The Hermit's Journey. To arms, prequel defenders, to arms!

[Morgaine]

Give an artist George Lucas power and money and it could happen.

That's the biggest problem.
George Lucas' best work when he was under a budget, under duress and had other people to shoot down his bad ideas and fix his atrocious editing.

[GandALF]

Not to mention we see in seveeral scenes of exposition:

- There was an Imperial Senate, now there isn't.
- The regional governors will control the systems of the Empire directly.
- The governors will rule through fear. Obey or get blown up.
- In order to instill fear, a demonstration of the Death Star's full power is needed. A populated, major planet.

That explains Empire's evil methods not what its motivation for using those evil methods is or why anyone desires to serve it. We're told they're evil in the opening crawl, we see them doing evil things and everyone accepts it. We're told the Trade Federation is greedy in the opening crawl, we see them behave greedily and everyone loses their minds!

[Morgaine]

Not to mention we see in seveeral scenes of exposition:

- There was an Imperial Senate, now there isn't.
- The regional governors will control the systems of the Empire directly.
- The governors will rule through fear. Obey or get blown up.
- In order to instill fear, a demonstration of the Death Star's full power is needed. A populated, major planet.

That explains Empire's evil methods not what its motivation for using those evil methods is or why anyone desires to serve it. We're told they're evil in the opening crawl, we see them doing evil things and everyone accepts it. We're told the Trade Federation is greedy in the opening crawl, we see them behave greedily and everyone loses their minds!

His motivations are control. The Senate is gone. The governors control the systems because of the Death Star and Tarkin controls the Death Star making him second only to the Emperor in this grand hegemony.
We know the Trade Federation is evil, but we don't know why Naboo will help them in any way.

[Dînadan]

Not to mention we see in seveeral scenes of exposition:

- There was an Imperial Senate, now there isn't.
- The regional governors will control the systems of the Empire directly.
- The governors will rule through fear. Obey or get blown up.
- In order to instill fear, a demonstration of the Death Star's full power is needed. A populated, major planet.

That explains Empire's evil methods not what its motivation for using those evil methods is or why anyone desires to serve it. We're told they're evil in the opening crawl, we see them doing evil things and everyone accepts it. We're told the Trade Federation is greedy in the opening crawl, we see them behave greedily and everyone loses their minds!

Except we don’t; we have no idea how they profit from occupying Naboo. Does Naboo have untapped natural resources they can harvest and sell? Does it sit on a major trade route and controlling it let them shut down all shipping that they don’t own along that route, thus stopping their competitors’ products reaching market? Is the taxation causing them to lose money and controlling Naboo will let them bypass those taxes? Does controlling it deprive the Republic of quintillions of credits in taxes that will now go to their coffers? Will controlling it force the Republic to reduce taxes on trade, and if so how?


As I said, Tarkin is:
Build WMD —> Use it to instil fear to cow populace —> Rule unopposed

Gunray is:
Invade Naboo —> ??? —> profit!!
With no indication what ??? is or what the actual profit would be.

[Madner Kami]

Gunray is:
Invade Naboo —> ??? —> profit!!
With no indication what ??? is or what the actual profit would be.

Alternatively
??? —> Invade Naboo —> profit!!

[GandALF]

Except we don’t; we have no idea how they profit from occupying Naboo. Does Naboo have untapped natural resources they can harvest and sell? Does it sit on a major trade route and controlling it let them shut down all shipping that they don’t own along that route, thus stopping their competitors’ products reaching market? Is the taxation causing them to lose money and controlling Naboo will let them bypass those taxes? Does controlling it deprive the Republic of quintillions of credits in taxes that will now go to their coffers? Will controlling it force the Republic to reduce taxes on trade, and if so how?

How does Tarkin profit from blowing up Alderaan and all its resources? It isn't open revolt against the Empire, Leia even says its peaceful and posses no weapons. He could blow up a penal colony to demonstrate the station's power. He could also try to get the answer out of her by threatening her family, who are the 0.001% of Alderaan who are actively helping the Rebels.

The answer: he's drunk on his own power. He's got a Death Star. He's invincible. "Evacuate? in our moment of triumph!? I think you overestimate their chances."

Likewise Gunray also thinks he's invincible because he's made a deal with Sidious and invades a planet just to show the senate just how much of a big deal he is.

[Karha of Honor]

Not to mention we see in seveeral scenes of exposition:

- There was an Imperial Senate, now there isn't.
- The regional governors will control the systems of the Empire directly.
- The governors will rule through fear. Obey or get blown up.
- In order to instill fear, a demonstration of the Death Star's full power is needed. A populated, major planet.

That explains Empire's evil methods not what its motivation for using those evil methods is or why anyone desires to serve it. We're told they're evil in the opening crawl, we see them doing evil things and everyone accepts it. We're told the Trade Federation is greedy in the opening crawl, we see them behave greedily and everyone loses their minds!

Except we don’t; we have no idea how they profit from occupying Naboo. Does Naboo have untapped natural resources they can harvest and sell? Does it sit on a major trade route and controlling it let them shut down all shipping that they don’t own along that route, thus stopping their competitors’ products reaching market? Is the taxation causing them to lose money and controlling Naboo will let them bypass those taxes? Does controlling it deprive the Republic of quintillions of credits in taxes that will now go to their coffers? Will controlling it force the Republic to reduce taxes on trade, and if so how?


As I said, Tarkin is:
Build WMD —> Use it to instil fear to cow populace —> Rule unopposed

Gunray is:
Invade Naboo —> ??? —> profit!!
With no indication what ??? is or what the actual profit would be.

Any EU experts remember anything?

[Dînadan]

Did you completely zone out during the part where they state that “fear will keep the systems in line, fear of this battle station”? And the part where Tarkin says that Dantoonie is too remote to be an effective demonstration? Choosing Alderaan is because it is a high profile world and sends the message “your fate is in our hands, to be dispensed how and when we see fit”. He doesn’t do it just because the plot demands that Alderaan needs to be destroyed now and he has a clearly defined end game.

Gunray on the other hand invaded Naboo because the plot needs someone to invade it so it might as well be him. What he seeks to achieve by this is not defined or clearly inferable from what information we are provided. We know it was prompted by taxation and trade, but there’s no clear link as to how that makes him want to invade or a clear link to how it’ll prompt changes to the taxes or is otherwise going to compensate him.

As for blowing up a penal colony, for a moment let’s have a hypothetical scenario. Say tomorrow Trump decides to adopt the Tarkin Doctrine as his official domestic policy. Which do you think would elicit more terror in the population of the US; blowing up LA, or blowing up a prison? Both acts would horrify people, but LA would be more horrifying and more likely to terrify everyone.

And as for Gunray invading to show how big a deal he is, that directly contradicts the whole point of invading a backwater so as to avoid provoking a rapid response from the Senate. Again, playing hypotheticals, if an armed militia took over a small village in the middle of Iowa, even though they’d make national (or even international) news, then they’re not going to be seen as a major threat or a big deal, whereas if they took over Seattle they would.


The only way Naboo can be so unimportant to avoid the Senate taking swift action but so important for it to be worth it for Gunray is if it’s insignificant on a galactic scale but is significant on a local one, such as being the Federation’s main trade rival, allowing whoever controls it to shut down shipping to nearby systems thereby dictating who can trade in the area, having resources that the Federation needs that it’d be cheaper to collect and ship themselves rather than buy from other (more distant) worlds, and so forth.

[Darth Wedgius]

As for blowing up a penal colony, for a moment let’s have a hypothetical scenario. Say tomorrow Trump decides to adopt the Tarkin Doctrine as his official domestic policy. Which do you think would elicit more terror in the population of the US; blowing up LA, or blowing up a prison? Both acts would horrify people, but LA would be more horrifying and more likely to terrify everyone.

That gets complicated. Blow up LA and you terrify people. But it also says that not being in open rebellion against Emperor Trump ("If only you knew the power of the Dark Side! It's huge! You're gonna love it!") won't help you. Logically, that might start more rebellion. And it'll piss off a lot of your TIE fighter pilots who had relatives in LA. But, people being, unfortunately, people-ish, it might work.

Then again, whoever takes over film making might actually have new ideas for movies. Maybe Emperor Trump's approval ratings go up.

[TGLS]

George Lucas' best work when he was under a budget, under duress and had other people to shoot down his bad ideas and fix his atrocious editing.

So George Lucas is Hideo Kojima... Makes sense.

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The thing that hits me hardest about the Trade Federation's motive is that it's so easy to just explain in the opening. All it needs to say is, "Naboo and a bunch of other planets have done something intolerable to the Trade Federation, so the Trade Federation attacked. Congress does nothing but debate this."
The implication being, the Trade Federation is now a power unto itself and can act with impunity, because the Republic can't or won't do anything.

The way what actually was written reads as, "There's a tax dispute over trade in outlying systems, so the Trade Federation invaded Naboo. Congress does nothing but debate this."
This works almost fine. The main problem being the disconnect in the first sentence. How invading Naboo will solve the tax dispute is unclear. If, for example, Naboo was stated to have raised taxes, then it would all be clear.