in fascist regimes who tried, and often failed, to oppose oppression through legal means.
But Andor’s most haunting figure is Luthen Rael, a revolutionary who knows that moral purity is a privilege of the comfortable. He is willing to embrace terrorism, assassination, and manipulation to accelerate the Empire’s downfall. Does the end justify the means? That’s not just a question for Star Wars—it’s a dilemma faced by every real-world resistance movement throughout history.
“America became ‘the Empire.” - George Lucas
Where does all of this leave us today? When a leader surrounds themselves with sycophants and loyalists, purging dissenters, do we not see the making of an empire? When law enforcement agencies are given unchecked power, surveilling, detaining, and silencing opposition, do they not become the ISB? When the media is controlled, manipulated, or discredited, do we not hear echoes of the Empire’s information control? When a government justifies endless war, claiming it is necessary for “security,” are we not watching history—and Star Wars—play out in real-time?
Donald Trump seeks unquestioning loyalty. He demands silence from opposition. He idolizes authoritarian leaders. He brands dissenters as enemies. And if his return to power sees a government that bends only to his will, what then? Do we wake up in Palpatine’s empire, wondering how we let it happen?
The real danger isn’t that Star Wars is some prophetic warning of the future. It’s that Star Wars is a mirror of our present, and we are ignoring the reflection.
In the climax of A New Hope, an ordinary farm boy makes an impossible shot and destroys the Death Star. But Luke Skywalker isn’t just a hero—he’s a reminder. A warning. Because Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, George Washington, and Mahatma Gandhi were all “ordinary” before they became leaders. Because empires don’t fall on their own. Because resistance doesn’t begin with armies. Because history repeats itself only if we let it.
Hope is not given, it’s a choice.