The Politicking
Speaking of: yes, a controversial statement at the time of release—and the years after of people ragging that our first glimpse of the prequel saga was an opening crawl talking about taxation—but it’s good to see the kind of political quagmire the Republic was! It’s brief in the film, for all the complaining about it, but it’s a really effective way to immediately show us how this system has become untenable—and ripe for someone like Palpatine to exploit its powers for his own good. The decline of empire (not capital E galactic, in this case) is just as interesting as lightsaber fights, actually.
