Building a Better Emperor

Took the girls to Burger Czar a while ago. This is the strategy at such places: two kid’s meals, plus one item such as a small burger from the dollar or near-dollar menu. Lilly eats all of hers, Ann eats some of hers, I eat mine along with the rest of Ann’s. Two toys are procured. Everyone’s happy, or at least fed, for about $6.

Burger Czar’s promotional toy tie-in these days is Star Wars III: Revenge of the Claims Adjusters, or whatever. The kiddie meal bags had drawings of each of the possible plastic figures available, more than 30 in all. I didn’t recognize a lot of them, but trog that I am, I quit the series in 1983. I did wonder whether the factories in Shanghai made each of the 30-odd figures in equal numbers, or whether production was skewed toward the more popular characters. If the latter were the case, then Jar Jar Blinks, say, would be a good find, since it would presumably be rare, and a potential collector’s item.

How do I know about that character? You don’t actually have to watch a movie like that to know about a character like that.

In any case, we got the character that evolved into Darth Vader… Anatoli Skywalker? and the Emperor Doowaddi-Doowaddi, or whatever he was called. Darth Vader, of course, was the series’ best character, but the Emperor was a missed opportunity. In the first movie -- I mean the real first movie, Star Wars back in ’77 -- he was mentioned but did not appear, and it was downhill from there. I pictured a handsome yet ruthless tyrant, a spellbinding demagogue, a despot who made the hyperdrive trains run on time, and who had an intensely loyal following in parts of the galaxy that got public works contracts. But no. He turned out to be a drooling, hissing, ugly fellow who ruled by channeling the Dark Side, rather than bread and circuses (and maybe a gulag).

Better still would have been a despotic Emperor with some virtues, someone who offered peace to a Republic torn by civil war, someone along the lines of Augustus. In that case, the rebel alliance might still be fighting for freedom, but with less purity of motive -- and willing to blow up a planet or two itself. But movies like that don’t get made.