Revisited the Star Wars prequels for the first time in ages & was astonished by the immorality of the nominal protagonists. Thousands of planets want to exercise the right of self-determination. The “Republic” uses genetically engineered slave armies to keep them by force.
None of the Jedi appear to express any qualms about forcing entire planets to be ruled by a government they reject. Or growing human beings in vats where they are indoctrinated to be conscript soldiers.
Unlike the American Civil War, this isn’t justified by some moral imperative to wipe out slavery. The Jedi (and presumably Republic) are apparently fine with non-clone slavery too, abandoning Anakin’s mother to life in bondage when they can’t afford to purchase her.
Apparently slavery IS outlawed within the jurisdiction of the Republic, but they’re clearly not too exercised about eliminating it on non-Republic worlds, & there’s never any hint that this has anything to do with the Separatist motivation. starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slavery
Anyway, I realize the corruption & decadence of the Old Republic are supposed to be a theme of the whole thing, but we’re still meant to accept Yoda & Obi-Wan — who, again, are leading slave armies to force external rule on unwilling planets — as these great, wise heroes.
The audience knows a couple of Sith lords are behind it all. But the Jedi don’t know that until the end. And presumably those thousands of planets have their own legitimate reasons for wanting to govern their own affairs. Palpatine isn’t just doing some galaxywide Mind Trick.
Also (yes I’m overthinking this) the Republic’s Senate apparently has *two thousand* seats, which means presumably most member planets have, at most, 1 vote out of 2000. Which I guess is nominally “democratic” but seems indistinguishable from external domination in practice.
I mean, yes, whatever, it’s fantasy adventure about space wizards with laser swords. But George Lucas for some reason decided to make this the conflict. He decided to make the supposed heroes champions of a cause that, on face, isn’t just ambiguous but seems clearly wrong.
It’d be less weird if any of these supposed sages at least commented on it. An offhand line acknowledging that growing human troops in artificial wombs where they’re subjected to mass brainwashing is an appalling practice they regret the Republic is resorting to. Something.
“Sources close to Yoda say that he has privately expressed qualms about the use of clone conscripts, and lobbied for the addition of enrichment classes to the synthwomb brainwashing feed.”
