Politics of “The Phantom Menace”

Suppose the original “Star Wars” trilogy is made for romantics. In that case, the prequels must have been made for classical realists – especially the prequel’s first and arguably most controversial film, “Episode I – The Phantom Menace.”  

The original trilogy primarily painted politics as some far-off concept that only exists in the peripheral, used to provide some explanation for the on-screen action. The prequels – especially “The Phantom Menace” – instead gave viewers a front-row seat to the political dealings of the Star Wars universe. But, do the politics of the prequels… well… actually politic?  

The answer is complex. First, it is misguided to assume that an understanding of mono-planetary politics on Earth has no actual application to a fictional world where politics span intergalactically. But, hey, it’s fun to imagine they do.  

Regarding these politics, it’s vital to explain what’s happening in “The Phantom Menace.” In the simplest of terms, a trading organization with a fairly decent-sized military is blockading a sovereign civilization to put pressure on a union (to which that civilization belongs) to enact favorable trading legislation.  

It may sound complicated, but trust me, that’s probably the most direct way to think about this. The trading organization in “The Phantom Menace” is very creatively coined as the Trade Federation. The civilization they surround is a planet called Naboo, and the Union to which it belongs is called the Galactic Republic. But I won’t over-explain the movie; I assume you’ve seen it if you’re reading this.  

But what would this look like in real life? Let me draw a quick comparison.  

Imagine the entire United States – more accurately, the contingent 48 states for this analogy. For some reason, the United States Postal Service feels that federal regulations are hurting their bottom lines. Instead of sucking it up and accepting that they operate in a semi-regulated economy, they decide to take all of their little brown trucks and block every entrance to Iowa or some other production state.  

I know what you’re thinking: “That sounds just like the trucker strike in Ottawa, minus all the vaccine shit,” but that’s where this is so different. The Trade Federation in “Star Wars” is blockading Naboo, which anyone who made it through the first hour of “The Phantom Menace” could tell you is not the capital of the Galactic Republic. Demonstrating at a capitol like Ottawa is one thing, but doing it somewhere a bit more remote is unique – but let’s continue.  

When the governor of Iowa tries to tell Congress and the president, their communications are blocked. So, the governor and their allies have to flee by plane to Washington while being shot at by USPS fighter jets and anti-aircraft guns. When they finally break through and end up in Washington, a Biden-esque president (chancellor Valorum in Star Wars) greets them, and the rising star senator from Iowa, who secretly colluded with the USPS to launch the blockade in the first place to try and usurp the president.  

Fast forward a bit, the governor of Iowa speaks before a joint session of Congress (I’m well aware the following is not how American politics work, trust me) where the governor’s words turn the legislators against the president, leading to a non-confidence motion (functionally would have to be an impeachment) that boots him from office. Then, the Iowa senator becomes the next president in the wake of the turmoil he, known only to himself, manufactured.  

The Iowa delegation returns to the Hawkeye State to take back the government buildings in Des Moines without the federal government’s help because it wouldn’t be as cool. A couple of over-the-top action sequences happen, and the city is back under Iowan control, and the USPS fails to get favorable legislation.  

That was a lot. But has anything like this actually happened?  

The easy answer is no. “Star Wars” is fictional and should be even hypothetically treated as a political or historical topic worthy of debate. Furthermore, anyone with the time to do so must be either unemployed or not in school. Lucky for your sake – I’m currently both.  

Self-depreciation aside, the answer is still no. But, plenty of historical instances give credence to the individual components of the politics of “The Phantom Menace.”  

Let’s start with the idea of the intergalactic equivalent of the USPS having an army. Believe it or not, this has happened in history. While there aren’t any large-scale contemporary examples – unless you’re in QAnon and think Bezos is outfitting Amazon with assault weapons – there is one glaringly obvious example in history. That being the British East India Trading Company.  

The British Crown chartered the East India Company in 1600. Of course, it was primarily a tool to expand British Imperialism in India and its surrounding areas. However, on the outside, it acted as a significant trade and shipping organization, much like the Trade Federation. At one point, the EIC amassed an army of more than 200,000 infantrymen, nearly double the size of the British army. So yes, trading companies with significant military forces have existed.  

Next up are the blockades, which have been much more common throughout history than armed shippers. It’s even common for them to happen on the grounds of political goals. The first formal – and strictly political – blockade is widely considered the Dutch blockade of Spanish Flanders in 1584. Notable in our own history is the Union’s blockade of Confederate ports during the Civil War. Even before naval blockades, besieging cities accomplished the same thing on a smaller city level by preventing the movement of people and information.  

Thus, there are the more explicitly political parts to consider. First, the idea of Naboo’s government fleeing their planet to make decisions in a safer location. In real life, this is called a government in exile, and notably happened in Nazi-France where a pro-Nazi government set up shop in the city of Vichy (someone should teach a super niche class about that place), and the proper government in London, England.  

Yet, do aspirational leaders use manufactured tragedies, or at least very heavily spun ones, to take power like the Naboo senator did? Absolutely. In 1933, in then-Weimar Germany, a newly appointed chancellor, Adolf Hitler, blamed a fire at the Reichstag (Germany’s Legislature) on his political rivals, swinging political momentum in his favor. He used that momentum to assume the role of both chancellor and president and, unfortunately, to carry out all of the inexcusable atrocities of his regime.  

The best example is when Julius Caesar sent Marc Antony to rule Rome while he hung out in Egypt with Cleopatra after winning the Roman Civil War. Caesar surely knew that Antony’s rule would see the city befallen in chaos, which he later used to ride back to Rome victorious and almost immediately improve the situation there, giving him the popular support he needed to be named dictator.  

Even recently, we saw Trump ride the favor he gained after surviving an assassination attempt to one of the most improbable political comebacks in recent world history.  

In conclusion, if you’ve read this far, you must be interested in politics, history, or “Star Wars.” Given that assumption, you’ve likely already drawn some of these comparisons in your mind.  

If you haven’t already, next time you’re so bored or so abundantly flooded with free time that you’d ever consider watching “The Phantom Menace,” I hope you remember some examples from this article. Make sure to bring some of them up, and maybe even talk about them next time you’re at a party. I promise you’ll be the coolest person in the room. 

But yeah, I guess the politics do actually – at least kind of – politic.