Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith question for SW geeks (spoiler warning!!)

I've rewatched the movie recently because it's been on HBO, and I keep coming up with this question.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I thought the showdown between Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end was excellent, and the betrayal of the Jedi by the clones was also well done. Some of the other action scenes were very good as well – the opening sequence where they rescue the chancellor, the duel between Grievous and Obi-Wan and the showdowns between first Palpatine and Mace Windu and then Yoda & Palpatine.

And, I thought some of the acting was good as well – Ewan McGregor has been right on as Obi-Wan through all three movies, and Ian McDermid was excellent as Palpatine.

But, one thing that bothered me was that Anakin Skywalker went from a guy that was turning in Palpatine to the Jedi for being the Dark Lord of the Sith to a guy that was killing children in basically a few scenes. I mean, I could see him stepping in and stopping Mace Windu from killing Palpatine so he could save his Padme – but, right after that, he goes to the Jedi Temple and kills all the kids there.

It just seemed like a huge change in character so quickly. One scene, he is turning in Palpatine for being the evil Dark Lord, and then he's killing kids?

Is there any explanation for this?

He gave into his angers and fears. He gave himself to the Dark Side. If you notice his eyes turn yellow when he is doing evil. That is the Dark Side.

With all his amazing power he could not save her. He showed that blinding, illogical rage after her death.

The dreams of Padme's death had a powerful effect and awoke that rage inside him. Siddius sensed that and manipulated Anikin by promising the dark side would keep Padme alive.

Once Ankin committed to the dark side, it took over his mind very quickly. That speed seems to relate mainly to Anikin's deep inside rage because the dark side feeds on rage.

In Episode V, Vader keeps urging Luke to get mad because rage is the path to the dark side. In III, Ankin already has that rage, so he slips fairly easily into Vader.

When he killed all the sand people after his mother's death, or when he went against the Jedi way by knocking up Padme, or when he killed Count Dooku at the beginning of Sith.

But it had been building through all three of the films. It wasn't as immediate as it seemed, he was gradually seduced by Palpatine and the feelings of rage and frustration that lead to his desire for "control" and "order" had been building for some time. Remember, his formative years as a child he was a SLAVE. Then he loses his mother, and is having dark dreams of Padme's painful death. All this leads to his decision to go over to the dark side so he can have that control he desperately desire. Once he "gives in" to that (to the dark side), the transformation is essentially immediate.

He knew that Anakin had been teetering on the edge ever since he lost his mother. For years, he invested time into becoming Anakin's "friend" and mentor, using those little opportunities to push him toward less than Jedi-like views.

Eventually, the Jedi Council became suspicious of Palpatine. They began to sense the Dark Side surrounding him, where previously they could not. So, Palpatine tells Anakin that Padme is going to die as she does in his dreams (true), and that only Palpatine himself has the knowledge necessary to save her (maybe true, maybe not).

Anakin is left with a choice at that point. There's a lot of debate over this, but I believe Palpatine intentionally lost the duel with Mace Windu. In doing so, he forced Anakin to choose between the Jedi, or him. Anakin had expected that Windu would merely arrest Palpatine, and that there'd still be time to learn from him. Naturally, because of Padme, he chose Palpatine.

After he helped Palpatine to kill Mace Windu, Anakin knew there was no going back. The Jedi would not trust him again, and in fact, he and Palpatine would be killed if they didn't act quickly. As well, there's that overarching desire to keep Padme alive.

As a side note, I am a great fan of Ian McDiarmid in this role. He really turned Palpatine into a purely evil, unrepentant character.

The Jedi wouldn't have been able to stop him even if he had left the younglings alive - the death of Padme happened before most of them would get to maturity.
There is a big difference between killing a mature adult in a war and killing 8, 10 and 12 year old kids.

To force Anakin's hand, to use his attack for propaganda purposes, and to have moral and legal leverage over Anakin.

I think that too. Palpatine could have killed Mace Windu on cue anytime.

He was quite clever in Sith.

just seeing if I can get any more answers.

Palpatine was using dark side techniques on him to influence and/or control him. Besides being a political master, much like Karl Rove, Palpatine had tremendous dark side powers and could easily pressure on little jedi into betraying his morals and code and way of life. Especially if there was a good hook, like, do this and I will save the ones you love.

Obi-Wan sums it up near the end when he tells Padme that Palpatine was behind everything including the war.

I now think " Everything " is at the least,
Chancellor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious aka Sith apprentice to Darth Plagueis caused the force to become unbalanced by creating the life Anakin Skywalker. I am unsure if it was simply the creation of Anikin that caused the imbalance or the unnaturally high midichlorian count
Anakin had but it seems the Sith plot to regain control of the Galaxy started with the creation of Anakin.
It is difficult to determine how much control Sidious has over events but I suspect that he tries to only control as much as necessary to keep everything on course yet not so much that his control reveals a path back to himself.
It seems certain that Anakin's mother was selected so that he could be separated from her while Anakin was very young and yet allow her to live until Anakin was old enough and capable enough to be lured toward the dark side enough by her death to destroy even the women and children sand people.
I think that Sidious made sure he was in a position to control who Anakin would Love and how they would be taken away from him so that the maximum amount of fear, anger & hatred would be generated thus rendering the most powerful Sith Lord ever. This assurred that once Sidious was in control of the Galaxy no one would have enough power to stop him.

So now it all makes sense as to why the silly idea of a trade war on Naboo for Episode 1. It was all ruse to get Anakin's force training started, get the Senate and all it's members in disarray and set the stage for Sidious as Palpatine to bring the Clone Army online and equip them not to defeat the Trade federation but to keep the Senate member planets inline after the empire was proclaimed. Well, that and do the needed steps to bring Darth Vader into being as a Sith Lord that no Jedi could defeat.

I agree that Palpatine had controlled the Mace Windu scene so that Anakin would be able to think he had stopped Mace from killing Palpatine, although I'm not sure Mace was going to do more than remove Palpatine's hands or arms and reduce his ability to access the force. As for the rapid trandformation I think that Anakin being spawned by the dark side, never had to turn to the dark side so much as overcome what little positive side of the force he had gotten from his mother orginally. It seems likely that Palpatine might have been using the force to dam up Anakin's dark side and hide what Anakin really was. Now that there was no longer any reason to keep his true purpose or idenity a secret, his Dark Side came out with a speed and force to match the power it took to keep it hidden from the Jedi.

But, I'm not sure Anakin was spawned by the Dark Side, though I agree with Palpatine being behind everything, from the trade war in Episode 1 through his slow assumption of power through the first 3 episodes.

While I think the Emperor might have thrown the fight a bit with Mace Windu, I do think he was genuinely in danger - Palpatine was not powerful enough to beat Yoda, and Windu was supposedly right up there with Yoda in terms of power, and was also some sort of special lightsaber master.

I think maybe the Emperor sensed the anger and power in Anakin from the beginning and immediately started working on him to convert him to The Dark Side. Both Padme at the end of Episode 3 and Luke in Episodes 5 and 6 both say there is still good in him, so I do think he may have been 50-50 in the beginning, but was tilted to the Dark Side by the Emperor.

That was his lightsaber technique: basically bending the Dark Side to his will. So, Mace may have been the ONLY Jedi who could have killed the Emperor.

I mean, the purple looks cool, but he's the only one.

Which also has the whole Padme Resistance subplot in it.

As revealed in The Making of Revenge of the Sith, Lucas was intent on penning an "I am your father" scene, but wisely left it open to interpretation. Listen closely, however, to the discussion in the Opera House--and study the imagery in the background--and you'll know who Luke and Leia's grandfather was.

The implication of it was better, and more subtle than just having an "I am your force-daddy" scene.

...that it wasn't a terribly well-written movie.

It just wasn't.

The reason he made Episode IV first was because
the studio had no interest in making ANY of the
other 5 scripts.

Episode 3 was made because Star Wars was a huge
phenomenon, -NOT- because it was worth making on
its own merits.

Does the entire film take place in one afternoon, or over the course of 7+ months?

The pacing is all wrong, from start to finish. The only thing that suggests that the action took more than a few hours is the fact that Padme is just-barely-pregnant at the beginning and at full term by the end. Everything else is rapid-fire and can be argued to occur between sunrise and sunset.

In fact, one of the things that makes it more difficult is the vaunted hyperdrive, with which trans-galactic flight is magically possible in the space of a few minutes. If they hadn't been driving that point home for six movies, it could be argued that this flight or that flight took several days/weeks/months/whatever, but instead we're stuck with every trip taking no longer than a walk to the corner store.

EPIII was clearly the best of the latter trilogy and the closest in overall flavor to the original films. The only searingly awful moments IMO were the "Oh, I don't think so" intense closeup on Obi Wan's eyes (WTF?) and the reborn Vader's superhypermegadramatic "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" scream.

But Lucas is still a ham-fisted operator who should have trusted someone with actual chops to handle such minor issues as plot, dialog, and character direction.

The big scream that Vader lets out at the end...

but, it could be why he is so cold in Episodes 4-6. He's lost his love and has become cold & unfeeling as a response.

I think the moment of "emotional death" might have been stronger if he'd merely erupted into his telekinetic tantrum, crushing every droid within sight while he worked out his fury.

The big bad scream just seemed ridiculous.

Even the children were appalled.

I'm sure Anakin's journey to the dark side, which really started on Tatooine in Episode II was a lot more convoluted and took a much longer time than it seems. The pacing in Episode III makes me think that everything went from sunny skies to dark and stormy for Anakin in the span of a day.

From "Hi honey, how are you doing? It sure is a lovely day, isn't it. I love you so much." to "Die, Jedi, DIE! All hail my lord and master Darth Whatshisname!" in less time than it takes for the sun to cross the sky? That's the impression I had when I watched Episode III.

And some of the dialog during the saber duels seemed disjoined. Also, they almost cut every scene Natalie Portman had; including all the scenes where the Alliance is initially formed.

Lucas should have hired a screenwriter and a director.

It gives her character depth and shows how "noble" and brave she was -- foreshadowing Leia's own involvement in the resistance. It also shows how she -- unlike Anakin -- would put the rights and lives of others over her own.

And...well...it's Natalie Portman.

And she acted her best in those scenes. She seemed to phone in her scenes with Anakin. I didn't really feel that she was in love with him at all.

And...it's Natalie Portman.

(edited for broken html tag)

I usually feel Natalie Portman is one of the world's most beautiful women.

However, for some reason, I did not like how she looked in Episode 3... so Lucas can even make Ms Portman look bad.

I would have loved to have seen the forming of the rebel alliance - maybe there will eventually be an extended DVD with it added in, sort of like how they did with all 3 Lord of the Rings movies.

And you're right. When he can even make Natalie Portman look bad, you know there's some thing that's wrong with the movie.

I ALMOST wrote: and, it would be more Natalie Portman!

Agreed -- the love scenes sucked, except for the end when it wasn't love, but horrid realization.

to "nudge" her in the direction of "love". I think he said it was more like a "Jedi date-rape". A but brusque, but somewhat apt.

And I wish someone would have explained how Padme came up with "Luke" and "Leia" as names for the twins. Oh, I knew what they'd be named, but it would have been nice to have her not seemingly pick them out of a hat. Okay, so she was dying in the delivery room, so I can't fault her for not saying "I'll name him Luke, after my father's brother's cousin's uncle". But some exposition would be nice. Either by her or Obi-wan or even the freaking droids.

But, maybe he used his skills with The Force to enhance his skill in the sack?

Because, Padme was always very aware of what her duty was, and the whole Anakin thing went very much against this aspect of her character.

I think Obi-wan should have been the one to name them, "After my parents, whom I don't remember."

Okay, so they were condemned to die horribly on a planet surrounded by cheering, sentient bugs. And they had to suffer the embarrassment of reading Lucas-written dialog.
But that still doesn't excuse a freakin' Senator of the Republic, who can make eloquent off-the-cuff speeches her whole life to come up with something other than "I truly...deeply...love you."

I swear, I almost got up and screamed when she said that. Being as it was opening night for Episode II, I wouldn't be alive and posting this if I had.

Padme's character was someone who would ALWAYS put duty before her personal life -- kind of like Queen Elziath... except Natalie Portman is way hotter (and a better dresser) than Her Majesty.

So, I think she would have been contemptuous -- or at least disapproving -- of Anakin's brushing off of his Jedi-imposed celibacy/lack of intimacy withs someone. She NEVER would have aided him in his breaking his oath.

I remember "You're going down a path a cannot follow!"

real natural dialogue there. exactly what my ex-wife told me when she filed for divorce... not!

When Anakin says something poignant like "I hate sand. It's rough. Not like your skin."

How could any girl not succumb to the charm of such a smooth operator?

The CNN review at the time decribed Anakin as "the kind of kid you'd expect to see getting beaten up in a Dairy Queen parking lot," and "for a terrifying moment, it seems like he might actually start singing." A fantastically apt critique, IMO.

I'll search CNN.com for the review tomorrow; my home dial-up connection is too slow to manage it, but it's well worth reading.

When I pointed out to a friend of mine that I didn't like the fact that Lucas had made the kid that becomes on the great movie villains of all-time into a whiny punk, my friend responded by saying that in the original movies, Luke Skywalker was a whiny punk, too.

1. Did the events of The Empire Strikes Back span days, weeks, or months? When considering Luke's training and Han's shot hyperdrive, who can say? By your logic, one could just as easily pick apart that film, as well.

2. There were several nighttime scenes in ROTS. Anakin's descent fell somewhere within a week.

3. Vader's scream was no less hammy than the one Luke bellowed in ESB.

Exactly correct, and I'd love to hear the official explanation for it! How long were Leia, Han, Chewie, and 3PO on the run from their Imperial pursuers? How long were they "guests" of Cloud City? An hour? A week? A month? A year? How much did/could Luke learn in that time? These are certainly valid questions that are difficult to answer given only onscreen evidence.


Okay, but that doesn't help all that much, because it still means that Padme went full term in under seven days.


I don't buy that answer, to be honest. Luke had just had his hand severed by the very machine/monster that had murdered Luke's father and which Luke had been specifically training to defeat, only to find out that the monster was his father after all. By that point we'd had almost two full films to build empathy for Luke, and the impact of the sudden betrayal is profoundly visceral. There's a classically mythic scope to this revelation that's entirely unmatched in the rest of the six-film cycle. When it occurs, we sympathize with Luke, because his scream was justified by everything that his character had experienced up to that point.

Vader's scream, in contrast, is a pale affectation more or less tacked on to create a appearance of gravitas that simply isn't there. Anakin had been portrayed for two films as a pushy brat with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. We'd had no convincing onscreen indication that he felt anything at all for Padme, other than his deadpan recitations of words to that effect, and in the end he becomes a superpowered wife-beater who regrets having to face the consequences of his uncontrolled temper. We sympathize not with him but with his victim, and his scream is emblematic of tantrum writ large. He might as well have stared into the camera and said "I am very very very angry right now!" His scream is the culmination of maybe five or six minutes' worth of onscreen bulid-up, and it just doesn't ring true. He'd already been portrayed as an amoral opportunist and a mass-murderer, so his bellowing about "what have I done" is far too little and far too late.

The only argument in support of his melodrama is the fact that he didn't, of course, kill her as Palpatine alleges. But that would only work if Vader thereafter learned that the lie had prevented him from saving her, and this never occurs onscreen at all.

====

Despite all of that, IMO EPIII does have two of the strongest moments in the six-film series, and Lucas et al deserve some credit for them:

1. The reaction of the "youngling" who, beseeches Anakin for help in the Jedi temple. When Anakin activates his light saber, the boy's startled response is as real and poignant as anything in the films.

2. Obi Wan's anguish when he finally accepts that Anakin has fallen. MacGregor portrays the pain, betrayal, and grief of the moment with a sincerity that makes the moment real, so that we mourn along with him. Anakin's fall becomes a proxy for the death of the Old Republic, and MacGregor's performance is what sells it, far more than Christiansen's histrionics or a planet full of CGI lava could have done.

====

I'm not saying that episodes IV, V, and VI were free of warts, but they had an emotional cohesiveness that was more uniformly real than anything we saw in I, II, or III.

Is that the one where Darth Vader puts in a call to the Emperor to tell him the Death Star was destroyed?

This is the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special that was shown a couple of weeks ago.

ha!

IMO, the major flaw in the whole prequel trilogy. Lucas procrastinated with his Darth Vader character, pretty much the whole reason for the trilogy, and suffered for it.

Frankly, his transition to evil should have been over and done with by the end of act II. And by act II I mean the second movie.

Why should Lucas have devoted the latter half of a trilogy to the exploits of a mass murderer and torturer, when said monster is to be eventually redeemed?

You're merely echoing the laments of fanboys everywhere, who still haven't forgiven Lucas for setting his sights a bit higher, and giving us a tragic figure.

I posted elsewhere that no sociopath in the history of literature or cinema has really benefited from an expose of his origins, and this is equally true of Vader. If anyone can think of an exception, I'd love to hear it. Vito Corleone doesn't count, either, because he's never portrayed as a sociopath.


Well, that's a red herring, of course. The problem isn't that he spent time on a mass murderer, nor is it that he set "his sights a bit higher." Instead, the problem is that the portrayal of Anakin, from his first moments in EPI to his last moment in EPIII (well, his second last; see *below) comes across as phony and perfunctory. Lucas is so desperate to get the backstory onscreen that he fumbles in his attempt and loses sight of what would have made the backstory worthwhile. Instead, we get the pantomime of a ridiculously unbelievable love story, a lot of unconvincing temper tantrums, and a bunch of intensely half-assed brooding by an actor sorely out of his league.

In essence, you're blaming the viewer for failing to absolve Lucas for his abyssmally weak writing and direction, when in fact you should be criticizing the director for failing to do justice to the characters that he'd created.

* Okay, Vader's last moment onscreen, on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, is pretty good, and we finally get a sense of the fate to which he'd been consigned. Pity that it took 6+ hours of watching to get us there...

I sympathized with Anakin, as I fancy him to be more a victim than transgressor. The kid didn't have a prayer. Created by the Devil's hand. Languishing in indentured servitude. Torn from his mother. Robbed of his surrogate (the only man who could have saved him from his real father). Apprenticed under an incompetent. Nurtured by a band of arrogant, unprincipled ascetics.

Darth Vader...of course.

"Ridiculously unbelievable love story?" What on earth led you to think AOTC chronicled a love story? It was about possession (Anakin) and folly (Padme). Recall little Ani's first words to Padme: "Are you an angel?" It's all crystal worlds with this boy. Padme's not a woman, she's an ideal, harkening back to the pall cast by his beloved mother (they did look awfully alike in Episode I, didn't they?) He reenters her world, and consumes. And Padme? Anakin's her last prospect for meaning. She's spent half her life upholding a crumbling, thoroughly corrupt Republic, only to find herself impotent in preventing a war that would kill tens of billions. She's failed. So here comes this emotional wreck--so disturbingly different from the cherub who helped save her planet ten years prior. Perhaps this she can salvage. Like her son, she sees something in this budding, feeble tyrant worth saving, which allows her to turn a blind eye to all his atrocities, all the innocents he's killed. Until finally, she too dies on the receiving end. Not a love story, not in the least.


And no, I'm not blaming the viewers--many of whom have expressed varying degrees of satisfaction with how this new trilogy turned out. My eyes are on the fanboys, who clamored for more Manichean wars, charming rogues and gallant knights...and spewed their venom when Lucas offered up something more provocative.

I think he was a hero in the truest way, and the only one who had a chance in hell of training Anakin to become an adherent of the "Light Side," but was hampered both by Anakin's oft self-created demons and the Jedi's way of life. Obi-wan was too good for the Jedi system.

on edit: I also think Obi-wan is the most self aware of ANY of the characters in ROTS. He realizes what he's done wrong way before any of the other main characters do (Padme, Yoda, Anakin, etc.) and tries to do something, even if it's too late and totally futile.

(An interesting point in the novelization: the rest of the Jedi believe that Obi-wan is the truest, purest, BEST Jedi... not only because he is the best fighter, but because he is the most DECENT.

I think he tried & failed with Anakin.

I wonder what would have happened had Obi-Wan actually finished him off instead of letting him slide into the lava and end up barely alive? There would have really been nobody left to be the Emperor's apprentice besides Obi-Wan & Yoda.

BTW, a friend of mine also said that in the novel, Anakin's conversion/fall to the Dark Side was not nearly as quick in the book.

You also got to "hear" all of his internal feelings and thoughts, which helped.

A distinction must be made:

If we're discussing the films themselves, then we can only include what is shown onscreen. That means that novelizations, comic books, liner notes, cast/crew interviews, DVD commentary, and internet chat-transcripts don't enter into it. If it's not shown between the opening titles and closing credits, then it simply didn't happen. These other info-sources can be entertaining diversions, to be sure, but their inclusion in the discussion means explicitly that we're no longer simply discussing the films.

However, if we're discussing the myth-cycle of the Star Wars universe, then of course all of that stuff can and should be included. We thereby broaden the scope of the discussion and open it up to incorporate the full breadth of what's been produced.

To that end, if the novelization was clear on time's passage but the film was not, then Lucas really screwed up. Shorthand notations onscreen for the passage of time are legion, so there's no excuse for Lucas' failure to account for it. Maybe a subsequent DVD Special Edition will show a closeup of Anakin's desk calendar with the days peeling off one by one...

Well, maybe it was the staging, the musical score, the "secret love" subplot foisted on the viewers through two films. You can make whatever claims you want about Oedipal overtones and possession/folly, but at that point you're really reaching.

You give too much credit to Padme's character, who simply wasn't given that much authority or weight onscreen, thanks to the amateurish imaginings of George Lucas. I don't care what a George Lucas interview or a novelization had to say about her mighty efforts; if they weren't on the screen, then they're irrelevant.


I'd love to see the three films that you're talking about. Instead, I'm stuck with Episodes I, II, and III, straight from the amateurish imaginings of George Lucas.

Incidentally, a fanboy is someone who claims to have referred to EPIV as "Episode Four" or "A New Hope" ever since he first saw it in 1977. A fanboy cites offscreen information when critiquing the films. And a fanboy is also someone who uses "Manichean" when describing the overall story arc.

"I don't care what a George Lucas interview or a novelization had to say about her mighty efforts; if they weren't on the screen, then they're irrelevant."

What interview? What novelization? It's all there on celluloid. Padme's last words were "there's still good in him," made manifest in her son, following his death/rebirth on Cloud City. The woman who could marry a murderer of Sandpeople births a son who can disassociate his father from the destruction of Alderaan. A family of hopefuls, those Amidalas.

"I'd love to see the three films that you're talking about. Instead, I'm stuck with Episodes I, II, and III, straight from the amateurish imaginings of George Lucas."

That's interesting, as Revenge of the Sith was deemed by many critics to be the best SW film since Kershner's ESB. Don't believe me? Check Metacritic--it accrued the same score as Christopher Nolan's superlative Batman Begins.

And anyone who harbors even a scintilla of satisfaction with Return of the Jedi--the most derivative, facile installment of the series--is in no position to disparage my tastes for enjoying I and II.

Yeah, well. It's also what Jeffrey Dahmer's mother said about him during his trial. And just like Mrs. Dahmer, Padme has no reason to maintain a belief in his "goodness" except for pure and simple denial. Since there's no prior indication that Padme has any Force-sensitivity, we can't credit her statement as any more than heart-sick wishful thinking. And when Luke makes the same statement, it has much greater validity, because he is shown to be sensitive to the Force.

And "death/rebirth" is kind of a stretch, too.


So... She married him so that her unborn son could redeem him for a gigadeaths that he would inflict for another few decades? That's not being hopeful; that's being insane.


All right, I admit it. If someone put a gun to my head and ordered me to pick the three best films of the series, I would put EPIII above EPVI. But that's in spite of Anakin's characterization, rather than because of it.

If you get a special feeling watching the generally soulless prequel trilogy, then May The Force Be With You and all of that. But the tortured acrobatics of the most ardently Lucas-faithful still can't magically transform EPI or EPII from turds into cinema.

"Yeah, well. It's also what Jeffrey Dahmer's mother said about him during his trial. And just like Mrs. Dahmer, Padme has no reason to maintain a belief in his "goodness" except for pure and simple denial."

I agree, as it is my belief Vader should never have been redeemed in the first place--one of many reasons why I can't sit through ROTJ. As Vader has assumed Greek dimensions, it would only be proper that he follow their lead into damnation.

"Since there's no prior indication that Padme has any Force-sensitivity, we can't credit her statement as any more than heart-sick wishful thinking. And when Luke makes the same statement, it has much greater validity, because he is shown to be sensitive to the Force."

As Padme is bearing the Chosen One's children, she'd be a walking conduit for the Force. (Interestingly enough, the ROTS script contains a passage wherein Obi-Wan quips to Padme, "Sometimes I think you're a Jedi.")

"And "death/rebirth" is kind of a stretch, too."

Not really. At the end of ESB, Vader makes the same offer to Luke as he did his wife: forging a Skywalker dynasty. When Luke chooses death over dishonor, he escapes his father's shadow and becomes his mother's son. (Note that at that juncture, he not only slides down a veritable birth canal, but makes first contact with his sister.)

"But the tortured acrobatics of the most ardently Lucas-faithful still can't magically transform EPI or EPII from turds into cinema."

The prequel films are cinema--whether they constitute good cinema is a matter of conjecture. We'll have to agree to disagree.

They grow up to be real estate developers on the Outer Banks, where denying sand its nature is a core tenet of the Dark Side.

The "this is where the fish lives" moment for the Star Wars series.

When you come from a planet that is nothing but sand, I can understand the irritation with it.

But with Anakin it's just "sand this" and "sand that." He even takes it out on those poor Sand People.

"This is our hardest stone."

:rofl:

Though I admit that he went on and on about The Spice.


I'm a big fan of David Lynch, but even so I just can't sit through his version of Dune.

:D I see it as a great cheeseball classic.

Agent Cooper as Mu'ad Dib?

Big Ed as what's-his-name?

Captain Picard as Gurney?


And don't forget the tooth! The tooth!

Seems to me, you're merely echoing the denials of the fanboys who still can't admit Lucas is washed up and can't write his way out of a wet paper bag.

:shrug:

He synthesizes plenty of the Joseph Campbell he lapped up in his early years. So plot holes and all, he knows what makes a good story even if he has gotten complacent in his later years.

True that his dialogue isn't the most graceful out there. Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, which is one reason it is the best-regarded of the series. But remember, it was Lucas' story he was fleshing out.

When Lucas was young and hungry, he could write and direct well. American Graffiti remains a classic on all levels. In fact, that movie was the reason Alec Guinness even considered doing Star Wars, which he had no interest in otherwise.

I really have no reason to be too critical of Lucas. They are just movies, after all. I love the medium, but perspective is always in order.

Joseph Campbell? Really?

:wow:

I'm sure that they didn't kill most of the Jedi in a matter of minutes after executing Order 66, but to fit it into the movie they had to make it look that way.

Anyone who'd actually claim to be a writer had better have a pretty fair concept of how to portray compressed time. And a screenwriter had certainly better know how to do it onscreen.

There are countless ways to do it:
oror
And on and on...

Look, that's three easy ones just off the top of my head at midnight before I tumble into bed. If I had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the story, you can bet your banthas I'd put a little more effort into it than Lucas managed. His mistakes and weaknesses would get him laughed out of a Screenwriting 101 class at a community college. Outside of ego-induced blindness, I can't imagine how he convinced himself that he was the best writer for the job.

But, it might have been that he didn't want anybody else to tamper with "his" story.

The guy's not completely blind - after Jar Jar Binks got such a horrible reception in Phantom Menace, he hardly appeared in the next 2 movies.

All along Lucas insisted that Jar Jar was an important onscreen presence and an effective character for advancing the story, neither of which was true to anyone but Lucas.

Of course, Jar Jar did in essence launch The Empire, so I guess that gives him some screen-cred!

or, at least I hope it was.... so people wouldn't guess all the next story

And maybe you're not far from the reality of it.

Still, did he have to make Jar Jar so awful?

If I ever meet Ahmed Best, I'm going to yank on his long, flipper-like ears and poke him in the eyestalks.

Lucas should have let someone else write the dialog and direct them but he wanted to do it himself. That's fine by me, it's his creation and his prerogative.

If he's putting his creation into theaters, then he can't complain when he's savaged by critics or when fans react less than fondly to Jar Jar and/or the two-headed Greg Proops.

If he's happy with the end result, then bully for George. But instead of merely servicing his vision, he could have produced three incredible films, rather than six hours of generally watchable material.

P.S.P.C. Syndrome or Poorly Constructed ScreenPlay Syndrome happens when an extremely wealthy, control freak, George Lucas, takes it upon himself to write the story, when he really should've delegated out that duty to someone else like say Lawrence Kasdan who wrote Empire Strikes Back.

Happens a lot to artists--studio pressure and resource constraints are extremely odious, but once all that pressure is taken away and you have complete freedom, it can become strangely limiting. Someone has to be around to tell you your shitty ideas are shitty ideas, and limitations can sometimes force you into better artistic achievement.

In order to give a real, accurate, depiction of how Darth Vader turned to the dark side, the prequels would have had to have some real disturbing elements to it. People don't turn evil after a 10 minute conversation. Something or somethings truly disturbing would have had to happen.

And to show these disturbing events would have probably lowered the mass appeal of the films.

Some of the most disturbing scenes in film are what you don't see, or what you add to limited or incomplete depictions through your own imagination. I think Lucas was drunk on visual effects, and the idea of being able to show everything that he wanted to show in all the detail he wanted to show it in. And he did exactly that.

:scared:

I don't get it. He had a very close bond with Obi Won. They fought side by side. He went to rescue him a couple of times, etc. All of the sudden, he jumps to the dark side after a 10 minute conversation with the Sith Lord?

If you're going to do the backstory of one of the biggest villains in cinematic history, then you have got to show me why and how he became a villain.

The best reviewed prequel was probably the most disturbing, though it was still incredibly mediocre.

Not perfect, of course. But, I can see how he was friends with Obi-Wan and then, in his anger, thinks Kenobi turned Padme against him. Sort of like catching your spouse cheating on you with your best friend, I would imagine. Only instead of getting a shotgun out & shooting them both, Anakin gets out his lightsaber.

Those almost last words of "I hate you!" as he sunk into the lava were pretty pathetic, though.

And, while I also thought he went from a conflicted good guy to child killer too quickly (the reason for my original post) - Anakin was not exactly an angel when he fell to the Dark Side: He had killed all the sand people in response to his mother's death... and, then killed the helpless Dooku on Palpatine's urging.

was not entirely believable ...

I kept thinking that it would have been far more interesting if perhaps it was more of...Obi Wan spending too much time around pregnant Padme makes Anakin doubt her love for him...and that coupled with his "full of myself..I should be chief Jedi" personality would make him hate Obi Wan more...and would lead him to try and kill the woman he loved....(and she did die...of course in childbirth but probably more from a broken heart)....

maybe have Padme killed by Vader, but with Obi-Wan managing to save the twins as she expires.

It would have been very good, I think.

My belief is that Anikan's dark side should have been developed from Episode 1. The audience should have been wary of him from the start.

In comparison, look at Luke's story. I could believe that Luke was conflicted about turning. From the end of Ep. 5 all the way to the final battle with Darth, it was more believeable that Luke may flip in order to save his sister and his friends in the rebellion.

Hayden Christiansen played Anakin in Episode II like a whiny little bitch. Better in Episode III, but still needed tweaking.

it should have been a built up...

Episode I
resentment over being enslaved...
distress over leaving his mother behind...

Episode II
more resentment over his mother
open dissent with the Jedi
Anger over his lost arm
unhappiness with Jedi rules regarding his secret marriage

Episode III

building upon all other previous issues..
I still think my love triangle (or at least Anakin's perceived betrayal) would make more sense...men become far more incensed over the betrayal of "my woman" versus the sadness of their death...