posted
I'm not speaking so much to Luke's point of view when it comes to Darth Vader's public perception. As Episode III ends the new Empire needs to contend with the fact that yesterday the Jedi were heroes and today they're villains, while at the same time being saddled with a culture that doesn't yet realize it's living in a dictatorship.
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The newly-formed Empire could promote it's new secure status with parades of clonetroopers and yellow ribbons on every speeder.
Plus that whole "the war is OVER thing.
People would likely be happy with Palpy for his strong leadership and surviving a vile assination attempt- the holier-than-thou Jedis being gone would have probably been seen as a plus, not a negative.
They probably put a Galactic Wal-Mart on the site of the old Jedi Temple. Slaughtered Jedi kids mean low low prices, after all.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
The problem is that, with the war over, people are free to question why exactly they need Palpatine anymore. I'd think it would make more sense to leave some of the seperatists alone, after killing enough of them to ensure they can't actually win or seriously threaten the Empire.
On the other hand, looking for subtlety of any form in Star Wars is, perhaps, an unfruitful exercise.
Of course, without external enemies, I suppose a totalitarian state might rapidly start consuming its own, explaining how things degenerate from a polite democratic fiction to gleeful planetary destruction.
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quote:I was thinking about this thread in the shower this morning
Good man.
[quote]And we also know he was called Lord/Darth Vader even before he got the biomechanical togs.[quote]
Well the only ones who knew about Vader's name was the soon-to-be-living-out-their-short-ass-lives-in-agonizing-pain separatists, so I don't think Palpatine and Vader paraded his title and Sith status that much.
What bothers me, if anything, is the fact that Yoda, Kenobi and Senator Organa all knew about Palpatine being a Sith and the ultimate evil and the clones being hacked traitors by the end of Ep.III, yet nothing seems to have come out of it.
I suppose we should assume that all the justified grudges and knowledge they had with Palpatine was baked into the "manifesto" of the Rebel Alliance.
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posted
Another thing I'd like to know about is the source of Owen Lars' antipathy towards Obi-Wan Kenobi. I mean, he doesn't know the guy, all he knows is that one day a Jedi Master turns up with Owen's stepbrother's baby son. Cut to 20 years later and "Ben" Kenobi is a "crazy old wizard" - Owen's true opinion, or just something to discourage Luke's interest?
How much do the Larses get told about what's been going on? When Owen fears that Luke has much of his father in him, is it the crazy wizarding powers, or the traitorous overthrowing of the Republic, or the wife-throttling, that he means, or just the danger of a genetic propensity towards Sandpeople-slaughtering?
Or did he just hand over the baby with nothing but a warning to keep his origins secret, and then start interfering in how the Larses raised the boy? Did he turn up at age five and announce it was time to "Start training the youngling?" Did Owen object? Did it end up in Anchorhead Family Court? I think we should be told.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: I'm not speaking so much to Luke's point of view when it comes to Darth Vader's public perception. As Episode III ends the new Empire needs to contend with the fact that yesterday the Jedi were heroes and today they're villains, while at the same time being saddled with a culture that doesn't yet realize it's living in a dictatorship.
History is written by the victors. There are historical examples of groups and organizations that were in public favor for a time then fell out of it. The Nazi party and the Hitler Youth is one. At the time people were probably proud their kid was a member of the Hitler Youth. I bet no one brags about that membership now.
Star Wars history probably depicted the Jedi being good at one time but falling to corruption. After all, Luke knew what the Jedi were and seemed excited that Obi-Wan fought in the Clone Wars. He even wanted to be a Jedi like his father, so he must have known some stories of how the Jedi used to be.
Kenobi was pretty open about calling the current political regieme a "dark time." Perhaps the people in the Outer Rim had a more open view of current events as well as the past leading up to it.
quote:Another thing I'd like to know about is the source of Owen Lars' antipathy towards Obi-Wan Kenobi. I mean, he doesn't know the guy, all he knows is that one day a Jedi Master turns up with Owen's stepbrother's baby son. Cut to 20 years later and "Ben" Kenobi is a "crazy old wizard" - Owen's true opinion, or just something to discourage Luke's interest?
Some comments from Owen Lars and Kenobi:
When Beru says Luke's just like his father, Owen says "that's what I'm afraid of."
When Luke comments that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter, Kenobi replies; "That's your uncle talking. He didn't hold to your father's ideals." and later, when presented with the lightsaber "Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He was afraid you'd follow old Obi-Wan off on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father."
So, at some point previous to ANH Kenobi tried to give Luke the lightsaber.
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posted
The EU documents Obi-Wan's early attempts to make contact with Luke. Owen basically ran him off.
I think Owen and Beru had to know at least part of the whole story. That Anakin, whom they had met before, had had children and become an agent of the Emperor. Over time, the Lars would have natural grown attached to the boy and would not have wanted him running off doing what Obi-Wan was wanting to groom him for. All of Owen's lies about Anakin's past, not even mentioning that he was a Jedi, seem to indicate that they were trying to erase all reference to the truth from Luke's consciousness.
As to how the Jedi are viewed, no doubt the new Empire ran story after story about the inquest into the Jedi's involvement in the war. Investigations were conducted and all the nasty "facts" came to light about how they set everything up. By this time, officers had been appointed over the armed forces and Vader was worked into system, though still under the command of others, such as Tarkin.
I doubt the word "Sith" is anything the Jedi revealed to the general public. I also doubt it's anything Palpatine talked about.
posted
For that matter, even if the Sith were known to the public, there may not have been any connection between "Darth" and "Sith" in the public consciousness. The Sith were certainly never mentioned by name in the original trilogy.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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I remember my CO in "TIE Fighter" warned me not to give verbal commands to Vader's TIE, it was "not wise to try and give orders to a Dark Lord of the Sith".
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"The Sith were certainly never mentioned by name in the original trilogy."
Well, neither were the Ewoks, but where's their conspiracy theory?
re Hitler Youth: At the risk of giving way more weight to an argument about Star Wars than it deserves, I don't see the parallel. The Nazis fell out of favor, to put it lightly, after everyone in Germany suffered horribly through years of war and their entire society was destroyed. And anyway I never said this was unprecedented. Just the opposite. But it requires heavy lifting from the propagandists and/or sweeping social change. I'm not even criticising the films for not playing up that angle, particularly. Just commenting on it.
This all comes back to the prequels suffering from the lack of a Han Solo, though, I think.
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: The problem is that, with the war over, people are free to question why exactly they need Palpatine anymore. I'd think it would make more sense to leave some of the seperatists alone, after killing enough of them to ensure they can't actually win or seriously threaten the Empire.
It might explain why Palpy allows the Rebel Alliance to get so powerful though- he's a mastermind in the prequels: I cant imagine he could not have crushed them if he'd wanted to badly enough.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I don't know, that's stretching things a little too much for my personal enjoyment. Like, I mean, sure, it could be the case, but plots like that sort of try my patience. (I say, eyeing Battlestar Galactica nervously.)
Not that I haven't enjoyed such stories in the past.
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posted
I don't think that the Rebel Alliance was any sort of threat as of the time of ANH. Everyone spoke as if the entire army that we saw in that film was the whole of the Rebel Alliance. Blowing them up would have utterly destroyed them. Palpatine probably watched them from a distance, saw that maybe, maybe they might grow to be a threat, got a bit more worried when they stole the plans to the Death Star, and then saw it as a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: Demonstrate the power of the Death Star and wipe out the Alliance.
It's when that plan failed (due to a fluke more than anything) that things changed. Suddenly the Rebels became famous. People flooded to join them. Their numbers grew massively. (One of my friends, watching TESB for the first time, said at the end "where'd they get those ships from" upon seeing the frigate. He was even more surprised when watcing ROTJ and seeing that the Alliance suddenly had a fairly big fleet.)
So I'd say that Palaptine wasn't masterminding things all the time. He was caught out by the first Death Star's destruction, and was then making damn sure that the Rebels would not escape a second time. Which also didn't work. Silly man.
quote:Originally posted by Nim: I remember my CO in "TIE Fighter" warned me not to give verbal commands to Vader's TIE, it was "not wise to try and give orders to a Dark Lord of the Sith".
I bet you tried though, didn't you.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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quote: I remember my CO in "TIE Fighter" warned me not to give verbal commands to Vader's TIE, it was "not wise to try and give orders to a Dark Lord of the Sith".
Hmm...I remember that playing as Rogue Leader in the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games, I was always receiving commands from my subordinates...
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