StarDestroyer.Net BBS

A mother with children doesn't just die on them. That is stupid and utterly retarded. and the midichlorians don't cause the force. There is a different between escapism and fucking bullshit, and a mother loosing the will to live DESPITE HAVING TWO CHILDREN WHO NEED HER IS FUCKING BULLSHIT.

This cartoon from Bigger Than Cheese sums up my feelings about that scene:

Indeed, that scene was totally lame and hurt the film over all. And it was a good film. It also gave rise, due to it's vagueness to silliness like "Anakin was sapping her life using the Force to keep himself alive" crap that's just as bad. Now if Anakin had seriously hurt her so much that Obi had to put her on life support to what ever way station the kids were born at, that would have been fine. Or perhaps if Anakin had tossed her in or near some lava so that she suffered the same searing pain and burning he would soon go through...

Or new thought; if he had not knocked her out but he and Obi Wan had fought around her and at the end when Obi Wan 'won' and walked away, Padme can to try to pull Anakin up the embankment to safety and was burned horribly enough that Obi Wan rescued her and not Anakin and flew her to where ever it was where the kids where born, it would make more sense.

Well, I was planning on posting my two cents earlier, but never got around to it.

To start: No Jar Jar, no Gungans, no Tatoonine, no Great Weapon/Death Star

The Clone Wars are a series of small conflicts, already underway when the movie begins. The Republic is trying to hold everything together in spite of these conflicts when a new group, the Separatists (a coalition of the aforementioned smaller groups) threatens to tear the Republic apart. Droids are used by all sides, but clones are also used both as soldiers and support. (i.e., clones, not battledroids manning positions on starships.) Droid armies are also more intimidating and terminator like than goofy with cute voices. This goes for Grievous as well. And kinda like we see prejudice towards droids, prejudice towards clones also exits; i.e., their seen as little more than biological droids.

Sith are active and openly known (and none of this only two shit), acting as mercenaries; although their actions are under the direction of a Sith Lord (guess who ) who is trying to manipulate things to his advantage.

Anakin should be a young Padawan or even a Jedi Knight at the beginning of TPM, but has a dark past that is only alluded to. Qui Gon is his mentor, and found him under similar circumstance to TPM, only a bit darker; i.e., family was killed in the Clone Wars and Anakin saw a fair share of brutality. Yet he is immensely strong in the Force and his incredible drive, hard work, and natural talent has allowed him to not only quickly catch up, but to surpass students his age. He is in essence a prodigy. Yet his past still haunts him and he suffers from some PTSD and related anger management issues. As a result, he keeps driving himself harder and harder as if he’s running from something, and of course it’s his past which haunts him. He’s also trying to do good things, but finds that real world complications often hamper and water down simple straightforward solutions, hence his leaning towards a more authoritarian bent.

Qui Gon, Anakin’s primary anchor, gets killed early in the first movie and then Anakin and Padme develop a secret romance.

Obi Wan would know both Qui Gon and Anakin, but would have been primarily trained under Yoda, per his line in ESB. He’s already friends with Anakin, and after Qui Gon’s death, being ranked senior to Anakin; Obi Wan tries fill in for Qui Gon, but fails.

Padme would be young, but have a shit load of responsibility heaped on to her; hence the romance with Anakin would be a distraction from her stressful life. I also say avoid the hospital scene by having Anakin not knowing about her being pregnant, and have her run from him and have the babies in secret. Then he accidentally kills her later in a rage, which helps finally push him over the edge.
And that's all I really got.

Jim Raynor wrote:You said that you would get to explaining how the Jedi's adherence to doctrine was "artificial," and then you don't.

It's artificial as in contrived; nothing in the OT suggests the Jedi were so rigidly averse to attachments or relationships, and so the sudden appearance of this idea in the PT comes across as just a silly excuse to throw an obstacle in front of the Anakin/Padme romance. It also creates an entirely artificial reason for permanently separating Anakin and his mother, (granting the usual apologetic that this Jedi doctrine was the reason nobody ever made a trivial 2-hour trip over to Tatooine to save Shmi from a life of slavery). The Jedi come off as so ridiculously inhumane that the whole Jedi order turns into a contrived plot device to drive Anakin towards the Dark Side. Also, this makes me wonder why I should be cheering for their eventual "return" in Return of the Jedi.

In the OT, the Jedi struggle was about peace and discipline versus the "quick and easy path" of anger and violence. There was none of this pseudo-Buddhist crap about the dangers of emotional attachments. The closest thing you have to that in the OT is Yoda warning Luke against going to Cloud City to save his friends, but that was merely to ensure that Luke completed his training.

Jim Raynor wrote:

Channel72 wrote:No, my big gripe is that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side is not a direct result of any tragic character flaw; rather it is triggered by Palpatine's planting a dream in Anakin's head, deceiving him into becoming a Sith.

He's clearly already turning to the Dark Side by AOTC, with that whole thing about slaughtering an entire village out of vengeance and rage.

The point is that ultimately he was duped into joining the Sith. He didn't make a straightforward decision. And the slaughter in AOTC is yet another example of Lucas's erratic mishandling of Anakin's fall from grace. The slaughter in AOTC is supposed to foreshadow and mirror Anakin's rampage in ROTS, but ultimately the AOTC slaughter is so heinous that it itself should be enough to safely plant Anakin in "villain territory", despite the fact that he's still thematically the "good-guy" for the rest of AOTC and half of ROTS.

The "symmetry" is Luke being in control of his emotions, while Anakin wasn't. And I don't see how the significance of Luke's actions are lessened, when his father was plotting against Palpatine as early as ROTS, and was running around evil for decades up to that point.

Star Wars is ultimately about good and evil. Being in control of your emotions versus giving in to anger and violence is a part of this, but what's important is good versus evil. Anakin's turn to evil doesn't properly mirror Luke's rejection of evil, because Luke knowingly and actively refused evil, whereas Anakin was more or less tricked into embracing the Sith ideology. Anakin should have ultimately submitted to Palpatine because he thought the Dark Side was a better way to obtain power and control, not because A) he bought into Palpatine's bullshit about preventing people from dying and B) he just accidentally murdered a Jedi master, and didn't really have anyone else to turn to.

Anakin is not "tricked" into being evil. He's manipulated into evil with false promises, but he still makes the evil choice. That's like saying someone was merely tricked into becoming a criminal for a cash reward that doesn't exist, when the point is he decided to go bad for money.

Yeah, he makes a choice; a choice which is severely diluted by other factors, and thus not as compelling as it should have been.

Furthermore, you've taken this whole thing about characters having to make a "straightforward choice" too far, in contradiction to the actual material. One of Star Wars's major themes is the need to resist fear, hate and anger; emotions that are insidious and can take control of you if you're not careful. The Jedi and the Force are metaphors for real people and their emotions. It is made clear in the original trilogy that just as a Jedi can use the Force, the Force can also control a Jedi. This is much more likely with the Dark Side, which thrives on a person losing control and giving himself over to the Force. Yoda states that once you go down the Dark path, "forever will it dominate your destiny." We're led to believe that Luke, who has NO reason to follow Palpatine and never had 1% of the emotional problems that Anakin did, was in serious danger of turning to the Dark Side and joining the Emperor. Simply by getting pissed off while being emotionally manipulated by Vader and the Emperor.
That's right, Luke was being manipulated as well.

Again, Star Wars is about good and evil; negative versus positive emotions is merely a part of that. And Luke was not manipulated in a way that compares at all to the extent of Anakin's manipulation. Nobody lied to Luke; Luke confronted Vader and the Emperor knowing full well they were attempting to convert him. It's not like Palpatine lied and planted a dream in his head about Leia dying or something.

In fact, the point you bring up here is interesting; the OT led us to believe that there was a serious danger of Luke turning to the Dark Side, and Luke didn't have any of the disadvantages Anakin faced. It makes one wonder why exactly Lucas felt the need to come up with such an elaborate, contrived reason for Anakin to turn to the Dark Side. You'd think that going through a war and seeing the Republic fall apart around him would be enough to make Anakin yearn for power and control. So why all the manipulation bullshit?

The fear of loss, of his wife of all people, gives Anakin a much more personal motivator. The Dark Side has long been established as running off of emotion. Luke and Leia require a dead mother anyway.

Padme can die in any number of dramatically acceptable ways that don't involve diluting Anakin's decision to turn to the Dark Side. It also doesn't help that the two of them really have no on-screen chemistry.

Jim Raynor wrote:

Channel72 wrote:I know fathers and sons aren't always on the best of terms. But at the end of the day the filmmaker is responsible for leaving the audience with an impression. I certainly didn't get the impression that Anakin and Obi-Wan really liked each other after watching TPM or AOTC.

You admit the validity of what I have said about father/son relationships, then you just fall back on "impression." If your impression doesn't follow many cases of reality or even other movies, then your impression isn't well-founded.

Because ultimately this is what makes or breaks a movie: the impression it leaves on the audience. Any movie about a father/son relationship will ultimately try to do one of two things: 1) show that, at the end of the day, the father is truly a good man who loves his son, or 2) show that the father is a hopeless, abusive asshole (like DeNiro in This Boy's Life) whom the son will eventually have to overcome.

AOTC does neither of these things. It shows Anakin and Obi-Wan at odds with each other, but there's no resolution. Barring a couple of moments in the elevator, the two just don't seem to really like each other, and nothing ever happens to change this. Nothing happens to change their relationship or allow them to grow together in some way. They fight Dooku together, but at that point the movie is so wrapped up in the plot that their relationship isn't really important anymore. Then ROTS comes around and the two are suddenly great friends. It's really absurd.

Again, the problem is that there was no time to develop their relationship, because Anakin was a stupid kid in TPM, and AOTC had to focus on the Anakin/Padme romance. TPM should have been about adult Anakin meeting Obi-Wan, and their developing friendship. That way, when Anakin betrays Obi-Wan in ROTS, it would really hurt.

Channel72 wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:You said that you would get to explaining how the Jedi's adherence to doctrine was "artificial," and then you don't.

It's artificial as in contrived; nothing in the OT suggests the Jedi were so rigidly averse to attachments or relationships, and so the sudden appearance of this idea in the PT comes across as just a silly excuse to throw an obstacle in front of the Anakin/Padme romance.

The only Jedi we ever saw in the original trilogy was an old hermit living in the deserts of Tatooine, and an old hermit living in the swamps of Dagobah. Neither of whom had actually been acting as Jedi for twenty years. Both of them mellowed out by years of defeat and seclusion, with which they could reflect on their past mistakes. Both of them still adhering to doctrine about how easy it is to succumb to the Dark Side, and how it will "forever dominate your destiny" if you so much as start down that road. With both of them being proven wrong by the end.

It also creates an entirely artificial reason for permanently separating Anakin and his mother, (granting the usual apologetic that this Jedi doctrine was the reason nobody ever made a trivial 2-hour trip over to Tatooine to save Shmi from a life of slavery). The Jedi come off as so ridiculously inhumane that the whole Jedi order turns into a contrived plot device to drive Anakin towards the Dark Side. Also, this makes me wonder why I should be cheering for their eventual "return" in Return of the Jedi.

You know, I didn't even bring this up the last time this issue came up, but in real life, government agencies are not in the business of using government funds for the personal benefits of their members, especially if it involves non-citizens who don't even live in their own territory. The US Military has plenty of members with family members who are poor or in need, or stuck living like crap in the old country. They don't get handouts. Plenty of soldiers themselves run into dire financial problems without getting the help they need.

But then we had people here saying that the Jedi should have bought off Shmi...basically using government funds to finance human trafficking. In real life, a government official who buys off a slave you will be prosecuted. Even if it's for good intentions, the money you put into the system ends up getting funneled back into buying more slaves.

Or maybe the Jedi could go there and just take Shmi away by force, without paying. Great, now they've gone to a non-Republic world to screw around with someone else's property, that he legally owns since Republic laws don't apply there. Probably running afoul of the Hutt crime cartels there that run the slavery business, who might get concerned that the Republic is trying to liberate all slaves there. And who might possibly retaliate against the Jedi/Republic.

A real life government or military organization would tell Anakin that they're not going to get involved in his personal matter. The Jedi have grounds to tell him that it's simply not their problem. This isn't even getting into how overstretched and busy the Jedi are handling crises all over the galaxy, which is run by a Republic government so weak and gridlocked that it can't even defend its own member worlds. Or the Jedi's own doctrines against attachment. It would be viewed as corrupt and selfish for the Jedi to spend resources and effort freeing a relatively well-off house slave, and take on all the associated risks that I mentioned above, when they could and should be directing those efforts into protecting the Republic's interests.

He didn't make a straightforward decision. And the slaughter in AOTC is yet another example of Lucas's erratic mishandling of Anakin's fall from grace. The slaughter in AOTC is supposed to foreshadow and mirror Anakin's rampage in ROTS, but ultimately the AOTC slaughter is so heinous that it itself should be enough to safely plant Anakin in "villain territory", despite the fact that he's still thematically the "good-guy" for the rest of AOTC and half of ROTS.

You simply state that Anakin was "thematically the 'good guy'" for those movies when the entire point of AOTC and ROTS was to show him going wrong and turning to the Dark Side. Then there are those other people who say that they thought Anakin just flip-flopped into evil too quickly in ROTS...well, which one is it?

Star Wars is ultimately about good and evil. Being in control of your emotions versus giving in to anger and violence is a part of this, but what's important is good versus evil.

Emotional control IS the theme of Star Wars, made so blatant that it is stated outright onscreen. Can you even describe this "good and evil" thing you've made up? That is so basic, so vague, that any movie with a villain and a hero is about it. It doesn't say anything different.

Anakin's turn to evil doesn't properly mirror Luke's rejection of evil, because Luke knowingly and actively refused evil, whereas Anakin was more or less tricked into embracing the Sith ideology. Anakin should have ultimately submitted to Palpatine because he thought the Dark Side was a better way to obtain power and control, not because A) he bought into Palpatine's bullshit about preventing people from dying and B) he just accidentally murdered a Jedi master, and didn't really have anyone else to turn to.

You have completely invented this requirement for Anakin to "mirror" Luke by making a "straightforward" (which I can only guess means "completely independent, free from any emotional prodding) decision to turn evil instead of turning good. When the fact is that in ROTJ, Luke's situation was that he was subjected to Palpatine's emotional temptations and pushed to the brink, but ultimately controlled himself and resisted Palpatine. The opposite of that is...to be tempted by Palpatine, get pushed to the brink, and succumb to the emotional temptations. Which is exactly what Anakin did.

And I've already explained how Anakin DID make his own choice to be evil, and how your argument that he was just "tricked" is off:

Anakin is not "tricked" into being evil. He's manipulated into evil with false promises, but he still makes the evil choice. That's like saying someone was merely tricked into becoming a criminal for a cash reward that doesn't exist, when the point is he decided to go bad for money.

Yeah, he makes a choice; a choice which is severely diluted by other factors, and thus not as compelling as it should have been.

[/quote]

Define "severely diluted." If you're once again talking about Anakin being "tricked," that has nothing to do with the situation. Even if Anakin was emotionally manipulated, even if he was pursuing false rewards, he STILL decided to throw away his morals and that is what counts. He STILL made decisions like "saving my wife is worth killing all the Jedi" and "I'll fix the galaxy's problems by seizing as much power I can and killing everyone who gets in my way."

In fact, the point you bring up here is interesting; the OT led us to believe that there was a serious danger of Luke turning to the Dark Side, and Luke didn't have any of the disadvantages Anakin faced. It makes one wonder why exactly Lucas felt the need to come up with such an elaborate, contrived reason for Anakin to turn to the Dark Side. You'd think that going through a war and seeing the Republic fall apart around him would be enough to make Anakin yearn for power and control. So why all the manipulation bullshit?

This part seems really funny to me, because you criticize the prequel trilogy for doing more to plausibly explain such an extreme choice as going bad deciding to kill everyone around you. When the original trilogy's example of manipulation is "get mad, you know you like it!" Palpatine offered Luke nothing; all he did was tell him how hopeless it was, and how much more powerful he would be if he embraced the Dark Side. The nearest I can figure, he probably just wanted to piss Luke off and hook him with some presumed general lust for power and "if you can't beat them, join them" line of thinking. Have you realized that someone could easily criticize the original trilogy for not doing enough when it portrayed Luke's temptation?

Because ultimately this is what makes or breaks a movie: the impression it leaves on the audience. Any movie about a father/son relationship will ultimately try to do one of two things: 1) show that, at the end of the day, the father is truly a good man who loves his son, or 2) show that the father is a hopeless, abusive asshole (like DeNiro in This Boy's Life) whom the son will eventually have to overcome.

AOTC does neither of these things. It shows Anakin and Obi-Wan at odds with each other, but there's no resolution.

Because there is nothing to resolve on that end. At no point did the movie call Obi-Wan's caring for Anakin into question. Doubting your son, or being pissed off when he does reckless things, is normal. It's everybody, in real life.

Darth Yan wrote:3.) The energy door sequence in episode 1 where qui gon and maul fought was too much like a video game. and the shadow of the empire comaparison was appropriate becaues SOTE prdates attack of the clones by 6 YEARS.

Wow. I don't give a crap about some stupid video game, and neither does anybody else who's not you, or that retarded wannabe critic "Chef Elf." That you went out to defend him, and seem to think that his vague video-game based criticisms of the movie are meaningful is just mind boggling to me. You said it yourself, Shadows of the Empire was six freaking years before the movie. People have less problems with a movie scene seeming similar to another MOVIE scene that is as far removed as six years ago. And again on that Star Fox argument, if your'e talking about SF 64, that came out in 1997, eight years before ROTS. Not that ROTS ripped it off, as I can't remember anything remotely similar to Buzz Droids in that game, but even if it did? It's eight years.

Really, of all the things you could be harping on, or choosing to defend in Chef Elf's crappy review, you choose the bizarre video game bitching?

One of the big fixes for the PT is Dooku. The EU, particularity Labyrinth of Evil, shows that while he was an elitist snob, Dooku was genuinely sick of the Jedi's stagnation and the corruption in the Senate. But in the films, he simply comes across as a plot point, a need to replace Darth Maul and serve as placeholder (though it does establish that Jedi can fall to the Dark Side). Dooku's role would play better if he had been established in TPM.

That's one of the reasons I advocate getting rid of the only two shit. Have Dooku, Maul, and even a few others operating under Sidious' direction from the start.

Temujin wrote:That's one of the reasons I advocate getting rid of the only two shit. Have Dooku, Maul, and even a few others operating under Sidious' direction from the start.

Even if the Rule of Two is changed, the Sith's backstory needs to fleshed out more in the films, particularly in TPM. Fans of the EU obviously know about Darth Bane and there's enough scraps of information across the PT to understand the basics: ancient cult long believed dead is still active and ready to kill everyone. But if you're only going with the 6 movies, then it's simply awkward.

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.

You might be able to have Dooku being a Council member who supported the training of Anakin against their wishes. Might add a bit of depth to their confrontation, with Dooku being all "the jedi didn't want to train you but I did rarrr" giving him pause to thought about maybe the Sith being misunderstood. Although really at this stage, anything would be better than the "FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE JEDI ARE EEVIL" crap.

what of his point about padme giving birth to healthy babies despite her injuries (which is utterly impossible in real life), or the babies being clumsily inserted with cgi, or the midichlorians or the nemodians (before you accuse me of being pc, my uncle who is half asian also felt the same way, and they admitted that they based watto on fagin); and padme's body language indicated that all of her rejections were rejections, and not that she liked him. If someone says your making me uncomftorable, it usually means your creeping me out. Add the non existent chemistry between christienson and portman, and it's a mess. If you think there is ambiguity to those scenes then you have obviously never talked to a girl in your life.

Answer this: If you had gone in without the knowledge that they would have wound up together, do you honestly think you would interpret the scenes as Padme being somewhat into to anakin but trying to deny it, or would you have guessed that she was rejecting him?

Jim Raynor,

Jim Raynor wrote:

Channel72 wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:You said that you would get to explaining how the Jedi's adherence to doctrine was "artificial," and then you don't.

It's artificial as in contrived; nothing in the OT suggests the Jedi were so rigidly averse to attachments or relationships, and so the sudden appearance of this idea in the PT comes across as just a silly excuse to throw an obstacle in front of the Anakin/Padme romance.

Jim Raynor wrote: The only Jedi we ever saw in the original trilogy was an old hermit living in the deserts of Tatooine, and an old hermit living in the swamps of Dagobah. Neither of whom had actually been acting as Jedi for twenty years. Both of them mellowed out by years of defeat and seclusion, with which they could reflect on their past mistakes. Both of them still adhering to doctrine about how easy it is to succumb to the Dark Side, and how it will "forever dominate your destiny" if you so much as start down that road. With both of them being proven wrong by the end.

First off, what ‘doctrine’. The Jedi Code? Says nothing about romance or the species duty to reproduce. Given there are only 10,000 Jedi to serve across a civilization numbering some 50 million planets, AND that these Jedi are themselves multi-specied, there is already something screwed up here.

Because not only are there not enough Jedi to do the job they are supposed to be able to, but there are not enough Jedi –genes- to be able to sustain the population base for a suicide generation to be levied from, every 20 years. If there were, the galaxy would be awash in Force users.

Since we never see anything but tiny-totten (Lucas’ twisted pride and joy) and one shallow, arrogant, fool-by-design (Lucas twisted conceit, held against all teens) there is also no explanation for how Jedi youth get past the _healthy_ ascendance of a sex drive without becoming ‘attached’ to other Jedi in the same age group. Or their mentors.

This is because Lucas cannot conceive of a situation where tenderness and concerted, overt (i.e. exaggerated but still honest), compassion is something that makes sexual surrender possible for both genders when they are young enough to pair bond and have each other rather than a career.

That indeed, what makes teens these days so ‘callow and self absorbed’ is perhaps that they have emotional needs not being fulfilled by rampant idiocy of the assumption: “If you’re a teenager, either you must be either an arrogant prick or a queer duck focused on extending your childhood as long as possible”.

What if, in point of truth, the innocence of childhood is –transferred- to a partner in a more adult situation for which the physical element is a natural progression WHEN you are comfortable with each other’s dependence on expressed kindness?

How now Lucas? Do you /enjoy/ pushing this non-attachment agenda?

Lucas sells a steaming heap and then tries to get you to believe that it’s a black and white answer. The answer doesn’t matter if the supposition on which it’s based is not only contrived. But viciously anti social.

Past which, yes, we only saw old Jedi. But we did see Luke and Leia. And if Anakin had kids without the very act of doing so being ‘worth mentioning’, the assumption is that other Jedi can. IF they can bond with a mate long enough to do the actual wedded-bedded-with-child period. Not even one night stand sluts just give up their looks and a 20 year commitment solely because they are into your coolness.

Jim Raynor wrote: You know, I didn't even bring this up the last time this issue came up, but in real life, government agencies are not in the business of using government funds for the personal benefits of their members, especially if it involves non-citizens who don't even live in their own territory. The US Military has plenty of members with family members who are poor or in need, or stuck living like crap in the old country. They don't get handouts. Plenty of soldiers themselves run into dire financial problems without getting the help they need.

But then we had people here saying that the Jedi should have bought off Shmi...basically using government funds to finance human trafficking. In real life, a government official who buys off a slave you will be prosecuted. Even if it's for good intentions, the money you put into the system ends up getting funneled back into buying more slaves.

Or maybe the Jedi could go there and just take Shmi away by force, without paying. Great, now they've gone to a non-Republic world to screw around with someone else's property, that he legally owns since Republic laws don't apply there. Probably running afoul of the Hutt crime cartels there that run the slavery business, who might get concerned that the Republic is trying to liberate all slaves there. And who might possibly retaliate against the Jedi/Republic.

A real life government or military organization would tell Anakin that they're not going to get involved in his personal matter. The Jedi have grounds to tell him that it's simply not their problem. This isn't even getting into how overstretched and busy the Jedi are handling crises all over the galaxy, which is run by a Republic government so weak and gridlocked that it can't even defend its own member worlds. Or the Jedi's own doctrines against attachment. It would be viewed as corrupt and selfish for the Jedi to spend resources and effort freeing a relatively well-off house slave, and take on all the associated risks that I mentioned above, when they could and should be directing those efforts into protecting the Republic's interests.

Rubbish. It’s called family reunification. And the latest person to be guilty of abusing this immigration scam (I say scam because it allows not just nuclear members but essentially an endless ‘chain’ of cousins, aunts uncles and nieces and all –their- kin to also come along for the ride, the process of which eliminates legitimate immigration by those who have waited in line for it from countries with a lot more readily assimilated populations) is no less than President Obama whose aunt got to continue living in Federally funded housing until her last court date where the Judge found that, despite being a liar about her immigration status and ‘refugee’ status, the fact that she was a celebrity’s aunt might get her killed in Kenya. In Kenya where the one ‘good thing’ they have ever produced is the man who became president. Right.

Past which, how would the Catholic Church look if the Pope’s mother was left in slavery lest an abuse of funds for the benefit of it’s primacy should be seen to occur? Uhhh, you know, I think the majority of catholics would worry more about a Pope who could leave his mom in chains than a little discrete buyoff.

He didn't make a straightforward decision. And the slaughter in AOTC is yet another example of Lucas's erratic mishandling of Anakin's fall from grace. The slaughter in AOTC is supposed to foreshadow and mirror Anakin's rampage in ROTS, but ultimately the AOTC slaughter is so heinous that it itself should be enough to safely plant Anakin in "villain territory", despite the fact that he's still thematically the "good-guy" for the rest of AOTC and half of ROTS.

I look at the slaughter of women and kids in a combat situation as being as likely their fault as Anakin’s. Do not think that being female or underage somehow insulates a soldier from being shot by civilians. And that could indeed be a huge part of his guilt in “Hating them!” because they simply would not stop coming.

It happens all the time in primitive third world countries where the savagery is so ingrained that picking up a weapon seems natural, even when the man who just dropped it died trying to count coup on an American.

In any case, this is not an unbiased situation. You had a hostage at risk and a man who didn’t have time to go get help because she’d already been gone for days and all the locals were themselves hurt.

Unlike the Arena for instance where the damn Jedi failed to MOVE when the ‘sacrifices’ were left to the animals for 5+ minutes.

Had the Tuskens not kidnapped and tortured to death a harmless old woman, they would never have had a Jedi in their camp who could not get a floppy dead body out with the same stealth as he entered.

Again, comparatively, the Jedi in the Arena had the ability to extend and escape with ease and yet –chose- to remain in a standup fight against overwhelming odds with a force of dead machines that had nothing to lose, either way.

Jim Raynor wrote: You simply state that Anakin was "thematically the 'good guy'" for those movies when the entire point of AOTC and ROTS was to show him going wrong and turning to the Dark Side. Then there are those other people who say that they thought Anakin just flip-flopped into evil too quickly in ROTS...well, which one is it?

The point is that Anakin was a hero once. He was a great pilot, a cunning warrior and a good friend. Yet he is NONE of those things here. NOT ONE.

Thus, why go to such lengths to save him in ROTJ? Particularly when it means putting the fates of nominally ‘good people’ (the entire Rebellion and by extension Galaxy) at risk for a man who was ALWAYS psychotic and simply hid his episodal outbreaks well.

Of course I was always of this opinion in terms of thinking Luke acted like a woman in tossing his saber –for emotional reasons- rather than holding onto it so that he could try to kill both Darth Daddy and the Emperor, cold.

More on this in a bit.

Jim Raynor wrote: Emotional control IS the theme of Star Wars, made so blatant that it is stated outright onscreen. Can you even describe this "good and evil" thing you've made up? That is so basic, so vague, that any movie with a villain and a hero is about it. It doesn't say anything different.

Sure. ‘Being Evil’ is when the instant reachout to violent solutions ceases to become a covert aberrance or at least situationally forced response and instead becomes preferentially habituated as a first-aggressive act of imposing ones will as much as initiative.

Jim Raynor wrote: You have completely invented this requirement for Anakin to "mirror" Luke by making a "straightforward" (which I can only guess means "completely independent, free from any emotional prodding) decision to turn evil instead of turning good. When the fact is that in ROTJ, Luke's situation was that he was subjected to Palpatine's emotional temptations and pushed to the brink, but ultimately controlled himself and resisted Palpatine. The opposite of that is...to be tempted by Palpatine, get pushed to the brink, and succumb to the emotional temptations. Which is exactly what Anakin did.

First off, I agree that Luke is just as OCD ‘impulsive’ (moronically straight jacketed) in his responses as Darth Daddy ever was. In this, Chanel is wrong.

However; because the nature of a true seduction to evil is one of time in, whether it be in the initial act or a later, final, one that creates the dependency of induced surrender to a deliberate commitment. It is a conspiracy of ‘knowing where the bodies are’ and realizing that you cannot and perhaps never could, back away from that guilt. And so you’re all in. Except that, especially given what happens next, the Jedi would never have condemned Anakin for simply saying: “No. I will not side with you in this.” And Anakin ‘the cunning warrior’ should have himself seen that, while Sidious was down and Windu stood over him, he had the upper hand to offer mercy in trade for “Whatever you have done to my wife.” As an act of a brave man with both balls still attached.

And further, because Anakin –did not- successfully pass his final trial with Windu and Sidious, it is not beyond reason to want to know less about the eating habits of Jar Jar Binks and more about the how/what/where/when the elements of that extremely unlikely ‘Anakin/Palpatine friendship’ became so strong. I myself find it a little strange that an old man has the time to form such a close ‘attachment’ to a Jedi apprentice busy with his own studies.

Lucas tried to choke us with the inane “I made you, of course I like you!” Frankenstein argument but this inevitably came off flat and unexplored itself.

Which leaves us with the actual method of turning: “You know I started this whole thing and through my actions I have also been the one ultimately responsible for the multiple attacks on your wife. You also know I mentioned the legend of Darth Plagueis specifically to allude to a means of –saving lives-. Therefore, it’s logical that you:

A. Reject everything I say, ram your light saber in my kidney and tell me ‘don’t worry, there is another’ as you start asking about which of the exotic poisons Sith are known to use (Jedi vs. Sith guide) I have been giving to your wife.

B. Accept everything I say, with no proof and in utter rejection of 10+ years of indoctrination, 4+ years of fighting on the front lines, watching your friends get brutally killed and _with a known history_ of Sith lies, manipulation and slaughter stretching back 5,000 years at least (SWTOR).

Given Padme` and Anakin have about as much vitality in their romance as King Ramses II has in his 3,500 year old mummy, I have to ask _why_? Why does Lucas expect us to choose B? Just because it pushes his plot along? Because he thinks we’re all that stupid?







And now you see where emotional layers as necessary buildup are absent in giving us a sense that it was a choice, not an urgency of stalled storyarc fulfillment, that made Anakin’s outcome seem logical rather than ‘Forced’.

As is, Anakin is shown to be the ultimate of ‘weak minded’ Jedi. Which makes no sense at all in a Force selected ‘Chosen One’.

Jim Raynor wrote: And I've already explained how Anakin DID make his own choice to be evil, and how your argument that he was just "tricked" is off:

Tricked? Maybe not. But certainly delusionally psychotic and/or moronically stupid.

The Jedi just failed to take out the Chancellor so now their next target is an even BIGGER act of treason, in going against a Senate numbering in the tens if not hundreds of thousands? And having made this choice, with all their adult warriors scattered to the wind, fighting a war that he himself was in up to his eyeballs until just a few months ago when he came home to his PREGNANT WIFE, it further makes sense to Anakin to take a walk over to the Jedi Temple and kill all the ‘if you can’t do, teach’ geezers and kids who are, in any event, utterly unable to attack anything?

Utter trash logic. Yet Anakin agrees to it for no apparent reason other than that, ‘he’s done everything else stupid’. Which is not Sidious influencing him. It’s not the Dark Side. It’s Lucas. Who realizes he’s dragged the audience so far into this traffic accident that now they are captive watchers to his puerile shit.

Lucas, who thinks that Teens are shallow, self obsessive fools. And therefore acts like one himself in having ‘his way’, irrespective of how little sense it makes for the character. Or ever has.

Jim Raynor wrote: Define "severely diluted." If you're once again talking about Anakin being "tricked," that has nothing to do with the situation. Even if Anakin was emotionally manipulated, even if he was pursuing false rewards, he STILL decided to throw away his morals and that is what counts. He STILL made decisions like "saving my wife is worth killing all the Jedi" and "I'll fix the galaxy's problems by seizing as much power I can and killing everyone who gets in my way."

Not as an act of artistic merit that explains the story as a refined expression of the human condition within it.

Sure, I can make a Chihuahua anally rape a Tyrannosaur with long enough chain of dominos, an iron skillet and a fire hydrant but even if my name IS Rube Goldberg, it’s more an act of abstraction in engineering than storytelling accomplishment.

Which is strange given this-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rVKE_O-LAw

Seems to also try and make you think Story Telling is important.

Yet Lucas doesn’t even go that far. “You, do X because I say so!” _even if_ it’s against the legitimate (established) motivations and experience of the character _based on_ Lucas’ own scenes, is not high drama. It’s simply arbitrarily enforced outcomes that straight jacket the likely responses without the vaguest hint of “But wait, I really don’t want to do this, what’s my motivation again?” acknowledgment.

In fact, the point you bring up here is interesting; the OT led us to believe that there was a serious danger of Luke turning to the Dark Side, and Luke didn't have any of the disadvantages Anakin faced. It makes one wonder why exactly Lucas felt the need to come up with such an elaborate, contrived reason for Anakin to turn to the Dark Side. You'd think that going through a war and seeing the Republic fall apart around him would be enough to make Anakin yearn for power and control. So why all the manipulation bullshit?

Jim Raynor wrote: This part seems really funny to me, because you criticize the prequel trilogy for doing more to plausibly explain such an extreme choice as going bad deciding to kill everyone around you. When the original trilogy's example of manipulation is "get mad, you know you like it!" Palpatine offered Luke nothing; all he did was tell him how hopeless it was, and how much more powerful he would be if he embraced the Dark Side. The nearest I can figure, he probably just wanted to piss Luke off and hook him with some presumed general lust for power and "if you can't beat them, join them" line of thinking. Have you realized that someone could easily criticize the original trilogy for not doing enough when it portrayed Luke's temptation?

And now we’re here. Because you see, Sidious made Luke his bitch the second Luke decided to give in to Darth Daddy rather than fight him, with or without the Rebels on Endor.

If Luke loses on the Death Star, they will either continue to torture him after the Rebels are dead. Or they will kill him because it’s easier to train a Clone from scratch than try to feralize a squeamish Jedi.

Either way, Luke has no escape.

And that’s just what every torturer is looking for. The means to ensure your victim knows him/herself that everything they believed in is gone and they have nothing left to rely on but the torturer’s own whim. Which can only happen after the battle. A battle in which both Vader and Sidious are likely to be busy coordinating forces etc.

So the fact that Luke isn’t contemplating his various stupid mistakes in a Force cage downstairs in the brig is itself ‘unnatural’.

Second, this is not the first time Luke has been at this decision point and indeed every other time his ‘acting out’ has been bad for him but generally good for those he served. i.e. Bespin and Tatooine.

Which can ultimately only be interpreted as Luke being a weak little prick who tries to be a man ‘just like’ his equally OCD daddy. But because he is the designated hero, he gets away with crap Darth Daddy is arbitrarily smacked down for. Because Anakin is not.

And then the sperm donor says ‘Sister eh? Well, maybe she won’t be so dang stubborn!’ and Luke realizes that now it’s not just himself being a free gift of continuity for a dying regime. He’s also porked his wannabe ex-squeeze, Leia. And the only coldly logical way to be sure of preventing her suffering from happening is to kill everybody _just like daddy would do_.

And he does it. But then, rather than eliminate one threat so he can concentrate on the other, he listens to Yoda as his inner girl: “Be weak, be accommodating, don’t go all out, even if they are a legitimate threat to all you believe in, lest you be victorious in a necessary slaying for triumph is the way to survival of the male!”

And this film was nothing if not an exercise in making Luke into a woman.

And so thanks to the illegitimate GUILT he is inspired to feel by Yoda’s slimeball ‘advice’ (note the ‘failure’ at the tree was also a lie on Yoda’s part, since there was a real threat there and Luke’s instincts were correct in being prepared to face it), he is now double whammied by Sidious as saying: “Yup, it’s true, all rage, even righteous, is evil, thus you can’t beat us without becoming us.”

And Luke’s solution? Not to get cold and go out trying to kill Sidious with a focused mind, like a Jedi would. Not to defend himself as best he can. Not even to ask his father if he still wants to rule the Empire together.

No. Luke’s choice, just as utterly insane as Anakin’s, is to throw ALL means of self defense away.

So once again, to fulfill an arbitrary plot point whose ‘equivalence in symmetric opposition’ is NOT TRUE (Luke looking out of a broken Vader helmet doesn’t make him Anakin, as the Prequels show, Luke actually has a functioning conscience, Anakin does things for random reasons, if any), Lucas makes the hero undertake an EVIL ACT in giving up the defense of his friends and cause.

And that is why the entire hexology is not just diluted. It’s polluted. Tainted. By one man’s utter lack of talent. And his insistence on bulling ahead in spite of the false message he’s sending. Rather than as a function of it.

Jim Raynor wrote: Because there is nothing to resolve on that end. At no point did the movie call Obi-Wan's caring for Anakin into question. Doubting your son, or being pissed off when he does reckless things, is normal. It's everybody, in real life.

Which is why the story makes no sense and –in fact hasn’t made sense- since ROTJ.

If Obiwan and Anakin have no point of bitter betrayal of a commonly held moral standard then there is even less of a reason for Obiwan to fail to tell and indeed ‘from a certain point of view’ be damned, _know the truth_: That his so-called friend was a total hoseheaded moron and psychopath, almost from the start.

Yet while a simpler: “I just can’t go that way when the route to power will solve all of these galactic problems…” explanation ultimately would have given us some roadmap for where it all went wrong with Anakin as a character and perhaps have saved him –some- dignity as a person; it ultimately is not used because it is also the correct choice for Luke in the OT. No reversal of circumstance = no mirror moment.

Which is a critical flaw, because if simply getting on with killing the bastard is the only right thing to do, then failing to acknowledge this only highlights the equally absurd obsession that Luke has with the sperm donor who was _even more_ of ‘just a stranger’ to him than he was to Obiwan.

There is no father there. Not in any of the films.

And yet, sans hand, with a twice tortured sister and in full knowledge of what a bastard Vader was –after- the fall of the Republic, Luke still crosses the line to active empowerment of evil himself.

To save a man who will kill him and his sister and doom the galaxy.

If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is.

And lying their writhing and moaning like a girl in orgasm _as he is deservedly electrocuted_ Luke’s ultimate story function is to ‘force’ Darth Daddy to show feelings which Vader also has never OT done, solely to justify saving this psychotic serial killer’s own soul. Which was always ridiculous.

Even before the Prequels.

Moral Of The OT: Be weak. Be evil. And evil will kill itself to save you as an act of good. Riiiight.

Moral Of The PT: Be weak. Be psychotically random mass murderer. Deny the obviousness of evil that even a child would see. And three decades from now, you will get a get out of jail free card for finally killing the right guy.

If it’s necessary to kill evil, it’s okay to kill evil yourself. You shouldn’t expect evil to do the job for you just because you are squeamish about being the last man standing.

CONCLUSION:
George Lucas told a lousy, immoral, story and used –labels-, poorly defined by actions, to arbitrarily excuse why one side could and another side could not do the same thing as the right thing.

And you all bought into it hook, line and sinker.


LEG

Darth Yan wrote: and padme's body language indicated that all of her rejections were rejections, and not that she liked him. If someone says your making me uncomftorable, it usually means your creeping me out. Add the non existent chemistry between christienson and portman, and it's a mess. If you think there is ambiguity to those scenes then you have obviously never talked to a girl in your life.

Answer this: If you had gone in without the knowledge that they would have wound up together, do you honestly think you would interpret the scenes as Padme being somewhat into to anakin but trying to deny it, or would you have guessed that she was rejecting him?

That is not a case of bad writing so much as bad acting. The prequels have the first, but the second is far more pronounced. seriously if the actors = not suck than I do not doubt that most of the prequels woes could have been ignored. But Chirstienson is just awful in any emotional role (he isn't bad in the lighthearted moments). And Portman was cast wrong, she was a gamble in such an important part of the movies and as such would have been better cast in a supporting role with a more experienced actor in the role of Queen. (I don't actually know of anyone who could have done it better, but that is more a lack of Hollywood knowledge than anything else.)

As for what I think was actually wrong with the prequels writing, mostly TPM was a waste of time. The act structure is too similar to RotJ (not a bad movie, but definitely the finale of a series) and needed to be reworked. Similarities to ANH are not bad either. I agree that a young Anakin was probably a bad choice, not because of the romance, but because as a youth his role can not be great and will always feel strained. (ie: why couldn't a jedi do the podrace scene? or why couldn't the space battle have had a better climax?). But I also do not want Anakin to be too grownup, the movies need to shape him and he needs the room to grow. So I would have him be a 14 year old, part of a peoples resistance after the TF invades. (This also gives shades of similarity to Luke as a freedom fighter.) As for Padme, I like the fact that she is just more experienced than skywalker and don't have a specific complaint about her age so she would move up in age only to 17. What I disapprove of completely is pussying out and making her an elected Queen, it doesn't make any damn sense to combine those terms and it is just stupid for a populace to elect someone so young. Thus she is still queen, not elected, but hereditary who has recently been put into regency. Also the villains throughout the trilogy are bland and one shots throughout the movies; only Sideous is constant and while that is interesting in a literary sense it falls behind on audience caring about the movie. Grievous would work in the role of a continued villain who is not sith.

Of course all this makes me want to actually follow through and do TPM my way and I really shouldn't give in to that temptation.

tl;dr don't mess up the opener and the rest of the trilogy will work better, Also having good actors is a necessity not anything less.

Jim Raynor wrote:The only Jedi we ever saw in the original trilogy was an old hermit living in the deserts of Tatooine, and an old hermit living in the swamps of Dagobah. Neither of whom had actually been acting as Jedi for twenty years. Both of them mellowed out by years of defeat and seclusion, with which they could reflect on their past mistakes. Both of them still adhering to doctrine about how easy it is to succumb to the Dark Side, and how it will "forever dominate your destiny" if you so much as start down that road. With both of them being proven wrong by the end.

Firstly, Luke became a Jedi in the OT, and until ROTJ revealed the identity of his sister there was a serious possibility that Luke and Leia would become romantically involved. There was no indication that this would interfere with Luke's Jedi training. Secondly, you're just arguing that the Prequel Jedi doctrine is plausible in light of what we saw in the Original Trilogy. This doesn't address the original criticism, which is that the overtly rigid Prequel Jedi doctrine served no real dramatic purpose other than to throw an obstacle in front of the Anakin/Padme romance, and provide Anakin with emotional problems. It provided an easy way for Lucas to move the plot along, without having to generate believable human interactions.

It's trivially easy to demonstrate this by simply juxtaposing the Han/Leia romance with the Anakin/Padme romance, noting all the deliberately manufactured external factors which drive the latter romance, as opposed to the rather natural evolution of the former. The Han/Leia romance relies only on situations which are already integral to the plot (Vader's pursuit of the Falcon) along with the actors' natural chemistry. The Anakin/Padme romance however, is driven by deliberately manufactured external factors which don't arise naturally from the circumstances. The Jedi order happens to be so rigid that they don't allow any romantic attachments, and Anakin of all people is chosen to go off on a romantic Tuscany getaway with Padme. This is the very definition of contrived, as in deliberately manufactured rather than arising naturally from the circumstances.

You know, I didn't even bring this up the last time this issue came up, but in real life, government agencies are not in the business of using government funds for the personal benefits of their members, especially if it involves non-citizens who don't even live in their own territory. The US Military has plenty of members with family members who are poor or in need, or stuck living like crap in the old country. They don't get handouts. Plenty of soldiers themselves run into dire financial problems without getting the help they need.

Firstly, the Jedi order is supposed to be an elite group of warrior philosophers, not some ordinary wing of the military. Many organizations, such as businesses and universities, do provide the means for foreign employees/students to bring over their families. Secondly, Anakin is not some ordinary student. He's literally the Christ-Jedi, destined to bring balance to the Force, and his midichlorian count provides empirical proof that he's potentially the most powerful Jedi in history. Which, by the way, seems to be a fact that barely interests the Jedi order at all, since they assign him to be trained by an ordinary rookie like Obi-Wan.

But then we had people here saying that the Jedi should have bought off Shmi...basically using government funds to finance human trafficking. In real life, a government official who buys off a slave you will be prosecuted. Even if it's for good intentions, the money you put into the system ends up getting funneled back into buying more slaves.

The Jedi are not some ordinary wing of the government. They have no precise real-life analogue; they're more like an independently run but government sponsored Church, which also provides police-like services due to their superhuman powers. If anything, they're like a combination of Samurai, the Franciscan order, and a more benevolent version of the Mutaween in Saudi Arabia. You can't possibly say that they'd be unable to purchase Shmi without getting into legal trouble, especially since Qui-Gon tried to purchase her anyway. (Yes, I know he's a "maverick" and all that, but there's no indication he would get into trouble if he had purchased her.) Finally, real-life churches attempt to rescue Southeast-Asian sex slaves all the time.

Or maybe the Jedi could go there and just take Shmi away by force, without paying. Great, now they've gone to a non-Republic world to screw around with someone else's property, that he legally owns since Republic laws don't apply there. Probably running afoul of the Hutt crime cartels there that run the slavery business, who might get concerned that the Republic is trying to liberate all slaves there. And who might possibly retaliate against the Jedi/Republic.

And yet there's so much real-world precedent for this sort of thing that your objections are pointless. The United States interferes in the affairs of third-world countries all the time with little fear of reprisal. And in the Star Wars universe, I doubt the Hutts present a serious threat to the Republic.

Besides, Shmi is not some ordinary rescue target; she's the mother of the man with the highest midichlorian count in history. You'd think the Jedi council would want to speak with her, if only to understand the circumstances behind Anakin's miraculous conception. But then, this just further highlights the erratic and contrived writing here; the Jedi never seem to really care that much about Anakin and his off-the-chart midichlorians anyway.

You simply state that Anakin was "thematically the 'good guy'" for those movies when the entire point of AOTC and ROTS was to show him going wrong and turning to the Dark Side. Then there are those other people who say that they thought Anakin just flip-flopped into evil too quickly in ROTS...well, which one is it?

The writing is so erratic that both impressions are valid. In AOTC he's a bit troubled, but then goes way overboard and slaughters an entire village. Then this heinous act is basically ignored for the rest of the film, as Anakin engages in standard good-guy heroics on Geonosis. Then in ROTS, Anakin has matured significantly and his troubles with Obi-Wan seem to be a thing of the past. He then suddenly turns into a child-killing sociopath because, apparently, he burned his bridges with the Jedi order by accidentally murdering a Jedi master, and he was duped into believing Palpatine would help him save Padme.

The funny thing is, I brought up this exact point in an earlier thread, except whereas you're bringing it up to point out inconsistency among Prequel detractors, I brought it up to demonstrate that the writing was so erratic that it's valid to criticize the movie in either way.

From here:

...some people argue that it's too much to believe that Anakin would go from slicing off Windu's hand in a moment of desperation, (and then immediately regretting it), to wantonly slaughtering children five minutes later. Other people argue that Anakin's turn wasn't compelling because Anakin had no character-arc: he was always a psychotic bastard, and he was already chopping up children in the previous film. I'm more sympathetic to the first point of view, if only because the second film itself seems to downplay the wholesale slaughter of the Tusken raiders. After Anakin slaughters them, Padme sympathizes with him, and he's still portrayed as a "good guy" for the rest of the film. Basically, AotC treats the slaughter of the Tusken raiders as a moment of weakness, and nothing more.

Essentially, Lucas wrote Anakin as more of a manic-depressive schizophrenic than a good but misguided man who falls from grace. Apparently, some very-bored researchers agree. Too bad this portrayal ultimately cheapens Vader's redemption in Return of the Jedi (was Vader really redeemed, or was he just going through a calm-phase?) and turns Luke's temptation into a joke (i.e. Luke didn't necessarily resist the Dark Side, he simply didn't have borderline personality disorder like his father.)

Emotional control IS the theme of Star Wars, made so blatant that it is stated outright onscreen. Can you even describe this "good and evil" thing you've made up? That is so basic, so vague, that any movie with a villain and a hero is about it. It doesn't say anything different.

Emotional control is a theme of Star Wars, but ultimately the movie is a pulp space-opera about good versus evil, and the choices we make which lead to good or evil. Vader made a choice to turn to evil, while Luke resisted evil.

You have completely invented this requirement for Anakin to "mirror" Luke by making a "straightforward" (which I can only guess means "completely independent, free from any emotional prodding) decision to turn evil instead of turning good. When the fact is that in ROTJ, Luke's situation was that he was subjected to Palpatine's emotional temptations and pushed to the brink, but ultimately controlled himself and resisted Palpatine. The opposite of that is...to be tempted by Palpatine, get pushed to the brink, and succumb to the emotional temptations. Which is exactly what Anakin did.

It's not a requirement I've invented. Ultimately, morality tales like Star Wars are about the choices we make, and how these choices affect our destiny. Luke stood up to evil and refused it. Anakin's choice to turn to evil was so diluted by other factors that his own will was lost in all the background noise. While there were all sorts of motivations cooking in the messy concoction of Anakin's psyche, his decision to become a Sith happened because 1) he was led to believe (falsely) that Sith force powers would save Padme, and 2) he just murdered a Jedi master, effectively severing his ties with the Jedi, leaving him with nobody to turn to except Palpatine. You'll recall that just a few moments earlier he was ready to turn Palpatine over to the authorities. This doesn't make him come off as a good but misguided man who turned to evil of his own volition, but rather an emotionally disturbed maniac who was tricked (and/or was panicked) into becoming a Sith.

Define "severely diluted." If you're once again talking about Anakin being "tricked," that has nothing to do with the situation. Even if Anakin was emotionally manipulated, even if he was pursuing false rewards, he STILL decided to throw away his morals and that is what counts. He STILL made decisions like "saving my wife is worth killing all the Jedi" and "I'll fix the galaxy's problems by seizing as much power I can and killing everyone who gets in my way."

Sure, Anakin is still ultimately responsible for his choices, even if he was manipulated extensively. But I assume you'll at least agree that it's in the audience's best interest if, you know, the movie is as good as possible, and a deceived, confused, schizophrenic Anakin has much less of a dramatic impact than a morally misguided Anakin who knows exactly what he's doing.

This part seems really funny to me, because you criticize the prequel trilogy for doing more to plausibly explain such an extreme choice as going bad deciding to kill everyone around you. When the original trilogy's example of manipulation is "get mad, you know you like it!" Palpatine offered Luke nothing; all he did was tell him how hopeless it was, and how much more powerful he would be if he embraced the Dark Side. The nearest I can figure, he probably just wanted to piss Luke off and hook him with some presumed general lust for power and "if you can't beat them, join them" line of thinking. Have you realized that someone could easily criticize the original trilogy for not doing enough when it portrayed Luke's temptation?

In the Original Trilogy, the Dark Side was established as an incredibly tempting power, similar to the Ring in Tolkien. It was both a metaphor for anger and passion, (which recalls Homer's description: "the gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside a man's heart, and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey"), and a real, supernatural agent which tempts Force users as an easy path towards power. Palpatine didn't need to offer Luke anything, that's the point - all he needed to do was make Luke feel how powerful the Dark Side was. There was no need for trickery at all.

That being said, I don't claim that Return of the Jedi is a masterpiece. I think it would have helped significantly if Lucas had established earlier that Luke was more susceptible to anger (Luke never really got angry until Vader suggested going after Leia). But overall, the whole Throne Room scene was very well done, and given the themes involved, it was much more compelling than Anakin's confused, schizophrenic journey towards evil.

Because there is nothing to resolve on that end. At no point did the movie call Obi-Wan's caring for Anakin into question. Doubting your son, or being pissed off when he does reckless things, is normal. It's everybody, in real life.

But we are talking about a movie, not real-life, and as such, the movie is under an obligation to conform to certain dramatic requirements in order to be entertaining. Showing the strained relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and then simply providing no pay-off and then ultimately sweeping the whole thing under the rug in the next movie is not acceptable. AOTC needed to show Anakin coming to terms with his mentor, if only to explain their friendly rapport in ROTS. This would also help to increase the pain the audience should feel when Anakin turns against his master.

You're obviously very good at analyzing these films, but you seem to be okay with anything as long as it's somewhat plausible and gets the job done in terms of moving the story forward. The point is, there was a lot of good material here that could have been very powerful emotionally, especially Anakin's betrayal of Obi-Wan, but as written it merely moves the plot forward so we can get from A to B.

adam_grif wrote:You might be able to have Dooku being a Council member who supported the training of Anakin against their wishes. Might add a bit of depth to their confrontation, with Dooku being all "the jedi didn't want to train you but I did rarrr" giving him pause to thought about maybe the Sith being misunderstood. Although really at this stage, anything would be better than the "FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE JEDI ARE EEVIL" crap.

Yeah, that works.

LopEaredGaloot wrote:First off, what ‘doctrine’. The Jedi Code? Says nothing about romance or the species duty to reproduce.

"Attachment is forbidden."

Given there are only 10,000 Jedi to serve across a civilization numbering some 50 million planets, AND that these Jedi are themselves multi-specied, there is already something screwed up here.

Because not only are there not enough Jedi to do the job they are supposed to be able to, but there are not enough Jedi –genes- to be able to sustain the population base for a suicide generation to be levied from, every 20 years. If there were, the galaxy would be awash in Force users.

The Force is mystical, it is NOT a genetic attribute. Jedi are often born to non-Jedi.

Since we never see anything but tiny-totten (Lucas’ twisted pride and joy) and one shallow, arrogant, fool-by-design (Lucas twisted conceit, held against all teens) there is also no explanation for how Jedi youth get past the _healthy_ ascendance of a sex drive without becoming ‘attached’ to other Jedi in the same age group. Or their mentors.

This is because Lucas cannot conceive of a situation where tenderness and concerted, overt (i.e. exaggerated but still honest), compassion is something that makes sexual surrender possible for both genders when they are young enough to pair bond and have each other rather than a career.

That indeed, what makes teens these days so ‘callow and self absorbed’ is perhaps that they have emotional needs not being fulfilled by rampant idiocy of the assumption: “If you’re a teenager, either you must be either an arrogant prick or a queer duck focused on extending your childhood as long as possible”.

What if, in point of truth, the innocence of childhood is –transferred- to a partner in a more adult situation for which the physical element is a natural progression WHEN you are comfortable with each other’s dependence on expressed kindness?

How now Lucas? Do you /enjoy/ pushing this non-attachment agenda?

Lucas sells a steaming heap and then tries to get you to believe that it’s a black and white answer. The answer doesn’t matter if the supposition on which it’s based is not only contrived. But viciously anti social.

Past which, yes, we only saw old Jedi. But we did see Luke and Leia. And if Anakin had kids without the very act of doing so being ‘worth mentioning’, the assumption is that other Jedi can. IF they can bond with a mate long enough to do the actual wedded-bedded-with-child period. Not even one night stand sluts just give up their looks and a 20 year commitment solely because they are into your coolness.

I'm going to say this right now: you're fucking weird.

All the effort put into big words, the strange sentence structure, the impression that you're talking to George Lucas and not even me...

Are you ACTUALLY under the impression that Lucas was "pushing" a "non-attachment agenda?" That he wants everyone to be a weird monk who doesn't like girls? The prequels make it pretty clear that the Jedi Order has lost its way.

Rubbish. It’s called family reunification.

With government money? For personal benefit to non-citizens? Antagonizing foreign governments and crime cartels, when you have other, more important issues to deal with?

And the latest person to be guilty of abusing this immigration scam (I say scam because it allows not just nuclear members but essentially an endless ‘chain’ of cousins, aunts uncles and nieces and all –their- kin to also come along for the ride, the process of which eliminates legitimate immigration by those who have waited in line for it from countries with a lot more readily assimilated populations) is no less than President Obama whose aunt got to continue living in Federally funded housing until her last court date where the Judge found that, despite being a liar about her immigration status and ‘refugee’ status, the fact that she was a celebrity’s aunt might get her killed in Kenya. In Kenya where the one ‘good thing’ they have ever produced is the man who became president. Right.

Past which, how would the Catholic Church look if the Pope’s mother was left in slavery lest an abuse of funds for the benefit of it’s primacy should be seen to occur? Uhhh, you know, I think the majority of catholics would worry more about a Pope who could leave his mom in chains than a little discrete buyoff.

Anakin is not the equivalent to the Pope or President Obama, so there goes your crap analogy.

The point is that Anakin was a hero once. He was a great pilot, a cunning warrior and a good friend. Yet he is NONE of those things here. NOT ONE.

Uh, he was clearly a good pilot and warrior, and he saved Obi-Wan's ass more than a few times. As I've said before, that satisfies a few brief words spoken by Old Obi-Wan while he was lying and being selective.

Thus, why go to such lengths to save him in ROTJ? Particularly when it means putting the fates of nominally ‘good people’ (the entire Rebellion and by extension Galaxy) at risk for a man who was ALWAYS psychotic and simply hid his episodal outbreaks well.

Luke's redemption of Vader allowed him direct access to the Emperor, and as it turns out, it led to the Emperor's death. Luke didn't try to redeem Vader until AFTER he sensed that Vader was aware of his presence, something that concerned him and made him regret even going on the Endor mission.

However; because the nature of a true seduction to evil is one of time in, whether it be in the initial act or a later, final, one that creates the dependency of induced surrender to a deliberate commitment. It is a conspiracy of ‘knowing where the bodies are’ and realizing that you cannot and perhaps never could, back away from that guilt. And so you’re all in. Except that, especially given what happens next, the Jedi would never have condemned Anakin for simply saying: “No. I will not side with you in this.” And Anakin ‘the cunning warrior’ should have himself seen that, while Sidious was down and Windu stood over him, he had the upper hand to offer mercy in trade for “Whatever you have done to my wife.” As an act of a brave man with both balls still attached.

What the hell?

1. Anakin was not in control of that situation. Windu was about to slice Palpatine apart.
2. Anakin did believe Palpatine or anyone else had "done" anything to his wife yet. He feared a future death that he saw in his premonitions, and craved the forbidden power that Palpatine offered him.

And further, because Anakin –did not- successfully pass his final trial with Windu and Sidious, it is not beyond reason to want to know less about the eating habits of Jar Jar Binks and more about the how/what/where/when the elements of that extremely unlikely ‘Anakin/Palpatine friendship’ became so strong. I myself find it a little strange that an old man has the time to form such a close ‘attachment’ to a Jedi apprentice busy with his own studies.

Lucas tried to choke us with the inane “I made you, of course I like you!” Frankenstein argument but this inevitably came off flat and unexplored itself.

God you're strange. I can barely make out what you're saying here. As for Palpatine and Anakin being friends, AOTC made it clear that Palpatine has been having talks with Anakin over the years. He strokes Anakin's ego and encourages him, things that the Jedi don't do. It doesn't matter if they're both busy...Palpatine had a DECADE to work with.

A. Reject everything I say, ram your light saber in my kidney and tell me ‘don’t worry, there is another’ as you start asking about which of the exotic poisons Sith are known to use (Jedi vs. Sith guide) I have been giving to your wife.

Uh...what the fuck? Are you bringing up some obscure RPG sourcebook or something?

And now you see where emotional layers as necessary buildup are absent in giving us a sense that it was a choice, not an urgency of stalled storyarc fulfillment, that made Anakin’s outcome seem logical rather than ‘Forced’.

As is, Anakin is shown to be the ultimate of ‘weak minded’ Jedi. Which makes no sense at all in a Force selected ‘Chosen One’.

What the hell? There was never any mention that the Chosen One had to be clear minded. All we're told is that he has amazing natural Force powers, and that he's destined to destroy evil. Anakin abandons his destiny, and doesn't fulfill it until ROTJ.

Tricked? Maybe not. But certainly delusionally psychotic and/or moronically stupid.

The Jedi just failed to take out the Chancellor so now their next target is an even BIGGER act of treason, in going against a Senate numbering in the tens if not hundreds of thousands? And having made this choice, with all their adult warriors scattered to the wind, fighting a war that he himself was in up to his eyeballs until just a few months ago when he came home to his PREGNANT WIFE, it further makes sense to Anakin to take a walk over to the Jedi Temple and kill all the ‘if you can’t do, teach’ geezers and kids who are, in any event, utterly unable to attack anything?

Utter trash logic. Yet Anakin agrees to it for no apparent reason other than that, ‘he’s done everything else stupid’. Which is not Sidious influencing him. It’s not the Dark Side. It’s Lucas. Who realizes he’s dragged the audience so far into this traffic accident that now they are captive watchers to his puerile shit.

In case you weren't aware, failing war efforts have historically led to coup attempts. The Jedi were spying on the Chancellor; furthermore the end of AOTC showed the beginning of them spying on the Senate as well.

You act so shocked that Anakin's actions seem "psychotic"...when the original trilogy makes it clear that the Force can control a Force-user, just as that Force-user might manipulate the Force. It goes both ways, and the Dark Side is particularly prone to taking control of a person. We're supposed to believe that LUKE was pushed to the brink of turning evil. The Force has a will of its own. Falling to the Dark Side is practically demonic possession. It's a metaphor for the transformative power of real life anger and hatred.

Lucas, who thinks that Teens are shallow, self obsessive fools.

You're an idiot. Luke is not "shallow" or "self obsessive." Neither is Padme or Leia. Anakin was, and Anakin was portrayed as a unique, and screwed up individual.

Not as an act of artistic merit that explains the story as a refined expression of the human condition within it.

Sure, I can make a Chihuahua anally rape a Tyrannosaur with long enough chain of dominos, an iron skillet and a fire hydrant but even if my name IS Rube Goldberg, it’s more an act of abstraction in engineering than storytelling accomplishment.

You're weird.

Which is strange given this-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rVKE_O-LAw

OH PLEASE!!!

Yet another fanboy video where some nerd with delusions of grandeur thinks that he's caught Lucas in some truly embarassing "Gotcha!" moment...

When the fact is that in 1983, Lucas said that scifi filmmakers often go wrong with excessive world-building. And in 2002, Lucas said that he wanted to show off some of Jango's gear in his fight against Obi-Wan...yeah, I'm not sensing the massive self-contradiction there that the fanboy video alleges. Obi-Wan was going to try to apprehend Jango, as dictated by the story. His fight with Jango was not this horribly excessive diversion that bogged down the movie. It was downright brief.

And he does it. But then, rather than eliminate one threat so he can concentrate on the other, he listens to Yoda as his inner girl: “Be weak, be accommodating, don’t go all out, even if they are a legitimate threat to all you believe in, lest you be victorious in a necessary slaying for triumph is the way to survival of the male!”

And this film was nothing if not an exercise in making Luke into a woman.

...and now this fucking freak plunges straight into misogyny.

Luke made a stupid mistake by tossing his lightsaber. Yoda never told him to do that. So what? It's amazing that you somehow spin that into "making Luke into a woman." Get the fuck out of here, dork.

Jim Raynor wrote: Because there is nothing to resolve on that end. At no point did the movie call Obi-Wan's caring for Anakin into question. Doubting your son, or being pissed off when he does reckless things, is normal. It's everybody, in real life.

[/quote]

Which is why the story makes no sense and –in fact hasn’t made sense- since ROTJ.

If Obiwan and Anakin have no point of bitter betrayal of a commonly held moral standard then there is even less of a reason for Obiwan to fail to tell and indeed ‘from a certain point of view’ be damned, _know the truth_: That his so-called friend was a total hoseheaded moron and psychopath, almost from the start.

What the fuck? The "point of bitter betrayal" is the part where Anakin slaughters all the Jedi and tries to kill Obi-Wan himself. And I take it that you missed the part that he was lying to shield Luke from the awful truth while trying to recruit the young boy?

And lying their writhing and moaning like a girl in orgasm _as he is deservedly electrocuted_ Luke’s ultimate story function is to ‘force’ Darth Daddy to show feelings which Vader also has never OT done, solely to justify saving this psychotic serial killer’s own soul. Which was always ridiculous.

Fuck you too you sexist freak.

Moral Of The OT: Be weak. Be evil. And evil will kill itself to save you as an act of good. Riiiight.

No you dumbass. It's "control your own anger and hatred."

Moral Of The PT: Be weak. Be psychotically random mass murderer. Deny the obviousness of evil that even a child would see. And three decades from now, you will get a get out of jail free card for finally killing the right guy.

No you dumbass. The prequels CLEARLY portrayed Anakin's fall tothe Dark Side as a bad thing.

Having an actual theme through out the trilogy would have been nice. Dooku in TPM would have helped a lot.

Channel72 wrote:Firstly, Luke became a Jedi in the OT,

With all the other Jedi dead, and no actual "Jedi Order" left anymore.

and until ROTJ revealed the identity of his sister there was a serious possibility that Luke and Leia would become romantically involved. There was no indication that this would interfere with Luke's Jedi training.

"Luke's Jedi training" = one afternoon with Obi-Wan, and a brief time on Dagobah with Yoda. And a bunch of offscreen stuff we never saw between the movies. And by "interfere with Luke's Jedi training," do you mean that Obi-Wan and Yoda would object? They not only never saw Luke interacting with Leia, but they were desperate and in no position to do anything to Luke. Beggars can't be choosers; he was their only recruit in two decades, shortly before each of them died.

Or do you mean "interfere" as in it would actually harm his training? The point of the prequels is that the Jedi have gone wrong and are stubbornly following a bunch of oppressive doctrines.

Secondly, you're just arguing that the Prequel Jedi doctrine is plausible in light of what we saw in the Original Trilogy. This doesn't address the original criticism, which is that the overtly rigid Prequel Jedi doctrine served no real dramatic purpose other than to throw an obstacle in front of the Anakin/Padme romance, and provide Anakin with emotional problems.

1. If it's plausible based on previous material, then that should be that and I don't see a reason to complain.
2. I've already brought this up: it ties into the OTHER main theme of Star Wars, which is escaping the confines of your parents, elders, or authority figures to become better than they were. It gives Obi-Wan and the other Jedi their own mini-arc. They thought wrong, paid the price, and eventually learned and raised Luke better.

The Jedi order happens to be so rigid that they don't allow any romantic attachments, and Anakin of all people is chosen to go off on a romantic Tuscany getaway with Padme. This is the very definition of contrived, as in deliberately manufactured rather than arising naturally from the circumstances.

You already conceded that the Jedi's strict doctrine was plausible...yet you still insist that it's "contrived" and not arising "naturally" from circumstances. And did you miss the part where the Jedi assigned Anakin and Obi-Wan to protect Padme because she knew them from the past, and that was the only way they would get the stubborn and independent Senator to accept their help?

Firstly, the Jedi order is supposed to be an elite group of warrior philosophers, not some ordinary wing of the military.

They explictly state their mission to serve and protect the Republic, act as part of the military (to the point where Jedi Knights are treated as Generals) during the war, have a stated loyalty to the Senate, and take orders from the Chancellor. They're a Republic agency. Having their own philosophy and tradition does not change that.

Many organizations, such as businesses and universities, do provide the means for foreign employees/students to bring over their families.

Yeah, for legal immigration. Not illegal seizure of property or financing human trafficking, or antagonizing foreign governments and criminal organizations.

Secondly, Anakin is not some ordinary student. He's literally the Christ-Jedi, destined to bring balance to the Force, and his midichlorian count provides empirical proof that he's potentially the most powerful Jedi in history. Which, by the way, seems to be a fact that barely interests the Jedi order at all, since they assign him to be trained by an ordinary rookie like Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon believes he's the Chosen One, and he's the maverick. Not all of the Jedi believe in the Prophecy, or they differ in the way that they interpret it. Furthermore, being the "Chosen One" clearly wasn't supposed to make Anakin their God or leader anything; they still wanted him to be given a proper Jedi upbringing and discipline.

The Jedi are not some ordinary wing of the government. They have no precise real-life analogue; they're more like an independently run but government sponsored Church, which also provides police-like services due to their superhuman powers. If anything, they're like a combination of Samurai, the Franciscan order, and a more benevolent version of the Mutaween in Saudi Arabia. You can't possibly say that they'd be unable to purchase Shmi without getting into legal trouble, especially since Qui-Gon tried to purchase her anyway. (Yes, I know he's a "maverick" and all that, but there's no indication he would get into trouble if he had purchased her.)

You try to claim that the Jedi are like this or that, and make up their ability to do what they want without getting into trouble...when the case is that there is real precedent and reason for them not to do those things, and that is enough to explain things.

Qui-Gon was acting independently, with no supervision.

Finally, real-life churches attempt to rescue Southeast-Asian sex slaves all the time.

Your article talks about Christian organizations trying to help prostitutes leave the sex slave, or provide orphanages to their abandoned children. Not the same as government agencies putting money directly into the hands of slavers, or screwing with the legal property and authorities of a foreign land.

And yet there's so much real-world precedent for this sort of thing that your objections are pointless. The United States interferes in the affairs of third-world countries all the time with little fear of reprisal.

My objections are "pointless"...because the AMERICAN GOVERNMENT can choose to pick its fights? The Jedi are not the Republic government, but a subordinate to it. And they clearly have reason NOT to pick this fight.

And in the Star Wars universe, I doubt the Hutts present a serious threat to the Republic.

The Hutts control territory, so they're not nobodies. And it's not necessarily about them being able to wage war on the Republic. Just like the US government doesn't go around taking on every sad case out there, and ignores atrocities and injustice in numerous third world countries. It's about convenience. Government policy. Priorities.

Besides, Shmi is not some ordinary rescue target; she's the mother of the man with the highest midichlorian count in history. You'd think the Jedi council would want to speak with her, if only to understand the circumstances behind Anakin's miraculous conception. But then, this just further highlights the erratic and contrived writing here; the Jedi never seem to really care that much about Anakin and his off-the-chart midichlorians anyway.

Qui-Gon already spoke to her. She's a poor slave woman who knows nothing. Furthermore, the Jedi don't even all believe that Qui-Gon was correct. And they certainly don't want to indulge Anakin's attachment.

He then suddenly turns into a child-killing sociopath because, apparently, he burned his bridges with the Jedi order by accidentally murdering a Jedi master, and he was duped into believing Palpatine would help him save Padme.

I've already explained this numerous times in this thread, and I can't believe that people can't understand something that was made clear in the original trilogy. The Dark Side seizes control of you. It thrives on emotion and pushes you to make emotional decisions. It's virtually demonic possession.

...some people argue that it's too much to believe that Anakin would go from slicing off Windu's hand in a moment of desperation, (and then immediately regretting it), to wantonly slaughtering children five minutes later. Other people argue that Anakin's turn wasn't compelling because Anakin had no character-arc: he was always a psychotic bastard, and he was already chopping up children in the previous film. I'm more sympathetic to the first point of view, if only because the second film itself seems to downplay the wholesale slaughter of the Tusken raiders. After Anakin slaughters them, Padme sympathizes with him, and he's still portrayed as a "good guy" for the rest of the film. Basically, AotC treats the slaughter of the Tusken raiders as a moment of weakness, and nothing more.

This isn't nice, but the Tuskens are a fictional race that isn't exactly the same as a human tribe. Everything we see about them in both trilogies is negative. They're inhuman savages who thrive on robbery and murder. Shmi's crippled husband himself says that the Tuskens are like animals. Dozens of farmers already died trying to rescue Shmi. Anakin's massacre was still portrayed as immoral, but given the context, it's believable that Anakin wasn't condemned as harshly as if he had murdered a bunch of human enemies and their families.

Essentially, Lucas wrote Anakin as more of a manic-depressive schizophrenic than a good but misguided man who falls from grace. Apparently, some very-bored researchers agree. Too bad this portrayal ultimately cheapens Vader's redemption in Return of the Jedi (was Vader really redeemed, or was he just going through a calm-phase?) and turns Luke's temptation into a joke (i.e. Luke didn't necessarily resist the Dark Side, he simply didn't have borderline personality disorder like his father.)

The psycho-analysis falls short when they attribute all of Anakin's actions after his fall to the Dark Side as a mental disorder, seemingly forgetting what falling to the Dark Side actually entails.

It's not a requirement I've invented.

You did invent it. You have repeatedly glossed over the fact that Luke's temptation in ROTJ, the very thing that you think Anakin should "mirror," involved Palpatine's emotional manipulation.

Anakin's choice to turn to evil was so diluted by other factors that his own will was lost in all the background noise. While there were all sorts of motivations cooking in the messy concoction of Anakin's psyche, his decision to become a Sith happened because 1) he was led to believe (falsely) that Sith force powers would save Padme, and 2) he just murdered a Jedi master, effectively severing his ties with the Jedi, leaving him with nobody to turn to except Palpatine.

1) Which is irrelevant, because he still made the evil decision that saving his wife justified murdering all the Jedi and numerous other people.
2) Anakin was NOT left with "nobody to turn to except Palpatine." He was an accomplice in Mace Windu's murder. OK, fine. The moral choice at that point would be to take Palpatine down, then turn himself in. Anakin didn't do that, because he was too busy seizing power and trying to save Padme at all costs.

You'll recall that just a few moments earlier he was ready to turn Palpatine over to the authorities. This doesn't make him come off as a good but misguided man who turned to evil of his own volition, but rather an emotionally disturbed maniac who was tricked (and/or was panicked) into becoming a Sith.

He saw Mace Windu disregarding the Senate and the Courts. He believed at that point that the Jedi had no moral high ground over the Sith, and chose Palpatine because Palpatine could possibly give him more power. He was already in the grip of the Dark Side at that point, as evidenced by the scene immediately before that, which went so far as to tell us what was going through Anakin's head with a voiceover.

Sure, Anakin is still ultimately responsible for his choices, even if he was manipulated extensively. But I assume you'll at least agree that it's in the audience's best interest if, you know, the movie is as good as possible, and a deceived, confused, schizophrenic Anakin has much less of a dramatic impact than a morally misguided Anakin who knows exactly what he's doing.

Anakin knows what he's doing. He decided that "saving my wife is worth killing everyone" and "I'm going to fix the galaxy by becoming an all-powerful dictator."

In the Original Trilogy, the Dark Side was established as an incredibly tempting power, similar to the Ring in Tolkien. It was both a metaphor for anger and passion, (which recalls Homer's description: "the gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside a man's heart, and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey"), and a real, supernatural agent which tempts Force users as an easy path towards power. Palpatine didn't need to offer Luke anything, that's the point - all he needed to do was make Luke feel how powerful the Dark Side was. There was no need for trickery at all.

Well actually there was trickery, just not nearly as good and extensive trickery. Palpatine was basically talking trash to Luke throughout the scene about how hopeless everything was, when in fact he wasn't even watching as the battle turned against him.

But we are talking about a movie, not real-life, and as such, the movie is under an obligation to conform to certain dramatic requirements in order to be entertaining. Showing the strained relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and then simply providing no pay-off and then ultimately sweeping the whole thing under the rug in the next movie is not acceptable. AOTC needed to show Anakin coming to terms with his mentor, if only to explain their friendly rapport in ROTS. This would also help to increase the pain the audience should feel when Anakin turns against his master.

Again you fall back to conceding how plausible everything was, but dismiss it anyway under vague and subjective "dramatic requirements." There does not have to be a "coming to terms" between the two of them (which would actually undercut Anakin's fall to the Dark Side). Fathers and sons get into spats all the time. They like each other, and claim to hate each other on different days.

You're obviously very good at analyzing these films, but you seem to be okay with anything as long as it's somewhat plausible and gets the job done in terms of moving the story forward. The point is, there was a lot of good material here that could have been very powerful emotionally, especially Anakin's betrayal of Obi-Wan, but as written it merely moves the plot forward so we can get from A to B.

I'm fine with it because I don't see a lack of drama or a problem with a father being upset when his son goes nuts and tries to kill him.

LopEaredGaloot wrote:Moral Of The OT: Be weak. Be evil. And evil will kill itself to save you as an act of good. Riiiight.

Moral Of The PT: Be weak. Be psychotically random mass murderer. Deny the obviousness of evil that even a child would see. And three decades from now, you will get a get out of jail free card for finally killing the right guy.

If it’s necessary to kill evil, it’s okay to kill evil yourself. You shouldn’t expect evil to do the job for you just because you are squeamish about being the last man standing.

CONCLUSION:
George Lucas told a lousy, immoral, story and used –labels-, poorly defined by actions, to arbitrarily excuse why one side could and another side could not do the same thing as the right thing.

And you all bought into it hook, line and sinker.

Way to miss the point; the point is that you should not fight evil with evil; you should fight evil with good. If luke had killed darth vader in a rage, he would have made the same mistakes his father had, and things would have gone horribly wrong. Instead, Luke found the good that had laid dormant in Vader for all of those years and appealed to it. When he spared Vader's life in defiance of palpy's expectations he showed vader that his boss was failable while at the same time appealing to the good in him; luke was willing to look for the good in his father, and it paid off. moral; control your anger and fear, and try to find the good in everyone. it was a gamble certainly, but it was better then simply trying to kill his daddy.

Even easier than that, since Yoda pretty much spelled it out in ESB, when Luke asked if the Dark side was more powerful; "Quicker, easier, more seductive." Anakin fell to the dark side because it was quicker and easier than using the Jedi's broken system that didn't work at all, thus being tragic. Anakin was faced with personal loss or siezing the moment and making the universe do what he wanted, and he chose that. Luke on the other hand, found true self sacrifice. Faced with the easy, quick way out, accepting apprenticeship with Palpy and killing Vader when he was defeated and easy to kill, he instead chose to suffer the consequences for his inaction, to sacrifice himself for his belief that there was good in Vader.

That was what Anakin could not do, 20 years earlier. Anakin could not lose Padme, could not take the self sacrifice, and it was his son that showed him that it could be done, that faced with that situation, one could chose self sacrifice. In a way it shamed Anakin into it, it gave him pride and hope again, allowing him to make a new choice.

Anakin does have some admirable qualities, and Luke could tell there was still some of the good man his father had once been in there. If he had gone in trying to kill, he would have died. He tried to fight evil with good, and tried to save his father rather then murder him. He was willing to belive that a part of the hero was there and he wasn't wrong; anakin does express regret during their first talk, but says that he thinks it's too late to go back. Luke hoped that he could convert vader and they would then kill sideous. It didn't quite work out that way but ultimately Luke was correct. His father's love of his son overpowered his depression and selfishness, and encouraged him to turn on his master to save his son. In short, it was the opposite of what happened 23 years earlier with mace windu. With Mace, he did the opposite, with Anakin he did the right thing and sacrificed himself for the sake of his son.

Jim Raynor wrote: "Attachment is forbidden."

This isn’t doctrine, it is dogma. It is neither explained nor sustainable within the universe as we know it because _dependence_ and the sense a woman has that ‘she’s got you’ and you need her female touch upon your soul is prerequisite to any kind of long term, child raising, partnership. No touchy feely, needy, stayey, no puff the magic belly.

= No Jedi in just a few generations.

Jim Raynor wrote: The Force is mystical, it is NOT a genetic attribute. Jedi are often born to non-Jedi.

I wish it were so but it ain’t. As soon as they added ‘midichlorian = mitochondrial’ elements into the mix, it became a genetic driver and worse, a genetic driver which can normally only be passed down from mother to daughter as a ‘carrier’ of extranuclear DNA through the egg.

The fact that Latent children are born to non Adepts only indicates some bizarre (epigenetic?) driven mutative or recombinant process is involved with extremely rare recessive alleles that not only have to be present but present in the right order for a methyl terminator to cause the proteins to cut and fold –just so-.

Again, this is the only possible excuse for something which would otherwise be such a plus-up for selection that Adepts would literally never run out of partners looking for ‘special children’.

Jim Raynor wrote: I'm going to say this right now: you're fucking weird.

Oh goodie and you’re a five star idiot who doesn’t care about having the details of the plot suggest a morally approachable theme, ‘suitable for kids’ so long as it gets the plot from A to B.

OTOH, if I Confused Matthew and RLM can write ‘open letters’ as videos to Lucas about the many dumb things he’s done under a “Hey Idiot…” heading, I can too. At least until the mods tell me I’m causing a disturbance in The Force or something.

Jim Raynor wrote: Are you ACTUALLY under the impression that Lucas was "pushing" a "non-attachment agenda?" That he wants everyone to be a weird monk who doesn't like girls? The prequels make it pretty clear that the Jedi Order has lost its way.

I’m actually of the opinion that like most Hollyweird leftist fools, he enjoys creating reverse psychology commentary but is too much of a ‘documentarian’ to come up with an alternative outcome that might –actually work- and in the process teach what’s right rather than force a situation of what isn’t.

Lucas in particular tends to hit you with ‘just because I can, I won’t’ as a sledge hammer to the forehead. Denying you any sense of rationale integrity in the characters. Ancient Greek and Roman plays used to do this a lot. But only because they were an act of propaganda designed specifically to endorse a bought agenda from the local powers that be. And thus it didn’t matter if the hero or villain died on-stage because they were purchased criminals too.

What a fine story telling modal to steal from George.

In the case of Anakin and Padme` (and Luke and Leia) in particular, it’s a proven fact that when you negatively stress a society to the point where the future is uncertain and the social safety net is strained to breaking, reproductive levels drop like a stone as people don’t want to commit to the risk of having kids.

WHY, at this of all times, Lucas should have been indulging in such maundering, pathetic, angst fests when American TFRs are already at sub-sustainment levels and headed for a ‘permanent population decline’ (the only continent where the indigene people are in such) I don’t know. You would think he might make parenting and the parent’s characters look a little more noble as encouragement. Particularly as Anakin is supposed to ‘deserve’ a second chance. And the twins are supposed to be such hot stuff.

Pure lack of talent I guess.

Or could it be that the agenda that he is pushing like a train uphill exceeds the value of telling a decent, moral, myth? And who made him god to force such awfulness off on us to the extent that he has to make the story –implausible- as much as anti-heroic?

Jim Raynor wrote: With government money? For personal benefit to non-citizens? Antagonizing foreign governments and crime cartels, when you have other, more important issues to deal with?

Yeah actually, federal welfare, foodstamps, section 8 housing and all the rest now go preferentially to ‘at risk groups’ (thank you Civil Rights act) such as illegal immigrants because to force them to show proof of residency would be ‘racially profiling’ and to simply meet them at the border with a gun that sent the splatter back to Mexican territory would be ‘racist’.

Indeed, though he is a bit old, Anakin could easily be called an ‘Anchor Baby’ because his birth stats (if not where then certainly how) are all that ties him to the Jedi Order, he certainly has no extraordinary skills justifying his being there.

And finally, I doubt seriously if the Hutts would give a wamp rat’s ass either way but if they did, it’s still better than having your prima donna ‘Chosen One’ have a mother living in chains because you were too –indifferent- to bother with such mundane things as buying out her contract. I mean, like when he actually gets around to –doing- any of that prodigy stuff and someone does an interview.

I mean the Jedi Order will leave the slaves as a whole unemancipated which is –also- tacitly agreeing to the process. They will use Clones as forcibly conscripted tools of war even though they are clearly human and have functional wills and identities. So where is the legitimate justification in putting an at-risk Jedi candidate of ‘such importance’ at further chance of psychological trauma if you can simply ship Schmi to a job on Naboo with enough ‘traveling money’ to be a good immigrant on arrival?

As for crime lords and the like. Juarez Mexico is firing about 100 rounds a day over the border into Texas in a little fuss up between Federale and Siluan (sp.) drug gangs. As far as I can tell, the reason for this is that those same Federale’s are not being paid enough to instead actually escort said drug runners across the frontier. Yet our troops are so busy in AfG that they can’t stand a post on the 250 miles of border which actually –are not- so rugged as to be impassible to both illegal immigrants and narcotics traffickers.

Thus, if the SWU as shown is supposed to represent ‘our existence’ (since it sure as hell doesn’t do a great job showing a realistic, high tech, 20,000 year old, galactic civilization) then the real question shouldn’t be why the Jedi don’t make the rules up as they go in ‘freeing’ Tatooine while being ‘too busy’ to defend Coruscant.

In this, Lucas can’t even manage to be consistent in deciding how he will portray this ‘flawed’ Order so don’t pretend to do so yourself or I will tar you with the same stupid-brush.

Jim Raynor wrote: Anakin is not the equivalent to the Pope or President Obama, so there goes your crap analogy.

No, Anakin is the equivalent of Jesus Christ reborn in that the Jedi are expecting him to come along with this stupid ‘prophecy’ nonsense which we ALSO never hear the origins or details of.

And the Jedi, are clearly as wealthy if not more so than the Catholic Church, given they can afford personal star fighters for every warrior who needs one. OTOH, they are not a governmental agency nor under any declared statutory oversight so how they spend their filthy lucre` (or Amidala does) hardly matters to anyone but them.

Jim Raynor wrote: Uh, he was clearly a good pilot and warrior, and he saved Obi-Wan's ass more than a few times. As I've said before, that satisfies a few brief words spoken by Old Obi-Wan while he was lying and being selective.

No, it doesn’t.

It makes a sham out of a hero who could legitimately (because of his role _as designed_ by Lucas as some kind of ‘super Jedi’) have been walking on water, raising the dead or pulling fish and loaves from empty baskets.

Instead of not-flying (watch the control yoke movements he says he’s gonna spin the –opposite- of the way the hands move) a fighter into a battleship thru a hangar shield that _isn’t there_ to ‘oops’ –accidentally- fire two proton torpedoes into a capital ship reactor core and then have time to turn around and fly out.

This is not a sign of great pilotage. It’s a sign of infantile script writing and a 9 year old ‘Whoohoo!’ actor.

As for hero stuff: Talking about saving his boss from a nest of imaginary animals not shown in the film in any way doesn’t count either.

Coming to Geonosis to rescue that same man while failing in his duty to overrule the suddenly adventurous woman he loves and was told to protect at all costs? Nope. Not then either.

‘Rescuing’ Kenobi from a decapitation strike by a Sith? Unnecessary if he hadn’t been a total putz himself first. And ultimately unsuccessful as well.

Shooting up Obwian’s ship because his ‘Jedi Skills’ don’t include marksmanship and he’s too weak willed to fly and use The Force to crush or toss basketball sized droids off by mental means? Dumb on it’s premise given that, had the missile just exploded, Obiwan would be dead to begin with. But also incompetent on Anakin’s.

Saving Kenobi from Dooku on ‘The Phantom Hand’? Only because he had to save his own worthless hide. Not because he kept a large segment of balcony from crushing his best bud’s spine and legs.

Anakin is a white male. That means it’s open season on him as far as Lucas and Hollyweird are concerned and everyone is ‘so caught up in the story’ that they fail to notice there isn’t one. Certainly not a heroic one. Because Anakin is a total boob.

Jim Raynor wrote: Luke's redemption of Vader allowed him direct access to the Emperor, and as it turns out, it led to the Emperor's death. Luke didn't try to redeem Vader until AFTER he sensed that Vader was aware of his presence, something that concerned him and made him regret even going on the Endor mission.

Which only means that Luke, the precog Jedi, is once more indulging in leap-before-look, thoughtless stupidity. Just like he did on Tatooine.

Since Luke didn’t want to fight Daddy, it’s a given he didn’t ‘think of that outcome’ which means he’s a moral imbecile for putting himself somewhere that it could be forced on him without a choice while putting his friends at risk to his cowardice.

Furthermore, he was warned not to underestimate the Emperor which effectively means he put himself in a situation where he couldn’t fight both Sith at once anyway. I doubt seriously if Yoda could.

Jim Raynor wrote: What the hell?

1. Anakin was not in control of that situation. Windu was about to slice Palpatine apart.

Which only goes to show how little you understand of the Jedi _non deistic_ philosophy system of TESB. Because Anakin is ALWAYS in control of _how he reacts (emotionally) to a given moment_. And it was his emo’ness that drove his stupidity, not his supposed ‘cunning’.

And as for Windu, why not? There were three dead Jedi Masters there and Palpatine WOULD NOT STOP trying to fry his ass. Past which, Anakin himself made the exact same **Combat Decision** on the cruiser with Dooku (can’t guard him, and carry my pal and protect the Chancellor). And it was as valid then as Windu’s was in the moment. Someone refuses to be taken alive and ‘suicide by cop’ is not always something you have a lot of (physical) choice over. That doesn’t mean you have an excuse to get all ‘desperate’ about it. Particularly since Sidious is a Sith and Sith lie. A lot.

Jim Raynor wrote: 2. Anakin didn’t believe Palpatine or anyone else had "done" anything to his wife yet. He feared a future death that he saw in his premonitions, and craved the forbidden power that Palpatine offered him.

Then he’s a moron. Because nobody just ‘casually mentions’ a means to restore life to the dead when you are in dire need of just such a solution unless: A. They are reading your mind. Or B. They have caused the situation you need an out for. Or C. Both.

Not in a universe with Wealthy Obstetrics Healthcare that advanced.

Cue Anakin the ‘cunning warrior’ demanding that Palpatine give it up RIGHT NOW or hw will –help- Windu cut him a new A-hole. Because, thanks to Palpatine’s stupidity, it was Anakin who held the whiphand.

As is, the only excuse that Anakin can have for not telling Windu the simple truth and letting his cards fall where they might is that he wants power more than Padme` and so doesn’t want Sidious dead because he wants to join him.

So much for a Faustian Submission to a higher ideal.

So much for a noble man gone astray.

Alls that’s left is a moronic psycho with a thirst for something that totally demeans what little –pretense- for manhood he ever had: as a husband and a father caring for his family.

Jim Raynor wrote: God you're strange. I can barely make out what you're saying here. As for Palpatine and Anakin being friends, AOTC made it clear that Palpatine has been having talks with Anakin over the years. He strokes Anakin's ego and encourages him, things that the Jedi don't do. It doesn't matter if they're both busy...Palpatine had a DECADE to work with.

Fork you too. ‘Having chats’ when it is forbidden for young Jedi to even visit their own relatives? ‘Having chats’ when Anakin is away with Obiwan for months if not years at a time as itinerant warriors out doing galactic ‘aggressive diplomacy’?

What reason beyond the obvious does a queer old goat have to talk to Anakin? The moronic git who is so weak in the force and the mind that he can’t even tumble to the obvious when Sidious fish-slaps him in the face with it?

‘Stronger than both of us’ my ass.

No Sith worth his salt would want that sack of hammers.

Jim Raynor wrote: Uh...what the fuck? Are you bringing up some obscure RPG sourcebook or something?

Quit feigning ignorance as innocence, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The source is legit. If you haven’t got the book, buy or loan it out from a library.

Jim Raynor wrote: What the hell? There was never any mention that the Chosen One had to be clear minded. All we're told is that he has amazing natural Force powers, and that he's destined to destroy evil. Anakin abandons his destiny, and doesn't fulfill it until ROTJ.

To be cunning requires the ability to react inside the decision loops of others by knowing what a given situation will motivate them to do and how you can exploit or setup that situation to cause their reaction to be of benefit to you. I _never see that_ behavior in Anakin.

Not Once.

Jim Raynor wrote: In case you weren't aware, failing war efforts have historically led to coup attempts. The Jedi were spying on the Chancellor; furthermore the end of AOTC showed the beginning of them spying on the Senate as well.

The war is has been over for 5 minutes when they make their choice to go after a man they moronically don’t KNOW is a Sith Lord. Why?

Sith or no, by law, Palpatine cannot remain in office, without changing the Constitution.
If he fails to leave _within a reasonable time_ to allow for a transfer of power (say two weeks? A month?), then the Jedi can act within the law to depose his sorry ass.

OTOH, if the Senate agrees to such a change, then, Sith or no, the Jedi cannot act against it. The latter might have actually been interesting as a cause for sudden coup de` tat`

Which means we are once more up against Lucas’ raging incompetence forcing along an issue which makes no sense. Simply because he’s run out of time (and never had a clue) as to how it should happen, more progressively. Something about jazz riffs I believe.

The Jedi are not ‘spying’ on the Chancellor if the Chancellor selects a Jedi who’s principle duty is to the Republic and KNOWS that said Jedi will inform the Jedi Council of his every move. To spy requires covertness. There is none here. It is more like volunteer oversight. By Palpatine’s choice.

And the only scene I remember at the end of AOTC that might qualify as ‘spying’ is Yoda and Windu sitting on the parapet listening to the Senate debates in full view of god an everyone. If it’s illegal to do so then there should be no observation deck and the Senate should be cleared by RepSec.

Since we are never told what the Jedi can and can’t do anyway, you might as well pretend that ‘only on the fourth Friday of every second leap year…’ as well.

Try, try, again.

Jim Raynor wrote: You act so shocked that Anakin's actions seem "psychotic"...when the original trilogy makes it clear that the Force can control a Force-user, just as that Force-user might manipulate the Force. It goes both ways, and the Dark Side is particularly prone to taking control of a person. We're supposed to believe that LUKE was pushed to the brink of turning evil. The Force has a will of its own. Falling to the Dark Side is practically demonic possession. It's a metaphor for the transformative power of real life anger and hatred.

No. If I remember the quote correctly, it runs something like this:

‘You mean it controls your actions?’

‘Partly, but it also responds to your commands.’

Which is akin to: “I want to block that blaster when it fires!” “Okay, better move your saber a little more like…this, oh here, let me do it.”

It does not imply that The Force has a will. Only that it is a reality scrambler that alters the extant level of existence to match what you wish to see as an outcome.

That’s pretty powerful without having to be the least bit ‘holy ghost’ alive.

As for Luke falling to the Dark Side, IMO, that’s exactly what he did.

Not because some bogeyman magic field caused him to. Or because he successfully repelled said bogeyman’s evil influences. But rather because he let a trained psyops expert con him (Dun Moch) into believing that if he did what needed to be done, he would in fact become the very thing he destroyed.

Yawn. Pull the other one.

And the movies and EU don’t support it. I don’t see it when Obiwan kills Maul. I don’t see it when Anakin kills Dooku. I don’t see it when Jaina kills her twin.

Thus, Luke’s failure to do the right thing was the very succumbing to evil he thought to avoid. In real life, you’d be lucky to get a five year old to fall for such reverse psychology intimidation nonsense but ‘because he’s an adult’ everyyyyone believes it must be true.

And so Luke surrenders because he’s just as big a ditz as daddy and Palpatine got to zap his ass for free rather than with a Saber inbetween.

Big fuckin’ surprise.

Jim Raynor wrote: You're an idiot. Luke is not "shallow" or "self obsessive." Neither is Padme or Leia. Anakin was, and Anakin was portrayed as a unique, and screwed up individual.

No? Then why is Luke always shown as whining? As not believing in things that his elders say are true and his lying eyes tell him are (never mind his super duper Force Senses)? Why does he never listen to them even when the odds of his surviving a foolish action (500 fighters, 6 capital ships, 50,000 storm troopers, one destination) are zero?

Why is he never shown as winning except by bending over and assuming the position?

Because Lucas wants to tear down white male heroes and build them back up again as useless he-bitches, that’s why.

Of course Padme` is a self centered slacker. She insists that there will be no preparations for war, even civil defensive ones which will for instance secure comms and power from commando attack; take holocam footage of the attack as evidence; ask nearby systems for evacuation aid of injured or displaced civilians; move civilians away from likely centers of gravity; make plans for an evacuation of government and the destruction or hiding of all files/monetary accounts and other items necessary to pretend that ‘everything is normal’ as a working administration when they are gone?

WHY DOES PADME` PRETEND THAT WAR IS SOMETHING SHE CAN DECIDE TO AVOID WHEN IT IS THE OTHER SIDE WHO DETERMINES WHETHER HOSTILITIES COMMENCE OR END?

Because Lucas thinks all women belong barefoot and preggo’d in the kitchen. That’s why.

And this continues on through her lame testimony (one speech, one shot, no aid, no Jedi brigade, go home?) at the Senate.

To her total failure to back Palpatine up against a wall and tell him she’ll fire his ass too if he doesn’t help out his own homeworld.

To the manner in which she so sadly conflates her emo ‘poor pathetic me’ sorrow with the needs of her people with an excuse to run away from her best chance at a successful resolution of their case.

To the manner in which she fails to even –ask- the Jedi for more than a ginch and his boy toy as help in this grotesque abortion of Republic law (since they seemingly act outside the Senate at this point).

And even in the way she continually ‘promises anything’ to any big male who will ‘save her people’. Something NO POLITICIAN should do.

And then there’s the stupid commando attack. Oi vey. The door comes up, clown boy is standing there, facing 15+ guns and 2 Jedi with his hand down his pants and rather than say “FIRE!” she decides to take the long way around.

Why?

If junior goon knows she’s there, so does everyone else which means that Gunray isn’t likely to even be on the planet anymore. Or at least shortly won’t be. And so she needs to PICK UP THE PACE, not slow it down. One of the principle means to do so being a certain fighter craft standing just behind them. So that Gunray doesn’t pull the same trick she did and come back with a real army. Again.

Of course, Padme` is a 14 year old pretty gurrrl so she clearly doesn’t have to actually be –good- at anything. And her character having so little experience with warfare or politics, it’s clear the actress has no reason to be there.

But then, three years later with a different male opposite, she’s also a 24 year old Senator who leads an important coalition in the Senate on the eve of a critical vote to decide whether the Republic needs a military. Wherein, show me the money honey, it sure appears –someone- wants a war because they want her anti-militancy dead.

And that person _sure as hell shouldn’t be_ Dooku who is trying to secede without getting blasted. Golly wally, who stands to gain the most from all this? The man who just told you to go home?

And what does little miss honey pot do? Go Home.

Despite the fact that her body guard _died_ getting her to the damn vote on time.

Despite the fact that she is running away from killer caterpillars.

Despite the notional concept that this might be something worth fighting for since Naboo can hardly remain neutral if war comes with a Trade Federation who hates their guts.

No, as soon as _a man_ tells her too, she up and runs. Indeed that is her FIRST THOUGHT: ‘I shouldn’t have come back…’ = stupid, useless, cow syndrome.

= Hello Lucas.

And Leia is the worst of all. She is all feisty as a mask to a total-fold personality that just needs a ‘strong hand’ to make her submissive as playdoh to a traditional female sexual role. ON SCREEN she is grope-raped by the jock with the great lines, good looks and fast sports car and the best she can do is make “Stop it!” sound like an invitation to be sexually forced. After which, she never again has a useful, offensive or leadership role to play in the whole series. Ending up a harem girl sextoy to a giant phallic alien.

Great Job Lucas!

Jim Raynor wrote: You're weird.

All right, I’ll give you this one. It’s funnier in the drawing.

Jim Raynor wrote: OH PLEASE!!!

Yet another fanboy video where some nerd with delusions of grandeur thinks that he's caught Lucas in some truly embarassing "Gotcha!" moment...

When the fact is that in 1983, Lucas said that scifi filmmakers often go wrong with excessive world-building. And in 2002, Lucas said that he wanted to show off some of Jango's gear in his fight against Obi-Wan...yeah, I'm not sensing the massive self-contradiction there that the fanboy video alleges. Obi-Wan was going to try to apprehend Jango, as dictated by the story. His fight with Jango was not this horribly excessive diversion that bogged down the movie. It was downright brief.

It’s not just one scene. It’s the intent that that scene illustrates throughout the PT. Huge amounts of background exposition ‘explaining’ the presence of secondary characters that burns screenlight, starving us of necessary details. Like why the Trade Federation is into tariff enforcement. Or whatever the hell their justification for an army is.

Why the Jedi are like they are and how they sustain themselves in the face of not just impossible genetics and recruitment issues but also overwhelming force on force mismatches.

WHY is Nute Gunray’s butt buddy so frightened of these pathetic losers who never once win a major battle or a minor engagement?

Jim Raynor wrote: ...and now this fucking freak plunges straight into misogyny.

The word you want is misanthropy. But since Lucas is guilty of both, it hardly matters as the proof of Lucas’ attitude about women: ‘Be sporting, fight hard, give in, get used, get left behind’ is explicitly displayed throughout the storyarc using the examples I have given.

The thing you have to understand here is the Luke is Lucas’ kicking dog. Han Solo is the only ‘cool guy’ in the entire story. He is the guy Lucas wants to be. He is the guy who comes preconditionally equipped to win and gets away with everything without cause or comment on his immorality.

Jim Raynor wrote: Luke made a stupid mistake by tossing his lightsaber. Yoda never told him to do that. So what? It's amazing that you somehow spin that into "making Luke into a woman." Get the fuck out of here, dork.

No. Because it is key to the social engineering that Lucas is linkin’ logging here. The ENTIRE theme of the OT is that males should not fight. It’s pacifist to the point of being annihilative to the _principles behind_ being good. And that’s wrong and evil.

Because if killing has to be done, it should not be the work of evil to do it to itself. Since real evil seldom cooperates. And giving up your right to CHOOSE a defense is inherent to the foolish notion that:

‘Luke and Anakin both faced a choice, Luke made the right one, Anakin did not.’

No. Luke made exactly the same wrong choice for exactly the same wrong reason.

Submit to evil. Whether as it’s Victim or it’s Doberman is still giving that evil the right to decide not just your destiny but everyone else’ after you’re no longer an agent in play. And both of the Skywalker males appeared to do it for no other reason than to fight back against the establishment for it’s own sake.

I mean sure. Luke is lied to for no good reason whatsoever. But the man who tried to kill him and did maim him as well as torture his friends is still a total bastard. So why not ‘hate’ (reject, refuse to do the bidding of) BOTH parties? Seems far more likely than this homophyllic “Daddy I luv you but you done did me wrong!” bullcrap.

And the only excuse imaginable is that, to fulfill an awful social agenda, Lucas needed Luke to assume a submissive, effeminate, role. And is physically and emotionally sized the actor to that role.

Ask yourself, why is it that women, who once held the values of love, family and continuance of culture and species as their chief character facets (facets which never get old and always are precious) now act like men: buffed up with steroids and outraged by any insult to dignity or obscure moral concept? _And why does society love them for it_? While men are only seen to be stuck up, angry and ‘immature’ if they evince the same attitude?

Could it be because we have been TOLD (over and over) to see them that way? It can’t be because they are stronger, mentally or otherwise. They still have the cry and bleed hormone. They still have wombs which make them critical reproductive assets with limited useful species sustainment gender role windows. Why is it that a heroine acting like a male is cool. And a hero acting like a woman is ignored/accepted?

It is a complete and completely false, social engineering, role reversal. And to a male, who likes seeing real male action heroes, it’s disgusting.

Jim Raynor wrote: What the fuck? The "point of bitter betrayal" is the part where Anakin slaughters all the Jedi and tries to kill Obi-Wan himself. And I take it that you missed the part that he was lying to shield Luke from the awful truth while trying to recruit the young boy?

Except that Anakin has never held a moral high ground in this. Anakin has always sleeze-bagged his way through relationships, combat, and loyalties. At every single point where ‘situational ethics’ should be a continuum of the same noble honesty, he has always been wrong, indicating no heart of gold beneath the character flaws at all.

Obiwan didn’t kill a man who had made an honest decision, he slaughtered a mad dog killer who was making up excuses as he went. _Like he always had_.

The difference is that, somehow, Kenobi was under the assumption that Anakin ‘once had been his friend and star pupil’ when in fact we NEVER see that aspect of his existence. Even at the point where he is talking to Anakin himself before taking off to Utapau. And Anakin steps back with this “Ha ha, fooled you, worthless prick.” look in his eye.

And being a Jedi (you know, the kind of people who ‘see thru you we can’) stuck with being around the stupid little prick a lot more than we are, one has to question why his master:padawan tele-emo bond wasn’t sending him constant bullshit alert warnings.

Because that is the way Lucas wrote it.

Jim Raynor wrote: Fuck you too you sexist freak.

Just because you’re angry at hearing the words doesn’t mean I’m not right in saying them.

You watch Vader having his ‘come back moment’ and you say “Hooray!”.

I watch a twisted psychotic freak somehow having a hard time with a sub-rudimentary ethics test and all’s I see is massive bipolar disorder building to another psychotic break from reality as constant head twitch: left and right. Empathy hemisphere. Logic hemisphere. Now don’t strain yourself here Gump but they both should be telling you to kill one bastard and… Aw hell, just grab the closest guy still standing.

Which is just what he does. Just like he attacked Windu, not because he was wrong but because he was in control. Not heroics. Insanity.

Which, given how this all starts in ROTS with a FALSE promise to save life, **Twenty Years Before**, pretty much makes Vader an IQ-50 village idiot being driven along by nothing but massive psychosis.

And then it get’s worse. Because he ‘projects’ his desire to not be damned to hell forever onto Luke: “You were right, tell your sister, you were riiiiight.”

Except that Luke wasn’t right. Vader was always a sadistic, psychotic, nutbar with the mental capacity of a moldy turnip. And thus Luke had no right (beyond his own OCD) to try and ‘save daddy’ when killing him quickly and then going after Palpatine was the best way to both survive himself and ensure the Rebellion didn’t do it’s Alamo moment here.

Whether the Death Star was blown up or not, Luke should have acted for THE GREATEST GOOD.

That he didn’t. That he collapsed into a blubbering heap covered by some idiotic ‘I am a Jedi like my worthless bastard dad before me’ nonsense is pure he-bitch behavior.

Knowing it’s wrong and pretending to be superior anyway rather than face up to the real choice: To survive. Or to die. For more than his own selfish concepts of what was right and wrong.

Jim Raynor wrote: No you dumbass. It's "control your own anger and hatred."

Wrong. It’s letting go of anger and becoming passive. So that evil will destroy itself and ignore you. Which is a pipe dream fantasy of pure heroin smoke.

Hiya Lucas.

Anger is a tool. Your parents use it against you all the time when you are a kid so that their overwhelming strength of will destroys your impudent pride and make you THINK about your mistakes. Is that wrong if they secretly love you?

Anger makes all the Jedi better fighters. Luke’s mistake then becomes one of _not letting other people’s guilt trip be his motivator_ in STOPPING his use of rage.

Rather than letting loose his anger when he really needs it to survive. And save what deserves saving.

And it’s clear that Luke’s anger, in a fight or flight situation, is not under control. And all the better for it because he is not thinking of himself when he wins. He is thinking beyond selfish needs.

Thus everything he feels –after- that moment is affected and disingenuous. Either because Lucas wants him to be a ‘typical teen’ (he-bitch). Or because Lucas really sucks that badly as a creative writer without a clue.

Or hey, why not both?

Jim Raynor wrote: No you dumbass. The prequels CLEARLY portrayed Anakin's fall tothe Dark Side as a bad thing.

Not really.

The sweet irony here being that I have much the same ‘what the fuck?!’ attitude as you do to most of Anakin’s actions. ‘It’s against the Jedi code, it’s treasonous!’ Cricket Noises…

Since when nutboy? Why doesn’t anybody speak up, one way or the other?

Thus ‘And from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!’ When? How was this established again?

When you create a position based on histrionics rather than just plain history, -especially-in fiction, you make it impossible to believe that anything is more than Alice In Wonderland meaningful, from moment to moment.

Thus the person evoking this vile crap is only a ravening loon quacking at the moon, no matter what he says.

And when you put this dear fool down, _and then fail to kill him_, for both judicial, practical and merciful reasons; it becomes obvious that the only reason this schizoid psychotic is allowed to live another 20 years is so that he can stage an unwarranted, unnecessary and ultimately equally pointless (because Luke could have killed him and then faced the Emperor alone with equal odds) since Anakin was _never_ good and thus there was _never_ residual good in him to detect or deserve mercy for.

Superficiality is not a story telling technique most authors outside of farce tend to go for.

And drama for it’s own sake doesn’t teach a moral myth. It corrupts it.

As clearly you have been by decades of being herd-mind convinced to think that Anakin was ‘made good’ by one random act after decades of evil. Or that Luke was a wise person for not continuing to do exactly what he was going to before he saw Vader’s stump.

Because someone had to and trusting evil to do itself under was stupid beyond words.

And entirely scripted as such. By an idiot. Named George Lucas.


LEG

LopEaredGaloot wrote:Because Lucas thinks all women belong barefoot and preggo'd in the kitchen. That's why.

Shit... this thread just made a sharp turn down crazy street.

Jesus fucking Christ. I see something in there about "Hollywood leftist fools" and how Lucas is bashing the "white male." Somehow this discussion about the merits and themes of the prequels has been hijacked by some right wing nut with a persecution complex. I could do a point-by-point smackdown of this LopEaredRetard's latest post...but should I even bother?