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Topic:
Heroes on BOTH sides?
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DarthDuckie
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
5/18 1:12pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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The whole idea of a crawl, though, is to tell isn't it? The story we see, however pivotal to the galaxy, is but a tiny portion of all that's going on in that galaxy. In a setting such as the GFFA, Lucas can't show us everything, so he tells us some things at the beginning as background. I'm perfectly happy with the crawl as it stands. I can appreciate how there could be heroic separatists and then see that the ones who appear in the context of the actual movie aren't heroic.
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Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.
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A hero is a person who understands the responsibility
that comes with his freedom.
- Bob Dylan
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LemmingLord
Title: PT Manager & CLUE Host
Registered:
Apr '05
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Date Posted:
5/18 4:51pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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I just would like to see one clone wars show that actually has heroic folks on the side of the separatists..
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LemmingLord
Take a Leap of Faith and Follow Me
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FutureEmperor
Registered:
Jul '98
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Date Posted:
7/8 11:04pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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Problem with the RObert E. Lee comparison is that throughout his life, Lee actually demonstrated honor, morality and strength of character. He just happened to be fighting on the side that still defended the cultural institutions of slavery and white supremacy, though he himself didn't feel that was the goal.
There's NO ROBERT E LEE on the CIS side. It's just one of Lucas many problems with telling a basic, COHERENT story. It's all over the place as he cleverly (and sometimes, effectively) throws in allusions, mythic themes and points of view which destroy previous continuity, understandings of characters and muddle the narrative.
But he will have defenders, of course.
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FutureEmperor
Registered:
Jul '98
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Date Posted:
7/8 11:08pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
- Date Edited:
7/8 11:17pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
FutureEmperor
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Sooner, again I must agree with you.
There are no 'honorable' participants in what is, overall, an evil side. We are asked, sometimes, to question the Republic in these films (and who wouldn't with Jedi who are more concerned with keeping star systems in the Republic and not like the enslavement of one of their most prominent members lol)
I would submit to you that I see more heroes in the Empire than in the Republic. I always got a good impression from Moff Jerjerrod. He seemed a basically honorable sort and even Piett seems to be a good soldier/commander (expressing distaste for the Bounty hunters.) I would say there are no characters on par with these solid officers, as the Separatist leaders we see are either too ridiculous looking (the Techno Union guy is a cartoon) or show NOTHING resembling even military discipline or restraint. The ONE time I felt anything for any of them when Nute Gunray says Sidious promised peace. But you can't forget what the Neimodians tried to do and how evil basically all of the Separatists seemed (or at least unprincipled.)
Other than Neimodians, we simply don't see any living beings conducting themselves normally.
For me, both sides should have had human and/or organic soldiers fighting. That way, there will be LEGITIMATE heroic actions by either side and 'who is right' would TRULY be a matter of perspective rather than seeing one evil being after another.
Even Dooku is just presented as someone who left the ORder and now, BANG, SIth Lord. Why is he disenchanted---why can't he be a Robert E Lee type or a Rommel or something instead of a Sith Lord (and the SIth ARE evil in this story, or the end of RotJ means NOTHING.)
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When the seas and mountains fall
And we come to end of days
In the dark I hear a call
Calling me there, I will go there
And back again
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Arawn_Fenn
Registered:
Jul '04
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Date Posted:
7/9 3:03pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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The EU shows organic soldiers fighting for the CIS.
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The world will look up and shout, "Save us." And I'll whisper: "No". - Rorschach
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SHAD0W-JEDI
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
7/9 7:54pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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As has been amply discussed here... I think the problem with the comment in the crawl, versus what is in the movies themselves, is that the movies don't even come close to dealing with, or backing, the suggestion made in the crawl.... when it wouldn't have been that difficult to pull off.
I mean, Sidious, Grievous, Nute and Dooku could have indulged in all the cackling, hand-wringing, typical "supervillain" behavior one could ask for ...when IN PRIVATE .... and GL could have included scenes with a very sincere-seeming Dooku meeting with the Separatist Council where he talked about freedom, or breaking away from the oppression and corruption of the Republic. Shoot, GL could even have thrown in a genuinely HEROIC separatist foil to battle the Jedi, someone akin to Jango without the mercenary streak, who believes he/she is fighting for good (but who is, sadly, doing the bidding of the evil Sith!). Someone the audience would find to be unambiguously heroic and virtuous.
Instead... all the Separatists we get to "know" are evil, sneaky, and clearly villainous.
Shadow
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Kalibak
Registered:
Jul '08
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Date Posted:
7/11 9:56am
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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I don't like that line either, the opening crawl would be better without it.
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Darth Sin
Registered:
Oct '99
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Date Posted:
7/11 10:41am
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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To add to this line of thought. Remember this conversation between Anakin and Padme.
ANAKIN: Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order . . . I think this war is destroying the principles of the Republic.
PADME: Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?
ANAKIN: (suspicious) What do you mean?
PADME: What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?
ANAKIN: I don't believe that. And you're sounding like a Separatist!
This conversation for me tells me that even Padme viewed some of those fighting for the Separatist cause may actually have been right. So it does imply that there were those that may have been deemed heroes on the side of the Separatist. Unfortunately we did not get to see or hear from any.
Darth Sin! 
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"I see you becoming the greatest of all Jedi": Palpatine  Lamont: "Martial arts is the oldest form of self defense" Grady: "It ain't older than running" Yoda: The Force is used for knowledge and defense, never for attack
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the_immolated_one
Registered:
Sep '06
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Date Posted:
7/11 11:11am
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
- Date Edited:
7/11 11:30am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
the_immolated_one
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We do see the Separatists heroes.
The Separatists heroes are the battle droids.
From the very beginning Lucas has been dealing with this idea that if a machine can be created that has intelligence, can it also feel? If it can feel, does it have the same rights as a human being? That's the whole point of the bartender in "A New Hope" telling C-3PO and R2 to hit the road. You know, discrimination. Well anyway, we can planly see that R2 and 3PO have emotions and we can see in the Jabba the Hutt sequence that droids feel pain.
The thing is with Star Wars is Lucas doesn't want to get all hard and heavy with this idea because then the kiddies would become bored. See I guess Lucas figures if you want to see this idea played out to its full extent then you could watch "Blade Runner" where this idea is played out very nicely because that's what the movie is all about. Star Wars isn't just about the ethical treatment of AI droids, so we just get a taste of it here and there throughout the entire saga.
The battle droids have developed more and more human characteristics over the course of the three movies. This is to show how Star Wars droids develop human characteristics over time. The battle droids have developed emotions just like Roy Batty who is a combat droid too. So if they have developed emotions then maybe they find their purpose, as a combatant, to be ethically questionable, just like Roy Batty does, and maybe they longer want to be combat soldiers but just simply want to be free and live, just like Roy Batty does, then it would really be no different than when people refer to German WW2 soldiers as heroes because they were just very young men who were born in a country with leaders who sought world domination and they (soldiers) were just doing what they told.
What has happened is G.L. has become a punching bag so it's easy to just chalk it up the "heroes on both sides" thing to another mistake by G.L.
And it ain't the Jedi who are the heroes on the side of the Republic: It's the clones because they're in the same boat as the droids.
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DarthApocalypse
Registered:
Apr '07
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Date Posted:
7/11 12:06pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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I agree with the_immolated_one. The clones and the droids, the commoners, are the true heroes of the movies. They are the ones who have been brainwashed to fight a war they have no control over and no way of getting out of. The Sith/Separatists are shown as evil because we don't see them doing anything heroic. Well guess what? Neither do the Jedi/Republic. Both groups are simply out for self-preservation and aren't champions of people and never will be. Heroes act for other people, not themselves.
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Nordom
Registered:
Jun '04
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Date Posted:
7/11 2:44pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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SoonerSean posted:
I agree with the_immolated_one. The clones and the droids, the commoners, are the true heroes of the movies. They are the ones who have been brainwashed to fight a war they have no control over and no way of getting out of. The Sith/Separatists are shown as evil because we don't see them doing anything heroic. Well guess what? Neither do the Jedi/Republic. Both groups are simply out for self-preservation and aren't champions of people and never will be. Heroes act for other people, not themselves.
I do not agree, for me herosim and courage has to have an element of choice involved for it to be truly heroic or brave. A person is brave when he or she CHOOSES to face danger when other options exist, he or she is brave when they FEEL fear and manages to overcome it.
If a person is fundamentaly unable to feel fear due to some biological reason can that person truly be brave? If a person is too dimwitted to understand the danger he or she is about to face is that really heroic?
If someone had no idea what a shark was and how dangerous they can be, would it really be brave for such a person to jump into shark infested waters?
Or take Superman, if he were to confront a regualr mugger armed with a normal knife would that be very brave on his part? Superman knows that he can not be harmed by the mugger and he could knock him down with his little finger.
You say that the clones and droids are brainwashed to fight but that means they have NO choice but to fight. They can not run away, they can not refuse their orders, they have no other options. So are they really brave or heroic? Could a clone soldier or battle droid throw down his weapon and run away? Do either of them consider the moral implications of what they do? Can they ignore or dissobey orders?
From what the films show us I would say no.
With the clones we are told that they will obey any order without question and as we see they show no hesitation in murdering their former brother in arms and they show no hestation in killing children or unarmed people. I would call the clones as neither heroes or villains as they have no choice in what they do, they can not do other than what they are told to do. They are tools, no more, no less. They are sad in a way because living beings are made into slaves without free will and they are sent to die for others.
As for the battle droids they too do not show an ability to ignore orders or much in the way of choice when it comes to fighting. Also I feel that the battle droids were made a little too "cartoony" in the PT, they were a little too "cute" or "funny" and often not too effective. The PT did not take the droids very seriously, they were just foes to knock down and sometimes they were played for laughs.
The clone troopers did not join the war of their own free will, neither did the battle droids and neither fought FOR anyone, they fought because they were ordered to fight.
So to me, neither are heroes.
In a way the crawl could read "there are NO heroes on either side" because the whole war is fake, created and run by evil and which ever side wins, the regular people will loose.
I think there was potenial to have real heroes on the separatists side by making the separatists more than greedy evil merchants and instead have some reular people that were fed up with the corruption in the senate and that really only wanted to leave in peace.
That they did not want war but some in the senate were afraid that this would lead to the entire republic falling apart and argued that they should hold the republic together, by force if need be.
Some of these ideas are there but not developed enough, instead the war lacks dramatic punch and becomes rather uninvolving to me.
Regards
Nordom
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SoonerSean
Registered:
Jul '07
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Date Posted:
7/11 6:45pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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Not a big deal... but the quote up above looks like I posted those comments when they are in fact from someone else. Just a very minor point of clarification.
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black_saber
Registered:
Apr '02
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Date Posted:
7/11 9:39pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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As much as Hilter was Evil, we are forgetting about Stalin whom is even far worse then Hitler. Stalin killed 50 million, and Hitler killed 31 Million.
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Dark_Jedi_Kenobi
Title: PT Manager
Registered:
Oct '04
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Date Posted:
7/11 10:05pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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I would also agree that the clones are the heroes on the Republic side of the war. They have no say in what they do and will never have any control over their lives.
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***Host of the PT Trivia Challenge Game 12: Question 10 Posted!*** http://boards.theforce.net/prequel_trilogy/b10669/23314477/p4/?184
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the_immolated_one
Registered:
Sep '06
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Date Posted:
7/11 11:47pm
Subject:
RE: Heroes on BOTH sides?
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Nordom posted:
As for the battle droids they too do not show an ability to ignore orders or much in the way of choice when it comes to fighting. Also I feel that the battle droids were made a little too "cartoony" in the PT, they were a little too "cute" or "funny" and often not too effective. The PT did not take the droids very seriously, they were just foes to knock down and sometimes they were played for laughs.
Did you think it was supposed to be cute and funny when the droids were screaming in fear when they were falling out of the The Invisible Hand? Remember when the droids ran away from the acklay? Looks like they have the ability to realize when they're in danger and run away.
Nordom posted:
The clone troopers did not join the war of their own free will, neither did the battle droids and neither fought FOR anyone, they fought because they were ordered to fight.
I have personally heard those underlined words uttered by WW2 combatants, Korean combatants, and Vietnam combatants who were drafted.
Nordom posted:
So to me, neither are heroes.
30% of the U.S. soldiers who were killed in the Vietnam War were draftees who were just doing what they were told. So are you saying these soldiers shouldn't be counted?
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