The Unfortunately Prophetic Resonance Of An Infamous "Star Wars" Meme.

Star Wars, as Patrick H. Willems put it in his brilliant video essay about the greatness of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, is a movie series “about space wizards intended for children.” If you want to stop there and just enjoy the escapism, you certainly can.

But Star Wars has always been more than that.

George Lucas infused his science fantasy series with his love of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films, 1930’s WWII serials, dogfighting films, westerns, and a soupçon of Joseph Campbell’s mythological studies (before it became cliched).

In a conversation with fellow director James Cameron, exploring the themes of Star Wars, George Lucas went further to show how the series also critiqued America’s imperial history during his lifetime.

CAMERON: But you did something very interesting with “Star Wars,” if you think about it. The good guys are the rebels. They’re using asymmetric warfare against a highly organized empire. I think we call those guys “terrorists” today. We call them “mujahideen.” We call them “Al-Qaeda.”

LUCAS: When I did it, they were “Viet Cong.”

CAMERON: Exactly. So, were you thinking of that at the time?

LUCAS: Yes.

CAMERON: So, it was a very anti-authoritarian, very kind of 60’s, against the man kind of thing nested deep inside of a fantasy.

LUCAS: Or a colonial --You know, 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. […] And it was the same thing with the Vietnamese. […] The irony of that one is, in both of those, the little guys won. And the big, highly technical, empire --

CAMERON: The English empire, right?

LUCAS: English empire, the American empire lost. That was the whole point.

So, despite the worst critiques from toxic grifters online regarding the current movies/TV shows/video games/books, Star Wars has ALWAYS been political.

But one terrible line, which then became a meme, seems to have more meaning now than ever. In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac) delivers the exasperated line to a group of rebels at the beginning of the film.

“Somehow, Palpatine Returned.”

The line has been mocked for its lazy reintroduction of the previous Star Wars Trilogy’s ultimate bad guy, after being seemingly killed by being tossed down a reactor shaft by Darth Vader and exploding in the second Death Star in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, with little justification in the story. The actual explanation for bringing back Emperor Palpatine is far dumber. Lucasfilm, the producers of all Star Wars, seemingly caved to a vocal minority who had a problem with The Last Jedi despite that film’s critical and financial success. So much so that it was recently revealed that this line was added in reshoots, and Oscar Isaac’s frustrated delivery was less acting and more just showing his feelings about this at the time.

After the line in The Rise of Skywalker, the other rebels throw out theories as to how, in fact, Palpatine has returned. But none are sure about the exact reason why they have to face this evil again. An evil they thought they once vanquished for good.

And THAT feeling is what has become prophetic.

Recently, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (not to be confused, ironically, with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu director of the same name) interviewed Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin on the Pod Save America podcast. The interview was centered around the DNC, led by Martin, refusal to release the 2024 election autopsy after former Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump.

The interview at times became heated as Favreau pointed out Martin’s promise to release it in February 2025 when he won the chairmanship, partly by criticizing the DNC’s refusal to release the 2016 election autopsy after Secretary Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, with Martin not giving a good explanation for the hypocritical backpedalling. Martin insisted that, despite extensive work to build the report, we should all be satisfied with the hand-selected partial conclusions rather than see the whole report.

Favreau, however, pointed out the absurdity of this by asking Martin to explain his logic:

FAVREAU: When you were on the campaign trail and you talked about definitely releasing an autopsy and criticized the DNC for not releasing an autopsy in 2016, in your mind you thought, ‘I’m going to do one, but only release certain lessons and not the full report?’

Martin again insisted that it was not a backpedal, despite promises of multiple releases, and faced with actual quotes from himself. Favreau then pointed out the real problem with not giving this information, besides hypocrisy.

FAVREAU: Here’s the reason I’m being so tough about all of this. […] What I have seen happen before, specially in off-year elections, midterm elections when we have the wind at our back […] I I saw this in 2022. We did well enough in the midterms and uh Democratic insiders, Biden administration, everyone else were saying, you know what, this proves that we’re going to win in 2024 and we’re in great shape. […]

This refusal to learn from our failure is why Favreau fears we’ll repeat this history. We should learn from it and be better.

Because, as Yoda said in The Last Jedi:

YODA: Heed my words, not did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength, Mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond that is the true burden of all masters.

In recent years, Star Wars has set a lot of stories on Disney+ streaming shows in the almost 30-year gap between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka. Some of it has been used to fill in the gaps to explain both Palpatine’s return and the rise of a similar fascism of his Galactic Empire to The First Order of The Force Awakens.

But, like George Lucas before them, the creatives behind Star Wars have crafted a tale about the cyclical fascism and our failure to learn the lessons of the past before we’re doomed to repeat them.

How the same evil can return, even mutate into a worse version, through a combination of complacency and a lack of vigilance.

They explore and show the way darkness rises in shadows, in the background of events, and get dismissed by a republic until it’s too late.

Until…

Somehow…

Trump Palpatine Returned.

DNC should release the full report, and we should not be afraid that the next generation will grow beyond us, Ken Martin.

Happy Star Wars Day.

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