It depends on whether Palpatine exploited the already corrupt system or if he created that corruption. While some of that was obviously him, some of it was likely innate. Qui-Gon shows exactly what was wrong with both the Jedi and the Republic with one line, "I didn't come here to free slaves."
That does not really answer the question. How was the Old Republic corrupt before or during the Clone Wars? Was this ever presented in the films? Being inept was demonstrated (the Senate could not rally an army but had to be handed one by the Jedi), but when was corruption demonstrated?
"I didn't actually come here to free slaves" proves what? Qui-Gon really didn't go there to free slaves, he came there to gets parts to fulfill his mission. He was obviously opposed to slavery but at that time and place that wasn't his priority. Allowing yourself to be distracted from your mission on some humanitarian tangent is noble, but risks losing the mission altogether that may take more lives than saved by the tangent. Qui-Gon not dropping everything and abandon his other responsibilities at the first opportunity to fix an injustice is not evidence of some sort of corruption, but merely recognition of situation. It makes him human, someone bound by limitations of himself and his environment, rather than Superman who only follows the law when he finds it suitable.
Given the scale of the SW galaxy, it was directly comparable.
I'm sorry, but are you fucking kidding me? No, it is not. Just because there are many planets with people on them does not mean that all planets suddenly become just mere cities. That is a failure of imagination. They are still planets and Alderaan was habitable world that housed 2 billion people.
Again coming back to WW2 analogy, it would be like if the US went and exterminated the entire Japanese population, destroyed indiscrimiately every object the it has ever made, burned and bulldozed every inch of land and covered it with salt. If that sounds insane it is because it is insane. It would be ridicolous overkill but that is excatly what the Empire did.
The Japanese did not surrender until the Soviets entered the war and removed their last chance of a negotiated settlement.
Yes, which is one of the reasons the US (allegedly) used the bomb in the first place: they wanted a weapon that would finally make the Japanese come to their senses and surrender, rather than waste thousands of lives trying fanatically to salvage their defeat.
Who says they can crack planetary shields without destroying the planet underneath?
I admit that I am assuming that the output of the Death Star's beam was adjustable. If it is they could have scaled it up to just enough to overwhelm the planetary shields and make sizable crater. Then orbital bombardment or more regular military action would have done the rest.
Even if it weren't, then that makes the whole overkill thing even worse: now we have a giant, massive technological project that can only destroy planets. They deliberately chose to have a planet-destroying weapon rather than shield-destroying weapons. It means that any time the Death Star's armament ever would come into function against a planet it would destroy everything.
Grevious and bounty hunters and numerous battle droids may kill Jedi, but they do it at a time in which the Dark Side was overwhelming the abilities of the Jedi. During the Clone Wars, the Dark Side had permeated so far that the abilities of Jedi are weakened.
The problem with this theory is that you extrapolate a few discussions from Master Yoda to such an extent that it becomes unprovable. Every Jedi death no matter how remote suddenly would have to be a deliberate intention of a far-away Sith, rather than simply exceeding the limitations of the Jedi being killed. It paints out the Jedi as infallible demi-gods rather than just people with powers.
Sith may cloud the foresight of the Jedi but there is little clear information on how this works. For all we know this is an accidental effect of Sith gaining power. The future may have been clouded because of the extensive direct influence Palpatine and Dooku gained over events.
It is also simply possible that the Jedi could not see foresee what they needed because of hubris, which the Jedi certainly had. Then the Dark Side's growth (which may be just accidental and related to the braking out of a war) would then just be an excuse.
We come back to one point: how did Grievous kill or injure several Jedi at the Battle of Muunilinst? No Sith was there and we have no reason to believe that Dooku or someone else was directly influencing the battle or somehow protecting Griveous. Yet Grievous mopped the fucking floor with Jedi.
The more workable explanation is simply that Jedi foresight is more limited and vague. Sensing danger does not mean you will automatically dodge a nuclear bomb. If Jedi's foresight were that powerful than it would actually destroy dramatic tension: instead of just giving the heroes a chance it would guarantee it with fate.
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were not worried by the possibility of being threatened by an entire army on Naboo (not that they would face it directly). Ten years later two hundred Jedi, including several Council members, are nearly wiped out by a similar sized army.
You answer your own question: they were not worried about the possibility because they didn't go there to fight the entire army by their lonesome. They were confident in their ability to hide. At no moment was either prepared to single-handily destroy the entire army by themselves. There is also the possibility that they did not seem worried because they had no other choice in the matter and did not allow it to worry them for it might have ruined their focus.
The army at Naboo was not the entire Seperatist army. If it were then the Seperatist threat would have ended then and there. The Seperatist army was huge, expanding troughout the war and gaining competence with experience. As the Jedi entered the war it would only make sense that the Seperatist army would become more apt at killing Jedi by deliberately taking anti-Jedi measures, such as Magna-guards.
And we never see the displays of power that Obi-Wan makes in TPM repeated in AOTC. Even by Anakin, who has more Force potential than anyone.
Because the script writer did not want them to. One of the problems with writing superhuman characters is that the limitations have to adjusted as the story is written and rewritten and consistent levels may change.
As for foresight, it wasn't perfect even in TPM, but it was decidedly more effective. Look at Qui-Gon's premonition that Anakin would handily win the podrace or that Amidala was in danger.
He knew Anakin would win because he was the most powerful Force-sensitive Qui-Gon ever met. He could already tell that Anakin could already use the force in a way that would allow him to win the pod-race. In other words Anakin had a massive advantage over other races. It's like predicting that a child Mozart would play back a song or a trough-bred will a lame-race.
That is possible, but not having conflicting Force users would lead to one side being too powerful.
Please elaborate.
And this was a Jedi standing two feet from Count Dooku. Hardly one without a Sith clouding his mind.
And this is the problem with this theory: how do we know that was going on? How do we know that Dooku simply didn't feel threatened and the gunned down Jedi was simply not overwhelmed? We see no move of Dooku doing anything.
