On the heels of American Graffiti’s success, Lucas wanted to pay tribute to Flash Gordon, the hero of old movie serials that he had grown up watching on TV. Unable to secure the rights, he settled on creating Star Wars, a space opera that unfolds as a simplistic tale of black-and-white morality and generational parricide. Luke Skywalker and the young rebels are good and the Empire, lead by Luke’s father Darth Vader, are evil. Young/good triumphs over old/evil. Period, end of story. That’s pretty much a history of the 1960s too, at least as told by what was once known as the younger generation. What eventually became known as the Greatest Generation was routinely castigated by its offspring as reactionary, bigoted, hate-mongers who fought against racial equality at home and the freedom of long-suffering peasants in Vietnam and elsewhere abroad.

Which is what makes the second set of Star Wars movies, released between 1999 and 2005, so incredibly fascinating. While taking place 30 years before the original movies, the second trilogy offers an unmistakably poisonous commentary on contemporary American events, including numerous promiscuous military interventions by Bill Clinton (the first boomer president), the repressive response to the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The last of the second trilogy in particular, Revenge of the Sith, details how a republic transmogrifies into an empire (“with thunderous applause”), one that is capable of destroying whole planets in the name of security and order.

“You were the Chosen One!,” cries out Obi-Wan Kenobi to his protege Anakin Skywalker as he becomes the evil Darth Vader, “It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness!”

No one would confuse George Lucas with a deep thinker (his filmography includes such neutron bombs as Howard the Duck, Labyrinth, and Willow), but he has managed what is arguably the most ruthless and withering appraisal of the baby boom generation from young rebels to imperial overlords.