Star Wars and slavery

[TremblingBluStar]

Hmm... so basically it seems like a "slave" is someone that's sort of indentured to one "employer" basically... gee. Sounds like a helluva "no-compete clause" huh?

HOLY SHIT! HALF OF US ARE SLAVES! AHHHH

A slave is someone who lives a life moderately less comfortable than George Lucas, apparently.

 

[FordSVT]

The Jedi, according to the prequels, were a huge part of life in the Republic. It makes no sense that a mere 30 or so years after they are wiped out that people suddenly know next to nothing about them, or doubt they exist.

The galaxy is a big place, we only had a smattering of people who were sceptical of the Force. We also saw people (like Jabba and officers of the Empire who worked with Vader) who witnessed the force first hand and were familiar with it.

There is also potentially 30 years of Empire propaganda to deal with. A great deal of effort may have gone into making the general public "forget" about the Jedi and the Force as a means of making sure the Jedi never resurfaced to challenge the Sith. Tell people long enough that the Jedi were just a bunch of tricksters only interested in self-preservation and that the force is a myth and people will start to believe it. Then their children will accept it as fact.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Things I learned about Slaves in Star Wars.

1. Slaves live in a two story house, complete with individual rooms, kitchen, a table to seat six, a patio and gadgets that make life easier.
2. Slaves can build their own pod racers, robots, and all sorts of funky devices that in NO WAY could possibly be used to somehow disable their in-body exploding devices.
3. Not only can they build robots, but they can be used to help slaves with their slave labor work! The slaves are building slaves!
4. And not only can they build pod racers, they can actually race in them in actual tournaments!
5. Slaves can walk anywhere in the streets and pretty much do whatever they want like buying groceries and playing out doors with other kids
6. Slaves get PAID!

Surely this was indeed a retched, deeply tragic beginning for Anakin Skywalker....
....
....
....
Frell it. How is this Slavery?!?!

That 'slave' lives a better life than me!

 

[TremblingBluStar]

The galaxy is a big place, we only had a smattering of people who were sceptical of the Force. We also saw people (like Jabba and officers of the Empire who worked with Vader) who witnessed the force first hand and were familiar with it.

Well, we not only had people skeptical but people like Luke who flat out didn't know what the force was or who jedi were. Either Luke was incredibly uninformed, or there was an incredibly effective conspiracy preventing him from finding out what should have been common knowledge. Yes, the galaxy is huge - but then, it wasn't so big that a galaxy spanning Republic couldn't last for thousands of years with the Jedi in an essential peace keeping role.

I'm not saying that it's impossible. Any inconsistency, no matter how big or small can be explained away by fans. However, it is a big plot hole in the SW trilogy (both of them) that would be easily picked up by anybody who actually paid attention while watching these films.

 

[Myasishchev]

The issue of droid rights is probably the biggest problem in the entire Republic, and one that is conveniently ignored. The Jedi are able to justify this racism because Droids lack a living presence in the Force, and are affected by the Force as if they were inanimate objects rather than living beings, but those who work closely with droids see this as little more than a cop-out.

I'll bet they don't--metal people wouldn't be chock full of the microorganisms which it turned out are the building blocks of the Force.

Yeah - although he did seem to want to paint a rosey picture of slavery - other than the implant.

Yep, I think it was supposed to be more like Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum slavery than Roots slavery...

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Add to the fact that the bulk of the galaxy would never have seen let alone met a Jedi before.

Most people in the U.S. have never met a secret service agent. Does that make them legendary, or mean most people doubt they exist. What about a Navy Seal? Or movie stars?

The Jedi, according to the prequels, were a huge part of life in the Republic. It makes no sense that a mere 30 or so years after they are wiped out that people suddenly know next to nothing about them, or doubt they exist.

Well, they were big on Corescant. They were almost mythical figures on Tatooine (didn't Anakin think that they couldn't die or some thing). Don't underestimate the size of the Republic.

They were also a fairly stagnant, reclusive pseudo-police force. Maybe people thought they were just full of themselves instead of having actual powers. Just a bunch of cocky, swaggering bullies with light sabers. Plus, part of the myth of the Emperor was that he cast away the corrupt old Jedi order after they had tried to kill him. Naturally, he would have spent the last 30 years creating propaganda demonizing and discrediting them.

 

[hyzmarca]

Things I learned about Slaves in Star Wars.

1. Slaves live in a two story house, complete with individual rooms, kitchen, a table to seat six, a patio and gadgets that make life easier.
2. Slaves can build their own pod racers, robots, and all sorts of funky devices that in NO WAY could possibly be used to somehow disable their in-body exploding devices.
3. Not only can they build robots, but they can be used to help slaves with their slave labor work! The slaves are building slaves!
4. And not only can they build pod racers, they can actually race in them in actual tournaments!
5. Slaves can walk anywhere in the streets and pretty much do whatever they want like buying groceries and playing out doors with other kids
6. Slaves get PAID!

Surely this was indeed a retched, deeply tragic beginning for Anakin Skywalker....
....
....
....
Frell it. How is this Slavery?!?!

That 'slave' lives a better life than me!

In real life, slaves did own property and money. This isn't at all far fetched. In fact, the most effective way for a slave to gain freedom was to save up enough money to buy himself. And slaves did have free time, often not much of it, but they didn't have people budgeting their every waking moment.

Anakin and Shimmi were house slaves. Watto interacted with them every single day, so it is inevitable that he would develop some sort of emotional attachment to them, so he'd likely be more generous with them than necessary and less harsh with them than is usual.

 

[miraclefan]

Well, in the original cut of the film, Watto was a Jewdarian.

I would not be at all SUPRISED if he was called a Jewdarian!

 

[Anwar]

I forget, were the Neimoidians supposed to be rips of the Japanese or the Arabs? I know there was some racism going on there...

 

[Dusty Ayres]

In the Star Wars Universe would Data have freedom?

No way, Jose-he'd be made to do whatever people tell him to do, and he'd also be subject to frequent mind wipes like Threepio was at the end of Revenge Of The Sith. And what Commander Maddox wanted to do to him in 'Measure Of A Man' would happen on a massive scale-there would be so many Datas around, that it would be something else. Not to mention a lot of Juliana's, and a lot of Lal's as well.

 

[Myasishchev]

I forget, were the Neimoidians supposed to be rips of the Japanese or the Arabs? I know there was some racism going on there...

The TF guys? I assumed they were supposed to be Japanese, reflections of the extremely anachronistic and these days unfortunately laughable fear that Japan was going to "buy America." I could be way off base with this, but Lucas actually conceived the prequels in the eighties, right?

 

[Praetor]

So he would have us believe.

 

[Heeroyuy]

^Lucas has claimed they are actually Transylvanian accents, as in Count Dracula.

 

[Anwar]

That's the George Lucas school of characterization for you: the intelligent classy ones will have British accents, the common guys/more central characters will have American accents, the bad guys will have some kind of Eastern-European accent. The ont time he subverted that was with Palpatine.

 

[exodus]

So, does that mean our computers are slaves?

I don't think George Lucas even knows what slavery is. With the exception of that dumb explosive device, how exactly was Anakin and his mother a slave?

Umm, they were owned by Watto.

And wasn't Watto suposed to be based off the JEWS or something? I remember when this came out (tpm)and there was a tiny uproar from the JEWISH communaty about Watto or something?

Too me he seemed more like a Turkish bizaar dealer, like in "Galdiator".