SweetSilverBlues: ashinmytomatoes: AdamK: his dad was a loser compared to Obi Wan tho

Definitely.



/Hot

Hot in every sense of the word...

I completely agree. :?)

Digitalstrange: But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."
Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, "There is no civility, there is only politics," we see that at heart, he's an esoteric Straussian.

But that ingnores the fact the the Emperor is largely at fault for the squabbling. He goaded the Trade Federation into annexing Naboo and was insuring the bureacrats were stalling. He had quietly prepared an army loyal to him and then created an enemy to justify bringing the army in.

He wasn't manipulating the political order to bring peace, he was manipulating it gain power.

This. The whole "Case for the Empire" thing is a "Mussolini made the trains run on time" argument with a side helping of the "if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" argument.

boxiebrown: I haven't read the whole thread, but just in case someone hasn't covered this:

Yes, Luke wanted to enlist in the Imperial Academy, but NOT for the purposes of joining the Empire. It's well established in the Expanded Universe that potential members of the Alliance frequently enlisted in the Academy to learn piloting skills, only to defect immediately after graduation.

From my view of it, base don his actions and his epxressed wishes, Luke would have been a happy Stormtrooper if the droids had never shown up.

Doc Daneeka: RaiderFanMikeP: Did Luke ever make it to a real planet? he is on an all dessert planet.. to replace with a frozen wasteland.. then a swamp planet.

One of my biggest pet peeves about sci-fi in general is how basically every planet is defined entirely by one environmental characteristic. The desert planet (Tatooine). The ocean planet (Kamino). The swamp planet (Degobah). The forest planet (Yavin). The ice planet (Hoth). The planet-wide city (Coruscant).

Apparently there are no planets like Earth with a diverse variety of ecosystems and environments.

That would be Corellia my little... green... friend.

Philip Francis Queeg: Yes. Apparently though their technology was more advanced in many ways then ours, they had not yet invented internet porn.

Except for the black market in ewok snuff porn.

clusterfrak: Gonz: I always looked at it more pragmatically. Tatooine was the planetary equivalent of a backwater hick town. There's not a lot for the kids to do, so they spend time shooting varmints (womp rats) and things of that nature. Luke's primary goal was simply getting the hell out of Dodge, and joining the Empire for a stint was the quickest way for him to do that.

I guarantee you that not every kid who's joined the US military in the past was doing it to support the Administration in charge at the time. Sometimes, getting out of a small-town hellhole is more important than your opinions on the merits of the war in Iraq.

I grew up in the High Desert and considered Hesperia Tattoine nothing there but mormons and methheads (scum and villany). So I joined the Airforce to escape and never went back. I didn't enlist out of any patriotism just a need to escape a soul killing backwater. Sad I never learned how to use the force.

But did you get the chance to kiss your sister? Come on, fess up...

cletusnbrandine: I had Snu Snu: Doc Daneeka: RaiderFanMikeP: Did Luke ever make it to a real planet? he is on an all dessert planet.. to replace with a frozen wasteland.. then a swamp planet.

One of my biggest pet peeves about sci-fi in general is how basically every planet is defined entirely by one environmental characteristic. The desert planet (Tatooine). The ocean planet (Kamino). The swamp planet (Degobah). The forest planet (Yavin). The ice planet (Hoth). The planet-wide city (Coruscant).

Apparently there are no planets like Earth with a diverse variety of ecosystems and environments.

Yavin is actually a gas giant, Yavin IV was the moon that the Ewok's lived on. Also, Naboo seemed like it had a varied ecosystem. Tatooine was actually similar to it but was basically nuked from orbit and "glassed" which eventually turned into a planet wide desert.

/sorry, had to get my geek on.

geek FAIL. the ewoks lived on endor.

Double geek fail! The forest MOON of Endor, which was the second moon, also referred to as the "Sanctuary Moon."

Wow... I never expected this to devolve into some kind of geek thread....

Hollywood Cole: Etchy333: BKITU: "You can go to the Academy next year." -- Uncle Owen

As in "the Imperial Academy."

Nope, they were talking about Starfleet Academy. It's all the same universe, the next Star Trek film will tie it all together.

/mind blown

But it was LONG AGO in a galaxy FAR FAR AWAY


In the ST:TOS episode, "The Doomsday Machine", Spock mentions that the planet eater came from outside the Galaxy. Maybe it was built in the SW Galaxy as a defense against a Death Star-type weapon?

/ I know, I know, in Vendetta it was supposedly built as a defense against the Borg

Murphyr: freewill: I know this was already linked, but it's worth the slings and arrows of being second with it:

The Case for the Empire

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.

Presumably, Tarkin isn't so divorced from the goings on about the Empire that he would have to take Leia at his word that Alderaanians were relatively peaceful (and, in addition, any significant weapons systems would have been detectable). Given that Tarkin knew that no weapon they could have possessed would have mattered against his own firepower and that he knew that the surface was inhabited, he's willfully killing billions because he suspects that a few in the planet's leadership are sympathetic to the insurgents.

Well, I'd hardly call it a few. Bail Organa, Leia's adopted father was one of the founders of the rebellion and Leia obviously was following in her footsteps. It's entire government were rebel sympathizers. Alderaan was a hotbed for rebellious sentiment hiding behind a pacifist stance (all well covered in EU stuff).

Yeah, destroying the place was horrific and evil but if you were Tarkin and needing a public lesson that being a Rebel was dangerous then Alderaan was the place to make it, especially since it meant something to Leia.

astralvortex: RaiderFanMikeP: I thought he wanted to join the academy to also get off the hell hole planet he lived on..

You know who else joined the academy?

This guy!



I always thought the academy that was referred to was a rebel alliance academy. How many people in the rebellion had x-wing training from the get go? Odds are they had training in non-military spaceships but going from a civilian ship to an x-wing would seem like a big leap. You don't just jump into a fighter ship, rtfm, and go off being an ace. Seems highly unlikely that the rebels wouldn't have a training school, aka an academy, for the x-wings.

/I recommend the Han Solo books

Nope Solo was going to be an imperial pilot. Got booted for stepping in on some officers mistreating Chewbacca

Make your mind, Christine. Do you want me to masturbate or not?

astralvortex:

I always thought the academy that was referred to was a rebel alliance academy. How many people in the rebellion had x-wing training from the get go? Odds are they had training in non-military spaceships but going from a civilian ship to an x-wing would seem like a big leap. You don't just jump into a fighter ship, rtfm, and go off being an ace. Seems highly unlikely that the rebels wouldn't have a training school, aka an academy, for the x-wings.

/I recommend the Han Solo books


From wookiepedia

The X-wing's flight controls were similar to those of the T-16 skyhopper, an airspeeder also produced by Incom Corporation. This meant pilots were able to adapt with minimal training. A skilled recruit with enough hours on a T-16 could pilot an X-wing within hours of first entering the craft. Rebel technicians used this fact to train new pilots without using any of the expensive X-wings. This also allowed future X-Wing pilots to be trained undercover on Empire-controlled worlds.

incrdbil: boxiebrown: I haven't read the whole thread, but just in case someone hasn't covered this:

Yes, Luke wanted to enlist in the Imperial Academy, but NOT for the purposes of joining the Empire. It's well established in the Expanded Universe that potential members of the Alliance frequently enlisted in the Academy to learn piloting skills, only to defect immediately after graduation.

From my view of it, base don his actions and his epxressed wishes, Luke would have been a happy Stormtrooper if the droids had never shown up.

1) If that's true, why did he tell Obi-Wan that he hated the Empire?

2) He was going to the Academy to learn to be a TIE pilot, not a Stormtrooper.

Digitalstrange: Yeah, destroying the place was horrific and evil but if you were Tarkin and needing a public lesson that being a Rebel was dangerous then Alderaan was the place to make it, especially since it meant something to Leia.

Sure, but the article seems to be trying to throw into doubt the evilness of the act with scare quotes and saying that it "seems like mass murder".

It is plainly mass murder. You could argue that the leadership might be a legitimate target, I suppose, but the whole of Alderaan is still essentially a civilian target, and Tarkin murdered billions as a show of power. He wasn't even doing it to get any information from Leia; he got that by letting them go and following them to Yavin 4. That Leia lied about the Alliance headquarters still being on Dantooine is immaterial, as he knew she wouldn't tell him where it actually was.

The Case for the Empire is also making a case that if captured by the enemy, you should immediately hand over information, and any resistance to interrogation is justification for everything.

I just love that the mere pretense of relevance (I.e. Photoshopped image of politician) can kick off an excellent SW thread.

Love it

I don't know if this has already been said I don't have time to read through all the posts sorry.

The Empire at the time in question still had the senate which governed the Empire under the direction of the Emperor joining the academy would be like going to collage here in the USA when it was a member of the British Empire. Yes you would still be an officer of the British but you would serve the colony. You could still hate the Empire but if you wanted to serve in the armed forces this was the only way to do it. Lucas just took the American Revolution and added spaceships for the most part.

Haha they said ejaculated, flaccid, and yank the lever.

And again, it is the comments that make me lose faith in mankind not the post itself.

Yea, they were more like insurgents than terrorists. Firing from the bushes rather than in formation was the "roadside IED" of its day.

Fighting in the bushes against UNIFORMED ENEMY SOLDIERS is not terrorism, just a run-of-the-mill ambush. If they were fighting in the bushes against INNOCENT CIVILIANS then you would have a point and you wouldn't sound retarded.

Yes there was violence against Torries by other Americans, but not on the part of the Continental Army.

Freakman:
Fighting in the bushes against UNIFORMED ENEMY SOLDIERS is not terrorism, just a run-of-the-mill ambush. If they were fighting in the bushes against INNOCENT CIVILIANS then you would have a point and you wouldn't sound retarded.


Accept for the fact the our soldiers in many cases weren't uniformed. I believe the term we would use now is "Illegal enemy combatant".

boxiebrown: 1) If that's true, why did he tell Obi-Wan that he hated the Empire?

This

2) He was going to the Academy to learn to be a TIE pilot, not a Stormtrooper.

And that.

I think the real reason Obi Wan Kenobi lived in the desert was because he was involved with the black market Jawa trade.

Back on Earth, the Tall Man would kill people, then compress them into Jawas before shipping them off through a wormhole gate to Kenobi, who would sell them as slaves.

Politics is to Star Wars as Motor Oil is to Ice cream.

stlblue:
(wall of half-assed arguments in favor of Imperial fascism)
Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet.

Theeere we go.

Philip Francis Queeg: Freakman:
Fighting in the bushes against UNIFORMED ENEMY SOLDIERS is not terrorism, just a run-of-the-mill ambush. If they were fighting in the bushes against INNOCENT CIVILIANS then you would have a point and you wouldn't sound retarded.


Accept for the fact the our soldiers in many cases weren't uniformed. I believe the term we would use now is "Illegal enemy combatant".

Irregular militias were a standard part of any fighting force of the time. That generally included men with no uniforms fighting with their own personal weapons. The British didn't have them fighting the colonies because it would be silly to ship militiamen overseas with the professional Redcoats.

BTW, most of the major successes of the American Revolution came after the Continental Army was formed, which trained and fought in a very proper, European way.

Ringtailed79: Politics is to Star Wars as Motor Oil is to Ice cream.

Since there is almost no science fiction in Star Wars, we are left with just magic and philosophy, I would say that Politics is to Star Wars as Motor Oil is to a 2 stroke engine.

Philip Francis Queeg: Freakman:
Fighting in the bushes against UNIFORMED ENEMY SOLDIERS is not terrorism, just a run-of-the-mill ambush. If they were fighting in the bushes against INNOCENT CIVILIANS then you would have a point and you wouldn't sound retarded.


Accept for the fact the our soldiers in many cases weren't uniformed. I believe the term we would use now is "Illegal enemy combatant".

Let's also not forget how "improper" it was in those days to not fight in formation etc. and to actually use the environment around you as part of your strategy. Generals from the Revolutionary War era would think of modern warfare as brutish and uncivilized; I think we just stopped kidding ourselves about the nature of war.

Oznog: Doc Daneeka: RaiderFanMikeP: Did Luke ever make it to a real planet? he is on an all dessert planet.. to replace with a frozen wasteland.. then a swamp planet.

One of my biggest pet peeves about sci-fi in general is how basically every planet is defined entirely by one environmental characteristic. The desert planet (Tatooine). The ocean planet (Kamino). The swamp planet (Degobah). The forest planet (Yavin). The ice planet (Hoth). The planet-wide city (Coruscant).

Apparently there are no planets like Earth with a diverse variety of ecosystems and environments.

Yeah, that's typical sci-fi fare: a "planet" has only one environment to speak of, one race of intelligent people or dominant life form, and one unified nation.

I thought Stargate SG1 was odd in that almost every "planet" was a Vancouver-area woods with a small village within a mile of the gate. There doesn't seem to be much OUTSIDE that village. The whole of everything worth seeing on that planet is all concentrated in that village. God forbid there be TWO villages on the same planet. I mean, that'd be overpopulation and no one would let the situation get out of hand like that. So in this case, planet=village and village=planet.

One episode of Stargate even parodied this. Carter and O'Neil ends up on the other side of stargate with no way back. Carter goes around the area and determines that "it's an ice planet". Turns out they are really in Antarctica. Funny twist, I thought.

Leopold Stotch: Philip Francis Queeg: Freakman:
Fighting in the bushes against UNIFORMED ENEMY SOLDIERS is not terrorism, just a run-of-the-mill ambush. If they were fighting in the bushes against INNOCENT CIVILIANS then you would have a point and you wouldn't sound retarded.


Accept for the fact the our soldiers in many cases weren't uniformed. I believe the term we would use now is "Illegal enemy combatant".

Irregular militias were a standard part of any fighting force of the time. That generally included men with no uniforms fighting with their own personal weapons. The British didn't have them fighting the colonies because it would be silly to ship militiamen overseas with the professional Redcoats.

BTW, most of the major successes of the American Revolution came after the Continental Army was formed, which trained and fought in a very proper, European way.

Yes, but mostly with a strong contingents of militia fighting with them. Look at the Saratoga campaign. And even the Continental Line was barely uniformed at times.

Digitalstrange: Murphyr: freewill: I know this was already linked, but it's worth the slings and arrows of being second with it:

The Case for the Empire

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.

Presumably, Tarkin isn't so divorced from the goings on about the Empire that he would have to take Leia at his word that Alderaanians were relatively peaceful (and, in addition, any significant weapons systems would have been detectable). Given that Tarkin knew that no weapon they could have possessed would have mattered against his own firepower and that he knew that the surface was inhabited, he's willfully killing billions because he suspects that a few in the planet's leadership are sympathetic to the insurgents.

Well, I'd hardly call it a few. Bail Organa, Leia's adopted father was one of the founders of the rebellion and Leia obviously was following in her footsteps. It's entire government were rebel sympathizers. Alderaan was a hotbed for rebellious sentiment hiding behind a pacifist stance (all well covered in EU stuff).

Yeah, destroying the place was horrific and evil but if you were Tarkin and needing a public lesson that being a Rebel was dangerous then Alderaan was the place to make it, especially since it meant something to Leia.

Looked, then looked again. Was the scene where Leia's pops had a sex change also cut from the movie, or was I just not paying attention?

Morpheses: clusterfrak: Gonz: I always looked at it more pragmatically. Tatooine was the planetary equivalent of a backwater hick town. There's not a lot for the kids to do, so they spend time shooting varmints (womp rats) and things of that nature. Luke's primary goal was simply getting the hell out of Dodge, and joining the Empire for a stint was the quickest way for him to do that.

I guarantee you that not every kid who's joined the US military in the past was doing it to support the Administration in charge at the time. Sometimes, getting out of a small-town hellhole is more important than your opinions on the merits of the war in Iraq.

I grew up in the High Desert and considered Hesperia Tattoine nothing there but mormons and methheads (scum and villany). So I joined the Airforce to escape and never went back. I didn't enlist out of any patriotism just a need to escape a soul killing backwater. Sad I never learned how to use the force.

But did you get the chance to kiss your sister? Come on, fess up...

Nope not mormon.

Murphyr: Digitalstrange: Yeah, destroying the place was horrific and evil but if you were Tarkin and needing a public lesson that being a Rebel was dangerous then Alderaan was the place to make it, especially since it meant something to Leia.

Sure, but the article seems to be trying to throw into doubt the evilness of the act with scare quotes and saying that it "seems like mass murder".

It is plainly mass murder. You could argue that the leadership might be a legitimate target, I suppose, but the whole of Alderaan is still essentially a civilian target, and Tarkin murdered billions as a show of power. He wasn't even doing it to get any information from Leia; he got that by letting them go and following them to Yavin 4. That Leia lied about the Alliance headquarters still being on Dantooine is immaterial, as he knew she wouldn't tell him where it actually was.

The Case for the Empire is also making a case that if captured by the enemy, you should immediately hand over information, and any resistance to interrogation is justification for everything.

Congrats. You just made the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki war crimes. Also the Dresden Firebombing.

Winners write the story. Had Tarkin not died at Yavin, the entire time would have been put out as "putting down insurrection". Not everyone in Fallujah was a terrorist, but we cleaned out the entire place anyway.

I have no idea how this thread turned into an American Revolution thread so here's a pic of Jar Jar's head in a julienne salad.



/meesa salad!

the_innkeeper: Congrats. You just made the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki war crimes. Also the Dresden Firebombing.

They were not war crimes, but they were crimes against humanity. Whatever keeps this debt ridden empire moving along, amirite?

clusterfrak: Morpheses: clusterfrak: Gonz: I always looked at it more pragmatically. Tatooine was the planetary equivalent of a backwater hick town. There's not a lot for the kids to do, so they spend time shooting varmints (womp rats) and things of that nature. Luke's primary goal was simply getting the hell out of Dodge, and joining the Empire for a stint was the quickest way for him to do that.

I guarantee you that not every kid who's joined the US military in the past was doing it to support the Administration in charge at the time. Sometimes, getting out of a small-town hellhole is more important than your opinions on the merits of the war in Iraq.

I grew up in the High Desert and considered Hesperia Tattoine nothing there but mormons and methheads (scum and villany). So I joined the Airforce to escape and never went back. I didn't enlist out of any patriotism just a need to escape a soul killing backwater. Sad I never learned how to use the force.

But did you get the chance to kiss your sister? Come on, fess up...

Nope not mormon.

So much win! I love this thread...

That's what we get for letting some nutbag from California write our mythology. The meesa and semetic bird characters put his elitist liberal hypocrisy on full display. I'm sure the Sith with the head spikes was taking care of one of Lucas' homo domination/degradation sexual fantasies. Don't get me started on the meaning behind the sarlacc.

Leopold Stotch: Nightsweat: Doc Daneeka: Was the Empire a "legitimate government"? Really?

Kind of like how the American Revolution overturned the rightful government of the colonies in a coup d'etat and seized it for the Guerillas.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

That old piece of propaganda? You don't think the rebels everywhere don't put out a press release?

Nightsweat: Leopold Stotch: Nightsweat: Doc Daneeka: Was the Empire a "legitimate government"? Really?

Kind of like how the American Revolution overturned the rightful government of the colonies in a coup d'etat and seized it for the Guerillas.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

That old piece of propaganda? You don't think the rebels everywhere don't put out a press release?

You mean like these? (new window)

Difficulty: Scroll down for Rebellion part.

Disappointed that no one commented on the attractiveness of the author.

The_Original_Roxtar: deleted scenes of Biggs and Luke in anchorhead prior to luke meeting Ben
Link (new window)
Link (new window)

It is very clear from the first clip that Luke and Biggs were much more than just friends......

halfof33: RaiderFanMikeP: he is on an all dessert planet

All dessert planet? You sound fat.



He speaks of Arruckus. Doon. The Dessert Planet. Where giant pretzels guard the Beer, and the sugar sands cannot sustain the growth and farming of Entrees.

stlblue: The Case for the Empire

Everything you think you know about Star Wars is wrong.
12:00 AM, May 16, 2002 • By JONATHAN V. LAST

TL;DR- writers need to realize I'm on the internet and I don't want to read your long winded crap!
WTF????
I did a google search for "too long" and this was the only image that amused me

MikeBoomshadow: halfof33: RaiderFanMikeP: he is on an all dessert planet

All dessert planet? You sound fat.



He speaks of Arruckus. Doon. The Dessert Planet. Where giant pretzels guard the Beer, and the sugar sands cannot sustain the growth and farming of Entrees.

Nicely done.