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I thought the CIS was a libertarian capitalist movement? They were backed by the Trade Federation, a megacorp that wanted essentially no taxes on corporations?
Yeah the biggest members of the CIS were
-Commerce Guild
-Corporate Alliance
-InterGalactic Banking Clan
-Retail Caucus
-Techno Union
-Trade Federationvery cool smol bean revolutionaries, the clone wars is literally just ancaps vs fascists
kinda but they also bombed the Core worlds so they were historically progressive
unlimited genocide on the KKKore worldSS
damn critical support
Did the trade federation ever say what they wanted
uh like naboo disputed something, in some way, and that necessitated a blockade for reasons
it’s so funny how the phantom menace has this rep of being too dry from political minutiae when there are literally no concrete details on the inciting events for the plot. not even in the expanded universe materials!
I googled it and if the ai summary can be believed i guess the TF was motivated by new taxes on outer rim trade routes, so it was a tax thing, but it was ultimately engineered by Palpatine to “garner sympathy in the Senate” so he was made chancellor
I forget that he was supposed to be from naboo lol
we don’t even know which jurisdiction levies taxes, it shouldn’t be naboo ir else why would it be a galactic issue, but then why would you blockade a random planet over taxes across a wide area like the outer rim???
the amount of autonomy republic members had is never pinned down, some of them have (elected!!!) royalty like naboo, others seem to be hereditary, many have independent militaries, but the crux of the issue is either naboo specifically pissed off the federation within their rights–then the federation’s response is probably somewhat fair play–or the republic actually governs interplanetary trade and there’s no explanation for why it ought to be naboo.
I think naboo was targeted just because it was vulnerable? and the TF wanted to force them into terms that would make them their puppet? implying resource extraction rights etc etc etc. And I guess the tax stuff was just what prompted the TF to make that maneuver? idk
there’s no explanation for why it ought to be naboo.
i mean ultimately it’s “a space wizard did it” if it was something Palpatine wanted, someone else said Nute Gunray owed his viceroyship to Palpatine? maybe palpatine got him his seat and then “betrayed” the TF by supporting the tax stuff, so the TF targeted naboo to get back at its senator? again idk we’re probably putting more effort into thinking about it than george lucas did
trade federation was neutral during the war officially, they were on palpatine’s plot because he help nute gunray become viceroy of the TF
Critical support
Saw Guerrera wasn’t a liberal he just liked huffing gasoline
Whoa now, that’s his sister you’re talking about there, comrade.
Nobody’s talking about how Saw and Rhydo’s relationship was incestuous and tbh it’s fucked up.
Star wars is way too stupid to derive any political framework that makes any sense from it.
Yes, thank you! I’d extend it to more than just being stupid. That sentiment applies equally to just about every fictional work. Using atlas shrugged to cheer whatever the fuck rand was trying to push is just as foolish as using a separate peace for examples of codependence.
Fiction can highlight things, but when any author can make gay space communism and super-straight ™ capitalism equally viable and good for the individuals operating under their systems by simply writing a sentence like, “The super-straight capitalismo empire had citizens every bit as happy and fulfilled as the gay space communitarians across the river,” then maybe all the english language arts teachers should take a deep breath and step back from their fart sniffing on the soap box.
Nuh Dooku’s group are ancaps. The rebellion is fine except for everyone important to it dying that could have recognised the need to redirect it somewhere better.
What you have in Star Wars is a February revolution without an October revolution because everyone that would’ve realised that would be needed died. Luthen for sure would’ve turned on Mon Mothma if he realised it was just going to be a rerun of the Republic, which he must very clearly remember first hand. He’s old enough to have been Obi Wan’s age during it and smart enough to know it was shit and would only lead back to fascism.
rebel funding and weapons came from opportunistic corporations
the whole-ass CIS droid army and navy being derived from private corporate armies
Didn’t CIS use slave labour in the form of sentient robots?
I always hated how they handled the prequels around this issue. Sending robots into battle is apparently the evil option while the “good guys” are literally cloning people to raise them as soldiers from the day they first draw breath. Somehow, sending machines capable of independent operation into battle is evil but creating human clones for the sole purpose of sending them into battle - human beings who will literally never know anything but war - is “good”. And not just the action of the side we’re aligned with - the Jedi are ontologically good in star wars and they’re fighting alongside the clone troopers. Really weird choice.
I remember Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy, from before the prequels. Not a lot of pre-trilogy detail, but it was definitely implied that the empire had been around a long time and that the Clone Wars was fought against imperial clone troopers, not that he clones were the goodies. Some fun stuff has come out of post-prequel Star Wars (I haven’t seen Andor yet but ironically I had a lot of fun with the clone wars once I got past the bafflingly bad call to make the good guys the ones using clones) but I definitely preferred the old EU in terms of the lore.
everything they ever said about the clone wars before george shat out those movies made it sound like the clones were the enemy. look at how america names wars.
it also seems like they should’ve taken place more than 20 years before a new hope, and the story is way worse for his not paying attention to his own notes.
Yeah, with the timeline as it is it seems like the empire at its peak lasted for maybe 4 years
The Empire is (arguably) created around the same time when Padme gives birth and dies. Luke is 19 years old in 4, 5 is three years after that, 6 is a year after that.
Assuming The Empire dies with the emperor, it only lasted around ~23 years in total.
converted into fascism units that’s about 2 one thousand year reichs
Even then the senate is only dissolved in the first movie before immediately having their superweapon blowed up.
Yeah, the original films make it sound like all that stuff happened in the distant past, and that’s what EU authors ran with.
tbh I mostly just love the Thrawn books and want more of that shit straight into my veins plxtbh I mostly just love the Thrawn books and want more of that shit straight into my veins plxthere was a certain spark in the old eu that the disney well curated one just doesnt match. Sure there was a lot of weird stuff and even creepy SA shit in some of the old eu but the new disney stuff isnt all bangers either.
or maybe it seems cooler cause i was a child and immersed myself fully into Kyle Katarn etc etc.
Well… there is a more generous interpretation, but I’m not sure how valid it is.
Palpatine created the clone army and then used the separatists to manufacture a threat that would cause the Republic to accept it. This was an integral part of his plan, it allowed him to kill all the Jedi and consolidate power, because the clones were trained to know nothing but battle and to blindly follow orders. “How does a republic turn to fascism?” is a question that the prequels seem to want to answer, and the clone army is part of that.
The most generous interpretation would say that the movies intentionally lead the audience on to accepting the Republic as the good guys and the clone army as necessary, and then shows that leading to disastrous results with the aim of prompting the audience to reflect on their willingness to accept the militarization of the Republic as a good/necessary thing.
However, if that’s the idea, the execution is pretty questionable. It’s never really made clear who should’ve done what differently to prevent Palpatine’s rise to power. Padme has a line in Ep. 3, “Do you ever wonder if we might be fighting for the wrong side?” But the other side is also being manipulated by the same guy, and even if the Republic were to resist militarization and offer negotiations and diplomacy, Palpatine would probably just get the Separatists to push further in order to create the threat he needed. The writers seem to think it’s enough to provide foreshadowing, rather than presenting actual alternatives.
A better version of the prequels would have clearly established a couple of things: 1. Palpatine’s influence over the separatists is not absolute, and they are open to peaceful negotiations, 2. At least somebody (like Padme) is clearly critical and opposed to the Republic’s militarization and the use of clones from the start, 3. The Jedi are not ontologically good, and/or have significant disagreements with the Republic, the war, and the use of clones. If those things were established and clearly communicated, then what we have is a story of a fascist using a manufactured/exaggerated threat to justify the controversial creation of a massive military accountable only to himself, while well-meaning people (the Jedi) struggle with the question of at what point should they stop being loyal to a government moving in an increasingly worrying direction. Instead, it really just comes down to the classic lib narrative about Hitler’s magical
force powerscharisma enchanting everyone.A better version of the prequels would have clearly established a couple of things: 1. Palpatine’s influence over the separatists is not absolute, and they are open to peaceful negotiations, 2. At least somebody (like Padme) is clearly critical and opposed to the Republic’s militarization and the use of clones from the start, 3. The Jedi are not ontologically good, and/or have significant disagreements with the Republic, the war, and the use of clones.
The clone wars show kinda fixed that. The separatist are more plural and some doesn’t agree with Dooku and want peace talks with the Republic, there’s a group inside the senate that’s do not agree with Palpatine, Padme debate things with Anakin, who always sides with Palpatine and the Jedis are not the paragons of good for most of the galatic people.
Yeah, I think that everyone would have been better off if movies 7, 8, and 9 were just the Heir to the Empire trilogy. It’s certainly in the spirit of the original movie trilogy. Just film it as-is, do the necessary recasting, and accept that the fans already likely know the story but want to see it anyway. Akin to the Lord of the Rings book fans coming out in droves to see the movies.
They were what got me into SW as more than just the films so I may be biased but I have a massive soft spot for the Thrawn books. I must watch Ahsoka and Rebels because I know he’s in them, even if they don’t necessarily do him justice. Plus Ahsoka herself is my favourite SW character overall, which may change if I reread Heir to the Empire etc (I reckon they should at the very least use Mara Jade in canon stuff because she’s fun as hell)
I think Rebels Thrawn does him as much justice as you could reasonably expect from a kids’ show.
honestly calling it the “clone wars” implies it was a war against the clones so it makes sense why him and other legends writers thought the clones were evil, maybe both factions should have been given clone armies
Maybe the good guys just shouldn’t have been using clones at all;)
Honestly in a lot of ways I wish we hadn’t gotten the prequels. Maybe the Thrawn Trilogy wouldn’t have worked as movies - haven’t read it in literally decades - but I really wish that instead of prequels we got sequels based on that. It was really fun. All the stuff with an imperial defector finding the Katana fleet and handing it over to the republic was great.
Honestly I liked the Disney sequels better than the prequels. They both have shitty, nonsensical plots, but the sequels had far better acting, cinematography, characters, and overall design. It’s all slop meant for kids, so might as well enjoy the pretty lights.
And yes, I am aware I’m one of those “Nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.” 😄
I would love to read a tell-all book by Rian Johnson after he retires and no longer has to worry about pissing off entertainment industry VIPs. I strongly suspect that The Last Jedi was the victim of huge levels of executive meddling. There’s some really solid ideas in that movie. My two favourites are the open critique of the Jedi in both their philosophy and actions, and calling out the military-industrial complex. But it’s buried in overly-long and often-unnecessary action setpieces that bring the whole plot to a screeching halt and feel shoehorned-in - such as literally everything that happened after Ben offered Rey a partnership after the throne room fight.
all droids are slaves in star wars even r2d2
That’s like everyone in Star Wars
Literally everyone of every faction uses slave labor in the form of sentient robots. Republic, CIS, Empire, Rebellion, New Republic, everybody.
I’ve sometimes thought a good Star Wars fanfic could be Anakin rejecting the Jedi and becoming John Brown for droids.
A droid underground railroad and/or revolution star wars movie or series would be sick
There was that one droid in Solo who fought for droid rights.
Unfortunately, she was called L3-37 and by the end of the movie, she became the computer of the Millennium Falcon.
She was absolutely 100% right about everything she ever said and both her human “companions” and the movie itself treated her as a joke.
L3-37 did nothing wrong.
The existence of IG-88, a droid bounty hunter, surely also means that droids in the SW universe are sentient beings who are capable of acting independently without human ”owners”.
You don’t have to get that deep into lore, R2-D2 spends most of his time on screen doing whatever he damn well pleases, starting by tricking some dumbass human yokel into disabling the mind control device slavers placed on him, while under the effects of said mind control device
It’s wild how the only canon work that even brings up the droid slavery issue in any meaningful way is the Han Solo origin movie. And even there it’s played as a joke
Do they ever actually do anything prove droids are sentient in Star Wars?
Sentience cannot be proven, since it is, by definition, a subjective sense of self.
But in terms of what has been said about droids in official materials:
There are different classes of droid, some of which are more sentient than others, and droids can gain sentience over time, which is why the empire regularly wipes their droids
This is anti-droid propaganda, all droids in Star Wars are sentient
I hate this. Just have them being cute, bumbling robots.
That works. They’re all just movie magic at the end of the day
Droids have personalities, hopes, dreams, fears, preferences and awareness of their own thoughts as well as awareness of their own mortality.
Do they ever actually do anything to prove biological life forms such as humans are sentient in Star Wars?
No.
does this affect the Glup Shitto lore?
Saw, Luthen, and Andor I think were not liberals. Saw was like a trot or MLM (not MZT) who kind of was going off the rails a bit in terms of theory and practice but he wasn’t a liberal. Luthen wasn’t a liberal which was why they had to sideline and kill him off. Andor probably wanted more than what he got which was being a pawn of liberals but wasn’t strong in theory though I think would have gladly been a foot-soldier for a more socialist rebellion led by Luthen by the end.
Mon Mothma absolutely was a liberal’s liberal as were the Jedi, as were pretty much all the people on Yavin who were shown in leadership roles. So basically Mon Mothma should have been allowed to die (or been killed I guess because she knew too much), Luthen should have engineered killing off the rebel liberal leadership likely using Andor, held theory reading classes, and they shouldn’t have trusted any Jedi and maybe things would have gone better.
did they remove banana regulations at least?
The only CIS i’m down with.
relevant Zizek quote
“You know what would be really interesting to do? Don’t denounce me as a Stalinist but, for example – it’s my old temptation – to rewrote Star Wars… presenting Palpatine and Darth Vader as good progressive egalitarian centralist fighting reactionary feudalist, all the Jedi bullshit.
It would tell a completely different story, from the others point. What do they [Jedi] stand for? All that, ‘Republic’, what strange of Republic is when you have a Princess Leila, knights, kings and so on? No, Palpatine the Emperor and Darth Vader, they are my good progressive Bonapartist revolutionaries trying to get rid of the old world.”neglection
