So I went and saw Return of the Sith. Having read several of the Dark Horse comics, I was familure with many of the expanded universe jedi, and knew that they would have to buy the farm in this film. I was even prepared to see a character that I had really come to like, Aayla Secura, die.
She did, it was hard to watch. What irked me about it was not that she died, but the way that George decided to kill her. Shot in the back, clones pumping shot after shot into her lifeless body.
This is not the way a hero is supposed to die. Before any of you come on and say "people die that in real life all the time" let me remind you that this is not real life, this is fantasy. What's more, this is heroic fantasy the stuff (suposedly) of legends.
Here we have a character who had a story, those who knew her story knew of her battles, her loss of her memories, and her struggles with the darkside. At the least she deserved to die as a hero should, lightsaber drawn, fighting till the end.
No instead she is shot like a rabid dog.
May George Lucas be buggered by a syphlitic rancor! :wally
The first thing you should be grateful for is that anyone who would recogize the name of that Jedi would certainly be those who had already seen the movie at the midnight showing.
The moral of the story being that
You should use spoiler warnings!
Anyways, that’s the way of it. Sure, it’s a shitty way to die. But it just shows how completely unfair and just plain evil the betrayal was.
Life’s a bitch, and if that montage don’t convince you, nothing will.
They were being shot down like dogs. Some were able to fight back a little before dying, and only a very select few were lucky enough to survive (two by my count).
They are heroes. Seeing them die like that demonstrated the level of Palpatine’s treachery and cruelty.
It’s perfect that she died this way. Back-shot and without respect for her spiritual struggles & achievements. It highlights the Dark Side’s disregard of action that does not keep one in power as well as the cruel functionality necessary to maintain dominance.
Who the hell is Aayla Secura? Does she even have any lines in the previous movies? How could you “really come to like” a character that wasn’t even really a character?
I can see a point about this being a way to demonstrate the empires caloneness and evil, but honestly I thing you are giveing Lucas too much credit. Many people have notice that the whole Jedi killing montage was cribbed from s similar montage in the Godfather trilogy. There I think is the key, Lucas cared more about doing some sort of "homage" to another movie, than telling a story.
Therin lies my point. Aayla (and the other jedi killed in that montage). had stories to tell. The people who created those stories were better at telling stories than Lucas himself. This was a character created by someone else for Lucas's universe. Yes once Lucas took control of the character he could do with it what he wanted, but I belive that he owed it to the origional storyteller to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
To put it in perspective, when another storyteller killed off one of Lucas's characters (Chewbacca) in the expanded universe, he was able to give him a hero's death.
My point isn't that i am ticked that Lucas killed off a character I liked, it is that the STORY aspect of how he did it was weak.
I don’t know if this is still spoilerish, given the OP, but be warned…
[Spoiler]I’m in agreement with what others have said. They were coldly betrayed and were given little chance to flee or surrender. The same goes for the younglings. It’s supposed to outrage you, and it does.
The potential upside (please consider this very unsubstantiated gossip) is that some jedi must survive if Lucas’s live action TV concept comes to fruition. Aayla Secura is one of the names you see blogged most often. [/Spoiler]
This might be a bit of a hijack, but I really don’t think there’s a need to use spoiler boxes in this thread, as it’s put plainly in the title. If people don’t want spoilers, they should avoid this thread.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled geekyness
Soap, Fuck you. (coz it’s the Pit. No really good reason)
The Shire shouldda been scoured & Tom Bombadil got merged into Treebeard. The story as written didn’t fit the film’s timbre. Watch Tank Girl & then read the comics–same deal. I think you DO have to give credit to Lucas because, while I think the Star Wars stories could be done better, he can still tell a story. But you gottsta put the books away when you go to the cinema, and you gottsta not look at the action off stage when you go to the theater. Al media require a degree of forgiveness from the audience–if you can’t grant it, eschew that format.
George isn’t shy about sticking in a little action. I tend to think they didn’t go down swinging for a reason.
What George isn’t so good at isn’t necessarily writing, it’s dialog. But I’m in the ‘ANH was just as cheesey, and we still enjoyed it’ camp regarding the dialog.
Sorry Waverly, George is lazy with the story as well. Remember…
Padme died of a broken heart :rolleyes:
The jedi dying the way they did is weak because in Attack of the Clones they fought off a veritable army of droids, blocking shots from everywhere. Luke’s little training with the blast shield down is more proof that they should’ve seen the attacks coming.
That they suddenly didn’t tells me that George just didn’t want to deal with it.
How many books are there in the Star Wars universe? I’m sure there are many many stories worth telling, and that were told in that format, each with pages and pages devoted to character and story development.
This movie was not their stories. This was a story about Anakin Skywalker and the fall of the Republic, and everything story-wise included in the film was only included to bolster that tale. There is neither time nor space in a film to tell the stories of all the players involved, just for those central to the plot.
Aayla Secura was not central to the plot, any more than just being another Jedi. In fact, most of the people who will see the movie have no idea who she is. Were Lucas to feature her somehow, he’d have to tell her story to the audience who hasn’t read the novels that feature her. He didn’t have the time.
Chewbacca got a good ‘send-off’ (I assume; I’m one of the many SW fans who love it but haven’t read any of the novels) because someone decided to tell his story, and had the space in which to do it.
Also, to second what others have said, the whole point of the killing montage was to illustrate how cold and uncaring the Sith are. Not everyone who deserves a noble death gets one. I’d say the fact that this upset you so much shows that it was brutally effective. But, I’d stop blaming your anger at her ignoble death on Lucas’s lack of writing skills. There are plenty of worthy nitpicks, and this just isn’t one of them. She died with a knife in the back, and you’re upset she didn’t even get a chance to fight back. That’s what you’re supposed to be upset at; but that’s Palpatine’s fault, not Lucas’s.
Well I guess I’ve got good news for you guys. When Secura was shot you notice the blaster bolts are blue. The only other time you see blue blaster bolts in Star Wars is when they are set on stun. Lucas has confirmed that Secura was not killed because the blasters in question weren’t set on kill.
However I have to give a word of worning about this news. I heard Lucas confirmed this from a friend who said he read about it in a wikipedia article :(. So there’s probably an 85% chance it isn’t true.
The Jedi seemed oddly unable to sense that something was wrong, even though they’re able to block laser shots they can’t even see. I explained it away to myself by just saying that none of them expected it, so weren’t focused on their surroundings. However, I think the inconsistancy of Jedi combat skill/awareness is one of the major broken bits in these movies. It’s awesome to show one dude with a light sabre holding off enemies by the hundreds, but what happens when you want that same dude to die? I think Jedi are shown to be more powerful than they should be for the sake of coolness, and then made human again when necessary. Of course, this is no different from any other story that has our intrepid hero avoiding death against impossible odds until the story requires he get shot.
This was definitely one of the things that made me raise my eyebrows while watching the movie this afternoon; “wow, it was unbelievably easy to just off all the Jedi with Stormtroopers. How did they manage to keep the galaxy safe as long as they had? Particularly since the Jedi knew that there was something fishy going on.”
