Why Andor's Depiction of the Imperial Senate is Perfect

the sixth episode of Andor gave us our best on-screen look at the Imperial Senate so far and it is different from what we saw in the prequels and the Clone Wars back then every pod was seemingly full Senators gave impassioned speeches to win the hearts and minds of their peers now it's mostly empty we see mon mothma still giving a speech but to barely anyone it's a stark contrast and also one that lines up perfectly with how George Lucas originally envisioned the Imperial Senate way back in 1977. in the excellent book The Making of Star Wars by J.W renssler you can find some of Lucas's earliest thoughts on several topics one of them being how The Empire came to be it says in the Old Republic all the systems sent their representatives to the Senate it wasn't an imperial Senate it was a Republican Senate which made the decisions that controlled the Republic the Senate would vote in a Chancellor or an overseer who would work for four years as the leader of the executive branch of the Republic you were only supposed to be able to run for one four-year term you were only eligible for one term what happened was one of the chancellors began subverting the Senate and buying off the Senators with the help of some of the large Intergalactic trade companies and mining companies and Intergalactic power companies through their power and money he bought off enough of the Senate to get himself elected to a second term because of a crisis by the time the third term came along he had corrupted so much of the Senate that they made him Emperor for the rest of his life giving the emperor that title for life and doing away with the elective process was all done with a lot of rationalizing many in the Senate felt that having elections and changing leaders in the time of an emergency disrupted the bureaucratic system and the bureaucracy was getting to be so big that changing leaders made it impossible to have any effect on the system and make it work moreover the bureaucracy was running amok and not paying attention to the rulers so they reasoned that the emperor could bring the bureaucracy back in line so the emperor took control of the bureaucracy the galactic Senate would meet for a period that was similar to a year but after it became the Imperial Senate the meetings were less and less frequent until finally the meetings were only once a year and they were very short with the bureaucracy behind the emperor it was impossible and too late for the Senate to do anything he had slowly manipulated things in fact it was he who had let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy it was so large there was no way to get things done but he knew the right people the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies again all of that was in 1977 over 20 years before the prequels would start coming out 25 years before we would see Chancellor Palpatine be given emergency powers and nearly 30 years before we would see him declare himself Emperor some of the details changed but the broad Strokes are all the same and I love that Lucas had the ideas in his head from the start and I love seeing his continued Vision honored now 45 years after those thoughts were recorded we can clearly see that the imperial Senate is not what the Republic Senate was we don't know if meetings are less frequent but attendance sure is down we can see how ineffective the Senators must feel Palpatine isn't there neither a masamita or Sly more nobody from the emperor's office bothers to show up because they know it's all a sham Senators can give speeches but the emperor is going to do what he wants to do we do know Imperial Senators have some power but it's more as symbols than it is their actual Effectiveness there is a reason the Empire didn't disband the Senate until after the death star was completed but it is chilling to see mothma delivering a speech to an empty room about the Gormans who again will become more and more important to the birth of the rebellion and the rise of mothma as its leader now that cassian's robbery was successful maybe we'll see a jump in attendance maybe the Senators will smell blood in the water and they can gain a little bit of of purpose and power back I definitely hope we're not done with that building because even the small taste we were given was excellent and I want more but that's all I have to share today I wanted to share that excerpt from George Lucas and show how his original vision is being honored in the present day and also Express how it's a bummer that it's still so relevant but if you haven't already please like this video subscribe to the channel for all our Andor coverage follow us on Tick Tock Twitter and Instagram and consider checking out our patreon page for our video reactions and audio commentaries for every new episode and you can check out this playlist for all our existing and or content as always thanks for watching and May the force be with you

Channel: Star Wars Explained

Views: 170,091

Keywords: andor imperial senate, imperial senate, george lucas imperial senate, star wars explained, andor explained, star wars

Id: f04nt8RwKI8

Length: 4min 40sec (280 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022