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Re: A different take snoopcester Send a noteboard - 24/11/2009 12:48:18 PM
None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of an entire planet, Alderaan. But viewed in context, these acts are less brutal than they initially appear. Poor Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen reach a grisly end, but only after they aid the rebellion by hiding Luke and harboring two fugitive droids. They aren't given due process, but they are traitors.


Well aside from the fact that the Empire doesn't have a clue who Luke is, and I don't recall any sign that Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen do either, they were clearly ignorant of the fugitive status of the driods (which was why they were killed). I'd say his "they are traitors" lacks any evidence to back it up - all the signs are that they were simple honest farmers.
Then we have the Jawas - slaughtered by the Empire, who chooses to disguise this massacre by trying to make it look like a Sandpeople attack. No mention or attempt explain or justify this (I will come back to it though, as it is part of a key issue he ignores and I would say badly damages his line of argument)

The destruction of Alderaan is often cited as ipso facto proof of the Empire's "evilness" because it seems like mass murder--planeticide, even. As Tarkin prepares to fire the Death Star, Princess Leia implores him to spare the planet, saying, "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons." Her plea is important, if true.

But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth. In Episode IV, every bit of information she gives the Empire is willfully untrue. In the opening, she tells Darth Vader that she is on a diplomatic mission of mercy, when in fact she is on a spy mission, trying to deliver schematics of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance. When asked where the Alliance is headquartered, she lies again.

Leia's lies are perfectly defensible--she thinks she's serving the greater good--but they make her wholly unreliable on the question of whether or not Alderaan really is peaceful and defenseless. If anything, since Leia is a high-ranking member of the rebellion and the princess of Alderaan, it would be reasonable to suspect that Alderaan is a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents like Leia.

Princess Leia: No! Alderaan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly...
Governor Tarkin: [impatiently] You would prefer another target, a military target? Then name the system! I grow tired of asking this so it will be the last time: *Where* is the rebel base?
Princess Leia: ...Dantooine. They're on Dantooine.
Governor Tarkin: There. You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation; you may fire when ready.
Princess Leia: WHAT?
Governor Tarkin: You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration - but don't worry; we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough.


By choosing to only quote some of what was said (a small portion of it, in fact) we lose the all important context. Rather than "But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth", we have Tarkin's reply "You would prefer another target, a military target?" - clearly Tarkin sees nothing to dispute in Leia's claim. He is offering her the choice between seeing her peaceful homeworld destroyed or telling him where the military target he is seeking is.
Then we have the final line from Tarkin, clearly he is looking to kill two birds with one stone - if he can destroy the Rebellian's baseworld and demonstrate to all the galaxy the power of the Death Star then he will. He is quite clearly going to destory a central word though even if the Rebels are based as far from the centre as possible - he doesn't destroy Alderaan because he believes "Alderaan is a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents like Leia", he destorys is because he needs a planet everyone knows.

Whatever the case, the important thing to recognize is that the Empire is not committing random acts of terror. It is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction.


Actually it is. As proved by the destruction of Alderaan.

The Emperor is assassinated, Darth Vader abdicates his post and dies,


I love how he spins that;)

(There is a raft of literature on this point, but, as I said at the beginning, I'm going to ignore it because it doesn't speak to Lucas's original intent.)


'cept when it pertains to "Captain" Solo earlier?

In Episode IV, after Grand Moff Tarkin announces that the Imperial Senate has been abolished, he's asked how the Emperor can possibly hope to keep control of the galaxy. "The regional governors now have direct control over territories," he says. "Fear will keep the local systems in line."

So under Imperial rule, a large group of regional potentates, each with access to a sizable army and star destroyers, runs local affairs. These governors owe their fealty to the Emperor. And once the Emperor is dead, the galaxy will be plunged into chaos.


Sounds to me that even with the Emperor in charge he doesn't mind that - as long as he sits at the top, he is happy for local warlords to control the galaxy and behave as brutally as they like.

In all of the time we spend observing the Rebel Alliance, we never hear of their governing strategy or their plans for a post-Imperial universe. All we see are plots and fighting. Their victory over the Empire doesn't liberate the galaxy--it turns the galaxy into Somalia writ large: dominated by local warlords who are answerable to no one.


Ah yes - because we can't see something in around 6-8 hours of film set around military action, we must assume it doesn't happen (rather than the fact that even Lucas perhaps doesn't think he can make a 6 hour debate on how the post-Empire galaxy will be governed interesting). This point is pure conjecture with nothing to back it up but the fact he wants it to be true.

Which makes the rebels--Lucas's heroes--an unimpressive crew of anarchic royals who wreck the galaxy so that Princess Leia can have her tiara back.


Princess Leia had her tiara under the Empire and there was no sign of her losing it... well apart from as a result of her involvement with the rebels.

He also ignores what is a huge point - species. You don't get to be in the Empire if you're not human (nor, by all appearance not white or male)... and yet both the Republic, to a huge extent, and the rebels, to a lesser extent, numbers of non-human members as well as people of different colour and both genders. Combined with how the Empire massacred the Jawas and tried to disguise that massacre as a Sandpeople attack, I think this clearly shows the true nature of the Empire - a massively bigotted dicatorship dedicated to the supremacy of white males humans, relying on terror and creating inter-species war to maintain control.
*MySmiley*

Robert Graves "There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money, either."

Henning Mankell "We must defend the open society, because if we start locking our doors, if we let fear decide, the person who committed the act of terror will win"
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Re: A different take - 24/11/2009 12:48:18 PM 597 Views
One point - 26/11/2009 02:56:50 AM 611 Views

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