When the final installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy was previewed at the Cannes film festival in France on May 15, many reviewers noted parallels between the galactic republic’s transformation from democracy to dictatorship—through the launching of a fabricated war—to the policies of the Bush administration.

Agence France Presse said the summer blockbuster delivers “a galactic jab” to U.S. President Bush ( May 15).

NBC’s Today show ran a piece on the parallels, showing the scene where Anakin Skywalker (soon to be Darth Vader) says, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy” and then showing footage of Mr. Bush saying, “You’re either with us or against us ….”

Analysts and activists are lauding the movie for drawing such parallels. Even director George Lucas, who wrote the stories during the Vietnam-war/Nixon era, said he didn’t think the parallels would be quite so close. “Maybe the film will waken people to the situation,” Lucas joked ( Washington Post, May 15).

There are parallels—but not the kind most are finding. They are based more on the history that inspired the movie—not on the movie itself. And it is not a joke that people need to wake up. Those parallels—of democracies turning into dictatorships, or republics into empires—are less about the Bush administration and more about events occurring right now in Europe!

Lucas said he “patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism.” After all, drawing parallels between modern times and some wildly fictitious movie with its clones and droids is somewhat ridiculous. But let’s look at the historical parallels Lucas addressed.

As Lucas asked, “why did the senate [in ancient Rome] after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler.”

And it will be the same again—in Europe—as it was in every example Lucas gave.

“You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control,” Lucas continued. “A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody’s squabbling; there’s corruption.”

See, this is not about a movie—it’s about a dangerous repetition of history! We have already seen how a simple economic alliance can turn into a republic and then an empire. Look at what’s happening in Europe.

We have long been tracking its transformation from benign economic community to political union to military superpower. We’ve also been documenting its anti-democratic tendencies.

And talk about launching a war to further its ambitions? Take the Balkans, where back in the early 1990s Germany and the Vatican supported the breakaway states of Croatia and Slovenia, leading to a war fought under false pretenses and culminating in the eventual disintegration of Yugoslavia. It did a masterful job of creating a crisis and then proposing a solution in its own best interests. Now look at the control the German-led EU has of this strategic area of Europe. (See our booklet The Rising Beast for more on this.)

Now the EU stands on the historic brink of empire-dom: in Lucas’s words, a time of “threats from the outside”—as radical Islam continues to be a thorn in the Continent’s flesh and as Iran uses its nuclear program to defy the EU more flagrantly. A time of needing more control, as a “democratic body” is not able to function properly “because everybody’s squabbling” and “there’s corruption.”

A strong man is coming—a charismatic political giant who will take Europe over the threshold to becoming a dreadful empire—a resurrection of the historic Holy Roman Empire. So-called democratic men will willingly hand over power to him, believing he alone can solve the woes their union faces.

The U.S., on the other hand, is not rising as an empire. As we‘ve also been documenting, it is headed for a destructive fall.

History shouts these undeniable truths. And Bible prophecy trumpets their inevitability. For more on where Europe is headed, see our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire and our article “Is a World Dictator About to Appear?”