US: No sooner did the long anticipated Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, open in the United States yesterday than accusations started flying that it carried an anti-Bush message.
Any movie about good versus evil can be interpreted as a metaphor for the current bitter partisan divide in American politics. But some noteworthy parallels with contemporary politics in the George Lucas blockbuster have been seized on by both sides.
Conservative analysts angrily castigate Mr Lucas for the comment by Luke Skywalker as he transforms himself into the evil Darth Vader that: "If you're not with me, you're my enemy."
President George Bush memorably said after 9/11: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." This is not the first time Hollywood has been charged with crafting subliminal political messages for cinema audiences.
Last year in The Day After Tomorrow, about how global warming causes a deluge in New York, the apocalyptic warnings of a top official (Richard Clarke?) are ignored by an inept president and an arrogant Dick Cheney lookalike vice-president.
The latest Star Wars movie will reach a wide audience, and the liberal advocacy group moveon.org plans to run advertisements on CNN this week comparing the film's power-hungry Chancellor Palpatine with Senate majority leader Bill Frist for trying to end the minority's right of filibuster. Mr Lucas sees a parallel between his final Star Wars episode and America's war in Vietnam.
But as he once noted: "The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."