PT The Federation in TPM

People who grew up with the OT where used to the good old Galactic Empire as the big villain faction of Star Wars. I think every fan who there old enough to anticipate the first Star Wars movie after 16 long years where curious about the new villain faction in Episode I. Now I ask you guys this: When did you heard the first rumors about the Trade Federation, what where your hopes regarding them and what was your initial reaction after you saw them in action against the Naboo for the first time and what do you think about the Federation now compared to the Empire and the other villains of Star Wars?

 

They were pawn villains, not "big bads". However I still like them and think they get too much flak. The combined CIS of AOTC, TCW,
and ROTS is better though.

 

I grew up watching the OT, but I've never been a spoiler seeker, so the first time I heard of the TF was when I went to see TPM in the theater. I didn't hear any rumors about them, or anything else, so I didn't have any specific hopes or expectations going in, I just expected it to be entertaining, it was Star Wars.

I actually liked them as the enemy in the battle of Naboo. I really liked the droid army and the way it was presented. I liked the donut-shaped battleships, and I liked the vulture droids. I thought they were very cool and up to the standards of Star Wars, they did not disappoint me. I was very disappointed with how they were defeated in space, I thought Anakin winning the space battle with button mashing was very lame. But in terms of the TF army, I think they stack up well, even with the Empire. It wasn't the villains of the PT that disappointed me.

I've always been a fan of Nute Gunray and his cronies, I like the way they speak, and I LOVE the opening sequence on the Trade Federation battleship. I think they hold their own just fine, even with the likes of Tarkin and the rest of the Imperial officers.

I thought the idea of a corporation becoming too powerful and gaining too much influence was okay, and they served their role in the story well. But I think it's unfair to compare them to the Empire as villains, because the TF and CIS were never intended to be the real villains, they were always the pawns of Sidious, and this was very clear to me from TPM.

 

Droidekas. Quite frankly, they are awesome enough, shield generators and dual repeating lasers, (if not a bit overpowered) to make up for the Federation's shortcomings

 

It was a build up. Starting small with a galaxy at relative peace, a conflict contained to a 1 or two planets with a mega corporation, not a galactic government, as the enemy. It's setting the backstory of the way the galaxy was before and leading to the clone wars. That being said, the Federation seems to have more symbolic meaning. A giant corporation secretly taking orders from a sith lord, that's amassed a large private army of droids and uses their own senate seat to steer the republic away from the conflict. It shows the republic is flawed and blissfully unaware of the greater plot at hand, ripe for the picking as the plan to establish an empire comes to fruition. Like, it's not the Federation, but the corruption and lack of control in the republic that's the enemy.

 

I often hear people call the battle droids "Stormtroopers". I'm sure plenty of the audience failed to realize that the Trade Federation isn't the Empire.

 

That's pretty weird because the Trade Federation is really really different compared to the Galatic Empire.

 

There's 32 years in between TPM and ANH, plenty of time for Sidious to alter the Trade Federation to suit his goals.

 

Like this?

 

I thought at first before AOTC but after the first trailers for that film the clone army was for the sith to destroy the jedi and take over the republic with force. Like the Empire was born from the separatists integrating the defeated republic into a greater empire, and the imperial senate, the "last remnant of the old republic," was created as a compromise to keep the conquered satisfied enough to submit. I was too young to really think of logical explanations, but I figured the jedi/republic somehow raise a conventional army fast enough to resist the clones, and Anakin eventually betrays them in a way that brings about their destruction. Not sure how the droids factored into it. Maybe, the clones in this alternate timeline were created to fix the shortcomings of a droid army. After all, the battle droids in TPM were even weaker of an enemy than stormtroopers, not to mention the fatal flaw of being slaved to a single supercomputer aboard a single ship.

 

I wonder if the villains being a "federation" run by NEIMOIdians was a jab at Star Trek.

 

Maybe.

 

I was fine with the idea of the trade federation, but I was really disappointed that Lucas chose to use them as comic-relief characters. Although they were just pawns to main villain, they still should have presented some sort of threat to the protagonists, and they really didn't. The Neimodians were portrayed as quivering cowards, and the battle droids were completely inept. And while it's true that the storm troopers in the OT were also completely inept, at least they weren't comical, and the protagonists feared them, so that fear transferred to the audience, as well. In TPM, nobody batted an eye at the battle droids or Neimodians, and if the characters don't care, why should the audience?

The trade federation ultimately just felt like an attempt at humor that really wasn't needed, and sadly, for me, it weakened the film. (For the record, I'm all in favor of humor in the SW movies, but not at the expense of drama & tension.)

 

I actually thought this aspect was handled just right. In Episode I the whole Trade Federation plot-line was intentionally trivial, exemplifying acts of war and oppression that arise from the hazy, nondescript ether of bureaucracy, where the cause (or enabling) of such is neither noble or even radically ideological, but merely the stuff of political red tape inanity. Therefore, the manner in which the Neimoidians and their Droid Army are realized on screen effectively paints them as patsy puppets; I hardly think incidental how the droids themselves are depicted with a near-exact resemblance to wobbly marionettes. I would contend rather crucial how they specifically lack genuine menace in contrast to the emerging Clone Army in Episode II and III followed by the full-fledged Empire of the OT. It's worth noting how they become increasingly, systematically comical in proportion to the true, underlying evil as revealed throughout the PT. Such might lack dramatic punch, but only in the most conventional sense, and it's better that one trilogy doesn't simply mimic the other on this level.

In it's place, the Trade Federation payoff is something more uniquely curious, beginning with the first big battle between the Droid Army and the Gungans that emphasizes a kind of childish nature inherent in so many completely unnecessary violent conflicts—a fitting way to kickoff the whole saga by illustrating its star warring impetus essentially as toys bumbling about a colorful hillside (that said, I think the movie still achieves its needed sinister edge with Darth Maul). For the next big battle in Episode II on Geonosis, this arcing tone goes from absurdity to multi-layered ambiguity: watching the ominous Clone Army come to the rescue of a questionable Jedi Order before waging forces against what is, by this point, a neutrally-inclined Droid Army as manufactured by yet another patsy party, this time a distinctly inhuman, hive-minded alien race. The whole extended act becomes a war by pure automation—clone brains, droid brains, bug brains. Drone warfare. Even the Geonosian battlefield is uniformly copper; cold and emotionless.

By Episode III, the game is up and the farce is completely on the table, with droids, Neimoidians, Geonosians and the Separatists overall relegated to walking gags and clueless clay pigeons.

 

"Close the blast doors! Open the blast doors! Open the blast doors!"

 

I thought the Trade Federation was equal parts ruthless and comical. Like another user said, their evil was subtle whereas the Empire's was more overt. Plus, in the end you kinda feel bad for them. Or at least I did.

 

I'm fine with the Trade Federation, as like others have said there more subtle approach then the empire makes them different then other villains. Wasn't crazy how they were a little comical at times, but I never really minded it that much.

 

Big companies in real life do whatever they can to lower their taxes, so why wouldn't the Trade Federation do the same?

 

I like the Trade Federation, they are clearly meant to be a space version of the East Indie Tranding Company which outright ruled its trade territories, had private armies and navy, could sign peace treaties declare war, and even had representation in British parliament. They also represent a failing with the Republic since it failed to prevent such megacorporations from forming. The Trade Federation is both a corporation and a sovereignty which is a hard concept for the modern age to understand.

Another thing to keep in mind is that taxes are not just for governments to earn money, they uses taxes to restrict and control trade. Tade taxes always have bad side effects, they lower demand and increase supply. This means higher costs due to having to pay the taxes along with being forced to lower prices futher decreasing profit margins. Governments know full well of these side effects and use them to control trade. The taxes are also a sign the Republic may have been trying to reign in the megacorporatations who were getting out of control.

 

I wonder if the point of TPM was how boring the galaxy was before the Clone Wars broke out. No galactic conflicts, no battles for freedom against planet-destroying regimes, just disputes over taxes and trade.

 

That can't be a coincidence. It just can't be!
They'll always be Nimoy-dians to me from now on.

 

I believe it's been all but confirmed. According to Lucas, they were originally going to be called "S'hatnarians", as a friendly jab at William Shatner. Presumably, that name was a bit too obvious and so he went with "Neimoidians" instead.

 

Really!?

 

That's what Wookieepedia says! Apparently it was from a cut portion of the interview Seth MacFarlane did with Lucas for that Family Guy Star Wars episode.