With The Reframing of Endor, The Political Climate Of Star Wars Has Shifted

There are lots of cool little things Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath does. Set in the immediate aftermath of Return of the Jedi, it picks up the stories of some of the franchise’s most iconic characters like Han Solo, Wedge Antilles and the ever-wary Admiral Akbar. It explores the cultural shift that the fall of the Empire has on the galaxy through short vignettes and brings its own memorable heroes to the table in the form of Temmin, Norra, Senjin and Jas. However, one of the most interesting things the book does is that it actively works to reframe the destruction of the second Death Star in the greater Star Wars saga. Endor is still regarded as a costly defeat for the Empire but it’s no longer a total-victory for the rebels.

For many fans and critics, Star Wars’ six episode arc operates as a sort of closed circuit. The original trilogy plots the fall of Darth Vader, the prequels chronicle his rise to power. The series’ semi-fantastical science fiction setting reflects this in its own way. Episodes 1, 2 and 3 are about the fall of a democratic republic and Episodes 4, 5 and 6 are about the fall of a fascist empire. For all the talk of bringing balance to the force, the setting of the series is always one where either the democratic Light Side or totalitarian Dark Side is dominant — and this is a pattern that repeats throughout the both the now-defunct expanded universe and the new canon. Perhaps even more than the Jedi, Sith and the opposing sides of the force, this political dichotomy frames the conflict throughout the Star Wars saga.

There’s a great line in Aftermath that reflects on this dynamic: “Republic was the way of the world before, and it’ll be the way again. And for a time everyone will cheer them on, and everything will be cozy-dosie, but there will come a time when things go sour and someone decides they got a better way of doing things. And the New Republic or the New New Republic or the Republic We Got This Week will clamp down hard and then those people with the so-called better way will become the brave rebel alliance and the Republic will become the enemy and the wheel will turn once more.”

In the Star Wars old-canon, Endor marked the return of the Republic as the center of political authority — it was depicted as the end of the dark ages and the beginning of a new renaissance. History’s tendency to repeat itself played out on a galactic scale.

However, the galaxy we return to in The Force Awakens breaks the series out of this circuit. The setting of Episode 7 isn’t one where Republic has ascended to become the dominant power but rather one where the galaxy has no stable political center. The Empire has been vanquished but the Republic’s political preeminence hasn’t returned to the golden-era seen in the prequels. The prequels saw the Republic sustain itself through years of open warfare with the Seperatists but The Force Awakens sees the establishment wiped out within an afternoon of conflict with The First Order. Consequently, the political climate presented in The Force Awakens is very different to what’s come before.

In the same way that the political forces of the second World War influenced the original Star Wars trilogy, it appears that the geopolitics of 2015 are reflected here. The universe that Finn and Rey are born into is one locked into a struggle against the potential-resurgence of fascism with no end in sight .Though they wear the attire of the Empire with pride, the First Order have far more in common with militarized terrorist groups like ISIS than they do Nazi Germany. Like everything in The Force Awakens, even the Dark Side has modernized itself and in doing so, it’s changed the framing of the universe’s central conflict in some very exciting ways.

In a chaotic galaxy far far away, we’re no longer rooting for our heroes to bring down their oppressors and make the galaxy a better place. We’re rooting for their peaceful way of life to simply survive another day, an idea that audiences in 2015 have no trouble connecting with.

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