>>215591631
I have the same hairline since my late 20s

>Fucking destroy it.
It was an effective demonstration.

>>215591631
Is Alderaan still protesting?

Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs

>>215591631
the planet was worthless, peace loving hippies.
their screeching was full justification for destruction and the rest of the galaxy instantly shit bricks.

>>215591631
he proved that all women are liars and not to be trusted, ever.

>Was he retarded?
Why? What the fuck was anyone going to do about it? It's not like there's a small exhaust port that, if shot, would trigger a chain reaction which would blow up the entire station and, even if there was, anyone was realistically ever going to get a shot at it.

If Tarkin had been right, then yes, you could do whatever the fuck you want once you have a Death Star.

>>215591631
>Planet is protesting against your authoritarianism
>Fucking destroy it
>Anybody else want to protest against our authority?
>That's what I thought.
It's about sending a message.

>>215591761
It’s excessive and will lead to the further subversion of your regime by increasing the number of discontents

>>215591631
The destruction of the Alderaan doesn't register for audiences as a great atrocity, because there are no scenes set on Alderaan and it's never represented to us as something greater than a random globe against the backdrop of space. The event might have been given some dramatic heft if we'd seen an agonised reaction from Leia, the one Alderaanian we know, but Leia gazes indifferently at the obliteration of her native world, the real-life reason being that Lucas didn't give Carrie's performance enough direction.

Strangely, when The Force Awakens had the opportunity to improve on this flaw in its remake of the Death Star scene, it instead followed the original by offhandedly blowing up a bunch of planets we had no reason to care about. That film's commitment to nostalgia was unshakeable and stupid.

>>215591823
Yes that's the point, to showcase the hubris of an evil man thinking that you can scare dissidents into submission when in reality you back them into a wall and make them more desperate.
Congratulations on figuring out a very basic plot point from a movie from the 70s.

>>215591680

good luck collecting taxes from alderan.

>>215591859
It's possible that George Lucas wasn't particularly concerned with creating an incredibly tragic and emotional scene and was just trying to illustrate that the bad guys were, in fact, bad.

>>215591631
Always with the antisemitism

>>215591631
We were coming out of the Vietnam era it made perfect sense to the audience at the time

>>215591866
So is it justifiable force to preserve the regime or comically evil fantasy villainy? Pick one retard

>>215591883
What if I told you they were mostly welfare cheats and their economy was essentially dependent on Empire Jobs?
They essentially blew up the New Mexico or Ohio of the Empire. It's not like it was Naboo or Corissant.

>>215591983
>It's not like it was Naboo or Corissant
(((Financial instruments))) really help the economy.

>protesting
They were financing and organizing an armed rebellion against the Empire which had been going on for many years. The leadership of Alderaan were out and out traitors actively working to bring down the government. They had more than earned a violent retaliation from the Empire.

Totally destroying the planet was an extreme step that was purely Tarkin's own whim, but it was based on the reasoning that lengthy occupations of hostile planets were not a good expenditure of imperial resources. If Alderaan was going to be a thorn in the side of the Empire regardless of whether or not it was occupied, he would simply draw it out and let the wound scab over.

>>215591891
>bad guys were, in fact, bad
Bad storytelling, bad guys are never actually bad, they all have tragic stories and yo should care for them.
Unless, of course, said bad guy is supposed to represent Tr*mp or some of his friends, those are the real villains.

>>215591883
The empire's take from Alderaan was probably negligible since the first thing the rebels on Alderaan would've done is minimize their contributions to the Empire as a form of low level sabotage. But they wouldn't merely be hoarding their wealth, they were funneling into the rebellion.

>>215592020
You know what they say, Naboo makes, the Empire takes

>>215591891
>Luke is unfazed when he sees the smoking, charred skeletons of his adoptive parents
>Leia is unfazed by the destruction of her world (and presumably her family and friends)
>On seeing the death Old Ben, a shifty hobo he met five minutes ago, Luke is overcome with grief, yelling "NOOOOOO," and from that moment he makes it his mission in life to bring down the Empire.

Lucas did include a tragic and emotional scene. He just gave his characters strange emotional priorities. Luke should care more about Aunt Beru than about the slightly suspicious old man who latches onto him.

>>215592144
Yeah idk you're power scaling trauma like it's a video game or one of your animes, doesn't work that way.

>>215591823
When you start blowing up entire planets, you're nearing the tipping point where it would do the opposite. What would 'increasing the number of discontents' do for you after the Death Star already exists? Maybe while it is underconstruction, it's a problem. Maybe when punishment relies on supplylines, it's a problem. The Death Star though makes it a game of chicken no one else can win. If you agree with the Rebellion, know they are in the right, and want them to succeed, most people would still sell out collaborators to the Empire simply to not get their planets blown up.

Sheev would have had rebellion on his hands eventually, but he could have bought himself centuries with the Death Star. The Death Star pushes rebellion to the point of 'literally no one would ever do it unless they have nothing to lose' levels of unthinability.

>>215591823
Not if the planetary governors are isolated from one another. Dissolving the senate helped achieve that, it removed one of the primary means for interplanetary cooperation. However, without a legitimate means of interplanetary cooperation, it just means more planets would have to turn to illicit organizations like the Rebels in order to coordinate with one another. The dissolution of the senate actually was probably a huge wake up call to the remaining systems that clung to the old power structure in the hopes they wouldn't have to pick a side, empire or rebel.

>>215591959
He's wrong, see >>215592202
When Lucas himself says >>215591959, it's yet another of countless cases of Lucas writing something that can only be interpreted in the exact opposite way of how he intended it.

>>215592144
Lucas' writing is pretty formulaic. Luke and Leia are unfazed by these big emotional deaths because it's the beginning of Act 1, he is simply introducing you to your protagonists and antagonists.
Luke is traumatized by Obi-Wan's death because it's the tragic moment to end Act 2.
Also C3-P0 and R2-D2 pretend to not know each other because they are gay and it wasn't as okay back then.

>>215592271
Bail Organa orders that Threepio have his memory wiped at the end of Episode III. I suppose Artoo retains his memory of all that happened, but just doesn't mention it. And Obi-Wan lies (again) about having no recollection of Artoo. Almost everything he says to Luke in the living-room scene is bullshit. "He was a good friend." "He was killed by Darth Vader." "I never had a droid." "The lightsaber is a weapon from a more civilised age (and this particular lightsaber was used to slaughter children on two separate occasions)."

>>215592480
Ultimately there's something beautiful to falling in love with the same droid twice.

>>215591631
It was just like America dropping two atom bombs on Japanese civilians - Tarkin thought it would intimidate the survivors.

>>215592787
Japan was a combatant, at war with the United States. It would be like the American government nuking San Francisco because of all the hippies

>>215592828
Alderaan was literally financing an armed rebellion against the empire. Seriously, are you people retarded?

>>215591883
Bringing up taxes in fantasy settings in an attempt to prove a point is peak Reddit.

>>215592650
>C3P0: I hate sand! It's coarse! And rough! And it gets in every servo!
>R2D2: Bwoo.
It's beautiful.

>>215592480
>And Obi-Wan lies (again) about having no recollection of Artoo. Almost everything he says to Luke in the living-room scene is bullshit. "He was a good friend." "He was killed by Darth Vader." "I never had a droid." "The lightsaber is a weapon from a more civilised age (and this particular lightsaber was used to slaughter children on two separate occasions)."
Maybe he's senile like Joe Biden and doesn't remember.

>>215593225
Basically Adam Sandler stole the idea for 50 First Dates from Star Wars.

>>215593028
>Lacks the ability to scale abstractly
>Calls me the retard
End yourself, seriously

>>215593028
>Alderaan was literally financing an armed rebellion against the empire.
based

>>215593323
FREE FREE ALDERAAN!

>>215591959
>reading comprehension

Also, having bad guys be evil for the sake of being evil is something that I really miss in media. Palpatine is fucking great because he just loves being a powerful evil space wizard. Fuck any and all attempts to make The Empire sympathetic, they are based because they are unapologetically authoritarian and cruel (and hilariously incompetent at times, another trope that needs to return).

>>215593414
I blame Gen X and Millennial internet film and TV criticism. When there was just one Bitch in the New York Times and an asshole at the Chicago Tribune calling you out for your flat characters you could be like "well, only a few Snobs are mad at it, they're gonna gush over some Italian movie or some 3 hour Kubrickslop" but starting in the 90s and 00s they started being like "Oh no, that fat guy at the Village Voice called my movie problematic, fuck the fat lady at the AV Club said it wasn't as good as the movie I ripped off for it, the Tomato score is 36% we're doomed"

>>215593414
Evil because Evil worked within the scope of the original trilogy, where there was no need to examine the motivations of a character like Captain Needa who was quickly swept aside after serving his simple purpose to the story. The problem is that Star Wars has become a never-ending franchise in which the broad strokes of a Hollywood adventure are no longer enough. The impetus to keep producing new content within this old and limited framework means that every incidental background character will get his day in the spotlight, and every point of view will be pondered over by a hack writer. Like a cow trapped in a tiny paddock that has eaten all the green and appetising grass, and must now look for her sustenance in the thin and patchy spots, where the blades are withered and weedkiller-brown, Star Wars gets by on the leftovers. Do we need stories that share the Imperial perspective and add some nuance to those generic baddies? No, but we'll get them anyway, because the conveyor belts are rolling and something, anything, must be churned out.

>>215593875
Yeah, but generally today our blockbuster movie villains need to be given deep and complex motivations that explain how they came to the antagonist side from low-tier Marvelslop to Academy bait we went from "well she's the Wicked Witch because she just is a mean person" to "Well she's actually well intended and had a bad falling out with the Good Witch at the University of Oz that ultimately drives her to where she is, anyway the Good Witch is kind of a bitch to her"

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>>215593092

I wasn't the one who brought up taxation of star systems.

>>215591823
look at the scene with tarkin arguing with the other imperials. they are already screwed in terms of popular support, that's why they dissolved the senate. now the death star is their only hope for maintaining control.

you can tell how it was meant to be a standalone movie originally, where the destruction of the death star means the empire is fucked and collapses off-screen.

>>215591631
that's literally what empires have always done, retard, all the way back to achaemenid persia. if a city continues to rebel you just kill everyone and raze it to the ground.

>>215594137
>standalone movie
>main villain (Vader) survives

>>215594254
Arguably Tarkin is the main villain, and Vader is Oddjob to Tarkin's Goldfinger.

>>215594254
vader is a henchman you retard

>>215594254
Vader is the henchman. You get admirals, hell even underlings of him questioning him and talking back.

>>215594491
Yeah and Vader killed that bitch
Also it was the mid-70s, people still found it normal to say to their boss "hey man, I'm not doing that" as opposed to the post-post-Reagan world we have now where you question your boss and you get fired the next day.

>>215594563
>Yeah and Vader killed that bitch
No, he didn't. Tarkin reminded Vader who the boss was.

>>215591631
They had to test the death star, that planet was as good as any.

>>215591859
We did see Obi Wan getting rattled by it.

>>215594230
>if a city continues to rebel you just kill everyone and raze it to the ground.

You dont destroy the actual land. You rebuild it with new migrants and finance it with money you stole from the last people. So they can be the new serfs.

>>215591823
Nah that's modern bs. In reality the stronger the power the more people are obedient. For instance look at blacks in America. When there were real repercussions, they behaved well. Now that we try to appease them constantly they riot at the slightest thing. People respect and obey strength.

>>215591866
So you concede that Tarkin *was* retarded, then?

>>215594718
the value of "land" in a space-faring society is probably negligible

>>215591631
Sounds like Trump.

>>215592480
Obi-Wan never owned R2-D2.

>>215594925
Naturally habitable planets can't be very common, even in the Star Wars galaxy. They would be prized assets. The alternative is spending a fortune to terraform some Mars-like world that will still be an undesirable shithole when the work is done.

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>>215591883
>what were the Empire's tax policies
you commie scum really shouldn't be allowed near our culture

>>215593973
Wicked at least works better then any of its imitators in that making the Wizard the real villain isn't a huge stretch since he's already a carnival magician con-man that stole a dying king's throne and hid the young heir from everyone by hiring a witch to troon her out in the original books.

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>>215591631
No, he was based

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>>215591631
>Secular Military Faction leader considering coup'ing and needs DEATH MOON as leverage
>Tarkin on record intending this in various canonical sources
>Gets on more well than not with Vader (doubly after Clone Wars service)
>Pre-Rebel systems and Senators plotting sedition & secession

One planet out of the entire galaxy is statistically meaningless vs. the total galactic population. It's an easy decision to make-- but with how that destabilizes the orbits of the surrounding bodies, is likely a death sentence for the entire star system, thus cannot be done with out collateral damage or very often (less than planet killing payloads in more recent films notwithstanding). Alderaan was a potential leadership decapitation strike that would have taken out Bail Organa: that alone would've been worth it.


>>215592080
The opportunities to test a planet killer discretely are expensive and close to nil. The perfect excuse practically obliged it.

>>215592202
It's more about transporting a moon base's worth of full fighter & bomber forces anywhere at any time to besiege planets under the simultaneous threat that is the real value added strategically. Most imperial fighters aren't lightspeed drive equipped.

>>215591631
the star wars movies are fun when you're a kid but the more you think about them the worse they become.

>>215591631
You don't stop rebellions by attacking the people.
That's how you create rebellions.

>>215593973
I can't decide whether prequel-Anakin belongs to this category of tragic/misunderstood villain you're talking about. I don't think George was ever able to fully make up his mind about it either. In the beginning, there are elements of a sympathetic portrayal. We're introduced to an innocent kid who grew up in slavery. He's then taken away from his mother, who he will later find dying from injuries sustained during torture and possibly rape. His turn to the dark side is explained as resulting from that trauma and his consequent anxiety over being powerless to save his loved ones. The films give a lot of time and consideration to his feelings and frustrations. The council regard him with suspicion; Obi-Wan always scolds him; Padme insists their relationship be a secret but doesn't give a good reason for that; and Palpatine, at least from Anakin's standpoint, seems like a decent man prior to his endgame transformation. Anakin is at the centre of the narrative and we're meant to give him our understanding as we go on this journey with him.

Yet at the same time, George characterises Anakin as petulant, annoyingly brattish, unwilling to learn and compromise, prone to obsession, creepily lustful, disrespectful of boundaries, insolent to his superiors, unable to articulate his complaints in a constructive way, and when at his absolute worst, capable of psychotic killing sprees that most people can't relate to. By the time we get to the end of Episode III, Anakin has revealed himself as a raging retard and we're unlikely to care when Obi-Wan dunks on him. So I don't know if this is a tragic villain or what.

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scanner to cis scum, scanner to cis

>>215595990
>The opportunities to test a planet killer discretely are expensive and close to nil.

I don't think the need for a test subject was a factor here. It could have been tested on a planet in an uninhabited and materially worthless system in the Outer Rim. If we accept the additions to the story in Rogue One, they'd already tested it a couple of times before, though not at full power.

ITT 30 y/o manchildren

>>215592480
>"He was a good friend." "He was killed by Darth Vader."
These are technically true, from a certain point of view.

>>215591631
It was a metaphor for how the democrats was destroying america

>>215591631
It was the Star Wars equivalent of the USA blowing up Israel with nukes. Problems solved, right? But then a plucky Jew using the Swartz snuck into the Pentagon and used the Nuclear Football to self destruct the entire nuclear arsenal afterwards.

>>215591680
It drove pretty much every Alderaanian join the rebellion, as well as anyone else who was on the fence because its hard to justify a moral highground when you have to commit war crimes to suppress dissention.
It also just generally ignores history and human nature. The harder you squeeze the more is going to slip through you fingers, and people are contrarian by nature on a grand enough scale, all doing shit like that does is ensure that you're going to find the ground going out beneath you.

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>>215593414
what a uniquely awful opinion

>>215598176
the truth is variety is the spice of life

>>215591883
There are hundreds of other planets to levy taxes from now that you have demonstrated that you aren't fucking around

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>>215593092
Taxes are an important part of governance and do go towards funding a military. Star Destroyers don't just grow on trees or spawn out of the ground, despite what some people might have you believe.

>>215591631
DO IT AGAIN UNCLE TARKY

>>215591823
why dont you just go ahead and admit you hate jews