Back when Attack of the Clones was released, the Weekly Standard printed this article arguing that the Sith and the Empire are the good guys, while the Jedi and the rebels are the bad guys. Seems to me like the time is ripe to bring the argument up again. The Weekly Standard makes three main points:
The Galactic Republic is not a good government at the start, because they’re a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Likewise, the Jedi aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. They’re a bunch of arrogant, elitist snobs.
Palpatine and Vader aren’t such bad guys after all. They keep traditions of military honor alive, and show none of the corruption of the Republic.
The rebels are therefor a bunch of terrorists trying to destroy the rightful government. Thus, its okay for Vader to blow up Leia’s homeworld, kill Luke’s aunt and uncle, etc…
I personally am not convinced. First of all, it takes some significant leaps of logic to justify the claim that everybody who Vader kills is a malvolent rebel agent. And we never see any evidence of the Empire governing the galaxy well, even if they do refer to everyone by proper military titles. But nonetheless, I’m curious as to what others think.
I’ve got conserative leanings(or had. At this point I hate Conseravtives as much as Liberals).
My take would be:
I won’t argue that the Senate was Bloated and beucratic. It happens to the best governments. Hell, one could argue it happens to all governments.
The Jedi,while maybe being inferior to the USMC, do seem to serve as the legitmate police force/Milita of the republic. Such organizations sometimes do have stuck-up/elitist tendencies, but if you want quality, you do have to set high standreds. Or did he mean something else? How are they elitest?
Dicatotarships supposdly have no corruption, but then again, they aren’t going to let anyone know, are they? The Soviet Union believed itself to be quite effiecent. On paper, it was. In reality, it had massive corruption and poor economic capability. From what I’ve heard, Nazi Germany itself had massive corruption, despite having little use for a legislature.
Military dictatorships also have strong military traditions. Communist and Facist governments both have strong military tradtions.
Not to invoke Godwin, but The Nazi government was legitmate. Hussien’s Government was Legitimate. Both were pretty fricken horrible. And the US supported(in spirit, anyway) the french resistance and the iraqi opposition.
Well, for one thing, I think the article was fairly tongue-in-cheek.
But taking Vader as an example, he kills those who fail the Empire. If you take the author’s point about the Dark Side and The Empire being all about order and such, then Vader’s execution of Admiral Ozzel and Captain Needa is right in line with weeding out those who cannot perform their duties adequately. Harsh, to be sure, but consistent with a philosophy of Order Through Strength.
All-in-all, I think the article is at best an exercise in skepticism, in “seeing with your own eyes the evidence before us,” and not simply taking someone else’s word that one side is good and the other is bad.
Then again, other than their hiring policies WRT “outside contractors” (the bounty hunters in TESB), The Empire doesn’t seem to be too keen on racial diversity. And no matter how you slice it, blowing up an entire planet full of people because some of them are undoubtedly at least Rebel sympathizers (if not outright Rebels) seems a tad excessive. YMMV.
If you haven’t already done so, you should look up some of David Brin’s essays and articles concerning the Star Wars Universe.
Actually, what exactly is so evil about the Empire? True Vader kills more people than he really should, but they’re all rebels in a war against him- it’s not like he’s killing all Jawas or Sharkpeople just for the hell of it, they’re military opponents (or incompetent officers). It seems rather like a mafia “you don’t mess wid dem and dey don’t mess wid you” relationship. To those on non-combatant planets, I wonder if they even can tell a difference. Tattooine seems to be pretty much the same in Phantom as it did in Star Wars.
They’re nonetheless a representative democracy, or so it appears. I think just about anybody would argue that while a revolution against a dictatorship is justified, a dictator is not justified in taking over just because the government is inefficient.
So? They’re not the government.
You’d expect a dictatorship to do that. Palpatine goes from Chancellor>Chancellor with emergency powers>Emperor. On its face, that’s way, way more corrupt that Senators kowtowing to corporations.
Coming down on the side of government murder never works out. In the movies, we see Palpatine seize power. He’s abusing his authority, if you want to understate matters to a hysterical degree. He’s a tyrant who destroys a democratic government, which justifies a rebellion even if the previous government was bureaucratic and inefficient.
It has always been my understanding (from Lando to Tarkin) that the Empire controlled by fear, fear of the use of force (not the Force, but violence), all economic activities and political cricles in the galaxy. Also, I would think they’re pretty much like Stalin’s Russia or Nazi Germany: don’t like us? Too late, you’re dead.
Also, coming from the “EU”, the Empire ensalved many people, including Wookies, to maintain their power. Chewbacca was a slave until Han freed him, so there you go.
Don’t forget, they killed all the Jawas in the first movie, for apparently no reason. Part of their ‘rule by fear’. Clearly, Lando believed that his cloud city could be wiped out at the whim of Vader. I think there’s a pretty good case that the Empire is a thoroughly evil dictatorship.
On the other hand… I’ve got a real problem with those Jedi mind tricks. In Episode II, Obi-Wan is offered ‘death sticks’, and he basically gets into the guy’s brain and forces him to go home and ‘re-evaluate his life’.
If I lived in a society where government agents were using mind control to force people to live ‘properly’, I suspect I might rebel too.
But I don’t take this as anything but an example of the mush-headedness of George Lucas.
I think that that is a huge factor that a lot of people overlook. :rolleyes:
Again: Reference David Brin. He’s got some very interesting points vis-a-vis George Lucas and his make-believe Universe. Basically, Star Wars doesn’t exactly suck, per se, but it could use one buttload of tightening up plot-wise and philosophically.
G. Lucas is a piker (plot-wise) compared to J. Michael Straczynski and Joss Whedon. I think part of that stems from the 25+ year span it took him to create his opus, and his own worldviews changed significantly over those years, affecting his plots considerably.
In Episode I, isn’t it also clear that slavery is legal in the Republic?
Not to support the Empire (which looks to me like what it would be like if Stalin had been a wizard with faster-than-light travel) or anything, but this isn’t the point to do it on.
Slavery existed on Tatooine in Ep I TPM, we know, but Qui-Gonn or Obi-Wan notes that the planet is in “Hutt space,” and is either not part of the Old Republic, or is no longer under its de facto authority. I don’t know of anything to suggest that slavery was actually legal in the Republic.
I agree that the article cited by the OP is at least partly tongue-in-cheek, as an exercise in looking at a long-established saga from a very different perspective.
The Republic became corrupt and ineffectual, clearly, but it was still a representative democracy (hence the name). Darth Sidious did not try to reform it, as most (if not all) democracies are capable of, but to overthrow it. When it fell due to his conniving and murderous ways, he replaced it with a Sith tyranny backed up by military power. There are many references to the Empire’s rule by fear, use of torture, lack of due process, imposition of slavery, and 'way over-the-top use of military force, e.g. the destruction of Alderaan.
Robert Harris wrote in “Fatherland” (a great alt-history novel about the Nazis “winning” WW2) that, in a police state, the rulers are themselves criminals.
Why do we assume that Leias ship is the “good guys” and the Star Destroyer is the “bad guys”. Because the destroyer is bigger and badder? It’s a military ship chasing down a bunch of terrorists offering armed resistance and who have just stolen secret military plans.
In the Director’s cut DVD compilation, Lucas should edit all the episodes (yet again).
The Jedi and rebels will now be called “Insurgents”. The Force will be “The Koran”. Rebel strongholds will be… well… “Rebel Strongholds”. Alderaan will be “Baghdad”.
Who do we want for Darth Vader? Dick Cheney is sure missing a few parts, but I think that Karl Rove embodies the evil that is required here (perhaps enough to be Emperor).
I’ll add to this that it is stated outright that slavery is illegal in the Republic. Padmé says she thought slavery had been wiped out, and Shmi responds that the Republic doesn’t exist “out here”.
