This is why ‘Star Wars’ is actually a series of WWII-style spy thrillers

Blake Stilwell
Jan 28, 2019 6:38 PM PST
1 minute read
Movies photo

SUMMARY

People see the world through the lens of their own experiences. If you spent much of your career working and then studying intelligence, you may start to see potential spies everywhere. <p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebel…

People see the world through the lens of their own experiences. If you spent much of your career working and then studying intelligence, you may start to see potential spies everywhere.


Nothing suspicious here, though. (20th Century Fox)

Also Read: Star Wars tech we could really use in Iraq and Afghanistan

Dr. Vince Houghton is a U.S. Army veteran and Historian and Curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. He grew up watching and loving the original Star Wars Trilogy. While in the Army, he served in a sort of intelligence role and after leaving the military, he earned a Ph.D. in Intelligence History with a background in diplomatic military history.

Every year on May 4th, he gives a lecture at the museum, making the argument for Star Wars being a series of spy films.

"People always debate about it," Houghton says. "Is this fantasy, is this sci-fi, is it a western in space? For whatever reason, I've always seen it as a spy movie."

She has no idea what you're talking about. She's on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan. (20th Century Fox)

Houghton argues that the backbone of the original trilogy is a spy operation — a story made into the latest Star Wars film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. That story is the catalyst for Star Wars IV: A New Hope, which he sees as a classic spy movie.

"You could replace the death star with V2 or V1 or a German atomic bomb or the Iranian atomic bomb or any kind of scientific and technological intelligence and it becomes a spy movie," he says. "Strip away all the science fiction and it's a woman with stolen plans for a weapon trying to get them to a group of guerrillas fighting against this totalitarian empire — it could be the World War II resistance."

But Houghton takes his argument further.

"With Empire Strikes Back, the whole thing is kicked off by the Empire attempting to use imagery intelligence, their drones, their probes, to locate the secret base of the rebels," he says. "It's still an intelligence operation, just a different kind."

Houghton claims Return of the Jedi is a story based on intelligence gathering and counterintelligence.

"That's also the catalyst behind Return of the Jedi," Houghton says. "It's stealing the plans for the second death star. It turns out, that's actually a big deception operation — another key issue when it comes to intelligence."

The Spy Museum Curator is talking about Emperor Palpatine allowing the Rebel Alliance to know the location of the second Death Star. Rebel Bothan spies capture the location and plans for the space station, but it's a ruse for the Emperor to defeat the Rebel fleet on his chosen battlespace; it was a trap, a classic deception operation designed to hide the true strength of his forces.

"You could go all the way back to Mongolians in this case," says Houghton. "Genghis Khan did everything from tying brooms to his horses' tails so it would kick up a lot of dust and make sure it looked like there were thousands of soldiers instead of hundreds."

In the case of Return of the Jedi, the Emperor's plan just didn't work because, you know, it's Star Wars.

Everyone's favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder. (20th Century Fox)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters Dec. 16th. You can catch more of Dr. Vince Houghton on the International Spy Museum's weekly podcast, Spycast, on iTunes and AudioBoom.

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