Response to RedLetterMedia's TPM Review (108 Page PDF)

[Freefall]

No wonder so many people have an inflated opinion of this guy's work. Most people never even saw the whole thing through. Most of them probably just saw the least crappy part and declared it a work of genius.

This is only true if the trend in viewer drop-off is consistent for both people who liked the reviews and people who didn't, which seems unlikely. It seems more likely that the 950,000 people who saw part 7 were the ones that actually liked it on the whole, and are the ones defending him. Also, this only accounts for youtube; the video can be found other places.

I also think it's kind of funny that part 7 got more views than part 6.

The massive dropoff from Part 1 to Part 2 also leads me to believe that there's a silent majority of people who couldn't stand it, or the sound of Plinkett's voice. Whatever the case, most people didn't bother watching past the first part.

Or they just stumbled upon it randomly on youtube even though they don't really care about Star Wars in general, or internet reviews, or they just didn't feel like investing 70 minutes into watching the whole thing, or they had to go to work or school, or any number of other factors could have come up.

I've come across all kinds of videos on youtube that were inexplicably linked as relating to something else I was interested in. That's how it works.

Also, you admit that the first part is probably the best, which means it also probably gets proportionately more repeat viewings than the other parts.

The ship's destruction could be covered up, although I would agree that the Trade Federation's actions weren't foolproof. Still, I would say that they were better than Stoklasa's suggestion of sending the Jedi back to Coruscant to rat them out.

Except when they get to Coruscant later despite being eyewitnesses, they make no difference in the proceedings at all, so all it would really do is speed things up for Palpatine.

This is actaully a better argument than Stoklasa made, which was that eight battledroids are stupid just because of the Jedi.

The Jedi are the biggest threat to their plan. Amidala is the key to their plan. You don't think it would be prudent for them to give her an appropriately formidable escort?

Paying transportation fares after a trip, and possibly not even in money, raises suspicion.

It does? Is arranging transport off Tattooine really uncommon or something? Is it less suspicious than a guy dressed in a sack with no useful currency showing up out of the desert with a luxury ship that's been recently shot at?

Where would such a deal even be made?

Mos Eisley?

Because privacy isn't guaranteed, and Qui-Gon seemed adamant about not drawing attention.

And he does this by sponsoring a human slave-boy in a high profile pod race?

[Stark]

Who knew they were tropers AS WELL? :V

Regardless there's a HUGE gulf between 'RLM is factually correct' and 'TPM is a perfect movie with no flaws that corresponds to tvtropes.com idea of excellent fiction'. RLM can be full of shit AND the movie can suck. Who knew?

[NonBreakingSpace]

Near the end now. Its quite readable, I'm almost done. Re: the blockade, the blockade being gone when they get back is a really obvious point- calling it 'convenient' is just dumb. Heck, look at the TPM script:-

PANAKA : The blockade's gone.
OBI-WAN : The war's over...No need for it now.

If this isn't in the movie (I don't remember) it was probably removed because Lucas thought no one would wonder why it was gone. Apparently, he was wrong

I think the reason why Lucas removed that explanation from the script was because it didn't make any sense and only distracted from the story he was trying to tell.

Let's unpack Obi-Wan's statement. "The war's over...No need for it now." implies a number of things, all of which are problematic:
1. That the Naboo space navy posed a threat sufficient to necessitate the deployment of a whole bunch of ships.
2. That the majority of the Trade Federation ships were solely deployed to counter this military threat.
3. That this threat decreased once the war was over. (The war being over defined by the queen fleeing)

None of the above make any sense.
1. Naboo's space navy consisted of some single-pilot fighters and one or more luxury cruisers. The idea that it ever posed any sort of serious military threat, especially one that would necessitate the Trade Federation fielding tens of its own ships, is nonsense.
2. When the movie repeatedly established that the ships sitting in orbit constituted a "blockade," I sort of assumed they meant "blockade." Because of this, I assumed that the Trade Federation blockade was "a sustained force meant to cut off communications, supplies, and stuff" rather than "an attack force meant to slug it out with the capital ships Naboo doesn't actually have."
3. Padme explicitly stated that she wouldn't condone a course of action that would lead to war. The movie subsequently established that Naboo did not go to war by showing a hangar full of spotless, unused starfighters along with pilots who became prisoners rather than spacedust. Obi-Wan claiming that the war was over implies that a war happened to begin with, something that wasn't the case. Padme's escape and eventual return was the beginning of the war rather than the end and the political changes that happened in the interim, including the Senator from the planet currently being blockaded being elected Chancellor, should have made the Trade Federation more nervous rather than less.

In conclusion, not only did Obi-Wan's potential line make no sense, but it fundamentally undermined a key point of Padme's characterization. While it's true that, in the final movie, Padme's actions eventually lead to war, war was her last resort. Obi-Wan's line implies that she said she wouldn't condone any action that would lead to war, thought about it for five minutes, conducted a war offscreen, lost, then ran away.

[Vympel]

Yeah, possibly. In any event, the main point is that the blockade was no longer necessary, since the Trade Federation had seized control of the planet.

[Kingmaker]

Let's unpack Obi-Wan's statement. "The war's over...No need for it now." implies a number of things, all of which are problematic:
1. That the Naboo space navy posed a threat sufficient to necessitate the deployment of a whole bunch of ships.
2. That the majority of the Trade Federation ships were solely deployed to counter this military threat.
3. That this threat decreased once the war was over. (The war being over defined by the queen fleeing)

Or 4. Now that they control the surface of Naboo there is no point in wasting the money to maintain a blockade. Once you control all the spaceports you can control significant traffic to and from the planet without needing a fleet of battleships encircling the planet.

When the movie repeatedly established that the ships sitting in orbit constituted a "blockade," I sort of assumed they meant "blockade."

A blockade is an act of war (at least if dealing with sovereign entities).

Obi-Wan claiming that the war was over implies that a war happened to begin with, something that wasn't the case.

A Brief History of the Naboo-Trade Federation War
1. TF blockades Naboo.
2. Naboo protests
3. TF invades, rolling over the few defenders without difficulty
4. Nute Gunray lands in Theed Square, proclaims Mission Accomplished.

Granted, it's a pretty lame war... but when it has been a while since the last major galactic war you take what you can get.

And he does this by sponsoring a human slave-boy in a high profile pod race?

Uh... he didn't. If I recall correctly, Watto put Anakin in the race. Qui-Gon was just gambling on the outcome (and his party offered Anakin help finishing his podracer).

There's a bomb in my head. It may not be Chekhov's gun, but that's one hell of an Ass Pull

Hey man, you do know that TVTropes is an entertainment site, not a serious source of literary criticism and analysis? We know what an ass pull is (believe it or not, tropers didn't come up with that term). And if you need to link to the page to define a piece of troperspeak, use a different phrase instead.

[adam_grif]

Uh... he didn't. If I recall correctly, Watto put Anakin in the race. Qui-Gon was just gambling on the outcome (and his party offered Anakin help finishing his podracer).

He wouldn't have been in the race except that Qui Gon said he could supply a new Pod for him to race in. This isn't a very important point, but whatever.

[Freefall]

Uh... he didn't. If I recall correctly, Watto put Anakin in the race. Qui-Gon was just gambling on the outcome (and his party offered Anakin help finishing his podracer).

I think Watto technically enters Anakin into the race (since he owns the kid), but he only does so because Qui-Gon backs him by putting up the Queen's ship as collateral, as well as supplying the pod (which is actually made of parts stolen from Watto himself).

Either way, I'd say it's a bit more conspicuous than simply buying passage to somewhere else.

[Freefall]

Hm, limited editing times, huh? Well, I guess given the nature of this forum, that makes some sense.

Anyway, I checked the scene, and I was right the first time.

Watto: "The boy tells me you want to sponsor him in the race. How can you do this? Not on Republic credits, I think, huh?"

Qui-Gon: "My ship will be the entry fee."

Which, of course, is actually Amidala's ship. Good thing Watto never bothered to check if Qui-Gon actually owned the thing (or if it even existed).

[Vympel]

Which, of course, is actually Amidala's ship. Good thing Watto never bothered to check if Qui-Gon actually owned the thing (or if it even existed).

I can't think of anything less interesting than watching Watto perform a futuristic title search to see if Qui-Gon owned the ship he was putting up for a bet, or satisfying himself that Qui-Gon wasn't engaged in some inscrutable elaborate scheme that all began with him searching for parts for his ship which doesn't actually exist.

Christ, these nitpicks are stupid.

[Stofsk]

Also the last thing TPM needed was for the film to spend even more time on Tatooine.

[Jim Raynor]

He states a few general opinions of the film and then spends the rest of the review citing examples that prove his points. It's not just nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, he's providing evidence of his previous assertions.

Really? So now whining about how no-name Trade Fed henchman might have seen Qui-Gon going up a shaft (seconds after we were all shown the Jedi being chased on camera), promoting Rambo tactics, denying that an invasion had even happened, whining (and lying) about starship shielding, etc. isn't dumb nitpicking now? It wasn't just nitpicking, it was incorrect and stupid nitpicking.

If he hadn't done that, then you would just say "but he didn't show any examples of what he means! He's just talking out his ass!"

Give me a break. Before Stoklasa, I had never, ever heard of a 70-minute movie review. People can and have written good, well-supported movie reviews at a small fraction of that length. Practically every professional critic's reviews are far shorter than that. The fact that TPM review is 70 minutes long (and the later ones even longer) should be a huge red flag to people. That screams "nitpick," which I showed was the case in my response.

Your rebuttal is mostly nitpicks of his nitpicks.

No, it's a comprehensive response, to almost everything he said. That's not bad as his original review of the movie, where he whined about things that shouldn't even come into a person's head while watching a movie. Nitpicking is bad when it focuses on things that don't matter or were never intended to be noticed. Or when it's used selectively just to focus on the bad parts. Stoklasa's reviews were not a movie, but him talking directly to the viewer. Everything he said was meant to be heard. And I responded to practically everything.

You don't even attempt to understand WHY he's pointing this stuff out, you're just trying to offer excuses that explain how the little flaws are meant to be that way, or you try to make the glaringly obvious plot devices and conveniences sound like they make perfect logical sense and weren't like that because the writer was lazy.

Please. "WHY" he's pointing things out? It's clear. He thinks Lucas is a terrible writer, and talks a lot of crap to point out the supposed logical errors in the story. Don't act like there's some deep meaning here that I've missed. As if lying about what happened to the starship's shields, or suggesting idiotic Rambo tactics for Qui-Gon aren't stupid nitpicks.

You really think that Anakin's having a bomb in his head was a great plot device? Why? It never comes up again. You'd think that would alter the dynamics of the story later, having a bomb in your head. Did they remove it?

It's a device put in there to enforce Watto's ownership of him. Watto no longer owns him, so it's disabled. Put two and two together. It's not meant to have any story impact, apart from keeping Anakin on Tatooine during the second act.

You'd think that later on, when he turns to the dark side, that maybe blowing the bomb up would be an effective way of killing him off.

LOL! You'd think that in the thirteen years between TPM and ROTS, they might have disabled or removed the device? Don't suggest alternative storylines that are even dumber than the actual movies'. That's something that Stoklasa did too much.

When writing a movie, you don't put something like that into your script unless you're gonna PAY IT OFF LATER.

Funny, because I see plot devices used all the time to serve the plot, when they're introduced. I don't care for a stupid story where Qui-Gon, despite legally winning ownership of Anakin, doesn't have the damn thing turned off.

[Freefall]

I can't think of anything less interesting than watching Watto perform a futuristic title search to see if Qui-Gon owned the ship he was putting up for a bet, or satisfying himself that Qui-Gon wasn't engaged in some inscrutable elaborate scheme that all began with him searching for parts for his ship which doesn't actually exist.

Who said anything about showing the actual process?

After Pod Race
Qui-Gon: Bring the parts to the main hangar. I'll come by your shop later on so you can release the boy.

Watto: You can't have him. It wasn't a fair bet.

Qui-Gon: Would you like to discuss it with the Huts? I'm sure they can settle this.

Watto: Actually, I already have. They were very interested to find out you were using someone else's ship to sponsor the boy, heh heh, very interested. In fact, I think they have some agents coming now to "settle" this.

Qui-Gon:

Watto: Hey, whenever you gamble, my friend, eventually you lose, right?

Or any number of other situations. You really are incredibly unimaginative if the only thing you think could come of that is a scene of Watto running an electronic check. The most simple and least time consuming would probably be something like:

Watto: Do you have proof of ownership?

Qui-Gon: Uh...

Watto: Then piss off before I call the Huts.

Which would obviously force them to dump the whole Pod Race nonsense altogether.

Alternately, if you insist on keeping the pod race, just have Amidala sponsor Anakin instead, or something to make it clear she consents (as opposed to the movie, where Padme explicitly disapproves of the plan).

I mean, seriously, Qui-Gon just did something blatantly illegal and unethical, and your defense is, "that's just a stupid nitpick." I guess Jedi morality and accountability is purely a function of plot then?

Also the last thing TPM needed was for the film to spend even more time on Tatooine.

True enough, but cutting the Pod Race entirely would accomplish that pretty well.

[Jim Raynor]

The ship's destruction could be covered up, although I would agree that the Trade Federation's actions weren't foolproof. Still, I would say that they were better than Stoklasa's suggestion of sending the Jedi back to Coruscant to rat them out.

Except when they get to Coruscant later despite being eyewitnesses, they make no difference in the proceedings at all, so all it would really do is speed things up for Palpatine.

The Jedi not making a difference in the proceedings because of Palpatine's blue alien henchman making sure that they didn't is not the same as Palpatine ordering the Trade Fed to completely open up about their evil intentions to the Republic Government. Just to get their word out, before (and never) trying to cover their butts.

This is actaully a better argument than Stoklasa made, which was that eight battledroids are stupid just because of the Jedi.

The Jedi are the biggest threat to their plan. Amidala is the key to their plan. You don't think it would be prudent for them to give her an appropriately formidable escort?

The Jedi were somewhere on the planet. They weren't an immediate threat. As I already said, there were numerous more battledroids on the streets, as well as tanks.

Mr. Bean brought up some good points about how crappy Trade Fed battledroids are, and how they can be ambushed. However, Nameless Naboo Guard is not a crack soldier himself. The possibility of a nameless group of guards jumping those battledroids, defeating them in short time before reinforcements (located as near as around the corner) arrive, and getting away with it was much slimmer.

And, like so many things that are brought up against this movie, all of this is nitpicking anyway. In just about any action movie, the hero is going to beat down on groups of villainous pawns. Large or small. This part of TPM was actually better than quite a few action movies in this regard, since even the superpowered hero never tried to stand and fight against large numbers of footsoldiers. He beat small groups and ran when faced with tougher odds.

Paying transportation fares after a trip, and possibly not even in money, raises suspicion.

It does? Is arranging transport off Tattooine really uncommon or something?

Paying fares entirely after a trip is. So is the suggestion that they pay the starship pilot in raw materials. The whole point of money is to be easily capable of buying things, and the whole point of services is to get that money. How many truckers, or pilots in this case, want to be paid in materials, which they will then have to go through the trouble of reselling? How many honest ones? Because all this suspicious dealing is more likely to be accepted by pilots on the wrong side of the law.

Even in ANH, where all of these ideas about hiring secret transportation stem from, it wasn't like this. Han demanded huge sums of money (enough to almost buy a ship), all in advance. And Obi-Wan had to find Han in the seediest, most dangerous bar imaginable. A place where a serial killer tried to take Luke out just for standing there, where Jabba's mob goon held up Han himself, and where Han openly murdered that goon. This is the kind of place that Qui-Gon was supposed to seek services from? He seemed well aware of Tatooine's reputation in TPM, and clearly stated that he wanted to avoid attention.

Is it less suspicious than a guy dressed in a sack with no useful currency showing up out of the desert with a luxury ship that's been recently shot at?

Hence why they landed the ship well outside of the city, and didn't mention it to anyone except Watto, one of the "smaller" dealers.

And he does this by sponsoring a human slave-boy in a high profile pod race?

Slavery is legal and accepted on Tatooine, and Anakin was already established as a racer. Betting on Anakin wasn't strange at all.

[Formless]

True enough, but cutting the Pod Race entirely would accomplish that pretty well.

What, and have the movie grind to a halt midway through? Yeah, I'm sure that would get people packed into theaters.

If you have an alternative, I would like to hear it. Personally, I think its cool that they managed to come up with a spectacle that didn't revolve around stylized violence. And again before anyone says it... boo hoo to anyone who doesn't like a spectacle in a Star Wars movie.

[Jim Raynor]

I can't think of anything less interesting than watching Watto perform a futuristic title search to see if Qui-Gon owned the ship he was putting up for a bet, or satisfying himself that Qui-Gon wasn't engaged in some inscrutable elaborate scheme that all began with him searching for parts for his ship which doesn't actually exist.

Who said anything about showing the actual process?

After Pod Race
Qui-Gon: Bring the parts to the main hangar. I'll come by your shop later on so you can release the boy.

Watto: You can't have him. It wasn't a fair bet.

Qui-Gon: Would you like to discuss it with the Huts? I'm sure they can settle this.

Watto: Actually, I already have. They were very interested to find out you were using someone else's ship to sponsor the boy, heh heh, very interested. In fact, I think they have some agents coming now to "settle" this.

Yeah, bring in the mob over a bet that Watto was absolutely sure he would win, since Anakin had never even finished a race.

True enough, but cutting the Pod Race entirely would accomplish that pretty well.

Cut out the entirety of a big action sequence that was one of the features of the second act, which many people liked. Hey, it's fine if you didn't like that race. But I wonder if the anti-action people in this thread even thought about the effects of making such big cutd. Seriously, someone earlier actually said that action scenes are pointless...in an action movie titled Star Wars.

[Freefall]

True enough, but cutting the Pod Race entirely would accomplish that pretty well.

What, and have the movie grind to a halt midway through? Yeah, I'm sure that would get people packed into theaters.

If you have an alternative, I would like to hear it. Personally, I think its cool that they managed to come up with a spectacle that didn't revolve around stylized violence. And again before anyone says it... boo hoo to anyone who doesn't like a spectacle in a Star Wars movie.

I don't have a problem with spectacle, but I'm not really interested in racing in general, and the pod race didn't have enough of a point to make me interested in it. If they had engaged in a futuristic game of Baseball for the same amount of time, I'm pretty sure I would have been similarly uninterested.

If you like the pod race, it could also just be shortened quite a bit. No matter how you slice it, it's a lot of dead space in a movie that could use some tightening in its plot.

Anyway, alternative methods of getting off Tatooine have already been suggested, like simply hiring transport to somewhere else. Technically the only characters that are of critical importance on this point are Amidala and the Jedi, so it's not like they even absolutely need a large enough transport for everyone in their party, and you might actually be able to get some emotion out of Amidala in a scene where she is forced to leave people behind.

[Galvatron]

A similar action sequence showing Anakin deftly piloting a skyhopper through the canyons and caverns of Tatooine's desert while fleeing Darth Maul's pursuit might have worked better. At the very least, doing so would have more firmly established Anakin as a great pilot when Obi-Wan first knew him.

And it would have served the plot in the same way all the OT chase scenes did.

[Formless]

I don't have a problem with spectacle, but I'm not really interested in racing in general, and the pod race didn't have enough of a point to make me interested in it. If they had engaged in a futuristic game of Baseball for the same amount of time, I'm pretty sure I would have been similarly uninterested.

If it needs to be said once, it needs to be said three times... anyway, this is really a matter of opinion, but I can understand the Ben Hur homage they were going for and appreciate it. Nothing says "epic movie" like (futurisic) chariots.

If you like the pod race, it could also just be shortened quite a bit. No matter how you slice it, it's a lot of dead space in a movie that could use some tightening in its plot.

I haven't seen the movie in a while, so I don't remember exactly how long it was, so I won't argue that.

Anyway, alternative methods of getting off Tatooine have already been suggested, like simply hiring transport to somewhere else. Technically the only characters that are of critical importance on this point are Amidala and the Jedi, so it's not like they even absolutely need a large enough transport for everyone in their party, and you might actually be able to get some emotion out of Amidala in a scene where she is forced to leave people behind.

Yeah, and having the Mob called in just to deal with a private bet makes sense because...?

Also, you would think the Jedi would be better at predicting violent situations and avoiding unecessary ones as per their philosophy. It makes it clear that they aren't just thugs with swords, and meshes better with Obi Wan's enlightened approach in ANH.

A similar action sequence in which Anakin deftly pilots a skyhopper through the caverns of Tatooine's desert while fleeing Darth Maul's pursuit might have worked better. At the very least, doing so would have better established Anakin as a great pilot.

Well, this would have the advantage of giving Maul more screentime, I'll give it that.

[Galvatron]

A surprised reaction to Anakin's strength in the Force by Maul would have been welcome too. If only for the audience's sake, he could have muttered a line to himself during the chase scene indicating a mistaken assumption that his elusive prey was a fully-trained Jedi rather than some local slave-boy.

Better than midichlorian counts, IMO.

Sorta like Vader's "the Force is strong with this one." That told us all we really needed to know about Luke's potential.

[NonBreakingSpace]

Yeah, possibly. In any event, the main point is that the blockade was no longer necessary, since the Trade Federation had seized control of the planet.

But it was necessary. 30 movie-minutes after the Naboo cruiser was allowed to land totally unmolested, all of the Trade Federation's droids were broken and Nute and friends were arrested. I'm not saying that the Trade Federation should have made all of the best decisions all of the time. That would have made for a pretty depressing movie. I'm just claiming that the decision to remove all of the ships, while convenient for the purposes of the story, didn't make much sense from the perspective of a Trade Federation that doesn't enjoy being easily defeated.

Or 4. Now that they control the surface of Naboo there is no point in wasting the money to maintain a blockade. Once you control all the spaceports you can control significant traffic to and from the planet without needing a fleet of battleships encircling the planet.

A blockade is an act of war (at least if dealing with sovereign entities).

A Brief History of the Naboo-Trade Federation War
1. TF blockades Naboo.
2. Naboo protests
3. TF invades, rolling over the few defenders without difficulty
4. Nute Gunray lands in Theed Square, proclaims Mission Accomplished.

Granted, it's a pretty lame war... but when it has been a while since the last major galactic war you take what you can get.

This isn't really true. Everything from tiny Naboo fighters to giant Acclamators were capable of landing and taking off from pretty much wherever. Without orbital control, the Trade Federation would be (was) powerless to prevent whatever ships felt the urge from landing, disgorging supplies, mercenaries, or Jedi, and taking off again with complete impunity. Please keep in mind that the events of the movie, from the perspective of the Trade Federation, represented a best case scenario. The returning Naboo cruiser could have easily been a flotilla of smugglers or mercenaries, some sort of Republic aid mission sent by the new Chancellor, or just a rocket-powered clown car full of a whole bunch of Jedi ready to tear everything up.

True, but that misses the point. Blockades usually blockade things. I'm not sure how the distinction that this constitutes an act of war is relevant when the other side didn't seem to respond to it as such.

Are you sure about #3? My interpretation could be wrong, but I always assumed that the Naboo never actually fought except during the escape attempt and Padme's subsequent return. If they did, I'd assume that they would have launched their fighters instead of leaving them in the hangar and having the pilots wait around to be captured. That said, the idea that the ships left because "the "war" "ended"" still makes no sense, especially since the threat of whatever Padme could bring back to Naboo far outweighed the threat that the planet originally posed.

[LMSx]

4:11

Plinkett: "So they open the doors anyways. And they let the Jedi out, and attack them with completely useless robots. Just tell them to leave, and that you don't want to negotiate. And then when their ship flies out of your spacedock, SHOOT it with lasers!"

What the hell? The Trade Fed didn't open the door to let the Jedi out as if they decided to fight them. They thought the Jedi were already dead. And the Jedi were the ones who were attacking. As the Trade Federation's second-in-command put it:
TF #2: "I knew it. They're here to force a settlement."
Stoklasa's suggestion is just bizarre. Does he really think that the Jedi would just kindly leave after an attempt on their lives, through a controlled docking bay where their previous ship had just been blown up?

However, my real gripe with this is that you apparently misunderstand RLM's suggestion later that they simply tell the jedi they won't negotiate and that should just blow up their ship when they try to leave. You seem to believe that he meant that they should do this after they had already tried to kill them. I do believe that the suggestion was that they should have done that INSTEAD of blowing up their ship and trying to gas them.

It's stupid and idiotic for the Trade Federation to do, even before the decision to kill the Jedi.

I feel this deserves a little more discussion, because you blew past the text of your original objection. You wrote that you couldn't understand what on earth Stoklasa's thinking was, but this person pointed out that RLM's "blow up ship + Jedi at once" idea is a superior alternative to the "poison gas" idea, not something to be grafted on midway through once the poison gas idea failed. It's a legitimate interpretation of RLM's words, and I'm reasonably sure it's the only one that's coherent, which means that he should get the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Now if you want to explain why it'd be idiotic for the Trade Federation to wait for the Jedi to be on the ship before blowing it up I'd be happy to hear, but that bolded part as written again looks pretty clearly wrong. He's not suggesting the Trade Federation should have switched plans halfway through.

Stoklasa also conveniently left out the fact that Queen Amidala (whom the bad guys needed to sign the treaty) was on that ship. There's evidence that the Trade Fed wasn't shooting to kill then, because they were picking off small repair droids instead blasting the ship itself.

So....caveat, I haven't seen this sequence/the movie in a long time so my mental geography could be off. But, I would buy that second sentence if it were Han Solo sitting on the bow of the ship picking the droids off one by one with a blaster, NOT so much from a giant spaceship trying to peg a tiny racing far away target. The risk/gain tradeoff seems insanely out of wack. Particularly since the shields being down means the next hit could be lethal, and that there's already an established in-universe way of disabling ships, the ion cannon. If the TF's aim was to disable, I don't think there are any in-universe restrictions keeping Lucas from writing them into the situation.

edit- were there close-range droid fighters involved? hmmm, but even then trying that sort of marksmanship seems awfully risky in a dogfight. I think they didn't know she was on the ship.

[LMSx]

Actually if anyone wants to critique me the segment is here, about 3:30 in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqGU22Ue ... re=related

Along with the rest of TPM, apparently.

A) The actor for that Naboo pilot has hilarious line readings
B) still get the feeling from the way the Federation was blasting away that the droid pickoffs were dumb luck
C) why on earth does Lucas have the pilot separately say "the shields are gone" when he does? I get the implied idea that the shields are down, allowing the generator to be hit, but this line placement seems designed against that.

[Jim Raynor]

I feel this deserves a little more discussion, because you blew past the text of your original objection. You wrote that you couldn't understand what on earth Stoklasa's thinking was, but this person pointed out that RLM's "blow up ship + Jedi at once" idea is a superior alternative to the "poison gas" idea, not something to be grafted on midway through once the poison gas idea failed. It's a legitimate interpretation of RLM's words, and I'm reasonably sure it's the only one that's coherent, which means that he should get the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Even this is seriously flawed. So this interpretation is that RLM's argument was to tell the Jedi to leave, then blow up the ship once they're on it? Am I getting that right?

The Jedi were sent to force the Trade Federation to back down. That was Qui-Gon's mission, and the Trade Fed rightfully read between the lines and came to that same conclusion. What are they going to do if Qui-Gon says he doesn't want to leave? Are they going to force him out?

Furthermore, the more time they lie to Qui-Gon's face and actively scheme against his life, the more time he has to sense their treacherous actions. In the actual movie, Qui-Gon senses no threat because the Trade Fed was genuinely scared, and didn't intend to kill him. Until Sidious's order, which they immediately implemented with a simultaneous attack on both the ship and the Jedi. That gave minimal, if any time for the Jedi to sense things and react.

So....caveat, I haven't seen this sequence/the movie in a long time so my mental geography could be off. But, I would buy that second sentence if it were Han Solo sitting on the bow of the ship picking the droids off one by one with a blaster, NOT so much from a giant spaceship trying to peg a tiny racing far away target. The risk/gain tradeoff seems insanely out of wack. Particularly since the shields being down means the next hit could be lethal, and that there's already an established in-universe way of disabling ships, the ion cannon. If the TF's aim was to disable, I don't think there are any in-universe restrictions keeping Lucas from writing them into the situation.

I disregard EU when talking about the movie, since most moviegoers don't read it and we all know Lucas hardly cares about most of the EU either. The only anti-ship ion cannon that we see in any of the movies was the big one on Hoth. In every other Star Wars movie, even when people were shooting with the intention to capture, we were never given any suggestion that the weapons being used were anything other than standard lasers.

The shields being down (and the next hit possibly being lethal) can actually support the whole droid killing thing. If they dial their lasers way down, they can still pick off droids with minimal damage to the actual ship, should they hit it instead.

edit- were there close-range droid fighters involved?

No, fighters apparently weren't launched. The movie could've added them in, but I didn't really care since it had little to no effect on the plot.

EDIT: spelling

[LMSx]

I feel this deserves a little more discussion, because you blew past the text of your original objection. You wrote that you couldn't understand what on earth Stoklasa's thinking was, but this person pointed out that RLM's "blow up ship + Jedi at once" idea is a superior alternative to the "poison gas" idea, not something to be grafted on midway through once the poison gas idea failed. It's a legitimate interpretation of RLM's words, and I'm reasonably sure it's the only one that's coherent, which means that he should get the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Even this is seriously flawed. So this interpretation is that RLM's argument was to tell the Jedi to leave, then blow up the ship once they're on it? Am I getting that right?

That's it.

The Jedi were sent to force the Trade Federation to back down. That was Qui-Gon's mission, and the Trade Fed rightfully read between the lines and came to that same conclusion. What are they going to do if Qui-Gon says he doesn't want to leave? Are they going to force him out?

What on earth is Qui-Gon going to do if they don't want to talk? It's their ship! Lock himself in a closet until they start talking? If the Federation doesn't want to talk the mission is over, pack it up, go home and tell Valorum they're being sassy. I don't think the Jedi were wielding the implication of immediate violence from them, more that their presence was an indicator of how seriously the Supreme Chancellor viewed the blockade and how much pressure he would throw at the TF to end it if they persisted in being disagreeable.

Furthermore, the more time they lie to Qui-Gon's face and actively scheme against his life, the more time he has to sense their treacherous actions. In the actual movie, Qui-Gon senses no threat because the Trade Fed was genuinely scared, and didn't intend to kill him. Until Sidious's order, which they immediately implemented with a simultaneous attack on both the ship and the Jedi. That gave minimal, if any time for the Jedi to sense things and react.

OK, that makes sense.

So....caveat, I haven't seen this sequence/the movie in a long time so my mental geography could be off. But, I would buy that second sentence if it were Han Solo sitting on the bow of the ship picking the droids off one by one with a blaster, NOT so much from a giant spaceship trying to peg a tiny racing far away target. The risk/gain tradeoff seems insanely out of wack. Particularly since the shields being down means the next hit could be lethal, and that there's already an established in-universe way of disabling ships, the ion cannon. If the TF's aim was to disable, I don't think there are any in-universe restrictions keeping Lucas from writing them into the situation.

I disregard EU when talking about the movie, since most moviegoers don't read it and we all know Lucas hardly cares about most of the EU either. The only anti-ship ion cannon that we see in any of the movies was the big one on Hoth. In every other Star Wars movie, even when people were shooting with the intention to capture, we were never given any suggestion that the weapons being used were anything other than standard lasers.

The shields being down (and the next hit possibly being lethal) can actually support the whole droid killing thing. If they dial their lasers way down, they can still pick off droids with minimal damage to the actual ship, should they hit it instead.

I was thinking of the Hoth gun, too, but on a personnel level there's also the handheld thingie the Stormtroopers used to KO Leia at the start of ANH and Vader told his boarding party at the end of ESB to set weapons to stun.

Actually, wait, what other circumstances were there where someone was trying to be capture another ship, cared if they lived, and still blasted away? The TIEs let the Falcon escape from the Death Star, and the Executor was trying to use tractor beams (IIRC) to nab the Falcon with Luke after Cloud City. The TIEs harassing them as they fled Bespin were firing at close range, which does make the alleged "disabling shot" more plausible. Is there a prequel situation?

I just can't get behind the marksmanship involved in spying and then pegging the droids from such a long distance away with a capital ship's guns. If you're that good, tag the engines and end the chase right there!

[Vympel]

I just can't get behind the marksmanship involved in spying and then pegging the droids from such a long distance away with a capital ship's guns. If you're that good, tag the engines and end the chase right there!

Tagging the engines may well destroy the entire ship. They're power generators being fed with reactant, after all.