PT Rebuttal: RLM's Attack of the Clones Review

Well, I agree if there are indeed groups that are truly "angry" about these films, that might be something that affects their lives negatively. OTOH, I'm no psychologist, so maybe it helps them get through their day. Who knows?

I also think that if there are indeed groups that are truly "angry" about the prequels' aggressive detractors' behavior......

 

And people who are actually angry (as opposed to simply opinionated or even irritated) should wonder why so many other people, including other devoted fans, are so much happier.

 

I respect your opinion, but, personally I don't feel it's my place to tell other people what they should or shouldn't wonder about, or make a judgment as to whose level of happiness is higher than whose.

 

I think you misunderstand. It is your contention that there is an objective set of criteria through which art can be defined and categorized into either "good" or "bad."

I am merely pointing out that, based on this framework, Hamlet is either objectively good or objectively bad. And yet both Shakespeare and TS Eliot (who are considered amazing writers by the "experts" that you cite as defining such criteria, and also experts in their own right) have completely different assessments of it. If art can be objectively measured, then one of them must be wrong.

So I am asking you: which one is it? Are you saying that Shakespeare is wrong? Or is TS Eliot wrong?

But because they are both considered experts in their fields, then who are you to say they are wrong?

This is the trap I am hinting at -- because even experts disagree, as my example demonstrates.

You also give the example of a news story. I don't quite understand why you are bringing that up. News stores are, by their nature, based in the real world and thus subject to fact-checking. You can't report that 9/11 was carried out by disgruntled CIA agents, for example, as there is an objective and verifiable answer to who carried out the attacks. It's not a matter of interpretation, but of evidence.

There is no evidence in art which is why, I am arguing, it is inherently subjective. Art isn't confined to the parameters of the real world. So, yes, it does all depend on taste.

 

I respect your opinion, but, personally I don't feel it's my place to tell other people what they should or shouldn't wonder about, or make a judgment as to whose level of happiness is higher than whose.

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I actually agree to this actually,

thats why these review threads from random people from youtube are pointless. I for one don't understand why there are two threads on the same guy, and why anyone cares one goon what his opinion is on these movies.

 

Ok, here is the next part:

Part 7. #9 George Lucas ruins the lightsaber and the force all in one scene. Now all of you geeks love the lightsaber, but the question is "why?" Well, the lightsaber is an other worldly device. It's pure fictional awesomeness. It can cut through anything, even my ex-wife. Lightsabers also transform the jedi into kind of a superhero. It's just a neat weapon. I mean, everyone wants one, and everyone wants to film themselves with one. So much, it has gotten kind of annoying. However, like anything that is cool, if it used too much it becomes boring, except for cocaine. Luke used his lightsaber pretty sparingly, but when he took it out you knew he meant business. That was probably because they didn't feel like doing the special effect for it so much. So again, the limitations made it cooler. But now in the prequels, things got out of hand. Maybe George didn't know how to create and develop engaging sequences without having someone flash out the lightsaber. It's the very first thing that happens in Episode 1. You can't go 5 minutes without them taking out the lightsaber. They do it when they hear a noise for Christ sake. It could have been some sort of industrial accident that happened in the cargo bay.If you guys feel like fools now, almost every scene requires the use of a lightsaber. I know they are jedi and all, but I equate this to dangiling a shiney object in front of a cat. You gotta try to keep the audience interested in a scene if it's not working, or if you don't know how to make it work. I actually like the scene the best where they try not to get eaten by the monsters in the arena...because we see them trying to do some things without the ****ing lightsaber. It had some tension. But then, oh no, don't give it....(shows the two jedi throwing Anakin and Obi-Wan lightsabers as the arena battle starts)...now they got em again. What did they bring extra ones? Then them kids got em. Then this robot guy's got em shows Grevious from ROTS). You can't go too long without seeing a lightsaber, lightsaber....lightsaber(keeps saying the word over and over as the footage shows various characters in the prequels igniting them). But then my annoyance with the lightsaber goes even further with its overuse. It eventually becomes inpractical in it's own universe. Now you gotta really stop and think about this for a few minutes. Now the only reason why they had lightsabers from the begining is because knights from the olden days had swords. It was kinda the same way that Star Wars was kind of like World War II in space. So jedi knights were like space knights, it's just a gimmick. The problem is that a sword is made for a 6 ft tall humanoid. But when you establish a multi-racial jedi order that all use the same universal weapon, it becomes in impractical. Each jedi should really have their own unique weapon suited for them personally. For example the one guy who looks like a squid, with of them tenicles swinging about...a lightsaber could really impose serious injury to his head....be careful! That guy in the background with the really tall thin neck. I know what I would swing at if I were fighting him. And what about this clumsy fat a******? (shows Dex) What if he just happened to be a jedi? His big fat hands and his slow lumbering a** would ****ing get killed by Darth Maul. They you got that guy with no legs. How is he going to get in a laser sword fight? Then of course Yoda. He shouldn't have had any lightsaber at all. But despite all of his wisdom and knowledge, Yoda eventually has to take out a tiny baby sized lightsaber and fight a guy 3 times as tall as he is who has a much bigger lightsaber. My problem with this is that Yoda has a handicap based on his physical limitations, when his character should be above that sort of thing. Yes, I know they both tried to do more advanced things first like throw rocks at each other. But even another instance is that Yoda has to make up for his size when using a lightsaber. One time he throws a lightsaber at a dude because he can't reach him, he's got to jump all of the time. Must be tiring. (Plays clip from from ESB of Yoda saying "size matters not") Oh, I'm sorry Yoda it does. It does if you use a lightsaber. All of your wise sayings have been ruined in the prequels. I am so sorry. So in this scene, he flips around the cave and bounces off of the walls because he is so small that he can't reach Dooku. My question is, if Yoda can do this and they are basically pretty well matched as far as their use of the force goes, then why wasn't Dooky also flipping off of the cieling too? Or what is Dooku just happened to be a 19 foot tall Gorgone (sp?) with a 12 ft long lightsaber? Yoda would get squished like a bug. My point is, if you can match your opponent's skills with the force, you then also better be physically strong too. And this goes against everything that the force is about.You see Yoda was so magical and interesting because you didn't expect this little tiny creature to be a jedi master. We all had a pre-conception that a great warrior would be someone physically strong and intimidating. By making Yoda a little guy, they were illustrating that the force is something beyond the physical. But by showing Yoda fight with a lightsaber, it ruins all of that because it takes that concept and those rules and throws it in the dumpster, right next to Bambi. You see, I am not actually sure if Lucas actually understands Star Wars or anything that happened in The Empire Strikes Back. (shows him talking to John Knoll about having Yoda fight for the first time, and its captions Knoll's reaction as "nods skeptically") And he just seems like a retard who wants to see neat things happen with his computer. I don't know if he understood what made Yoda magical, and how making Yoda fight contradicts the entire mythology of the movie.

 

woah,

paragraphs might help

 

Skimmed the first few sentences of that. Disparaging the prequels because the Jedi use lightsabers (their only weapons) a lot? Really? I guess the alternative would've been for the Jedi not to engage in combat at all, or something. Maybe in the next Avengers movie, we could dial down the use of super powers as well, just to make their powers seem more special.

And oh yeah, lightsabers were so magical when Han used one to slice open a Taun Taun, while making a joke about it.

I don't have the energy for this anymore these days. Have at it guys. Happy hunting!

 

That Yoda fight was awesome. Rebuttal complete.

 

I've never understood this part of the review. Obi-Wan says quite clearly in ANH "This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon for a more civilized age." What exactly did he expect the Jedi to use as a weapon if not their lightsaber, their stated weapon from the OT? I mean, it's not like it's all that special. The very first time we see a lightsaber used is for a freaking bar fight, of all things. As soon as there's a little trouble -- boom, Obi-Wan pulls out a lightsaber, even though, in the age of the Empire, one might think he would be a bit more reticent about using a Jedi's weapon. And yet he does. Why? Because the lightsaber is the weapon of the Jedi Knight.

In regards to the Jedi who threw Anakin and Obi-Wan extra lightsabers, well, why wouldn't they? They knew Obi-Wan had been captured. In fact, that was the express reason they went there -- to rescue Obi-Wan. One would think it would be only logical to bring an extra weapon for him, given that he's a capable Jedi Master in his own right.

And why exactly is a lightsaber impractical for other races? All you need is an appendage that can hold it, which, as we are shown, all the races that do make use of it have. That's like criticizing Chewbacca for using a crossbow -- it's clearly a human weapon, but yet a Wookiee is using it. Why? Because he can. I hardly see what is so problematic about it. In fact, one would think some species would be even better suited to using a lightsaber than humans -- such as species that could regenerate limbs (think of salamanders). This also assumes that all Jedi must be fighters, which is never stated on-screen. And I do wonder if RLM has ever done any sword fighting because although there are certainly advantages to larger size (such as greater strength and reach), there's also definitive advantages to being smaller -- such as being a much smaller target and being faster. I've mentioned this before, but I knew a girl in high school who was 5 foot nothing who regularly beat six-foot tall men in fencing competitions. All she had to do was wait for them to swing, duck under their guard, and then strike them. They had a hell of a time beating her, because she was a much smaller target and she was also much more nimble.

Why exactly should Yoda "be above that sort of thing"? What does that even mean? I don't see how Yoda fighting, when it's required of him (such as to, say, warn the Jedi away from coming back to the Temple) "ruins" his teachings. Plus, everything he says is contradicted by the OT as well -- Vader is shown, quite clearly, to be physically stronger than Luke. He repels Luke's two handed strike with one arm and barely seems to break a sweat. And yet, in ROTJ, Luke defeats him? Why? Because even the OT demonstrates that physical strength means very little in terms of combat. Especially when one is fighting with a bladed weapon made of energy. Yoda's mythology isn't ruined by showing fighting. It just shows how hard won his wisdom was.

Yoda is a Jedi, like all the others. He wasn't born with this mystical knowledge and mythology in his skull. It came at a heavy price -- watching his entire world crumble around him. He wasn't "above it all" because, in the end, he failed. He was in the very thick of things. And this is made exceptionally clear in ROTS, when he must crawl on his hands and knees to escape Palpatine. There's also some beautiful allusions regarding this in the OT -- why does Yoda want Luke's lamp so much, for example? He ransacks Luke's things, but of everything he finds, this is the one object he wants? Why? Because of everything Luke has, this one looks like a small lightsaber, the Jedi's weapon that Yoda lost all those years ago.

If anything, Yoda fighting with a lightsaber, and also failing, makes him a deeper character and gives his words in ESB all the more meaning. They aren't the generic platitudes of a secluded, "wise" Master, but the painfully gained knowledge of a former warrior that lost everything. When Yoda says, "wars not make one great," he is saying this not as one who is "above it all," but as someone who saw the devastation that war and violence wrought on everything and everyone he loved . And that makes it all the more powerful.

 

I think the point he was getting at is that while some (as you say would be better at using a lightsaber than humans) others would be down right pathetic with one.

A Hutt Jedi waving a lightsaber?

 

That says it so perfectly, Piett. Also I will say I'm amazed - after hearing about how supposedly brilliant RLM's so-called reviews were - I'm amazed at how shallow and inattentive he was to details that are right in his face. Shallow and incurious.

 

In regards to Luke, I didn't really count that because, well, as you said, it's not really an example of a lightsaber getting "used" but also, for the scene to work, Luke must ignite his father's lightsaber and it would also be uncharacteristic of him not to show interest in something that once belonged to his father.

In terms of Obi-Wan, I recognize that he tried to avoid the fight, but again, when it comes down to it, he still pulled out his lightsaber and used it for a petty bar fight. RLM says that the Jedi used the lightsaber sparingly, when they "knew you meant business" as though every time a lightsaber was pulled in the OT, it was for some galaxy-altering battle. But that isn't true. The bar fight wasn't particularly important and Obi-Wan could easily have used the Force, a mind-trick, or even carried a blaster (which would have been less conspicuous) to deal with such things. But he doesn't -- he pulls out his lightsaber. And ANH makes it clear why -- because a lightsaber "is the weapon of the Jedi Knight."

Note too that after Luke trains with Yoda, he stops using a blaster. In ROTJ, he uses his lightsaber exclusively on the barge although he did show us earlier that when it was hidden in R2, he was perfectly happy to try a blaster. Point being that a Jedi will preferentially use his lightsaber in a combat situation. The same is true for the speeder-bike chase -- Luke again makes use of his lightsaber there. And it is this episode that Luke begins to consider himself a fully-fledged Jedi Knight, hence his greater reliance upon a Jedi's weapon.

Sure, but being smaller means being harder to hit. And, as the films show, Yoda is faster -- much, much faster than Dooku. So I don't understand what is problematic about this. If it mattered so much, then people would never accept female human Jedi since women are (on average) shorter and less physically strong than men (in terms of upper body strength) which would strike me as a pity.

But it seems to me that, in this case, RLM's point makes it seem as though he believes that size does matter when ESB explicitly brings up that it doesn't. Sure, Yoda is smaller than Dooku, but such differences matter little when one has the Force. The Force is the great equalizer.

In regards to #1, though, wouldn't you say that's the point -- the Force equalizes so it doesn't matter how much stronger Vader is than Luke. Similarly, it doesn't matter how much larger Dooku is than Yoda. It's ones knowledge of the Force and the skill/ability to apply this to lightsaber combat that will make all the difference.

#2, to me, doesn't matter so much because of the very way a lightsaber functions -- it is unstoppable essentially, so even a sidelong swipe is going to do immense damage. So yes, while a stronger opponent could knock their opponent's lightsaber away to strike at them, a faster opponent would easily avoid such strikes and hit their larger opponent, killing them, before they can react. Quite simply, I think RLM is making far too big a deal of size/strength vs. speed and agility. Jedi are individuals, so of course, they are going to utilize a combat form that maximizes their potential while the use of the Force itself will bridge gaps.

I do agree with you regarding Grievous vs. Obi-Wan, though. The other battles had plot relevance and much more engaging combatants in my opinion, compared to Grievous. Honestly, I would happily see that sequence shortened. I'd probably excise the entire chase sequence and simply have Obi-Wan defeat Grievous atop the platform where they first meet.

 

Believe it or not there were folks - even threads here in the archives - that decry that specifically, how GL pandered to "political correctness" because realistically "women can't be Jedi, they're not strong enough."

 

wat



That idea's just...it's so full of idiocy I can't even...

I mean, leaving aside the fact that the films expressly say that you should not judge one based on size, what did these people think that Luke meant when he told Leia that, in time, she would learn to control her power as he had?

At least I can be happy that I haven't seen such a thread pop up since I've been perusing the forums. Small blessings.

 

It was this thread:

http://boards.theforce.net/{URL}http://boards.theforce.net/threads/feminization-of-tpm-sw.4623932/{URL}

Well...if one knows the new codes, anyway.

 

Fixed the link for you. Now I shall read this glorious insight from a decade ago.

EDIT: Never mind, that heart my head a little.

 

Thanks! One just removes the URL part of the coding, eh?

 

Valairy Scot that thread... well, to quoto Hondo: "I'm semi-speechless"... don't know whether to laugh or cry...

 

That phrase will now enter the lexicon of oft-quoted SW phrases! I wonder if some of those posters have revised those views?

 

burrrrrrrn

 

RLM clearly doesn't understand Star Wars, and this criticism makes that evident. He pits Lucas' vision of Yoda in ESB against that of AoTC where he uses a lightsaber. In old treatments of ESB, Lucas had ideas of Yoda using a lightsaber. He did the same with Palpatine (RLM also criticizes Palpatine's use of a lightsaber in the ROTS review). Thus, the ESB Yoda, and the ROTJ Palpatine, were already assumed to be lightsaber wielders. I'm not sure why RLM would assume anything else without doing his homework.

 

I can see why some people don't like actually seeing Yoda and Palpatine in a duel, but it's stupid to think that they can't use the lightsabers, being the oldest practitioners of their respective Orders.