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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Anakin was right to kill the Tusken Raiders!

Discussion in 'Archive: Attack of the Clones' started by Duckman, May 20, 2002.

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  1. Converter_of_Power

    Converter_of_Power Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 29, 2000
    murder is never justifiable no matter how strongly we feel about the situation at hand.
     
  2. JangoBong

    JangoBong Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 16, 2002
    The most lopsided victory in military history was achieved about 10 years ago.

    The United States killed at least 60,000 Iraqi "soldiers" (more like "Saddam fodder"), and lost something like 275 U.S. soldiers in the 90 billion dollar endeavor.

    The Battle of Agincourt was a pretty wicked slaughter, too--English had these new-fangled things called longbows, and wiped out the entire French force, including aristocratic cavalry at something like 6 to 1 casualties. (British readers, please correct me, cuz I know that's not exact)

    US fire-bombed Dresden, incinerating an open city in a single night (the *air* caught fire from the chain incendiary bombing--that's a lot of hell). More civilians died there than at Hiroshima.

    Oh yeah, there's Hiroshima. 30-40 THOUSAND civilians there.

    Movie has a pissed off teenager slaughtering a tribe of "animals" for ******** his mom.

    No wonder Europe censors violence, and we censor boobies.

    As for me, I used to be an isolationist, now I am just very, very, sad.

    ____

    Liked Episode II--fifth viewing coming Saturday


     
  3. pheenix11

    pheenix11 Jedi Master

    Registered:
    May 9, 2002
    I love how everyone just lets the Tusken woman & children off the hook?

    How do you know that the children didn't kidnap Schmi as a rite of passage? Kinda like their first act of violence to prove to the adults they are ready to become a member of society.

    Just because someone is a female or a child does not preclude them from being evil & committing violent acts. There are kids shooting other kids in this country every day.

    I stand by my original statement, EVERYONE in that Tusken camp must take responsibility for the death of Schmi. If they did not help her, then they contributed to her death.

    And ultimately, their own as well. Serves them right.
     
  4. wookie_fett

    wookie_fett Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2001
    The whole point is this:

    Of course the Tuskens were wrong for killing Shmi.

    However Anikan was wrong for killing them in return - and even more wrong for enjoying it so much. He was much more sinister than I expected. (Hayden blew me away with this scene.)

    And as the book had it, he even knew he was wrong.

    Then Padme glossed everything over, and reinforced that the Tuskens earned their fate...

    That, to me, was the most interesting twist of the whole thing.
     
  5. theharri

    theharri Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 12, 2002
    I think this thread is going onto rather dangerous ground. I find the references to the situation in the Middle East rather over the top. I not sure whether the immoral actions of the Tuskan Raider(s) in question are being compared to what the Israelis or the Palestinians are doing but either way neither nation as a whole deserves the connection in any way (though some individuals from both sides might). If people took the trouble to examine the history of the middle east they would see that the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians are decent, peace loving people and that violence is most certainly not an integral part of their culture. However situations outside their control, mostly created by money and power hungry warmongers, have made their lives hell.
    To suppose that an entire nation, whether it?s the Tuskans, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Yugoslavs, the British, the Americans or whatever, can be classified as evil because of the actions of some of its individuals, is prejudicial. Every nation is composed of individuals with free will that have wildly differing opinions and character traits. Many champions of peace have emerged out of nations in turmoil (read Gandhi's biography). Much goodness can exist among cold hatred. (Ever see Schindler's list?)
    However I agree that the politics in ATOC is complicated and can teach us a few lessons. If there is anything AOTC shows us it is how just a few evil men hungry for power and profit can manipulate people and situations to their advantage. The men in power can stoke people's hatred and blur their judgment to their own advantage with relative ease until people perceive of the supposed enemy as subhuman and worthy of exterminations. This has happened again and again through history, most recently in Rhuanda and Yugoslavia. It is very sad that many people fall prey to such simplistic rhetoric and really do think the solution is to wipe the supposed enemy out, women and children included. Remember Palpatine's line in TPM: "Wipe them out, all of them". He thought the Gungans were worthless sub humans just as Anakin thinks of the Tuskans and as Hitler (who Palpatine is based on) thought of the Jews. Though Anakin, in contrast to Palpatine and Hitler, has some justification for his hatred he does join the dark side at the moment he projects that hatred onto innocents and commits mass murder. Lucas emphasized that by making Anakin's shadow turn into Darth Vader just before he goes into the desert. However I really think Lucas should have made it clearer in the movie that killing all the Tuskans is a horrible act as there are a lot of Nazi's out there in the wide world who might start to make Anakin their hero.

     
  6. Corusca-Gem

    Corusca-Gem Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 18, 2002
    For those of you asking how do we know that the women and children were innocent, the novel has information on the topic.

    In the novel confession (and possibly during the cut part of the scene), Anakin states that he knew that the women and children were not the fighters. He himself was indicating that he was wrong to kill them in that line.

    Perhaps we will see this on the DVD as well.



    Also, wookie_fett, I do not think he enjoyed it, but rather just completely lost control.
     
  7. The_Wisest_Jedi

    The_Wisest_Jedi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 23, 2002
    fear i sence in all of you...fear that the jedi are evil.....all wrong are you......ani is afraid.....fear leads to hate....hate to suffering.....suffer he shal.....suffer the jedi shal.....never the less ani is powerful.....right to kill them he may not have been......but it is the fault of the dark side not him.......do not blame him.......blame evil
     
  8. 0Bl-WAN

    0Bl-WAN Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    May 8, 2002
    Anakin was completely justified in wiping out the entire Tusken camp.

    Like everyone living on Tattoine, Anakin has known since he was a small child that Tusken Raiders kill. They kill without cause, chivalry, and without offering quarter. No one is safe from them, women, children, elderly. They murder indiscriminantly. They killed a pod-racer competing with Anakin in TPM, and shot Anakin's own pod. They did that for entertainment. Tusken Raiders ARE evil monsters. All species of alien can manage to get along in the cities of Mos Eisley and Mos Espa, but the Tuskens. The Tuskens are predators. Anakin was completely justified for killing them all (even the women and children.) The "women and children" are more like "the females and the pups." That is why this act alone did NOT ruin Anakin, it was merely a step on his path to ruin.

    The problem with what Anakin did was the way he used his powers. Jedi are endowed with extreme power, one that can make them nearly invincible to those not in touch with the force. ...and Anakin is an extreme example of this. When Anakin entered the Tusken camp, he didn't enter to negotiate. He entered as a predator. There must have been 100 Tuskens in that camp, and after Anakin annhialated the first 10 or so you'd have to think they started "trying" to run from him. What Anakin did to that camp would be like releasing a Lion into a room of bunnies. The problem is not that the 'bunnies were all killed' it's that Anakin was unable to control himself from 'becoming a lion.'

    There is a reason the "first step" was killing the Tusken's. They DID deserve it. ...but the line between "deserving it" will begin to become less and less defined and Anakin loses more control.
     
  9. 1stAD

    1stAD Jedi Youngling star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2001
    Is he justified in killing those sand people responsible for kidnapping his mother? Yes. Is he justfied in killing the entire village? Definitely not. Is it right that he killed those sand people in a rage over his mother's death? Hell no.

    "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. Never for attack."

    Anakin crosses the line in AOTC. He kills his mother's murderers out of rage. By ESB he has almost completely fallen to the dark side, casually killing his own officers without a second thought.
     
  10. Krash

    Krash RSA Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 11, 2000
    Anakin's slaughter of the entire Tusken camp is something any of us are capable of; if I found my mother tortured and dying in my arms, I couldn't promise to not seek revenge. But what he did is wrong, and a brilliant way for Lucas to begin to show how Anakin's emotions will lead him down the path of the dark side.

    While I can sympathize with Anakin's pain and anguish over his mother's death (and inability to prevent it;) killing is wrong, just as the Tusken's abduction and torture of Shmi was wrong. But for Anakin to unleash his anger on women and children is inexcusable. And the guilt he feels in the Lars' garage with Padme was another well written/well acted scene; he knows what he did was wrong, but he doesn't care.

    From the most "as non-political as as can keep this" perspective. I think the conflict between the Tusken Raiders and Tatooine settler (like the Lars Family) has more then one side, and very similar theme to the American expansion of the west; and (to the extent my limted background will suggest) to the conflict in the middle east. Not so much from a political view, but a moral dilemma. How will these conflicts ever end, with so many people left with lose? How can we ever have "peace" without someone holding a grudge about the past?

    Point is, Anakin's actions were motivated by anger/hatred; clearly a path to the dark side. Something we as a world should learn from.

     
  11. Corusca-Gem

    Corusca-Gem Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 18, 2002
    Krash writes:

    "he knows what he did was wrong, but he doesn't care."

    He did care, although he seemed to still be showing a lot of the anger. That is why he broke down crying at the end of the scene. The novel and script went even farther, with him saying to Padme that he was "so sorry" for doing it.
     
  12. Krash

    Krash RSA Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 11, 2000
    Yes, after the fact Anakin realized what he did was wrong (I'm looking forward to reading the book to get a more detailed look at things.) But what I was refering to was at that moment in the Tusken Camp, he knew exactly what he was doing was wrong. However, his anger and rage influenced his decision. He didn't care about right or wrong, he cared only about revenge.

    Like I said, I couldn't promise that I wouldn't do the eact same thing in that situation. Just because it caught up with him in the garage doesn't make what he did right!
     
  13. jedi_knight22

    jedi_knight22 Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    May 20, 2002
    Duckman that was the stupidist thing I've ever heard he's a Jedi. Jedi are thought to control their anger and hate and not act upon it. This was his 1st step to the Dark Side

    -Jedi Knight
     
  14. BespinPlayerzClub

    BespinPlayerzClub Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 18, 2002
    With the question of whether Anakin was right or wrong for his actions here, I like to think back to ~'82 when Lucas was going to go w/ the title "Revenge of the Jedi"...but then scrapped it, saying that Jedi don't seek revenge. Anakin sought immediate revenge here.
     
  15. trilete

    trilete Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 1999
    This thread really is very frightening.

    Those who argue that the whole camp was responsible for Shmi's death, and their killing therefore moral, should consider the unwritten and and untold backstory.

    Who are the Tusken Raiders? Why do they raid? By the same logic which you say 'entitles' Anakin to kill the Raiders, another observer, knowing more of the story, might say that the Raiders were justified in killing Shmi. We don't know from the events in the story. And in full ignorance of the facts, it is wrong to make judgement and certainly wrong to exteriminate a whole village.

    Perhaps Lars' brother killed a Tusken raider in an argument somewhere? Perhaps industrial waste had poisoned the raider's water supply and they took Shmi prisoner - and a few overly emotional raiders got carried away.

    Perhaps the Tusken raiders are really rotten to the core, bred-in-dna killers -- evil and deserving of extermination, men, women and children, all. If that is the case, then I think George Lucas is an evil man for suggesting such a thing, since it's a fundamentally racist concept and isn't so different from Nazi 'rat' propaganda - humanity is humanity with all its merits and flaws, and some culture's have fallen to evil, but humans are not born guilty of murder.
     
  16. Ezekial

    Ezekial Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    May 24, 2002
    bump, since my thread on this was deleted.

    anyways, think about it, you havent seen your mother for 10 years and when you come back to your home planet you learn that she has disappeared. you find her, but its too late, she dies in your arms. I would have done the exact same thing that anakin did. I would be seriously pissed off and I think that I would have gone beserker on them all
     
  17. trilete

    trilete Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 1999
    oh sure, you might do the same thing - but that doesn't mean that it would be the right thing to do. and i'd also think twice before volunteering to say, 'yes, i would kill all the children, too.'
     
  18. Ezekial

    Ezekial Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    May 24, 2002
    actually, you are right. there are a lot of analogies in the films. tatoonie is the old american west. the space battles are like WWII battles (why do these high tech spaceships have to get so darn close to each other?) so the sand people are the indians as depicted in the old west, savages. so by that sense it is wrong. I was rooting for him in the movie though, simply because I was thinking of what would I have done if I had found my mother like that. but then, you never know until you are actually in the situation. I probably wouldn't now that I think of it, well, not the babies at least.
     
  19. anakin_girl

    anakin_girl Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 8, 2000
    I haven't read this whole thing, but I'll add a few comments here.

    First off, I find it very frightening that people were able to watch AOTC and still sympathize with the Tuskens. It just shows that some people are determined to hate Anakin, no matter what. Cliegg told Anakin that the Tuskens had kidnapped his mother while she was picking mushrooms off vaporators, minding her own business, and carried her off. A search party went after them, a search party of 30 people--the Tuskens killed 26 of those 30, and chopped Cliegg's leg off. And the Tuskens are the innocents here? In what galaxy?

    As far as the females and the children--they may not have participated, but they watched the men torture Shmi for a month and did nothing. And it's not like they aren't capable. I'm a woman--I'm capable of raising hell when I find it necessary. I work with children--they are also capable of making a pretty big scene when they feel like something is wrong.

    Now ideally, Anakin shouldn't have gone ballistic on the whole camp. Ideally, he should have remained calm, figured out exactly who tortured his mother and taken care of those Tuskens and those Tuskens only--or even walked away from the scene and forgiven all of them. However, this is a guy who has not seen his mother in ten years, and finds out that she has been tied to a pole for a month and tortured to death. What would any of you have done? "Ideally" doesn't cut it here. Like Padme said, he may be a Jedi, but for one thing, he wasn't raised as one from birth, and for another thing, he's also human.
     
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  20. Krash

    Krash RSA Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 11, 2000
    It's not that some people are sympathetic towards the Tuskens that scares me; it that there are folks who seem to think what Anakin did wasn't wrong.

    Nobody would argue that Anakin acted no different from what we would do in that situation. But there seems to be a disagreement over whether it was "right" and the answer is NO. Mass murder is never the "right" thing to do, and that's what happened. On the other hand, abducting and torturing Shmi is just as wrong; but that doesn't excuse the slaughter of women and children.

    We don't know much about the Tusken culture; it's a very warrior-based culture. I doubt the women and children have little to nothing to do with the decision making; and speaking out of place would have accomplished nothing, except to get themselves beaten or killed. There are many realworld comparisons to be made of the Tusken Raider social structure; and we've fought wars to "liberate" such oppressed women and children.
     
  21. DarthRaptor

    DarthRaptor Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 24, 2002
    I think that it fits the character of someone who is supposed to become Darth Vader someday. But, that doesn't mean it was right. Especially since he took out, as Anakin put it "the women and the children". Supposedly, though, that scene was supposed to continue with Anakin showing remorse for what he had done. Why that was removed from the movie is beyond me, as I think that would have made Anakin an overall more likeable person.
     
  22. Darth Kruel

    Darth Kruel Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    The Tuskin Raiders are mindless, hidious, reprobate creatures who got what they deserved. If that was your loved one you would have done the same exact thing Anakin did. We can sit back and look at a situation like this because we're looking from the outside in. We can observe the situation and call it wrong. But in fact if that was your mama, your mom, your mother, the woman who gave birth to you none of you who say Anakin was wrong would have just took that nasty tasting pill and lived with it. No, you would have taken a hold of a weapon and wiped out the whole Tuskin Raider camp. And you can't differentiate between the men, the women, and the children either! They are equally guilty in this terrible, horrible, murder.
     
  23. Nunquam

    Nunquam Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 1, 2000
    There is a reason George put that scene in there...Anakin is committing an evil act. It goes against everything the Jedi, the Republic and decent, civilized people stand for. If killing them was "right" they wouldn't have talked about it, Anakin wouldn't have dwelled on it and been so specific, Padme wouldnt have looked shocked and the ominous music wouldn't have played. Do you think Yoda would've done something like that? Obi-Wan? Padme? Luke? Leia? Absolutely not!

    If you think George Lucas thinks there was justification in a massacre, you are missing the whole point of the Star Wars series.
     
  24. anakin_girl

    anakin_girl Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 8, 2000
    "Supposedly, though, that scene was supposed to continue with Anakin showing remorse for what he had done. Why that was removed from the movie is beyond me, as I think that would have made Anakin an overall more likeable person. "

    Did we watch the same movie? Anakin did show remorse. He confessed what he did to Padme, and cried the whole time. It's not like he went back to the Lars residence, gave Padme a big grin and said, "Hey, babe, guess what I did this morning?" No, he said, "I killed them, all of them. Not just the men, but the women, and the children." He did say he hated them, but I felt that he was saying that more to justify the act to himself, to assuage some of his own guilt; not because he thought it was OK.
     
  25. DarthRaptor

    DarthRaptor Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 24, 2002
    Yeah, but he also said, "They're animals, and I slaughtered them like animals" I don't know. It just seemed like he didn't show much remorse considering what he had just done. And, everyone I've talked to about that scene so far felt the same way. I think an extended scene to clarify things a bit would have gone a long way.

    DR
     
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