Re:Points (Score 2, Interesting)

Leaving aside the gratuitous Pinochet reference, if that's possible, there are some extremely valid points made here.

I'm reminded of the long riff in "Clerks" on the civilian contractors aboard the unfinished second Death Star, who certainly didn't ask for or deserve the flaming death handed to them by the rebel terrorists.

I also recall a very funny piece in a Columbia University humor rag from the early 1990s, that made the argument that the so-called Evil Empire was actually a proletarian uprising against the privileged, hereditary ruling class. And that was even before we learned that being a Jedi is a hereditary thing...Calling a galaxy-wide worker's paradise an Evil Empire was just a propagandistic attempt to win sympathy for counter-revolutionary forces.

Lucas's attempts to address this, for example by making Amidala "elected" queen (??) just don't make any sense. Are we to assume that it's just coincidence that the senate is largely comprised of royalty (Amidala and the Organa family of Alderaan, to name just two examples.) And "elected" by whom? I'd say not the teeming masses of the Republic, yearning for the gentle hand of an emperor to free them from the yoke of their capitalist oppressors!

Final point: evil or not, any "Republic" where Jar Jar gets elected/appointed/named/made senator more than deserves to be swept away.