Slaves free already?

I know that I've done it too, but why do we all assume that Anakin
goes back to free all the slaves in Episode 2? I know he had
that dream, but maybe he's freed them already and we don't see
that. Why would the Republic sit around for 10 years and not
something about the slavery issue on Tatooine? I know that Tatooine
is not apart of the Republic but some things are more important.
It just seems that they would have done something sooner. And
even the Jedi, why would they wait? Its like they are saying
that the slaves just need to be patient and wait for this kid
to grow up. That would just be wrong.

You could have a point. If Shmi has married Cleig Lars as has
been suggested. Maybe Watto has let he go because he's lost everything
and couldn't even sell her.

We don't know if there were
still slaves on Tatooine in the OT. Jabba certainly had some.
Leia was taken as a slave and I'm sure Oola and the other dancer
was probably a slave.

Yes why else would Oola try to escape if she wasn't doing the
dancing for her own good?
It may have something to do with
the Empire. Perhaps the Republic does get rid of it, but then
as soon as the Empire takes over the galaxy it brings it all
back again.

But the Republic is a long way from Tatooine... To quote Shmi.

there are still slaves in Return Of the Jedi, I don't think they would be free

True, Oola was a example. Not sure if the slavery is so prevelant in Tatooine. The empire had slaves (Wookkies for one) but in ROTJ the onlt slaves we see are Jabba's. There was no real representation of it in ANH on Tatooine was there?

No, there wasn't...I wonder if the slave thing was an afterthought in OT.

Well they at least had prisoners in ANH aboard the deathstar, which may have used for labour.

But were they slaves or "criminals" ??? Me thinks that they we considered criminals as they we only saw detention cells rather than slave quarters.

I wanna know why slaves are used instead of Droids. You might say that humans and aliens may do a better job than a Droid, but after seeing these hi-tech Destroyer and Battle Droids in TPM, plus many other cool robots in the saga, I still think the Empire (and the Outer Rim) could use Droids instead of people.

They cost money Daft.

But surely that can't be worth that much. It seems they've been around so long that a Droid doesn't really seem like it would be a luxury in the Star Wars Universe. More like something that anyone could afford. I would imagine slaves costing more.

Droids need maintainance possibly. I would iumagine that even if they are an every day thing they still cost money whilst slaves are a relatively free resource.

Think about the real world. Most families have one or two cars. But cars are still probably the biggest investment someone m=akes after a house.

Good point but didn't Watto say, "No pod is worth 2 slaves" which means that a slave must be worth more than half the expense of a podracer. I would imagine pods being rather expensive because of their size, so slaves must be more expensive than Droids even without the maintainace you'd need for the Droid. You'd also need to feed them for the whole of their time with you, which would add quite a bit of money on top, whereas Droids don't need to be fed. Maybe charged up or something like that, but no food.

If Shmi is already free then I'll be very dissapointed as we won't get to see Anakin fullfill his dream of freeing the slaves.

maybe that's where the movie will start. Perhaps we'll see Anakin and some other jedi fighting slave owners.

if the republic does not extend to the outer rim worlds than the jedi have no authority to tell those people that they have to change there lifestyle. if they tried it would probably start a large conflict with the hutts. that might well play a part of the story. maybe clones are cheaper than droids and normal slaves. however, i think the jedi/republic's lack of astion will be used as a source of unhappiness and aggrevation for anakin.

I wonder how Anakin will look at the cloning..Is a clone just another kind of slave?