Never read any of the Thrawn stuff, it didn't sit right with me. A blue skinned Imperial Admiral?
I always thought it was implicit in the OT that the Empire were basically Nazis. They dressed that way, their whole world was monochromatic grey, they were all middle-aged or old, arrogant, white, short haired men. SW was never as Politcs-heavy as Star Trek but this idea is for me just one thing that makes the Empire so loathsome. Think of moments like when you can imagine the collective disgust on the bridge of the Executor when all the strange looking bounty hunter "Scum" are assembled.
The Rebels on the other hand where a non-discriminating, multi ethnic alliance. Made up of young idealistic kids and old experienced fighters. They embraced men and women in positions of power equally. The rebels also were quite comfortable letting their hair down (Literally). In ROTJ (When ILM had a bigger budget and greater experience/confidence) we see the alliance is also made up of other aliens like Admiral Ackbar and Lando's co-pilot Nien Nunb. In short, these were the kind of people and ideals I identified with.
Making an overt scripted reference to these two opposing world views would be out of character with SW (As I said, more of a ST thing). It never felt right to me that Palpatine's closest confidants in the PT were a blue skinned, tentacled Chagrian and various alien women. For me this made the PT Palpatine that little bit less evil than the guy I remembered from ROTJ, holding court in his throne room surrounded by sycophantic, sinister old men. Although Papatine ordering Anakin to go off to mustafar and murder all the strange aliens that Palpatine had seen fit to exploit and decieve in his rise to power, was spot on.
