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Notes -
Nitpicking, but: it wasn't a major plot point, it was a major MacGuffin. The critical thing wasn't that taxation of trade routes was in dispute, it was just that the immediate backstory had some important-but-subtle dispute that was threatening to blow up. You need "important" to make it plausible that things escalate to actual military conflict, and you need "subtle" to make it plausible (to characters who've never met Sidious) that the dispute was the result of behind-the-scenes machinations with no overt enemy or sociological force, but details of "taxes", "legal ownership of the Maltese Falcon", who cares? Trade and taxation was a great choice, because tax codes are exactly the sort of thing that makes most people's eyes glaze over but can be life-changing to the people most directly affected, but the details don't ever become important to the story.
Talking about that bit of backstory in the title crawl might have been just asking for mockery (because most of your audience is made of "most people", and the second sentence in your intro is a bad place for their eyes to glaze over), but that's bad editing, not bad plotting. There had to be some way to convey "the galaxy was so peaceful that everybody could freak out over taxes" without also accidentally implying "your fun spaceships-and-magic movie is now going to have more tax accounting!".
It's a fine nitpick. I remember reading a prequel novel ("cloak of deception" maybe?) That flushed it out way more.
I'm a phantom menace defender.
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