Annalee Newitz: What arguments about ‘Star Wars’ say about democracy

(Disney | Lucasfilm Ltd.) Daisy Ridley plays Rey in a scene from "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker."Like a lot of Americans, I have formative memories of my first exposure to George Lucas’s epic tale of space Rebels defeating a planet-destroying Empire. I got so excited as a little kid in 1977 about seeing “Star Wars: A New Hope” that I threw up outside the theater.

Years later, I was thoroughly disoriented when I found out on the news that Star Wars was no longer a movie; it was a nuclear missile defense system described by Ronald Reagan as the most futuristic arsenal ever built. Officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Star Wars weapons system never came to fruition. But it…