Lucas has stated now, definitively, that the six Star Wars films are focused on the story of Anakin Skywalker. Through the six-film progression you see his springtime, his blustery summer, his tragic autumn, and ultimately his passage into winter which redeems him. But despite our following his life, we must reach back into an earlier age, before Episode I, to see accurately that Anakin is not the protagonist in the whole of the saga, nor in fact is Palpatine the antagonist. In fact, those roles are reversed. And this is where you will find the real genius of Lucas.

In the first episode, we are to consider that the nature of Anakin is unconventional at best. We are informed that Anakin is the product of artificial conception, and that in all likelihood, the symbiotic beings that allows those in the Star Wars universe to commune with the force, the midichlorians, are so prevalent in his blood, that it is likely they were responsible for his conception themselves.

The premise isn't difficult. Those of us born in the West have a fairly easy understanding of immaculate conception, or even of artificial conception. Christ as metaphor is so fully written into the language of popular culture that to quote it, and other legends like it, is not a broad leap to make. In the west, if one is to make art that contains a "big statement," often one starts at the Bible, adds their own revisions and subtracts the parts they cannot use. Imaging Lucas in his angry-young-man phase rewriting the Bible isn't hard to imagine. Given the wholesale commitment with which he borrows from the Faustian blueprint, it should be obvious to anyone who sees the films Lucas is a product of the west.

Still, Lucas insists that the Star Wars films aren't to be interpreted as purely Christian dogma. He's proudly boasted from the legends and mythology of all cultures as well as those that ultimately themselves informed much of Christian dogma.

In the 2 June, 2005 issue of Rolling Stone, Lucas states "...in this particular case, the gods happen to be a life-form that allows a cell to divide. So it's a metaphor: that which brings life. I don't want to get too controversial about this - some people believe it happened in other ways, over seven days, but if you listen to biology, there's another theory which begins with an e. If you study microbiology, you will come to the realization that this alien life-form, which has completely different DNA, helped create life on earth and within the galaxy. But every cell has one of these life-forms in it. It's a simplified version of relationships - that symbiotic being goes through everything. That's why Han Solo joins the Rebellion, that's why Luke saves his father. In Star Wars land, all these relationships are necessary to bring forth a greater good - and evil."

In rebuilding the mythology, Lucas employs a common plot device to mythology, which is the prophecy. Its a convenient one because it allows a story to happen "just because." It's stated that the presence and, indeed, possible artificial conception of Anakin Skywalker indicates Anakin's connection to a greater plan, and it that, suggests the machinations of those in touch with higher beings (gods).

In Episode I, Mace Windu asks Qui Gon Jinn, "You speak of the prophecy of the one who is to bring balance to the force?" Jinn denies this assumption, in a show of false modesty, but Yoda insists he acquiesces to the truth in this. And he does so because Jinn has to.

If Anakin possesses one believer, then he may move the story forward. That Jinn is the early protagonist of Episode I allows the audience to also invest in that assumption and as a product of that, we may move forward with Anakin fulfilling the prophecy, and as a result of that, we have ourselves a fully armed and operational saga.

But that's where I get hung up. To look at the simple math of it, Lucas betrays the core machinery of the whole saga, at least from a certain point of view. In Episode III, he allows the implication to stand that it is possible that in fact it was Darth Plageus the Wise that might have possessed the knowledge to compel the midichlorians to conceive life.

There is a window of possibility that it is merely coincidence, but coincidences don't happen a lot in sagas, and given the compressed, knowing smile that Palpatine gives away at the revelation, its apparent that this is what happened. Anakin was conceived by the midichlorians at the urging of a Sith, and the only question left is whether or not this was Darth Plageus or Darth Sideous.

And with this, the entire saga has taken a left turn. It does so because the true identity of the prophetic bringer of Forcely balance is now in question. Before the existence of the prequel trilogy, we would have assumed that answer was Luke Skywalker being the prophesied savior. At the close of Episode II it was rather apparent that Anakin was to be the one who restores balance to the force, by destroying the Emperor at the close of Episode VI. But the new data that a Sith may have set Skywalker's life in motion necessarily implies that by doing so, it was a Sith that brings balance to the force.

All is nice and tidy, if not confusing, at this understanding, until we go back and ask Lucas about it.

Again, in the same Rolling Stone article, Lucas allows, "Now there's a hint in the movie that there was a Sith lord who had the power to create life. But its left unsaid: Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the midichlorians to bring forth a prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the midichlorians? Its left up to the audience to decide. How he was born ultimately has no relationship to how he dies, because in the end, the prophecy is true: Balance comes back to the Force."

Its nice and tidy, George, if we completely ignore the beginning. But we can't, because you made these films to highlight the beginning. And because of this, now we have a problem...

Anakin can only bring balance to the force if he is himself a product of the Force itself. If he is the product of a manipulation by the Sith, then he is merely the tool, unwittingly so or not, of the Sith unmaking their own existence by introducing that which brings balance to the force. Evil comes into existence, messes with the order of the force that maintains the universe, and as a result, is undone by its own existence.

And damn, that's a heady moral when you get right down to it. More than this, who's to say exactly for whom that metaphor stands? Is it for humanity slowly unmaking its existence through unregulated and unbalanced procreation within its environment? Or rather, is it humanity's exploitation and destruction of the environment? Or is it merely the implication that evil is always defeated by its own corrupt nature? There's plenty of room to wrap deeper meaning and philosophies around this, and I'm certain I will spend a vast amount of my own brain's idle-time sizing it all up.

Ultimately, I feel the rumored Episode 0 has to get made. Yoda and the Old Republic fighting against Plageus and, potentially, a young Palpatine is the only avenue for Lucas to truly reveal the greater arc here. To be in the presence of the two Sith masters (Palpatine's age in Episode I allows it as it has been left unconfirmed), as they discuss the nature of Plageus's newfound powers and plot against the Jedi reveal a great story, and one that possesses a more powerful message than the saga is left with.