The idea of taking one of the greatest screen villains in film history, and making a series of movies entirely about how he became a villain is actually pretty audacious, and it’s a shame that it proved to be beyond Lucas’s abilities, because it could have been great.
The trick is, you need to make the villain likable before he falls, and you need to give him a reason to fall that the audience can relate to. Something where the audience can say, “He’s clearly doing the wrong thing, but I can understand why he’s doing it.” There aren’t a whole lot of motivations that work, there - a troubled romance is really your best bet. Lucas got that much right, I think, even if he badly botched the handling of it. drastic_quench, I think, got much nearer the mark than Lucas did. It shouldn’t have been concern for Padme’s health that made Anakin turn, it should have been concern for her faithfulness.
Imagine the first movie with an adult Anakin, who is part of a love triangle between Padme and Obi-Wan. Resolve the triangle in the first movie - end it with a big “love conquers all” happy ending. Padme chooses Anakin over Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan chooses the Jedi order over Padme. Everyone’s happy, and Anakin and Obi-Wan are great friends.
In the second movie, events force Anakin and Padme apart, and she spends most of the movie with Obi-Wan. Anakin, under the influence of Palpatine, has a vision of Padme cheating on him with Obi-Wan, and Palpatine subtly re-enforces his paranoia. Eventually, we see Obi-Wan and Padme in the same situation as Anakin’s vision - except they don’t do anything with each other. The future is always in motion, as the puppet said, and Anakin’s vision was just a possible outcome, but Anakin doesn’t know this. Under Palpatine’s influence, he goes full-on Othello, convinced that his wife and his best friend are going at it behind his back, and that’s what leads to his fall, as part of the downer climax of the second film.
But that’s not what we got. Anakin had already fallen from grace by the time they got married. To any sane person, a potential partner crying about how they butchered children like animals would be such a huge fucking warning sign that romance would be impossible.
Miller: You want the decades long enmity between Vader and Obi to be a “bros before hoes” story? Women ruin everything, huh?
Anakin and Obi go on adventures together. So let’s give them different philosophical mindsets. Vader seemed obsessed with maintaining order. So show a world where the Jedi are corrupt or ineffectual, or they have policies that lead to bad outcomes, at least in Anakin’s eyes. Maybe they have a non-interference policy or something. Give him a legit reason to not like the Jedi order, other than him being a narcissist and they’re not promoting him as fast as he wants.
In the animated Genndy Clone Wars series (which is better than all the prequels put together) they show Anakin succumbing to his anger to solve problems. Maybe Obi or Yoda could have told him it’s better to be at peace with the force and all that jazz and he rejects it because it takes too long. He needs solutions now, so he uses the dark side as a shortcut, has several “the ends justifies the means” scenarios, and then he can be a different person as he transforms into Vader.
As opposed to just suddenly killing everyone because Palpatine pulled the least convincing confidence trick ever.
Oh come now. Surely we’ve all slipped now and then - what’s a village or two of butchery?
But, yeah, it’s points like these that highlight just how miserably the prequels fail on every level. In any other movie, this scene would be the climax of the second movie and it would happen after the marriage. We’d be left with anticipation for the third movie as we think “Whoa - Anakin has totally crossed the line, and how can Padme live with someone who’s done that?”
It’s like a biography of Hitler that focuses on his aspirations as an artist and thinks the Holocaust wasn’t such a big deal.
I wasn’t criticizing it, just thought it was amusing that jealously over little old Padme could cause the rift. But if nothing else, pro sports has taught me that two former best buds turned enemies can only have a couple causes. It’s either a woman or a card game.
Whenever these discussions come up there is one thing that everyone ignores. These are kids movies. Lucas made the movies and he made them for kids. Sorry if that disappoints the 40 something year olds who thought the originals were the greatest thing ever. And yes, I’m in that category.
Yes, but I would draw a distinction on that. Just because a movie (or other work of fiction) is made so that children can watch and enjoy it should not exclude adults from also watching and enjoying it. ANH and ESD are both perfect examples. There’s nothing there that necessarily appeals more to a child than to an adult. All they’ve done is omit swearing, bloody injuries and nudity from a story that’s equally adult and child friendly.
ROTJ is quite similar, though the Ewoks and complete ineptitude of the Imperial troops hurts the movie from the adult perspective. (At least in the previous two movies, we can point to the fact that the Empire was not actually trying to kill the heroes.)
But the prequels… yes, clearly these are kids movies. Once you get beyond puberty, you realize that romantic relationships don’t quite go like that. Once you apply any kind of critical thinking, you realize how many holes are in the plot lines.
Is that why they were full of incomprehensible politics, bloated romance scenes, long face to face discussions on couches, and people being dismembered?
There’s definitely a lot of kid stuff like Jar Jar and fart jokes and “funny” aliens but there’s a lot of mood whiplash going on here too. I haven’t seem them in a long time, but from what I remember only Phantom was particularly kiddie.