Just finished watching Return of the Jedi.
And I’m forced to wonder why. What did the empire do that was so bad?
Okay, the dudes in charge were evil, but they just wanted to govern the known universe. All the people who had civil service jobs before and after the empire probly still had those jobs regardless.
I’m forced to wonder why Luke et al. felt the need to remove them. After all, I think George Bush is a moron but I don’t want to remove America from the map or change their Government.
You might feel differently if GWB were to have a clone army suppressing the populace and if Dick Cheney was running around in a black costume, carrying a light saber, and breathing heavily while choking you with his powers of the Force…
Besides blowing up Alderaan, you mean?
They drove unemployment rates through the roof by filling the entire ranks of their huge military with clones. Also, I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Wait… what would be the difference?
Sorta like this?
They never really mention it in the movies, but in the Empire, after Palpatine seized power, aliens were slowly being reduced to the status of second clase citizens. In fact, Chewbacca had been captured by a slaver, which was ok with the Empire. He was freed by a young Imperial Pilot trainee, Han Solo.
It seems the Rebellion really didn’t pick up steam until Palpatine dissolved the parliament and declared himself emperor.
Well the Republic had no problem with slavery either as long as it was outside their territory.
This seems like the perfect time to link to my very favorite Weekly Standard article of all time - mainly because it’s the only one I’ve ever liked, but still. 
Check out “The Case for the Empire”, www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp .
Why was the Empire evil? C’mon, the empire was being run by a small self-appointed cadre who used their psychic powers to suppress any dissent…no wait…that was the Republic. I don’t know what the Empire was like.
Is this considering the entire canonical Star Wars universe or just the films?
Oh come on. They were asking for it! 
Some peoples will go to great lengths and break the rules when it comes to terrorists.
I’m very open minded… Knock yourself out.
What makes you say that? I’m not doubting you, just ignorant.
I had about the same thoughts at the end of RotJ. I suppose the prequels might answer it some (if I bothered paying attention to them) but the closing parts of RotJ where everyone is celebrating in the city made me wonder if the day-to-day life of some Joe on Planet XYZ was really affected by the Empire or if it’d be any better now that the Emperor & Vader were dead.
Did you see the prequels? Anakin and his mom are slaves owned by Watto the junk dealer.
Paraphrased-
Anakin: Are you here to free us?
Qui-Jon: Nope. Outside our jurisdiction.
If you’re allowing EU stuff as well…
The Empire treated non-humans as second class citizens. If you could afford it, you can have all the slaves you want. True, after the Rebellion got into power, there was still slavery outside their territory, but this was more of a criminal issue than a galaxy-wide one. Plus the Rebellion tended not to make deals or support slavers; I don’t know how exactly they could have been “supportive” of slavery, short of a war which the Old Republic couldn’t have afforded.
Which leads onto point two, the Empire was perfectly willing to deal with whoever. I like the fact that in the article **Mr. Excellent ** linked the writer gives credit for the the fact that talks with bounty hunters are conuducted politely. Seeming to miss the point that they’re dealing with them in the first place. Note Darth Vader’s “no disintegrations” - that he has to point that out at all does tend to show the normal operating rules the Empire hands out.
Alderaan. Blown up simply to test the thing and let word get out that the Empire has a planet-destroying weapon. When Leia says they have no weapons, it’s true; Alderaan itself is pacifistic, it has no fleet or army. Now, that’s not to say that there weren’t Alderaanians helping the Rebellion, but there’s a fine line between “acceptable collateral damage” and “war crime”, and blowing up the whole planet is pretty far away from the line. Bear in mind also that there were quite a few Alderaanians serving the Empire, too (though somewhat less after that).
The Death Star itself. I mean, how often do you need to destroy a planet for good reasons? And look at the name! 
No democracy. Planets controlled by governors, the whole thing by the Emperor. After the Rebellion kills Palpatine they’re still there, of course, and as the article suggests some do take the chance to strike out as warlords on their own. That’s not exactly good, but it doesn’t mean the Empire itself wasn’t bad.
Self-attrition. Vader kills quite a few people on his own side, let alone rebels. Delving into the EU, TIE fighters don’t have shields. Why? The Rebellion is pretty poor and living off parts, yet they have fancy shielded craft. The Empire doesn’t give a crap about it’s low-level people.
The Emperor is an evil person himself. This is a guy out for power for himself, glory for himself. I think the films make the case for his personal evilness well enough.
The Jedi Purge. Ok, the Jedi certainly weren’t perfect. But they did help. So let’s hunt them all down! And we’ll do that by implanting subconscious programming into our cloned soldiers so they’ll follow our every order without question!
I assume we’re talking about the young Anakin Skywalker being a slave on Tatooine, and Queen Amidala finding this quaint, but not particularly outrageous.
I always liked the Empire’s reasoning- Pilots will fly better if they know that one shot will kill them.
Did Tie-Interceptors have shields or did the Tie series not get them until the Defender-Avenger days?
You mean the part in the first film where Qui-Gon, an official government representative of the Republic, while stranded on a planet owned by a foreign power, didn’t provoke an interstellar incident by violating the sovereign laws of that planet by freeing/stealing a slave who had no direct bearing on his highly sensitive mission to protect an important political figure, which aside from the diplomatic implications, would also have drawn the wrath of the local law enforcement agencies when he knows he’s already being pursued by both dissident factions from his own polity, and a psychotic religious cult?
Quite possibly they’ll fly better - but they may only fly better once. The Empire knows that it has manpower on it’s side. They could have said “Sure, we have many people, but let’s spend the money equipping them well anyway”. But no, they just went for the zerg rush approach.
Basic Interceptors did not, at least in the film-covering years. Ones for Admirals or Captains did. I think later on when the Empire realised the Rebels had them totally beat in terms of small-ship combat they beefed up their programme a bit, which meant more shields (though still none for Fighters) and research on the Defender and so on.
Dick “Mad Panda” Cheney carries a shotgun, not a lightsaber. Otherwise…not much.
“He was a cruel man…but fair.”
Seriously, you know the Empire is evil because of their fascist trappings. The storm troopers, the rapid rise and almost arbitrary execution of officers, the award scene in the end mimicing A Triumph of Will…oh, wait, that was the Rebellion. Hmmm…out with the old, in with the new?
The Empire seemed more bureaucratic than evil. One might argue that bureaucracy is the ultimate anti-humanistic evil (Hannah Arent’s “banality of evil” could be thrown in here) but ultimately they just seemed to be trying to administrate a massive interstellar civilization and more or less allow individual planets to govern themselves. Plus, anybody who kills Ewoks can’t be all bad in my opinion.
Stranger
