The originalStar Warstrilogy presents a pretty cut-and-dried view of the conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire: the Empire is evil and the Rebels areheroes for blasting it out of existence. But subsequentStar Warsmedia has expanded the Empire significantly and revealed that, like any universe-wide skirmish between a ruthless dictatorship and a far-left militia, the Galactic Civil War is a lot more complicated than that.
With Lucasfilm seemingly hellbent on blessing its fan base with as muchStar Warsstreaming content as there is physically enough time and resources to produce, it should consider making a series thatchronicles the Empire’s rulefrom the perspective of a low-level officer working his way through the ranks. Just asThe Clone Warsoffered an unbiased view of the best and worst of both sides of the titular conflict, a show about the Empire’s reign could offer a more forgiving portrait of the galaxy’s authoritarian overlords.
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A lot of the Disney era ofStar Warshas focused on the Imperial era, with both “Anthology” movies taking place at the height of the Empire’s powers andThe Mandaloriandetailing its immediate aftermath. But in all of those cases, their downfall was replacing originality and storytelling with shameless nostalgia-baiting. A story with a sympathetic view of the Empire – at least parts of it – would directly contradict the messages of the original trilogy and show that era from a totally new perspective, so it wouldn’t feel like nearly as much of a re-tread asThe Force AwakensorRogue One.
With the Imperial Remnants,The Mandalorianhas introducedStar Warsfans to an interesting new perspective on the Empire. In the spirit of the show’s deconstruction of George Lucas’ myths (a la revisionist westerns),The Mandalorianhas shownImperial characters with a good heart, like Migs Mayfeld, an ex-Imperial sharpshooter who’s since come to regret serving the Emperor, and evil Imperial characters who don’t realize they’re evil, like Hess touting the casualties of Operation Cinder as “heroes of the Empire.” The Imperial officer who holds Dr. Pershing at gunpoint remembers the Death Star assault, not as a triumphant victory likeStar Warsfans and Rebel sympathizers do, but as a tragedy that killed millions.
Like many soldiers who served under historically evil regimes, the Imperial troops didn’t see themselves as the bad guys.Solo: A Star Wars Storyshowed that, while a lot of the Empire’s troops were repurposed clones from the Grand Army of the Republic, a big chunk of them were also just aimless scavengers in the galaxy who needed a purpose in life or a place to call home – like Han, whose dream was apparently to become a pilot. Not everybody affiliated with the Empire was a slimy powermonger like Tarkin ora cold, calculating military strategist like Thrawn. The vast majority of them were just regular people like Mayfeld, trying to get through their day and still be able to sleep at night.
InThe Mandalorianepisode “Chapter 15: The Believer,” when Mando and Mayfeld infiltrated the Imperial refinery on Morak, director Rick Famuyiwa gotStar Warsfans to do something that would’ve seemed impossible: cheer for the Empire. As Mando’s blaster is out of charge and Mayfeld has to slow down to accommodate the bridge and the pirates just keep coming, hope is dwindling for the operation. And then, at the last second, a legion of Stormtroopers anda fleet of TIE fightersswoop in to save the day. This surprising moment of Empire fanfare could be the first step toward a more complex view of the conflicts in theStar Warsuniverse.
According to Hess, the Empire wasn’t necessarily about oppressing people; they felt they were imposing order on people who couldn’t figure it out for themselves. There’s a lot more depth to the people behind the Empire thanthe original trilogy’s depiction of itas the monolithic embodiment of bureaucratic oppression would suggest. A series with the same care and forward planning asThe Clone WarsandThe Mandaloriancould really dig into this.
