ST Who's The Baddie?

I find that scene a pretty convincing instance of Palpatine pretending to be manipulated, revised dialogue or not.

 

The problem is that this isn't tied together very well. It doesn't have to be blatantly spelled out to the viewer but it isn't even alluded to very clearly. More clearly highlighting the irony that the former slave who yearned for freedom and power has ended up enslaved by his evil desires/the Dark Side/Palpatine would have gone a long way to aid this.

To follow on from my previous post, were the story to have some degree of psychological realism, the biggest stumbling block would be Anakin's previous encounters with the Sith. When he was a boy, Qui-Gon (whom he presumably loved) was killed by a Sith. (Indeed, that same Sith would probably have killed him in the Tatooine desert had not Qui-Gon been there to protect him earlier.)

Next, he loses his arm to another Sith who started a war and was paying for assassination attempts on his beloved and (to his knowledge) started a war in which many of his Jedi colleagues died.

Even if he were friends with Palpatine before knowing he was the Sith Master and even accepting he later became disillusioned with the Jedi, the story still doesn't gel psychologically. To me, Qui-Gon is the biggest stumbling block. We never learn how Anakin feels about his death - in fact, Anakin never mentions him again. (I don't know if this is ever broached in the Clone Wars as I have never watched it.)

Even a few lines giving some kind of insight into Anakin's thoughts on converting to the side that killed Qui-Gon or even having him briefly challenge Palpatine over his responsibility for Qui-Gon's death before his final conversion to the Dark Side would have made an immense difference IMHO. As none of this psychology is explored, as I said in my previous post, it is better just to accept the story as mythological with links to the storytelling tradition of the age before psychological exploration became a feature of the European novel.

 

and don't forget that Palpatine was "surprised" to receive the Chancery nomination and "reluctantly" accepted emergency powers.

 

I would add that the Anakin was angry at being a slave is underdeveloped too. Being a slave doesn't feel that terrible in TPM. This kid gets to podrace. He gets to build his own robot. What about being a slave is so terrible exactly? Watto's not abusing him or his mother. Anakin has more freedom as a child than I did!

 

That's easy. So what came before says that the Sith is destroyed and Anakin was the chosen one. So all that really means if we have a new sith is that he can't come from the Darth Bane line of Sith.

All you need to become sith is be force sensitve and a lust for power. So you get a force sensitive person who discovered his powers on his own.

You don't want it to be a greater threat then Palpatine. Thats the mistake the current post ROTJ EU fell into. Each story had to have some bigger threat and they had a power creep. it just has to be different, be a threat in another way.

For example look at Dr. Who. Each villian there isn't a bigger threat then the last they are just different.

Like I said he can root it in the Empire. Like having the threat be the son of an Imperial officer who is now seeking to destroy the Rebeleion because they took everything away from him. He views the Rebelion as disorder and chaos, he views the Empire as the good guys who brought order to the universe and was fair. It wasn't perfect but it was better then the lawlessness of the old republic.

 

I don't see any reason that a new Sith can't come from the Banite line.

 

Given how lethal podracing is- it should not be seen as a privilege, but as an arduous, dangerous task that Anakin happens to enjoy.

That, and knowledge of being blown up if one runs away, are pretty important to it.

 

In fact, Shmi says that Watto makes Anakin podrace. Anakin is beyond lucky that he enjoys podracing.

 

Yes I have thought exactly that in the past as well! If I were a 7 year old watching the film, I would be so entranced by the fact that Anakin builds his own robot and selling second-hand rocketship parts that I would think he was so lucky. I wouldn't understand abstract concepts like his lack of freedom, since I would see no suffering on his part. When I first saw the film, I felt Anakin should have been shown to be suffering more under a crueller taskmaster. Maybe they could have indicated he was illiterate or contrasted his position to that of the boys who taunt him or something like that and tie it back more closely to the contrast between suffering in the lawless outer rim and the decadence besetting the Republic.

Indeed, they could tie it back again to Anakin's later development - is he wanting to become a powerful galactic warlord to free all the slaves or does he want the galaxy to become a dictatorship under Palpatine so that everyone will be enslaved as he was and experience what he experienced as a child. There are all kinds of directions that they could have taken that in. Sigh.

 

He looks like Ra from Star Gate, too.

 

Exactly. What matters most is how Anakin perceives his slavery. Pretty much every thing he's doing, from his POV, is "wizard." It doesn't matter if we think podracing is dangerous; Anakin loves it.

This is all a result of making TPM too kid friendly. The slavery aspect is so sanitized it doesn't do any work to the overall becoming-Vader arc.

Basically, Anakin has the sort of life Newt Gingrich envisions for poor youth -- make them have a job to pay the bills! lol

 

There was a scene where a Rodian boy, intended at the time to be a young Greedo- taunts him for winning the race- saying that no slave could win unless they cheated. The result is Anakin thumps him and they fight.

But it was cut.

We still have Sebulba taunting him though.

 

Okay, but how would this be much different simply from being a free but poor child? It makes him being a slave almost completely pointless.

 

The slavery element exists primarily for 2 reasons... 1) As a device to separate Anakin from his mother. 2) A reoccurring theme between Anakin and Luke... both unable to leave Tatooine until the will of the force intervenes to free them both from their metaphorical shackles. It's hardly pointless... but overemphasised perhaps.

 

Ah so Tatooine is a character itself from a certain point of view?

 

Actually, I like your idea and I understand your point. It would work well as an Epidose VII story. But I don't see it as a trilogies worth or saga inspired story. As a part, perhaps, but not nearly whole. Your character will need to grow and change. Evolve and grow into something greater. More complex and challenging. Posing bigger problems along the way.

A further problem to consider is the lack of history your Imperial Son has in the existing story. He has no long shadow. No sense of experience and influence on any previous part of the story. A fresh face with a malicious nature is not heavy enough to sustain the weight of a Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine. The best we could hope for is a Governor Tarkin, but we know how he faired in the grand scheme.

You mentioned the fatal EU mistakes, but how would this new Imperial Son be any different than a Grand Admiral Thrawn? Non-Force Sensitive characters do not last long in the GFFA. Human or alien.

Palpatine is a tall order. But I firmly believe that in the end, if we are going to root for our heroes and give our acclaim to their inevitable victory, the story demands the villain pose a seemingly insurmountable and existential threat to the Jedi. Their heroics can only be as great as the problem our villain present and they themselves overcome. With every moment in doubt until the end. Especially if this concludes the Skywalker saga. Otherwise, who cares?

 

Governor Tarkin was an arrogant, bureaucratic sociopath. No one says the new villain can't be more charismatic than him.

No, I do think Vader also believes in order. Alderaan was destroyed because it is were many rebels came from (rebellion = chaos).

The prequels however are so inconsistent that I won't bother rationalizing everything. For me the explanation that he yearns for control and power makes most sense (as he treats Padmé like a thing, not a human being), but no explanation works 100%.

 

That's certainly Tarkin's motive in the books ("if Leia was a thorn in the Empire's side, Alderaan was a forest of thorns")- and Vader did support him in his decision.

 

You know I like you Pevra, and we've had a fair few fun conversations but I gotta call you on a couple of things there.

First off, yes it was done, but it isn't anymore, that's the point. RotJ did tie up all the loose ends but, and here's the kicker, George Lucas himself has decided to continue the story and I think we can safely assume that continuation will be very similar to what he had roughly planned before he got fed up with the whole thing and wrapped it up in RotJ. Do you see what I'm saying? And I gotta disagree with regard to Plagueis. To me it's kinda like Schrödinger's cat, as in until the ST is finished and because his death is presented so ambiguously, at the moment he can be considered both alive and dead. We will not know until the ST is done and dusted.

Secondly, Arndt and Abrams aren't attempting to fool us at all. They didn't create this story. They didn't decide to write EPVII out of thin air. It was Lucas, the creator himself, that decided to continue the story. Arndt and Abrams have just been the ones chosen to present it to us. Do you think George Lucas is trying to fool us? He probably is

 

I think that the introduction of Plagueis in ROTS and GL/LFL's participation and tight control in the creation of the novel certainly suggests that Plagueis will play a part in some way. Even if he IS truly dead, I can see a scenario where some documents/his old protocol droid or a holocron of his lore is discovered.

 

I'm not sure what Anakin thought of Qui-Gon... but the line, and I' paraphrasing here, "what's going to happen to me now" (at Qui-Gon's funeral) offers an insight into his psychology. He's seems more concerned about where Qui-Gon's death leaves him rather than the loss of his surrogate father figure/mentor per se... a sign of the selfish inwards naval gazing to come where he doesn't have the ability to see the bigger picture.

Also - whilst some may not like the somewhat sentimental/emotional overtones, his turn to the darkside is entirely logical (to me anyhow) because the films establish him as being emotional, somewhat selfish... And ergo his willingness to do anything to avoid his premonition coming to fruition (siding with Palpatine) seems like a natural step to take. Sleeping with the enemy so to speak...

If anything, I found Anakin's turn to be too spelt out rather than too subtle. I think the challenge Lucas had (and this is the problem with retrofitting) is that he had to maintain a 'heroic' journey for Anakin - his fall from grace had to be sympathetic in order to justify his redemption later. I think Lucas achieved this successfully... but obviously the knock on effect is that we never got to see the ruthless, malicious Vader we'd always imagined him to be... And ultimately, I think if anyone has an issue with Anakin's story, the issue lies more with ROTJ than it does with the PT.

 

Thanks. You have a really cool avatar, by the way.

How is that supposed to work? Episodes 7-9 dealt with finding Luke's sister, defeating the Empire and defeating the Emperor. All of that already happened in ROTJ. The original ST can't be used for the new movies because we already saw it on screen.

There's nothing much ambiguous about Plagueis demise. He is an irrelevant name-drop character that is dead according to Palpatine. Maybe Palpatine erred but I see no reason to think so. Could be changed, of course.

Well, firstly, what he created was a 10 pages treatment, a rough outline.
Secondly we don't know the circumstances in which it was created. What we do know is that the original "ST" was condensed into ROTJ in the 80ties. Luke's sister was made into Leia and the Emperor already dies in ROTJ instead of later.
Then, after the PT, Lucas claims that he is "done" with the movies because he hates moviemaking and the mean fans so much. And suddenly, in 2012, there was the big hoopla with the Disney deal and suddenly there are sequels in the making.
This to me implies that Lucas post ROTJ only had very vague ideas about a sequel trilogy but never seriously considered making them. It is quite possible that he created the ST-treatment (meager 10 pages) solely to sweeten the deal with Disney. So yes, I think he might have created the ST-plot out of thin air. Maybe you disagree with this but at least that's how it looks like to me.

 

Darth_Pevra : I agree that the ST ideas were probably vague, especially after the RotJ condensing, but all I mean is the "ethereal" quotes and the big baddie reveal at the end. I think those elements will become prevalent in the ST. Of course I could be wrong, I have been before and I sure as hell will be again

Cheers for the avatar mention. It's intended to one day become part of the sleeve I'm having (sporadically) done. My nickname for my son is Monkey, and those are his eyes.

 

StoneRiver : I'd wondered about your avatar too, that's cool.