[lbo-talk] V for Vendetta

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

_Star Wars_ Episodes I ("The Phantom Menace"), II ("Attack of the 
Clones"), and III ("Revenge of the Sith") picture the transformation 
of a Republic into an Empire.  The Trade Federation, chafing against 
the taxation of trade routes, blockades and then invades an 
autonomous province of the Republic.  A Senator from the province 
under siege persuades its Queen to make a motion for a vote of no 
confidence in the Chancellor of the Republic.  The Senator is then 
elected the new Chancellor.  The province gets liberated from the 
Trade Federation, but a new trouble begins.  A separatist movement 
arises, which the Republic's militia may not be able to contain.  The 
Senate gives the Chancellor emergency powers, which he uses to send a 
new standing army into battle against the Separatists.  It turns out 
that the Chancellor is the mastermind manipulating both the Trade 
Federation and the separatist movement -- both the Trade and 
Separatist Wars being ruses to instill fear into the Senate, so that 
it will gladly relinquish its own power and centralize all power into 
the Chancellor's hands.  In the final move for hegemony, the 
Chancellor orders the standing army to liquidate the militia, while 
telling the Senate that the militia tried to overthrow it and take 
over the Republic.  To the grateful Senate, the Chancellor announces 
the dissolution of the Republic -- it will now be reorganized into 
the Empire.  "This is how liberty dies . . . to thunderous applause." 
Episode III ends on a bleak note, with surviving members of the 
militia in exile.

We all know that two finest warriors of the remaining militia, who 
also happen to be gay, live to play crucial roles in raising a new 
Rebel militia who fight against the Empire and defeat it in Episode 
VI, establishing a new Republic, but, like so much of postmodern 
culture, the future, capable of offering a new hope, is the past in 
_Star Wars_.

A more likely sequel to Episode III than the optimistic Episode I is 
_V for Vendetta_ (cf. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta> 
and <http://madelyn.utahgoth.net/vendetta/vendetta1.html>), which 
will open on "Nov. 4, which happens to be the day before the 400th 
anniversary of Guy Fawkes Day" (Sarah Lyall, "From the Wachowski 
Brothers, an Ingénue Who Blows Up Parliament" [New York Times, 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/movies/19lyal.html>, 19 Jun. 2005] 
-- see, also, <http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/>).  V, the first 
anarchist terrorist hero in the history of cinema, is a more fitting 
sign of the times than a fair-haired boy from the galactic Midwest. 
_V for Vendetta_ ends in a general insurrection.  Natalie Portman -- 
who plays Evey, V's protégé who steps into V's place -- says of the 
ending: "It has a hopeful ending, because the revolution finally 
comes" (qtd. in Lyall, 19 Jun. 2005).
-- 
Yoshie

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