I was surprised to see cold-blooded killings in what is being regarded as a kid's show. I thought the droids' reactions to the rather horrible deaths of helpless people floating in a space pod was interesting. Not vindictive or cruel, just a laxidaiscal "there they go". Not ulike the casual attitude that organic beings have towards the demise of droids.
While we're on that tangent, is the droid army not basically a rebellion against oppression? How is the Republic the good guy in that scenario?
The droids are tools. Remember, they are not rebelling, they're following orders from the Trade Federation and other parts of the Confed command hierarchy.
Without our knowledge that the Clone Wars were orchestrated by Palpatine to destroy the Jedi and bring himself into power (remember, he's chief executive of the Republic, *and* Darth Sidious is the ultimate power behind the Confeds), it still doesn't appear that the Confederation is any less oppressive than the Republic. For starters, the Trade Federation, one of the founding members of the Confederation, has a habit of knocking over independent systems like they're banana republics. The Geonosian lower classes are, effectively, slaves. The Banking Clans have armies meant to forcibly repossess property, and so on.
Meanwhile, the Republic, at the start of the prequels, doesn't have a military. Even as of Ep2, they haven't started any sort of army, instead relying (still) on the Jedi Order and then grasping at straws for the Clone Army. While the Republic does wind up becoming the incredibly oppressive Empire, without the Confederation of Independent Systems' rebellion, an Empire would almost certainly not have come into being.
Brad
