[Just your average movie goer]

Has anybody else wondered about the ethics of the Old Republic as portrayed in the prequels? It seems that the Republic and the Jedi Knights don't quite represent the good values that they should.

Here are a few examples...

Slavery.

When Qui Gon and Obi Wan were on Tatooine, there were slaves everywhere, including Anakin of course.... and they didn't give a shit. It didn't bother them in the slightest. There they were, dealing with Watto as if he was just a regular business man. Why were they paying him money for Anakin's release when they could have -

a. hauled him off to prison or
b. slashed him to pieces with a lightsabre?


Clones.

I could not believe it. Yoda, the benevolent, wise and just jedi master used a clone army. First of all, Obi Wan should have had a problem with the idea of cloning people, as should all of the jedi (Yoda included). And secondly, the way Yoda used them in a heavy fighting situation seemed to suggest that he didn't really have any regard for them... it was as if because they were clones, it was fine to use them as cannon fodder.

Surely, the jedi should have had a problem with the whole cloning issue.


The Trade Federation army.

Why, why, why? Why would the Republic allow private organisations to have their own armies? This is especially stupid when the Republic doesn't even have its own army.



So under the Old Republic....

slavery was permitted and was widespread,

jedi knights cloned people and took advantage of the clones, using them for cannon fodder and...

private organisations were allowed to have their own armies, which is kind of like allowing lots of warlords to operate in your territory.


So tell me... why exactly was the Empire bad?

[SimeSublime]

Because they made Yoda live in a swamp. Derr.

[Helena]

Yes, all good points. Not to mention that their political and judicial system was clearly so corrupt and bureaucratic as to be virtually useless ('four trials in the Supreme Court', etc).

I think Qui-Gon did complain a bit about the slavery thing, but it was clear that these laws were pretty much ignored on Tatooine. Since they were stuck on the planet at that point there was little they could do about it (apart from killing Watto outright, which is not how Jedi are supposed to act). However, that doesn't explain why they didn't send a Jedi task force to clean up the place and free the slaves after they escaped the planet. They just left Anakin's mother there for ten years!

[civilian_number_two]

All good points, of course.

ten years: this is shoddy writing that a man could be guilty of in high school, and in his adult years he'd laugh at it. But at Lucas's age, having characters forget story details from the first film until, coincidentally, we all happen to be watching the second film, well i'm sure there's a name for this in criticism. Something like "lack of offstage growth." Apart from a reference to fighting Gundarks, I didn't get any impression there was any offstage growth between the films (I watched far enough to learn that there had been Gundarks, that some guy named Dooku was out there, and that Anikin, conveniently, had not seen Amidala since the last movie).

Anyway, yeah yeah.

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY rocks the house in offstage growth, but then it commits a pretty classic blunder in the first fifteen minutes. I won't go into it here, in case anyone hasn't seen the film, but it's pretty damn obvious. I only hope they did it to follow the books, and or to get back to the if the first film went off track, because frankly it's a really dumb story moment, even if it pays off somewhat in character.

[SimeSublime]

The Republic was bad, but the Empire was worse. If KotOR taught me anything, its that the Sith are a requisit part of the force. The Jedi were a source of peace, but under their influence society would slowly decay and corrupt. In would come the Sith, who would lead a chaotic uprising that would cause a lot of strife, but soon enough would destroy itself, leaving the Jedi to reshape civilization from scratch. It's like those trees who's seeds will only open in the extreme heat of a forest fire. The trees are the civilization under the peaceful rule of the Jedi. They grow and thrive for a long time, but eventually succumb and decay in their old age. Then the fire, or Sith, race through destroying everything in its path, and when theres nothing left, consumes itself. From the ashes the seeds now open to sprout forth new trees to repopulate the forrest.

[Despondent]

Are we going to see another prequel trilogy that explains where Palpatine gets his Sith legs, and develops force-lightning powers and force-masking abilities? (much more interesting and important than pod-racing. Yippee!) Or is all that explained in KOTOR? And is that a series of books, or only video games? Forgive my ignorance on this matter, please.

thank you kindly.

[Helena]

KOTOR is a video game. It's set 4000 years before the movies, so unfortunately it's not much help in explaining the plot of the PT. It does, however, explain far more about the origins of the Republic, the Jedi and the Sith than either of the prequels have so far.

[Despondent]

thanks. dig your Av.

[Vwing]

Also, wasn't that a big missed story opportunity for Lucas? I mean, in Episode I, I believe Anakin says "I will come back for you" to Shmi, and that he would free the slaves, but meanwhile in Episode II, slavery's still allowed and Shmi dies before Anakin can do anything. It's ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that in Episode IV, unless in Episode III it says something about slavery being outlawed, we must still assume that slavery was going on in Tatooine. I mean talk about a storyline that had potential, could have delved into the ethics of the republic, and was just completely thrown aside for a stupid love story.

[njamilla]

Slavery

Slavery still exists in many countries on this planet. Especially in places where democratic countries choose not to intervene because of respect for a nation’s sovereignty, no compelling national security interest, or they don’t know it happens. We don’t know the politico-legal status of Tatooine in relationship to a greater pan-universal entity like the galactic senate to know for certain that Coruscant has the will to end slavery on Tatooine. Even in this planet slavery exists. Sometimes overtly, sometimes clandestinely, sometimes under another name. There’s the sex trade, youth pimping, selling of children, etc.

Clones

This world hasn’t made definitive decisions on whether cloning is ethical or not. I’m not saying that individuals or religions haven’t made their own decisions, but there is no compelling social trend that definitively speaks to condem or support the issue because it is so new. The enlightened Greeks saw no problem with slavery, but over thousands of years of human societal evolution, only in the past 1 or 2 hundred years has there been a successful shift in societal mores. Who is to say that in 200 years cloning will be considered a non-issue. Or, perhaps there might be some kind of Eugenics Wars as is found in the Star Trek mythos.

As to cannon fodder, I think I can agree with you on that. There were no clone trooper tactics in AOTC. Nor did the Jedi seem to have any. I guess they both just look cool on the screen and it goes without saying that the people at ILM (or GL) didn’t do their homework. I don’t think they cared enough to get it right. On the other side, mass charges were par for the course during WW I, as well as during isolated instances during WW II (such as Gallippoli). These were moments when new tactics were rendering traditional military tactics obsolete. One might expect a similar learning curve in the SW universe, especially since Geonosis is the first deployment of an unproven military force.

Trade Federation Army

Why is it that the US permits private armies in Iraq? A sovereign nation controlling a conquered coutry has actually hired Halliburton which supports a private military force to secure its facilities. And in South America, the CIA has hired private soldiers (again Haliburton) to conduct raids on the drug industry so the US government can say that they have not lost US soldiers to the drug traffic. Historically, one can also look at the rise of Hitler who, despite being prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, built a huge war machine with America, UK, and France being powerless to intervene without first conducting a pre-emptive strike. Warlordism existed in Afganistan for decades since the British pulled out over 50 years ago. No one in the US, much less the UN, did anything to stop it even though the world heard for a decade what the Taliban had been doing in the country.

Don’t mean to be a hum bug, but if we apply a respect for cultural sophistication in historical cultures when we study human history, we ought to do the same for the fictitious cultures of SW. Otherwise, we might as well say, “it’s just a movie” and we should stop debating the finer points of the movie.

[Paladin]

Slavery

I think that they made it clear in the movie that the Republic didn't exist in the Outer Rim and that Tatooine was controlled by the Hutts. But that doesn't matter all that much since the Jedi SHOULD have done something about it. And Anakin's Mom? Woo hoo, that part about leaving her for ten years SUCKED, I can't believe anyone could be so heartless. Also, keep in mind that Anakin became a hero after Episode I. Dontcha think it's a little weird that they wouldn't even do so much as free his mother as a reward? How lame is that?

And what kind of 'good deeds' do Jedi do in their spare time anyway? Do they go out to right some obvious wrongs, like slavery, or do they just do everything on assignment like a bunch of cops? Stupid.

Clones

Not only your points, but also others. Why would the Republic want an army made ENTIRELY out of clones? They made it clear that it takes ten years for Clone troopers to mature and for their training to finish. Ten years is a pretty darn long time, so why not just do it the 'old fashion' way and use voluteeners/drafted soldiers to do it. According to some Star Wars trivia website, Corescant has 1 trillion residents. That's just Corescant, think of all the planets out there were they could recruit and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Trade Federation Army

I included this problem in my 'Reasons to hate Episode I' that I posted several months back. But I digress; they said in some trivia book about Star Wars that the Trade Federation had an army to protect it's shipping and business from pirates and robbers... but they maintain an army far larger than they require... WTF?

Why are they allowed to have an army that big? Doesn't it bother anyone in the senate that they have a military force that's capable of fighting a major galactic war with the Republic, as they showed in Episode II?

What's more is this: why didn't Palpatine decide to go for broke early and start an insurrection in Episode I like he did in Episode II? There's no reason why he should not have done it. The whole ordeal on Naboo should not have been the big deal that they made it out to be -- Naboo is just a small planet in the middle of nowhere for pete's sake!

[Just your average movie goer]

Thank you all for your replies to this. I read a lot of good comments - too numerous to reply to in this brief time that I have now.

But I would like to reply to Njamilla's point that all these problems in the Old Republic are ones that exist on our own planet.

My counter argument to that is very simple. Nobody thinks we live in a perfect world.

Star Wars however, is fantasy/science fiction and in fiction, the author makes the rules. In this case, the author told us in the original movies of an Old Republic that stood for over a thousand generations - generations! And for all this time, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice.

We are talking about a universal government here that has stood for many thousands of years. Perhaps slavery and cloning could still exist - this is true. But the problem was that the jedi knights seemed to have no problems with these things.

As for the trade federation army, nobody could convince me that if the Republic were real, its senators wouldn't have a problem with this.

Thank you.

[Madam Corvax]

Slavery

I think that they made it clear in the movie that the Republic didn't exist in the Outer Rim and that Tatooine was controlled by the Hutts. But that doesn't matter all that much since the Jedi SHOULD have done something about it.

Jedi didn't, but it seems to me that Empire did. If we ignore the obvious that it is all in fact Lucas's bad writing and take the plot seriously, there is no evidence in ANH that there are any slaves on Tatooine. So, can we surmise that Empire came in and freed all the slaves? I find that idea a bit nauseating. Further proof that Lucas's understanding of politics is that of a 12-year-old.

I would put slavery among other superfluous ideas that Lucas introduced in PT:
vide Midichlorians, virgin birth, Jedi's celibacy etc, etc. How come that this man ever came with ANH script?

[Just your average movie goer]

It is a good question, Madam Corvax and I believe that the superiority of the original Star Wars movie stems from the fact that Lucas ripped the story off other people.

He got a lot of it from Kurosawa' The Hidden Fortress. Obi Wan's mentoring of Luke and his sacrifice to save him seems very similar to Gandalf's story in The Fellowship of the Ring. And a lot of the Death Star battle is taken straight from an old movie called the Dam Busters... for example....

"How many guns do you think?"
"Say about twenty guns - some on the field. Some on the dam."

became

"How many guns do you think, Gold Five?"
"Say about twenty guns - some on the surface. Some on the tower."


Now is their anything wrong with this? Not at all. We got a wonderful movie out of Lucas pillaging other people's work.



Frankly speaking, I wish George Lucas had continued to rip off other people's work when he made the prequels. They would have been a lot better for it.

[Helena]

Actually, we did see slavery in the OT - Jabba had slaves in his palace in RotJ. The problem is not the existence of slavery under the Republic - it's entirely plausible that a galaxy-wide slave trade would be almost impossible to wipe out altogether - but that the Jedi weren't even trying to do anything about it.

As far as cloning goes, I agree with JYAMG. The Jedi are supposed to respect all life, and yet they create an army of clones whose sole purpose is basically to die for the Republic? Not to mention that they apparently have no free will, no individual personalities and no way to exist except as soldiers. You can understand the Sith creating clones like these, but the Jedi?

As for the Trade Federation army, needing to protect themselves is no excuse. The Republic should be protecting its own trade routes! (Yet another reason why it should have its own army...) And yes, it seems incredible that the Republic would allow the TF an army large enough to invade and occupy a planet.

It's easy to imagine the Empire tolerating or even encouraging piracy and slavery as long as it didn't affect them much, but you'd have thought the Republic would be slightly more enlightened. However, apart from the fact that the Empire would blow up the odd planet, things seem to go on pretty much the same under both regimes. OK, so maybe the idea was to show that the rot had already set in within the Republic, but we should at least see them trying to do something about problems like slavery on Tatooine.