Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (among other things, wink wink) SPOILERS

[Suzanna Stormborn]

So was Palpatine married when he was a senator?

[SpaceChampion]

43 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

So was Palpatine married when he was a senator?

Could be.  But since Palpy wanted to transfer himself into a new body (and perhaps a clone is unsuitable for this or has a limited lifespan), then it should be easy enough to find a surrogate mother who never has to touch his pasty white lizard skin.  Kid escaped though.  Probably around the time he fell down the shaft in the Death Star.  But then that kid had a kid.  So he was back in business, eventually.

[Lord Varys]

58 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

So was Palpatine married when he was a senator?

We have no idea, really. I think the best take on this whole thing would be if he was indeed officially married and that there was even an Empress Palpatine so that his son, Rey's father, really made a meaningful and important decision when he turned his back on his dad. But that's just me.

From the old EU material we got a pretty thorough coverage of Palpatine's youth in and early adulthood in the Darth Plagueis novel, but the twenty years of his career as Senator of Naboo until shortly before TPM were never covered in detail (and neither were, of course, the twenty+ years he ruled as Galactic Emperor after ROTS). Thus there would have been time for him to actually be married before and after he became Chancellor/Emperor. Him being married during AOTC and ROTS would be very weird, though.

In fact, I thought the main theme for another Palpatine novel/story after 'Darth Plagueis' could have been about his ultimate temptation - a chance to take his back on the whole Sith thing and do something else. And this would, of course, have been love of some sort. Senator Palpatine entertaining the idea of love or at least companionship and shared ultimate ambitions - and then ultimately rejecting that kind of thing certainly could have made a fine story.

25 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Could be.  But since Palpy wanted to transfer himself into a new body (and perhaps a clone is unsuitable for this or has a limited lifespan), then it should be easy enough to find a surrogate mother who never has to touch his pasty white lizard skin.  Kid escaped though.  Probably around the time he fell down the shaft in the Death Star.  But then that kid had a kid.  So he was back in business, eventually.

That doesn't really fly. Rey is around twenty in TFA, and her dad looks mid-twenty/around thirty when they dump Rey on Jakku, so with TFA taking place about thirty years or so after ROTJ it is quite clear that Palpatine's son was born early during his reign as Emperor. That is, of course, if his son aged normally.

But I really don't see a reason why we should interpret things as if Palpatine didn't procreate normally. I mean, if there was no Palpatine family then all the talk about inherited evil and Force powers would be pretty moot.

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, hard to argue that, I wouldn't have included the Palpatines either.  But even so, if you're gonna have Sheev as the final big bad, seems better to have someone else beat him than Luke there to either do so or explicitly help again.

Since they are well-established antagonists I find it kind of forced to kill Luke before he even has a chance to learn that the Emperor actually is still around. In fact, this is part of the reason why I think it is utter bogus that anyone (especially not Johnson) ever planned to have him back by the time they made TLJ and much less TFA (since the first new movie doesn't even mention the Sith by name, if I'm not mistaken). And Palpatine is only mentioned as 'Darth Sidious' (a name not mentioned at all in TROS) in TLJ.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

Yes they do.  The Senate can ask them to go to war, but it's clearly the decision of the Jedi Council on their actual moves.  As someone who measures this type of stuff for a living, the independence of the Jedi Council from their principal - in this case the Senate (luckily the Jedi do not endure a common agency problem) - is wholly extraordinary.  Right before Anakin slices Windu's arm off, the latter clearly believes the Jedi can weather the storm of assassinating the head of government.  That plainly indicates they're not just bureaucratic minions.  That's far far closer to a military coup.

That's conflating things. Sure, Windu tries to stage a coup - and that's wrong. Or at least questionable (once he realized who and what Palpatine was and what he had done it is quite clear why he would want to depose him, even if that's illegal - after all, what Palpatine did is the worst kind of treason imaginable).

But nobody ever said that the Jedi had the right to stage such a coup. In fact, what they do back in TPM when there is (more or less) normal and peaceful business as usual makes it pretty clear they obey the Senate - not the other way around. They certainly also advise the varous Chancellors and stuff - but they are not obliged to follow such advice.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

That's fair to note, and an interesting point in conflict to how the Republic could possibly be toppled so easily when their institutions were so entrenched, but it doesn't change the fact the Empire was based off fascism and inarguably was Lucas' depiction of a fascist regime.  Just because he didn't get everything right doesn't change his intent, or how it was portrayed, or how that portrayal is obviously going to be interpreted by the viewer.

I'd say Palpatine took power because the Republic institutions were rotten to the core. He did not seize power against a meaningful opposition, he was effectively proclaimed Galactic Emperor by pretty much everyone important - that's what Padmé means when she talks about democracy dying with thunderous applause.

Darth Sidious certainly helped to bring this about behind the scenes with various underhanded means - but Chancellor Palpatine doesn't conduct a coup d'etat in the public eye when he proclaims himself Emperor in ROTS.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

Again, I haven't read the EU, but in terms of the films this seems to pretty obviously be expedited.  No one wants a Star Wars that delves into party building.  It must be assumed Palpatine led a substantially large faction of some sort or another, otherwise there's no possible way he would have been granted those powers in the first place.

Well, I'd say such things would be there if Lucas had intended a more visible/concrete historical fascism parallel. I don't say the imagery and implicit parallels aren't there - I'm saying it is not that explicit.

I mean, the Cardassians in DS9 are so much more space Nazis than anyone in Star Wars ever was (and that also goes for the Clark administration in Babylon 5) precisely because they effectively express Nazi ideology. Star Wars has the imagery, but very much lacks any explicit references to Nazi/fascist ideology.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

And somehow that distinction negates the fact Lucas borrowed the literal term for his namelessly dehumanized evil henchman that can't shoot straight directly from Nazi fascism?

You do have a point there. That's one of the more direct parallels (although I didn't really see that up until now because I always saw the stormtroopers as official soldiers and didn't make the SA connection ('Sturmabteilung' would actually be translated as 'storm department' or 'storm division'). SS means 'Schutzstaffel' which has nothing to do with anything stormy.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

Hitler (and his regime) never was explicit about his true aims in public.  That's why the Wannsee Conference was conducted in private and the world didn't learn about it until Nuremberg.

Here you are definitely wrong. You are right, of course, that they didn't talk about gas chambers in public (although they did everything in their power to make it known what they are were doing informally to ensure the population was implicitly complicit in the genocide - which helped to fuel the fear the Allies would exterminate them in the same manner after the war was lost, ensuring their loyalty until the very end) but everyone living in Germany did know and was, to a point, complicit in the removal of Jews (and other unwanted elements) from public life. I'm not sure how much you know about this (I'm not only German but I'm also living with the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors) but concentration camps were already a thing in 1933, and the Wannsee Conference only settled the details of the Endlösung - which, to be sure, was the cruelest part of that all. But if they hadn't done that, they would have still killed a lot of people, and they would have still removed Jews from public life in Germany, stealing a lot of wealth and property in the process of it, etc.

And the goals of destroying the Jews in Europe, to conquer lands in the east, to destroy Communism, to take over Germany (by force, if necessary) was all quite clear in the 1920s. Hitler did lead a failed coup in Bavaria even before writing about his goals in 'Mein Kampf'.

I'd agree that there is a difference between the methodical killings of the gas chambers and, say, some Nazi ruffians beating a Jew to death on the streets, but it is a rather minor difference if you look at the individual level and the mindset of the people involved. Both only worked because people looked the other way. And they were very good at that.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

They certainly are far more complex!  But it's a movie that's trying to appeal to a very broad audience, including an emphasis on getting kids entranced with a whole new world, so it's inherently going to be dumbed down.  Such complexity was briefly inserted into Rogue One, which is part of why I liked it so much.  They could do more with this, but TROS forcefully (sorry) suggests Disney isn't really interested in doing so.

What do you mean by that complexity in Rogue One? I thought that movie was not very complex.

I'd agree with the overall generic depiction of Star Wars - it is generic evil that's presented there. The Nazis/fascists are used as inspirations to create an evil look. But that's not the same as making any direct references - or even using direct parallels.

8 hours ago, DMC said:

Padme explicitly expresses her misgivings throughout those horrid scenes with the cheesiest dialogue ever between Portman and Christensen in the first two acts of ROTS.  As for Jimmy Smits keeping his seat, so?  Are you saying it would have been wiser or better for his constituency (in this case, his entire planet) to resign in protest and/or enact a suicidal confrontation with the new empire?

With us not knowing what a direct rebellion could have accomplished or how Palpatine would have reacted, lacking a Death Star we don't really know.

There is some dialogue there, but it is not very concrete. Rather abstract, with democracy just being an abstract concept. The viewer (like Anakin) never saw it work properly and certainly doesn't understand the systematic difference. Especially since we have no idea how the abolition of democracy would shape/affect the lives of the average citizen of the Republic.

On the abstract level it is quite clear that democracy = good (or at least better) than dictatorship (which is bad/evil). But even with the OT in mind - where we have very strong imagery/iconography/dialogue sending the message that the Empire is evil - we never learn anything about their concrete policies aside from the horrible war crime of the destruction of Alderaan. We never see innocent bystanders rounded up and shot in the OT, nor is there any indication that (and how) people do suffer under the heel of the Empire.

The EU, etc. all show that, of course, but the movies as such don't do that (aside from the Alderaan thing which is truly horrible).

8 hours ago, DMC said:

This is where your argument transcends into absurdity.  Hitler and Mussolini employed exactly the same type of reassuring rhetoric Palpatine presents in the PT - that's what Lucas was trying to depict!  He also concurrently frames out-groups as a threat that needs to be eradicated, not just in ROTS but also in AOTC.  That too is clearly Lucas' attempt to show how fascist regimes emerge.

He does? Where? Both rebels and separatists are essentially part of the same political entity - and as per AOTC Palpatine does not want to fight the separatists. He isn't a war monger in that movie.

Unlike Hitler there simply are no aggressive speeches from Palpatine anwhere to be found.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

Not that anyone cares but I was thinking about how I would rank them. 

-The Empire Strikes Back
-Return of the Jedi
-Rogue One
-The Last Jedi
-(Rebels)
-Star Wars
-(The Clone Wars)
-Solo
-The Force Awakens
-The Phantom Menace
-Rise of Skywalker.
-Revenge of the Sith
-(Holiday special)
-Attack of the Clones 

Respectable list!

mine is 

A New Hope

Rogue One

Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

The Mandalorian

The Force Awakens

Solo

The Last Jedi

Revenge of the Sith

Rise of Skywalker

The Phantom Menace

Christmas Special

Attack of the Clones

[Ran]

Mine would be:

TESB

ANH

ROTJ

R1

TRoS

TFA

TLJ

SOLO

TPM

RotS

AotC

[Nictarion]

3 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Respectable list!

mine is 

A New Hope

Rogue One

Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

The Mandalorian

The Force Awakens

Solo

The Last Jedi

Revenge of the Sith

Rise of Skywalker

The Phantom Menace

Christmas Special

Attack of the Clones

Rogue One ahead of Empire? Blasphemy!

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Since they are well-established antagonists I find it kind of forced to kill Luke before he even has a chance to learn that the Emperor actually is still around. In fact, this is part of the reason why I think it is utter bogus that anyone (especially not Johnson) ever planned to have him back by the time they made TLJ and much less TFA (since the first new movie doesn't even mention the Sith by name, if I'm not mistaken). And Palpatine is only mentioned as 'Darth Sidious' (a name not mentioned at all in TROS) in TLJ.

I don't know if this is accurate, but it's entirely possible.  OTOH, it's also entirely plausible Abrams always thought of bringing back Palpatine.  That is a totally Abrams move.  So, I don't really care to speculate either way.  Point is, I think we both agree it was pretty stupid, or at least certainly stupidly executed.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

But nobody ever said that the Jedi had the right to stage such a coup.

LOL.  Your argument is "ok, yeah, we saw this on the screen...BUT no one ever said it before..we saw it on the screen."  Even though, on top of that, we know the Jedi ordered Anakin to spy on the head of government on behalf of their council, which plainly indicates they at least perceive themselves as beyond the oversight and directives of the Senate as long as the Senate doesn't find out about it.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

He did not seize power against a meaningful opposition, he was effectively proclaimed Galactic Emperor by pretty much everyone important - that's what Padmé means when she talks about democracy dying with thunderous applause.

What?  You don't know any of this, all these are base assumptions.  We don't know the size of the opposition, or how meaningful it was.  We don't know if he was proclaimed emperor by "pretty much everyone important."  And we certainly don't know that's why Padme said what she did.  All we have is that one scene, which tells us legislators applauded when their leader made a public speech in front of them.  That is what happens literally every single time you have such a gathering in reality.  That's the point of such gatherings. 

Considering our exposure, empirically it's actually more reasonable to expect there to be a significant opposition that agrees with Padme and Organa than Palpatine within the Senate, as those are the only three Senators that we know have discernible preferences.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Star Wars has the imagery, but very much lacks any explicit references to Nazi/fascist ideology.

Except Lucas expressly referencing Nazis in commentary, as if the iconography, staging, and literal terminology was not enough.  It's a galaxy long long ago far far away.  Are you seriously asking for "explicit" references?  

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

although they did everything in their power to make it known what they are were doing informally to ensure the population was implicitly complicit in the genocide - which helped to fuel the fear the Allies would exterminate them in the same manner after the war was lost, ensuring their loyalty until the very end

They were implicitly complicit?  Quite the contortionists were they!  I'm trying hard to understand what the hell this statement means, and I think you may have a smidgen of accuracy somewhere in there, but I'm honestly not sure enough to respond.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm not sure how much you know about this (I'm not only German but I'm also living with the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors) but concentration camps were already a thing in 1933, and the Wannsee Conference only settled the details of the Endlösung - which, to be sure, was the cruelest part of that all. But if they hadn't done that, they would have still killed a lot of people, and they would have still removed Jews from public life in Germany, stealing a lot of wealth and property in the process of it, etc.

I am very happy you're German and living with a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.  You remind me of my older students that get indignant when I accurately describe Watergate while they insist their versions are more credible because they were alive then and I wasn't.  This is especially cute:

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Hitler did lead a failed coup in Bavaria even before writing about his goals in 'Mein Kampf'.

Oh really?  You mean there was this thing called the Beer Hall Putsch?  Well, all I have are two postgraduate degrees in the discipline and about to get a third, but please, let me sit here while you mansplain Hitler's emergence and regime.

Anyway, the point here is, no, the Nazis were not dumb enough to advertise their genocide.  This part of the argument started with you asserting Hitler said he wanted to abolish democracy.  Which is wrong.  He didn't say that - and in fact his form of populism rhetorically championed the inherent injustices of the downtrodden, as is true of all demagogues.  Just as he did not advertise the "final solution," but rather took great pains to ensure the escalated genocide was as closely kept a secret as possible.  I don't need to engage in some type of oneupmanship or dick-measuring about knowledge to know you're wrong about this.  You're simply wrong.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

What do you mean by that complexity in Rogue One? I thought that movie was not very complex.

When what's his face..Cassian? talks about all that he's done as a spy in service to the rebellion.  Killing innocent people and such.  They make him a real intelligence officer for a second there.  Plus, just to not give it short shrift, that why all those guys were willing to go on Jyn's suicide mission.  It's total A-Team.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is some dialogue there, but it is not very concrete. Rather abstract, with democracy just being an abstract concept.

So..the dialogue is there, but your problem is they refer to democracy as a concept.  Hm.  Do you get paid by the word or something?  Yes, democracy is an abstract concept.  That Padme was arguing for.  This you don't deny, but apparently want to think I'll forget what we're actually arguing about by making pointless statements?

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The viewer (like Anakin) never saw it work properly and certainly doesn't understand the systematic difference. Especially since we have no idea how the abolition of democracy would shape/affect the lives of the average citizen of the Republic.

The viewer, and Anakin, are exposed to how the Republic apparently "works properly" for the first two and a half films of the PT.  If they don't get how Palpatine's systematic destruction of democracy changes that, when Lucas gives an entire montage of it happening then caps it off with Anakin pledging his allegiance, then that's the viewer's fault.

As for how that will affect the average citizen, that's a ridiculous standard that's difficult to discern in reality, let alone a family sci-fi series.  I'm alright with you moving the goal posts in general, but that one is beyond the pale.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

we never learn anything about their concrete policies aside from the horrible war crime of the destruction of Alderaan. We never see innocent bystanders rounded up and shot in the OT, nor is there any indication that (and how) people do suffer under the heel of the Empire.

Yes, except for the obliteration of an entire planet we only see regular instances of how people suffer under the heel of the Empire, like the indiscriminate murders that resulted in Luke's surrogate parents' death and narratively gave him the excuse to start this whole damn thing in the first place.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

He isn't a war monger in that movie.

You either need to learn what war monger means or rewatch the movie.  He is fomenting conflict throughout the PT.  That's literally what he does throughout the trilogy.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Unlike Hitler there simply are no aggressive speeches from Palpatine anwhere to be found.

Yeah, this isn't aggressive at all:

 

[DMC]

Hmm.  Good time for rankings.  I'll go:

Empire

ANH

Rogue One

ROTS

ROTJ

TFA

TLJ

AOTC

TROS

TPM

[Heartofice]

Everyone arguing about how bad Star Wars is now. Don’t worry because THIS has saved Star Wars and made it good again

 

[Veltigar]

Hmmm, rankings always a good exercise.

 

1. The Empire Strikes Back

2. A New Hope/Star Wars

 

_______________Massive quality Drop______________________

 

3. ROTJ

4. Solo

5. RoTS

6. TPM

7. TLJ

8. TFA

9. AoTC

10 RoS

 

=> Haven't seen Rogue one, so can't rank it.

[karaddin]

So now we know Palps fucks, do we think he also screams "unlimited power" when he climaxes?

[Suzanna Stormborn]

9 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Rogue One ahead of Empire? Blasphemy!

Lol yeah, Rogue One is the best!!! Certainly got more emotion out of me than any of the others.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

So now we know Palps fucks, do we think he also screams "unlimited power" when he climaxes?

Or “Yes!! Strike me Down!!”

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, DMC said:

LOL.  Your argument is "ok, yeah, we saw this on the screen...BUT no one ever said it before..we saw it on the screen."  Even though, on top of that, we know the Jedi ordered Anakin to spy on the head of government on behalf of their council, which plainly indicates they at least perceive themselves as beyond the oversight and directives of the Senate as long as the Senate doesn't find out about it.

Which is because they suspect the man is a traitor. As far as I know various secret services, etc. could also do that kind of thing to head of states, etc. if they had sufficient cause. But this doesn't mean the secret service organization is officially running the state or commanding the head of state, is it?

7 hours ago, DMC said:

What?  You don't know any of this, all these are base assumptions.  We don't know the size of the opposition, or how meaningful it was.  We don't know if he was proclaimed emperor by "pretty much everyone important."  And we certainly don't know that's why Padme said what she did.  All we have is that one scene, which tells us legislators applauded when their leader made a public speech in front of them.  That is what happens literally every single time you have such a gathering in reality.  That's the point of such gatherings. 

LOL, Lucas should have portrayed the opposition. If there is none shown, neither in the Senate nor elsewhere, I don't imagine there being any opposition that counts. Why should I? In the movie we have Padmé having abstract issues how things develop, that's it. If Lucas had kept the Rebellion scenes in ROTS it would be different (there was the Petition of the 2,000 in there, indicating two thousands dissenters, which is a pretty big number). But even there we only see opposition to formation of the Empire/dictatorship - we don't see any indication that the new regime - aside from being no longer democratic is going to be evil, especially in relation to the main population.

I agree that abolishing democracy is bad - but fascism is more than just the absence of democracy, no?

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Except Lucas expressly referencing Nazis in commentary, as if the iconography, staging, and literal terminology was not enough.  It's a galaxy long long ago far far away.  Are you seriously asking for "explicit" references?  

Well, Lucas is apparently wrong there, since the very same article makes it clear that the Imperial uniforms were actually based on the German Uhlans from World War I. Last time I looked there were no Nazis out there. I'd call that colloquial references to the rather broad concept of 'movie Nazis' in Hollywood films. That's a rather broad spectrum, including the depicting of actual Nazis in historical movies as well as those who are just based on/inspired by fantasy/SF variations.

And I never doubted things like that. Nobody in their right mind doubts that the aesthetics of the Star Wars Imperial military is based on German/Nazi-like uniforms.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

They were implicitly complicit?  Quite the contortionists were they!  I'm trying hard to understand what the hell this statement means, and I think you may have a smidgen of accuracy somewhere in there, but I'm honestly not sure enough to respond.

It means that if you just sit on your hands or throw spit at the neighbors who get picked up by the police in the middle of night, when you buy up their property for a fraction of the real wealth/none at all, if you take jobs and firms and other property that's 'Aryanized' that you are very much complicit, no? Not to mention actually taking it upon yourself to rat out, take advantage of, see that all the various measure to dehumanize Jews and other people are maintained.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

I am very happy you're German and living with a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.  You remind me of my older students that get indignant when I accurately describe Watergate while they insist their versions are more credible because they were alive then and I wasn't.  This is especially cute:

Oh really?  You mean there was this thing called the Beer Hall Putsch?  Well, all I have are two postgraduate degrees in the discipline and about to get a third, but please, let me sit here while you mansplain Hitler's emergence and regime.

LOL, right. There is a difference of bumbling morons pretending living during a time, deluding themselves into believing that makes them significant or experts, and people actually being involved with certain things. I tried to illustrate my personal bias/investment in this thing (which, considering the character traits you show here was likely pretty much pointless, anyway), not make an argument of authority.

Also rather cute that you delude yourself into being able to describe a historical event as 'accurate'. How do you do that, pray?

And aren't you mansplaining Star Wars and fascism to me throughout our entire conversation?

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Anyway, the point here is, no, the Nazis were not dumb enough to advertise their genocide.  This part of the argument started with you asserting Hitler said he wanted to abolish democracy.  Which is wrong.  He didn't say that - and in fact his form of populism rhetorically championed the inherent injustices of the downtrodden, as is true of all demagogues.  Just as he did not advertise the "final solution," but rather took great pains to ensure the escalated genocide was as closely kept a secret as possible.  I don't need to engage in some type of oneupmanship or dick-measuring about knowledge to know you're wrong about this.  You're simply wrong.

Well, there definitely are passages in 'Mein Kampf' and a considerable number of Hitler's speeches that make it clear what he wanted to do. And, yes, of course, the methods of the genocide were not clear in the 1920s or early 1930s - and it might not have happened the way it did if there hadn't been a war or if the war had gone differently (the Endlösung was the thing Hitler wanted to see definitely done when it was clear he would not win the war) - but my point simply was that the Jews and other were removed from German society from the very beginning.

And to get back on track - there is no indication that the Galactic Empire ever treated any (minority) group in the galaxy in this manner (the Jedi excluded, but that's sort of a religious war between them and the Sith). In fact, even the destruction of Alderaan is part of a government fighting insurgents/terrorists. The Alderaanians are killed not because they are considered 'subhuman' or anything, but just to send a message to the rebels and rebel sympathizers. Nazis/fascists certainly did that kind of thing, but that kind of thing isn't exclusive to them, right? The random murder of civilian was (and still is) a rather common tactic in warfare.

What makes Nazism stand out as a really disgusting things is that members of your very own community are dehumanized, stripped of their rights, and eventually murdered. This was not done as part of an escalating civil war/upraising but just because they wanted and could do it.

Whether the Galactic Empire ever intended to use the Death Star as a means of random planet destruction (or the non-random eradication of certain non-human species as part of a core tenet of Imperial ideology) is never established.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

When what's his face..Cassian? talks about all that he's done as a spy in service to the rebellion.  Killing innocent people and such.  They make him a real intelligence officer for a second there.  Plus, just to not give it short shrift, that why all those guys were willing to go on Jyn's suicide mission.  It's total A-Team.

Yeah, that's something - although I'm not sure whether the Rebellion should be that way. I actually didn't like them to be this dirty because Star Wars has, in the end, a certain fairy-tale quality to it. And the rebels are the good guys. It could have worked better, I think, if he had him talk about him having issues with being cruel to Imperials/Imperial sympathizers. Killing your own sources/allies (as is done early in the movie, no?) comes across as pretty shitty.

On another level - I also found it strange that the leaders of the Rebellion were this naive/idealistic this late in the Imperial period. The Death Star was nearly complete, and they still weren't yet willing to fight a proper war - either they were totally stupid/naive or the Empire was only cruel in places nobody ever investigated.

Also, isn't the Death Star designer guy portrayed as overly sympathetic? I mean the Mads Mikkelsen fellow, not the white uniform guy who had to hunt down people all by himself throughout the entire movie.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

So..the dialogue is there, but your problem is they refer to democracy as a concept.  Hm.  Do you get paid by the word or something?  Yes, democracy is an abstract concept.  That Padme was arguing for.  This you don't deny, but apparently want to think I'll forget what we're actually arguing about by making pointless statements?

I cannot make it more clearer than that. If you don't see a difference between targeting your enemies (which Palpatine does when he has the Jedi killed in ROTS) and actually establishing a regime that murders innocent people left and right - which is nowhere seen in the PT (the Jedi children in the temple aside).

Perhaps Anakin's weirdo speech on Mustafar that he had peace and security to his new empire can illustrate that point - we are supposed to see (and do see) that as a caricature. But the movies fail at really showing us the difference between the two systems. It is the Republic that starts a war with the Confederacy of Independent Systems (due to the manipulations of the Sith, of course, but the public don't know that). To properly show the new Empire and its representatives as evil it would have been good to see more about their general policies and plans for the future. And I think that's lacking in those movies.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

The viewer, and Anakin, are exposed to how the Republic apparently "works properly" for the first two and a half films of the PT.  If they don't get how Palpatine's systematic destruction of democracy changes that, when Lucas gives an entire montage of it happening then caps it off with Anakin pledging his allegiance, then that's the viewer's fault.

But they sort of fail at that. Young Ani aside, the entire PT is viewed through the eyes of the galactic elite (senators, Jedi, and their staff). We don't know how well the Republic works, nor how lives for the general population change under the Empire.

In fact, even Palpatine's motivation is completely unclear since Lucas completely fails to explain who the Sith are or what they want revenge for.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Yes, except for the obliteration of an entire planet we only see regular instances of how people suffer under the heel of the Empire, like the indiscriminate murders that resulted in Luke's surrogate parents' death and narratively gave him the excuse to start this whole damn thing in the first place.

That is OT, and yes, that establishes Luke's motivation.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

You either need to learn what war monger means or rewatch the movie.  He is fomenting conflict throughout the PT.  That's literally what he does throughout the trilogy.

Sure, but nobody knows that, right? Which was my entire point - the fascist movements openly foment conflict within the societies they try to take over (and also with outsiders, of course). All Palpatine does is telling us again and again how much he loves democracy and the Republic - and he doesn't do that only in public speeches but also when talking to people we would consider his inner circle behind closed doors.

This is the difference I'm talking about. A proper description of Palpatine as a fascist would, in my opinion, a two-faced party leader. A man having his SA-like thugs on the streets, giving radical speeches and pushing for discrimination/removal of minorities (which in the SW version of fascism in the EU is a 'humans first' ideology), while also having a more civil/less radical face when addressing broader circles.

Instead, Palpatine's true face - Darth Sidious - is one only his Sith apprentices and cadre of close confidants ever see in the movies. And while
he definitely comes across as evil in those scenes, he never actually gives anything about his political agenda away (in fact, he routinely lies to people like Gunray, Tyranus, Grievous, even Vader).

If you want to make accurate allusions to real world fascism you do not present a future fascist dictator like Senator/Chancellor Palpatine (you also don't base the war paving the way to that rise on the American Civil War). That is a different story - possibly even a more interesting/ugly story, but still a different story. And ironically the Sith as presented in the PT look much more like the invented Jewish conspiracy from the 'Protokolle der Weisen von Zion' and other fascist conspiracy theory stuff (a small cabal of people talking over an entire Galactic Republic and transforming it into a dictorship by fomenting artificial wars and the like) than how actual fascists took power (while there certainly were conspiracies and the like going on there, they were not doing things as clandestinely and underhandedly - the conservative/right-wing industrialists never had any issues being publicly connected with the NSDAP).

I mean, how unlike a fascist Palpatine was in the public eye can be shown by the simple fact that literally no one in AOTC bothered to add a clause to the Emergency Powers Act that Palpatine's emergency powers would automatically end when the separatists were defeated. No senator and definitely none of the Jedi even voiced concern about Palpatine getting such powers. But we can be rather sure that the SPD and KPD (and possibly even the Zentrum) representatives in the Reichstag in, say, 1931 would have issues with a similar bill. But in AOTC all politicians in the Galactic Republic are Palpatine's people. If you create a legal setup where the guy you invest with emergency powers can decide all by himself if and when he does give them up again, you most definitely show that the people granting him such powers did very much trust this guy.

[Jen'ari]

16 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

So was Palpatine married when he was a senator?

Maybe some women just like Sith Lords/Ladies .

[Veltigar]

17 minutes ago, Jen'ari said:

Maybe some women just like Sith Lords/Ladies .

Star Wars: A New Fetish? 

[Lord Varys]

21 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Star Wars: A New Fetish? 

Well, the Kylo Ren guy definitely had some severe Sith mask fetish issues...

[Veltigar]

14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the Kylo Ren guy definitely had some severe Sith mask fetish issues...

In the end he did go for Rey though, so not as kinky as he thought he was :p 

[HexMachina]

Some of my rankings are a bit changeable, depending on my mood at the time. I’ll reflect that with the numbering. Order right now is my current ranking though

1. TESB

2. R1

3/4. TFA

3/4. TLJ

5/6. RotJ

5/6. Solo

7. tRoS

8. ANH

9. RotS

10. TPM

11. AotC

 

Attack of the Clones is comfortably bottom. That film is utterly diabolical