Anakin and the Tuskens: Weak point of the arc?

I wonder if we really have two different discussions going on...It is entirely possible to be disgusted at Anakin's actions against the Tuskens, find it absolutely morally reprehensible, and still enjoy watching it. Perhaps it would be different had the PT come first, where we didn't know that Anakin was destined to become Darth Vader, where we could actually be shocked by his slaughter of the Tuskens, but, AOTC is at a disadvantage in ability to shock us, precisely because we all know damn well who Anakin becomes. So, while we can be absolutely repulsed by his actions, we can still enjoy his transformation. Its like Hannibal Lecter (woohoo, another Thomas Harris reference) He was absolutely the villain in Silence of the Lambs, he ate people for criminey's sakes...yet, who can honestly say they didn't cheer a little inside when he escaped custody by wearing the cop's face? We have a natural desire to try to side with the protagonist. People weren't supposed to like Michael Corleone either. They simply didn't understand that in the Godfather, he was a villain, not a hero. He ordered the deaths of numerous people. None of them were saints either, like the Tuskens, but it was still wrong. Francis Ford Coppola got so annoyed that people didn't get Michael Corleone as a bad guy, that he went ahead and made the Godfather part II to cement it, by having him order the execution of his own brother, Fredo. Anakin Skywalker is little different. We want to cheer for the main character, even when they are bad. I can be absolutely repulsed by his actions, but I can be entertained by his story, and like him as a character, nonetheless.

 

I don?t know what there is to understand about Anakin?s character, granted his character is very complex and that may be a turn off for a lot of viewers. A lot of people seem to have expected Anakin to go from a flawless ?good? man to be a murdering psychopath within an instant. I think the PT shows a good natural progression. Throughout the PT I saw moments where Anakin is a great selfless man and other moments where he is an arrogant, quick tempered insecure young man. These can be obviously attributed to the death of his mother and the fact that he was a SLAVE as a child I think many viewers tend to miss that. When Anakin gets offended at the council I believe he only reacts that way because the way he was treated by Watto as a child when he was nothing more than a mere slave and treated not as an equal to others. Also you have to expect arrogance and brashness out of him, how do you expect him to act when everyone has been telling him that he is the chosen one and he will bring balance to the force, I think it would make anyone an arrogant prick at times. After watching the PT in its entirety I see Anakin as a good man with some terrible flaws many of which are not his fault and he had the unfortunate of having a lot of bad things happen to him that made him Darth Vader!

 

This is true. There are those who believe that Anakin is a bad film character, because he's poorly written, poorly acted, poorly directed or whatever. Then there are those who enjoy the character and his role in the films, but just don't particularly like the guy. Hannibal Lecter, Michael Corleone, Travis Bickle are all superb characters, but not necessarily especially likable.

Actually I quite like Travis...

 

To "Darth_Davi"-

Its funny you mention that becouse all 3 people (vader,Hannibal and Michael Corleone) are all VERY high up on the American film institutes list of greatest villains of all time (btw im a BIG godfather fan)



To "DarthDuckie"-

Lucas is not saying that Anakin's a good or likable character at all! at least not until AOTC. It has been said over and over again on this topic that Anakins story is the dark tail of the man that becomes darth vader and the FINAL moral of his character is that every human has the ability in them to be good or evil and BECAUSE the jedi found him when he was 10 and not a baby anakin HAS that bit a humanity that separates him from the rest of the jedi and the sad and epic story of the PT is about how he (in the end) lets the ability for evil come out and destroy him and the rest of the galaxy. He is a tragic hero. He is not in anyway suppose to be like luke and he is NOT poorly written!

 

So Lucas thinks he's bad and unlikable?

What does Luke have to do with this issue?

 

As a person, I think a case can be made that someone with all of the information(which the Jedi lacked) would have to at the very least consider him an agent of evil. As a character, I agree. I love the Anakin/Vader character, but a key portion of that is that the part of him which became dominant as Vader was there from the very beginning, and I think downplaying how reprehensible his actions were whitewashes that to an extent.

I'm not saying that Anakin should be like Luke. I'm simply saying that his fall starts far earlier than is commonly believed. He started to become Darth Vader when his blade passed through the neck of the first sandperson he killed.

Oh, I loved it as a viewer, too. The massacre itself I think is one of the best sequences in the Prequel Trilogy.

I know Lucas intended to portray the Jedi as corrupt(because as Obi-Chron is oft to point out, Lucas has explicitly said it), but I think he failed to do so. He showed a Jedi Order which was the last ethical thing propping up a dead Republic. The Senators were bought and sold, The Supreme Chancellor was ineffective, and the Jedi were out defending peace and justice. The Jedi were as they had always been, it was the Republic which changed and had been corrupted. The Jedi for what it's worth recognize that the Republic is corrupted, but also see that they can't abandon its' citizens.

Also, I can't think of a single situation where the Jedi don't make the best decision with the information and means which are available to them. You point out that they didn't free Shmi, but that's because they couldn't. If Watto was unwilling to free her, there was nothing the Jedi could do given that if they had simply whisked her away, she would have exploded due to her implants. They couldn't buy her and then free her because Republic credits were worthless to Watto.

 

Lucas sometimes speaks imprecisely. For example, there is a quote where he seems to be saying that Luke made a "final turn" to the dark side in ROTJ, and we know that didn't happen.

 

You wouldn't happen to have that quote would you? It sounds like one of those things you just have to see.

 

He can speak imprecisely and he can fire stuff off the top of his head from time to time I believe. Because of this, careful we must be in declaring his utterances to be definitive.

 

If you say it is justifiable then in a way you ARE saying that is is right. In legal terms, justifiable is used when someone kills in selfdefence, in other words they were attacked and had no choice but to kill their attacker. Also logic and reason were two things that Anakin was NOT in possesion of when he killed the Tuskens, it was hate, hate and hate.

Begging your pardon but I really doubt ANYONE can say with certainty what they would or would not do. Unles they have been in a similar situation and I certainly do not wish anyone to have to experience anything like this. There are cases were people have gone berserk when faced with such a loss but also other situations were people have NOT gone on a kill crazy rampage.
People are different and will react differently.

Even for a regular human, what Anakin did was a terrible thing and I do not think that every "normal" human would react like Anakin did. So excluding the jedi part, Anakin still did a very bad thing. It is not unthinkable that another person would react like that but I think it is a huge stretch to say that everyone would react like that.

Well in a way this is what happened with the Tusken massacre were Anakin became a murdering psycopath in an instant.

Regards
Nordom

 

You may think it unrealistic but the way the OT spoke of it it very much seemed that IF you gave in to your hate and killed then the emperor will be able to controll you to some extent.
Remember what Vader said, "I MUST obey my Master." So Vader does not serve Palpatine just for power but there is an element of slavery as well. Vader HAVE to obey what the emperor says.
So having that it is not so far fetched to think that IF Luke had given in to his hate then the emperor would have been able to command him. Luke might try to fight but the angrier he got the quicker the emperor would win. As Yoda said "Do not underestimate the powers of the emperor or suffer your father fate, you will."

Your idea that Luke would not turn after killing his father makes no sense in the movie.
Again Palpatine was not offering Luke anything, he just wanted Luke to get as mad as he could possibly get and attack him. After killing his father Luke would be very angry and filled with hate so why would he be interested in anything the emperor would offer?
IF Luke would kill his father and still be mostly himself why would he just go along with the emperor? This man had just killed all his friends and caused him to kill his own father and yet you say that he would go with Palpatine just like that. This I find unrealistic, I figure that there had some element of influence or controll from Palpatine. That he knew that could controll Luke IF he gave in to his hate. His actions makes very little sense otherwise.
Again, IF Palpatine had appeared to Anakin just after the Tusken massacre and say that HE was behind it, would Anakin just go with him?

Regards
Nordom

 

Joseph Campbell, Lucas' very own Yoda, wrote and spoke of the Hero's Quest. One stage of that quest is the descent into darkness. [see my sig.]

In ROTJ Luke stood literally in the presence of the Emperor and, like many heroes of ancient mythology, confronted evil face-to-face. In doing so he was tricked into unleashing his anger at the Emperor's goading, figuratively standing at the door to the dark side and then putting one foot in when he lobs off his father's robotic hand.

Anakin's descent entails an 'up-down' cyclical approach. His Tusken crime was far, far worse than any turn Luke took in the OT prior to meeting with the Emperor. With the Tuskens, Anakin took a total and complete step through that dark side door and stood in the dark side. Furthermore, Anakin murders and unarmed (literally) Dooku at the start of ROTS. These sequences seems to contradict what we learned in the OT, in which Yoda warns Luke that once one turns to the dark side, it dominates their destiny. Anakin still is capable of good and does good things after the Tusken scene and the murder of Dooku.

I think the flow of AOTC might have worked somewhat better if Anakin had gone to Geonosis, lost his hand to Dooku (as Luke did to Vader in TESB), then traveled to Tatooine toward the end of the movie to get the lowdown on his nightmares about Shmi. The Tusken massacre could have served as the film's climax instead of the arena battle, providing a more meaningful transition to the vengeful Anakin witnessed on the Invisible Hand in ROTS.

The wedding scene could still have occurred on Naboo during the ending of AOTC, or perhaps even on Tatooine sometime after the Tusken massacre to better play up the whole secrecy angle.

Just whimsical musings -- nothing more!

 

After thinking about it a little, I am inclined to agree with you, Obi-Chron on the positioning of the scene, provided that the Geonosian arena scene had their kiss taken out first. I like moving the Tusken scene to after the arena, because then Padme admits she loves him not simply because they were about to die anyway, but out of a sense of compassion, as she tries to understand what he is going through. Basically, if you are going to shuffle the scenes around, you have to change around when she admits she loves him too. But, with that said, I do agree that it may have led to a better flow going into ROTS. I still don't think the scene is nearly as weak as others do, I still think it works as is, perhaps just not as efficiently as it might have, if Lucas had reordered the scenes.

 

To "Nordom"-

What your saying is that if luke slipped and killed vader he would then be a zombie of the dark side and would have to go along with palpatine, that makes no sense.

Luke- i dont want to kill my dad, i dont want to turn to the dark side, i cant no matter what! I dont want to,i dont want to,i dont want to....

Vader- So you have a twin sister, if you will not turn, THAN PERHAPS SHE WILL!

Luke- *kills vader*

Palpatine- HA!!! you did it! now you have to do everything i say becouse you are now evil!

Luke- OH!!! DAM!! ya got me, ya got me, ok master want me to go kill my rebel friends now? yes sir.!

audience- *laughs at the unrealistic, abrupt, quick turn that doesn't make any scents*.

That "what if" scenario is more of a question of ROTJ anyways not AOTC but i alredy explained it and i will again...

The point of ROTJ was luke overcoming the darkness ounce and for all and that meant if luke killed vader OR the emperor OR both he would have lost and had a destiny dominated by the dark side like yoda warned him about when he sed "ounce you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will as it did obi-wans apprentice". Luke would have been doomed to turn to the dark side if he killed ANYONE just like how because anakin killed the tuskens HE was now doomed to turn to the dark side like yoda warned in the OT. But just for the sake of argument Palpatine could have sed to him "if you stay with me i will not use the death star to destroy your friends and i will even call off my fleet and allow them all to escape" or something/anything along the lines of that as specially when you consider how untrained luke was against the emperors tempting, mind probing, and lies. Compared to anakin luke would have been easier and quicker to turn if anything. He would have lied to luke and made him question everything about the jedi just like he did to anakin and in the novelization of ROTJ luke is so tempted he even thinks about turning when hes fighting vader, he thinks about how much power and control he would have if he took palpatines side or even replaced him. But none of that happened anyways so what the point of arguing it here?

To awnser your question, NO. The idea of the dark side dominating your destiny if you start down it introduced by yoda in TESB and showed by anakin in AOTC does not really change anything about ROTJ becouse if luke killed vader it would have been his start down the dark path. THATS WHY palpatine wanted luke to kill so badly becouse if he could get him to do that he would have won at that very sec. The only thing im saying to you is that no matter if the PT ever existed or not luke would not have turned at that very sec. no matter how you want to look at it BUT it WOULD HAVE HAPPENED weather it be the next few hours or even days, luke would have not been able to escape from it.

and to answer your other question of, IF Palpatine had appeared to Anakin just after the Tusken massacre and say that HE was behind it, would Anakin just go with him?

Thats a bad example becouse it wouldn't be palpatine's fault if luke had killed vader becouse it was vader that threatened and disgusted luke to the point where luke was going after him to kill him. It was vader that was trying to turn luke to the darkside by threatening leia. Palpatine was just sitting there watching, telling luke to give in to his emotions. He was just waiting it out for when luke killed vader so he could REALLY do his thing and start lieing to luke and giving him power and maybe even telling him that vader was the real monster behind the empire and now that he is dead they can "bring piece to the empire" if only luke would give palpatine a chance. Palpatine could then tell luke that if he stays with him just long enuff for him to "explain" he would call off the death star,let the rebels escape and all the rest of it and at that point luke would be so consumed with hate and anger he would EASILY go along with it probably even want to. But it didn't happen like that luke

 

To "Obi-Chron"-

Wow you really dont want to accept it no matter how many times its explained in this topic hu? If it were done the way you just said than you would like it better becouse you could have "hero anakin" separated a little bit more from "tempted evil anakin" but we have all been talking about how thats a part of anakins character! I like the movie just the way it is! i dont want it changed. I take it as a big insult to lucas to say that it should be changed. Anakins character is portrayed to have "the dragon" deep down in him all through his life and thats the FINAL moral of his character witch is that every human has the ability in them to be good or evil and BECAUSE the jedi found him when he was 10 and not a baby anakin HAS that bit a humanity that separates him from the rest of the jedi and the sad and epic story of the PT is about how he (in the end) lets the ability for evil come out and destroy him and the rest of the galaxy. You just want there to be a line between him as a good hero and him as a conflicted tempted character. You want to have him be totally good in the first half of AOTC THEN go through the mother/tusken story arc at the very end of the movie but it shouldn't be like that and it isn't like that. Thats the same thing as saying you want to skip watching AOTC and go right to ROTS so that you can see anakin as a good,perfect character fall from grace becouse you dont understand or like the complicated gray area in AOTC.

I explained how many times that the whole idea is that anakin would not have been able to kill dukoo in cold blood if he didn't taste the dark side in AOTC. It doesn't contradict anything! becouse anakin did start down the dark path becouse of killing the tuskens!

We really have made no progress in this topic have we? if people went from saying at the beginning of this topic that they like to skip AOTC to now saying that they wish AOTC was rearranged to make it just like skipping AOTC.

 

Did you actually expect to make progress? Go look at the "should Darth Maul have died" thread. Its been going on for over 3,000 posts, and four YEARS. The first post was made 9/18/04. We are no closer to achieving any kind of agreement on that topic either. These threads are purely for fun, it is foolish to expect any progress, because there is none to make.

 

Good point. what was i thinking, star wars fans will never be happy becouse everyone has there own opinion of every detail. As for me im happy with the saga the way it is now. Thats why i cant wait for Lucas to just make any final alterations and just release that 6 pack saga edition mega box set that everyone has been waiting for so that way at least the movies will be totally finished ounce and for all and we can be done with it.

If it were up to me i would just fix all the lightsabers in the OT, fix all the lazer blasts in the OT and have han shoot first and thats it. Through in a new disk full of special features and put them all in a pretty box, I would be more than happy with that.

 

Now you got the idea. It is fun for us to complain and bicker about the minute details of the movies, but, it should be purely recreational. Hell, SithStarSlayer and I love to rib each other about Darth Maul, we bicker endlessly about his value vs Dooku, about whether he died appropriately or not, or whatever, but, there isn't any animosity there (this is probably inviting SSS to comment about there definitely being animosity on his end, and I should speak for myself, lol) Anyway, the sooner people accept that not everyone sees the films the exact same way they do, the better off people are going to be. Really, we are arguing about the merits of someone elses' creation, someone elses' vision, not ours. We all enjoy watching the films, why else would we take the time to post on a Star Wars community message board, if we didn't love the films? Someone who doesn't care about Star Wars at all simply isn't going to bother. But, I don't think differences in opinion here are any different than the other things we, as a society disagree on. We are conservative and liberal and moderate, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Independents, and while we differ in how to make the country a better place, but we do not disagree on the end goal of making it a better place. We may differ in our favorite sports teams, and who is going to win what, but that doesn't prevent us from enjoying sports. Just because you think one way about a particular scene or theme in Star Wars, and someone else thinks differently, doesn't mean either of you love Star Wars more or less than the other. Star Wars is just fun to talk about. Don't let it consume you as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.

 

Well, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. The fact that we don't agree on everything is a piece of evidence that Star Wars is an effective piece of art.

 

All good points and i totally agree about people all having there own opinions but i just wish they were some what positive. But anyways thats another good reason why people shouldn't get so mad at Lucas for not doing or undoing certain things from the saga. He could do something you always wanted but than someone else would hate the change, witch is why its good to have at least a general understanding of whats best for the idea of it being one whole 6 movie saga and not take anything too badly.

 

In fact, Lucas the artist wants us each to take away our own experiences from his movies, not some canned experience that makes us all march in lock step. Hence the ambiguity regarding Anakin's 'creation' on the OS, which states either the force OR Darth Plagueis created Anakin. His creation is up to us, the viewer, to determine. Anakin is an enigma, a mystery.

So it is with my take on the Tusken scene -- it is mine, my view of Lucas' mystery, and I am communicating my view to others on these boards not because I feel the others "dont' get it," but because that is how I see it and I wish others to see my point of view. If I'm 'out there,' so be it.

I come to these boards because I want to appreciate the POV of other members, not to be "converted" by one view and to "abandon" another or convert others to my POV. This is not what Lucas intended with his films. He has a much higher appreciation of human individuality than many give him credit for.

For the viewer to disagree with the artist means nothing more than a difference in how each views the universe of the artistic creation. In time the artist can view events differently, as Lucas demonstrates. He constantly redefines his Star Wars universe, most notably by adding CG scenes to the OT, including Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine in the TESB holo-transmission to Vader, and soon (rumored) adding CG Yoda to TPM, replacing 'rubber puppet' Yoda. If the maker can differ from his own original view, what is wrong with the viewer doing so?

As the legendary Popeye often said: "I yam what I yam!" And old Willie Shakespeare advised us: "To thine own self be true." I heed their words and pledge to follow their advice -- and the advice of Lucas, to be sure.

 

Oh, definitely and I don't think Lucas should change anything to placate the fan base.

Exactly.

 

Why not? Anakin was able to kill a whole lot of Tuskens without any prior taste of the dark side.
Sure he was probably more angry at the Tuskens than at Dooku but what he did with the Tuskens was far worse than with Dooku. Also Anakin already had a grudge against Dooku, he was mad at him for all the jedi he killed plus the loss of his own arm. So I dissagree with you, even without the Tusken incident I think that Anakin would have been able to kill Dooku.

About Luke and RotJ, I think we will agree to dissagree here but two things;
First Vaders line "I MUST obey my Master." this quite clearly says to me that Palpatine can controll and command Vader to some degree. So the idea that the same would happen to Luke IF he gave into his hate is not unreasonable within the context of the film.
Second, Palpatine was always goading Luke to get angry and kill in hate, very different from the "I'll give you everything you want" approach he had with Anakin. So there is a clear difference between the two. With Anakin it is seduction, with Luke it is provoking anger and hate.
The issue is would Luke have turned right there and then IF he had killed Vader?
For me, a no would make a nonsense of the scene and most of the film.
But if Luke would have turned for just ONE killing in hate, how come Anakin can kill so many times and not turn?

In closing I have no problem with other people having different views on the films and that is what is good about SW that you can take away different things from it. I am not saying that my views are better or more right than anyone but I do react when people are trying to tell ME that my opinion is wrong or that I am stupid for not understanding something.

Regards
Nordom

 

Well the tuskens were his first start down the dark path, that's just the way it was written so he would be able to kill dooku and in the commentary of ROTS if im not mistaken Lucas even said it plus there is a direct reference to it right in that very scene after he kills him so if you choose to think he would have killed him anyway if he didn't first kill the tuskens than that would be pretty much turning your head from the whole point of it and choosing not to believe it. If that's what you want to do Nordom than thats your opinion but if so than i honestly dont know what to tell you.

With vader your idea is flawed becouse it takes away from the aspect of vader choosing light or dark and everyone's free will, vader is still the bad guy in that movie not some poor guy that is trapped in a magic spell that keeps him in the dark side ageist his will. Also we have seen time and again that vader has his own agenda against the emperor, Lucas talks about it for about 10 whole min. on the TESB commentary and explains that the sith always betray each other and that the whole reason vader wants luke is to overthrow the emperor. I think you are just reading to much into that one line where he says he must obey his master and not reading enough into all the evidence that he can and dose disobey his master when it suits him.

Palpatine was provoking luke so that he WOULD kill his father, your right and i never disagreed with you about this, the only thing im saying is that the reason WHY he wanted him to kill so badly was becouse he would win if luke did becouse that would be his start down the dark path.

and to answer your question YES! Luke would have been turned in that room before that battle out side was over IF he killed vader. Your real question is why anakin was able to snap out of it when he killed. Well the difference is that besides being two different people with two totally different sets of jedi training and circumstances and besides the fact that you are comparing killing a bunch of monsters to killing your own father, palpatine would have been there to DEFINITELY keep luke in the dark side and make everything much worse than it was for anakin. Anakin was able to snap out of it becouse he felt sorry and terrible for what he did right after and he had 10 years of the c

 

Part of it is because what you said is somewhat circular logic, Anakin will never kill unless he has killed before under the influence of the dark side. So that could mean that Anakin will never kill as he has not done it before, there has to be a first time. See what I mean? Also he was able to kill the Tuskens despite not having killed before. You say that it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for Anakin to kill Dooku but I am not certain that it is that cut and dried. The tusken incident no doubt affected Anakin and might have played a part in what he did with Dooku but I am not convinced that it was the ONLY thing that made him do what he did.

I think that you tend to frame things in very absolute terms and that is what my problem might be.
You said that the tusken incident MUST happen or Anakin would NEVER turn. Or without it Anakin would NEVER be able to kill Dooku. What you seem to say is that Lucas could never have made the PT in any other way that it is now. That if Lucas had not done the Tusken scene then there is no way for Anakin to turn and Lucas could never make RotS.
I just tend to react when things are said so absolutely, I think that things could happen differently, that Anakins fall could have happened in several ways. Luke almost turned without any tusken thing, Dooku did turn and he never did anything like that either as far as I know.

First off, the Force is akin to "magic". It gives you super natural powers and it can also influence or controll your actions. That was established in ANH, the Force can controll you but it can also obey your commands. Then Yoda says that the Dark side will dominate your destiny and consume you. That very much suggests that if you turn to the dark side it will very much influence what you do and how you behave. How much Vader can dissobey his master is debatable, he has plans on his own in ESB but in RotJ these seem to have all gone away. He does turn against his master but only at the end and it took a lot of doing. So I do not think that Vader can dissobey his master willy-nilly. Also Yodas line "Do not underestimate the powers of the emperor or suffer your fathers fate you will". I took that line as being about the emperor being able to influence and even controll you.
Also the scene with Luke and Vader on Endor is more than just that line, I very much got the sense that Vader did not really want to turn Luke over to Palpatine but he thought he had no choice. When Luke leaves Vader seems sad and not happy with himself. That makes him overcomming Palpatines hold over him and rejecting his own hate and anger later much more powerfull.