The Wordsmith's Forge

I don't feel that the droid torture scene was played for laughs (if you mean the one where a droid is having its feet burned), but then, I don't have that kind of sense of humor. The torturer laughing was more likely meant as a characterizing statement ("bad guys laugh at pain") and the scene overall was meant to be a slave-dungeon scene; playing those for laughs is awful hard to take in a heroic drama, and George Lucas isn't that awful a writer!