PT The Trade Federation as a villain in the PT

I don't have any problem with a power Trade Federation that eventually becomes so politically and economically invested that it has its own military. I just didn't like the way it was conceived or depicted. The characters had no personality and I always disliked the battle droid design.

 

I always thought the villains in TPM were fun villains. They remind me of James Bond villains. You have a sort of mysterious Blofeld figure who pulls the strings in secret (Sidious), the imposing silent henchman who puts up a great fight scene or two (Darth Maul), and supporting villains in the foreign business leaders who provide some enormous resource(s) (the Trade Federation).

 

I liked the TF, but they were more henchmen/patsies for the real villain, rather than being great villains in their own right. They were like Otis to Sidious' Lex Luthor.

 

It would have been a bit more interesting for me if maybe one or two of the Federation leaders were more sceptical and challenging of Sidious and questioned his motives at least a little, instead of these very powerful (politically anyway) figures cowering and kowtowing the instant Sidious' hologram pops up, or possibly even have the scheme to take more power being their own originally that Sidious co-opted for his own ends.

There is also the question of how, if they were THAT cowardly, they ever became so influential, but for what they are, they work well.

 

I always thought it was a stroke of genius to have the Trade Federation have senators and delegates within the Republic Senate itself. What a dark, but not-unbelievable portrait of how capitalistic societies can descend to that level of corruption. There are even some glimmers of that today.

 

The fact that they were corrupt and easily manipulated shows how they were used to enable a greater evil.

Another viewing of The Phantom Menace has convinced me of another theory; Sidious' partnership with the Trade Federation was crucial to Palpatine's takeover in the senate. What doesn't seem to get mentioned as much is the money that's involved in all this (with the Trade Federation already being a wealthy and established presence in the galaxy). It's inferred that Palpatine is the one paying off the bureaucrats in the Senate to turn things against Valorum, as well as how Palpatine could win the vote. The idea of the senate having sympathy for a senator whose planet is under attack seems to be a veil of authenticity for the public, since the senate didn't seem to care too much in the first place.

So in a sense, putting Palpatine's plan into motion really only started with The Phantom Menace and his recent partnership with the Trade Federation.

 

They didn't work for me at all... The droids themselves were bad designs. Their voices, and the fact that a lot of them were used for comedy relief. The super battle droids were a bit better.

Magnaguards were great! The battle droid commandos used in the clone wars cartoon were excellent - They should have been in the films!

 

But the droids were used for no more comedy relief than the stormtroopers.

 

Well, that may have been true before Revenge of the Sith. I wasn't much a fan of the new voices. Just like Stormtroopers, their inability became kind of a running joke, but they were both fearsome at their respective beginnings.

 

Then ROTJ happened...

 

That is a pattern Lucas probably repeated on purpose, the fearsome enemy troops in the first film are diminished in the third films, or for stormtroopers the sixth. I started a thread a while back about how the portrayal of the battle droids changed throughout the PT.

 

Echoing the sentiment in this thread, it was great to see something that is a big issue in our world being reflected in Star Wars.Even when I was a kid watching TPM, I still understood at some level the parallels between the power of greed in the TF and our world. And as I grew up, I learned to appreciate it more and more, which is one of my biggest appeals to the PT, that it grew as I grew.

I always felt that the OT left the galaxy a little dark, and I don't mean tonally. I like how the PT went into trade and politics, it gave the galaxy life and vibrancy in my opinion.

 

I think they weren't meant to be threatening and ominous. I think Lucas was trying to highlight the bumbling, almost pathetic, yet nevertheless dangerous and costly nature of unchecked greed. Also, I think they were meant to be juxtaposed against the true villains of the PT, Sidious and his cronies, to kind of elevate Sidious as the ultimate evil in the universe.

 

Intersting point of view, I've read similar opinions and I get where people are coming from. I still would have liked them to be more interesting and threatening but that's just me.