From the very beginning of the Star Wars saga, we are treated to clunky droids, seamy taverns, tribes of desert scavengers, the exalted hunk of trash which is the Millenium Falcon, and the generally secondhand economy of Tatooine, planet farthest from the bright center of the universe and home to our hero.

It is hard to miss the aesthetic of trash that governs the rogue planet Tatooine. Ships are stripped and refitted into racing pods, desert dwellers scavenge for goods, child prodigies build chatty protocol droids out of spare parts...

The desert never changes

In A New Hope, we could explain away the debris as the decay of an evil empire, but George Lucas surprises us by showing us that Tatooine wasn't much newer or cleaner in the Republican era.

Under both regimes, Jabba the Hut rules his vast criminal empire without interference. Whether the government of the moment is Republican or Imperial, the planet still plays host to a number of unsavory characters, many on the run.

It is unclear whether the planet falls under the jurisdiction of the Republic -- or Empire -- at all.

When Qui-Gon expresses surprise that slavery would exist in the Republic, Anakin's mother unsentimentally replies that "the Republic doesn’t exist out here."

He recognizes the truth of this when he realizes that the junkyard dealer (!) won’t accept Republican credits.

No mind tricks

Speaking of Watto, one of the constants of the Star Wars saga is that the desert planet resists the influence of those who wield the Force, either Jedi or Sith.

Qui-Gon tries and fails to make the junkyard dealer accept credits only to find that "mind tricks don't work" on the slimy entrepreneur, just as Luke Skywalker would later learn when facing Jabba the Hut.

The Sith fare no better. Despite his impressive tracking gadgets and presumable sensitivity to the Force, Darth Maul fails to locate his prey until shortly before the Jedi leave for Coruscant.

Later Obi-Wan eludes Vader and the Emperor for decades on the desert planet where Luke, the apparent grandchild of a virgin birth, would also find lifelong sanctuary.

Perhaps it's not just coincidence or bad memories that kept Vader from seeking his teacher and son on his own homeworld.

The other side of the frontier

By contrast, the planet Naboo resides on some other far-flung edge of the Republic.

We should perhaps take seriously the planet’s resemblance to Renaissance Venice -- precariously perched at the limits of galactic civilization, Naboo's architectural splendor is highlighted by an insistent fragility.

Like Tatooine, the planet is also deep in the hinterland -- the Queen’s inability to make herself heard at the Senate tips us off to this, while the opening crawl simply dismisses it as an "outlying star system."

Did resentment over being a marginal player from the provinces drive Palpatine to walk the Sith road?

Significantly, these two remote regions produce most of the major players of the crypto-Roman drama to come. Anakin, Amidala and the nascent Emperor all hail from the badly managed fringes of the Republic, converging on the center in the epic dance we already know.

The waste, the afterthought, the spare parts of the system will come to dominate it.

Castoffs in a human universe

However, the presence of the Gungans, despised by Star Wars fans and apparently ignored by most humans, make Naboo more than a galactic backwater.

We cannot help but assume that the Gungans have no representation in the Senate.

Palpatine, the senator who speaks for the entire remote planet, fails to take them into account when he plans his invasion, and does not hesitate to order their extermination. Clearly, these are not constituents.

As far as his agents in the Trade Federation are concerned, the Gungans are "primitives" at best, to be rounded up from their "villages" and interned -- and there is precious little evidence in The Phantom Menace to indicate that this is not a common attitude within the Republic.

Boss Nass certainly seems surprised when Amidala and the humans treat him as an equal.

Despite the Queen's claims that Gungans and Naboo have always lived in peace, Nass is convinced that this "peace" is governed by disdain.

"Dey no like uss-ens. Da Naboo tink day so smarty den us-ens. Day tink day brains so big."

Planetary metropolis

A few final words about the center itself.

Many critics have rightly pointed out the Senate chamber shows a government already in full decay. But the Jedi Council, whose relationship to the government is unclear and therefore suspect, also shows signs of wear.

As represented by the comically grandiose Yoda, the Jedi failure to immediately apprehend the return of the Sith is frightful given their sensitivity to the Force.

Most importantly, their initialrefusal to train Anakin as a Jedi is misguided for its extreme wastefulness.

What happens to all those little boys (and girls, for that matter) naturally gifted in the ways of the Force who aren’t accepted for training? What is their outlet? What happens when they discover that they are only spare parts in the management of the Force?

Return to the dustbin of history

The imperial order inverts this by reducing the Jedi to leftovers themselves.

Not only are Yoda and Obi-Wan pushed to the frontier (in Yoda's case, his planet is even forgotten), but the entire concept of the Force as cultural and religious doctrine -- shared by Jedi and Sith alike -- teeters on the edge of extinction.

It becomes clear that even in the upper echelons of the Empire -- by far the sleekest and cleanest entity in the original trilogy -- officers show blatant disregard for the theology of the Force, much to Vader’s dismay.

What the audience is supposed to take as one of the central plots of Star Wars -- the struggle between the Jedi and the Sith -- is already irrelevant to the daily lives of most citizens of the Galactic Empire. Devotion to that "ancient religion" has become "sad" within the imperial elite, while "average guys" on both sides of the struggle accept the Force only grudgingly.

No more Death Stars?

One wonders if the redemption promised at the end of Return of the Jedi is as complete as it looks -- for them or for us.

And I wonder if anyone will have the courage to make, or even see, the trilogy of Episodes 7-9. What happens after complete redemption, when all is recoverable (when the universal ecosystem of the Force has found "balance" if not equilibrium)?

No trash, no waste, no entropy, no elsewhere. Does it always end in an explosion?

"Phantom Heresies" will run on SPACE.com until May 11, the first anniversary of Episode One's gala premiere. The goal of the series is to refresh some fans and surprise others through pointing out the film's hidden complexities, culminating in a full appreciation of The Phantom Menace as ritual theatre.

Next: The Penultimate Heresy.