Worst Lucas idea in the prequels? I vote Rule of Two

[jollyreaper]

Midichlorians would have to come a close second since they turn the whole idea of the Jedi into a birthright. The whole thing with Yoda is he looks like a wrinkled green shit and not capable of anything and yet he's a badass with the Force. How did he do it? Oh, right, got born lucky. Much more interesting if it's something he worked at and developed.

Dumb as that is, I think the Rule of Two breaks things even worse. Frankly, it fails the plausibility test in two ways.

On the practical fail, how can we have an unbroken succession of Sith after Sith, master and apprentice? Do people not die unexpectedly in accidents? Are there no car crashes, starship wrecks, dropping dead from a disease? If it's a master and a group of apprentices, I could buy that. Master dies, apprentices fight to establish dominance, new dark lord. You could get by with a small number. But just two? Impractical.

On the thematic fail, the Sith lack a rational explanation. On one hand they're pure self-serving evil in the most selfish sense with no ideological motivation. They don't want to make the galaxy a better palace, there's no new ideas they want to impose. It's just power for the sake of power. But it invariably turns to conquering the galaxy. And then there's the other bit, defeating the Jedi. Why does this not make sense? Because it involves a new sith apprentice internalizing the philosophy of his master who internalized the philosophy of the order which is by definition serving a purpose greater than one's self. Which is supposedly antithetical to the entire Sith teaching.

And that right there is the kicker. "Hey, listen. I'm going to teach you the secret to true, ultimate power. You're a selfish little shit and capable of doing terrible things. But I'm going to trust that you'll do exactly as I wish after I give you this power." And the potential apprentice would respond "Yeah, I'll do whatever it takes to learn your secrets and then do whatever the hell I want later because I don't give a flying fuck about your ideology."

I think the Sith make the most sense if you view them as having a conflict between pragmatic evil and greed evil. Pragmatic evil says an individual Sith has more to gain cooperating with other Sith and the greed evil says if I screw those guys, I come out ahead. The greed evil is poor judgment brought on by dark side influence and would explain why the Sith ultimately self-destruct, even when they win. In a cutthroat system, loyalty lasts up to the point where self-interest is no longer served. It's the very definition of mercenary.

Why would a Sith Lord take an apprentice? Because it's not any fun being a master of the Dark Side without someone to gloat to. What would a Sith's goals be? The master does whatever interests him which may not even involve galactic conquest which is why they can completely disappear off the Jedi's radar. And you would have different lines of Sith succession. A master could have an apprentice declare himself master and take up an apprentice. Disciples could schism after the death of a master if there isn't one acknowledged successor.

A Jedi master might be content with sitting in a monastery and gazing at his navel. Sith lords would tend to be more proactive as a general thing. They're developing their powers for a purpose. The flashy ones openly declare themselves to be dark lords. That draws Jedi attention. The more practical ones avoid the limelight, not letting their Sithy status be known. They may be advisers to political leaders, lieutenants to crime bosses, titans of business, etc. A smart Sith lets someone else be the figurehead in the power structure so they're drawing the attention of enemies, their assassins, and anyone else who might have a beef.

There will be Sith with small ambitions. They would also be the ones we don't hear about. The ones with big ideas will draw attention. Big ideas mean one guy can't do it all. Aside from having someone who knows enough about what the Sith lord is doing as to be a proper audience for gloating at, talking down to, lecturing at, etc, the apprentices would be there to help in the work. A powerful apprentice who might challenge the master might be considered a worthy risk to take on but the master would likely not be cool with the idea of being killed by the apprentice. Accept death simply because the apprentice is stronger? Seems too principled for a Sith. I would more likely see the master killing an apprentice who is growing far too strong while showing no willingness to bend to the will of the master and do his bidding.

There would also have to be a distinction between the light side and dark side. Based off of the original trilogy, I would say the light side operates off of reason and the dark side off of emotion. It's hard to work yourself into an intellectual furor, far easier to become emotional. The positive emotions would seem like a good motivation but can easily become corrupted. The Force is raw, elemental power and can corrupt a user's perception. Strike down an evil enemy with force powers fueled by anger and hate? Dark side. By reason see he is in the wrong and defeat him without emotion, without hatred of him, fear for your own life, operating in a state of detachment while still summoning forth the power you need? Very difficult. That's the light side. And the only problem with that kind of thinking is that you can make bad decisions when operating off of emotion but you can do the same thing when too detached from a situation.

So, light side users stick to pure reason, call anyone who sues emotion dark side even if it seems to be for the right reason. Being on the dark side doesn't make you a Sith, only if you embrace Sith teachings. What are the teachings? Pretty much "If you want it, you deserve it. I can help you achieve it. Submit yourself to my goals and all can be yours." Thus it remains perfectly possible for a Sith apprentice to become a master but find the philosophy unrewarding and alter it as he sees fit.

If the Jedi were correct and knew what they were talking about, they wouldn't have been defeated. If the Sith had all the wrong ideas, they wouldn't be so successful. Luke disobeyed Yoda and Ben to do his own thing and succeeded. Their advice must not have been entirely correct. I would say he united the light and dark sides, using emotion to make the right decision. But maintaining the clarity of perception, not letting emotion cloud his judgment, that would remain an ongoing struggle.

Thoughts?

[Kreller1]

I disagree. JarJar is *the* worst idea.

[Tiriol]

About your idea of the dark side: it's not all emotion. Palpatine was very much in control of his emotions, only letting loose in a heat of battle. By your reasoning he was actually drawing on the light side of the Force (reason, being calm, detachment etc.). The dark side seems to be more about corruption of one's self, using the Force for selfish and destructive reasons.

About the Sith: why wouldn't someone crave power for power's sake? Power is a strong motivation. The Sith seem to be about total domination of those weaker than themselves and freeing oneself from any restraints. A very warped, twisted version of Nietzsche's philosophy, so it's not totally out of ordinary. And the whole point of Bane's rule of two was to make sure no destructive civil war would ensue again, making the Sith Order a splintered organization. The Master's duty seems to be to indoctrinate the Apprentice and teach him or her the ways of the dark side of the Force - and the Sith Order's goal is to train an apprentice stronger than his master so that the apprentice can, in turn, become the new master by demonstrating his power (by removing the old master). The dark side feeds upon conflict and encourages it and Rule of Two simply accepts this fact and tries to make sure that it won't screw the Sith like it used to in history.

[Grumman]

On the practical fail, how can we have an unbroken succession of Sith after Sith, master and apprentice? Do people not die unexpectedly in accidents? Are there no car crashes, starship wrecks, dropping dead from a disease? If it's a master and a group of apprentices, I could buy that. Master dies, apprentices fight to establish dominance, new dark lord. You could get by with a small number. But just two? Impractical.

Sure, people die unexpectedly in accidents. That doesn't mean clairvoyant, hyperagile, telekinetic Sith Lords die unexpectedly in accidents.

And that right there is the kicker. "Hey, listen. I'm going to teach you the secret to true, ultimate power. You're a selfish little shit and capable of doing terrible things. But I'm going to trust that you'll do exactly as I wish after I give you this power." And the potential apprentice would respond "Yeah, I'll do whatever it takes to learn your secrets and then do whatever the hell I want later because I don't give a flying fuck about your ideology."

Your apprentice doesn't have to do exactly as you say, they just have to do as you say enough of the time to make them worthwhile. There is nothing inherently unreasonable about the idea that a single apprentice is the "sweet spot" at which a Sith Lord's ability to project power is increased without putting himself at undue risk of backstabbing if he's personally strong enough.

[Bakustra]

The worst Lucas idea was midichlorians, because it demystifies and abandons the populist conceit of the Jedi as found in the OT. The Rule of Two is built to contrast the multitudinous Jedi with the few Sith, and ideally would have promoted the idea that the Sith could not be confronted directly, through acts of violence (barring, of course, Darth Vader- but there we can invoke the idea that it was the closeness of Obi-Wan to Anakin which allowed him to prevail, and in a better movie, this would then have been communicated to the audience.) but would have to be fought differently. Of course, we have Darth Maul blowing this out of the water for fairly unclear reasons.

Jar-Jar was a wonderful idea poorly executed, and I think that the poor execution of Jar-Jar as a character effectively derailed the prequels before they could get going, as it is Jar-Jar who serves as the closest thing to a protagonist in TPM, and he would have served as the equivalent to Han and Lando in the OT- "ordinary" people to contrast the Jedi with.

The idea of Luke unifying dark and light works better when you consider that light and dark are essentially Yin and Yang from what Yoda describes them as in the OT's look at Jedi thought. Yin, the heavenly aspect, is bright and rational; Yang, the earthly aspect is dark and emotional; both are essential for a human being, and keeping them in balance is essential to psychological health. The movie makes this subtle, though, and the PT at least tries to communicate this with Anakin in ROTS.

Overall, the prequels aren't filled with big and bad ideas, but with shoddy executions and little bad ideas.

[JME2]

Overall, the prequels aren't filled with big and bad ideas, but with shoddy executions and little bad ideas.

That pretty much sums up my feelings regards the PT. I understand what he was aiming for with certain ideas, it's just the execution that weakens them.

[Jim Raynor]

On the thematic fail, the Sith lack a rational explanation. On one hand they're pure self-serving evil in the most selfish sense with no ideological motivation. They don't want to make the galaxy a better palace, there's no new ideas they want to impose. It's just power for the sake of power. But it invariably turns to conquering the galaxy. And then there's the other bit, defeating the Jedi. Why does this not make sense? Because it involves a new sith apprentice internalizing the philosophy of his master who internalized the philosophy of the order which is by definition serving a purpose greater than one's self. Which is supposedly antithetical to the entire Sith teaching.

And that right there is the kicker. "Hey, listen. I'm going to teach you the secret to true, ultimate power. You're a selfish little shit and capable of doing terrible things. But I'm going to trust that you'll do exactly as I wish after I give you this power." And the potential apprentice would respond "Yeah, I'll do whatever it takes to learn your secrets and then do whatever the hell I want later because I don't give a flying fuck about your ideology."

I don't know what the EU says, but most of this is not from the actual top level canon films. We only see four Sith from the movies: Palpatine, Maul, Dooku, and Vader:

Palpatine: Appears to be a power hungery megalomaniac, probably the closest one to the pure sociopath that you describe. However, even he seems to truly believe in the power and rightness of the Dark Side, over what the Jedi teach.

Maul: Hardly anything was revealed about him. He seems to be an obedient student of Palpatines, and doesn't express any real wants of his own.

Dooku: Like Maul, hardly anything was revealed about his motivations. He used to be a Jedi, so he probably has a sense of what it means to have goals and believe in something other than himself. On the other hand, he carries himself like an arrogant, entitled (literally) asshole, so I would guess that he was won over by promises of personal gain. He does try to convert Obi-Wan with some talk about saving the Republic. While those were lies with a pragmatic purpose in mind, it gives us an example of how other Sith might have been recruited to the cause.

Vader: Literally turned to the Dark Side by his intentions to protect people and make the galaxy a better place. Has a messiah complex, and a very simplistic and heavy-handed approach to fixing things (i.e. gain power and just take control himself). A very screwed up person, but definitely not someone driven by pure selfish gain.

So that's one guy who's blatantly not in it just for the sake of power, another guy who vaguely seems devoted to the Sit Order itself, and two guys who use saving the galaxy as a recruiting method. The evidence doesn't really support the Sith all being pure greedy bastards, even though they are arrogant and evil. All six moves are extremely vague about their intentions, because for all intents and purposes they're black-and-white bad guys in an action film. But if I had to guess, the Sith see the Dark Side as the one true path to power, and the only way to fulfill one's full potential. They probably see themselves, the select enlightened few, as the only ones who are strong and thus deserving enough to properly rule the galaxy.

[JME2]

Dooku: Like Maul, hardly anything was revealed about his motivations. He used to be a Jedi, so he probably has a sense of what it means to have goals and believe in something other than himself. On the other hand, he carries himself like an arrogant, entitled (literally) asshole, so I would guess that he was won over by promises of personal gain. He does try to convert Obi-Wan with some talk about saving the Republic. While those were lies with a pragmatic purpose in mind, it gives us an example of how other Sith might have been recruited to the cause.

It is unfortunate that much of what makes Dooku's character interesting lies in the EU rather than the PT.

I've said this before, but in the films Dooku simply comes across as a plot device, a need to replace Darth Maul and serve as placeholder until Anakin's ready. The big important point, granted, is that he establishes that Jedi can fall to the Dark Side -- this setting up the mechanism for Anakin's turn.

I still think Dooku should have appeared in TPM; it would have been great setup for more intrigue in AOTC. Here are my original thoughts from the aforementioned thread:

I always though this kind of scene should have appeared in TPM, right after the escape from Tatooine: Qui-Gon voices his supicions to Obi-Wan, only to realize Anakin's overheard them. Qui-Gon then explains to Anakin about the New Sith War, how they had collapsed to infighting. Then have Qui-Gon conclude that if his suspicions are right, then at least one of them survived, passed on his teachings, and that the Sith have been operating under the Jedi's noses for the last ten centuries.

Even with this scene, the council meeting on Coruscant still works. If anything, I'd increase the Council's shock and outrage that Qui-Gon would even suggest that the Sith had survived. The Sith are dead -- end of discussion. We could even have some of the more conservative Masters imply that Qui-Gon may be making up the attacker, but their insinuations get derailed by the debut of the slave boy.

This also gives us an opportunity to bring Dooku into TPM. Dooku knows his former pupil is not a liar, that Maul's appearance is only confirmation of the growing darkness and that the portents of the Chosen One prophecy are coming true. Then, when Qui-Gon is killed, Dooku in grief blasts the council for not taking Qui-Gon seriously. When he realizes that they're not going to be proactive in hunting Sidious, he gives them the finger and leaves the Order, determined to find the Second Sith himself.

This sets up a little more depth for AOTC. Dooku approaches Obi-Wan on Geonosis. He reveals what Gunray told him, that the Sith control the Senate, and that he formed the CIS to fight a Sith-controlled Republic. Then we get to the end of AOTC and the twist that Dooku is the second Sith, that he went after Sidious and ended up falling under his sway. Again, there is precedence in this for LOE; Dooku did consider going after Sidious only to have Sidious approach him. And the seed of doubt has been planted in the minds of Obi-Wan and the Council so that tension will arise with the Chancellor and Senate by the time of ROTS.

[jollyreaper]

I disagree. JarJar is *the* worst idea.

There's actually a pretty convincing argument for that on account of how fucking annoying he is. However, he's ultimately just a terrible character. He doesn't actively undermine and destroy what was once good.

It's like adding CGI Jabba to A New Hope. Stupid? Yeah. Ruinously so? No. Greedo shooting first? Mickey Mouse bullshit. Luke screaming when he falls in Cloud City? Makes a deliberate attempt at suicide look like a slip and fall.

[jollyreaper]

About your idea of the dark side: it's not all emotion. Palpatine was very much in control of his emotions, only letting loose in a heat of battle. By your reasoning he was actually drawing on the light side of the Force (reason, being calm, detachment etc.). The dark side seems to be more about corruption of one's self, using the Force for selfish and destructive reasons.

Just because someone isn't screaming and ranting doesn't mean he's not acting emotionally. People have done some pretty crazy, emotional shit while putting on an outward face of icy calm.

I like the emotional difficulty that an argument in favor of the Empire creates. However, the Galactic Empire is pretty goddamn evil as is perfectly reasonable given how the movie was written. It's hard to pass something like Alderaan off as he said/she said. But there are some compelling arguments to be made in favor of a strong, centralized government, especially when you are looking at it from a position of suffering under the depredations of local strongmen. The Empire comes in, cracks some heads, and you can go about your life in peace. Don't mouth off about the Emperor and things will be fine.

There's some real potential for turmoil when you can understand things from the Empire's point of view.

About the Sith: why wouldn't someone crave power for power's sake? Power is a strong motivation. The Sith seem to be about total domination of those weaker than themselves and

I agree that power for power's sake is a perfectly sensible motivation. And if the guy with the crazy black magic powers wants you to mouth support for his religious views, you'll do it in exchange for yummy, delicious dark side mojo. You might even kill him at some point to make sure that he can't decide to kill you in turn. But do you then go and train up an apprentice in the Rule of Two tradition, telling him he gets to kill you the moment you lose a step? Hell, no.

You get some evil bastard like Cardinal Richelieu, he may be a godless evil shit in his own heart but he mouths the Church's doctrines because that's the power structure he needs to maintain his power. If priests got magic powers and the doctrine says it's all from God but there's no proof that's the case, he could very well abandon the Church and go off as Ex-Cardinal Richelieu, freelance badass. But he can't and doesn't.

It's not like the Sith Order is anything like Teutonic Knights or a religious order where people will beileve their own dogma, put faith in something greater than themselves, believe in self-sacrifice and service.

freeing oneself from any restraints. A very warped, twisted version of Nietzsche's philosophy, so it's not totally out of ordinary. And the whole point of Bane's rule of two was to make sure no destructive civil war would ensue again, making the Sith Order a splintered organization.

I think a large part of my disdain for the whole thing is with how retarded all the EU material is. It's very, very dumb and Darth Dickweed and Darth Hobo and Darth Fuckwit all ruin it for me.

It puts me in mind of a misconception I had as a kid concerning GI Joe. I'd heard of Cobra Commander and saw all the Cobra toys but hadn't quite put together he was just the guy in charge, he wasn't the totality of the Cobra threat. He wasn't a one-man army of evil, he wasn't Darth Rambo. So in my mind there was this giant GI Joe organization dedicated to stomping out this one fucking guy. "We shot down his jet fighter! Shit, he landed on a tank. The tank kicked our asses! Now he's in a jet pod shooting up our base!" Haha. The things we think of as kids. Quite silly. Except now here's this galaxy-spanning Jedi order and two jag-offs in cowls with red lightsabers are busting their asses. It's silly. Not to mention that the only other people Jedi would even fight against are other Force users and the Sith haven't even been seen openly for how many centuries? "Sith Lords are our speciality." Yeah. And this 14-year old virgin is completely sure he'll be great at sex.

It would make more sense to say "There aren't a lot of Sith but the internal competition is very fierce so if you ever encounter one, he's likely to be very, very, very good, likely a lot better than you." That's a proper threat. But the Jedi would be used to Sith lords setting up shop in the periphery, on the outskirts of civilization where their activities could escape notice. Setting up shop in the Jedi's backyard and trying to take over the whole goddamn republic is thinking so far outside the box that it's not even in the same quadrant. That's a proper, plausible mistake.

The Master's duty seems to be to indoctrinate the Apprentice and teach him or her the ways of the dark side of the Force - and the Sith Order's goal is to train an apprentice stronger than his master so that the apprentice can, in turn, become the new master by demonstrating his power (by removing the old master). The dark side feeds upon conflict and encourages it and Rule of Two simply accepts this fact and tries to make sure that it won't screw the Sith like it used to in history.

This is a question of preference. Some people like the idea of the Dark Side playing the role of an active intelligence, a tempter and seducer, a devil. I don't prefer that approach.

Excuses, people are always looking for an excuse. "I was tempted," or "it was his idea!" And the most worn-out sop of all, "the devil made me do it. This must absolve me of all guilt." Nonsense! You do nothing more than what you desire, and all the more Satan can provide is a rationalization. We find it comforting to make evil a personified agent outside of us, acting upon us, as implacable as a storm. "Oh, I am wet! Curse that dratted storm!" God forbid if anyone else expects you to have enough sense to come in out of the rain! I think the most terrifying thing for man to believe is that the choice between good and evil is his own; that the desire comes from within, the sin is committed by his hand, and the consequence is born by his soul. Satan is not his accomplice, bears no complicity, he is simply the jailer.

[jollyreaper]

On the practical fail, how can we have an unbroken succession of Sith after Sith, master and apprentice? Do people not die unexpectedly in accidents? Are there no car crashes, starship wrecks, dropping dead from a disease? If it's a master and a group of apprentices, I could buy that. Master dies, apprentices fight to establish dominance, new dark lord. You could get by with a small number. But just two? Impractical.

Sure, people die unexpectedly in accidents. That doesn't mean clairvoyant, hyperagile, telekinetic Sith Lords die unexpectedly in accidents.

Well, that does raise a good question. A villain like the Joker can only work in the comics because he's implausible in the real world. Real world villains don't escape from supermax prisons. He's not going to be pulling off these elaborate crimes with homemade superscience weapons and so forth. And especially for crap like the Ledger Joker pulled, nobody could possibly have that level of coordination, planning, and preternatural timing.

Now you go and give him magic powers expressly and explicitly and maybe it feels a little less crazy.

Still, just how much control does a Sith lord possibly have? How much foreknowledge? Can he anticipate traffic accidents, natural disasters, random muggings, etc? I could see a few of the Sith lords deciding that it's better to train up one really good apprentice rather than put together a school but the whole idea of "and you have to kill me the moment you can" just can't come across as anything but stupid.

Your apprentice doesn't have to do exactly as you say, they just have to do as you say enough of the time to make them worthwhile. There is nothing inherently unreasonable about the idea that a single apprentice is the "sweet spot" at which a Sith Lord's ability to project power is increased without putting himself at undue risk of backstabbing if he's personally strong enough.

But what purpose is there for a Sith lord to tell his apprentice that he must try to kill his master the moment he thinks he can?

When Palpy was tempting Luke to strike him down, he wasn't actually saying "Wow, I'm totally willing to trade my life for the corrupting of Young Skywalker." No. When Luke struck, Vader's saber saved Palpy. Palpy was willing to trade Vader for Skywalker but that's because he'd be happy with a stronger apprentice. (Incidentally, the whole Rule of Two thing completely invalidates all the EU shit with the Emperor training all these different Force users. It confirms the original impression that Palpy and Vader were the only two Force users left in the Empire.)

The very idea that a Sith lord would want an apprentice to strike him down when he became weak is confirming the idea that they care about anything other than themselves which seems to fly in the face of Sith ideology towards total self-service.

I tend to think of Sith recruitment like going to work for Gordon Gecko. "I'm the king of Wall Street. I will teach you how to make money. I will teach you how to make fucktons of money. You do what I say, accept my training, accept my wisdom, we will go far. Do not try to fuck me because you will only end up fucking yourself. I'll personally snap off your dick and cram it up your ass to drive home this point." Sith loyalty could be compared to the Mafia idea of omerta. Works for a while but the truism of "no loyalty among thieves" holds true in the end.

Recruit an apprentice because it's useful to have smart and ruthless lieutenants? Absolutely. Trust in greed and enlightened self-interest to keep him bound to you? Brilliant. Use the temptation of becoming as big as you, as great as you, maybe even toppling you to keep him hooked? Fuck, yeah. Maybe even play into the ego of seeming weaker and making him think he's getting all your secrets and can then kill you when you have more use. Yeah. Make him feel like he's a big shit. Then slap him down and teach him who's King Sith of Sith Hill? Yeah, like a boss. Actually mean it with this Rule of Two thing? WTF?

[jollyreaper]

The idea of Luke unifying dark and light works better when you consider that light and dark are essentially Yin and Yang from what Yoda describes them as in the OT's look at Jedi thought. Yin, the heavenly aspect, is bright and rational; Yang, the earthly aspect is dark and emotional; both are essential for a human being, and keeping them in balance is essential to psychological health. The movie makes this subtle, though, and the PT at least tries to communicate this with Anakin in ROTS.

That's kind of what I was getting at above. You have the original oriental philosophy Lucas was cribbing from but I'm not entirely sure how much of it he explicitly meant to bring into the Star Wars mythology.

Overall, the prequels aren't filled with big and bad ideas, but with shoddy executions and little bad ideas.

I'm actually rather curious how the prequels would have looked if he'd moved directly into filming them after Jedi instead of waiting. The Skywalker timeline is really hard to retcon along with the original timeline of the Empire but there's a lot of good material in the fall of a republic, the rise of an evil empire and eventual redemption. And the redemption of a fallen father can work as a metaphor for the redemption of the jedi as well as the republic.

The original Star Wars scripts, the Journal of the Whills stuff, that was some heinous shit. Han Solo a big, green troll, C3PO as a sleazy used car salesman, awful. Actually, you could make the argument that the prequels are truer to Lucas' original vision than the original trilogy ever was.

[jollyreaper]

So that's one guy who's blatantly not in it just for the sake of power, another guy who vaguely seems devoted to the Sit Order itself, and two guys who use saving the galaxy as a recruiting method. The evidence doesn't really support the Sith all being pure greedy bastards, even though they are arrogant and evil. All six moves are extremely vague about their intentions, because for all intents and purposes they're black-and-white bad guys in an action film. But if I had to guess, the Sith see the Dark Side as the one true path to power, and the only way to fulfill one's full potential. They probably see themselves, the select enlightened few, as the only ones who are strong and thus deserving enough to properly rule the galaxy.

I intensely dislike the prequels.

I agree with the sentiment that if Maul was supposed to be an important badass, he should have been around until the final movie and croaked in some memorable fashion. As it stands he had no good lines, no good scenes, just a semi-decent fight and premature death.

Count Dookie made little sense in everything I've seen. Why would Palpy take another apprentice so soon, have him doing such big things, and discard him so easily? It's like "Well, a sith lord needs an apprentice!" but no thought was put into the character.

I like Vader's temptation as guessed at from the original movies but hate the prequels and everything they did with it down to the Darth Plague thing about saving dying people. I prefer the idea of becoming contemptuous of weak-minded fools who keep electing crony assholes to oppress them and believing a benign dictatorship is the best form of government. There would be a continuing process of rationalization to the point at which he could see force-choking incompetent admirals as serving the greater good. It's the dangerous arrogance of total power.

This sort of thing follows the thought experiment of "Could you smother a baby in the cradle? What if it was baby Hitler?" And if what you're doing really is the truth, it could all feel justified. It only falls apart when you realize you're all wrong. "Time travel doesn't exist! How could that have been baby Hitler? That was the neighbors' kid and they're black! No, there's no such fucking thing as Black Hitler!"

I like the idea of some people coming to the Dark Side because they're simply about raw power and other people bullshitting themselves into thinking that they're justified in using any means necessary. This is how you can have heroes and sociopaths on the same side and the hero eventually wonders if he's with the baddies. "We've got skulls on our hats!"

[jollyreaper]

I've said this before, but in the films Dooku simply comes across as a plot device, a need to replace Darth Maul and serve as placeholder until Anakin's ready. The big important point, granted, is that he establishes that Jedi can fall to the Dark Side -- this setting up the mechanism for Anakin's turn.

I like some of the ideas brought up in the prequel thread. I'm pretty much of the opinion that anything actually invented for the prequels needs to be thrown out and only the implied needs of the prequels should have been elaborated on.

I would take the more heretical view of saying they should have avoided prequels altogether. If anything, there should have been three more post-Jedi movies and the prequel story could have been told in flashback "act 0" segments like the "How Indiana Jones got his hat" scene in Last Crusade.

Prequels are boring. We already know the gist of what's supposed to happen. Split the story to be before each of the three sequels. Luke's new Jedi Order faces a challenge in the formation of the New Republic. The flashbacks help us understand how a great Jedi hero could fall to darkness and give contex to his redemption. The new story has the adventure and fun of the originals while also dipping a toe in the heavy themes that fell into the originals.

The primary sin of the prequels is not being fun. You can call them ponderous, joyless, poorly-paced, lacking in purpose and meaning, but those are all a lot of words that could just as easily be summarized as "not fun."

[Abacus]

I disagree. JarJar is *the* worst idea.

I hate JarJar with a passion. If he had been left behind in TPM then it would have been fine, but Lucas had to keep around for god knows what reasons and then tried to justify his position by making him a senatorial aide and making him responsible for giving Palpatine his emergency powers...*rageface*

[Bakustra]

Jar-Jar is the protagonist of TPM (Anakin is a semi-protagonist). He undergoes virtually the same arc Luke does in ANH- he goes from provincial to military hero. But this is obliterated by his slapstick portrayal, which keeps him static even though he's meant to be dynamic. This put the rest of the prequels off the rails, because his role was cut off and nothing came in to replace it, leaving a weakness throughout.

[jollyreaper]

If you're doing a prequel and it's going to be about Vader, then Anakin has to be the Luke. You can't have anyone else in that role. Therefore the only question left is whether he gets a Han or a Chewie as a close friend. He's already got Obi-Wan for the Obi role. Why a friend? Because someone has to die to cement the fall, a cross-the-line moment that has real meaning.

You know, if Lucas really wanted to fuck with us, he could have had the Jedi Vader kill his closest friend Anakin Skywalker. And Luke is all like "WTF Obi? Yoda?" And Ben's like "Yeah, I lied about the lying part. It's boring being a Force ghost and you're the only one who can see me. I have to get my kicks somehow." And Lucas would say "Obi-Wan lied first. It's the way I've always envisioned it but I'd previously lacked the technology to kick your childhood in the nuts hard enough to leave you emotionally sterile."

[Havok]

Not continuing with the Jar-Jar/Anakin friendship.
Killing Maul and the resulting cardboard characters that themselves only got one movie and no time for development.
The way the Clone Wars were presented and handled.

[Jim Raynor]

A protagonist is a "leading actor" or a "principal character." That is not Jar Jar. He's a supporting character meant for comic relief. He's no more the leading character than Padme is, and Padme has a more defined arc and change than him.

[Bakustra]

A protagonist is a "leading actor" or a "principal character." That is not Jar Jar. He's a supporting character meant for comic relief. He's no more the leading character than Padme is, and Padme has a more defined arc and change than him.

Wrong. Jar-Jar goes from being a provincial kid to being a military hero by the end of the film, and he is critical to the first and third acts, while Anakin is critical to the second and third acts. Padme, meanwhile, barely has an arc. She bows down to Boss Nass, but we really don't have enough insight into her character before this to really get the sense that this is different from how she would otherwise act, seeing as literally every other action she takes is based on her deep love for Naboo's people and her willingness to do anything to protect them. Anakin also barely undergoes discernible change throughout the movie, though this may also be the fault of the script. Obi-wan undergoes some change, but not really a whole lot- at the end, there is nothing to suggest that he appreciates Jar-Jar any more, and only a little for Anakin. Qui-gon is static, as befits his mentor status. R2 and 3PO? Don't make me laugh.

PS: Try reading my posts next time, GMC Jimmy.

[Jim Raynor]

A protagonist is a "leading actor" or a "principal character." That is not Jar Jar. He's a supporting character meant for comic relief. He's no more the leading character than Padme is, and Padme has a more defined arc and change than him.

Wrong.

I love how immediately confrontational you are. BTW, I will not be wasting time arguing this with you over the ensuing weeks/months/year, because good luck convincing anyone that Jar Jar is the main character of the movie around which the plot and action are centered.

Look up "protagonist" in a dictionary, encyclopedia, or book. Hell, google the word. There's a pretty strong consensus that it's the main character.

Jar-Jar goes from being a provincial kid to being a military hero by the end of the film, and he is critical to the first and third acts, while Anakin is critical to the second and third acts.

You draw a superficial similarity between Jar Jar and Luke's plight in ANH (poor kid who becomes hero) and then just declare him the protagonist. Never mind that he doesn't take part in any of the fights, until the end when he bumbles through just one of four sub-battles. Never mind that Qui-Gon, or pretty much anyone else but Jar Jar, takes the lead in virtually every scene. Never mind that aside from a few stupid physical gags here and there, Jar Jar basically sits around or follows.

Jar Jar's "critical" contribution to the first act is simply showing Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan the Gungan city. He then shuts up while Qui-Gon gets the Gungan submarine, in which he sits in the backseat doing nothing. He follows the Jedi as they kill battledroids, again doing nothing. He sits in the Royal Starship and watches the repair droids go out, while other people get all the real lines that explain and drive the scene. He tags along and does nothing as Qui-Gon goes around Tatooine looking for ship parts.

Padme, meanwhile, barely has an arc. She bows down to Boss Nass, but we really don't have enough insight into her character before this to really get the sense that this is different from how she would otherwise act, seeing as literally every other action she takes is based on her deep love for Naboo's people and her willingness to do anything to protect them.

We see multiple scenes of Padme staring helplessly, not having anything to say or do in response to the overwhelming situations around her. We are flat out told that she's young, naive, and incapable. We see Qui-Gon, otherwise the nicest adult character in the movie, basically dismissing everything she has to say on Tatooine. We see her helpless before the Senate's corruption. Padme finally decides to stop being pushed and pulled by others and just take charge herself, planning and then leading the successful missionto capture the Trade Fed Viceroy. She's a supporting character but the movie is very clear about what happens to her.

Anakin also barely undergoes discernible change throughout the movie, though this may also be the fault of the script. Obi-wan undergoes some change, but not really a whole lot- at the end, there is nothing to suggest that he appreciates Jar-Jar any more, and only a little for Anakin. Qui-gon is static, as befits his mentor status. R2 and 3PO? Don't make me laugh.

Qui-Gon is static because his story is about resisting pressure to change and yield to the Jedi Council. He holds his ground and stands up for what he believes in, and at the end of the movie he's partially successful in death because he gets the Jedi to accept Anakin. Him being a mentor to someone else doesn't automatically mean he can't be a protagonist, as you have so arbitrarily declared.

But keep on arguing that Jar Jar is the movie's main man.

EDIT: I don't know what "GMC" is, so I looked it up. I sure as hell hope it's not what I found. Take it easy, ok?

[Bakustra]

Why is the General Motors Corporation so frightening to you? Is this some sort of Freudian childhood trauma?

[Jim Raynor]

Yeah, I see you're just trying to troll me like the last go-around. But yeah, you're totally right. For following around and silently sitting in a bunch of scenes (between stupid jokes), Jar Jar is the story's main character.

HINT: Look up urban dictionary people. What a sicko!

[Bakustra]

GMC Jimmy



Really, I think you jumping to whatever sexual conclusions you came to says more about you than about me (namely, that you are desperately pining away but your grotesque fetishes always leave you rejected). I would suggest some sort of psychotherapeutic help with your clear sexual hang-ups. Not that it would get you into my pants, of course, but it might allow you to get into someone else's in the future.

[Darth Yan]

honestly, I'm with Jim. how is he fantisizing about you?