Qui-Gonn instead of Dooku?

Interesting that the Good Father tells white lies, while the Bad Father tells the deep dark truth.

 

It is.

To clarify, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the metaphor itself. The problem is Obi-Wan's equivocation, and his implication that a metaphorical "truth" is as valid an answer to a factual question as an actual fact.

 

Luke: Threepio, tell them if they don't do as you wish, you'll become angry and use your magic.
C-3PO: But, Master Luke, what magic? I couldn't possibly...
Luke: Just tell them.

Speaking of tricks and force ghosts, read this article:
http://www.sagajournal.com/laanitrickster.html

C-3P0: I never knew I had it in me.

 

Obi-Wan's equivocation/c.p.o.v. is one thing, but saying that his point of view that Anakin had 'died' was actually an objective fact/event in the story - iow, on a par with something like the destruction of the two Death Stars - is another thing entirely.

 

The apostrophes - they do nothing!

 

That doesn't answer what I wrote (the bold part, to be precise).

 

Ben is a liar.
And so is George Lucas.

MYSTERY SOLVED

 

Yeah, for it to be a lie you have to realize that you're completely full of ****.

I think both of these men have actually deluded themselves into believing what they say...

 

Actually it does. Anakin's turn is as much an objective event as exploding Death Stars.

 

He didn't say Anakin turned (into Darth Vader), or that he died metaphorically. Those are objective facts. He said he died. Literally. Which is not an objective fact. He also said that Anakin and Darth Vader were two seperate physical people. The framework Luke was asking under was literal reality, and Ben's response in this framework is not only untruthful, it's a flat-out fabrication. Specifically designed to decieve Luke--he knew what he was doing.

 

I'm talking about ROTJ, by which point it is painfully obvious that he did not die literally.

 

Right, but the referent is to his speech in ANH, where it is not objective like exploding death star but metaphorical like decapitated Luke-Vader's.

 

If the decapitated Luke-Vader holds enough water to be included in the movies, doesn't a metaphorical murder of one persona of another hold as much water, even if it IS a retroactive metaphor?
And if an objective fact or actual event is valued more than a metaphor on screen, why are we arguing about force ghosts at all? I don't know anything about force ghost physics. Maybe I need some help.

 

Not true; I just happen to hate everything in ROTJ.

 

I always loved ROTJ, until I got much older. Did you always have issues with the movie, or did its appeal just sort of wane until there was nothing to like anymore?

 

You gotta love this guy:
[image=http://tatooine.fortunecity.com/swampthing/97/nien_squinty_vcap.jpg]

 

ROTJ was my favorite movie as a boy, but by the time I reached adolescence, I had been exposed to enough good fiction to find it completely unpalatable. I didn't buy any of it, not Luke's journey, Vader's redemption, Leia's absence...nothing. My dissatisfaction reached such a level that after the release of ROTS, I wrote my own bloody screenplay. Now, on my shelf, there's five SW movies and a stack of 160 pages. (Not to worry, if I have a child, I'll buy ROTJ and watch it with a frozen smile on my face.)

I'd prefer not to hijack this thread, but yeah, Episode VI drives me up the wall. You could say it's my TPM.

 

Same here pretty much. Shame its the end of a saga. I really do like all the other movies.

 

QFT. The above is often overlooked in these discussions about Ben's view and what it meant.

No. For one thing, the decapitated Luke-Vader was in a scene with no dialogue, which told things purely with visuals. It had a 'surreal' element, what with the slowed-down frame movement. For some contextual dialogue, though, at the beginning of that scene: "Only what you take with you" - Yoda. It was Luke's fears that created that vision in the cave. So we know why he saw what he did.

Because all of us are assuming - probably with good reason - that the Force ghosts which 'only' Luke sees are not something that's "just in HIS head", but are also 'objective reality' in the story, since we the audience are seeing the ghosts as well (and no contextual dialogue like in the Dagobah cave scene to indicate that these force ghost visions are there due to Luke's mindset/feelings, no 'surreal'/slo-mo element, etc).

 

Read the ROTJ script.

 

"The good man who was your father" Explains why Luke saw what he did as well.

I don't take anything in Star Wars as "objective fact" so that may be where our disagreement lies.
It also may help to not attach any static meaning to these films which are so familiar to us. I still maintain that Vader's return to the good side always had a resurrection quality within the context of "your father was killed" POV, but the trilogy itself has taken on different meanings in light of the prequels.
The introduction of the Netherworld of the Force offers a "objective factual" place for not only Ghostly Ben to reside and commune with Luke, but also Anakin. With Yoda and Ben being able to use their minds to walk and talk from Netherworld to Galaxy, I would trust their judgment of who's dead and who's living over, say, my own.
If people can accept that Jesus was God on earth, that God was in heaven, and that Jesus prayed to God, I can accept Anakin was dead while Darth Vader lived. It's only a story.

 

If by the "good man who was your father" you mean the man before he turned, Luke never met 'that father'...he only 'met' the guy who was conflicted and finally did good in the end. Hence, I don't think the above is an 'explanation' at all for what Luke saw.

I'm not sure our 'disagreement' lies there. I mean, we can surely agree about certain basic things that happened in the story/film, right?

See above. Yes, I understand that contexts change sometimes, but again, we can agree on certain basic things which took place in the films.

One could maintain that the prequels have 'shifted' the meaning of ROTJ/the OT back to the "your father was killed" POV*, except it's now a 'fact' and not just certain characters' point(s) of view.

As for myself, I cannot 'maintain' the 'resurrection' quality of Anakin's redemption in ROTJ, because I know that element was not 'there' in the story when the movie was first released, and even with the Hayden ghost change, I'm still not 'certain' that it's the 'intended meaning' now.

*and remember, the whole "your father was killed" POV came about originally because in the story, Luke's father WAS literally killed. That's another contextual factor.

OK, but even such a 'high-plane of existence' did not make them 'infallible' - they** could not see that Anakin/Vader would change for the good one day, in fact they seemed pretty sure that he would not. That was added drama, too, that even with such a set-up, Luke was still on his own, and needed to really follow his own advice come ROTJ.

**or at least Ben, since we only see him and not Yoda speak from the netherworld.

I understand, and if that biblical/Christian analogy works for you, then ok. With myself, my 'acceptance' of elements of the stories/movies will be based on things internal to the stories/movies...iow, whether they cohere overall with the rest of the movies.

 

You're taking only the events of ROTJ into account. Ben explains why Vader is dead to Luke. He's mechanical, and he's not the same person anymore. He is, in a sense, dead. It's not illustrated on screen like the prequels, but the idea has been there since 1983. Is Ben lying in that scene too?

The original intent of that scene so far gone, I don't know why you would even bring that up.

 

StampidHD280pro, I'm going to move this discussion over to the new "Hayden vs. Shaw" thread, if that's ok.