Throughout the course of the Star Wars, the filmmakers have relied on fascist imagery lifted from Nazi Germany to add an additional layer of menace to the Empire. That’s not going to change as we move into the new trilogy, kicked off by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as the First Order, the new version of the Empire, also draws inspiration from the Nazi party.
Just a warning, there may be SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Force Awakens beyond.
The upcoming print issue of Empire Magazine (via Collider) has an interview with director J.J. Abrams, and he revealed the sources the creative brain trust drew upon to come up with the First Order. He said:
That all came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again? What could be born of that? Could The First Order exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could Vader be a martyr? Could there be a need to see through what didn’t get done?
We don’t know a ton about what happened in the wake of the Battle of Endor at the end of Return of the Jedi, though we’re getting bits and pieces, and this appears to be another one. Destroying the second Death Star, and the death of both Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, is a decisive victory for the Rebel Alliance, but the Empire is so big and vast that winning one battle is not going to destroy the whole thing. Cripple it, maybe, send it into chaos as various leaders and factions vie to step up and take over, definitely, but not wipe it from existence completely. It has a wide reach.
Just based on what we know so far, it appears that the First Order is the group that emerged from the ashes—or at least one of them, it’s entirely possible that there are other factions still out there as well, but we’ll deal with that when we get there. From Abrams’ words, it sounds like they have a reverence for the Empire, and are building on what came before them, like white supremacists trying to use the roadmap laid out by Hitler and the Nazis and take it even further. It’s an interesting concept, one that should provide a terrifying antagonist for our heroes new and old.
And you know that, if they emerged out of the chaos that followed Endor, the First Order is bound to be a vicious and ruthless organization, likely even more so then its predecessor, which is scary as hell. While we’re not entirely sure, it looks like at the head of all of this is Supreme Commander Snoke, the motion capture character played by Andy Serkis. We recently learned that Adam Driver’s character, the villainous Kylo Ren (who is not Sith), works for Snoke, who is powerful in the Dark Side of the Force—it seems like they have a mentor/protégé style relationship, but we can’t be 100% sure on that front. Does Snoke fulfill a similar role as the Emperor? We’ll have to wait and see, but it certainly sounds like a distinct possibility.
We got to hear Snoke’s ominous, sinister voice in the first The Force Awakens trailer. Check it out below.
Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and all of the new additions to the franchise facing off against a vicious, rogue government patterned after the Nazis, but even worse? Goddamn that sounds like one hell of an idea to us. We’ll find out how this all goes down when Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters on December 18.
