I can buy "disappointing. " in fact that is a perfect way to describe them. Some good parts but overall disappointing.
Well played!
Much much worse.
I heartedly agree. I love that movie. But that scene is wrong on several levels.
What was “disappointing” to me was that we already had a pretty good outline of what Anakin/Vader’s life was like up to the point of the original movie, based on hints and suggestions, and I wanted to see that story. And I’m convinced it would have been a better story all-around than what we got. No little kids, “Yippee!” nonsense, no problematic relationships with older women, no needing to retcon why R2D2 doesn’t seem to remember hanging out with Ben Kenobi and Vader for all those years, the list goes on…
I agree that Episode 1 was unsalvageable, but Episodes 2 and 3 had the bones of a really good story in them. With better dialog and better acting - and by that I mean, with a director who knew how to direct actors - they could have been classics.
Hell, if Marcia Lucas had still been in the picture, she probably could have edited them into something decent. She’s the one who made Episode 4 watchable, after all.
Even Episode 1 had the bare bones of a good story. Just make Obi-Wan the main character. Have him doing a stand alone mission for the Jedi, and he meets Anakin. But Anakin is what OB described to Luke. Already an accomplished pilot, and naturally strong in the Force. OB recruits him for the mission, and begins training him in the Force by himself. At the end, Anakin has shown his potential, but Yoda et al. are nervous.
Episode 2 is OB convincing Akakin to join the Damn fool idealistic crusade", where we see Anakin get more powerful, but also darker. It’s done as a series of vignettes across the Clone Wars. At the end, we see him break completely, and become Vader.
Episode 3 is Vader hunting down the Jedi. Getting darker and stronger all the while.
Toss in the pregnancy with Luke and Leia at some point that makes more chronological sense.
It started out pretty good. It showed why just sending two Jedi was considered a decent way to fix a problem. The undersea journey was fine. The issues were- pandering to the kid audience (who liked it, admittedly) and too much comedy relief- (Jar jar).
Yeah, that light saber vs blast door scene made me giddy. It went downhill from there
I can’t argue with that. if the film had continued in that vein, it would have been great instead of “meh”.
Isn’t Anakin supposed to be Jesus?
I’d say 20% Jesus, 80% Satan.
I completely agree. I wanted an arc of Anakin becoming Vader. Not him breaking bad in the last act of the last movie. The sequence you list would have worked. If done well there could have been foreshadowing and hints that Yoda and the council were right all along about Anakin.
Exactly! We thought Vader hunted down and killed most of the Jedi, but instead it was mostly anonymous clones doing the heavy lifting. Badass Vader? Killed a bunch of kids.
Oh, and speaking of Vader and scenes that ruined movies, I just rewatched Rogue One. A great movie, but Vader making a dad joke about “choking on your ambitions” is just stupid. It was redeemed by the last scene with Vader, but you could have fixed this first scene.
I disagree completely - Anakin putting on the mask and becoming Vader was exactly the right point to end a trilogy. Having Vader hunt down Jedi might have been cool, but it’s not a story. What’s your stopping point? Where’s your climax?
No, there’s very little wrong with the story in Episodes 2 and 3. The problem is in the execution.
In the time between the original trilogy and Rogue One, the Kids in the Hall had a recurring character who used his fingers to pretend he was crushing people’s heads. When Vader makes the same motion with his fingers in Rogue One I’m just thinking of an accented voice saying, “Crushing your head! crushing your head!”.
Instead he just perfunctorily changes his name.
The real issue is that the actor in question simply wasn’t up to that kind of tragic downfall, regardless of what the script had him do.
That’s a fine place to end it. My problem is it didn’t feel like he’d earned it. He had a temper tantrum after Padme died, and then he was evil.
Putting on the mask can still be the last thing, after the climax of the battle with Obi-Wan.
Have Vader hunt down the Jedi, but every fight is a toss-up. He wins, but he loses a bit every time. A hand here, an eye there, he gradually becomes “More machine than man”, until Obi-Wan leaves him near-broken, needing massive interventions just to survive.
Then toss in the Emperor being smarmy about “Now you are truly my apprentice, bitch.”