In a surprising departure from the familiar Star Wars template of adventure, derring-do and space battles, the new standalone Star Wars film is to be a savage indictment of life at the margins of society under a bureaucratic, uncaring state on the desert planet of Tatooine.
‘Saturday Night, Tatooine morning’ will focus on the Tatooine benefits office and the everyday struggle of the workless and disenfranchised.
Barry Skywalker, a distant cousin of famed Jedi Luke, is a decent man forced to enter the social security system after injury prevents him from working as a landspeeder mechanic.
“It’s a tough role,” said actor Simon Williams.
“Barry’s a decent man thrown into this Kafkaesque world of unthinking benefit office droids who just make cold judgements based on their pre-set programming.
“He’s having to choose between giving his son synthetic bum-bum root or heating a single room in the community dwelling. I mean, how can you expect a first-generation bureaucracy droid from M4-78 to empathise with that?”
The film’s most wrenching scene shows Barry forced to drunkenly dance for obese crime lord Jabba the Hutt in order to get the money for a tin of space beans.
“Yeah, that was tough but, you know, we’re professionals. We did the scene and then afterwards I went up to Kenneth the Hutt, who was playing Jabba, and we just gave each other a hug.”
The film is expected to be released at Christmas and will be followed up by a new Star Wars film about workers’ failed attempt to achieve a true socialist collective on the Wookie planet of Kashyyyk.
