Star Wars III: Anti-Bush

When I read Mein Kampf am I obligated to stoop to its creator’s moral standards before discussing it? Give me a break. I’m not missing the point; I disagree with it, that’s all.

These guys did, after all, blow up a world, practiced racism and forced labor, denied local rights in favor of a massive centralized beaurocracy that nationalized much of the industrial base (or at least that portion which wasn’t corrupt enough to support The Empire outright).

Well, no one said they were perfect, jeez. Besides, at least half of that sounds like the grassroots Democratic party that is so popular around here. I thought you guys loved big government.

If you can’t see them as the bad guys then I’d suggest glasses.
Because…I…can’t…“see”? OOOOOH, BURN.

The Empire is the worst of Nazism, Imperialism and Stalinism all wrapped up in a pretty bow.

And I’m sure if someone other than an Rebel propagandist (mixed up with that uniquely American dysfunctional democratic (small d) spin) was telling the story, the Osama Bin Leia connection would be far more obvious to you clear sighted folks.
Hey, running space is hard. Break a few eggs, and whatnot. Now if you’ll excuse me I must return to my storm trooper duties.[/quote]

link to one previous “empire is not so bad” discussion

main points:

they blow up escape pods EXCEPT when there aren’t any life signs aboard.

they blew up a jawa transport and slaughtered the jawas, after trying to make it look like sand people did it.

they killed luke’s uncle and aunt.

they tortured princess leia.

they blew up her planet AFTER she gave them info (they didn’t know it was misleading till afterwards)

they blew up her planet even though it had no weapons and it’s people were peaceful.

(yeah, i repeated they blew up her planet. but i think it deserves more than one bullet point in the list of evil the empire does)

their plan to keep order was to rule by fear, fear of that battlestation.

punishments for failure are scattershot: death or nothing, depending on lord vader’s whims. no evidence of a uniform code of military justice.

there is absolutely no accountability for superiors abusing subordinates. (force choke holds for example)

completely male hierarchy, with no evidence of even attempts at equality in the workplace. (except in the fanfilm “troops”, which had a female stormtrooper)

the military seems to have absolute jurisdiction over whether they can execute prisoners. moff tarkin didn’t seem to be worried about any civilian oversight boards or the media if ya catch my drift.

you can make arguments that the jedi are a secret police force in the old republic, but that’s an “old republic is evil argument” not a “the empire isn’t evil” argument.

the only good thing about the empire is that they provide imperial women’s shelters for battered wives, even on far off backwater planets, according to the fanfilm “troops”.

(i left out one point i posted where i think i am mistaken, yavin was out of the way and too remote to send a message wasn’t it?)

oh, and they have droids for the sole purpose of torture. “RCH-5’s only job is to inflict pain! leia can’t manipulate him!”

oh, and all this happened in the space of a few weeks at most in widely divergant areas. so no “just a few bad apples” or “isolated incident” excuses here.

How do we know Alderaan was a peaceful planet without any weapons or anything? Because the leader of the rebellion who had just lied about the location of the rebel base said so? We better get another source to corroborate that intelligence.

Also, we can make an analogy between Moff Tarkin and Vader, and our current government. The people at the very top can be poewr-hungry fucktards willing to lie and cheat their way into control and power, but that doesn’t mean the whole system is bad. Add a single unit of stormtroopers who (off the books) did all the “dirty work” of tracking the droids on Tatooine and that leaves about 99.99% of the Imperial Navy still to be shown as evil.

“Imperialistic” is a good word to describe the Empire. It has flaws like every form of government, especially when the top 3 or 4 people are extremely evil, but that doesn’t mean the system is evil to its core.

If blowing up a planet with billions of civilians isn’t enough to qualify a regime as evil in you people’s eyes, what is? The analogy would be Bush nuking Iraq to kill all the rebels.

And considering that imperial government radiates outwards from the people at the top, if those people are extremely evil then that will have pretty dire consequences for the rest of the system.

I dunno, with orders of magnitude and all, I think its more like Galaxy (Far Away) : Alderan :: Iraq : 1 square block in Fallujah. Just sayin’.

remember when alderaan’s naval fleet met the death star far out in orbit to investigate? or how the planetary defense shields tried to hold up? or how the surviving fighters from the orbiting defense stations launched fighters? or how vader and tarkin laughed in her face about alderaan being defenseless and said that was a load of bullshit?

no? neither did i.

btw, even if they had 20 squadrons of x-wings backed up by a fleet of 50 mon calmari cruisers with nebulon b and corellian corvette cruisers, tarkin didn’t seem to care either way. just go in and shoot. so much for “corroborate that intel”.

Also, we can make an analogy between Moff Tarkin and Vader, and our current government. The people at the very top can be poewr-hungry fucktards willing to lie and cheat their way into control and power, but that doesn’t mean the whole system is bad. Add a single unit of stormtroopers who (off the books) did all the “dirty work” of tracking the droids on Tatooine and that leaves about 99.99% of the Imperial Navy still to be shown as evil.

a single unit? what did i say about a few bad apples? the guys at the cannons were shooting defenseless escape pods. the guys at the death star were torturing people. that imperial called chewie a “thing” to his face just because he was a wookie.

“she’ll die before she tells you anything” - he seems to have experience to tell which ones will crack and which ones will hold up to the end.

where are the wymyns in the fleet? where are the aliens in the command positions?

the senate was dissolved, now power resides in the emperor’s hands, and the plan was for that to stay that way using the death star.

they have droids whose sole purpose is torture. those things have to be designed, bought, and maintained, with an entire logistics train and personnel. it’s not like an ad hoc car battery and clamps setup here.

the whole system is bad.

“Imperialistic” is a good word to describe the Empire. It has flaws like every form of government, especially when the top 3 or 4 people are extremely evil, but that doesn’t mean the system is evil to its core.

without checks and balances any government will inevitably go towards evil. if your system depends on the goodness of three or four people, you’re fucked.

the system was evil to its core. when palpatine was killed off, the empire brought down, who was cheering in the capital? the people man, the people. not the rich elite, not the privileged few, but the helpless huddled masses yearning to be free.

I dunno, with orders of magnitude and all, I think its more like Galaxy (Far Away) : Alderan :: Iraq : 1 square block in Fallujah. Just sayin’.[/quote]

so if i kill an infant back in 1900 when there were fewer humans, and then i kill one today, it’s not as bad because of the magic of proportions and exponential growth?

remember when alderaan’s naval fleet met the death star far out in orbit to investigate? or how the planetary defense shields tried to hold up? or how the surviving fighters from the orbiting defense stations launched fighters? or how vader and tarkin laughed in her face about alderaan being defenseless and said that was a load of bullshit?[/quote]
I don’t quite get if you’re agreeing with me or not. That said, I don’t even recall most of your examples above from when the Empire attacked Hoth with a conventional fleet. Sure they had a tiny shield over the rebel base to protect it from aerial bombardment and they did launch what a whopping dozen X-Wings to handle the AT-ATs, but otherwise I don’t see a precedent for rebel capability to do any of what you said above.

Seems to me he had this all planned out in advance. They were already orbiting Alderaan when he brought Leia to the conn. The Emporer foreknew and prepared for the rebel attack on Endor, why would he not be able to see rebel forces on Alderaan? The Empire used Imperial probe droids to find rebels on Hoth, why would these not have been used on Alderaan to double-check?

Oh, because Tarkin didn’t tell Leia? :roll:

Right, so we’ve confirmed that Tarkin (whom you just quoted), Vader (who tortured Leia for info, choke holds people without accountability, etc), and a unit of stormtroopers (who killed the Jawas, Luke’s Aunt and Uncle, etc) are evil.

(Forgive me for shifting the wookie quote to this bit but it made the reply easier.)

I can agree that the Empire was xenophobic/racist and vaguely sexist (just like the founders fathers of the US) without agreeing that the whole system is evil to its core. Note that there was only one female military member in the rebellion as well (the Bothan intelligence analyst in ROTJ was hardly a combatant).

Further I don’t see why the Empire ought to be required to have other races in their military. America doesn’t invite Mexican citizens to join up and fight for us.

Now you’re getting into “Republic was Evil” area, in my view. I’m not convinced the Senate was as great an institution when it was dissolved as it was when it was founded. Nor were the Jedi (the so-called “good guys”) nor was anyone else. So someone gains power and removes them to set up their idea of a better government. Was Caesar evil because he re-established the idea of emporership in Rome or were his intentions acceptable?

I suppose it offends our delicate “democracy is 100% good” notions, but I’d go for a benevolent dictatorship any day of the week, twice on Sunday. I’m not saying the Empire was benevolent, I’m saying that the word “Senate” does not magically invoke a swelling of pride within me.

I recall one droid whose sole purpose was giving an injection. Now whether this was a “TORTURE BOT!!1!” or just a medical droid I don’t know, but it didn’t exactly go in there like some black-ops agent with a tool kit of oddly shaped implements and soften her up before Vader came in to interrogate.

Fair enough, but we’re talking about what was, not what could have become. The Empire can’t have been in power more than a couple dozen years, really.

The only cheering I recall was the rebel forces and the Endor teddy bears. I don’t remember the scenes panning all the other worlds yearning to be free (in fairness this may have been added on the re-released editions which I haven’t seen).


Final note: the entire SW universe is a poor fiction, so I hope no one takes this as personally as regular P&R posts. :)

And here I thought fascist sentiment died out post-WW2. I guess not.

If it allows you to impose a values-driven tyranny of the majority, it’s all good.

I don’t know what’s funnier: that people argue about this in the first place, or that anyone would defend the empire.

[quote=“John_Reynolds”]

If it allows you to impose a values-driven tyranny of the majority, it’s all good.[/quote]

As opposed to plain tyranny, yeah, it’s all good.

leia claims alderaan is peaceful, vader and tarkin don’t deny it, no military or weapons were at all evident defending or even trying to escape from alderaan. in other words, all available evidence points to no weapons on alderaan, which was my original point and which you failed to refute except “leia’s a rebel propagandist!” in a classic attack the messenger ad hominem strawman fnord.

if they did have weapons, why did vader and tarkin just sit there and let her lie about it? they aren’t democrats, if she lied they would have called her on her bullshit, just like when leia tried the we’re a “counciler ship” line. vader didn’t take any lip then why is he taking the we have “no weapons” lip now? because it’s true!

Seems to me he had this all planned out in advance. They were already orbiting Alderaan when he brought Leia to the conn. The Emporer foreknew and prepared for the rebel attack on Endor, why would he not be able to see rebel forces on Alderaan? The Empire used Imperial probe droids to find rebels on Hoth, why would these not have been used on Alderaan to double-check?

Oh, because Tarkin didn’t tell Leia? :roll:

the emperor gave the intel to the rebels hoping they would attack. he didn’t magically see them in his magic 8-ball like you’re imagining with alderaan.

probes? wtf? show don’t tell. actually, they never even have a line where tarkin said “release the probes!” so they didn’t tell either. so ok, since we can make shit up that they never show or tell, then the empire’s stormtroopers raped children and put sugar in your grandmother’s speeder’s power converters. empire = teh ev1l!11

there is no evidence of probes. just, “set course for alderaan!”

get your facts straight. “she’ll die before she’ll you anything” is not tarkin’s line. it was some nameless commander talking to vader. (“holding her is dangerous blah blah blah she’'ll die before she tells you anything” and vader is all “leave that {torturing} to me”)

commander = evil.

stormtroopers = evil.

and the gunners on the star destroyer. “hold your fire! there’s NO lifesigns”. in other words they were doing the equivalent of machine gunning surviving sailors in the water. you think their supervisors aren’t noticing their little target practice?

navy from command staff to vader to commanders to gunners to torture bot droid maintenace staff = evil

let’s not forget when the tie fighters were “heading for the medical frigate” in rotj. one of them freaking rammed it i believe.

purposefully bringing combat close to medical firgate AND ramming it = evil

COUGH BULLSHIT COUGH LEIA IN ROTJ COUGH COUGH COUGH COMM TECHS IN ESB COUGH COUGH POSSIBLE FEMALE MON CLALAMARI CREWMEMBERS NOT QUITE SURE SINCE THEY WERE IN BACKGROUND AND I DIDN’T GET MORE THAN A QUICK LOOK, AS IF WE KNEW FOR SURE THAT MON CALAMARI HAD DISTINCT SEXES ANYWAY COUGH COUGH

Further I don’t see why the Empire ought to be required to have other races in their military. America doesn’t invite Mexican citizens to join up and fight for us.

because in a non-evil government you have certain inalienable rights. like joining the military if you want to and you have the ability.

the us allows permanent resident aliens to join up. are you saying that aliens aren’t even citizens under the empire, they are considered slaves or second class or what?

http://www.jag.navy.mil/documents/Immigration.html#Military

Under an agreement between the INS and the Department of Defense, the military services will take responsibility for the initial processing of naturalization applications submitted under the “qualifying military service” naturalization category for their service members. Service members still need to prepare an Application for Naturalization (N-400) as well as the INS form G-325B – Military Biography. Additionally, you will need to prepare an INS form N-426 – Request for Certification of Military or Naval Service that is available through your command or the Legal Service Office.

their entire plan was to rule by fear. this is a better government for…the guy in charge and no one else.

you would pick benevolent dictaorship over what? the current us system of government? rome’s senate before caesar took over? the senate which you have no idea is any good or not (hey, all we have to go on is some “anti-senate propanganda by anakin” in the movies…) but yeah old republic sucked but not “tortured their citizens and blew up planets just to send a message” bad.

yeah, it was a medical bot with a 6 inch needle being used against someone without their consent. you forgot to tell me how it should be classed as “abuse” not “torture.” no wait, leia was diabetic! she needed her insulin!

google images for “interrogation droid”

google images for “medical droid”

gogole for torture droid

so in a few dozen years they go from slightly crappy and corrupt tp torture with six inch needles and gunning down escape pods unless there are lifesigns. swell!

they were cheering on corusant and cloud city and endor i the rereleases. it was like woodstock only with a stormtrooper getting crowdsurfed. still, han should have been left as having shot first.

but to set it on your terms, we have the rebels who did not treat the ewoks like shit (the fact the ewoks were willing to fight using spears against guys with blasters tells you how the imperials did their hearts and minds campaign), vader looking happy and at peace that he rejected the empire, and the ewoks themselves.

the ewoks the real villains shift6, weren’t they? sitting there all high and mighty on their planet without spaceships peacfully telling stories around the fire to their infants.

Final note: the entire SW universe is a poor fiction, so I hope no one takes this as personally as regular P&R posts. :)

I HATE YOU! I HOPE YOU DIE! I HOPE YOUR CHILDREN DIE! THEN YOU’LL SEE HOW I WAS RIGHT! - from red vs blue’s guide to politcal discussion on the internet

so, uh, yeah good discussion. lots of good points made on all sides.

and one last time: han should have shot first in all versions! yeaaaarrrrrarghhhHH!

Russellmz00 you have my regards in your ability to demonstrably win and lose at the exact same time. Congrats!

And here I thought fascist sentiment died out post-WW2. I guess not.[/quote]
So any form of government that does not have a senate (or something like it) is facism? Unless you’re lumping all forms of rulership by one person or group (monarchy, military dictatorship, oligarchy, actual legitimate facism, etc) as facism then I don’t see it.

It can be fun to exericse your values and the way you express them in a completely fictional context. Man shall not live by blogs alone, J.

I’m not attacking her person, I’m attacking her words. She is a leader in the rebellion. She has no reason to tell the truth to them and in fact lied mere seconds before. I chalk up their lack of defenses to the fact that there weren’t minutes or hours of preparation and alerts and all that, just a huge ass battlestation showing up and a few minutes later popping a major cap in the planet. They didn’t have to deploy a fleet to surgically remove a particular base or anything like on other attacks.

Vader’s personality was clearly different than Tarkin. Vader knew his place and he took orders from Tarkin and deferred to him because the Emporer told him to do so. Further they didn’t really have a discussion on Alderaan. Tarkin said he was going to blow it up, she gave up a lie, and he did it anyways “as an example”. An example to whom, other peaceful farmers? No, an example to the Rebellion and anyone who harbors them!

You asserted (without proof) that he had no intel. I simply asserted a means by which he may have had intel, ie scout probes like Han shot on Hoth. As I said, he clearly had Alderaan in mind long before (they had to consider the best way to get the goods from Leia if interrogation didn’t work), partly because of her personal attachment to it.

Right, my bad on attributing the quote. But claiming that someone won’t break under torture is hardly evil unto itself. Would it be evil for some Sergeant in Gitmo to tell his superior that he doesn’t think torture will work?

On this, still only have the one example of a particular unit of STs.

I figured they’d be firing the ion cannons which disable ships. Make the escape pod a floating hunk of metal and reel it back in with (presumably) the escaping person who had the plans. Besides which, it should be noted, that the person who would have had the plans would have been a spy, not some unarmed Army schlub in the trenches getting gunned down by the opposing line.

As I recall the one medical frigate which was desotryed was the one shot by the “fully operational battle station”, personally ordered by the Emporer.

By that rationale, targetting a medic soldier is “worse” than shooting a normal soldier. Would you agree?

(excess words redacted and numbers added) Leia is the one I was referring to. Comm techs in ESB? You’re going to say that a non-combat signals operator on a ship is equivalent to “women in combat”? Then a huge bit about Mon Calamari which can’t be backed up anyways.

So as I said, one.

Never heard that before. Who says military service is an inalienable right? Paine? Locke?

I wouldn’t equate “creatures which live on a completely different planet outside of the empire” as “permanent resident aliens”, no. Difference in terms, I suppose.

I recall something like: “fear will be used to keep the local governors in line”. Seems to me those local governors were part and parcel of the corruption of the Old Republic. I’d go along with a certian amount of fear (especially of things like public exposure, jail, fines, etc) used to keep our corrupt governors and Senators in line, frankly.

Again I’m not excusing the obviously evil personal actions (and orders) of Tarkin, Vader, or the Emporer. In any event, I clearly recall the Jedi council (another bastion of “goodness”… ha!) and Amadala talking about the laziness and greed and corruption of the Senate. Those are your very own good guys, at least in the first three parts of the series.

In any event I don’t recall one instance of torture besides that of the rebel leader, Leia. Hardly equivalent to going out and randomly rapping the knuckles of the citizenry to make sure they’re in line.

I didn’t forget to tell you, I agreed with you thta personal, Vader engaged an evil act in torturing Leia. What I don’t agree with is that there is a droid (or series of droids) specifically designed for torture. Hell it was a floating ball with a syringe holder.

I’m also blithely ignoring your Google links, as those are clearly propoganda from people pushing the same anti-Empire agenda as you are. :wink: :twisted:

so in a few dozen years they go from slightly crappy and corrupt tp torture with six inch needles and gunning down escape pods unless there are lifesigns. swell![/quote]
I’m not saying good governments are an historical inevitability. A governmental coup established by a powerful team of truly evil people (Emporer and young Vader) which specifically puts like-minded people in the highest positions (Tarkin) will quickly be performing and justifying some grotesque things on their personal orders.

Fair enough, haven’t seen them. I don’t consider even Lucas-based revisionism (when he realized the idiocies of “his work”) valid. He was concocting events after-the-fact to justify what we already knew to be false. :)

Vader rejected the dark side, his own personal evil, by overthrowing the source of the evil influence over him (the Emporer).

The rejoicing ewoks mean nothing to me, as the Imperial base on “their planet” was nothing. I can’t think of a single reason the Ewoks would have joined the rebellion (they did almost eat the rebels after all) except that C3PO gave them his lanted version of the story. Boo hoo C3PO, your pal stole from the government two movies back and you’ve stuck by his side but I’m supposed to think your side of the story is true and objective? Fuck no.

No, they were primal pawns of the rebellion. Give one single reason that the Ewoks should have gone against the Empire. I don’t recall Ewok death camps or forced labor. I didn’t see Ewok heads on spits when they raided the bunker. They were lied to by the glittering translator who “happened” to be a rebel.

This is P&R baby. :)

I want you to know I’ve logged in like five times today just for this thread. Days off work are great! Heheh.

Holy fuck.

Lucasarts should totally make another Tie Fighter game.

It can be fun to exericse your values and the way you express them in a completely fictional context. Man shall not live by blogs alone, J.
[/quote]

here, here.

I’m not attacking her person, I’m attacking her words. She is a leader in the rebellion. She has no reason to tell the truth to them and in fact lied mere seconds before. I chalk up their lack of defenses to the fact that there weren’t minutes or hours of preparation and alerts and all that, just a huge ass battlestation showing up and a few minutes later popping a major cap in the planet. They didn’t have to deploy a fleet to surgically remove a particular base or anything like on other attacks.
[/quote]

my apologies i mixed up lizard’s “leia is a propangandist” nonsense with the shift6 nonsense. :P

nonsensical argument. if it was possible to pop up next door and then blast a planet without even a single fighter being launched, what was that shit at the end of star wars? “rebel base will be in range in 5 minutes.” if the rebels were there he’d want to zoom in and blast them before they could a) launch or b) escape.

Vader’s personality was clearly different than Tarkin. Vader knew his place and he took orders from Tarkin and deferred to him because the Emporer told him to do so. Further they didn’t really have a discussion on Alderaan. Tarkin said he was going to blow it up, she gave up a lie, and he did it anyways “as an example”. An example to whom, other peaceful farmers? No, an example to the Rebellion and anyone who harbors them!
[/quote][/quote]

which doesn’ t prove that alderaan had weapons, merely that the empire you think is so much better than a corrupt old republic blew up billions of innocents because they could only provide two alternatives: empire or death.

You asserted (without proof) that he had no intel. I simply asserted a means by which he may have had intel, ie scout probes like Han shot on Hoth. As I said, he clearly had Alderaan in mind long before (they had to consider the best way to get the goods from Leia if interrogation didn’t work), partly because of her personal attachment to it.
[/quote]

the facts 100% match up with leia’s claim that alderaan has no weapons. in fact, your very theoretical intel supports leia as well.

if he did have intel, and he went in without any star destroyer escort and only a small fighter contigent (the 30 rebel fighters didn’t seem outgunned during the dogfights until the bombing/trench run) then that only supports the “no weapons on aledraan” claim.

you have to make up magical “probes and the emporer knew in rotj* and maybe they got the drop on them because the moon sized battlestation is so fast and sleek and can stop on a dime that they couldn’t launch a single fighter” to counteract the truth: no weapons on alderaan.

this wasn’t some conscientious soldier saying, “abdul will die before he tells you anything. torture is wrong morally and gives bad intel.” the context indubitably shows the commander meant, “you’re going to torture her(just like you always do), but it won’t work this time” when he said “she’ll die before she tells you anything.”

he wasn’t saying torture was a great wrong, don’t do it, he was saying that torturing her wouldn’t work in this case. and he said it like he had experience between the ones that break and the ones that don’t.

On this, still only have the one example of a particular unit of STs.

I figured they’d be firing the ion cannons which disable ships. Make the escape pod a floating hunk of metal and reel it back in with (presumably) the escaping person who had the plans. Besides which, it should be noted, that the person who would have had the plans would have been a spy, not some unarmed Army schlub in the trenches getting gunned down by the opposing line.
[/quote]

nice try, but your apologist arguments don’t hold up. how did they magically know that there wasn’t a non-spy soldier or even a civilian with the spy on the escape pod?

there’s no evidence that the cannons were ion. all fire between the corellian corvette and star destroyer was green and red. none of the shots looked ion cannon-like (see esb)

even so, if they were looking for the plans, they should have shot at ALL the pods whether they had ion or turbolaser cannons. instead we get that line about how there were no lifesigns so they held their fire. if they did have ion cannons they would have fired to make sure the plans didn’t land on some planet at the ass end of space.

whatever.

As I recall the one medical frigate which was desotryed was the one shot by the “fully operational battle station”, personally ordered by the Emporer.
[/quote]

wedge says, “they’re heading for the medical frigate!” then he and lando give chase because you protect the injured not do a dogfight ten meters from them. the rebels take a few out, one rams into the nebulon b i beleive.

By that rationale, targetting a medic soldier is “worse” than shooting a normal soldier. Would you agree?
[/quote]

huh? getting shot is worse than getting targetted. are you high? what are you smoking?

(excess words redacted and numbers added) Leia is the one I was referring to. Comm techs in ESB? You’re going to say that a non-combat signals operator on a ship is equivalent to “women in combat”? Then a huge bit about Mon Calamari which can’t be backed up anyways.
[/quote]

my bad, i misread what you wrote. the comm chicks were just as much at risk of getting killed as any one else inside the base. they could have been killed by the collapsing interior, by the transports getting hit as they evac’ed. the empire had that chick who…uh…no wait they didn’t!

those fish had boobies. look for them.

Never heard that before. Who says military service is an inalienable right? Paine? Locke?
[/quote]

pursuit of happiness. not that the declaration of independence is a legal document anyway. the constitution mentioned “provide the common defense.” not that paine, locke, or america legal tradition follows in a galaxy far far away.

why can’t a citizen join up if they have the ability?

I wouldn’t equate “creatures which live on a completely different planet outside of the empire” as “permanent resident aliens”, no. Difference in terms, I suppose.
[/quote]

so the empire doesn’t encompass the worlds of the old republic? does that make ANY sense at all? so only the humanoid planets are in there? what happened to the ets, the big heads, the wolfies, the bothans, the other 5000 funky ass looking animal things? what about those planets with both human and non-humanoid life? there are these huge 6 parsec holes in the empire’s sphere where old republic non humanoid planets exist in peace and tranquility unbothered by the empire? how did you come up with this rhomboidal moebius strip empire of yours?

I recall something like: “fear will be used to keep the local governors in line”. Seems to me those local governors were part and parcel of the corruption of the Old Republic. I’d go along with a certian amount of fear (especially of things like public exposure, jail, fines, etc) used to keep our corrupt governors and Senators in line, frankly.
[/quote]

without america’s nuclear arsenal, that bastard mayor in tampa will secede at any moment.

Again I’m not excusing the obviously evil personal actions (and orders) of Tarkin, Vader, or the Emporer. In any event, I clearly recall the Jedi council (another bastion of “goodness”… ha!) and Amadala talking about the laziness and greed and corruption of the Senate. Those are your very own good guys, at least in the first three parts of the series.
[/quote]

don’t put words into my mouth. my best compliments to the old republic consist of “not as bad as the empire.” i even say it sucked in the very section you quote. btw, people say x y z section of government is corrupt and lazy and greedy all the time. point to a member here who think that the government is none of those three things. guess that means we have to kick out all the women and minorities in the military, raze the capitol building, and install bush as emperor for life.

the personal and evil actions are not isolated incidents they are part and parcel of the system of empire. even with control of all branche sof government, there is some resistence, there is some accountability from the people ,and pressure from public opinion. there is no accountability for vader and the emperor.

i guess turning a human into an ice cube doesn’t count as torture i your twisted empire apologist mindset. does it even count as abuse?

I didn’t forget to tell you, I agreed with you thta personal, Vader engaged an evil act in torturing Leia. What I don’t agree with is that there is a droid (or series of droids) specifically designed for torture. Hell it was a floating ball with a syringe holder.

I’m also blithely ignoring your Google links, as those are clearly propoganda from people pushing the same anti-Empire agenda as you are. :wink: :twisted:
[/quote]

what you can’t ignore is that they have shown medical bots already. none of them were intimidating looking things with a six inch needle.

i’m not aying that you’re saying that.

Fair enough, haven’t seen them. I don’t consider even Lucas-based revisionism (when he realized the idiocies of “his work”) valid. He was concocting events after-the-fact to justify what we already knew to be false. :)

Vader rejected the dark side, his own personal evil, by overthrowing the source of the evil influence over him (the Emporer).
[/quote]

agreed. the empire and the emperor are one and the same.

as soon as he fell, there was nothing left. the massive fleets, the stormtroopers, the moffs, none of them could pick up the pieces or get the support of the people. the nature of the empire was that there was no orderly transfer of power, no clear line of authority.

No, they were primal pawns of the rebellion. Give one single reason that the Ewoks should have gone against the Empire. I don’t recall Ewok death camps or forced labor. I didn’t see Ewok heads on spits when they raided the bunker. They were lied to by the glittering translator who “happened” to be a rebel.
[/quote]

well, they parked someting the size of a small moon next door to their planet. i don’t want to think what effects something the size of the moon would have on earth if that happened. and considering the ewoks had a basic hang-gliding capability, and structures that towered over any human culture at their tech level built , you seem to think they’re fools. if the imperials treated them nicely at all, the rebels would have been dinner. end of story.

This is P&R baby. :)

I want you to know I’ve logged in like five times today just for this thread. Days off work are great! Heheh.[/quote]

an intelligent debate on a ridiculous subject is alway good fun.

Haha, this thread is awesome

This is how liberty dies – to thunderous applause."

So observes Queen Amidala of Naboo as the galactic senate grants dictator-to-be Palpatine sweeping new powers in his crusade against the Jedi in the final “Star Wars” movie opening this week.

It’s just one of several lines in “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” that reveal the movie to be more than just a sci-fi blockbuster and gargantuan cultural phenomenon.

“Revenge of the Sith,” it turns out, can also be seen as a cautionary tale for our time – a blistering critique of the war in Iraq, a reminder of how democracies can give up their freedoms too easily, and an admonition about the seduction of good people by absolute power.

Some film critics suggest it could be the biggest anti-Bush blockbuster since “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott gives “Sith” a rave, and notes that Lucas "grounds it in a cogent and (for the first time) comprehensible political context.

" ‘Revenge of the Sith’ is about how a republic dismantles its own democratic principles, about how politics becomes militarized, about how a Manichaean ideology undermines the rational exercise of power. Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders. At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, ‘If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.’ Obi-Wan’s response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: ‘Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.’ "

Agence France Presse reports that the movie delivers “a galactic jab to US President George W. Bush.”

It’s been generating “murmurs at the parallels being drawn between Bush’s administration and the birth of the space opera’s evil Empire.”

Are some people reading too much into the movie?

Filmmaker George Lucas insists that the genesis of his story dates back 30 years. But he pointed out that certain themes do seem to repeat themselves, whether here and now or a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Bruce Kirkland writes in the Toronto Sun: "Star Wars is a wakeup call to Americans about the erosion of democratic freedoms under George W. Bush, filmmaker George Lucas said yesterday.

"Lucas, responding to a question from the Sun at a Cannes Film Festival press conference, said he first wrote the framework of Star Wars in 1971 when reacting to then U.S. President Richard Nixon and the on-going events of the Vietnam War. But the story still has relevance today, he said, and is part of a pattern he has noticed in his readings of history.

" ‘I didn’t think it was going to get quite this close,’ he said of the parallels between the Nixon era and the current Bush presidency, which has been sacrificing freedoms in the interests of national security. ‘It is just one of those re-occurring things. I hope this doesn’t come true in our country. Maybe the film will awaken people to the situation of how dangerous it is.’ "

David Germain writes for the Associated Press: "Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.

" ‘When I wrote it, Iraq didn’t exist,’ Lucas said, laughing.

" ‘We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn’t think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam . . . The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we’re doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.’ "

Lucas said he has long been interested in the transition from democracy to dictatorship.

"In ancient Rome, ‘why did the senate, after killing Caesar, turn around and give the government to his nephew?’ Lucas said. ‘Why did France, after they got rid of the king and that whole system, turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler.’

" ‘You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody’s squabbling, there’s corruption.’ "

Harlan Jacobson writes in USA Today: "Since screenings began last month at Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, people have been discussing parallels between the final film in Lucas’ six-film Star Wars saga and current political events. . . .

"Lucas said Darth Vader’s saga is about how a good man turns himself into a bad one.

" ‘Most of them think they’re good people doing what they do for a good reason.’ "

Marijke Rowland writes in the Modesto Bee: "Lucas’ longtime producer Rick McCallum insists that the resemblances are coincidental.

" ‘(The film) was started well before we even knew this disaster was going to happen,’ he said, referring to Iraq war.

"Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid, who plays the evil mastermind Chancellor Palpatine, who installs himself as emperor, said the film manages to reflect modern events while addressing timeless themes.

" ‘It is a film about how easily (freedom) can disappear, how easily we can all be seduced into surrendering it while thinking we’re having a good time,’ he said. ‘It chimes with the zeitgeist.’

Adds McDiarmid: “It’s a film that reflects contemporary events, but it is a film. Enjoy the metaphor.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/05/16/BL2005051600615.html

I dunno, with orders of magnitude and all, I think its more like Galaxy (Far Away) : Alderan :: Iraq : 1 square block in Fallujah. Just sayin’.[/quote]
so if i kill an infant back in 1900 when there were fewer humans, and then i kill one today, it’s not as bad because of the magic of proportions and exponential growth?[/quote]
I wasn’t making a value judgement, I was just trying to keep perspective in the analogy. FWIW, I think that neither one square block of Fallujah nor fictional planets should be blown up. Though it makes a good movie.