In the course of the early 2000s, America was nonetheless reeling from the 9/11 assaults. This unease is how the Bush administration was capable of consolidate energy, from creating the trendy surveillance state with the Patriot Act or main an invasion of Iraq with lies and deception. The narrative within the “Star Wars” prequels, of the galaxy giving up its freedom within the identify of safety, thus struck a chord.

Within the aforementioned Chicago Tribune piece, Lucas and his producer Rick McCollum commented on the real-life parallels — and confirmed they have been unintentional. McCollum mentioned:

“To begin with we by no means considered Bush ever turning into president, or then 9/11, the Patriot Act, warfare, weapons of mass destruction. Then all of a sudden you notice, ‘Oh, my God, there’s one thing occurring that appears like we’re nearly prescient.’ After which we thought, `Nicely, yeah, however he’ll by no means make it to the second time period, so we’ll appear like we simply made some wacky political parody of a man that everyone’s forgotten.'”

Clearly, that prediction turned out unfaithful — “Revenge of the Sith” wound up premiering in the course of the first yr of Bush’s second time period as president. Whereas the previous president did not declare democracy over to the Senate, his dealing with of crises like Hurricane Katrina, the continued occupation of Iraq, and the 2008 monetary disaster meant his time period was no much less disastrous for America than Palpatine’s was for the galaxy.