The ‘Star Wars’ character inspired by President Richard Nixon
In 1977, George Lucas brought his Star Wars universe to life for the first time in A New Hope. The movie was an instant worldwide success, ushering in the golden age of sci-fi cinema. Although this marked Lucas’ lurch to global stardom, he had become a notable voice in the so-called New Hollywood movement in the early 1970s after co-founding American Zoetrope with fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and releasing his foundational features, THX 1138 and American Graffiti.
Following the success of 1973’s American Graffiti, Lucas’ first collaboration with Harrison Ford, he had the confidence to persevere with his new production company, Lucasfilm. Lucas soon began work on his next screenplay, Star Wars. Inspired by earlier sci-fi movies such as Flash Gordon, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Planet of the Apes, he began to develop his characters.
One of his first characters was the heroic maverick Han Solo, whom he based on his close friend Mr. Coppola. “George [Lucas] felt that I was… that I just took crazy reckless chances and would jump off a mountain without knowing what was down there to land on and that I would end up with no money,” Coppola commented in a 2016 conversation with Sal Khan of Khan Academy. “So he created… you can look it up; say, ‘Francis Coppola Han Solo and you’ll find it… So I’m sort of the dashing failure.”
On the flip side, Lucas needed his antagonists; he imagined an oppressive empire of evil inspired by the Nazi regime during World War II. The tyrannical despot in charge of the organisation was also inspired by Lucas’ keen interest in modern history. Sheev Palpatine, also credited as The Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, was inspired by the likes of Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler, but most directly by former US president Richard Nixon.
Although Lucas’ “Star Wars” were fought in a galaxy far, far away, he was guided by terrestrial warfare. Written in the mid-1970s, the original Star Wars trilogy loosely reflects the story of the Nixon administration’s role in the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975.
President Nixon, who served between from 1969 to 1974, was seen by many as a deceitful tyrant due to the Watergate Scandal and his involvement in the Vietnam War. In the 2013 book The Making of Return of the Jedi, Lucas is quoted in an interview excerpt from 1981. Asked whether Palpatine was a Jedi, he replied, “No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy, and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a nice guy.”
Palpatine’s attitude is reflective of Nixon’s when he famously stated, “If the President does it, it’s not illegal.” The Emperor’s ultimate fall from power finally echoes Nixon’s shameful resignation in 1974 following the Watergate Scandal.
Watch one of Palpatine’s classic scenes from Return of the Jedi below.
