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.)
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.
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…
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.
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.
… 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!
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:
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
Well, except for, gee, the homing device that Tarkin plants on the Millenium Falcon in Ep4.
No argument here. But is that a Bad Thing?
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.
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.
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.)
Ah, and while I’m on about Republic serials’ influence on Star Wars, The Fighting Devil Dogs 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.”
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.
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.
That’s not what I’m getting from that dialogue, but I suppose it’s a valid interpretation.
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.
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.) 
