Star Wars III is NOT a bash on Bush.

Oh geez. Talk about reading too much into something... Europeans who saw the new Star Wars film "Revenge of the Sith" have drawn strong parallels between the Emperor's seizure of power (and Anakin's final corruption) with the pattern of behavior in the Bush administration.

As much as I agree that the general themes of the Star Wars prequels are disturbingly familiar to current events, there is no way to say Episode 3 is an "anti-Bush diatribe." The basic events of the Prequels were put on paper 28 years ago. They're in the introduction to the novelization of Star Wars in 1977. Those details that were introduced in the first two prequels were filmed before Bush started drumming up excuses to invade Iraq.

In fact, the fall of Lucas's Galactic Senate echoes such transitions going back at least as far as the Roman Senate. And the cycle of government progressing towards democracy only to abruptly turn tyrannical were philosophized about even before Rome, when Plato wrote his "Republic."

I don't doubt that Bush supporters will see this movie as a rant against Bush, completely ignoring any of the facts that it really COULDN'T be. (I guess we should give them credit for recognizing the Bush/Palpatine resemblance, but at the same time they are still supporting him.) What a shame.

This is the one prequel expected to actually be a great film. Too bad a bunch of Europeans make it a political issue. Oh well, at least it should do very well overseas...