CT PT Contradicting OT

that's not true. they were friends. we don't see their whole relationship.

 

Then its a failure at a story-level. We are supposed to believe that Anakin was a good man who was seduced by the Dark Side, became Darth Vader, his personality was destroyed and Obi-Wan lost his friend. It doesn't come off like that very well, as two films don't show it at all and the other is so packed, it gets shoved aside.

 

Totally agree, I mentioned the same thing on TPM thread that having him as a child in the first film leaves them too much to cram in to the last 2 films. I would even argue that the focus of TPM is not on Anakin (as it should be IMO) but on the liberation of Naboo instead.

 

Anakin and Obi-Wan have how much interaction in the movie? 1 minute? If that? That's inexcusable imo.

 

It just reinforces that in the PT they were rarely shown as 'good friends' as Obi Wan states in the OT. I think that their relationship could have been represented better on screen in the PT.

In fact I think the relationships between Anakin, Obi Wan and Padme should be the main driving forces that we care about, but I don't feel they quite pull any of those off IMO, not enough time is spent on those character aspects of the story.

 

Not a slight on Liam Neeson, but Obi-Wan taking the Qui-Gon role as he did in the Rough Draft would have been better.

 

That's your assumption that that was how it went down before the PT was made. Nowhere in Lucas's writings, nor what he discussed, did he say that Anakin and Obi-wan did not have arguments with each other. Nor that Anakin didn't make a slow descent into evil.

 

That is an odd way of looking at it. It is quite rare that good friends do not get into arguments. The reason why Anakin was often frustrated with Obi-Wan is because Obi-Wan was looking out for Anakin, trying to keep him in check so the Jedi Council wasn't always pestering Anakin and his decisions. This led Anakin to believe Obi-Wan was against him in many cases, but on the contrary. This shows the naivety of Anakin. It is good writing IMO.

Just because they argued didn't mean they weren't good friends. I don't have the specific quote or if it was in AoTC or RoTS, but I recall Anakin saying Obi-Wan was like a father to him. And we see multiple times in the PT that Anakin is always risking his life for Obi. For instance, Anakin rushing off to Geonosis to rescue Obi.

No relationship is perfect, but Obi-Wan cut Anakin down because Jedi are supposed to do what is right because it is right. They are not supposed to let their personal feelings get in the way of their duty to protect the Republic, and Anakin was a threat to the galaxy, let alone the Republic.

 

The biggest contradiction to me is Leia remembering her mother who "died when she was very young" and Luke having no memory of his mother despite both of them knowing her for the exact same length of time.

Sure, you can explain this by saying Bail Organa educated Leia on her mother, but that still doesn't explain the "mostly" part of "images, mostly." So, that implies that she remembers more than images and that there was an actual relationship and that Leia's mother "died when she was very young," not just in childbirth.


The Obi-Wan/Anakin friendship is told terribly in the movies, but it's clear from a superficial level that they're friends. We just don't see the depth of that friendship. By Revenge of the Sith, it's pretty clear that they feel sad to part ways. That counts for something.

 

To each their own, I suppose...However I was fine with what we saw. We may not have seen much buddy-buddy lovey dovey stuff in the episodes, but (as with lots of other details) the idea of them being good friends/brothers is implied. We are able to see glimpses of it, not to mention, Obi Wan even said he loved him. IMO that's all we should need in order to get the point. I don't need to see a "Stand By Me" version of a SW episode, full of comraderie and deep feelings/experience sharing to get the point that a few brief scenes are meant to reference. I just figure (based on what I saw) that all of that stuff is experienced by them over time, in between the episodes. I know they're "Legends" now, but the books taking place in between TPM - ROTS did actually touch on this idea much more...

Besides, a Jedi master and padawan relationship is probably an unusual form of relationship, meant to be more closely related to what we know as big brother/little brother. I fought with my brother all the time, but I still have always loved him-and to this day think nothing but the world of him.

Makes sense to me...I understand and respect that some may feel different, but IMO it's hardly a major "PT to OT contradiction."

 

The Force grants Jedi the ability to see the future and the past, while either meditating through the Force or in dreams. Leia assumed it was memories. Luke doesn't have to have the same visions.

Again, I ask, what is it that people are looking for?

 

Luke doesn't remember his mother because he's a different person than Leia:



Baby Leia's eyes are open. Baby Luke's eyes are closed. That isn't something that happens by accident. Lucas wanted one baby to be awake and one to be asleep. It's meant to illustrate the inherent differences in their personalities, and to explain why Leia has memories of her birth while Luke does not.

 

I don't have any issue with Leia remembering her mother, as it can easily be chalked up to a Force vision and doesn't really detract from the story in any way. The Obi-Wan/Anakin friendship does. I've previously stated somewhere on this board that I felt the first thirty minutes of Revenge of the Sith does a really good job at demonstrating Obi-Wan and Anakin's friendship, and I stand by that, but looking back I don't think it was enough to fully balance all the times we saw them at odds with each other. It's not that we don't see their friendship at all, but more that we're not shown the different layers of their friendship in a balanced enough way.

 

No more, no less.

 

Nobody can remember anything from their childhood before the age of 3 or 4, so that eyes open theory just doesn't hold much weight. Force visions...eh okay but having her eyes open shouldn't have any role in her remembering Padme.

 

Normal people, yes - but these are the children of the Chosen One. Maybe they're a bit like Paul's children in the Dune series? Wouldn't be the first time Lucas took inspiration from Dune after all.

 

I had assumed that Luke fulfilled his promise and returned to complete his training while Lando, Leia, and Chewie did the preliminary recon work on Tatooine.

 

Given that Luke says "I've come back to complete my training" in ROTJ, I got the impression that it's the first time he's seen Yoda since TESB.

 

Possibly, I had assumed he had come and gone a few times, but maybe not. I do think it was a hole in the originals.

Certainly Luke's training was very abbreviated as compared to the PT. But then again, few padawans would get Master Yoda's complete attention too. Also, I think Yoda probably spent some time thinking about what went wrong with the Jedi order, and probably considered long and hard what training for a new order would be like.

 

I think theres some clutching at straws going on to explain how a newborn baby remembers its mothers sadness and beauty and kindness.

 

Doesn't seem possible, even for a child of the Chosen One. She was literally just born..an adult Jedi cannot remember everything, let alone a 1 minute old baby

 

Sorry Iron_lord, I normally agree with much of what you say, but I can't get behind the notion of a newborn being able to remember her mother at birth

EDIT--Sorry for the double post I had a blunder

 

I don't want to go too far into this because I already agree with the premise that Anakin/Obi-Wan's friendship isn't contradicted between the PT and OT. Lucas at least establishes that they're good friends. He does the bare minimum. But that's the problem for this relationship on-screen in a movie, or a series of movies.

Any previous movie about human relationships, including how Luke/Han/Leia all become friends in Episode 4 of this very series, gives us the template already about how to form relationships between characters. It's supposed to happen on-screen if you want the audience to care. It has to happen for the audience, too, to emotionally resonate.

Lucas wants us to believe that Anakin and Obi-Wan are close, but never does the actual work on-screen to establish that emotional relationship for the audience, so we have to literally be told that they're friends in dialogue. He was too busy writing scenes for Qui-Gon and Padme to write scenes that show Obi-Wan developing an affection (or any emotion) for Anakin.

Considering that he actually did this in Episode IV where Han calls Luke "kid" and "boy" and eventually has the two earning respect for one another, he seems to already know how to do this. We needed an arc where Obi-Wan goes from calling Anakin "dangerous" to "Hey, maybe Qui-Gon's right. Maybe my new padawan isn't so bad after all. I can totally train this dude." Something. Anything that isn't just a character doing what he was programmed to do.

We never get that. It's a relationship that forms in between movies, stays on a "Don't screw up, my padawan!" "Yes, Master..." level for the entire second movie and only really has any emotion in Episode III when things go south.

But really, that's a whole other topic. They're friends in the PT. They were friends in the OT. It isn't contradicted. Just terribly told in the PT.

 

It would be a little weird for them to have memories that good, it is true. Outside of Dune it's not very common, even in fiction. Brutha in Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, a Discworld fantasy novel, is one of those rare examples.

 

I have absolutely no problem with Leia remembering her mother while Luke doesn't.

Real life is full of those "huh, funny that isn't it?" moments, I'm not going to get all heated up when it comes to a fantasy film doing it too.