Thoughts on Revenge of the Sith (unboxed spoilers) [Archive] - Page 2

shadowfax33

05-22-2005, 12:26 AM

Just saw it today, and overall I loved it.

Gotta agree with those who didn't like Samuel Jackson's performance. He seems to have almost no facial expression in this role. YMMV.

I also credit Mace Windu with a portion of the blame for Anakin's turning. When a torn Anakin tells him that Palpatine is the Sith Lord, Mace chooses not to trust him--again. I don't remember the exact line, but it was something like, "If this is true, then you will have earned my trust." But he declines to let Anakin come with him to face Palpatine. Once again, Anakin is treated unfairly--at least in his eyes--by a member of the Jedi Council. And then, Mace prepares to kill Palpatine, saying, "He's too dangerous to live." Yeah, way to push Anakin right over the edge, Mace.

To echo what many have already stated: Natalie Portman was pathetic, Hayden was vastly improved (I may be in a minority on that one), and Ewan was wonderful. Palpatine is a fantastic villain. I think the central relationship of this film was the Anakin/Obi Wan friendship, and I thought Ewan McGregor played his final scene with Hayden Christenson wonderfully. Broke my heart, and I knew it was coming. Overall, I think the key to this movie was making the audience regret Anakin's inevitable turn to the dark side, and for me at least, it succeeded. In spades. I really felt for that whiny kid.

I love the orginal trilogy; I was 11 when A New Hope came out, and I was one of those geeks that saw it over and over at the theatre. I'm sure this movie and the whole franchise will be analyzed to death, with fans debating over every word. And that's okay. Hey, it's the reason I've read this whole thread! But I still recall a quote by Lucas after the very first movie premiered in '77: "I wanted to make a movie that would allow people to leave their troubles behind and just enjoy. In other words, for two hours, they could forget." (paraphrased) With this film, I did just that. I am a happy geek tonight.

Tarrsk

05-22-2005, 12:58 AM

Probably not, but it's pro forma for adventure serials of the '30s and '40s, which Star Wars emulates. Did it bother you when Luke did it when Obi-Wan (apparently) died? Or again, when he learned that Vader was his father?

Going back to my post a few pages back, those were acceptable because you could actually see the actor's faces. Acting goes a long way in selling potentially cheesy lines; for example, when Luke learns who his father really is, you can see the anguish in his face. It's not nearly as effective to have an emotionless mask do the same thing- particularly when it's doing it in James Earl Jones' voice. The discontinuity between the emotions being expressed verbally and what is on display visually cancels out any actual effect on the audience.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

05-22-2005, 01:03 AM

I didn't see the padawan twitch.
I didn't like the montage ending. Same problem LOTR had. Jesus, just end the movies. We don't have to go visit the hometown of every blasted character in order to be swept up by the gestalt of the conclusion. The end of Attack of the Clones was far less broad, but still far more powerful. I would have ditched Alderaan, and probably Padme's funeral.

YES YES GOD YES
So many times the changes between films were completely obvious and intuitive (which was a great style and should've been continued) but they had to wrap up every. single. loose. end. to the point where I just really had to pee.

The power he described to Anakin included manipulating midichlorians to cheat death and create life.
did no one else realize that this was a lie?

I found the relationship between Anakin and Padme completely unbelievable. I just didn't see how Padme could like him at all. He was a whiney pissant right from the first movie.
How many real life relationships have you seen where don't believe the pairing?

And how much fun to see a proto-Death Star?
It took them 18 years to finish it! The other one they knocked off in a few months!

...chewbacca was there.. why?

order 66? what kind of lameass order number is that? Sounds like my food's ready at burger king

How is it that the clone army, fighting for the Jedi, suddenly takes orders from a sith lord to execute
This made Ep II make some sense. The sith made the army (wasn't it Dooku?), and when the jedi found out about it, they were just like, hey, an army! cool! instead of considering for one second where they originated.

"I loved you! You were like a brother to me! And now, seeing you in defeat, humiliation, and unfathomable agony...uh, I'll be going now."

Note the past tense. Obi-wan wasn't about to forgive this lunatic who betrayed everyone and slaughtered children. He's lucky he didn't get tossed in the lava.

A-N-A-K-I-N

p.s. Ewan McGregor is such an awesome actor. Sam Jackson and Natalie Portman constantly reminded me who they were, but McGregor WAS obi-wan. I'd let him do me.

Ike Witt

05-22-2005, 01:14 AM

did no one else realize that this was a lie?

But it gives Darth a reason to hate the emperor. And a reason to kill him in the end.

Khan

05-22-2005, 01:47 AM

Agreed.

Holy bejesus, yes. The years as moisture farmers sure weren't kind to her and Owen, though. Either that or kid-Luke's whining just wore them out.

I've seen it twice now since its release, and I really can't praise the job they did with Yoda enough. I didn't notice it the first time, but the second time I noticed how they got light transmitting through the tips of his ears. That was a really, really, REALLY nice touch. And then there was this point when they were walking through a corridor on the Tantive IV and he did indeed look real. There were none of the telltale signs of CGI or puppets or anything like that. I sure hope it gets at least a nomination for SFX because of that.

Jimmy Smits really kicks ass as Bail Organa. He's got a presence that really carries on the legacy of the original trilogy well. I've never seen NYPD Blue, but he must be a really great actor. Add him to the list with Ewan McGregor of actors that made this film.

On a personal note, however, I have to mention that Natalie Portman has many features in common with my ex. The eyes, the eyebrows, the lips, the hair, even the way she blinks and sniffs when she's all upset and crying and stuff. Considering how aggravating things were towards the end of our relationship, whenever Natalie's despair got the best of her, I couldn't divorce her performance from the parallels with my ex and therefore couldn't help but laugh.

Marley23

05-22-2005, 01:51 AM

did no one else realize that this was a lie?
I don't think it was. I think the bit where he said "he taught his apprentice everything he knew" was a lie - one Sidious later copped to - but from the way he told the story and the way he smiled at the end, I think we were to believe the rest of it was the truth.

Coil

05-22-2005, 01:56 AM

Did anyone else see what seemed like a very Millenium-Falconish ship in the background of one scene? It was near the beginning, when Obi-Wan and Annakin return to Coruscant after succesfully rescuing the Chancellor. It was in the distance but it seemed to have that distinct familiar shape.

I saw it too.

Laughing Lagomorph

05-22-2005, 11:15 AM

I saw it too.

Good, maybe I wasn't hallucinating. The rest of you keep your eyes out if/when you see it again. I think it was the bottom right quadrant of the screen, just above the surface of the planet.

It's funny how my eye was drawn to it. The shape of that ship is part of the "furniture of my mind", to quote Douglas Adams.

Just Some Guy

05-22-2005, 12:31 PM

At this point it's a six page thread and I can sit here and try to read through it for a few hours and then respond or just post my thoughts after seeing it last night and I've chosen the second option.

It wasn't as bad as Ep 1 and Ep 2 but it still stunk. I wasn't planning on seeing the movie but I have friends who wanted to go so I went and saw it with them. Lucas managed to squeeze eight more bucks out of me on this.

Apparently to turn to the dark side you have to be a complete and total idiot and once you do fall you go from ambitious Jedi to loony, psycho killer immediately. There were several points where Anakin should have just walked away from Sidious regardless of what he had done before. "Oh, I don't know how to actually save someone but I'm sure we can figure it out." "Now that you've slaughtered all the Jedi, would you mind killing a few dozen guys on this planet for me rather than addressing the things you're really concerned about?" Anakin may have been lost to the dark side but there was no real reason for him to follow Sidious.

Also, anyone stupid enough to lead an army of an unknown origin with unknown loyalties into battle deserves to get shot in the back. That was one of my big problems with Attack of the Clones and the fact that even after that were stupid enough to take the army there the Jedi really take slow thinkers prize for not spending the past few years going over all of their training and methods with a fine tooth comb.

Apparently Padme's people don't show pregnacy at all for the first several months and then go through it all in a couple of days. I kept thinking that a few weeks or months had passed every time they went back to her and she was larger, but then the dialog established it was the next day.

It didn't help that it felt like anytime Lucas was stuck on the next line or next shot he just cribbed something from one of his previous movies.

So it was weak. The action set peices were better than the previous two movies, though, and if someone likes that kind of thing (and there's nothing wrong with that) then they'll probably like it more than me. I just couldn't stop thinking about how one falls to the dark side and that ruined it for me.

silenus

05-22-2005, 12:35 PM

That was my reaction, too. Anakin submits to a total jerk-off. Anybody else would have told Palpatine to stick it any number of times, no matter how far down the Dark Path he was.

Total waste of money and time.

flodnak

05-22-2005, 01:43 PM

Okay, I've "finally" seen it with my 11 year old son.

Hokey script? Check!
Wooden acting? Check!
Needless cameo roles by popular characters to enhance merchandising possibilities? Check!
Plot holes you could fly one of those new Airbus jobbies straight through? Check!

And I'd watch it again.

It's not a classic for the ages. But it's beautiful eye candy! It's two hours (and a bit) of escape into a fantasy world with Good and Evil practically wearing nametags so you can't confuse them! It's serious special effects! It's unexpected bits of comic relief! It's sword fights! (Swords, lightsabers; tomayto, tomahto.) It was fun, that's all there is to it.

Although, annoying Yoda becomes. Quickly. Shut up more he must.

Incidentally, my take on the turning to the Dark Side business, which may be too kind, is that Palpatine had pulled the ultimate Jedi Mind Trick on Anakin. Maybe turning the kid's own power against him to do it, which is why P. had to wait until he could exploit A.'s weak spot to start turning him. Anakin didn't walk when he should have found out he'd been used because Palpatine wouldn't let him see that. Maybe it's too kind, as I said, but it let me ignore that plot hole and enjoy the rest of the movie.

Flodjr loved it. I'm glad we didn't take his little brother (who's 5), however - too dark and gory for a kid that age.

Balthisar

05-22-2005, 03:07 PM

Lucas managed to squeeze eight more bucks out of me on this.

Man, I should really start a new, "How Much Did you Pay to See Episode III" thread, but it's not really necessary for just the small amount of bragging I want to do:

It cost me MX$43 pesos -- that's about US$3.91. And that was for the 12:01am showing on Thursday!

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't count if someone bought your ticket or you won it or something like that...

sishoch

05-22-2005, 04:17 PM

Something that made me cringe:

When half a ship is plunging through the atmosphere out of control at mach infinity -1, the accompanying ship cools it down with a firehose?

And I had to giggle when the droid soldiers said "Ow" as they were mowed down by the light sabers.

On the whole, the movie sucked.

Cisco

05-22-2005, 04:33 PM

Well, I saw the movie Thursday and I've been patiently lurking around ever since then waiting for this question to be addressed (here and on other boards), but I haven't even seen it mentioned in passing, so I guess I have to break down and ask myself.

Am I now to assume that the Stormtroopers we saw in the Holy Trilogy were actually clones and genetic "brothers" of Boba Fett? It's weird (and somehow feels cheap...) now to think that they all looked alike under those helmets.

I had previously either just not given it much thought, or assumed that the clones were eventually wiped out. Order 66 though, in addition to the uniform progression, gave me a pretty strong impression that these were imperial Stormtroopers.

Was this talked about when Episode II was new and I just missed the discussion somehow, or am I just totally wrong?

Mister Rik

05-22-2005, 04:50 PM

Another thought on Anakin not bailing when Palpatine confessed his inability to save Padme:

He needed leadership.

Look at the progression of his life: slave -> padawan -> Jedi knight but not Master -> Sith apprentice. He was not a leader himself, despite his burning desire to be one. It's been said that the people who most want to lead are probably not going to be good leaders. Perhaps the Jedi Council wasn't "disrespecting" him when they refused to grant him the rank of Master. They could see that he wanted it too badly, and wanting it that much was a sign that he would not be a good leader.

The fact is, he did not have leadership skills. Sure, he was very good at what he did, whether lightsaber fighting or mechanical tasks. But he was a weapon, doing what he was told by somebody else, for all his life. From Watto to Qui Gon to Obi Wan to the Council to Palpatine, he was always being directed by somebody else.

When he killed the rest of the Jedi, he was suddenly without leadership. Whether or not he knew it or admitted it, he needed that leadership. Once he eliminated his Jedi leaders, he needed to fill that that need, and so latched onto Palpatine, for better or for worse. It's much like a woman who goes from one abusive relationship to the next, so desperate for a relationship that she'll put up with just about anything.

Mister Rik

05-22-2005, 04:55 PM

Am I now to assume that the Stormtroopers we saw in the Holy Trilogy were actually clones and genetic "brothers" of Boba Fett? It's weird (and somehow feels cheap...) now to think that they all looked alike under those helmets.
I think it's been established, at least in the Extended Universe, that the vast majority of stormtroopers were, by the time of Ep. IV - VI, conscripts from various planets. When you consider the sheer numbers needed to staff a star destroyer, let alone the Death Star, cloning wouldn't be able to keep up. It would also be far more expensive than simply conscripting soldiers.

Khan

05-22-2005, 04:56 PM

Am I now to assume that the Stormtroopers we saw in the Holy Trilogy were actually clones and genetic "brothers" of Boba Fett? It's weird (and somehow feels cheap...) now to think that they all looked alike under those helmets.

Wasn't Han Solo training to be a Stormtrooper when he turned on his superiors and saved Chewbacca?

Superdude

05-22-2005, 05:05 PM

I remember hearing (reading) that, as well, Khan.

AmericanMaid

05-22-2005, 05:54 PM

I saw the movie this weekend. I say, as a lifelong Star Wars fan whose entire childhood was devoted to playing Star Wars, this movie was awful. I'm not trying to turn into Comic Book Girl declaring to the masses "Worst movie ever!" But my God...

Yoda wound up being Jar Jar with Jedi powers. The scenes between Padme and Anakin were more excruciating than ever. The magically disappearing pregnancy belly and Sam Jackson's distracting performance. I have a theory that since Sam Jackson declared in several interviews that Mace wouldn't go out like a pussy then he found out that Mace will die in a ridiculous manner, he decided the sabotage the movie.

The only highlights for me were the Jedi extermination and Anakin's burnt body. Even the big Obi Wan/Anaking duel was a letdown. If it's a battle to the death, with good and evil at stake, why the hell did they get on a conference table to do battle? The baby naming scene had me on the edge of my seat. Would she name the babies Stan and Mabel? The Darth Vader resurrection scene was ruined by the "Noooo!" I call it a force version of Streetcar Named Desire.

The movie was a big let-down. I'll just cling to my happy childhood memories and pretend the prequels never happened.

Cisco

05-22-2005, 06:14 PM

The movie was a big let-down. I'll just cling to my happy childhood memories and pretend the prequels never happened.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, and I won't totally disagree with you. When viewed in light of the Holy Trilogy, these movies (especially the first two) really are a big let-down.

If you take them out of context though and view them as totally seperate movies (which is what they are - don't let Lucas fool you into thinking that Star Wars "was the story of Anakin Skywalker from the start"), they are pretty damn good summer popcorn movies.

Think about it: What recent sci-fi "blockbusters" do we have to compare them to? The Chronicles of Riddick? Crap. The Matrix sequels? More crap. Any recent Star Trek movies? Most of the post-Spider-Man comic book movies? Crap crap crap crap crap.

Revenge of the Sith was more than watchable to me. It had some bad parts, yes, but it was leaps and bounds beyond what the genre has been giving us in recent years.

interface2x

05-22-2005, 06:24 PM

The baby naming scene had me on the edge of my seat. Would she name the babies Stan and Mabel?

This is something I've seen in a lot of reviews, as well (not specifically the baby's names, but prior knowledge of certain events), and I don't understand it. Well, yeah, you're not going to be on the edge of your seat wondering what the names are going to be. Sure, you're not going to sit there wondering if Anakin will really fall to the dark side. You're not going to be actually thinking that Obi-Wan will lose the final showdown.

But this is all stuff that you knew about going into the movie. Why then complain that the knowledge of these events ruined the experience in any way? This is not to point out the OP, but the quote above reminded me of that - sure, I wasn't blown away by the choices of names, but really ...was there any way to do it that wouldn't be just pure "we already know that" exposition? Yeah, it was cheesy and all, but ... well ... George Lucas. This is the same guy who conceived Jar Jar and, even after an entire film, still thought it was a good idea.

The fact of the matter is that all of the events in this film are foregone conclusions that won't surprise anyone. Really, the only way to surprise anyone is to surprise them with how everything went down. When you watch this, you have to expect that some of the suspense will be gone since you've known for 28 years how it's all going to end up. For those reviewers who thought the experience was ruined by prior knowledge of its ending ... don't know what I can do for you.

Kamino Neko

05-22-2005, 06:47 PM

If you take them out of context though and view them as totally seperate movies..., they are pretty damn good summer popcorn movies.

You say that like the original 'Holy trinity' was anything else - or even aspired to be.

Star Wars is a popcorn muncher with wooden acting, silly dialogue, and every other vice attributed to the prequels - except for the 'we know this already' which can only happen with almost 30 years of backstory.

MacTech

05-22-2005, 06:51 PM

I'm torn, taken as a standalone movie, it's good

as part of the trilogy, it's mediocre though, yes the CGI and effects were brilliantly done, but there's more to a movie than eye-candy, take away the CGI and other effects, and you're left with a mediocre movie, laughable emoting, nonexistent plot, and blatant "Look at this, see, this is IMPORTANT!" "subtleties

yes i know they're trying to link the movies together, but it seems like the effects linger too long on the "prototype" ships and tech....

"SEE, LOOK AT THIS SHIP, IT'S THE PREDECESSOR/PROTOTYPE TO THE X-WING, AND HERE'S A TIE FIGHTER, AND A STAR DESTROYER, OH LOOK, HERE'S THE CORRELIAN CORVETTE FROM ANH!!!! ISN'T THAT COOL?!?"

still, better than most of the drek currently in theatres, i'll see it again, just to catch little bits i missed this time, but overall, i'm not as impressed as i thought i'd be

on a scale of 1-10, i'll give it a 6.5
ANH; 9.5
ESB; 9.6
ROTJ; 7
TPM; 3.5
AOTC; 5.0
ROTS; 6.5

one last question, when do the Clonetroopers loose their shooting accuracy, the clone troopers seem to be reasonably on-target in both AOTC and ROTS, yet they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when standing *inside* the barn and using a *shotgun* in the original 3 movies

did the Empire cut the Blaster Marksmanship Training Course budget at some point?

Cisco

05-22-2005, 06:59 PM

You say that like the original 'Holy trinity' was anything else
They were a lot more to me than summer popcorn movies, and a lot more to a lot of people than they were to me.

"Summer popcorn movies", to me, indicate a viewing in the theatre, maybe one more viewing at home 6 months to a year later, and that's it. Not dozens of viewings, clothes, video games, tv shows, comicbooks, novels, and toys (hell, I had Return of the Jedi fucking rollerskates when I was a kid) that are still going strong after almost 30 years.

As always, your mileage may vary.

MacTech

05-22-2005, 07:01 PM

one other thing, i did like the humour with the droid army/R2 sequence, but part of me keeps thinking "these are *battle-droids* they *shouldn't* have a personality, they're supposed to be mindless automatans....

(yes i know, R2 and 3PO are based on similar tech, but somehow, Battledroids with a sense of humour seems somehow......strange)

the commentary from the kids behind me was somewhat amusing, i don't think they had seen the other original movies, and were going in with just the knowledge of ANH...

<the childbirth scene>
(Luke is born)
"Luke, COOL!, Vader's Luke's father!"
(Leia is born)
"Leia?, LEIA?, dude, that's *GROSS*, it's his *SISTER!*"

i thought it was somewhat amusing

Cisco

05-22-2005, 07:05 PM

They were a lot more to me than summer popcorn movies, and a lot more to a lot of people than they were to me.
I hope this Bilboesque quote makes sense to you guys.

FTR, I would rate them:

Star Wars: 9.3
Empire: 9.6
Jedi: 9.5*
TPM: 5.5
AotC: 6.8
RotS: 8.1

*I was young enough that the Ewoks didn't bother me.

Kamino Neko

05-22-2005, 07:16 PM

They were a lot more to me than summer popcorn movies, and a lot more to a lot of people than they were to me.

That's exactly my point.

People are looking at the original trilogy as something it wasn't. Something it never tried to be. Something it couldn't have been had it actually been trying.

Then they're looking at the new trilogy not in light of what the original trilogy WAS, but what it became in their minds. And they find it wanting.

But if they watched the original trilogy without the beautifying haze of nostalgia and emotional pre-involvement. If they watched it fresh, it wouldn't be the 'holy trilogy' and the newer movies wouldn't look at all bad in comparison.

I say this as someone who loves the original movies. But, for the last 15 years - since the first time I watched them without the eyes of a 5 year old or a nostalgic haze, I love them for what they are. Silly action flicks with an interesting - if derivitive - story, moderately interesting characters, and an interesting 'world'. And inconsistant plotting, iffy acting and really, really bad dialogue.

Harborwolf

05-22-2005, 07:29 PM

For what it's worth, I think these movies are crap without comparison to the original trilogy. These are bad as stand alone movies. Compared to the orignial trilogy, they are an abomination.

I mean, people don't even die of a broken heart in soap operas.

Khan

05-22-2005, 07:43 PM

I remember hearing (reading) that, as well, Khan.

I was wrong. He was in the Imperial Navy:

Solo was once a promising young officer in the Imperial Navy but lost his commission when he first met Chewbacca, then an Imperial slave, and helped him escape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Solo

Khan

05-22-2005, 08:04 PM

This is something I've seen in a lot of reviews, as well (not specifically the baby's names, but prior knowledge of certain events), and I don't understand it. Well, yeah, you're not going to be on the edge of your seat wondering what the names are going to be. Sure, you're not going to sit there wondering if Anakin will really fall to the dark side. You're not going to be actually thinking that Obi-Wan will lose the final showdown.

I'm glad you brought that up. Of course I knew what was going to happen. I knew Anakin would turn. I knew that he and Palpatine would wipe out the Jedi. All the same, I couldn't help but hope that things would turn out different, and THAT is what made this installment so good. Every time I watch Empire I can't help but hope that they'd catch up to Boba Fett before he escapes with Han Solo. Just like people still hope that she doesn't get on the plane in Casablanca (I've never actually seen it), ESB and Sith both make you hope somehow that things would turn out differently.

It's not on behalf of Padme or Anakin, though, it's for the Jedi and the Republic, and for characters like Obiwan and Yoda. They're the ones I sympathized with.

Scuba_Ben

05-22-2005, 10:22 PM

order 66? what kind of lameass order number is that? Sounds like my food's ready at burger king.It's called an "idiot code." Anybody who eavesdrops on the transmission only knows that 66 is significant. Without the proper code book, they don't know whether "Order 66" means:

Assassinate Jedi immediately.
Retreat to nearest Victory Star Destroyer.
When come back to Coruscant, bring pie.

Keep in mind that when the order goes out, no non-Sith knows that Palpatine is evil; everybody thinks he's simply the Chancellor. And if proper information security protocols are used, there isn't any evidence after the fact either that Palpatine gave the order.

I'm definitely going to re-watch this movie. It totally rocked, and made up for the first two.

midget

05-22-2005, 11:40 PM

Saw it and loved it! It'll take a while remove the horror of the last two eps burned into my mind, but it's nice to know I can replace it with this move.

It seems that I'm the only person that DIDN'T think Anakin's turning was too rushed. I think they portrayed his confusion and slow corruption prior to the showdon with Windu very well. He was still confused up to (and during) his assist in Mace's death. After that point, however, he didn't exactly feel that he was left with many options. After killing a master Jedi, he felt that there would be no way to cast off the label of traitor and be welcomed back into the fold. He crossed the line of no return in his mind, and instantly started orienting himself towards his new future.

Sure there were ackward lines and inconsistencies, but they were mostly minor and easily overlooked....Except for the "I think you're beatiful. That's because you love me. It's because I'm IN love with you" atrocity. The audience's emotion meter skipped 'groan' and 'shudder', and leaped right to 'laugh hystericaly'

ISiddiqui

05-23-2005, 12:01 AM

midget, I agree with your view on Anakin's turning. I mean, Windu's willingness to kill a defensless Palpatine (even if he was too dangerous) showed him that the Jedi were simply for power (in his mind) and then he killed Windu. After that, there was no turning back. He KILLED a Jedi Master! And he couldn't kill Palpatine at that point (Palpy was taking a dive and would have destroyed Anakin).

And once you fall to the Dark Side... it's hard to come back.

rjung

05-23-2005, 01:36 AM

Saw the movie today. Overall, I thought it was fun, though my full enjoyment was hampered from (a) the nosebleed seats I got in the fourth row, and (b) some wretched acting and dialog, particularly from Portman and Hayden (especially Hayden).

And as to not repeat myself from the BBQ Pit, I will simply link to my rant on why Mace Windu is the second-dumbest character in RotS (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6185719&postcount=41) (with Anakin being the first). :)

Mac Guffin

05-23-2005, 02:13 AM

one last question, when do the Clonetroopers loose their shooting accuracy, the clone troopers seem to be reasonably on-target in both AOTC and ROTS, yet they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when standing *inside* the barn and using a *shotgun* in the original 3 movies

did the Empire cut the Blaster Marksmanship Training Course budget at some point?

Keep in mind, By the time that ANH starts, 20 years have passed. The source for the clones has been dead for about 25, so they must keep re-using dna. After a while errors start to creep into the copies. Think about what happens when you photocopy a copy of a copy of a copy of a document. By the time Luke was fighting stormtroopers, they were probibly a few generations into some seriouls errors..

Plus the few that were introduced in the begining, like an inability to duck. :)

Larry Mudd

05-23-2005, 02:41 AM

I like to think that the original trilogy stormtroopers' notoriously poor marksmanship is the result of the Imperial bureaucracy being completely out-of-touch with the boots on the ground.

What was Luke's first comment when he and Han donned stormtrooper armour for their subterfuge? "I can't see a thing in this helmet." The Empire kept making cosmetic changes to the Mandelorian armour -- changes that were focused on presenting an intimidating appearance, rather than practical concerns. "Look at me! I'm bright white! Why? Because I'm such a bad-ass it doesn't matter if I stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, there's five hundred more troops right behind me. You don't stand a chance, rebel scum!"

The latest change to the uniform was replacing the panoramic blast-shield strip with a socketed design. One that narrows to points on the the inside edges, right in front of the stormtrooper's eyes, and widens to the cop sunglasses-size only at the edge of the face. Imagine engaging in combat with a deck of playing cards duct-taped to the bridge of your nose. That's what being an Imperial stormtrooper is all about.

This is the Star Wars analog of the the central command of the British Empire mandating that their troops in Africa wear heavy wool garments to shield them from the harmful effects of the African sun. Great logic, coming from folks who'd never left the Sceptered Isle. All those troops passing out from heat prostration? Malingerers, to a man. :D

Tarrsk

05-23-2005, 02:56 AM

I say this as someone who loves the original movies. But, for the last 15 years - since the first time I watched them without the eyes of a 5 year old or a nostalgic haze, I love them for what they are. Silly action flicks with an interesting - if derivitive - story, moderately interesting characters, and an interesting 'world'. And inconsistant plotting, iffy acting and really, really bad dialogue.

I'm not going to dispute that the OT love is at least partly colored by nostalgia; however, I would strongly disagree that the acting and dialogue were bad, particularly on the level the prequel films exhibit. I just rewatched The Empire Strikes Back today, and despite knowing exactly what was going to happen, was surprised by how the film crackles with energy. The Han and Leia banter throughout the film is lively and well-acted, and aside the occasional groaner ("nerf herder!") features some great, quotable dialogue ("We don't have time to discuss this in committee!"/ "I am NOT a committee!"). Nothing even approaches the wretchedness on display in the wooden love scenes of the prequels.

Return of the Jedi I'll give you, but the first two films of the original trilogy were better than the prequels (Ewan MacGregor aside) in terms of acting, writing, and directing, nostalgia-tinted glasses or no.

Rainbowthief

05-23-2005, 04:13 AM

Best Star Wars flick ever! I'm still in shock even after watching the movie twice. After two mediocre movies, I was pretty much resigned to thinking that Lucas blew his load on the original trilogy and didn't have anything left for the prequels, but he pulled out all stops and gave the saga the ending that it deserved.

Where to begin? Some of my favorite scenes:

--The little boy Jedi coming out of nowhere to save Senator Organa manages to kill about half a dozen clone soldiers before getting killed.

--Mace Windu's duel with Palpatine and his death scene. Mace was a kickass character who deserved a great death scene, so I'm happy that he got one and we even got an explanation for Darth Sidious's scarred face!

--After countless Jedi are killed in sneak attacks by clones, Yoda easily kills his would-be assassins rather easily.

--Anakin beheading Count Dooku.

--The final duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin. When Obi-Wan cried to Anakin "You were the chosen one!" it felt like I was watching a real family disintegrate. Great scene.

I also appreciated all the explanations we got, like seeing how fucked up Anakin got explained why Vader wore that bulky suit with a breathing apparatus or how Yoda telling Obi-Wan that Qui-Gon Jinn has found away to communicate with them.

I already can't wait for the DVD!

MaxTheVool

05-23-2005, 04:24 AM

One thing I'd have liked to see commented on more... it seems totally preposterous that the Jedi couldn't figure out who the Sith lord was:
-They know that a Sith lord exists, who is rumored to have influence on the senate
-They know that the Sith worth through treachery and confusion, and are power-hungry
-They know that Palpatine is still chancellor long after his term expired
-They even comment that the dark side seems to surround him

Yet the never seem to actually specifically suspect that it's him. (Although Mace Windu's response when Anakin tells him is "then our worst fears are realized", or something, which could be read to imply that they've suspected this might be the case...)

It seems to me that the explanation for all this is that part of the Sith powers is a massive confusion field... it's VERY hard for people to realize that Palpatine is a Sith, even with nearly-direct evidence. I just wish we had heard someone comment on something like this, instead of having to hypothesize it ourself to explain a seemingly gaping hole.

Nonetheless, I loved the movie... three viewings so far, probably one more in a few weeks.

AndyPolley

05-23-2005, 07:48 AM

What was Yoda supposed to do? At that point there were two jedi left. Palpatine controlled two armies (droid and clone) to Yoda's zero, and had the Chosen One on his side. Yoda had at that point fought the emperor to a draw. If he had pressed on he might have been able to best him, but the longer he was there the higher the probability that several hundred clone troops would show up and then he's be dodging blaster bolts AND force lightning. "Withdraw and regroup, we must."

I just wanted to note that Yoda realizes his disadvantage at this point in his duel with Palpitine...and it's juxtaposed with Anakin not realizing his disadvantage in his own duel with Obi-Wan. Anakin arrogantly continues & gets cut down. Yoda wisley retreats & meets up with Organa to live to fight another day.

Well...it feels like I'm adding something that hasn't been said in a six page thread. :)

Mister Rik

05-23-2005, 10:23 AM

It seems to me that the explanation for all this is that part of the Sith powers is a massive confusion field... it's VERY hard for people to realize that Palpatine is a Sith, even with nearly-direct evidence.
Ah, it's much like Steve (Apple CEO) Jobs' famed "Reality Distortion Field"!

What was Yoda supposed to do? At that point there were two jedi left. Palpatine controlled two armies (droid and clone) to Yoda's zero,
Did anybody else notice that, prior to Palpatine's duel with Yoda, he ordered the droid army deactivated "immediately"? I think he gave that order at the same time he was issuing Order 66. The reason is obvious: it would be too easy for his enemies to infiltrate and reprogram the droid army and use it against him. That's why we don't see any droid soldiers in episodes IV - VI. And of course, even Palpatine can't play "Sith Mind Tricks" on droids.

Merijeek

05-23-2005, 11:14 AM

One thing bothered me about that scene, though. Anakin just blew right past her, like he didn't have any Force powers or anything.

What should have happened (http://www.larrymudd.com/images/twileks_legs.jpg). :D

My theater had cheering at the beginning of the movie, clapping at the end, and total silence throughout.

Except for her scene, where there gasps and whispers of, "wow!".

-Joe

Merijeek

05-23-2005, 11:22 AM

did no one else realize that this was a lie?

Not necessarily. Don't forget that Anakin was a (supposedly) virgin birth. When you can see the future doing something like that might be worthwhile. As others have suggested, it's possible that Palpatine's master was trying to grow himself a kickass apprentice.

This made Ep II make some sense. The sith made the army (wasn't it Dooku?), and when the jedi found out about it, they were just like, hey, an army! cool! instead of considering for one second where they originated.

Eh. Remember that the Jedi "knew" that the army had been commissioned and (presumably) paid for by Master Sifo Dyas. Again, if you have someone who can see the future (seperatist droid armies ripping apart the Republic) it's not too hard to believe that they'd go ahead and have an army created that will be ready right when it's needed.

-Joe, gets a discount on parenthesis

Cuckoorex

05-23-2005, 11:39 AM

OK, I re-watched AOTC last night on TV. I have to say, the #1 glaring, obvious weakness of the entire series is the dialogue. I can forgive some of the obvious plot holes (Leia remembers her real mother?) and - even though I think they were heavy-handed - the cameos by familiar characters ("Thank you....CHEWBACCA.") I don't think that Hayden and Natalie are that bad at acting, when given decent material to work with. Still, the dialogue seems so forced and stilted at times that there never really is a chance for any real chemistry to develop. I think it might have been much better if Lucas had made TPM differently, in the sense of having Anakin as a child at the beginning and having him grow into a young teenager by movie's end, all the while developing some relationships to Padme and Obi-wan. Then again, maybe not. Maybe the chemistry that was in ANH, TESB, and yes, even ROTJ is too hard to recreate.

I have to say it again; the dialogue! NOOOOOOOOOOO!

I mean, come ON, George! You have Christopher Lee there, and you have him say things like, "It is obvious that this contest will not be decided by our knowledge of the Force. It must be settled with light-sabers!" Oh god.

And this groaner from AOTC: "Want to buy some Death Sticks?" NOOOOOOOOOOO! Even the guy who says it looks like a poorly-done parody of something better. What the hell is he supposed to be? Caterpillar boy?

Plus, I didn't see ANYTHING machine-wise that was anywhere near as cool as AT-ATs.

D_Odds

05-23-2005, 01:06 PM

I've only read a few pages, but I'd like to chime in with some agreements and a question.

Dialog was bad in all 6 movies. However, the trio in the original had more chemistry than any pairing in the recent trilogy. Hamill was nearly as bad an actor as anyone in the recent trilogy, something I didn't notice when I was 12 years old. But Luke, Han and Leia clicked, especially the latter pair. No matter how hard they tried, Obi-wan, Anakin and Padme did not click on any level.

For those seeing the "Falcon", it's a stock Corellian design. There are probably thousands of them out there. It's a light freighter, so it probably won't go through many design improvements.

Darth V and Obi-Wan K sure slow down in their old age saber battle. Obi-wan should have asked Dooku how he kept so spry through the years.

My 12 year old kept cracking up at the dialog. She could have written them better than Lucas, and probably delivered them better than Portman. My theory is that Portman and Christensen were told they were doing a dress rehearsal, but then budget worries forced them to go with that. Please do not point out flaws in my theory, it helps me enjoy the movie more.

Now for the question:
What happened to the stormtrooper camo armor? Wouldn't that have been a bit handier on Endor's moon? Did the supplier go out of business?

This was, IMNSHO, the third best SW film, slightly better than RotJ. The drop off between the 4th best (RotJ) and 5th (AotC) is HUGE.

Crandolph

05-23-2005, 03:18 PM

Saw Episode III yesterday, what a load of crap. Great special effects but for a guy who claims they mean nothing without a story, Lucas can't put together a cohesive one or have people saying realistic dialog within it.

People gain and lose powers and technology functions or doesn't to move plot haphazardly. R2 can fly/ no he can't. Darth Vader and Grevous are held together by incredible medical tech, but Yoda needs a cane (no he doesn't/yes he does/no he doesn't) and Padme dies in childbirth (Annikin has visions of her dying but can't get her to a doctor - WTF?!). The Jedi can see the future and have a 6th sense. Yes they do/no they don't/yes they do. The Republic is all about democracy... um, except for the fact that everyone in power gained it through birthright and "destiny." C-3PO can translate 6 million languages but Yoda is 900 years old and has a word order problem that could be corrected in a few ESL classes. People are still dying in wars that could easily be fought by machine. Jedi have a deep respect for life and shouldn't kill when possible/maybe not/oh yes/maybe not (the more you look human the more it applies). Leaders are closer to battle sites then they are now on Earth. Important characters have stuff cut off and limbs cauterized by the light sabers (which for some reason become solid when they hit each other) but non-vital characters are killed by them immediately. And so on, the continuity problems could go on forever.

The entire movie was written in Special English for Voice of America, with each character making no statement until the other is finished making theirs; totally unrealistic dialog, and delivered like "How to Order Food at a Restaurant" from a Berlitz tape. Lucas' attempts at comedy throughout the series have been painfully bad, and his attempts at love scenes worse. Acting ranged from uninspired to horribly overacted. Take away the CGI (which has gotten better) and this was a turd.

FriarTed

05-23-2005, 03:22 PM

Cuckoorex

05-23-2005, 03:23 PM

Darth V and Obi-Wan K sure slow down in their old age saber battle. Obi-wan should have asked Dooku how he kept so spry through the years.

Just playing Devil's Advocate here...maybe having all of his limbs and many of his major organs replaced by cybernetics slowed Vader down...and maybe Obi-wan was holding back deliberately, so that Luke could eventually fulfill his destiny and "redeem" Anakin later instead of killing him now in a lightsaber battle. Besides, if he killed Vader he probably would have had to tell Luke eventually that Vader really was his father anyway, right?

sturmhauke

05-23-2005, 03:48 PM

And then there was this point when they were walking through a corridor on the Tantive IV and he did indeed look real.
Yoda did look pretty good, but I don't think that was the Tantive IV. It might have been the Tantive II or III. There were some minor cosmetic differences between Bail's ship and Leia's.

D_Odds

05-23-2005, 04:10 PM

Just playing Devil's Advocate here...maybe having all of his limbs and many of his major organs replaced by cybernetics slowed Vader down...and maybe Obi-wan was holding back deliberately, so that Luke could eventually fulfill his destiny and "redeem" Anakin later instead of killing him now in a lightsaber battle. Besides, if he killed Vader he probably would have had to tell Luke eventually that Vader really was his father anyway, right?
I wouldn't want to be Obi-wan' apprentice, if that was his reason for throwing the Vader fight. As for telling Luke, Obi-wan clung strongly onto that old Anakin died when Vader was born story. Probably believed it himself.

And General Grievous didn't seem hampered by cybernetics, and he had a lot more. Vader moved like Dr. Frankenstein's monster.

Larry Mudd

05-23-2005, 04:54 PM

Yoda did look pretty good, but I don't think that was the Tantive IV. It might have been the Tantive II or III. There were some minor cosmetic differences between Bail's ship and Leia's.According to starwars.com (http://www.starwars.com/databank/appearance/ep3.html), it was the Tantive IV.

In the script, however, it's only identified as an "Alderaan Starcruiser."

Anaamika

05-23-2005, 05:42 PM

I loved it.

I came to Star Wars late in life, and while the first three were good, I never thought they were the end-all be-all most fans think they are.

R2 could fly in the earlier ones and not in the latest ones. This is really easy to explain: in the earlier ones there was a war going on. Later, Leia is just a diplomat. She doesn't need a super-duper power droid, and it would just draw attention to her father anyway. So he took away a lot of his extra functions.

The romance, while still painful, was much more bearable and I actually felt sympathy toward Anakin, which I never had before.

I actually felt a lump when all the Jedi died, and a bit misty when Obi-Wan was saying "You were my brother!"

I was totally enthralled and impressed...the opening fight was really cool and the lightsaber duels were amazing.

And General Grievous was all that and a bag of potato chips!

Mister Rik

05-23-2005, 06:02 PM

I thought the Tantive IV (Leia's ship in ANH, right?) was a Corellian Corvette? Again, another stock design, like the Falcon, probably sold on the open market to anybody who wanted to buy one. Or am I missing something?

I actually came to the conclusion that Bail Organa's ship in RotS was not the same ship seen in ANH. The one in ANH was obviously built from a model dragster kit (Lucas said, long time ago, that most of the spaceships in the orginal were pieced together from model car parts). Bail's ship in RotS didn't have the fat tires in the back, as near as I could tell.

rocking chair

05-23-2005, 06:58 PM

good heavens! darth vader was a gravely injured man. it isn't easy to move on 2 replacement legs, esp ones that connect above the knees. 2 arms above the elbows and burn scarring everywhere. he isn't gonna be a russian ballet dancer!

obi-wan was on an off planet with no one to practice with. he was a bit rusty.

he def. threw the fight in starwars. he just held his sword in front of him and let vader kill him.

i'm a bit baffled on how he thought luke would be able to kill vader when he couldn't. he had the same arguement with yoda over vader that luke did. i can't kill him! he is my brother/father!

Crandolph

05-23-2005, 08:46 PM

good heavens! darth vader was a gravely injured man. it isn't easy to move on 2 replacement legs, esp ones that connect above the knees. 2 arms above the elbows and burn scarring everywhere. he isn't gonna be a russian ballet dancer!

But 20 years earlier (story chronology) Grevous can do kung fu insect moves with 4 replacement arms and 2 replecment legs? Just one of dozens and dozens of glaring continuity errors...

I'm perfectly able to accept a fantasy world as long as it has internal consistency. Lucas drops the ball on that time and again. It's just poor storytelling.

Merijeek

05-23-2005, 09:06 PM

Laughing Lagomorph

05-23-2005, 09:11 PM

But 20 years earlier (story chronology) Grevous can do kung fu insect moves with 4 replacement arms and 2 replecment legs? ....

[Devil's Advocate] Well, maybe Grevious' species (whatever it is) has an easier time adapting to cybernetics than humans do. [/Devil's Advocate]

I'm with you on the Jedi's not killing unless it's necessary (or really convenient). I see it as the Star Wars universe's equivalent of the Prime Directive from Star Trek...it is important but the characters can ignore it whenever they want. :p

Merijeek

05-23-2005, 10:39 PM

[Devil's Advocate] Well, maybe Grevious' species (whatever it is) has an easier time adapting to cybernetics than humans do. [/Devil's Advocate]

I'm with you on the Jedi's not killing unless it's necessary (or really convenient). I see it as the Star Wars universe's equivalent of the Prime Directive from Star Trek...it is important but the characters can ignore it whenever they want. :p

How many times have we seen a Jedi kill a helpless being?

-Joe

Jman

05-23-2005, 10:50 PM

Ummm....is it just me, or are we complaining about how Vaders very FIRST steps as mostly machine are awkward? Wouldn't your very first movements with 4 prosthetic limbs be a little unsteady? I know it would take me at least a few days before I felt at home with them. Even with huge technology advances, it'd take at least a few minutes or hours before Vader could walk normally, getting used to how the stuff feels. He walks just fine by the time he joins the emporer on the bridge to look at the Death Star.

FWIW, I loved it. Also...the discontinuity between Obi-Wan and Vader's first and last fights is simple: the 'last' fight was made before George had ideas of grand lightsaber battles. That's it. The movies were made 28 years apart, get over it! The lightsaber battles get better in every single film....was he supposed to make Anakin and Obi-Wan suck in Ep III because he didn't have a good fight coreographer for Ep IV?

SkipMagic

05-23-2005, 11:05 PM

I just saw it; I thought it stunk. Better, sure, than the first two, but maybe even worse in some ways because all of the last-minute attempts to tie these last three in with the original three. Plus, the dialogue? I couldn't decide which movie wins the trophy for bad dialogue: Sith or Titanic.

The Wookie Tarzan calls? Yuck. The droids' stupid voices and ridiculous exclamations? Double-yuck. "She's lost the will to live..." Not enough fingers in the world to count that yuck.

But I do have one question for those of you who saw it:

When Yoda and Obi sneak back into the Jedi building, the Chancellor was busy proclaiming himself Emperor. Obi, however, twice refers to him as "Emperor" before he could have even possibly known. Was there something I missed?

(I didn't mind, however, the pre-X-Wings and pre-TIE Fighters and pre-other-recognizable machine crap from the original trilogy that showed up.)

My ratings:

Star Wars - 10
Empire Strikes Back - 10
Return of the Jedi - 10

Phantom Menace - 0 (without Jar-Jar: 1.5)
Attack of the Clones - 0.5
Revenge of the Sith - 2, but because all of the names were pretty stupid, -0.5 for a whopping 1.5. Plus, hey, .1 for not being the Phantom Menace even without Jar-Jar: 1.6. :p

Soapbox Monkey

05-23-2005, 11:07 PM

But 20 years earlier (story chronology) Grevous can do kung fu insect moves with 4 replacement arms and 2 replecment legs? Just one of dozens and dozens of glaring continuity errors...

I'm perfectly able to accept a fantasy world as long as it has internal consistency. Lucas drops the ball on that time and again. It's just poor storytelling.

The difference between Grievous and Vader are pretty clear.

Grievous is a cyborg, meaning that he is almost entirely robotic, with the exception of his brain, eyes, and a few internal organs that just seem to hang in his metallic chest cavity. Since his entire body is cybernetic, it can move pretty efficiently.

Vader, on the other hand, is a quadruple amputee with most of the rest of his body intact. What is left of his body has essentially been melted and burnt to a crisp. His robotic legs and arms are merely replacements for limbs lost. He doesn't get the complete overhaul. Flesh and mechanical parts needing to work together is not going to be as efficient as having a 98-99% robotic body.

EvilHamsterOnCrack

05-23-2005, 11:35 PM

I liked the evolution of the ships alot, as well as the fact that the technology style went from 2005-style-futuristic to 1970-style-futuristic halfway through the movie, to fit with the other trilogy. Definately a good movie, up there with the originals.
As far as Palapatine's face-warp, it did the same thing to Yoda. Look at Yoda pre-lightning-battle and then post lightning-battle. He's much older-looking, or maybe it was just me.

Oh and just a quick brag: I got to see it on an IMAX screen!!

Mister Rik

05-24-2005, 01:27 AM

Something just occured to me, regarding the villian names in these movies, while I was reading a comic book. Perhaps Lucas was a Green Lantern fan. Sinestro, anybody?

Mister Rik

05-24-2005, 01:31 AM

One more thing: Did Sidious somehow know what was going to happen to Vader, and have that black suit made up in advance so that it would be ready to go when the time came? I hardly think that was a Republic-standard burn victim suit out of a first aid kit ;) Or was it designed on the spot? And what was up with the smoke coming out of the suit when it was being put on him?

Crandolph

05-24-2005, 01:56 AM

It's amazing. If you look hard enough for something to whine about you'll find it.

Did you know that War & Peace is really really long? And there's, like, a whole bunch of characters?

-Joe, not comparing Star Wars and War & Peace, but instead making a point

I made neither of those complaints about Star Wars. If more time would've made the story make sense, all the better. If characters served any function beyond video games and action figures, let's have them.

And yes, you did just compare Dostoyevsky and Lucas... which I think is perfectly legit as both are storytellers working with the medium technology allowed at the time. Fyodor was just better at it. :p

I love how the Lucasfans are making up all sorts of possible covers for what are obvious big ol' plot holes he just bungled. There wasn't a continuity editor in the budget?

Crandolph

05-24-2005, 01:58 AM

Crap... Tolstoy. I meant Tolstoy. Who was also a better storyteller...

Don't suppose I'll be living that one down any time soon... :smack:

MaxTheVool

05-24-2005, 02:07 AM

When Yoda and Obi sneak back into the Jedi building, the Chancellor was busy proclaiming himself Emperor. Obi, however, twice refers to him as "Emperor" before he could have even possibly known. Was there something I missed?

I had that same reaction, although it's quite easy to resolve... heck, how do we know Obi Wan and Yoda didn't stop and check cnn.com after resetting the beacon and before looking at the security videos? It's not like the formation of the empire wouldn't be Big News, however, Big News was communicated in those days.

MaxTheVool

05-24-2005, 02:11 AM

I love how the Lucasfans are making up all sorts of possible covers for what are obvious big ol' plot holes he just bungled. There wasn't a continuity editor in the budget?

There's a big difference, to me, between a plot hole where you say "huh, that's odd... well, here are 3 or 4 very plausible explanations, I just wish he'd mentioned which one it was, as noticing that apparent discrepancy kind of pulled me out of the movie" and "huh, that's odd... ummm, gee, OK, here's a hilariously contrived explanation that almost comes close to explaining it, Lucas is my God, lalalalalalala", which no one is doing.

And if your idea of a plot hole is that Vader's first steps, after being almost killed, having 3 limbs amputated, learning that the love of his life is dead, and betraying everything he believes in, are stumbling and awkward, or that a light saber battle between two old guys in a movie made 28 years ago isn't as cool as a light saber battle made today, well, then I guess we just disagree.

Arwin

05-24-2005, 04:04 AM

There's a big difference, to me, between a plot hole where you say "huh, that's odd... well, here are 3 or 4 very plausible explanations, I just wish he'd mentioned which one it was, as noticing that apparent discrepancy kind of pulled me out of the movie" and "huh, that's odd... ummm, gee, OK, here's a hilariously contrived explanation that almost comes close to explaining it, Lucas is my God, lalalalalalala", which no one is doing.

And if your idea of a plot hole is that Vader's first steps, after being almost killed, having 3 limbs amputated, learning that the love of his life is dead, and betraying everything he believes in, are stumbling and awkward, or that a light saber battle between two old guys in a movie made 28 years ago isn't as cool as a light saber battle made today, well, then I guess we just disagree.

Yeah, most of the detail stuff people are complaining about is crappy and pointless, or simply ignorant. Fortunately, some people don't claim to be other than ignorant. Like the smoke out of the suit - if I remember it was explained in RotJ that DV needs the suit to live, and it's quite clear in RotS that as his skin is fully burnt he'll be needing some help consuming oxagyn through his skin (people generally die from full scale burns for this reason - they suffocate, anyone remember Goldfinger and the paint scenes?).

If you get a bionic limb for only part of your body, then there are all sorts of things at play. Since they're only part replacements, they are tied into the muscles and nerve endings of real limbs, so when you move these limbs you are still using part of your own body. Also, your brain needs to relearn interpreting the nerve signals feedback from the bionic bodyparts as I assume they are stronger than what they replaced, as well as typcially being heavier, or lighter (the impression given in all animations of robotic parts in SW is almost always that they are heavier), but in any case of different weight.

To me, I think its the people, the characters. Only Yoda has that spiritedness that made characters like Han Solo and Leia so likeable. The other characters are flat and passionless almost the whole time. You could argue that part of this is as it should be, with the whole impending doom and evil triumphing, but all in all there were too many characters that were too bland, and with so little time to develop a relationship with any of them except Obi Wan, Anakin, Lord Sid and Yoda, it just doesn't work very well. (even less because a lot of time was used for showing off beautifully rendered citiscapes - it was better when they're just used as backdrops to the story development rather than as a theme park ride)

Waverly

05-24-2005, 05:06 AM

it's quite clear in RotS that as his skin is fully burnt he'll be needing some help consuming oxagyn through his skin (people generally die from full scale burns for this reason - they suffocate, anyone remember Goldfinger and the paint scenes?).People with burns do not die from failure to skin-breath oxygen. Shock and infection are the primary concerns. Believe it or not, you can paint yourself gold with relative impunity. It's been proven several times that this is an urban legend. You may prevent perspiration and raise your body temperature, but you won't suffocate.

Merijeek

05-24-2005, 07:40 AM

I love how the Lucasfans are making up all sorts of possible covers for what are obvious big ol' plot holes he just bungled. There wasn't a continuity editor in the budget?

Two cyborgs.

One has one set of meat components. One has a different set of meat components. They're both different species at the beginning.

They act differently. Completely differently.

How is that a "continuity error"?

A continuity error is Padme having twin girls.

-Joe

MovieMogul

05-24-2005, 09:59 AM

How many times have we seen a Jedi kill a helpless being?
Most of the Geonossians that Anakin constantly cuts in half in Clones are "unarmed" (though still obviously attacking).

Merijeek

05-24-2005, 02:04 PM

Most of the Geonossians that Anakin constantly cuts in half in Clones are "unarmed" (though still obviously attacking).

Who knows how big their claws are? Not really the point, though. They were attacking. Self-defense and all that.

You know what I meant by helpless. Dooku was helpless. How many other helpless types do we see killed by a Jedi?

-Joe

rjung

05-24-2005, 02:16 PM

One more thing: Did Sidious somehow know what was going to happen to Vader, and have that black suit made up in advance so that it would be ready to go when the time came?
He probably designs Sith costumes on his quiet evenings at home. When they were flying Vader back to Corusant, he just faxed a design ahead with a note reading, "Have the droids make a new enviro-suit that looks like this." :)

Dunderman

05-24-2005, 04:42 PM

I finally saw this damn movie, so now I can participate in these threads instead of feeling all left out.

I liked it. I mean, it had a bare minimum of Jar-Jar, what's not to like? No movie could ever live up to the original trilogy, but that's more because of nostalgia than anything else. It's definitely the best of the prequels, but unlike the other two it's actually good. The only things that really bother me, now that the prequel trilogy is completed, are some consistency problems.

First, the line that has already been mentioned: Leia talking about her real mother being "beautiful, but sad". It would have been perfect if that had turned out to be Padme. She had a lot to be sad about.

Then, the Yoda - Qui-Gon deal. In the originals, Obi-Wan calls Yoda "the Jedi master who instructed me" and says of Anakin that "I thought I could train him just as well as Yoda". It certainly appears that Yoda was Obi-Wans main teacher, not Qui-Gon.

Vader's line "When I left you, I was but a learner" to Obi-Wan. He didn't leave Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan left him for dead.

The Death Star deal, that has been mentioned. It's pretty clearly new and unknown in A New Hope. They should have skipped that bit entirely; it wouldn't have hurt the movie none.

Plotwise, there's little to complain about. I think the turning of Anakin would have been better if they'd just cut the whole "Padme dying in childbirth" thing. Anakin trying to uphold democracy while realizing that sometimes it is difficult, wanting to give Palpatine a fair trial but running into the problems of a corrupt government ("Palpatine controls the courts"), and eventually turning against the Jedi to ensure that the proper procedures are followed (Palpatine is duly elected, after all) would have worked on its own, without the Padme thing, and I daresay it would have been more powerful my way.

Also, Hayden Christensen was heaps better in this movie than in Attack of the Clones, which really helped.

All in all, a great movie, a worthy inclusion in the Star Wars saga. I think the best praise I can give it is the fact that when I got home, I got up in the attic and started rummaging through boxes (I'm in the middle of moving house) to find my A New Hope tape. I'm going to watch it right now, and I expect it to look quite different now.

HubZilla

05-24-2005, 05:00 PM

Then, the Yoda - Qui-Gon deal. In the originals, Obi-Wan calls Yoda "the Jedi master who instructed me" and says of Anakin that "I thought I could train him just as well as Yoda". It certainly appears that Yoda was Obi-Wans main teacher, not Qui-Gon.

When I was little, I always took this to mean that Obi-Wan trained Anakin all by himself. Never even told Yoda about it. He realized he gave an incomplete education, didn't want to repeat it, and made sure Luke went to Yoda.

levdrakon

05-24-2005, 05:01 PM

Saw it yesterday and enjoyed it. My main gripe:

Anakin was turned to the dark side a little too easily. How do you go from, "gee, I don't want Padme to die during childbirth" to, "I think I'll ruthlessly slaughter a bunch of children?" In one easy step, apparently. I didn't sense much inner conflict during the process.
"You're on the dark side of the force, I want kill you now."
"If you don't, I'll give you a cookie."
"OK, be right back, gonna go kill all my Jedi friends first, and maybe I'll slap around that traitorous bitch wife of mine while I'm at it."

But all in all, still a pretty good movie. A fairly satisfying end to the saga.

interface2x

05-24-2005, 06:54 PM

Vader's line "When I left you, I was but a learner" to Obi-Wan. He didn't leave Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan left him for dead.

Well, technically, Vader left Obi-Wan when he stopped being his apprentice and became a sith lord. That's even the way I took it when I was little - that he left the side of good for evil.

The Asbestos Mango

05-24-2005, 07:00 PM

The only thing that really bugged me about this installment is that there's no real sense of the passage of time, and the second half of the movie seems to happen WAY too fast. After Anakin attacks the Jedi Temple, Yoda and Obi-Won are able to return to Coruscant fast enough that there's still smoke pouring from the building and troopers hunting for stragglers. At the same time they're doing that, Anakin is already on Mustafar slaughtering the Separatist leaders. Obi-Won then travels to Mustafar so fast that he's already there before Yoda makes it to the Senate building for his confrontation with Palpatine. Then, after Anakin's immolation, Palpatine travels to Mustafar so fast that Anakin is still alive and CONSCIOUS when he gets there. That kind of flying makes Han Solo making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs look like a walk in the park.

Forgive me, my Masters, for replying to this post without slogging through the thread to see if someone else has said it first, but I just gotta say this.

Lucas seems to have a real problem with the whole time passage thing. It was glaringly obvious in ESB, when you have Vader's fleet pursuing Han and Leia around the Hoth system's asteroid field for what seems to be a matter of hours, ,at most a day or two (and brining in bounty hunters for the pursuit, no less), meanwhile, Luke is undergoing what appears to be weeks, if not months, of Jedi training with Yoda on Dagobah. It wasn't so obvious in ANH, but after you've seen it a few times, you realize that Leia seems to have only been on the Death Star for an hour or so, during which time she was brutally interrogated, had her death warrant signed (Tarkin does not strike me as the type who would make a snap decision to execute a former senator) the Death Star has been moved from wherever it was to Alderaan (even in hyperspace, that trip should have at least taken some days), then recovered enough to look nice and fresh for the Blowing Up of the Home Planet ceremony and dumped back in her cell to await rescue.

Meanwhile, if the goings-on on board the Millenium Falcon are any indication, that trip seems to be taking at least a week or so.

The problems of time passage aren't as obvious in ROTJ, but you'd think that, somewhere in the intervening coupla decades, somebody would have sat down with George and said, "Dude, you really need to work on the pacing before you go and make the next trilogy."

Having gotten that off my ample bosom, I'm going to say that I though ROTS was on a par with ESB. I was kind of afraid that Christiansen would ruin the movie with his overacting like he did in AOTC, but he was much more subdued this time out, and that was good. I really, really didn't like Anakin a lot after the first two prequels, and Lucas turned him into a character that I could respect before the inevitable fall. I did think the seduction by Palpatine happened a bit too quickly, and I also wondered why the hell he wasn't on some kind of respiratory support while the droids where attaching the cybernetic limbs, but outside of that, well, corny dialogue is something I've come to expect from Lucas (he really should have hired a writer who could, you know, write), so I just munched my Kettle Corn and enjoyed the show.

Bosstone

05-24-2005, 07:07 PM

I finally got to see RotS today. I'm surprised at people saying Hayden was so much better in this one; I usually don't notice wooden acting, but it jumped out at me this time. Maybe I was just sensitive to it because of all the stuff I read about how his acting sucks. :D

Overall, though, I did really enjoy the movie. I remember complaints whem TPM came out about how the ships and cities looked all shiny and clean. RotS did a wonderful job of presenting things as they would look after a few? years of non-stop warfare. (Maybe they mentioned it, but I didn't catch how much time had passed between AotC and RotS.) From pristine, luxurious civilization to gritty, worn-down utilitarianism. Star Wars tech has always been more fascinating to me than its characters, and I enjoyed all the small touches I saw.

The betrayal scenes were satisfactorily tragic; even knowing what happened, each death was like a gut punch. It wasn't just the deaths of the Jedi, either. Since AotC all marketing and extra-movie stuff has been centered around making the clone army look like the good guys. Lucasfilms worked hard to separate nostalgic memories of the evil stormtroopers from the good clone troopers. Specifically, I've been playing Republic Commando and really getting into it, and it does an excellent job of making the clone troopers human. Seeing them all just up and obey an oblique order to instantly turn on their generals was as sad as seeing the generals die. I liked the clones as good guys, dammit.

As a related note, I've seen a lot of mocking aimed at the Jedi who blindly accepted the clone army without suspicion. Superficially, I agree. It was dumb of them. But, consider:

1) The Republic was largely at peace, and had been for years. There was no standing army; any threats were usually small enough to be quelled by contingents of Jedi.

2) Out of a seemingly minor dispute between the Trade Federation and a single planet, almost immediately there's this enormous and deadly rebellion by the Separatists. It's much, much too big for the Jedi to handle all at once. They need firepower, and they need it fast.

3) Send in the clones. It's suspicious, but it's also a deus ex machina which the Jedi could not pass up, even if only temporarily. Perhaps they thought the fighting would end on Geonosis and they could then have some quiet time to investigate the army.

4) The clones perform admirably, surpassing expectations by everyone in the Republic (aside from Palpatine, who's about as omniscient as you can get). The Jedi Council still has some concerns, but the Separatist movement is growing too large too fast to sit and think. The clones passed their trial by fire, and the fighting just doesn't stop. The Jedi have no opportunity to risk losing the only defense they have against the Separatists.

5) As time passes, the clones continue to be wonderfully competent and reliable, earning the Jedis' trust, and in some cases friendship. Jedi, being good guys with selfless interests, lose whatever concerns they might have about the clones stabbing them in the back. Unfortunately, as a famous dark-helmeted leader once said, "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." :(

The Jedi probably should've tried to keep a side investigation going, but I'm not sure they had any real choice in the matter. Once the fighting began they had to see it through to the end or risk losing the Republic.

rocking chair

05-24-2005, 07:10 PM

priceguy,watching the ot after 3 is very interesting. gl does have some minor cont. problems, but some things are really interesting.

re darth vader and his mobility. burn scars are not known for flexibility. he would have ended up with 3rd degree burns over 100 percent of what was left of him. between that and above the knee and elbows prosth. you don't have a very graceful person even after 20 plus years.

when i watched 4-6 again this weekend i did notice how darth vader moved. he was a bit clunky. fitting in with his injuries and recovery from them. the parts that were would have to have climate control and air flow. burn scars do not do temp regulation very well. that would make the suit bulky.

so you've got diff. prosth.s, burn scars, bulky suite. gonna be a bit clunky moving, and rather difficult to get the force flowing through all of that.

msmith537

05-24-2005, 07:34 PM

From now on you will be known as Darth Ironic

Orual

05-24-2005, 08:07 PM

Vader's line "When I left you, I was but a learner" to Obi-Wan. He didn't leave Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan left him for dead.

Well, I think that Anakin "left" some time between chopping Mace Windu's arm off and Palpy telling Lord Vader to rise.

MaxTheVool

05-24-2005, 08:51 PM

Vader's line "When I left you, I was but a learner" to Obi-Wan. He didn't leave Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan left him for dead.

Isn't the line "When we last met..." not "when I left you..."?

sturmhauke

05-24-2005, 11:32 PM

I thought the Tantive IV (Leia's ship in ANH, right?) was a Corellian Corvette? Again, another stock design, like the Falcon, probably sold on the open market to anybody who wanted to buy one. Or am I missing something?
That is correct. You can see a few other Corvettes in RotJ as the Rebel fleet is hyperspacing to Endor.
According to starwars.com, it was the Tantive IV.
Hmm, maybe a teenaged Leia "borrowed" her dad's starship to go to a party in another system, got drunk, and crashed it, so it had to be taken to a body shop. What do you suppose the deductible is on something like that?

Dunderman

05-25-2005, 01:52 AM

Isn't the line "When we last met..." not "when I left you..."?
No. I did rewatch A New Hope, and it is "When I left you...". I was also reminded of another line from the originals that doesn't quite fit with the prequels: "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since before you were born". Yes he has, and it seems a strange thing to lie about.

Also, Tarkin's line "Surely [Obi-Wan] must be dead by now". He's not that old: He's what, 30, maybe 40, in Revenge of the Sith? If Tarkin had skipped "by now", then I could see it; it might seem to him that if Obi-Wan did survive the purges of the Jedi, he would have made his presence known by now, but adding "by now" makes it seem like he believes Obi-Wan should have died of old age.

Forgot to mention that I actually liked how they explained where C3P0 and R2D2 went and why they were hanging around Princess Leia on the Tantive IV, but I would still have preferred if the two droids hadn't been in the prequels at all.

Rainbowthief

05-25-2005, 02:16 AM

Dunderman

05-25-2005, 02:35 AM

Nurobath

05-25-2005, 03:27 AM

I didn't sense much inner conflict during the process.
I don't think there was much. Remember that Anikin has been harboring resentment towards Obi-Wan and the Jedi council for years over various perceived slights and non-recognition of his abilities/usefulness (in fact, I don't think he ever got over his resentment of the council refusing to train him as a child). Plus Palpatine has been planting seeds of doubt about the Jedi order in his mind for a long time; all the while telling him how great and powerful he is and how much more powerful he could be. Anikin always had a great desire for power. A little too ambitious for his own good.

I have a feeling that if Mace had let Anikin come along to arrest Palpy instead of telling him to sit and wait like a little kid things may have turned out differently. Or it may have at least delayed his turning for a while longer.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

05-25-2005, 03:59 AM

No. I did rewatch A New Hope, and it is "When I left you...". I was also reminded of another line from the originals that doesn't quite fit with the prequels: "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since before you were born". Yes he has, and it seems a strange thing to lie about.

He's old. Is he supposed to recall the precise details of everything? No one called him Obi-wan in the birthing room anyhow.

Thinking about it, I'm ecstatic about the fact that he never said, "My, I think I'll go by Ben now. I've always liked that name."

Anakin was turned to the dark side a little too easily.
I agree. However, did you see him when he was pledging allegiance? His eyes were all funny, like he was under a spell. I think there was more than mixed feelings and Palpatine's deceit in his turn.

Tarkin's line "Surely [Obi-Wan] must be dead by now". He's not that old: He's what, 30, maybe 40, in Revenge of the Sith? If Tarkin had skipped "by now", then I could see it
He knows Obi-wan indirectly only, and is always trying to discount Vader's 'hokey religion' anyhow. I hardly think he keeps track of the ages and birthdays of dormant jedi.

PICK THEM NITS

Dunderman

05-25-2005, 05:05 AM

He knows Obi-wan indirectly only, and is always trying to discount Vader's 'hokey religion' anyhow. I hardly think he keeps track of the ages and birthdays of dormant jedi.
That doesn't explain Vader's reply.

Tarkin: Surely he must be dead by now?
Vader: Don't underestimate the power of the Force.

Vader here implies that Obi-Wan has managed to stay alive through his mastery of the Force. Tarkin may not have known Obi-Wan, but Vader certainly did.

SolGrundy

05-25-2005, 05:12 AM

I got three pages into this thread before I got too annoyed to read any further.

Not too annoyed to post my opinion, though! I liked the movie an awful lot. I see it not as the end of the first trilogy, but as a prologue to the next one. And after this and the "Clone Wars" series, I actually like Star Wars again!

I think all the nit-picking and talking about continuity errors (there aren't any significant continuity errors, as far as I'm concerned) are getting into Star Trek/science fiction territory, instead of looking at the movies as movies -- big, spectacular, melodramatic fantasy stories. Revenge of the Sith delivered exactly that.

Mister Rik

05-25-2005, 06:47 AM

so you've got diff. prosth.s, burn scars, bulky suite. gonna be a bit clunky moving, and rather difficult to get the force flowing through all of that.
And as we all know, according to d20 rules, armor interferes with arcane spellcasting.

:D

Trunk

05-25-2005, 07:38 AM

Best line (which I'm probably slightly misquoting)

"Good relations I have with the wookiees."

Ot was it. . .

"Good relations with the wookiees I have."

Either way, hilarious.

--------

Anyway. . .I thought RotS was the best Star Wars movie out of all 6.

Not only was it better than all the rest, it really made the others better as I think back on them. A lot of the stuff in AotC now makes more sense. As I think back on the discovery on Anakin and his growth and attitude through Ep I & II, it carries a lot more weight and sadness. I mean, we all knew he was going to turn into Darth, but because he was manipulated into it -- not because of his inherent EVIL, but really because of his LOVE -- it was that much more tragic.

Again, just like TPM and AotC, the action sequences DWARF anything from the OT, except possibly the Battle for Hoth. The landscapes, cityscapes and interiors were again beautiful and flawless.

The worst parts of the movie were the crap he shoehorned in to keep the NerdClone Army from a violent internet uprising.

Yoda: "Oh, by the way, Obi-Wan. . .I have to get this in before the end of the movie because of the nerds. . .I think that Qui-Gon has learned to communicate from the dead. . .work on that while you're chillin' on Tatooine."

He might as well have turned to the camera after that and said, "There, will that make you dorks shut up for two friggin' seconds?"

It's especially upsetting that people who are criticizing the movie for logic holes are apparently the same ones who miss things like the juxtaposition of Yoda escaping Palpatine with Anakin attacking Obi-Wan (as AndyPolley aptly pointed out), or that Jedi's go for the arm (wow, we've only seen that since they were in Mos Eisley in A NEW HOPE. I guess it really snuck up on ya.).

What's with people saying that Anakin's "turn" was too quick? He's been turning since the first 20 minutes of AotC. There's been about 30 scenes in the last two movies, each one "turning" him a little more (and that's not counting the hints in TPM).

I'm really sorry that people who probably started out as fans just like me have been unable to enjoy the last 3 movies because they went off the deep end in the interim 20 years. Next time you see a MOVIE you enjoy, try not to turn it into your new religion.

ANH : 7
ESB : 9
RotJ : 7
TPM : 7
AotC : 9
RotS : 10

You want a logic hole and some crappy dialogue?

"we used to bullseye womprats back home in beggar's canyon and they weren't much bigger than 2 meters."

Oh yeah, Luke, did you also have bulls in Beggar's Canyon from which you drew that expression?

Cuckoorex

05-25-2005, 08:51 AM

Geez, Trunk, excuse us for caring enough about the series to have an opinion.

You're right about the "bullseye" comment, but of course if we're going to nitpick on that level, how is it that everyone is speaking English? How is it that time and again we hear some species speaking in an incomprehensible tongue only to have one of the human characters reply in English and in fact carry on a conversation with them? If the aliens know "english", why not speak it? If the "humans" know the alien languages, why not speak to them in their native tongues? The easy answer is that somehow they all have tiny universal translator devices in their ears like little hearing aids, I suppose, but then again why does C3PO talk about "human" behavior in AOTC? Of course this level of nitpicking is ridiculous; we go into movies like this being willing to suspend our disbelief to some extent. It's when the movies are not consistent within the "rules" that the series sets up that people usually find problems.

Bosstone

05-25-2005, 09:01 AM

If the aliens know "english", why not speak it?
It's one thing to hear and decode language, it's quite another to encode and speak it. Wookiees don't have the anatomy to produce Basic ("english"), but that doesn't preclude them from hearing and understanding it.

Sorry, nitpick over

cryptic_j

05-25-2005, 09:11 AM

Well... I thought it was a great way to finish the saga (or reach the middle - depending on your point of view)

I didn't care too much for TPM when I first saw it - - but I excepted the story for what it was... I loved ATOC when I watched it ( I saw it twice at the cinema - which I rarely do with films ) - - I still haven't watched TPM start to finish in one sitting since I saw it at the cinema.. so..

I'll admit I couldn't wait for ROtS and I bought and read the book first- - now I don't know if this helped my enjoyment - or not... at some parts I felt the film was pausing for too long.. and I was like... come on.. Order 66.... and at other points it felt that things happened too quickly - - What happened to Dooku? blink and you miss it...

but I need to see it again, to really be sure - - I'm just not ready yet - - I'm still under the effects of the first viewing...

I agree with a lot of the nit picks - - and disagree with a lot of the comments about bad acting...

I didn't think Portman was bad at all..

It's a shame the love story didn't really come across in ATOC - but we ALL new it was important - George kept saying so...

so I just went with it... when you allow yourself to do that - this really works - - and I'm sure for less cynical children this will definitely be a story they'll remember..

and the moral..

Never Fall In Love..

first off it turns you evil.. and gets you burned -and you might lose your will to live...

and even if that works out for you - just when you're about to have ultimate power it will make you throw it all away and sacrifice yourself..

stupid sexy love, feels like I'm feeling nothing at all.....

Trunk

05-25-2005, 09:11 AM

Geez, Trunk, excuse us for caring enough about the series to have an opinion.

Except, that's the thing. . .you DON'T care about the series. You're unable to watch movies made with passion and vision because you care about CANON and continuity.

You care about the 8 million things people have talked about between RotJ and TPM.

You care about some series of novels that have nothing to do with the movies.

You care about being at the first screening.

You care about "droid amnesia" and mitichloroids and whether Darth Vader would yell "yippee" and whether the light passing through Yoda's ears is translucent enough.

Worst of all, you care about upholding the recent movies to an impossible of standard of your worship of the first three, not the first three themselves.

The series, you don't care about.

You go watch Phantom again. EVERYTHING people hated in that movie was present in the OT and everything we liked about the OT was better in Phantom. I've never seen such a blatant example of group-think as when the first dork walked out of Phantom menace, and went "well, that sucked" and it spread like a virus.

cryptic_j

05-25-2005, 09:16 AM

oh.. and while I'm here - - one thing no-one has seemed to mention (I only read the first 5 pages sorry )...

Luke Skywalker lives on Tatooine for 18 years or so... over which time, no-one mentions... "Hey, are you related to Anakin Skywalker - the only human to ever win the Boonta Eve race" - - "Yeah - he was a big hero in the clone wars - a Jedi.." - - "Didn't he go mental and kill a bunch of younglings???"

of course the last one is less likely - from ROtS only Padme, Threepio, Bail Organa, Yoda and Obi Wan know it was Anakin that did all that - Padme's dead, threepio - wiped, and the rest - presumably don't tell anyone...

but I always wondered - - what did Obi Wan tell Owen and Berut???

in ANH, when Berut says "There's too much of his father in him" - -and Owen says "That's what I'm afraid of" -- -or near enough... are they just remembering the whole Slaughtered the sand people thing?

When does Obi-Wan find out Vader has been built a suit of Black armour - ?

Dunderman

05-25-2005, 09:40 AM

but I always wondered - - what did Obi Wan tell Owen and Berut???
The truth, I think. On the other hand, Beru could say "too much of his father in him" with a little smile, so it doesn't seem likely that she knew his father was a mass murderer.
When does Obi-Wan find out Vader has been built a suit of Black armour - ?
Palpatine told Yoda that Anakin had been given the name Darth Vader, and after that Obi-Wan and Yoda met, and that seems like the kind of thing Yoda would mention, and Darth Vader was probably pretty famous in the Empire. Word gets 'round.

Max Carnage

05-25-2005, 09:55 AM

As I posted earlier, I loved Revenge of the Sith, but while we're all nitpicking, another continuity error on Lucas' part was to have Anakin lose his remaining organic arm because in Return of the Jedi, after Luke cuts one of his hands off during their duel, Vader holds the stump and seems to be in pain. Why would he be in pain over a robotic limb being severed?

Anyway, I don't really care about all that. I still enjoyed the movie immensely.

There are nerves/pain receptors in the artificial limbs. Otherwise how would they know how much pressure to use when holding something, or when they accidentally grab the wrong end of a lightsaber. In ESB, Luke flinched when the medical droid was testing out the Luke's new hand (I think he even winces in pain.) Then in ROTJ, Luke is shot in the hand and he withdraws it like it hurt as well. It probably did sting like the dickens when Vader had his hand lopped off (of course you'd think he'd have been used to that kinda thing. Amputation seems pretty common when you're a Jedi.)

Orual

05-25-2005, 10:00 AM

Luke Skywalker lives on Tatooine for 18 years or so... over which time, no-one mentions... "Hey, are you related to Anakin Skywalker - the only human to ever win the Boonta Eve race" - - "Yeah - he was a big hero in the clone wars - a Jedi.." - - "Didn't he go mental and kill a bunch of younglings???"

I don't think anyone on Tattoine knew about Anakin becoming a Jedi except for Watto, his mother, and the Lars family.

vibrotronica

05-25-2005, 10:44 AM

I have a feeling that if Mace had let Anikin come along to arrest Palpy instead of telling him to sit and wait like a little kid things may have turned out differently. Or it may have at least delayed his turning for a while longer.Maybe, but the reason that Mace didn't want Aanakin there was because he was uncertain of his loyalties. Turns out his suspicions were well grounded, but his decision to exclude Aanakin played right into the Emperor's hands by creating more suspicion and doubt in Aanakin's mind.

Cuckoorex

05-25-2005, 10:47 AM

OK, I don't want to turn this into a Pit thread, but...

Except, that's the thing. . .you DON'T care about the series. You're unable to watch movies made with passion and vision because you care about CANON and continuity.

I made the mistake of presuming to speak for others when I said "us", so I'll forgive you if you're saying "you" as a collective, but in that case we've both made the mistake of lumping a lot of people together in this.

You care about the 8 million things people have talked about between RotJ and TPM.

You care about some series of novels that have nothing to do with the movies.

I, personally, have never read any of the novels. From what I understand, the "official" word is that the novels do relate to the movies in the same sense that, say, AOTC relates to TESB; there may not be a direct continuity, but there is some connection and some recurring characters, and (correct me if I'm wrong) the novels are considered "Officially" correct unless something in the films supercedes them. As part of that "official" universe, the novels are certainly part of the series of stories as a whole. (That being said, I have to reiterate that I have never read any of the novels. I think I only ever read maybe three of the comic books when I was a kid and that was during the time between TESB and ROTJ.) If some people do care about the overall continuity and harmony with the novels, that's their prerogative but they do care about the series, enough so that they are willing to buy and read novels about it. I'd say they care about it much more than I do.

You care about being at the first screening.

I cared about being at the first screening for a lot of movies; Spider-Man 2, the entire LOTR series, and pretty much any "blockbuster" movie that has had a midnight screening. It's kind of a tradition and it's fun. I know that only the diehard fans tend to go to those things, so you know that they're going to be respectful and not disruptive.

You care about "droid amnesia" and mitichloroids and whether Darth Vader would yell "yippee" and whether the light passing through Yoda's ears is translucent enough.

You care about finding the broadest possible brush to paint fans of Star Wars with, apparently. Someone mentioned that the CG people did a great job on Yoda, even getting the light filtering through the skin of his ears. That was a positive note and had nothing to do with any kind of Star Wars nerdiness from what I read. Some people thought it seemed bizarre to think that the evil Darth Vader would be the kind of kid that would yell "yippee"; I suppose they assumed that he would have been more of a "Damien" type of kid. Whatever. It didn't bother me that much, and it probably didn't bother most of the Star Wars fans. Some people care about the midichlorian aspect because it's the given explanation for the Force and the people who can use the Force to varying degrees, and the Force one of the central elements of the entire series. How can you expect Star Wars fans to NOT care about that? Droid amnesia? Well, some people just want to figure out why the droids and the people who knew the droids acted the way that they did in the OT; they're hoping to find an explanation that preserves the integrity of all of the movies, for the most part.

Worst of all, you care about upholding the recent movies to an impossible of standard of your worship of the first three, not the first three themselves.

The series, you don't care about.

You may have a point about the impossible standard, a standard that the OT movies themselves don't really reach. In my opinion, TESB was by far the most enjoyable of the series; it doesn't have the great SFX of 1-3, but it was a lot of fun to watch, and it made me want more.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "the series, you don't care about." I'm guessing that you mean that the people that you're lumping together only care about a mythical standard born of nostalgia and not about the actual series of movies; if so, you're making a pretty big assumption about a lot of people and what they care about.

You go watch Phantom again. EVERYTHING people hated in that movie was present in the OT and everything we liked about the OT was better in Phantom. I've never seen such a blatant example of group-think as when the first dork walked out of Phantom menace, and went "well, that sucked" and it spread like a virus.

Everything was better in TPM? Well, the SFX was better, the fight choreography was better, the dialogue was probably equal, but in my opinion the story was not better, and the intangible sense of chemistry between the lead actors was absent. You probably have noticed that I and many others have been lamenting the lack of that chemistry. Some of us are trying to figure out why it's not there. Is it the dialogue writing? I don't think so, not so much because the dialogue wasn't all that much better or worse than the OT. Was it the direction? Maybe. TESB wasn't directed by Lucas. Was it the overall story? I think it was, partly. Was it the actors? Again, perhaps so. I think Han and Leia's love story was much more believable and compelling than anything that happened between Anakin and Padme, and part of that has to do with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher just clicking, especially in TESB. That's what I miss about the OT, what I think is really lacking in episodes 1-3. The rest is, admittedly, nitpicky stuff but none of the nitpicky stuff made me think that episodes 1-3 were bad movies. In fact, I think I said earlier that they were good movies, just not great ones.

Get off your high horse already. If you just think that Star Wars fans tend to be nerdy, just say so and get over it. I think Star Trek fans are the biggest nerds in the world, but I don't feel compelled to go into Star Trek threads and tell them all that they're idiots for liking a series where all of the aliens pretty much look the same except they have different forehead wrinkles.

msmith537

05-25-2005, 11:15 AM

People with burns do not die from failure to skin-breath oxygen. Shock and infection are the primary concerns.

I believe severe burn victims also have trouble maintaining body temperature.

I think Han and Leia's love story was much more believable and compelling than anything that happened between Anakin and Padme, and part of that has to do with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher just clicking, especially in TESB.

That's because Han and Mrs Solo weren't all sappy like Padmakin. Han was so cool he didn't need to bust out the cornball lines (Han I love you! - I know!). While Anakin is all whiny and clingy, Han spends most of ANH and ESB pulling Leias cinnebuns/pigtails. And that's kind of the point. Anakins whole problem is that he's posessive and clingy. Lern to let go he must. He may be a Jedi but emotionally he's still a child and that is his downfall.

As for the whole Old vs New movies, well, none of this stuff is Citizen Kane. I don't want to nitpick every possible plot hole or technology gap. I can overlook Lucas bashing us over the head with "continuity" (for example, it would have been fine for Chewbacca to just be floating in the background, not "Hey thanks Chewy!..Se ya in 20 years!"). I just want to see huge space battles and guys with lightsabers slashing and hacking at armies of robots and stormtroopers.

Oh and Palpatine just HAD to throw mitachlorians in there again!

kaylasdad99

05-25-2005, 04:26 PM

I just want to go all "Jeff SpicolI" here and say how great I thought it was that the Jedi Temple had these four giant doobies (http://www.starwarsfan.org/prequels/news/pics/sotg6%20pics/Jedi%20Temple%20Shots.jpg) sticking out of the roof.

And I had to read the entire thread before I did, so I could be sure nobody else had already said it.

:cool:

cppguy

05-25-2005, 04:30 PM

Of course it took less time to finish the second Death Star--right after dissolving the Senate, the Emperor dissolved the unions. [rimshot]

Waverly

05-25-2005, 04:31 PM

IAnakins whole problem is that he's posessive and clingy. Lern to let go he must. He may be a Jedi but emotionally he's still a child and that is his downfall.What's his face is also a much lower caliber actor than Ford. Mix that with sappy dialog, and it's a recipe for disaster. I can't help but think they could have cast a better Anakin.

Mr. Blue Sky

05-25-2005, 04:38 PM

Saw it today, finally.

Overall, the movie felt flat. The acting, especially.

The switching back and forth between the action bits and the slow bits was a bit annoying.

General Grievous was vastly overrated as was the hands-lopping-off of Dooku.

When Palpatine got his Mace Windu Jedi makeover, he looked like he was a resident of Frog Island with that huge flappy neck. Also, Palpatine laughed way too much even though he was evil. The Darth Vader "Noooooooo!" moment was really stupid.

The SFX were great and I enjoyed the lightsaber battles.

Overall, I'd give it a 7.

Merijeek

05-25-2005, 04:50 PM

Heeereeere's a question.

Did anyone, anyone at all, not think that the "Noooooooooooo!" moment was either silly, stupid, lame, or gay*?

-Joe

*apologies to our homosexual bretheren, but you know what I mean

Mr. Blue Sky

05-25-2005, 04:53 PM

Did anyone, anyone at all, not think that the "Noooooooooooo!" moment was either silly, stupid, lame, or gay*?

Look at the post above yours.

Mr. Blue Sky

05-25-2005, 04:54 PM

Hell, why not have him drop to his knees, switch to an overhead shot, and have rain falling in his face.

Morbo

05-25-2005, 05:24 PM

I, of course, was not at all pleased by the end of Dooku. I think my inner monologue ran like this:

"Aha! He's crushed Obi-Wan under that giant metallic thing!
....
....Now Anakin's gonna get another beat down and the Emporer's going to help him....
....
....uh...
....
....did my hands just get chopped off?
....
....
...certainly they're not going to kill him so soo--........grumble"

At this point, it didn't help that my friend started whispering to me the lines from Austin Powers. "Not the time to lose one's head.......that's not the way to get ahead in life....it's a shame he wasn't more headstrong..."

And why wasn't Obi-Wan more seriously hurt in that scene? It looked like his lower body was completely crushed.

Overall, I rank it 3rd. ANH, ESB, ROTS, TPM, AOTC.

My favorite line was when Palpatine started shouting "ULTIMATE POWERRRRR!!!!!!" while attacking Windu with Force Lightning. He knew he'd won. (How can anyone watch that scene and think Palpatine didn't deliberately throw his match with Windu??!!")

ultrafilter

05-25-2005, 05:28 PM

You know, the problem with the prequels goes much deeper than wooden acting, or bad storytelling, or a lack of internal consistency. Lucas is taking a story that features political intrigue culminating in a dictator rising to power, a protagonist falling from grace and betraying all of his friends, and a small-scale genocide. That ain't kids' movie material, but that's the way it's being done.

The one thing that wasn't entirely clear to me was why Palpatine showed up to rescue Anakin. It's not like he seems to be particularly attached to any of his apprentices at other times, so why now? Was it just cause he didn't have a backup ready?

SolGrundy

05-25-2005, 05:36 PM

Heeereeere's a question.

Did anyone, anyone at all, not think that the "Noooooooooooo!" moment was either silly, stupid, lame, or gay*?
I didn't. I thought the whole Force-tantrum was very well done and creepy on every level. And then Vader's bursting out of the table like Frankenstein's monster, and shouting "NOOOOO!" was exactly the right thing to do in the climax of a big, melodramatic, overblown space opera. It's no more silly or "gay" than the Death Star exploding.

Mr. Blue Sky

05-25-2005, 05:40 PM

Was it just cause he didn't have a backup ready?

That'd be my guess.

rjung

05-25-2005, 05:50 PM

Larry Mudd

05-25-2005, 06:06 PM

I was also reminded of another line from the originals that doesn't quite fit with the prequels: "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since before you were born". Yes he has, and it seems a strange thing to lie about.I think that it fits perfectly, and that the events in ROTS add a certain amount of nuance to the line. Remember how Sir Alec delivered the line? "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since, oh before you were born."

Why did he drop the name "Obi-Wan?" Because the handful of Jedi that survived the purge were in hiding. What's he going to say to Luke? "I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since your father helped the Emperor slaughter almost everyone in the Order. That was a day or so before you were born, by the way."

Listen to the exchange (http://www.earthstation1.com/MovieWavFiles/longtime.wav), knowing that Luke's daddy is the reason Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years hiding out on a rock. Perfect!

Same with Tarkin's "Surely he must be dead by now." It's not just because he's old that he "must be dead." It's because he's a Jedi, and the Empire's #1 rule is Jedi must die. Someone must have gotten to him.The one thing that wasn't entirely clear to me was why Palpatine showed up to rescue Anakin. It's not like he seems to be particularly attached to any of his apprentices at other times, so why now? Was it just cause he didn't have a backup ready?That, and that Anakin was apparently born and bred to be strong in the Force, and they've just killed off nearly all the other Force-sensitives, so pickings are slim for a new pupil to corrupt. Even if you regard the "midichlorian" thing as heresy, the idea that the Skywalker line is especially strong in the Force was established in the original trilogy.LEIA: You have a power I don't understand and could never have.

LUKE: You're wrong, Leia. You have that power too. In time you'll learn to use it as I have. The Force is strong in my family. My father has it... I have it... and my sister has it.This is another reason I don't mind the whole "Leia remembers her mother" thing. What does she remember? "Images... Feelings..." In the context of a conversation in which Luke tells Leia she is Force sensitive but doesn't know it, this works. She "couldn't possibly" remember her mother in the same way that Anakin "couldn't possibly" have "images and feelings" about Padme's death. No problem. (Besides which, it was better for the story to kill Padme off in childbirth after having her crushed by Vader, instead of giving up one kid and raising the daughter in hiding for a year or two before falling down the stairs or something.)

Patty & Chuck

05-25-2005, 06:09 PM

kaylasdad99

05-25-2005, 06:13 PM

Because he's The Chosen OneTM, more powerful in The ForceTM than anyone else previously?Good possibility. And it ties into speculation that Darths Maul and (whatever kind of a Darth Dooku was) were mere place-holders while he waited for his custom-made apprentice to be trained up and ready to turn.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who thought the roof of the Jedi Temple was designed to appeal to the Jay and Silent Bob types?

Crandolph

05-25-2005, 06:26 PM

Anytime anyone has to reach to supposition or fandom-based novels to explain apparent inconsistencies in a story, it's a sign that the storyteller did a bad job. When I go to see a movie, I don't want to have to have read supplemental materials or use my own imagination to fill in suppositional backstory as to why things don't make apparent sense. I have no problem suspending my credulity for a fictional realm if things make internal sense within it, but when you start ignoring your own rules left and right I lose interest.

I'll stick with the contention that characters and the level of technology gain and lose abilities just as its convenient to move plot along. Why is Yoda hanging on to anything with his fingernails if he can, for all intents and purposes, levitate, leap and use telekinesis when convenient? Why is being 3 feet higher than someone a huge tactical swordfighting advantage for people who have just been leaping 40 ft in the air? Why is a cyborg that's mostly machine hunched over and coughing? Why is death in childbirth a concern with this level of technology? Why do we send human infantry against giant robotic war machines piloted by droids? Why do you build a whole mystique around an order of people who have a 6th sense and then have all but one of them conveniently lose it when you need them assassinated? The missing senator has a homing device, and no one else in the series of movies has been using one? How many times would that have made sense? Things like that just don't make sense within the bounds of the created universe and turn me off to the story.

It's evident that some of the new powers we see in the past 3 movies are simply because CGI made them possible. Some of the characters and scenes are just there for video games and action figures.

If you say that the function of this movie was to catch us up to Ep IV, you can't make twins out of seperated siblings who were supposed to be a few years apart. Throw in things like memory wipes and the like as convenient to explain things away... just very poor storytelling.

The level of dialogue, as both written and acted, was so mind-bogglingly poor that I find it hard to believe anyone would find it acceptable for a big-budget Hollywood film. People at the screening I was at were outright laughing at some of the serious scenes in this one.

vibrotronica

05-25-2005, 06:28 PM

Dude! Giant Force spliffs! Awesome!

Mister Rik

05-25-2005, 06:39 PM

Of course it took less time to finish the second Death Star--right after dissolving the Senate, the Emperor dissolved the unions. [rimshot]
BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Seriously, though... I noticed something interesting. At the end of RotS, we see Palpatine and Vader looking out the window at the under-construction Death Star. The just-started DS appears as a hollow, spherical frame, upon which the rest of it will be built.

However, in RotJ, we see a solid, spherical construct with big chunks missing, lacking the complete outer framework (at least as far as I can tell).

It appears to me that the first Death Star was built in-place, piece by piece. This was like building a house by putting up the frame, and then adding the interior and exterior details.

The second Death Star was built using modular construction techniques. Rather like building a house by assembling each large component off-site, and then dropping each complete section into place and connecting them to the sections already in place.

The modular technique would allow various subsections to be built elsewhere and then transported to Endor and fitted into place, meaning that many, many components could be built simultaneously at different locations, with the result being faster construction

Just a thought.

Larry Mudd

05-25-2005, 07:10 PM

You can't make twins out of seperated siblings who were supposed to be a few years apart. What's the basis for your assertion that they were "supposed" to be a few years apart?

The script for the first movie specifies that Luke is eighteen years old, but looks younger. Leia is described only as "A lively young girl," but Carrie Fisher was eighteen when Star Wars was filmed. (Mark Hamill was a few years older than Carrie Fisher, true. But there's nothing in the script to suggest that Luke is older than Leia, and what might be interpreted as a suggestion that Leia is older than Luke is explained by her having "Force" visions, so it's not much of a problem.)

Mister Rik

05-25-2005, 07:11 PM

Why do you build a whole mystique around an order of people who have a 6th sense and then have all but one of them conveniently lose it when you need them assassinated?
My thoughts on this (now that I've seen this mentioned several times, and I've had time to think about it: each of those murdered Jedi was either in the middle of a battle, or had just been in battle (the Twi'lek appeared to be searching the swamp for more enemies). They were all actively Force-searching for hostiles, and there were already hostiles all around them. Sixth sense or no, a handful of new hostiles are not going to instantly register, especially when those hostiles were, only moments before, friendly. In fact, the first instinct would probably be that the hostiles are behind your own men. Turning around and seeing only your own soldiers would certainly cause a split second of indecision. Add in the already-established fact that the Jedi had been having difficulty sensing the Force, and that indecision becomes even more likely.

cppguy

05-25-2005, 07:17 PM

That doesn't explain Vader's reply.

Tarkin: Surely he must be dead by now?
Vader: Don't underestimate the power of the Force.

Vader here implies that Obi-Wan has managed to stay alive through his mastery of the Force. Tarkin may not have known Obi-Wan, but Vader certainly did.The full quote:
VADER: He is here...
TARKIN: Obi-Wan Kenobi! What makes you think so?
VADER: A tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old master.
TARKIN: Surely he must be dead by now.
VADER: Don't underestimate the power of the Force.
TARKIN: The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion.The response by Vader is referring to his ability to sense Obi-Wan, not that the Force kept him alive.

rjung

05-25-2005, 07:18 PM

The modular technique would allow various subsections to be built elsewhere and then transported to Endor and fitted into place, meaning that many, many components could be built simultaneously at different locations, with the result being faster construction
Allso note, from Vader's opening exchange in ROTJ, the Emperor has been displeased with the rate of the construction effort, and sent Darth down to whip the crews into working even faster.

Maybe the first Death Star was a prototype, and Palpatine eventually envisioned an entire fleet of them, modularly-built, to enforce his power...

rocking chair

05-25-2005, 07:40 PM

intense use of the force would tire you out. having a 10-15 minute force fight would tire you out enough that you may not respond to danger as quickly as you may otherwise.

most of the jedi were killed either during an existing fight, or just after one. yoda seems to be in a rest between fights when he senses the danger behind him. he was able to respond quicker.

they didn't run about all day fulling using the force 24/7. anakin said that obi-wan would be "grumpy" seeing him use the force for "non force" situations, like nabbing fruit from a fellow diner's dish.

as far as screen chemistry, was i the only one who though q-g jinn and shmi had a wee something going on? they seemed to share a lot of "meaningful" glances.

Mister Rik

05-25-2005, 07:44 PM

most of the jedi were killed either during an existing fight, or just after one. yoda seems to be in a rest between fights when he senses the danger behind him. he was able to respond quicker.
It was also shown that he sensed the deaths of the others, and so was much better prepared.

Kozmik

05-25-2005, 07:45 PM

Well, technically, Vader left Obi-Wan when he stopped being his apprentice and became a sith lord. That's even the way I took it when I was little - that he left the side of good for evil.Yes, and what about how Vader says to Obi-wan "You should not have come back!"

Now we know what he meant.

Crandolph

05-25-2005, 08:28 PM

What's the basis for your assertion that they were "supposed" to be a few years apart?

Unless you're going to construct an elaborate Force-based construction in some dialog that doesn't explicitly contain it (and this, again, would also be poor storytelling), in Ep III Luke is asking Leia questions about his birth mother, a mother she presumably (applying Occam's razor and no dialog in that movie contradicting it) remembers in that she is A) older and/or B) at the very least was seperated from their mother later in life than Luke.

You don't then lead into that plotline with the two being twins and their mother dying immediately after childbirth. (How a tough woman who just gave birth to two kids and has a planet to save/represent suddenly has "nothing to live for" and dies for "no medical cause" because her newly abusive/evil husband left her and her morals behind is also well beyond my comprehension. Weak!)

The rationalizations folks are spinning for Lucas' inconsistancies are really quite incredible. If you have to spin these unspoken, unshown suppositional logic trails in order to jibe everything then we're really talking about some awful storytelling. This is especially disappointing coming from a guy who drew from "The Power of Myth" and seems to understand what makes a good story.

I'll say one thing I think I may have caught that seemed cool: Obi-Wan appears to have referred to a soldier at one point as "Commander" and later as "Cody" (I mean the fellow who picks up his light saber when he drops it, IIRC, chasing Greivous). A Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen reference would be a pretty cool little homage, if indeed that's what it was.

Crandolph

05-25-2005, 08:32 PM

MaxTheVool

05-25-2005, 08:54 PM

... and on the twin thing - were they referred to as twins at any point in Eps II or III? I don't recall that being so. It seems that you might like to tell someone who didn't know they had a sister that she was a twin sister, yes? Seems like the sort of detail that Lucas would've included if he intended that to be the case at the time. Throwing that in now does seem to throw the time/age thing off. Sloppy. Those huge budgets, 20 years, and you can't iron that stuff out? Substandard!

Well, THIS nitpick, at least, is flat out groundless.

Vader stops and senses something. Luke shuts his eyes tightly, in
anguish.

VADER
Sister! So...you have a twin sister. Your
feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan
was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure
is complete. If you will not turn to the dark
side, then perhaps she will.

LUKE
Never-r-r!

MaxTheVool

05-25-2005, 09:09 PM

Anytime anyone has to reach to supposition or fandom-based novels to explain apparent inconsistencies in a story, it's a sign that the storyteller did a bad job.

Yes and no. If two things appear to directly contradict each other, but Mr. Ubergeek says "ahh, umm, yes, this apparent contradiction was explained in Star Wars Comics issue #718 when Darth Vader reveals that he cloned himself seven times...", that's a bad thing. But most of the things you're complaining about are NOT direct contradictions, or anything close to it. To wit:

Why is Yoda hanging on to anything with his fingernails if he can, for all intents and purposes, levitate, leap and use telekinesis when convenient?

Because he can NOT levitate, as far as we know. Jedi have never been seen to fly or float. They have been seen to jump super-high, but not actually use telekinesis to telekines themselves. Note, for instance, Palpatine being thrown down the shaft in ROTJ and not flying back up, and Yoda being dropped by Luke in ESB and landing thump on the ground. Also note that force users are still only human (or, in Yoda's case, whatever the heck species he is), and Yoda had just had a huge lightning fight with Palpy. Does it require crazy lucas-loving blind speculation to suppose that he might not be totally 100% fit?

Why is being 3 feet higher than someone a huge tactical swordfighting advantage for people who have just been leaping 40 ft in the air?

Good question, and one I've wondered about as well. I would have liked it to be a bit more clear whether Obi Wan's advantage was just that he was higher, or that he had firmer footing, or that Anakin would be forced to make the first move (since he was the one still on the lava platform) to which Obi Wan would get to respond, or some combination of the above. I've seen it three times now, however, and Ewan's delivery of the line sounds more like quasi-playful taunting than an absolute certainty of victory.

Why is a cyborg that's mostly machine hunched over and coughing?

Hunched over - why not? Maybe it was designed that way. Why should you apply anthropomorphized assumptions as to what the most efficient stance for that type of cyborg would be?
Coughing - why not? Its lungs (which Obi Wan blasts) appear to be quite organic.

Why is death in childbirth a concern with this level of technology?

Clearly, it normally isn't, which is why the medical droid is so puzzled. But that fits directly into the whole "the ability to destroy a star system is insignificant next to the power of the force" theme that has pervaded all of the movies.

Why do we send human infantry against giant robotic war machines piloted by droids?

The real question is how can droids in general be so incompetent as warriors. But they are, as has been established through all three prequels. Given that, it makes perfect sense. (And droids being incompetent warriors again fits into the larger human-soul-and-emotion-trumps-technology theme.)

Why do you build a whole mystique around an order of people who have a 6th sense and then have all but one of them conveniently lose it when you need them assassinated?

Watch that scene again. At least some of the Jedi turn around and begin to fight back, but Jedi can definitely be killed by enough guys with blasters. And not all Jedi are equally good. This in no way violates anything we'd seen before.

The missing senator has a homing device, and no one else in the series of movies has been using one?

Well, except for, gee, the homing device that Tarkin plants on the Millenium Falcon in Ep4.

It's evident that some of the new powers we see in the past 3 movies are simply because CGI made them possible. Some of the characters and scenes are just there for video games and action figures.

No argument here. But is that a Bad Thing?

If you say that the function of this movie was to catch us up to Ep IV, you can't make twins out of seperated siblings who were supposed to be a few years apart.

As I pointed out last post, they were specifically mentioned to be twins in ROTJ.

I hope I'm not coming off as someone who can't stand to see ROTS, or Lucas in general, criticized. ROTS had its problems, and Eps 1 and 2 had HUGE problems. But I really just don't see some of your complaints as being anything more than trivialities, some of which you are dead 100% wrong about.

Rufus Xavier

05-25-2005, 09:12 PM

I'll say one thing I think I may have caught that seemed cool: Obi-Wan appears to have referred to a soldier at one point as "Commander" and later as "Cody" (I mean the fellow who picks up his light saber when he drops it, IIRC, chasing Greivous). A Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen reference would be a pretty cool little homage, if indeed that's what it was.

Indeed it was.

Larry Mudd

05-25-2005, 09:37 PM

Look, Crandolph, you keep talking about "poor storytelling." We all know that Lucas only had vague ideas about what must have happened before the events depicted in the original trilogy.

Do you honestly believe that keeping Padme alive for some time after Anakin turned to the Dark Side would have made a better story? Having Anakin raising a daughter for a year or so, knocking up his wife pretty much immediately, and somehow becoming estranged to her during the second pregnancy or after the birth of Luke, and then giving up both children?

Lucas gave us a great story, and he did a fine job of making dialogue in ROTJ have delayed significance. Leia doesn't say she remembers spending time at her mother's knee. She says all she has is "Feelings, images." Who are the two characters in the series that have force "visions" of major events concerning their family? Anakin and Luke. In ESB, Yoda explicitly says that these Force visions can be of the past, as well as the future. "Through the Force, other places, other times you will see. The future, the past. Old friends long gone." Luke complains that "My mind fills with so many images." Yoda responds "Control! Control! You must learn control!"

The conversation in which Luke asks Leia about their mother is one in which he specifically tells her she has the Force, and is the only hope if Luke fails. Leia says that she doesn't have any clear memories of her mother. Only images. In that conversation, Luke tells her that she is strong in the Force and will learn to use it, in time. Also, in that conversation, Luke repeats, verbatim, Padme's last words.

Yes, it's a spooje. But it's a spooje that is perfectly workable within the context of Star Wars, and allows Episode III to be the best story possible. If Lucas chose to have Leia born first, and Luke a year or so afterwards, and find some other way for Padme to die, it wouldn't be a great story, and you'd have something else to bitch about.

Sorry, but if your suspension of disbelief is suffering at the idea that Leia retains "images and feelings" of a mother she only spent a few minutes with after the gestation period, you're looking to the wrong franchise for entertainment. The only tangible way that having Padme raise Leia for a short time could have improved the movie would be if she were shown breast-feeding for at least as long as the Pod race sequence in Episode I.

A Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen reference would be a pretty cool little homage, if indeed that's what it was.If you're thinking of the folks who recorded Hot Rod Lincoln, you're a reference away from the actual reference. :D The band was named after the Republic serial The Lost Planet Airmen, featuring Commando Cody (commonly called Commander Cody but kids who didn't know any better.) Commando Cody was the inspiration for Boba Fett's character design (http://www.sergioleone.net/dm-108.jpg), which is why it's particularly cool that a Clonetrooper would have that name. (Not visible in that picture, Cody's signature rocket-pack (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/Posters/serialweb/CommandoCodyEp01c1953lc.jpg).)

Mr. Blue Sky

05-25-2005, 09:43 PM

The band was named after the Republic serial The Lost Planet Airmen, featuring Commando Cody

"Nipple, nipple, tweak, tweak"

Larry Mudd

05-25-2005, 09:46 PM

Ah, and while I'm on about Republic serials' influence on Star Wars, The Fighting Devil Dogs (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/Posters/serialweb/FightingDevilDogsEp071938.jpg) antagonist, "The Lightning", provided the inspiration for Vader's costume (modified to look more Japanese, natch,) and also for the Dark Side ability "Force Lightning.""Nipple, nipple, tweak, tweak"Fly! :D

ISiddiqui

05-25-2005, 11:01 PM

I hope I'm not coming off as someone who can't stand to see ROTS, or Lucas in general, criticized. ROTS had its problems, and Eps 1 and 2 had HUGE problems. But I really just don't see some of your complaints as being anything more than trivialities, some of which you are dead 100% wrong about.

Indeed. Sometimes I wonder if other movies had to suffer the same scrutiny as Star Wars movies how they would fare? I bet a lot of them would end up much worse.

ISiddiqui

05-25-2005, 11:21 PM

That doesn't explain Vader's reply.

Tarkin: Surely he must be dead by now?
Vader: Don't underestimate the power of the Force.

Vader here implies that Obi-Wan has managed to stay alive through his mastery of the Force. Tarkin may not have known Obi-Wan, but Vader certainly did.

Haven't seen a reply... I think Tarkin was saying that by now, someone must have killed Obi-Wan since Jedi are on every bounty hunter's list. I don't know if Tarkin really knows the full power of the force, which is why Vader corrects him and says anyone who knows the force that well would not be killed so easily.

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 12:36 AM

The response by Vader is referring to his ability to sense Obi-Wan, not that the Force kept him alive.
That's not what I'm getting from that dialogue, but I suppose it's a valid interpretation.
Haven't seen a reply... I think Tarkin was saying that by now, someone must have killed Obi-Wan since Jedi are on every bounty hunter's list. I don't know if Tarkin really knows the full power of the force, which is why Vader corrects him and says anyone who knows the force that well would not be killed so easily.
But if Obi-Wan had been killed by a bounty hunter, surely Vader and Tarkin would know about it? If nothing else, the bounty hunter must go claim his reward.

ISiddiqui

05-26-2005, 12:41 AM

Who says that the bounty hunter didn't get his reward somewhere else (ie, the Hutts)?

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 12:46 AM

Who says that the bounty hunter didn't get his reward somewhere else (ie, the Hutts)?
Why would the Hutts have a reward on Obi-Wan's head?

Cisco

05-26-2005, 12:52 AM

Why would the Hutts have a reward on Obi-Wan's head?
They could be brokers.

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 01:28 AM

They could be brokers.
Explain?

Cisco

05-26-2005, 02:01 AM

Explain?
Main Entry: bro·ker
Pronunciation: 'brO-k&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, negotiator, from Anglo-French brocour
1 : one who acts as an intermediary: as a : an agent who arranges marriages b : an agent who negotiates contracts of purchase and sale (as of real estate, commodities, or securities)I was mostly just making a joke at the expense of Lucas apologists, but it's feasible, really.

In a bureaucracy as large as the Empire, peripheral big money deals would likely be brokered out to independent contractors, such as the Hutts. Also, remember in Empire when one of the imperial officers says "Bounty Hunters? We don't need their scum."? Well, the Hutts obviously don't mind dealing with them, and the empire would probably be more apt to deal with the Hutts.

Jabba (or whoever) puts the contract out on the Jedi, the bounty hunters go get them, and then the Hutts tack on a broker fee and hand them over to the empire. It's win-win-win. Happens all the time in business transactions.

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 02:17 AM

And you're telling me that neither Vader nor Palpatine told the Hutts "Oh, and if a bounty hunter turns up with this guy called Kenobi, give us a whistle"?

Cisco

05-26-2005, 02:43 AM

And you're telling me that neither Vader nor Palpatine told the Hutts "Oh, and if a bounty hunter turns up with this guy called Kenobi, give us a whistle"?
You'd be surprised at the cockiness that absolute power brings. I'm sure they forgot about Obi-Wan around the time all the other Jedi were killed. Hell, the rebellion had been going on for years without him making so much as a guest appearence, so why should they think he would be any kind of threat?

That said, this really isn't my fight. I'm just having fun with Luca$ revisionism.

Crandolph

05-26-2005, 03:35 AM

I was indeed thinking of the serial Commander Cody as opposed to the band CC&TLPA. Apparently original credit for the song "Hot Rod Lincoln" goes to Charlie Ryan (http://www.lincoln-club.org/hot-rod-lincoln1.html).

Crandolph

05-26-2005, 03:50 AM

Apologies for the consecutive posts.

If we assume that Luke and Leia have been twins all along, why is it that Leia has memories of their birth mother while Luke does not? Even if the same age, this suggests Leia lived with her longer, not that she died immeditely after childbirth.

If you want to use the Force to explain it... well, it was Luke training to use the Force by that point, not Leia. The way he asks her about their mother also suggests living memory to me.

Cisco

05-26-2005, 04:19 AM

If we assume that Luke and Leia have been twins all along, why is it that Leia has memories of their birth mother while Luke does not?
Didn't feel like reading the thread?

Larry Mudd

05-26-2005, 05:49 AM

Ah, Crandolph, I assumed you were thinking of the band, since you said "Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen," which is the name of the band, while the name of the serial in which Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen appear is King of the Rocketmen.

As for the twin thing, (if you don't want to review the posts in which this has been repeatedly addressed) for the love of all that is holy, just listen to this clip from Return of the Jedi (http://www.earthstation1.com/MovieWavFiles/sister.wav). If you think this is something that Lucas altered to make the OT fit the prequels, then here's a 1995 usenet posting that references it. (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.starwars/msg/e489dd365992b3bb?dmode=source&hl=en)Give yourself to the dark side. It is the only way you can save your friends. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... sister! So...you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps she will.If we assume that Luke and Leia have been twins all along, why is it that Leia has memories of their birth mother while Luke does not? [...] If you want to use the Force to explain it... well, it was Luke training to use the Force by that point, not Leia.That's easy-peasy, but fair warning, the rest of this post is mumbo-jumbo. Kind of like The Force. Here goes:

You know that Lucas refered to Joseph Campbell a lot, right? Enough that he gets a screen credit in two films? Well, Campbell wrote about the concepts of "Lunar Consciousness" and "Solar Consciousness." The idea (hooey or not) is that their are two default modes of consciousness available to human beings from birth. Solar consciousness is rational, language and logic oriented, and typically male. Lunar consciousness is non-rational, intuitive, and image-oriented, and typically female. (These aren't supposed to be rigidly divided into man-think and woman-think or anything, there are lunar men and solar women.) Anyway, in hermeticism, the Big Occult Secret is learning how to balance lunar and solar consciousness. Long story short, Leia has "images and feelings" about her mother because that's her default mode. She's Lunar. Luke has to be trained to access lunar consciousness, because he's solar. Luke does appear to remember something from the minute or so that he spends in his mother's company -- her dying words, which he repeats to Leia. Language is solar. (Also note that Leia's place during the climax of Jedi is leading the raiding party on Endor's moon, while Luke sorts things out on the Death Star.)

You might think it's hokey to cram a popcorn movie full of archaic esoterica, but it tickles the man to do so -- and provides a lot of fun for obsessive nerds like me.

While I'm on the subject of arcane crap in Star Wars, (you can stop reading altogether here if arcane crap doesn't interest you, because it's all arcane crap from here until the end of the post) here's something a notorious hermetic wrote relatively recently (though several decades before Lucas started scribbling.)I trembled at Thy coming, O my God, for Thy messenger was more terrible than the Death-star.
On the threshold stood the fulminant figure of Evil, the Horror of emptiness, with his ghastly eyes like poisonous wells. He stood, and the chamber was corrupt; the air stank. He was an old and gnarled fish more hideous than the shells of Abaddon.
He enveloped me with his demon tentacles; yea, the eight fears took hold upon me.(Yeah, The Great White Beast was a crap poet.)

Another (off-topic but fun) quote before I go to bed, from a contemporary of Uncle Al's, occultist and novelist Marie Corelli. This passage, from The Secret Power, describes the maiden flight of an occultly-powered craft designed by her protagonist Morgana Royal:"I know the possibilities perfectly,"--she said--"But I know nothing of risks--there are none. This is our safety"--and she drew out from the folds of her cloak, two small packets of cylindrical form--"This emanation of Nature's greatest Force will keep us going for a year if needful! Oh man!--I do not mean YOU particularly, but man generally!--why could you not light on this little, little clue!-- why was it left to a woman! Come!--let us see the White Eagle in its nest,--it shall spread its wings and soar to-day--we will give it full liberty!"
[...]

--and to the amazement and almost fear of all who witnessed what seemed to be a miracle, the ship sprang up like a bird springing from the ground, and soared free and away into space, its vast white wings cleaving the air with a steady rise and fall of rhythmic power. Once aloft she sailed in level flight, apparently at perfect ease--and after several rapid "runs," and circlings, descended slowly and gracefully, landing her pilot without shock or jar. He was at once surrounded and was asked a thousand questions which it was evident he could not answer.

"How can I tell!" he replied, to all interrogations. "The secret is the secret of a woman!"Hmmm... The Secret Power, about "Nature's greatest Force," with a protagonist named Morgana Royal, who designs an airship called the White Eagle.... You think George might have read this at some point? (Apart from a certain Corellian freighter, are their any other references to Terran animals in Star Wars? Apart from predatory birds? I don't remember.) :D

Merijeek

05-26-2005, 07:51 AM

Hell, why not have him drop to his knees, switch to an overhead shot, and have rain falling in his face.

Not what I meant. I accept my wording was confusing, so let me change it to...

"Did anyone actually like and find worthwhile the 'Noooooooooo!' bit?

I saw the movie again last night (finally got to take the girlfriend, who also loved it) and there's two things I noted.

First, while I can't believe I didn't catch this the first time, Obi-Wan is very, very obviously provoking Anakin into jumping over him. He was totally playing to Anakin's arrogance an a ploy to get him to do something extremely stupid. I just can't believe I didn't catch it the first time.

Second, I really think that Windu beat Palpatine. I don't think that Palpatine took a dive, he was just beaten. Of course, once Anakin showed up Palpatine went from his insane "Just because you beat me, Jedi, doesn't mean I'm not going to kill you somehow booga booga booga!!!!" to his "Anakin...help me...I'm a helpless old man and he's going to kill me...". I think as far as Palpatine was concerned, Anakin was a Force-sent miracle.

-Joe

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 08:16 AM

First, while I can't believe I didn't catch this the first time, Obi-Wan is very, very obviously provoking Anakin into jumping over him. He was totally playing to Anakin's arrogance an a ploy to get him to do something extremely stupid. I just can't believe I didn't catch it the first time.
Really? I've only seen it the one time, but I remember it as pretty clear that Obi-Wan didn't want Anakin to try the leap and tried to persuade him out of it. I don't think Obi-Wan wanted to kill him.

QuizCustodet

05-26-2005, 08:53 AM

The scene with Bail Organa at the Jedi Temple has been addressed several times in this thread (though I can't bring myself to wade through nine pages to find quotes!) - unless I missed a post, which is entirely possible, everyone so far has interpreted the clone troopers as deciding to kill Organa, at which point the padawan runs out to try to save him.

Now, call me crazy, but my interpretation of that scene was different. I didn't see the clone troopers shoot at anyone until the padawan turned up - had he not, Organa would have gotten to fly away unharmed. The padawan was hiding somewhere nearby, saw a chance to escape the carnage, and made a run for Organa's speeder - the clonetroopers shout 'Get him!' meaning the padawan; they kill him, and then realize that they should kill Organa, too. He gets away, clearly.

So - am I crazy, or is that the way the scene played?

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 09:01 AM

Mr. Blue Sky

05-26-2005, 09:07 AM

Not what I meant. I accept my wording was confusing, so let me change it to...

"Did anyone actually like and find worthwhile the 'Noooooooooo!' bit?

Well, in that case, no. I thought it was pretty weak, hence my sarcastic suggestion to the movie.

Rufus Xavier

05-26-2005, 10:35 AM

<snip> and then realize that they should kill Organa, too. He gets away, clearly.

So - am I crazy, or is that the way the scene played?

I agree, as well, except for them realizing they should kill Organa. You can clearly hear the clone squad leader say "Let him go" as the speeder lifts off.

After the padawan dies, Organa runs to the speeder and ducks as if to dodge blaster fire, but I don't think any shots are fired at him. He's just scared, and rightfully so, but he's in no actual danger, I think.

They intended all along to leave him alive, and I think it's because Palpatine had ordered that none of the Senators should be killed so that he could explain the "betrayal" of the Jedi and announce the new Empire to the Senate in the special session he called. He still needed the Senate, after all.

interface2x

05-26-2005, 11:54 AM

I agree with your interpretation. I would have liked to get a clear shot of the padawan, though.

That's okay, the clone troopers seemed to get plenty of clear shots at him already.

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 11:55 AM

That's okay, the clone troopers seemed to get plenty of clear shots at him already.
Ba-damp-damp-pssh!

MaxTheVool

05-26-2005, 12:25 PM

Really? I've only seen it the one time, but I remember it as pretty clear that Obi-Wan didn't want Anakin to try the leap and tried to persuade him out of it. I don't think Obi-Wan wanted to kill him.

Obi-Wan definitely wanted to kill him. That was the whole point of the light sabre dueling, and the leaving him for dead.

But I agree that Obi Wan was taunting him. Anakin thinks he's so much more powerful than Obi Wan. So when Obi Wan says "I have the upper ground, it's over", Anakin's response is "oh yeah? well, rather than think for 10 seconds and realize I can just float downstream, hop off, and fight you on level ground, I'll prove how much better I am by jumping all the way over your head, you weak old man!!!!!". Thus, Anakin's downfall (like Darth Maul's in TPM and Palpy's in ROTJ) is from overconfidence.

silenus

05-26-2005, 01:08 PM

The last word. (http://www.comics.com/comics/hedge/index.html)

:D

Selkie

05-26-2005, 01:10 PM

Now, call me crazy, but my interpretation of that scene was different.

Thanks for clarifying the scene; your intepretation makes a lot more sense thana nything I had been able to devise.

Dunderman

05-26-2005, 01:13 PM

Obi-Wan definitely wanted to kill him. That was the whole point of the light sabre dueling, and the leaving him for dead.
Obi-Wan did leave him for dead, but I think the duel was about seeing if Anakin could be brought back. I think Obi-Wan didn't lose all his faith in Anakin until after some dueling. Then that faith remained well and truly lost until Luke redeemed his father a couple of decades later.
But I agree that Obi Wan was taunting him. Anakin thinks he's so much more powerful than Obi Wan. So when Obi Wan says "I have the upper ground, it's over", Anakin's response is "oh yeah? well, rather than think for 10 seconds and realize I can just float downstream, hop off, and fight you on level ground, I'll prove how much better I am by jumping all the way over your head, you weak old man!!!!!". Thus, Anakin's downfall (like Darth Maul's in TPM and Palpy's in ROTJ) is from overconfidence.
Well, once Anakin leapt, Obi-Wan had little choice. He had to strike or take an enormous risk. But I still don't think he wanted to do it.

Crandolph

05-26-2005, 02:05 PM

Ah, Crandolph, I assumed you were thinking of the band, since you said "Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen," which is the name of the band, while the name of the serial in which Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen appear is King of the Rocketmen.

You know that Lucas refered to Joseph Campbell a lot, right? Enough that he gets a screen credit in two films? Well, Campbell wrote about the concepts of "Lunar Consciousness" and "Solar Consciousness." The idea (hooey or not) is that their are two default modes of consciousness available to human beings from birth.

I didn't realize that King... was the serial title. Cool.

I do know that Lucas is a big Campbell reader, which makes this sort of thing more disappointing to me. It's perefectly acceptable to put this sort of thing in a movie, but you have to tell us that in the movie itself. After paying $10 for a few hrs of entertainment, no one should have to be bringing additional knowledge gained from background reading in order to fully follow the plot. The average person coming into the theater, hearing the Luke/Leia exchange, is going to assume that Leia was older or seperated later.

Last night I was discussing the movie with a few friends who aren't big Star Wars wonks, and they drew a conclusion that the Jedis were able to be killed by their own troops because they were in battle situations which made them too Force-fatigued to use the Force to detect danger. They assumed the Jedi had it "turned off." In this thread people argued that a sort of overload of use of the Force was in play; that danger was being sensed all around anyway and one couldn't tell where it was coming from. So those are two different interpretations that people have come up with to get around that issue. When you leave the audience to work that sort of thing out on their own, I get the feeling you haven't really done your job.

For that matter, it does seem odd that a single Jedi can defeat tons of stormtroopers and droids firing at them in unsportsmanlike ways in the other movies (and in this one except for that scene), but this one time when we really need them killed off they go down quickly.

cryptic_j

05-26-2005, 02:37 PM

I don't think anyone on Tattoine knew about Anakin becoming a Jedi except for Watto, his mother, and the Lars family.

except - according to the novelisation (I know I know - stick to the films) Anakin and Kenobi were huge stars across the galaxy - as heroes of teh republic...

surely someone would have known something - when "most of the best freighter pilots can be found here" - {obi-wan on Mos Eisley - Episode IV }

at least enough to correct Luke from his opinion that "my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter"

sorry - but I just re-watched "Star Wars", as I like to call it, last night...

I don't care what people think - but you can almost see the panic in Obi Wan's face when he realises it's R2 D2 and C-3PO.... (No.. he says to himself - there are thousands of these droids built that look identical... then C3PO says something stupid and R2 makes a semi-intelligent noise... oh bugger! )

by the way - I love all these threads that try and go in-depth - - I really do - they're entertaining - - almost as entertaining as the "Movies" that inspire them... and lets not forget they are movies... there's no need to justify why sometimes people are stronger - or why there's thousands more driods and people in the new trilogy... if George thought he could get away with it - I BET he'd remake the OT so that it had more action, and more consistency - and so that Vader starts thinking.. "hmm... she looks like a woman I once Loved... hang on... Love??? what the hell... I must sit in a box and lift my helmet..." but then how many times do we ALL see people who remind us of ex-girlfriends..???

anyway - IMHO - George's big mistake with Episode I was to try and make it familiar to the OT too much... Obi-Wan, Yoda, R2-D2, C3PO... none of them NEEDED to be in EPisode I... however - I have a theory..

it wasn't until I saw Episode II that I realised the significance of Padme..

with that information - you take out the 4 characters I mentioned above - and basically Anakin would be the only thing to link Ep I to the rest.. so it would have been... "WHat the F? was that all about" - - oh yeah - except keep Palpatine - I liked that...

I'll go now

kaylasdad99

05-26-2005, 02:49 PM

Larry Mudd

05-26-2005, 03:06 PM

It's perefectly acceptable to put this sort of thing in a movie, but you have to tell us that in the movie itself. After paying $10 for a few hrs of entertainment, no one should have to be bringing additional knowledge gained from background reading in order to fully follow the plot.See, I don't think that the average person is going to have much of a problem with getting that Leia's "images" of her mother come through the Force. It comes in a conversation where Leia is being told that she has the freakin' Force. "Why didn't Luke have the same visions, then?" is a hypercritical question. Within the context of the movies, every time a "Force" vision comes up, it comes to one person.

Still, I disagree that every tiny detail has to be explained in a movie -- especially a fantasy movie. Probably the single most common criticism of George Lucas is that he's unsubtle. Any time he is subtle, the same people complain about that. (Unless they're totally oblivious to it, as with the little references to masonic lore and more obscure stuff.) So those are two different interpretations that people have come up with to get around [the issue of how the Jedi were ambushed without sensing it.] When you leave the audience to work that sort of thing out on their own, I get the feeling you haven't really done your job.Again, this amounts to "You know what would make this movie better? More exposition!" It's not necessary, and it sure wouldn't make for a better story.
From Attack of the Clones:

MACE WINDU: Why couldn't we see this attack on the Senator?

YODA: Masking the future, is this disturbance in the Force.

MACE WINDU: The prophecy is coming true, the Dark Side is growing.

YODA: And only those who have turned to the Dark Side can sense the possibilities of the future.

[...]

YODA: Blind we are, if creation of this clone army we could not see.

MACE WINDU: I think it is time to inform the Senate that our ability to use the Force has diminished.

YODA: Only the Dark Lords of the Sith know of our weakness. If informed the Senate is, multiply our adversaries will.

[...]

COUNT DOOKU: The truth. What if I told you that the Republic was now under the control of the Dark Lords of the Sith?

OBI-WAN: No, that's not possible. The Jedi would be aware of it.

COUNT DOOKU: The dark side of the Force has clouded their vision, my friend. Hundreds of Senators are now under the influence of a Sith Lord called Darth Sidious.

From Revenge of the Sith:

ANAKIN: I know the Council has grown wary of the Chancellor's power, mine also for that matter. Aren't we all working together to save the Republic? Why all this distrust?

OBI-WAN: The Force grows dark, Anakin, and we are all affected by it. Be wary of your feelings.

[...]

OBI-WAN: (continuing) . . . You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. It was you who would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in Darkness.No need for speculation. As the dark side grows, the light side diminishes. When Anakin joined the dark side and Palpatine worked his darkside mojo with a Shock and Awe display, most of the of the jedi were effectively blinded, for long enough to catch them unaware. Only the most powerful jedi sensed something was amiss -- and only after he felt the other jedi snuff it. That should be enough justification for the events in a fantasy movie. Literally, a wizard did it.

Merijeek

05-26-2005, 03:31 PM

I didn't realize that King... was the serial title. Cool.

I do know that Lucas is a big Campbell reader, which makes this sort of thing more disappointing to me. It's perefectly acceptable to put this sort of thing in a movie, but you have to tell us that in the movie itself. After paying $10 for a few hrs of entertainment, no one should have to be bringing additional knowledge gained from background reading in order to fully follow the plot. The average person coming into the theater, hearing the Luke/Leia exchange, is going to assume that Leia was older or seperated later.

Oh for the love of Christ.

You what what I had thought since 1983? That Leia was kept by mom. In absolutely no way does any dialogue anywhere necessitate that Leia was older. Nor does it require any non-movie brain-Yoga to come to such a conclusion.

It turns out 22 years later that the "seperated later" thing didn't work out. Is it really THAT big a deal? Maybe Bail remarried and Leia's "real mother" is the woman we saw at the end of ROTS.

These aren't mental gymnastics, and they don't make my brains hurt.

Maybe Leia has "images mostly" of Mom the same way Luke remembers (or at least uses and risks his life based on) Mom's last words?

Last night I was discussing the movie with a few friends who aren't big Star Wars wonks, and they drew a conclusion that the Jedis were able to be killed by their own troops because they were in battle situations which made them too Force-fatigued to use the Force to detect danger. They assumed the Jedi had it "turned off." In this thread people argued that a sort of overload of use of the Force was in play; that danger was being sensed all around anyway and one couldn't tell where it was coming from. So those are two different interpretations that people have come up with to get around that issue. When you leave the audience to work that sort of thing out on their own, I get the feeling you haven't really done your job.

So? Tell me, in Casablanca, does Rick tell Ilsa to go because Rick is being selfless for Victor's sake because Victor needs Ilsa, or does he do it because Victor can give Ilsa a better life? I guess the writer didn't do the job there, either. After all, there's two possibilities and the writer didn't tell us exactly what to think!

In Raiders of the Lost Ark it's implied that Indy and Ravenwood had a falling out because he slept with his sweet, innocent daughter. But since we're not told with 100% certainty is that a plot hole or simply the writer not bothering to SHOUT IN OUR EAR TO REMOVE ALL POSSIBLE THOUGHT OR DOUBT?

Maybe they could have handed out reference cards to you or something? Maybe a little blue bar hovering over each Jedi's head that would slowly decrease as they get more fatigued - you could even have a voiceover saying "Obi-Wan needs food, badly" once he gets down below 25%.

For that matter, it does seem odd that a single Jedi can defeat tons of stormtroopers and droids firing at them in unsportsmanlike ways in the other movies (and in this one except for that scene), but this one time when we really need them killed off they go down quickly.

Because they're all identical, right? I'll bet the librarian lady we saw in AOTC was a total ass kicker. :rolleyes:

How about the Jedi that jumped up at Count Dooku on Geonosis? Two or three shots (from the front, while he was expecting a fight) and dead. All the shots from the same gun. What's that do to your theory?

-Joe

The Asbestos Mango

05-26-2005, 03:42 PM

The one thing that wasn't entirely clear to me was why Palpatine showed up to rescue Anakin. It's not like he seems to be particularly attached to any of his apprentices at other times, so why now? Was it just cause he didn't have a backup ready?

My theory is that Anakin/Vader being so severely injured was actually engineered by Palpatine as a means of controlling him. Palp knew that his new apprentice would sooner or later become powerful enough to overthrow him, and he wanted it to be later rather than sooner. Even missing a few body parts and being on life support, Darth Vader is still an uber- powerful badass, but now there is a substantially reduced risk of Palp being offed by his apprentice prematurely.

I think if Obi-Wan hadn't done the job for him, Palpatine would have found another way to arrange for Vader to be hobbled.

Superdude

05-26-2005, 03:44 PM

you could even have a voiceover saying "Obi-Wan needs food, badly" once he gets down below 25%.

Spit Mountain Dew all over my monitor, I have.

Merijeek

05-26-2005, 04:04 PM

Spit Mountain Dew all over my monitor, I have.

I do what I can. I thought the thread could use a little levity.

Good to know I'm not the only one who had that little phrase burned deep, deep into my lil' brain.

-Joe, not hungry right now

cppguy

05-26-2005, 05:34 PM

I was also rather irritated by the unsubtleness of some of the dialogue - Anakin actually says, "You are either with me - or you are my enemy." Gosh, that's sure something to think about. I wonder what you could have been referencing, George Lucas.I haven't seen this discussed, but he could have been quoting Jesus (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2012:30;&version=9;).

Crandolph

05-26-2005, 06:19 PM

[QUOTE=Merijeek]It turns out 22 years later that the "seperated later" thing didn't work out. Is it really THAT big a deal? [/QUOTE=Merijeek]

If you're told for a couple of decades that there was a 9-episode story in Lucas' head that flows linearly ... but then we drop continuity later, that kinda bugs me. Ep III was supposed to be all about exposition, getting us to the Ep IV that people generally know and love. It looks like Lucas threw too much into I and II that was extraneous, largely to introduce new characters and sets to sell products, and then left himself little room to get through things in III. Corners seem to have been cut in bridging the stories ("let's just have mom die in childbirth for no apparent reason, regardless of what we said earlier"), I happen to find it shabby. To each his own. If anyone enjoys the movies, great. I just think that a very loyal fanbase that was made to wait for 20 years deserves more than bad acting, rotten dialog, and what struck me as ill-planned storylining.

Larry Mudd

05-26-2005, 06:45 PM

I haven't seen this discussed, but he could have been quoting Jesus (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2012:30;&version=9;).So when Obi-Wan responds "Only a Sith thinks in terms of absolutes," the implication is that Jesus was a Dark Side practitioner? Oh yeah, that'll go over well. :D

"Thy right hand, O Sith Lord, hath become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Sith Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy."

Yeah, it's all beginning to make sense.

In fairness to Lucas, though, "You're either with me or against me," is usually seen as an arrogant and evil viewpoint (unless the speaker really is Lord God Almighty, and isn't just having an attack of hubris,) and has been since long before Mr. Bush let his tongue run away with him.Here's a pre-Bush example that perfectly mirrors Anakin and Obi-Wan's exchange: (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.veterans/msg/38da43f657e2894d?dmode=source&hl=en)Intelligent folks are able to communicate and can distinguish the subtleties of issues. Mark has a myopic viewpoint on all subjects. Sorter like , "You're either with me or against me" Life isn't black and white, but that sure is how Mark sees the world.I don't think that everyone should now be obliged to avoid portraying this is as a dangerous and stupid attitude in general, just because a particular head of state uttered a similar phrase.

Larry Mudd

05-26-2005, 07:32 PM

Continuing with the Bush-bashing thing... (Sorry, you know I have trouble letting things go...)

It might be a valid complaint if the situation were more parallel, instead of it just being the same attitude. If Palpatine made a speech addressed to the Outer Rim planets, implying a threat. "You will be held accountable for your actions in these times -- you're either with us or against us in our struggle against the Seperatists," then I would be inclined to agree that it was intended to be a dig against Bush. As it stands, it's in the same category as "ROTS is totally anti-gay!"

You could make a much stronger argument that Illuminatus! is an indictment of the Bush administration, if you're looking at parallels in the text.*

There, you have a book set around the change of the millenium, in which a supercomputer called GWB-666 calls the shots for the Pentagon. Some choice excerpts:"...But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution."

"What sort of tools?"

"More stringent security measures. Universal electronic Surveillance. No-Knock Laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, controlled by a handful of men, the people reason - or are manipulated into reasoning - that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted."

[...]

"...At present rate, within the next few years the Illuminati will have the American people under tighter surveillance than Hitler had the Germans. And the beauty of it is, the majority of the Americans will have been so frightened by Illuminati-backed terrorist incidents that they will beg to be controlled as a masochist begs for the whip."Part of the plot involves anxiety surrounding a weaponized strain of anthrax that a government lab loses control of, and people start dropping dead. The conspiracy to dominate people through fear is based, in large part, by extreme conservatives based in Texas. It's totally exaggerated, paranoid Bush-bashing.

*Well, you would be able to make a better case that it was a specific indictment of the current administration, if Robert Anton Wilson didn't write it at the same time that George Lucas was working up the first scripts for the original Star Wars.
fnord

Just because something may remind you of contemporary politics, it doesn't mean that the author intended it that way. Sometimes it just can't be helped.

MaxTheVool

05-27-2005, 01:49 PM

If you're told for a couple of decades that there was a 9-episode story in Lucas' head that flows linearly ... but then we drop continuity later, that kinda bugs me.

The question, for me, is whether it was done out of laziness/sloth, or whether it was done because Lucas felt that having Padme die in childbirth made the movie better. If it was the latter, I have no problem with it.

And having a 9-episode story in his head (which, I admit, I'm skeptical of) doesn't mean having every detail of that story... he could have known all along that padme died after giving birth, but not realized until he started writing ep 3 that it made the most dramatic sense for her to die immediately after giving birth, as opposed to 2 or 3 years later.

I'd rather have him make the decisions he feels are artistically correct rather than be a slavish slave to every conceivable detail of continuity, particularly for an issue as minor as this one, and one which is not a direct contradiction. Remember, ROTJ didn't tell us that Leia had seen her mother, just that Leia BELIEVED she had seen her mother. If we had actually SEEN her mother, and then suddenly what we saw on screen was invalidated, that would be much more frustrating and harder to reconcile.

Lemur866

05-27-2005, 02:41 PM

Crandolph, I really can't understand your objection to Padme dying in childbirth, just because it contradicts dialog from Return of the Jedi. Obviously George Lucas didn't have the script for Revenge of the Sith written 20 years ago. And it didn't make any difference to the story of RotJ whether Leia's mother died when she was one day old or 3 years old, Leia could have responded "Nothing really" instead and it wouldn't have changed anything. That's because the exact details of Luke and Leia's birth are unimportant backstory.

Now, fast forward 20 years. You're writing the script for Revenge of the Sith. Don't you see that Padme absolutely cannot survive the end of the movie? It makes absolutely no dramatic sense for Padme to ship newborn baby Luke off to Tatooine, go to Alderaan with newborn baby Leia, and die of a broken heart over Anakin 2-3 years later. No, Padme has to die at the end of the movie, the last scenes of the movie have to be the babies being shipped off as orphans, otherwise it won't work.

So George Lucas has a choice...ruin the dramatic arc of RotS in order to be faithful to a few lines of dialog in RotJ, or contradict that dialog and have a coherent plot to his new movie. Which makes the most sense? Don't you see that it would be crazy to expect 100% faithfulness to the original movies if that 100% faithfullness would harm the new movies? Especially considering that the new movie doesn't contradict anything actually shown in RotJ, just Leia's dialog about her memories...which can be easily retconned into Force memories.

Yeah, ignoring events from the first movies for no reason would be bad, changing things that would invalidate the drama of the first movies would be wrong...but this is a slight deviation that improves the drama of Revenge of the Sith greatly. In cases like this, you drop the old and go with the new. The new movie has to work on its own, it isn't just exposition for A New Hope, otherwise why bother making it? Padme absolutely has to die in this movie. You know it, I know it, the American people know it. Yes, this makes reconciling the dialog from the original movie a bit strained, but such are the conundrums of filming prequels.

St. Urho

05-27-2005, 03:07 PM

If you're thinking of the folks who recorded Hot Rod Lincoln, you're a reference away from the actual reference. The band was named after the Republic serial The Lost Planet Airmen, featuring Commando Cody (commonly called Commander Cody but kids who didn't know any better.) Commando Cody was the inspiration for Boba Fett's character design, which is why it's particularly cool that a Clonetrooper would have that name. (Not visible in that picture, Cody's signature rocket-pack.)

My pappy said son, you're gonna drive me to drinking if you don't stop flying that hot. Rod. X-wing.

cppguy

05-27-2005, 03:39 PM

No, Padme has to die at the end of the movie, the last scenes of the movie have to be the babies being shipped off as orphans, otherwise it won't work.Also, why should we believe that she reeally died of a broken heart. It was the last thing necessary to complete Anakin's fall. Obviously Palpatine killed her from a distance (with deadly midichlorians!).

Lemur866

05-27-2005, 04:36 PM

Well, whether she "really" died of a broken heart, or Anakin killed her, or Palpatine killed her isn't that important. The important thing is that she dies at the end of the movie and Anakin believes his actions brought about her death. Anakin can't fully become Darth Vader as long as Padme is alive. The movie can't end until Anakin fully becomes Darth Vader. And so Padme must die before the movie ends. QED.

ISiddiqui

05-28-2005, 01:24 AM

I just think that a very loyal fanbase that was made to wait for 20 years deserves more than bad acting, rotten dialog, and what struck me as ill-planned storylining.

Since they got all of that from 1977-83, why do they deserve anything better 20 years later? Me thinks this deification of the original trilogy must stop.

I loved the original trilogy, but to pretend it didn't have bad acting, rotten dialog, and ill-planned storylining (Luke and Leia kiss on the lips and then later are brother and sister? Oops!) is just being blind.

Mister Rik

05-28-2005, 06:26 AM

I loved the original trilogy, but to pretend it didn't have bad acting, rotten dialog, and ill-planned storylining (Luke and Leia kiss on the lips and then later are brother and sister? Oops!) is just being blind.
Hey, it worked in Back to the Future!

Hamish

05-28-2005, 07:05 AM

I've read much of this thread now, so I know I'm agreeing with a lot of people, but it was great movie in spite of the truly awful dialogue and a few actors who couldn't act. One that surprised me was the guy playing the Emperor -- he seemed to be a marvellous actor right up until they caked him with makeup, and then his acting skills seemed to go out the window.

I was particularly disappointed with the transformation, because I'd been told by a major Star Wars geek (a friend of mine who's read every novel) that the Emperor became what he is because the Dark Side was slowly consuming his body. He apparently spent hours a day in a chamber undergoing rejuvenating treatment. The quick, unsubtle transformation didn't work as well.

The theatre laughed out loud a lot -- particularly in the "Noooooo" scene, and when names were announced. General Grievous? Darth Plagus? What's next? Commander Tortures-Kittens? Mr. Smokes-too-much?

On the other hand, it was one of the most stunningly beautiful movies to look it. I've never seen a film with such a wonder-inspiring visual component, and I'll say this for Lucas: he has an incredible imagination and a good eye for detail. While his sense of realism hasn't yet spilled over into naturalistic dialogue, it is really easy to feel that you're looking at real spaceships, real space battles, and so on. I never get that feeling with Star Trek -- at least Lucas knows that ships don't always have to be on the same plane. His cityscapes are also gorgeous -- I love Corsucant.

Lucas, in his clumsy way, has taken some impressive risks in theme. Movies about democracy -- especially ones that don't reduce it to jingoism -- are very risky. Most Hollywood entries about government tend to be quasi-fascist narratives (all politicians are too corrupt, debate is too slow, warrants are just red tape, innocent-until-proven-guilty just lets criminals off). Lucas has shown us the end of a democracy in a particularly realistic way.

I think his primary inspirations for that are the end of the Roman Republic, and the end of the Weimar Republic. Any resemblance to contemporary American history is probably the fault of history, not Lucas. He's notoriously single-minded, and he probably did write the script ages ago and left it on the shelf.

I would've liked more background on the Sith. Sadly, background is the first thing to get cut. Some of Padmé's best material in the second movie was left on the cutting room floor, because it was about politics. Frankly, both she and Anakin seemed more interesting when talking politics than love.

I've heard one apology for Lucas that the love scenes were deliberately bad -- that he was mocking other Hollywood films, and that the triology was intended as anti-Hollywood because love doesn't conquer all, politics is relevant, and happy endings are in short supply. Not sure if I give him that much credit, but it's an interesting perspective.

Oh, and to the person who said they couldn't believe anyone would go for someone as whiny as Anakin, Lucas did address that one by having Hayden Christensen parade around half-naked. Half the theatre was ready to go over to the dark side, after that ;)

Superdude

05-28-2005, 11:51 AM

Mr. Smokes-too-much?

He might want to cut down a little, huh?

Mr. Blue Sky

05-28-2005, 11:59 AM

I would've liked more background on the Sith.

Close, but no cigar (http://www.cinematical.com/2005/05/25/lucas-idea-for-new-star-wars-prequel/)

Revtim

05-29-2005, 04:50 PM

Seemed odd to me how Padme went from her regal, self-assured bearing in the first film to the whiny, sniveling mess we see in RotS.Hey, she was pregnant. Hormones.

Larry Mudd

05-29-2005, 05:14 PM

I went to see it again last night and this time noticed what may be another little parallelism... the lines that Padme and Anakin first utter when they regain consciousness after being rescued, and who they speak 'em to.

Padme to Obi-wan: "Is Anakin alright?" (Obi-wan reacts appropriately for someone who believes he's just killed Anakin.)

Vader to Palpatine: "Is Padme alright?" (Palpatine twists the knife, "I'm afraid you've killed her.)

Palpatine totally killed her, the bastid.

I also didn't notice before that Palpatine did a little "mind control" wave over Anakin's head when he knelt beside his crispy body. Nice.

Laughing Lagomorph

05-29-2005, 05:37 PM

How many times have we seen a Jedi kill a helpless being?

-Joe

Sorry, I'm not a raving fanboy. I haven't been keeping score.

Revtim

05-29-2005, 06:49 PM

This may already be mentioned, I only skimmed the thread, but one thing I found interesting is that he was Darth Vader *before* the injuries and the mask. I always assumed he was only Darth Vader once he got the fucked up and wore the suit, for some reason. I guess I associated the image and the character, not too surprisingly.

Merijeek

05-29-2005, 06:59 PM

Sorry, I'm not a raving fanboy. I haven't been keeping score.

What the hell?

You don't need to be a "raving fanboy" to come up with a grand total of 1. Anakin killing Dooku.

-Joe

Apos

05-29-2005, 07:11 PM

If you read some of the "making of" books, you'll see how Lucas puts together the stories. And they are anything but exactly plotted out before filming. He has some large picture elements, but no real specifics, and the stuff gets changed around quite a lot in filming. Originally, this movie was to reveal that Sidious had been behind Anakin's birth, complete with Palpatine declaring himself Anakin's father! Han Solo was to have been Yoda's sidekick, and so on. So I wouldn't read too too deeply into whatever happened to end up on screen. They just used whatever they thought worked best as a movie element.

Apos

05-29-2005, 07:15 PM

My theory is that Anakin/Vader being so severely injured was actually engineered by Palpatine as a means of controlling him. Palp knew that his new apprentice would sooner or later become powerful enough to overthrow him, and he wanted it to be later rather than sooner. Even missing a few body parts and being on life support, Darth Vader is still an uber- powerful badass, but now there is a substantially reduced risk of Palp being offed by his apprentice prematurely.

I think if Obi-Wan hadn't done the job for him, Palpatine would have found another way to arrange for Vader to be hobbled.

At least according to one Lucas draft though, Sidious was actually pretty disappointed that his apprentice was so badly cripppled: it was a real let-down for him. And it makes sense with the movie too: if all Sidious cares about is his own power, why not kill Anakin and stick with Dooku? Why brag to Yoda about Anakin being more powerful than either of them?

Apos

05-29-2005, 07:28 PM

Second, I really think that Windu beat Palpatine. I don't think that Palpatine took a dive, he was just beaten.

In the script, it says that Windu had the upper hand as Anakin comes in, but it also says that Palpatine decides to use this to his advantage to force Anakin to make a choice. So it could be a little of both. Certainly frying your own face off (geez, why not STOP firing force lightinging when it rebounds at you???!) is a bit of a high price to bear for taking a dive. We do know that Mace certainly was on Sidious's level, right up there with Yoda. The fight could have gone either way.

Which only goes to show what a total, lameass pussy Yoda is. Even after failing that one time, he is definately capable of taking Sidious on the right time if he picks his fight carefully. He even beat Sidious outright in a force to force face off. But he just gives up and lets the galaxy slip into darkness for 20 years. He's not even very proactive about training Luke (and we never really get a good explanation for why they must be split up and given to normal families, instead of trained to be Jedi from birth to destroy the Sith)

Revtim

05-29-2005, 07:39 PM

Tarrsk

05-29-2005, 08:45 PM

Did his face really get disfigured in the fight with Windu? His face was disfigured when he appeared as Siduous in the earlier movies, so I assume he was using the force to make his face look normal, and "let himself go" after his fight with Windu because he could use it to blame the Jedis.

My impression is that this was the original intent, but Lucas changed his mind sometime during the pre-production of ROTS. You'll notice that Palpatine looks the same way in the first half of ROTS as he does in Episode I, whereas in AotC, he looks older and more physically disfigured.

VarlosZ

05-29-2005, 09:22 PM

Yeah, after seeing it a second time, there's nothing at all to suggest that Palpatine lost his lightsaber intentionally. He definitely played up his helplessness once Anakin arrived, but he would have been killed if Anakin had never showed up.

Soapbox Monkey

05-29-2005, 11:21 PM

His face was disfigured when he appeared as Siduous in the earlier movies

No, it's not.

Dunderman

05-30-2005, 01:47 AM

Han Solo was to have been Yoda's sidekick, and so on.
Wow. I'm glad we didn't have to see that.

Lochdale

05-30-2005, 01:58 AM

Just saw the movie this evening. I enjoyed it and I am enjoying this thread. I do have some questions though.

1. How stupid is Dooku? He must of known that Palpatine was Sidious so why go ahead with such a silly kidnapping?

2. So no jedi ever investigated why a clone army was ordered? Never bothered to have a look around and see what was up? Can't trace bank accounts in the Republic?

3. I thought it was a little cold for Obi-Wan to just leave Anakin there in the lava. Not even an effort to reach out to him.

Revtim

05-30-2005, 08:14 AM

1. How stupid is Dooku? He must of known that Palpatine was Sidious so why go ahead with such a silly kidnapping?No doubt he just did as he was told to do by his master.

Merijeek

05-30-2005, 09:36 AM

No doubt he just did as he was told to do by his master.

Just like Grievous did.

As for leaving Anakin there, I think that the whole duel was Anakin's chance to come back. Finally, beaten and dying, instead of showing any regret or anything remorseful at all we get, "I hate you!".

So, well, fuck you. Fry, bastard!

-Joe

RealityReject

05-30-2005, 09:53 AM

[QUOTE=Lochdale]
2. So no jedi ever investigated why a clone army was ordered? Never bothered to have a look around and see what was up? Can't trace bank accounts in the Republic?

QUOTE]

That bothered me a bit too, i know they really didn't have a choice since it was the only army they had and they where at war but they could have at least investigated. Jango tells Obi Wan in AOTC he was hired by a guy named Darth Tyranus, shouldn't that have been a pretty big clue the sith where behind the army?

aerodave

05-30-2005, 11:13 AM

Jango tells Obi Wan in AOTC he was hired by a guy named Darth Tyranus,

IIRC, all Jango ever says is "Tyranus." And I don't think Obi-Wan knows that name is the name of a Sith. After all, we don't hear "Darth Tyranus" mentioned much in the movie. It's always "Count Dooku"

And as for this:

How stupid is Dooku? He must of known that Palpatine was Sidious so why go ahead with such a silly kidnapping?

Dooku thinks he's in on a trap set for the Jedi. He knows who Palpatine is, and was obviously under the impression that they were on the same side. He thought he was staging Palpatine's kidnapping, and once the Jedi came to rescue him, then he and his master would take them out. What he didn't realize was that the joke was on him.

Notice, when Palptine says to Anakin, "Kill him!", that Dooku gives Palpatine a look as if to say "Oh shit, I've been had!" In that brief moment before his death, Dooku realizes that he was the one who was set up, and that his master was a huge bastard who used him as bait for the Jedi. And we all know what happens to bait when we go fishing.

Diceman

05-30-2005, 12:35 PM

I didn't think that the writing was that bad. Even the love scenes. Maybe I'm just not very demanding of my movies but, quite frankly, I get the impression that some of you are looking for any possible nit to dig at. That said, these are the lines I thought were bad:
"The Force is a gateway to many abilities, some considered unnatural." I may not have the line exactly right, but however it went, I thought that Ian McDiarmid's delivery was off.
"You're breaking my heart" It sounded better in context than it did in the teasers, but it was still Nalie Portman's worst line. Then again, Ms Portman also had the best line in the movie ("This is how liberty dies: to thunderous applause.") so I'm inclined to giver her a pass.
Anakin's "with me or against me" line. Bad. Cliche. After Obi-Wan's comment about serving democracy, Anakin should have said something like "Democracy has failed. Only a strong leader can save our society from crumbling. We need an emperor, not a weak chancellor who can't do anything without begging for approval from the Senate." Obi-Wan would respond with something like, "That's tryanny, Anakin. You're destroying the Republic in order to save it." "Fine. Live in your fantasy world where talking solves problems. If you're not with me, you're against me."
"Nooooooooooooooo" You all know what I'm talking about. A simple scream of anguish, without the outstretched arms, would have been better. I didn't mind the Frankenstein-esque walking. In fact, I thought it make the scene more realistic. No matter how advanced cybernetic technology is, walking on cybernetic legs just would't be the same as walking on one's natural legs. There's going to be an awkward period where Anakin gets used to using his new legs.

Other thoughts:
Jar-Jar only got two cameos, and no speaking lines. Good move, Lucas. Our beloved Mr. Binks is best seen in small doses.
I like how Senator Organa doesn't really enter into the movie until the very end. Yes, we see him with the other senators near the beginning, but he's still essentially just a good samaritan who stumbles into the conclict, and decides that he has to do the right thing. I like that.
I kinda wanted to see Yaddle (Yoda's species-mate) die. Just to see how Yoda would react. I have a theory that she was his sister.
I also have a theory that Yoda went to Dagobah because that was his home world. I would have included a few extra lines in the scene where they split up Luke and Leia. After Obi-Wan gets his orders to go to Tattooine, he asks Yoda "And where will you be going, Master?" "To Dagobah." "Dagobah? I'm not familiar with that system." Bail Organa interjects with, "I've seen it. The only habitable planet is a jungle world, completely covered with nasty, smelly swamps." At this, Yoda gets offended. "Nasty? Smelly? My home that is." "Oh...uhhh...Sorry, sir."
Some of you are asking why the Jedi didn't investigate the origins of the clone army. How do you know that they didn't? In AofC, they established that Sifo-Dyas ordered the army. If Sideous covered his tracks well, the Jedi probably couldn't learn much more than that. Even if they learned that Palpatine put up the money, at this point there's not a whole hell of a lot they can do with that information. Palpatine has approval to use the army, and it's not going away until the Separatist movement is crushed. Actually, this would explain why the Jedi have such an extreme distrust of Palpatine. It seems to me that they were sure that Palpatine wanted supreme power, but they didn't realize that his plans involved getting rid of the Jedi. To them, the concept of eliminating the Jedi Knights would probably be as outragous as the president of the United States eliminating the FBI.

Overall, it was a great movie.

One more thing. What were those purple orbs in the opera-house-like theater supposed to be? It was obviously some sort of entertainment, but I couldn't figure out what the nature of the show was. Was it an art exibit? A sporting event? (This would explain why people were applauding.) What are your ideas on what Palpatine and Anakin were watching?

andrewdt85

05-30-2005, 12:35 PM

I know that the special effects in this movie have been criticized plenty, but I'll say that I really like big opening scenes, and this one does well. Here's my criticism:

Others have pointed out Greivous's lack of screen time and weakness as an enemy, and I agree. The one thing I would change about this movie is the lightsaber battle between him and Obi-Wan.

It's kind of wierd. In Ep 1, we see two men fighting Darth Maul, who has a double light saber. In Ep. 2, Anakin uses 2 light sabers at one point against Dooku, and Yoda does awesome stuff with his! I had the idea in my head, w/o being a star wars fan who reads books or comics or watches cartoons all in the 'Extended Universe,' that the next logical step light saber-wise in Ep 3 would be a multiple-armed man with multiple lightsabers! I just had the idea! Not that I'm trying to sound like some creative guy, I'm just saying it's the obvious cool thing to do! :)

But here's my one major criticism with this movie- this battle. Grevious starts spinning the two sabers, and in two seconds Obi has cut his hands off and flung his across the room! And then the clone army arrives and Obi fights Gr. on the circle car thing and ends up shooting him in his heart. Gosh, what a wasted opportunity! :rolleyes:

I mean, the movie could be 10 minutes longer- 2.5 hours long- right? Obi drops into the room, the army watches as these two guys battle it out in an awesome display of lightsabers! This would've been the pg13 version of a kill bill battle in my hands, and Grevious would've had his chance to shine as the villain before being cut to shreds and stabbed in his little alien heart. :D Then the clone army bursts in and all hell breaks loose, and Obi skeddadles on his lizard thing! Could've been so sweet... :(

Dunderman

05-30-2005, 12:39 PM

As for leaving Anakin there, I think that the whole duel was Anakin's chance to come back. Finally, beaten and dying, instead of showing any regret or anything remorseful at all we get, "I hate you!".

So, well, fuck you. Fry, bastard!
That's my take on it too. That's why Obi-Wan later had absolutely no faith in Vader's ability to return from the Dark Side.

Mr. Blue Sky

05-30-2005, 12:41 PM

I didn't mind the Frankenstein-esque walking. In fact, I thought it make the scene more realistic. No matter how advanced cybernetic technology is, walking on cybernetic legs just would't be the same as walking on one's natural legs. There's going to be an awkward period where Anakin gets used to using his new legs.?

Good one on Lucas. Christiansen said Lucas did this for exactly the reason you state.

He said the suit was ill-fitting in other ways as well.

Mr. Blue Sky

05-30-2005, 12:45 PM

A thought on Kenobi's "I have the higher ground..." line.

I took it figuratively as well as literally. Kenobi's a good guy and thus is on morally higher ground than Anakin.

When Crispy-Anakin was dragging himself up the slope, that scene from The Fly II (when the bad guy/fly thing was crawling out of its cage to get his food) came immediately to mind.

Diceman

05-30-2005, 01:03 PM

When Crispy-Anakin was dragging himself up the slope, that scene from The Fly II (when the bad guy/fly thing was crawling out of its cage to get his food) came immediately to mind.
I have a question about that scene. Did Obi-Wan cut off Anakin's legs, or did the lava burn them off?

Revtim

05-30-2005, 01:42 PM

I have a question about that scene. Did Obi-Wan cut off Anakin's legs, or did the lava burn them off?I'm pretty sure it was Obi-Wan's lightsabre slash that severed the legs.

Superdude

05-30-2005, 01:44 PM

When Anakin leaped over Obi-Wan, Kenobi used his lightsaber and cut off Anakin's legs and left arm.

Mr. Blue Sky

05-30-2005, 02:04 PM

I'm pretty sure it was Obi-Wan's lightsabre slash that severed the legs.

One reason why Kenobi warned Anakin not to continue the attack. As Anakin was flipping over, Kenobi did the Ginsu bit on Anakin's limbs.

"It's slices, it dices, it makes cripples of dark Sith lords. LIGHTSABER! By Ronco!"

Larry Mudd

05-30-2005, 02:23 PM

Interjection!

Your attention is directed toward this samply piss-take on Vader's "Noooooooooo!" (http://www.ytmnd.com/site_data/63000/63710/sound.mp3) (2.5 minute .mp3)

Heh.

Bambi Hassenpfeffer

05-30-2005, 10:24 PM

One more thing. What were those purple orbs in the opera-house-like theater supposed to be? It was obviously some sort of entertainment, but I couldn't figure out what the nature of the show was. Was it an art exibit? A sporting event? (This would explain why people were applauding.) What are your ideas on what Palpatine and Anakin were watching?
My first thought was the Cirque du Soleil. That's what it looked like to me, anyway.

rjung

05-31-2005, 01:38 AM

My immediate reaction was that we were seeing the Coruscant version of "O" (http://www.bellagio.com/pages/ent_main.asp). :D

BlackKnight

05-31-2005, 02:28 AM

I'm not sure what all I can add to this thread after 10 pages, but I'll do my best.

Here is how I would have opened the movie:
The movie opens similarly, but when Anakin is told by Palpatine to kill Dooku, he hesitates. Dooku takes this opportunity and escapes. (I wouldn't have both his hands cut off. I'd let him keep at least one, so he could violently fight his way to an escape pod / ship with his lightsabre.)

Anakin and Obi-Wan both yell for each other to save Palpatine so they can go after Dooku. There are a few wisecracks or sharp words between them as they carry Palpy to their ship together. They both take off after Dooku. Suddenly, Obi-Wan pauses. He sees, or thinks he sees, his old mentor. But he doesn't understand, and it lasts only a moment.

Dooku heads for the nearest planet, which in my version happens to be Dagobah. Anakin displays his impressive piloting skills by making it through the rough atmosphere in one piece. On the ground, either Obi-Wan or Anakin comments that while the Force is strong here, they cannot sense Dooku, even after they find his ship. "The life force of this planet is somehow ... masking him." (A single line or two will work. This helps explain why Yoda would later hide there. Also, it explains something that doesn't necessarily need explaining, but sort of fits: Why Luke doesn't sense that the little green guy he meets is a Jedi Master.)

Palpy has some lines about how dangerous Dooku is and how he'll say or do anything to survive. He knows that Dooku knows that Palpy wanted Anakin to kill him. Palpy is afraid Dooku might let slip that, oh, by the way, Palpy's a Dark Lord of the Sith.

Anakin and Obi-Wan each tell the other to remain with Palpy and the ship while they search for Dooku. After a few angry words, Palpy points out there's a cave nearby and possibly tracks leading to it from the general direction of Dooku's escape pod. (The audience knows, or at least suspects, that he may have some stronger sense of his former pupil than the two Jedi. The two Jedi just think, at this point, that he has good eyes.) Before Obi-Wan can tell him to stay and protect Palpy, Anakin rushes forward into the cave.

(This is the cave where Luke later sees a vision of Darth Vader.)

Obi-wan is about to rush after him, when again the vision of his old mentor appears. He pauses. It appears the vision is pointing at or trying to indicate something about Palpy. Palpy cannot see the vision, and mentions to the hesitating obi-wan that he will be quite fine and the Jedi should go help Anakin finish off Dooku. Obi-Wan must make the same determination as Hamlet: Spirit of health, or goblin damned?

For a few moments, Anakin is alone there in the dark with his fears. Suddenly, Dooku attacks furiously. His back is to the wall, he knows now that his life is at stake, and he fights like a cornered animal. Anakin can barely keep up with him.

Obi-Wan joins the battle, but in closed quarters superior numbers aren't much help. Dooku knocks Obi-Wan back with Force Lightning, then yells to Anakin, "You fool! Don't you see what he's doing?"

Again, Anakin hesitates. Dooku again takes this opportunity. He lashes out with Force Lightning, and for a moment it looks like Anakin is lost. He is in tremendous pain, pain he won't soon forget. Not even twenty years later when he sees another Jedi being hit with Force Lightning. He draws on his anger, his hate, his lust for revenge. He somehow diverts the lightning, striking Dooku. Dooku shrivels from the unexpected onslaught.

Palpy appears behind Anakin and tells him to finish Dooku once and for all. His face full of anger and hate, Anakin kills the now completely defenseless Dooku.

Qui-Gon would be interwoven with the rest of the movie. His return wouldn't be dealt with at the very end with a few measely sentences.

Dunderman

05-31-2005, 02:33 AM

Dooku heads for the nearest planet, which in my version happens to be Dagobah. Anakin displays his impressive piloting skills by making it through the rough atmosphere in one piece. On the ground, either Obi-Wan or Anakin comments that while the Force is strong here, they cannot sense Dooku, even after they find his ship. "The life force of this planet is somehow ... masking him." (A single line or two will work. This helps explain why Yoda would later hide there. Also, it explains something that doesn't necessarily need explaining, but sort of fits: Why Luke doesn't sense that the little green guy he meets is a Jedi Master.)
In the books, it is explained that Yoda faced-off against a Dark Jedi (identity unknown) on Dagobah and killed him. That's why the cave is filled with the Dark Side, and it's also how Yoda managed to hide: his light and the dead guy's darkness canceled each other out.

Apos

05-31-2005, 06:34 AM

But here's my one major criticism with this movie- this battle. Grevious starts spinning the two sabers, and in two seconds Obi has cut his hands off and flung his across the room! And then the clone army arrives and Obi fights Gr. on the circle car thing and ends up shooting him in his heart. Gosh, what a wasted opportunity! :rolleyes:

I mean, the movie could be 10 minutes longer- 2.5 hours long- right? Obi drops into the room, the army watches as these two guys battle it out in an awesome display of lightsabers! This would've been the pg13 version of a kill bill battle in my hands, and Grevious would've had his chance to shine as the villain before being cut to shreds and stabbed in his little alien heart. :D Then the clone army bursts in and all hell breaks loose, and Obi skeddadles on his lizard thing! Could've been so sweet... :(

The Grevious character we were introduced to in Clone Wars is nowhere in evidence in Sith. In CW, he's a deadly Jedi killer, trained by Dooku, and having some of the most incredible moves and actions scenes in the entire series. His tall, strange figure is menacing and brilliantly animated. In Sith, despite having personally charged into the heart of Jedidom and stolen the Chancellor, he's for some reason described as a coward and then played as one. As a fighter, he's played as a one trick pony: the cheap spinny blades which demonstrate no particular skill with a lightsaber. He's far shorter and far less impressive. His cough is never explained, nor is the fact that despite calling him a droid, he's obviosuly not one.

Lucas did originally film a scene for the movie with Grevious killing Shakti. Who knows why he cut it out. But they definately wasted the character.

Diceman

05-31-2005, 06:44 AM

My first thought was the Cirque du Soleil. That's what it looked like to me, anyway.

My immediate reaction was that we were seeing the Coruscant version of "O" (http://www.bellagio.com/pages/ent_main.asp). :D
I never thought of that! That makes a lot of sense.

(You know, I've never seen Cirque du Soleil. I could have seen them when I was in Las Vegas last fall, but I decided to see the Blue Man Group :) )

andrewdt85

05-31-2005, 04:15 PM

The Grevious character we were introduced to in Clone Wars is nowhere in evidence in Sith. In CW, he's a deadly Jedi killer, trained by Dooku, and having some of the most incredible moves and actions scenes in the entire series.

I don't remember him from CW. When do we see him fight? You maybe don't mean the movie...

His cough is never explained
The posters in this thread say that in the cartoon? series (that tells the story we don't see between CW and Sith), Mace Windu uses the Force on him and crushes his chest a little? making him kinda wheezy.
Lucas did originally film a scene for the movie with Grevious killing Shakti. Who knows why he cut it out. But they definately wasted the character.
Cool! I just looked that up, she's a Jedi. That's exactly what I wanted to happen! I wanted Obi and another Jedi, someone expendable who wouldn't add to the 66 scene , to drop in there and fight Grevious in an incredible 5 minute saber battle, her getting chopped to bits, pg 13 style! I'll have to check out what Lucas did when the dvd comes out... to me, it's the most obvious flaw in the movie. Such a shame.

ultrafilter

05-31-2005, 04:18 PM

Bryan Ekers

05-31-2005, 04:19 PM

I dunno if this has been cited yet, but I found it amusing (and overall I didn't like the movie at all, so anything amusing got my attention) that in every scene on the senate world, busy lines of air-traffic could been seen in the background.

Screw all the high-level intrigue and scheming and betrayal; yer average Joe still has to get ta work!

andrewdt85

05-31-2005, 04:43 PM

Overall the usage of the non-Palpatine villains in the prequel trilogy was pretty weak. Now, I'll grant that I'm comparing them to Darth Vader, who is probably one of the top two or three movie villains of all time, but still....
Yeah, Darth Maul and Count Dooku, esp. Maul, were just there to fill a spot until Vader and the rest of the Sith, ie the Clones, emerged to join the robots and Palpatine as 'the bad guys,' that much is obvious. Still though, Maul and Dooku both got good fight scenes; granted, at the point in the movie in which Grevious is killed it's just time for him to die so the real plot can continue, and this isn't like one of the climactic battles or anything, but still, I would have done something really cool and awesome, more cool that scene had to be, just to make the movie complete.

Gary "Wombat" Robson

05-31-2005, 04:52 PM

rjung

05-31-2005, 07:28 PM

The posters in this thread say that in the cartoon? series (that tells the story we don't see between CW and Sith), Mace Windu uses the Force on him and crushes his chest a little? making him kinda wheezy.
Yeah, the last episode of the Clone Wars cartoon is currently available for viewing on the StarWars.com web site. You can see it set up for the start of Revenge of the Sith right there.
Grevious kills two Jedi with his four-arm-lightsaber trick and escapes with Senator Palpatine. Just before they get away, Mace Windu tries to stop them, and manages to Force-crush Grevious' chest before their ship blasts off.

Diceman

05-31-2005, 09:42 PM

You know, if Grevious is injured at the start of Episode III, then it makes sense that he'd want to try to avoid battle. That's not cowardice (Obi-Wan's comments aside) that's just being prudent and realizing that you're not in fit shape to go charging into a crowd of Jedi.

andrewdt85

05-31-2005, 09:52 PM

I understand how Grevious was injured and therefore far less of a threat. Still though, at that part of the movie I refer to, it was time for Grevious to protect himself; I would've made some crap up about how he had healed incredibly fast and was prepared for battle.

I haven't seen the Clone Wars, but I saw part of one a while ago, and I do remember Grevious fighting; cool stuff. In my fight scene, Grevious and Obi and the expendable Jedi girl do some crazy moves that would seem more fitting in a Matrix or a frenetic action film, with awesome camerawork and action, not a Star Wars film. Why do I keep talking about it? Dunno... :D

The Scrivener

06-02-2005, 12:10 PM

Time to weigh in with a few thoughts. I apologize if I'm reiterating anything others have said.

I really loved this movie, and I think it ranks right up there with ANH and ESB. The tragedy of Anakin's fall, and the ironic reasons for it, work, and parallels the ways that the Sith would eventually use to try to convert Luke (by baiting his anger and using his protective love for his sister). I thought the visuals were technically great, if sometimes too cluttered and frenetically edited for my taste, and not noticably better (to my eye) than the CGI in Clones. I also thought the relationships between Anakin and Obi-Wan and Anakin and Padme were scripted and acted far better than in Clones. Much of the tragedy of Anakin's fall is that it terminates the (finally!) wonderful friendship, almost between equals, that has developed between him and Obi-Wan. After the chronic and grating admonishments that made up the bulk of their conversation in Clones, the more naturalistic and easy-going repartee in Revenge came as a relief. And I say that as a fan who could buy into Lucas' opting for a pointedly formalistic, rococco, and stilted mannerism in dialogue, acting, costumes and sets for the prequel trilogy as an (often offputting and misunderstood) artistic decision, which he doggedly pursued to underscore his contention that the prequel years depict the Republic and Jedi Order in their Golden Age (and collapse) and that this was, in the later words of Guiness' Obi-Wan, "a more civilized age".

Having said that, I can think of a few points for contention:

--The novel (for the Star Wars series) acknowledgments of the harsh realities of space, as introduced in this film, during the fight with Grievous and the Jedi's crash re-entry into the Coruscant atmosphere. This is a series, after all, that has shown Empire battleships with docking bays left apparently wide open to the voids of space; where a complex ecosystem could exist within the guts of a giant worm inhabiting a barren, atmosphere-less asteroid (in ESB); where laser-tag gunfights take place on small craft (like Leia's consular ship in ANH) without anybody voicing concern that a possible structural breach could get everyone killed; where small fighters (like Luke's in ESB) travel vast distances in space; where spacecraft dogfight, with sound effects, like terrestrial aircraft; and where spacecraft take off and land (even from dense swamplands) with scant acknowledgement of the forces of planetary gravitational pulls, atmospheric re-entry problems, inadequate takeoff and landing strips, and damage to engines stemming from, say, being buried in swamp-muck. So why inject even a scintilla of physics realism in the Coruscant re-entry? For me, it was a stark break with the fantasy, no-physics-laws universe that Lucas has constructed. That's a universe that sometimes had me rolling my eyes, but I could still get on board with Lucas' vision and enjoy the spectacle -- that's suspension of disbelief. But that vision has to be sustained consistently to work without the viewing feeling let down or cheated. Also, a further nitpick on this theme: Grievous couldn't gain an advantage over the Jedi by blowing out a window on a spacecraft, because his own body had a partially exposed heart and lungs. He would've been the first to explode. And come to think of it, how exactly did the Jedi survive that crisis and avoid being vented into space?

--The confrontations between Jedi knights and Sith lords remain open to some interpretation. I can understand how the Jedi Code can prohibit the taking of an unarmed and helpless life, and of an unarmed and helpless prisoner. But is any Sith ever truly unarmed or helpless? Both Dooku and Palpatine had made liberal use of Force-Lightning, in full view of Anakin. Even though Dooku lost his hands, he still conceivably could have used Force-Telekinesis to manipulate objects or beings, right? As for the fight between Mace Windu and Palpatine, I had the impression that Palpy was being disingenuous about being helpless, and was prepared to use force-lightning to kill Mace at any moment. He was acting (taking the dive) in order to turn Anakin, of course, by making it more convincing that the Jedi were in a conspiracy to assassinate the Chancellor and take over the Senate. (Which, from a certain point of view, they were, as soon as Anakin reported to Mace.) But would this confrontation have played out all that differently if Anakin hadn't turned on Mace? Palpatine would have dispatched him anyway, and then claimed that it was in self-defense, and Anakin would still have been convinced that the Jedi were threatening the Chancellor. Anakin's turning on Mace is preferable for dramatic purposes, but as far as the plot is concerned, I'm not sure it was a prerequisite for what ensued.

And aside from that, why wouldn't the Jedi Code make a clear exception for the beyond-the-pale evil of Sithdom? (If you're a self-confessed Sith, we have the license to kill you on sight, no questions asked, no trial necessary...)

--Sampiro noted, way back on p. 12 of this thread, that after turning against Mace, Anakin says "Oh God, what have I done?" -- and notes a parallel with Alec Guiness' line in The Bridge on the River Kwai. I never would have picked up on that and wonder if it was a conscious allusion. But it's provocative in another way -- it's a break with the hermetic theology of the Force, possibly the only such break in the entire series! Can anybody recall another reference to God in any Star Wars movie?

-- Obi-Wan's condemning line, "only a Sith believes in absolutes," is absolute hogwash and goes against the Force theology of the rest of the series. Lucas' vision is of a universal Manicchean dichotomy manifested in a moral and visceral struggle involving all living things and played out in mystical forces which are manifested, pantheistically, everywhere, yet are accessible, gnostically, to a chosen few, the Jedi space monks and their Sith apostate adversaries. (I think the Sith can be roughly considered as Jedi apostates, even though not all Sith were fallen Jedi, because all Sith nevertheless use their hermetic knowledge and access to the Force much as the Jedi do, but subvert their power to oppose the Jedi and even supercede their legitimate powers.) These opposing forces are destined to eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, because it is only through their struggle that their forces are truly balanced, in a yin-yang fashion borrowed from Asian traditions.

The problem with that line of dialogue is that all of the Jedi training we've witnessed to this point consists of teaching those absolutes, of enabling the Padawan learner to divine that line beyond which he may not cross, and honoring it -- up to and including chastity, severance of family ties, consistent deference in word and deed to one's Jedi masters and Council dictates, and eschewing any expressions or influences of one's volatile emotions (fear, anger, love, lust). It's the Sith, on the contrary, who violate this virtuous schema with their blurring of categories and transgression of boundaries in behavior, passion, and hierarchy (all those opportunistic and ruthless betrayals of masters and apprentices!). Most pointedly, the Sith violate the boundaries between good and evil in their knowledge and use of the Force for evil ends, and insofar as some are former Jedi and all are anti-Jedi, in their very being. Finally, the Sith, alone of the orders of Force-users, presume to possess truly God-like powers of creation -- the ultimate violation of the tenets of Jedi instruction, which only endorse limited, sanctioned uses of the Force for defensive and reactive purposes.

Orual

06-02-2005, 12:23 PM

Qui-Gon would be interwoven with the rest of the movie. His return wouldn't be dealt with at the very end with a few measely sentences.

I think the reason for the talk-only treatment of Qui-Gon may have had something to do with the fact that wild horses couldn't drag Liam Neeson within 50 miles of a Star Wars set.

sturmhauke

06-02-2005, 03:59 PM

--Sampiro noted, way back on p. 12 of this thread, that after turning against Mace, Anakin says "Oh God, what have I done?" -- and notes a parallel with Alec Guiness' line in The Bridge on the River Kwai. I never would have picked up on that and wonder if it was a conscious allusion. But it's provocative in another way -- it's a break with the hermetic theology of the Force, possibly the only such break in the entire series! Can anybody recall another reference to God in any Star Wars movie?
Anakin didn't say, "Oh God...", just, "What have I done?"

Dunderman

06-03-2005, 12:32 AM

I think the reason for the talk-only treatment of Qui-Gon may have had something to do with the fact that wild horses couldn't drag Liam Neeson within 50 miles of a Star Wars set.
Yeah, that must be it. But was there really not enough money to get him to do a two-minute cameo? I would have been happy with a very brief ghost appearance in the last scene between Yoda and Obi-Wan. In fact, Lucas should have shot that bit while shooting Phantom Menace.

QuizCustodet

06-03-2005, 06:28 AM

Also, a further nitpick on this theme: Grievous couldn't gain an advantage over the Jedi by blowing out a window on a spacecraft, because his own body had a partially exposed heart and lungs. He would've been the first to explode. And come to think of it, how exactly did the Jedi survive that crisis and avoid being vented into space?

No argument about the problem with Grievous' heart and lungs, but it was established in TPM that there was some kind of super Force Hold-Your-Breath power, so I presume that they used that in combination with holding on to stuff to stay inside the ship until the emergency seal locked into place, at which point the bridge was repressurised from emergency stores of air. The bigger problem that arises from this is that neither Anakin nor Obi-Wan seems particularly puzzled that Palpatine, a politician with no known Jedi training, seems to have no problem hanging around with them.
Also note that there must have been some atmosphere present right up until the seals closed, as there continued to be a wind blowing past the Jedi. Possibly the ship was attempting to repressurize even before the seals closed. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if the above is fan-boy apologia or reasonable explanation.

The confrontations between Jedi knights and Sith lords remain open to some interpretation. I can understand how the Jedi Code can prohibit the taking of an unarmed and helpless life, and of an unarmed and helpless prisoner. But is any Sith ever truly unarmed or helpless? Both Dooku and Palpatine had made liberal use of Force-Lightning, in full view of Anakin. Even though Dooku lost his hands, he still conceivably could have used Force-Telekinesis to manipulate objects or beings, right? As for the fight between Mace Windu and Palpatine, I had the

The Jedi are usually pretty eager to offer Dark Jedi a chance to Repent and Sin No More. Most examples of this come from the EU, so are only valid if you accept them (serious light-side points attach to such conversions in both KotORs, for example) but you could argue that Obi-Wan is attempting this in his discussion with Vader both in ANH and RotS.