What is the empire supposed to represent? The USA in vietnam? Communism? Fascism? Overreliance of technology? What is the larger meaning of the empire to you?
The Empire was always meant to have obvious fascist/Nazi overtones, but at the same time Lucas also wanted to portray it as an exaggeration of the worst traits of Nixonian America. By the same token, the Rebels were originally meant to represent the Viet Cong. On the other hand, Lucas told SW 1977 costume designer John Mollo that he wanted the Rebel uniforms to be reminiscent of the US Marines, so there's clearly some sort of link between the Rebels and the US as well. This latter thesis--broadened to suggest that the Rebels are America and the Empire represents the Soviet Union--is very commonly espoused in academic critiques of the SW series. However, I frankly think it's hard now for film critics to watch SW without retroactively seeing in it an anticipation of the Reagan presidency, which appropriated the phrases "Star Wars" and "evil Empire" for its own political ends. I think that to make the simplistic idea that "Rebels = America, Empire = Soviet Union" the dominant interpretation of the films is seriously to misread Lucas' original intent, as he clearly felt that the Empire is what America itself could become if steered down the wrong path. (A point hammered home in ROTS, with its dialogue that commented bluntly on the invasion of Iraq in 2003.)
All of the above. Among the regimes that the Empire represents are ancient Rome, Colonial powers, and Nazi Germany.
The Empire doesn't have to be an allegory for just one thing. That's the beauty of speculative fiction - it can allude to multiple real-world things and still be its own thing as well.
He had the title "President" in the novelization of ANH: Another galaxy, another time. The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that ... it was the Republic. Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match. So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside. Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic. Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears. Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions. But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring themselves opposed to the New Order they began the great battle to restore the Old Republic. From the beginning they were vastly outnumbered by the systems held in thrall by the Emperor. In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of oppressed and beaten peoples...
I'd say all of the above, except, somewhat ironically, for communism/the Soviet Union (I say ironically because of the Ronald Reagan-isms ATMachine pointed out). Lucas was and is a rather left-wing guy, and while he's certainly no communist, I think he was way more concerned with the perils of right-wing fascism. The Empire and the Soviet Union just don't seem to have very much in common other than the fact that both are oppressive imperialist regimes that people love to hate. Of course, the Empire represents authoritarian overreach in general, so it wouldn't be wrong to identify it with the Soviet Union. But then, it wouldn't be wrong to identify it with any government that engages in authoritarian, imperialistic behavior (which is a lot of them). But I don't think it was a specific parallel Lucas had in mind, in the same way he did the Nazis, Imperial Britain, and Nixonian America. I could be wrong, though.
In the ANH novelization, Biggs warns Luke that the Empire plans on nationalizing a lot of things, and that the Larses may end up "slaving away for the glory of the Empire".
Hm, that does seem to point to Lucas being inspired partially by the actions of the Soviets. I also just now used Google and found that he mentioned the Imperial military formations greeting Palpatine's arrival in Return of the Jedi as being inspired by Soviet May Day celebrations. Perhaps I should have looked this up before I made that post! Regardless, I would still argue that the other parallels were much stronger. And I doubt Lucas was very happy about Ronald Reagan appropriating the imagery of Star Wars as a justification for his administration's foreign policy--not even to mention that absurd space laser program of his.
Always found it interesting that the original idea of the Empire didn't have a Palpatine figure: it was just a huge, faceless machine. People like Tarkin and Vader could rise up through it and use it to further their own ambitions, but there was no one person ultimately pulling the strings. There's something very seventies about it, reminds one of the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate disillusionment not with any one person so much as what the hippies called "the system" or "the establishment" (and it was a widespread feeling even beyond the hippies, Reagan's "government is the problem" mantra tapped into the same sentiment I think). The thing is, Star Wars took that sentiment and moved it into a world where "the establishment" was just one side in a World War Two like fight between freedom and fascism... so in that sense, it's seventies disillusionment given an optimistic spin. Things don't have to suck; the big faceless machine doesn't have to win; we can fight back. The Empire didn't end up like that, they gave it Palpatine instead, and thank God, but you can still see traces of it in early Star Wars work - the Corporate Sector Authority, the mini-Empire from the Han Solo Adventures books, is pretty much exactly the way the Empire was originally planned. You never meet a central mastermind, just various power-hungry individuals. There's no Empire/CSA equivalent in the Lando Calrissian books from the same era, but you have the same general anti-authority attitude, with corrupt bureaucrats, corrupt cops and the like showing up frequently as antagonists. So, yeah. Obviously there's Nazi references (what faster way to show that someone's a villain, especially when it's a dictatorship with a big military machine?) out the wazoo, but as originally created, seems to me that it taps into a lot of anxieties from the West during that era - and not just about outside enemies like the Nazis or the Soviets, but about their own societies.
Indeed. In particular, Lucas was very, very pissed with the Nixon administration and the depredations of the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Star Wars exists -- in part -- because one man channeled his anger into allegory, into art; something intended to slander but also satirize the contemporaneous state of political power play ... enabling people to ultimately see past it and imagine something better. Personally, I believe we're still dealing with the effects of that; Star Wars' hold on the collective imagination is barely done yet. A couple of early quotations from "The Making Of Star Wars" by J.W. Rinzler capture this key aspect of Lucas' motivations and his personality quite well: "A lot of my interest in Apocalypse Now (which Lucas was originally going to make; and with a different look and feel to the final Francis Ford Coppola film) was carried over into Star Wars. I figured that I couldn't make that film because it was about the Vietnam War, so I would essentially deal with some of the same interesting concepts that I was going to use and convert them into space fantasy, so you'd have essentially a large technological empire going after a small group of freedom fighters or human beings." (p.8) "I grew up in the 1960s. I was very anti-corporation, and I was here in San Francisco, where anti-authority is even more extreme." (p. 12) In a latter paragraph, Rinzler himself notes: "In enlarging the treatment to what became a nearly two-hundred-page rough draft, Lucas was continually aided by the transference of his Apocalypse Now ideas to the fantasy realm. Some of his notes scribbled on yellow legal pads are: "Theme: Aquilae is a small independent country like North Vietnam threatened by a neighbor or provincial rebellion, initiated by gangsters aided by empire. Fight to get rightful planet back. Half of system has been lost to gangsters... The empire is like America ten years from now, after gangsters assassinated the Emperor and were elevated to power in a rigged election... We are at a turning point: fascism or revolution." (p. 16) (For justification of the second part of what I wrote above -- the "optimistic" or "upbeat" part of Star Wars -- other quotations abound. I just wanted to focus in on the anger that seemed to impel Lucas to make Star Wars when he was setting out, after American Graffiti, after he found himself unable to make Apocalypse Now right when he wanted to.). The Empire represents any number of things, but it's always helpful to return to the source. To overlook Lucas' real-world anger at the then-current state of the American political system would be naive. I love that pointed comment: "The empire is like America ten years from now." Ouch. And if anyone here doesn't own Rinzler's book, they should correct that as soon as possible. It's a brilliant reference; and it lives up to its title of being the "definitive" -- or close to the definitive -- making-of account of what remains, quite probably, the most iconic and the most luminous film in cinema history.
