Saga OT or PT?

Maybe. The EU at least shows a bit more to it - Leia in Splinter of the Mind's Eye is clearly traumatised when thinking back to her torture- Leia in The Truce at Bakura and The Life of Luke Skywalker has at lot of anger at Anakin and an unwillingness to see him as part of her family. And other books show that the fate of Alderaan tends to prey on her mind a lot, even if she projects a calm exterior.

 

Fair enough. Unfortunately, I've never read any of those novels (nor do I really intend to) and so I have to go with what's shown of Leia onscreen. To me, it simply isn't enough. I know a lot of fans like Leia for her feisty personality, but I just wish there was a bit more to her than that -- that she had flaws and weaknesses that she struggled to overcome or that got her into trouble. It's why I prefer Padmé as a character and consider her better written -- she might not always react ideally, but I think she makes mistakes and has very human flaws, although your mileage will vary of course.

 

Her tendency to insult people (Han, Chewie, etc) could be characterized as a flaw.

Her temper (she nearly lets Chewie kill Lando) might also apply as a weakness.

 

I don't really consider that a flaw though in that it never leads her to making a mistake or getting into trouble. If anything, her insulting Han seems endearing to him and makes him like her more. And Chewie doesn't seem to mind either. They never get upset with her about it. Where I would see it as a flaw is if Han got fed up with her and was going to leave because of how she treated him and she was forced to apologize. But nothing like that ever really happens.

Basically, no one ever really gets upset with Leia and she never gets called out or suffers negative consequences for her own actions. She suffers, yes, but it's always do to outside factors, never anything wrong that she's done and now has to face the consequences for.

This is a half-example to me, really, because Chewie isn't a wild animal -- he's perfectly capable of making his own decisions. So while Leia's temper definitely didn't help the situation at all, it didn't really affect the outcome. And, again, the film treats her as being in the right -- she's never called out for this behavior nor does she ever apologize to Lando.

 

Oh, please. This scumbag sold them all out and Leia's perfectly willing to let Han's best friend throttle him - that's a weakness?

Anyone else would do the same - it's a tribute to her own perception that she managed to pick up that this slimy, opportunistic entrepeneur was actually saying something worthwhile. Lando's lucky they didn't put him on a leash and make him get about on all fours until Han was rescued. I'd have been more inclined to send him to Jabba as a gift instead of the droids.

 

Is this sarcasm?

Because how is Lando a scumbag for putting his people's safety above that of a few old friends? Vader arrived just before Han, Leia, and Chewie did. At that point, Lando didn't have much of a choice and he did the best he could to keep Chewie and Leia out of harm's way. Was he supposed to put thousands of lives on the line to help out four people?

I've never understood why people see Lando as being in the wrong. He did what he had to do and there was no need for "redemption" or any other sort of nonsense. How exactly was he supposed to stop the Imperials from getting to Han and Leia when they were already there? He had very few cards to play and I honestly think he did the best he possibly could have.

 

A case could be made that Leia's lack of perception in this case, delayed her and Chewie just long enough for Boba Fett to escape with Han.

Would that be a case of "having to take the consequences of something she's done"?

Or, her impetuousness in freeing Han without taking precautions first- result- they're captured and she has to spend the next few days as Jabba's slave.

 

I too prefer the Whole Saga.

 

In ANH, Leia doesn't brush off the destruction of Alderaan. As she says on Yavin 4, "We don't have time for our sorrows, Commander." Meaning she is prioritizing what is important which is stopping the Death Star over agonizing about the death of her home. She is behaving like a Jedi in this regard. "Mourn them not, miss them not". She has no reason to be angry at the torture, because she knew what she was getting into by joining the Alliance. As to Vader, she's crying her eyes out and asks Han to hold her, because her brother is going off to face their father and he might not come back. By the next morning, she's composed and ready to fight. She is again behaving as a Jedi, because she isn't spending her time worrying about Luke. Unlike her father who couldn't stop worrying about Padme, from the minute he had his vision of her death. We're seeing the difference between the generations.

 

Of course she brushes it off. She's taking a nice long nap right after Alderaan has been blown up and then, as soon as she sees Luke, lounges sexily and quips that he's too short to be a stormtrooper. Hardly the face of someone who is in shock or who has lost almost everyone and everything she knew and loved. Likewise, the line she says later -- "we don't have time for our sorrows" doesn't really mitigate that. Especially since she has a smile on her face as she says it. And one would think, upon discovery that the Empire is building a new Death Star in ROTJ, she might show a stronger reaction to the resurrection of the weapon that destroyed her home planet, but it is never remarked upon.

You might say it's more Jedi-like, but even Obi-Wan showed a reaction to Qui-Gon's death. And, again, the point made earlier was that PT characters are less relatable than OT characters. I don't know about you, but I think I would have a stronger reaction to the destruction of my home planet than Leia did.

In contrast, Padmé's worry over the fate of her people (even though she hasn't even witnessed their suffering) is palpable and very relatable, in my opinion.

As to the torture -- I'm not saying she has to be angry about it but, y'know, torture does tend to leave psychological scars. Some trauma is to be expected. You don't just get over it in a second. And Leia is tortured not once, but twice. I'm not saying we need a scene of her crying her eyes out, but it would have made her more relatable if she had been shown to be impacted by it but remaining strong. At least, for me it would.

And as for her reaction to Vader -- my problem is, she never seems to really acknowledge that Vader is her father. Yes, she's worried about Luke, but the implication of her parentage doesn't seem to startle or disturb her in the slightest. Luke furiously denied it, screaming, with his face twisting in anger/pain/horror/disbelief before he let go of the pole he was clinging to to what could have been his death. Leia doesn't even seem the slightest bit distraught or angry that Luke is trying to save the man who tortured her and who (it turns out) is her father. She just ignores it.

I agree that it can demonstrate differences in generations, but not at the expense of Leia being a well-rounded character. Luke is both paralleled and differentiated from Anakin without sacrificing an arc and character flaws. But I find the notion that Leia is more relatable than the PT characters doesn't hold true at all for me. She's a fun character, to be sure, but I find her much more shallow.

 

Sleeping? She's laying there. Hardly sleeping. And she knows that it won't take long for Tarkin to realize that she lied and order her death. And again, she is prioritizing. She's not letting her emotions control her.

The smile is that she is glad to see Willard and the knowledge that the key to the coming battle is in Artoo.

She already knew about it. They all did. The meeting was to discuss what was discovered in the plans and how to launch the attack. That's why Han already volunteered to lead the strike team to Endor and Lando took the General's rank to lead the fighter squadrons. Any reaction from Leia had already happened off screen, while Luke was Dagobah.

Obi-wan's reaction was due to his letting his emotions get to him, due to his Jedi training and his reaction is in the immediate. Leia's had time to digest this by the time Luke opens her cell door. There's a time gap between the two.

Which goes to why one dies of a broken heart and one doesn't.

Leia is only tortured once and that was in the interrogation scene. She is left alone the rest of the time.

That is because Luke had idealized his father since he could remember. His whole life, he wanted to be like his father and was even lied to by Owen, Beru, Obi-wan and Yoda, about his fate. When Vader tells Luke, he is in denial because he has anger towards Vader for what he has done to him and his family and refuses to accept it at first, because of his emotional state of being which is clouding his judgment. That's why Vader tells Luke to search his feelings about this, because he knows that Vader isn't lying to him. Leia does have a reaction. She's shocked at the revelation that this machine man was his father. She knew about Vader's obsession with Luke, but assumed it was because Luke was a Jedi. When Luke tells her that they're related, she tells him that she's known on some instinctual level. Leia is in a different state of being. She's not emotionally confused like Luke was. She's in better control of herself and thus she is able to believe Luke when he tells her about their relationship. She has no reason to get upset that Vader is her father, because she's known for years that she was adopted. She only cares more for her brother than a man that she doesn't really know and has not ties to.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong for liking Leia. I like her too. But I simply can't relate to any of her behavior is all. If you can see yourself behaving in a similar manner to her, that's great. More power to you. I simply can't.

I just can't imagine myself doing what she is doing after the destruction of her planet. That's really what it comes down to. I can't imagine, after something so horrible, even laying down and closing my eyes for a while and then teasing someone about their height. To me, it seems utterly alien. I'm human and in the loneliness of my cell, I would realize that there's not much I can do at the moment and allow myself to grieve. It's not about prioritizing or emotional control (even Obi-Wan cries out and weeps when Qui-Gon dies) but about her acting as though it never even happened. If I saw her in that scene, in isolation without the previous scenes, I would never be able to guess that she had just been tortured and lost her planet. To me, that's utterly unrelatable.

Again, I just would have expected her to be more somber. If my dog died, I wouldn't be able to smile as readily is she -- and Leia's lost a lot more. To me, there's a difference between a battle-high smile, a smile after being allowed to express emotion and grieve, and what Leia does. Leia seems as thought Alderaan's destruction did not impact her in the slightest.

But again, we are talking about relatability -- one good way to have made Leia more relatable would be to show her pain regarding the Death Star because of the memories it brings up. That she doesn't is a missed opportunity.

Yes, but Obi-Wan's been training as a Jedi for years. And his reaction is far greater than Leia's even though she loses much, much more. Likewise, when Anakin loses his mother, he still recalls the pain of it even in Episode III -- it still drives his actions. Leia doesn't even seem to recognize her pain. Or compare her to Padmé -- which is probably the best comparison because they have both had political training and faced a crisis. Padmé worries over the fate of her people. She stares out the window on Coruscant distraught, she watches the video recordings, she becomes upset at the Senate -- and she hasn't witnessed a darn thing. There's time for her to digest it, but that doesn't eliminate her pain. In contrast, Leia seems to "get over it" too quickly for me to relate to.

Not really. Obi-Wan breaks down after his confrontation with the newly minted Anakin-Vader, but that doesn't mean he has to die of a broken heart. He cries in anguish, but even then he's not done -- we see how much Anakin's betrayal affected him, even as he boards Padmé's ship. He places his hand on her shoulder and then, in exhaustion, rubs his hand over his face. You might think that Padmé overreacted in ROTS, but her showing emotion in TPM doesn't mean that she is doomed to die of a broken heart. The options aren't only "die of a broken heart" as Padmé does or show no reaction, such as Leia. And even then, I can understand Padmé's actions far more.

No, she's tortured twice. Once in ANH, during the interrogation. Then again in ESB so that Vader can draw Luke out of hiding. Luke specifically says that he can feel that Han and Leia are in pain. So that's twice -- both at Vader's command or hand.

But Leia has a far deeper history with Vader than Luke did in ESB. In ESB, the only thing Vader had done to Luke was kill Obi-Wan (who allowed himself to be killed and with whom Luke could still talk to anyway). By ROTJ, though, Leia's been tortured by Vader twice, he held her down as her planet was destroyed, her tortured her boyfriend/lover and maimed her best friend/brother. And, again, even considering Luke's feelings regarding his father, his reaction is still 100 times more powerful than Leia's is. Her reaction to the discovery that Luke is her brother (and that Vader is her father) is to say that somehow she's always known and then plead with Luke not to confront him. Which is all well and good, but the scene leaves in question whether she even realizes that Vader is her biological father. Her reaction centers completely around Luke, and while I have no problem with that portion of the scene, I find it unbelievable that she wouldn't be the slightest bit distraught at the idea.

 

Clones are less than human. They don't have souls. A child dying during pregnancy does have one in my view. Therefore, it is a far, far different scenario than with a mere clone. I don't think your argument holds water, my friend.

 

The clone troopers are just cloned to fight, that's their purpose, whereas the Rebels and Imperials are willingly risking their lives to fight, even though there's a risk of never seeing any family members again. The clones have no family unlike an Imperial or Rebel trooper. And I'm not saying that they aren't human at all, but they have no family, a clone's lineage starts with that clone and ends when that clone dies, therefore, they aren't as human as a natural born person. Who is in that clone's family to be there to feel sad when that clone dies? Sure, you could maybe consider all of the clones as family, but their births aren't natural, unlike a naturally born person, so, you can't really consider them a real family. And it's much easier to "conceive" a clone, that will always be exactly the same as long as it's from the same template, than it is to conceive a child naturally. With that being said, one clone dying is nothing compared to a child that was conceived naturally dying, who will be an individual person.

 

You do realize that identical twins are essentially clones of each other right? They come from the same fertilized egg that splits into two individuals. Clones are as human as you or I. A child in the womb until at least 20 weeks can't even feel pain. Clones can. They can think, feel, love, care for one another, show concern. That they've been genetically manipulated and brainwashed doesn't diminish their humanity. They're far and away more human than a fetus is, especially early in pregnancy.

People who have no families, who are forced to fight are not worth any less than a person who has loved ones. Everyone has value.

And to say that just because a person's birth is not "natural" that they aren't as human as a natural born person is kind of insulting -- so are children born through IVF or surrogates worth less as human beings?

And clones are individual people. Our genetic code is not the be all end all -- there's a variety of environmental factors that influence a person. Epigenetics, for example, hugely influence how genes are expressed regardless of what is specifically coded in the DNA.

 

I like both equally. The fact that there were only two options for the poll is rather elitist.

 

Clones aren't meant to have lives, otherwise they wouldn't have sped up aging and have their personality removed. They're cloned to fight, not to have a life. Clones have the ability to think like a sentient, but they hardly have emotions. If they're so loving, feeling and caring, how can they so easily kill all of the Jedi without a second thought during Order 66? They couldn't be brainwashed otherwise that would go against them having emotions. However, other naturally born people did try to help save the Jedi. How can a naturally born person dying to save a friend or a loved one be less important than the death of five clones who were trying to attack, arrest or kill a Jedi, civilian, revolutionary etc. Compare Luke after seeing Ben die in ANH as opposed to the clones who were attacking Bail in ROTS. The difference: the clones merely checked to see if their comrades dead and expressed no sadness, while Luke expressed sadness and grief over Ben's death.

 

That is your opinion, but it is not mine.

Debatable. I certainly wouldn't say that they are less human than a clone.

You're taking what I said out of context. Where the hell did I imply that surrogates are worth less? Clones and surrogate children ARE NOT the same thing, and to suggest that they are is disingenuous. Surrogate children are actually birthed while clones are grown in a lab. The two are totally different scenarios.

 

Your post is hilarious if read in a Christopher Walken voice.

 

*obligatory disclaimer about overly-binary poll options/preferring to think of SW as one single saga*

OT for films, PT for fans.

 

This is a horrible line of argument. So simply because someone created the clones with an intended purpose in mind and manipulated them, they're worth less as human beings? So farm animals that are cloned are less of "cows" or "sheep" than the original genetic donor? The clones are trained to fight, yes, but slaves were trained to be worked to death by their masters and could be maimed at will -- that doesn't reduce their humanity in the slightest. Clones still have emotions -- they've been genetically manipulated and brainwashed, yes, but that doesn't mean they don't have emotions -- just listen to their expressions of fear as they are being killed in the opening battle in ROTS. Or their ability to share jokes with Obi-Wan before he departs to Utapau.

A "naturally" born person's death is is "less important" in your scenario because there are five clones to that one person. If given the option, it is only logical to save many lives instead of few. Also, I hardly see how you can determine whether or not the clones expressed sadness when they are helmeted and their expressions concealed. These are also soldiers on active duty -- they can't pause and grieve given the fact that a threat could appear at a moment's notice.

Unfortunately, this isn't a question of opinion but of science. Identical twins are clones of each other in terms of their DNA (barring mutations that would also appear on any clone as well). Unless you are saying that identical twins are not equally as human as others, you point is rather lost on me. Having identical DNA to a pre-existing human does not diminish one's humanity.

By what measure do you determine human then? Unique DNA? If that's the case, then a tumor is more "human" than a clone given the extreme aneuploidy commonly found in tumors. The DNA of tumors is undoubtably human in origin.

You do realize that any child born through IVF was conceived and grown in a lab right? Test tube babies? Doctors can actually remove individual stem cells early in embryogenesis to examine a potential child's genetic profile without altering its development. This has been utilized more than once by parents who conceived children in order provide necessary organs or tissues to a firstborn child suffering from a disease. Eggs and sperm are harvested from the parents, fertilization occurs in vitro and then doctors examine embryos for a possible match -- the embryos that cannot provide the necessary material to save the firstborn are rejected. Thus, these children are born with a specific purpose in mind and were manipulated early in their development. Are they less human? Are you actually suggesting that the clones are less human because they were never in a human uterus? That of all things is how you measure the worth of humanity?

I would argue that to suggest they ARE NOT the same thing is the notion that is disingenuous. Dolly the sheep was a sheep -- that she was cloned is irrelevant.

 

Also, while I'm as much a clone-rights supporter as anyone, that whole line of discussion is pretty spectacularly off-topic.

 

Agreed. I'm not the one getting all fired up about it. We can move on now.

 

Yeah. I see no need to continue this stalemate.

 

Let me please answer to that posts because there are some examples of falsifying or tendentious comparisons imo:
1.) You assume the rebel pilots have families that they left. That might be true in most cases (they could still be mavericks etc. though), fine, but it's still an unsupported assumptions that improves the film in your eyes (making it highly individual which is on the the reasons why I had to object your "nobody" prejudice)
2.) At the same time, you ignore all further developed human emotions of the Clones. That can also be assumed, given that they're joking with Jedi, trying to help colleagues etc. (these things are seen in the film).
3.) Suddenly, you compare a main character's reaction to a death (Luke/Ben) to random reactions of the Clones (Bail). Is that fair? One can absolutely compare Luke's and say Anakin's reactions to loss (Ben / Shmi) and one can compare relatively emotionsless reactions of the clones or stormtroopers (have you ever seen a stormtrooper mourning? They were the OT's cannon fodder). Your comparison isn't fair, imo.
4.) The Clones mostly carried thematic relevance anyway.

However, I agree, we don't need to continue.