What makes the Empire in Star Wars evil?
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"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. " - Obi-Wan Kenobi, Episode VI370999 said:
The ethnic cleansing of most all jedi, the destruction of their teachings, massive slaughter on a galactic scale, and their leaders intent to rule, not to serve the governed.
The Jedi Order had become a politically motivated army. It was compromised. It was going down anyway.Matt King said:
The rebels were not gathering there. Aderaan was a planet of pacifists with no weapons of any kind, a fact that the Empire was well aware of. Grand Moff Tarkin had the planet destroyed in an attempt to get Leia to tell him where the rebels actually were hiding, and because he just wanted to try out the Empire's new toy. Leia told him that the rebels were hiding on Dantooine in order to stop him, but, although he believed her lie, he blew up Alderaan anyway because Dantooine was too far away to be an effective demonstration of the Death Star.hooglese said:
No, these guys aren't evil at all.
Thrilled to see this thread!
I should start by saying that i sympathize with the Empire.
I took my own view of the plot throughout the movies, and, in a nutshell, I feel that the moralities in the story are not so cut-and-dry as the movies portray them to be. (Read: Empire not 100% evil, Rebel Alliance not 100% good)
I must admit, though, that the dark side of the force does indeed have a modus operandi which is, in many ways synonymous with "bad guys" as we may refer to them.
Regardless, I feel that the main reason so many people sympathize with the rebels is because they were portrayed as the losing side throughout most of the movie-portrayed conflicts; at least until episode 6, anyway.
My fondest dream would be to see the next few movies portrayed from the Galactic Empire's point of view.
I should start by saying that i sympathize with the Empire.
I took my own view of the plot throughout the movies, and, in a nutshell, I feel that the moralities in the story are not so cut-and-dry as the movies portray them to be. (Read: Empire not 100% evil, Rebel Alliance not 100% good)
I must admit, though, that the dark side of the force does indeed have a modus operandi which is, in many ways synonymous with "bad guys" as we may refer to them.
Regardless, I feel that the main reason so many people sympathize with the rebels is because they were portrayed as the losing side throughout most of the movie-portrayed conflicts; at least until episode 6, anyway.
My fondest dream would be to see the next few movies portrayed from the Galactic Empire's point of view.
The emperor was a sith lord who manipulated his way to power, that is what evil people do friend.
Whoaboy it looks like this topic has been thoroughly and utterly answered.
There was nothing fair or just about the Empire. The only thing it had going for itself, which made it better then the Republic was that it was more efficient. The problem with the Republic was that it had become a stagnant bureaucratic beast, where nothing could be achieved without first having to go through a lengthy and exhausting debate.
Just take this picture into consideration:
Now, let's first acknowledge the fact that this is a shot of one side of the room, at a downward angle. There were more seats above the frame and many, many more behind it. Every single one of those seats houses a representative of a planet, each and every one of those representatives has their own idea on how the galaxy should be run. And every time a new planet joined the Republic, another chair got added.
What Lucas was trying to tell us, in Episode 1, was that the senate had turned into such an unmanageable mess that they couldn't even resolve a full blown invasion on one of their member planets, in a speedy fashion. The reason: The member planet responsible for said invasion vetoed against it.
Just imagine how difficult it would be to push for a controversial law that would benefit roughly 75% of all those planets, but be negative for the remaining 25%
At any rate, the empire was a human centric, racist, totalitarian military dictatorship and there's relatively little good that can be said about it. I think this quote answers it best, regarding the question of whether or not the Empire could be considered democratic:
"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away forever ... The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station."
~Governor Tarkin
There was nothing fair or just about the Empire. The only thing it had going for itself, which made it better then the Republic was that it was more efficient. The problem with the Republic was that it had become a stagnant bureaucratic beast, where nothing could be achieved without first having to go through a lengthy and exhausting debate.
Just take this picture into consideration:
Now, let's first acknowledge the fact that this is a shot of one side of the room, at a downward angle. There were more seats above the frame and many, many more behind it. Every single one of those seats houses a representative of a planet, each and every one of those representatives has their own idea on how the galaxy should be run. And every time a new planet joined the Republic, another chair got added.
What Lucas was trying to tell us, in Episode 1, was that the senate had turned into such an unmanageable mess that they couldn't even resolve a full blown invasion on one of their member planets, in a speedy fashion. The reason: The member planet responsible for said invasion vetoed against it.
Just imagine how difficult it would be to push for a controversial law that would benefit roughly 75% of all those planets, but be negative for the remaining 25%
At any rate, the empire was a human centric, racist, totalitarian military dictatorship and there's relatively little good that can be said about it. I think this quote answers it best, regarding the question of whether or not the Empire could be considered democratic:
"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away forever ... The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station."
~Governor Tarkin
We sympathize with them because they're the losing side?Kunzer said:
So people would suddenly root for Hitler when they're watching Der Untergang?
Really, if you want to see this kind of ethic dilemma done in a more complex fashion, look at the "Universal Century" universe from "Mobile Suit Gundam".
On the one side, we have the Earth Federation, a corrupt and inept government that lets lowerclass space colonists (spacenoids) regularly live in squalid conditions while denying them the political representation to change their situation. This is who our heroes are fighting for.
On the other side, we have the Principality of Zeon. They not only reject the Earthlings' "right" to exploit the space colonies, they believe that the next stage of human evolution can only be reached through life in space (and they are right, as proven by the appearance of so-called "Newtypes", humans with exceptional spatial awareness and telepathic/empathic powers), and therefore demand that humanity go into a diaspora in space, leaving the Earth they regard as sacred to heal itself. Of course, by the time the show starts, their originally noble goals have become progressively corrupted during the reign of two increasingly extremist leaders. In fact, the current leader of Zeon is dubbed "a copy of Hitler" by his own father, literally killing billions by flooding Federation-loyal colonies with chemical weapons and dropping one of them onto earth, where it causes a global cataclysm similar to an extinction-level asteroid impact.
However, despite Zeon's technological advantage, they get defeated time and time again by the Federation's greater numbers and the actions of a few "super prototype" Gundam-type mobile suits.
Now, everytime Zeon loses, we are still stuck with the injustices that created them in the first place; in fact, in the follow-up show "Zeta Gundam" (set 8 years later), the Federation's regular space forces have been superseeded by the Titans, an organization that obviously models their tactics on those formerly employed by Zeon (including the suppression of widespread protests in a colony by simply killing every man, woman and child in it by flooding it with nerve gas).
Personally, I find that to be a much better "shades of grey" morality than Star Wars has.
Is it bad if I admit that I started feeling a little sorry for him, as I was watching that film?KingHodor said:
It was manipulated into that position by Palpatine. There is a blink and you'll miss it moment in an episode of The Clone Wars that shows a Palpatine Propaganda Hologram subtly spreading anti Jedi Sentiment. He was playing the public against them, and then forcing crises that would further discredit the Jedi.Owen Robertson said:
"Any Empire building is for the purpose of peace. If everyone is under the same flag there is no violence. Period. No one has succeeded at that yet (well the Romans came close), but it is still the ultimate goal. Denying that is just naive. " And you call others naive, You have a very strange idea of how things work, I'd have thought that even the most basic of history classes would have proved this point wrong for you, if uniting under one flag made everyone happy, the rebels would have never shown up (they only did after the emperor was in power for some time), and we would never have things like "civil wars".Nimzabaat said:Actually it's called devils advocate and it's fun.
Any Empire building is for the purpose of peace. If everyone is under the same flag there is no violence. Period. No one has succeeded at that yet (well the Romans came close), but it is still the ultimate goal. Denying that is just naive.
"There will be no escape for the princess this time". Vader had been after the Rebellion for a while. Who knew what other innocent victims the Rebels had? He was plenty pissed off by that point, we can only guess as to why. It's outside of the scope of the movies as to what Darth Vader was like before dealing with the Rebellion.
As for the rebate that was a joke. But seriously once the Rebellion was out of the way and there was peace in the galaxy again, why wouldn't Palpatine be more magnanimous? You assume he wouldn't, but without any evidence to back that up. That's like if R2-D2 screwed one more info socket he would go on a rampage and detonate his astromech-destroy-the-galaxy-device and that would be it for everyone. I can make half-assed assumptions too.
I also like how people jump on the "slavery" (which the Empire wasn't involved in during the original trilogy or the prequels) and "torture" (it was a droid with a syringe, probably not as horrific as what constitutes torture in our world) aspects. People love embellishing those things without any actual basis. The Hutts had slaves but the Empire and the Hutts weren't exactly on the same page. For all we know once the Rebellion was out of the way the Empire may have had the resources to take down the Hutts and free all of those slaves. We'll never know now.
And doesn't anyone remember that good guys wear white? Those stormtroopers believed that they were the good guys and they were out there to enforce law and order. And TIE Pilots were camouflaged in case they got ejected into space
Actually there's two things wrong with this statement: "Any Empire building is for the purpose of peace." Not true at all, many empires in the past were built to control and destroy all knowledge/history of the previous culture before they overtook them, as well as bend everyone to your way of thinking (which in this case encouraged murder as an easy promotion).
""There will be no escape for the princess this time". Vader had been after the Rebellion for a while. Who knew what other innocent victims the Rebels had?" I'm sorry but I just don't understand this, the rebels had innocent victims? Where, when, and what gave you that idea?
Vader was after the rebels for a while, I mentioned that already, but I also pointed out he didn't take them seriously as a threat, until they stole the death star plans, also, the death star took some years to build, they had to start the planning of it FAR before the rebels were even formed.
I've been ignoring the prequels, but there's a reason Vader has his reputation, he didn't just get it when the rebels appeared, and again, he never took them seriously until that point, and why should he? it's not like they've been foiling him like a cartoon villain for a while, they were a bug and the empire was a boot, hell, if they didn't build any death stars and just went with star destroyers the rebellion would have been over in the first movie.
"As for the rebate that was a joke. But seriously once the Rebellion was out of the way and there was peace in the galaxy again, why wouldn't Palpatine be more magnanimous? You assume he wouldn't, but without any evidence to back that up." I have quite a bit of evidence to back this up, aside from encouraging murder and placing everything under martial law, Palpatine has expressed his desire to expand the empire, pushing farther and farther, for that, he'll need troops, officers, ships, he's not going to be content with what he has because he always wants something better (see why he chooses Luke over Vader because Luke was slightly stronger), and again, as part of his expansion and tightening his stranglehold over the galaxy he was building the death star before there was ever a time when he could use it.
I also want to touch on a minor point, for a little fun, after the original trilogy came out, they released a book called something like "the making of star wars", and the book was a mocumentary, taking everything seriously, in the book they'd point things out like how Vader's respiratory system works, how lightsabers work, why storm trooper thermal detonators have no markings, and also just how cruel the torture droid was, it's far more than just a bot with a syringe, essentially it was director's commentary in book form because it had all of their ideas (with notes) while they made the movie.
Another minor point: "And doesn't anyone remember that good guys wear white? Those stormtroopers believed that they were the good guys and they were out there to enforce law and order. And TIE Pilots were camouflaged in case they got ejected into space
"Star wars doesn't just take western influences, and I'm going to use this to my advantage because in Japan the colour white means death. The TIE stuff was clever though.
Also, just because a group believes they're the good guy's doesn't actually mean they are, if you really want to go with white equals good, then all I have to do is point you at the Emperor and Vader.
Warachia said:Your reply is a bit of a mess. Next time can you quote properly so people know who said what?Nimzabaat said:"Any Empire building is for the purpose of peace. If everyone is under the same flag there is no violence. Period. No one has succeeded at that yet (well the Romans came close), but it is still the ultimate goal. Denying that is just naive. " And you call others naive, You have a very strange idea of how things work, I'd have thought that even the most basic of history classes would have proved this point wrong for you, if uniting under one flag made everyone happy, the rebels would have never shown up (they only did after the emperor was in power for some time), and we would never have things like "civil wars".
Actually there's two things wrong with this statement: "Any Empire building is for the purpose of peace." Not true at all, many empires in the past were built to control and destroy all knowledge/history of the previous culture before they overtook them, as well as bend everyone to your way of thinking (which in this case encouraged murder as an easy promotion).
""There will be no escape for the princess this time". Vader had been after the Rebellion for a while. Who knew what other innocent victims the Rebels had?" I'm sorry but I just don't understand this, the rebels had innocent victims? Where, when, and what gave you that idea?
Vader was after the rebels for a while, I mentioned that already, but I also pointed out he didn't take them seriously as a threat, until they stole the death star plans, also, the death star took some years to build, they had to start the planning of it FAR before the rebels were even formed.
I've been ignoring the prequels, but there's a reason Vader has his reputation, he didn't just get it when the rebels appeared, and again, he never took them seriously until that point, and why should he? it's not like they've been foiling him like a cartoon villain for a while, they were a bug and the empire was a boot, hell, if they didn't build any death stars and just went with star destroyers the rebellion would have been over in the first movie.
"As for the rebate that was a joke. But seriously once the Rebellion was out of the way and there was peace in the galaxy again, why wouldn't Palpatine be more magnanimous? You assume he wouldn't, but without any evidence to back that up." I have quite a bit of evidence to back this up, aside from encouraging murder and placing everything under martial law, Palpatine has expressed his desire to expand the empire, pushing farther and farther, for that, he'll need troops, officers, ships, he's not going to be content with what he has because he always wants something better (see why he chooses Luke over Vader because Luke was slightly stronger), and again, as part of his expansion and tightening his stranglehold over the galaxy he was building the death star before there was ever a time when he could use it.
I also want to touch on a minor point, for a little fun, after the original trilogy came out, they released a book called something like "the making of star wars", and the book was a mocumentary, taking everything seriously, in the book they'd point things out like how Vader's respiratory system works, how lightsabers work, why storm trooper thermal detonators have no markings, and also just how cruel the torture droid was, it's far more than just a bot with a syringe, essentially it was director's commentary in book form because it had all of their ideas (with notes) while they made the movie.
Another minor point: "And doesn't anyone remember that good guys wear white? Those stormtroopers believed that they were the good guys and they were out there to enforce law and order. And TIE Pilots were camouflaged in case they got ejected into space
Star wars doesn't just take western influences, and I'm going to use this to my advantage because in Japan the colour white means death. The TIE stuff was clever though.
Also, just because a group believes they're the good guy's doesn't actually mean they are, if you really want to go with white equals good, then all I have to do is point you at the Emperor and Vader.
Once again though you're fighting with material from the EU which is NOT canon. If it wasn't in the original trilogy (most Star Wars fans treat the prequels as non-canon, but that's another conversation) it didn't happen.
Anyways, the goal of an all encompassing empire is to have everyone under the same flag. It has never worked because humans defy the quest for peace and any sort of common sense. We have applied that same lack of reason to the aliens in the Star Wars galaxy just because if they were advanced it makes for a crappy story. "Everyone is happy and nothing interesting happens, the end."
You may have a point with the Emperor wanting to expand though. If he got the rest of the galaxy under his control he could do away with slavery and poverty. Maybe that was the plan before some a-hole murdered him? Who can say?
As for "tightening his grip" (um in context please), that was from the perspective of a rebel and a habitual liar. Seeing as the trilogy never touches on any of the core Imperial planets, who is to say what the life of the common citizen was like? The scenes of people killing stormtroopers and tearing down statues of the Emperor were thrown in there afterwards and can be taken just as seriously as Han shooting second.
Wait, what?Nimzabaat said:
A lot of fans might not like the prequels, but to completely disregard a trilogy of movies that were, after all, made by the universe's creator himself, seems a bit extreme.
Plus, what actually counts as a Star Wars fan? What about all the kids born after 1990 that treat the prequel trilogy as part of their childhood, and therefore actually like it, do they count?
The prequels break continuity with the rest of the Star Wars universe. Obi-wan doesn't meet Anakin when he's a fighter pilot in the Clone Wars, Luke and Leia's mother doesn't live on Alderaan with Leia. Yoda is not portrayed as a teacher but more of a badass lightsaber fighter which is completely out of character (funny and awesome to see, but that's not the original trilogy Yoda at all). Not to mention the huge plot holes between the two series. Let's hide one of Darth Vader's kids on his home planet with his only surviving family? Hiding something in the first place he'd look for it? Genius! (The original story had Obi-Wan hiding Luke from Vader and the Emperor with some hicks, who we wasn't related to, in a far "corner" of the galaxy.)KingHodor said:
Another point that people miss a lot is that it is never actually stated that the Empire had anything to do with Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru's death. That could have been a coincidence that Obi-Wan said nothing about to fuel Luke's anger towards the Empire. Tatooine is a dangerous place after all. For all we know Obi-Wan killed them himself while Luke was unconscious. Remember that the Jedi were all about lying and double dealing. They also had no real compassion or humanity about them when it came to achieving their goals. While the Sith were more about honesty "I am your father", "There's a Sith in charge of the Senate" (okay that's prequel bs, my bad).
Another point that people miss is that Alderaan had "millions" of people. Not tens of millions, not hundreds of millions, and not billions. It was a sparsely populated planet and therefore an effective demonstration of being able to blow up a planet while keeping actual loss of life to a minimum. Just something to think about.
I know I'm kind of late on the scene here, but I'm just amused by how wrong the OP was.
Democratic - As mentioned, the Senate is permanently dismissed shortly before the beginning of A New Hope. It's mentioned in the film. Many sectors are now ruled directly by Imperial pointed military governors, or Moffs (see Grand Moff Tarkin in the films) and it is clearly the ultimate plan for the Empire that all sectors will be under direct military rule.
Republic - A nation with an Emperor as its sovereign is not a Republic. Emperor is a monarchical title, so a nation ruled by an Emperor is a monarchy. If the Emperor has limited powers, like the Japanese Emperor today for example, it is a constitutional monarchy. This is not true in Star Wars, Palpatine clearly wields supreme political power in his Empire. Other ranks in the Empire are also clearly equivalent to feudal or noble ranks.
Peace - Galactic civil war, anyone?
Alderran - They blew up Alderran to try and get Leia to reveal the location of the rebel base, and because Tarkin wanted to test his new toy. While it's true that Alderran politically opposed the Empire, it was not a military target. Tarkin even points this out during the scene.
Freedom to Express Emotion - Which emotion? If we're excluding the prequels, what do we actually know about this? Luke is a light side Jedi and he still shows a full range of emotions (to the extent of Mark Hamill's then limited acting ability) including anger, it's just that he then learns to grow the fuck up. Heck, even after everything Vader has done he still feels compassion for his father and that's what ends up saving the whole galaxy. So who really has "freedom to express emotion" here? Is it really the two people who will kill each other if either shows a trace of weakness?
Heck, in the expanded universe things like the prohibition on Jedi falling in love and getting married seem to be pretty much out of the window in the New Republic, though we'll have to see how badly Disney rapes everything to get an idea of how that will look on film.
Democratic - As mentioned, the Senate is permanently dismissed shortly before the beginning of A New Hope. It's mentioned in the film. Many sectors are now ruled directly by Imperial pointed military governors, or Moffs (see Grand Moff Tarkin in the films) and it is clearly the ultimate plan for the Empire that all sectors will be under direct military rule.
Republic - A nation with an Emperor as its sovereign is not a Republic. Emperor is a monarchical title, so a nation ruled by an Emperor is a monarchy. If the Emperor has limited powers, like the Japanese Emperor today for example, it is a constitutional monarchy. This is not true in Star Wars, Palpatine clearly wields supreme political power in his Empire. Other ranks in the Empire are also clearly equivalent to feudal or noble ranks.
Peace - Galactic civil war, anyone?
Alderran - They blew up Alderran to try and get Leia to reveal the location of the rebel base, and because Tarkin wanted to test his new toy. While it's true that Alderran politically opposed the Empire, it was not a military target. Tarkin even points this out during the scene.
Freedom to Express Emotion - Which emotion? If we're excluding the prequels, what do we actually know about this? Luke is a light side Jedi and he still shows a full range of emotions (to the extent of Mark Hamill's then limited acting ability) including anger, it's just that he then learns to grow the fuck up. Heck, even after everything Vader has done he still feels compassion for his father and that's what ends up saving the whole galaxy. So who really has "freedom to express emotion" here? Is it really the two people who will kill each other if either shows a trace of weakness?
Heck, in the expanded universe things like the prohibition on Jedi falling in love and getting married seem to be pretty much out of the window in the New Republic, though we'll have to see how badly Disney rapes everything to get an idea of how that will look on film.