The First Order from the new Star Wars trilogy begins to look more and more like a deliberate allegory of the rise of the alt right. But who in British politics matches up to which characters? Lots of spoilers for A Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. And Return of the Jedi.
Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!
If the First Order is the alt right, then General Hux is the kind that still harks back to the old extreme right of fascists and Nazis, zealous about the cause and trying to win people over with ideological speeches, propaganda and violence, like Britain First or the EDL. Jayda Fransen seems like a reasonable fit.
Kylo Ren, on the other hand, is from the more alt part of the alt right – whiny types who are so entitled they think anything that goes wrong for them must be someone else’s fault, like gamergate trolls. He isn’t really ideological at all; he’s only interested in being able to get or do anything he wants. He’s Milo Yiannopoulos.
Snoke was, presumably, the founder of the First Order, much like Nigel Farage was probably the first high profile leader of the UK’s alt right. Both were highly respected as powerful leaders, at least by the people on their side, but ultimately neither really ever did anything impressive to warrant their reputation. Both have now fallen on hard times, although Farage may be in a better position to bounce back given his generous salary, valuable property and intact torso.
The Republic politicians who did nothing to prevent the rise of the First Order and then got blown up by the Starkiller Base are centre-right and centre politicians like David Cameron and Nick Clegg, who never truly understood the roots of the alt right movement and didn’t appreciate the danger it posed to them or their classical liberal values until it was too late.
General Leia is Ed Miliband. Unlike the leaders of the Republic, she saw the danger of the First Order and tried to stop them, but she wasn’t in any way successful. Perhaps her brother Luke would have had more success, if he hadn’t exiled himself in a huff like Ed’s brother David.
Poe Dameron is a hotshot maverick so obsessed with rebelling that he’ll do it against his own side if the enemy isn’t available. He’s not a great strategic thinker, offering simple solutions with little consideration of unintended consequences, but he’s charismatic and draws people along with him, which makes him the Jeremy Corbyn of the story.
By contrast, Vice Admiral Holdo is by the book to a fault (that fault being a little bit under-sharey), but considerably more pragmatic and sensible than Poe. She could be any of the 11 Brexit rebels, but I’ve gone for Anna Soubry as she’s possibly the most high profile. Also, Laura Dern wouldn’t be an inexplicable casting choice in the unlikely event that anyone ever make an Anna Soubry biopic.
Paige Tico, the bomber crewperson who died heroically in the first scene, matches up to Jo Cox. Both were taken from us too soon. When we first met Rose Tico, crying over a medallion matching Paige’s, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to assume they had been married or lovers. rather than sisters. But then, I don’t think there was anything in the film to rule out them being both, so let’s roll with it and give the Rose role to Brendan Cox. He would undoubtedly agree with Rose’s desire not to destroy the ones we hate, but to save the ones we love.
C3PO is occasionally amusing but more often than not just annoying, and it’s hard to work out why anyone still keeps him around. R2-D2, on the other hand, is beloved by all, but it’s difficult to claim he’s really involved in the plot in any way. This respectively makes them Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sir David Attenborough.
I’ve been struggling a bit with Finn, but I’ve settled on his defining characteristic being his defection from the bad guys to the good, after a dawning realisation that he might be on the wrong side. There’s probably lots of people that could take this spot on that basis, but I’m lazy so I’ve plumped for Sir John Randall because his Damascene conversion is the first one I found. This is maybe a little unfair on both Finn and all the MPs who were initially against equal marriage but actually managed to figure out right from wrong in time to actually do something useful about it.
Chewbacca is Hilary Benn, because, you know, they’re both around. They both do things, occasionally. Benn is a vegetarian and I guess Chewie is now as well.
Rey exists on the border between the dark side and the light, and it’s a constant guessing game whether she’ll convert people to the side of good, or whether she herself will fall to the dark. That makes her Ruth Davidson.
That’s my attempt. Leave a comment if you’ve got any better ones, or if you’ve got suggestions for characters that I’ve missed.
One in a Millson 