PT Rebuttal: RLM's Attack of the Clones Review

Padme came from Naboo. It's her home, and the beginning of the movie implies that it's her default location. It's where lots of her family, friends, coworkers, employees, and allies are. She came to Coruscant to vote in the Senate, and it was on Coruscant that she was threatened with assassination attempts.

Stoklasa makes an incorrect statement that he passes off so easily as pure fact. No, Obi-Wan does not know that Anakin is "in love" with her. He realizes that Anakin regards her as a friend. He saw Anakin in apparent dismay because Padme didn't seem to particularly care for him in the beginning, despite what they had went through ten years ago. But he didn't know what Anakin was thinking, and distrust him to that extent.

And oh yeah, Anakin was already assigned to Padme. After the bomb attack in the beginning, Chancellor Palpatine suggests Jedi protection for Padme. Padme rejects the help at first, and only accepts it when Palpatine says that he can assign an "old friend" like Obi-Wan to her. I went over Padme's character arc from TPM to AOTC in my rebuttal to RLM's Episode I review, describing details of her character that apparently went right over Stoklasa's head despite how clear they were.

In TPM, Padme is starts out with an overwhelmed young girl, who's incapable of handling the ridiculous responsibilities of her throne. She's also naive, and turns to a variety of people in the Republic government for help. Almost all of them are corrupt and let her down, willfully choosing to overlook the the Trade Federation's crimes. Padme loses faith in others, and takes it upon herself to save her homeworld.

In AOTC, we see that Padme is a much stronger and more independent woman. But her past experiences have also made her very distrusting of others' help. She initially rejects the Jedi's help, and she chooses to set a trap for her assassin using only R2-D2 and Anakin. The circle of people that Padme trusts is very small. Anakin was not only already involved, but he was in that circle. What are the Jedi (who don't know about his secret love either) supposed to do? Antagonize her by switching up her bodyguard in the middle of things?

What's his point here? Seriously, he has no real argument against Anakin's assignment, instead of some false claim that the Jedi knew about his love for her. He's basically insisting that there's a problem, without bothering to actually explain how there is one.

And oh yeah, Mace Windu flat out says "The boy has exceptional skills." Skills he demonstrated during the Coruscant chase scene, when he was clearly more powerful than Obi-Wan.

As others have pointed out, assassinations are more likely to take place at night, and superpowered psychic warrior Anakin is standing right there with her. Also, those same windows are shielded against the outside.

Yes, Anakin the psychic warrior with his own Spider-Sense didn't detect any danger from those robots, and rig

Since I'm not watching the video, I can't comment on how the actors supposedly behaved. But isn't Stoklasa the one who read all sorts of "terrified" expressions out of completely calm Lucasfilm employees during the TPM review?

Oh wait, is this more of that brilliant "humor" of his?

Of course, this "insightful" film critic always seems to gloss over things from the movie that he could edit over an hour of clips from, without ever paying any real attention to.

Look, I'm not going to argue that the Anakin/Padme romance showed good judgment from the characters, or was justified with the best reasons. It didn't. But we see the courtship taking place. Anakin is immediately attracted to her, as young men tend to be toward pretty girls. It's implied that he sees her as an idealized symbol of his happier childhood, before a decade of the restrictive Jedi lifestyle. Anakin flat out says that she "hasn't changed a bit," and that he's had dreams about her since.

For her part, Padme is initially dismissive of him. She hasn't met with him in ten years, and she still sees him as the little boy whom she briefly knew. But Anakin persists with his advances, showering her with affection. And there's some decent interaction as well, which never gets mentioned by all the people who complain about how "wooden" Anakin's love lines are. After the two of them leave Obi-Wan and the handmaiden Dorme on the bus, Padme says "Suddenly I'm afraid." Anakin replies "This is my first assignment on my own. I am too." They bond as two young people alone in the galaxy together, unsure of themselves but with each other to lean on. Anakin breaks the tension with a joke ("Don't worry, we have R2 with us!") which gets her to laugh.

But the real turning point is when they're on the ship to Naboo. Anakin explains the restrictive Jedi lifestyle, which bans attachment and possession. However, he emphasizes that the Jedi very much believe in compassion, which he equates to the purest form of love. These words, by the way, are said as he's looking at her face to face. These comments clearly impress Padme as deep and mature, and she remarks that Anakin has changed so much from the little boy she once knew him as. Right after saying that, she gives him a lingering look, showing that she's starting to see something in him.

Again, Padme is characterized as a distrustful loner who's consumed by the duties of her office. So someone expressing affection and talking so openly about love to her is something that she doesn't experience very often.

But no, these characters only like each other because they're both hawt and sexay! INSIGHTFUL!

Who brings up this lousy non-excuse? Certainly not me. Strawman argument, anyone?

Uh, Padme is well aware that Anakin is prohibited from romantic relationships. And shagging your bodyguard with a serious debate about the militarization act on

Great summary, Cryo! I wrote a few similar points myself, but this is a very eloquent and insightful explanation of things.

Real insight.

Good rebuttal, JR - Yours too, Cryo (and anakinsfan )! Are people actually calling his reviews insightful? Good grief.

Luuke: The transition is supposed to take 1-3 weeks. It'll be a long wait, but it's definitely worth it to keep everything in the same thread!





Posts - they are good
/LM

That's interesting to hear, I already kind of got the impression that this aspect of the film making differs from the OT. Watching some of the Revenge of the Sith duels in slow-motion for example really paints a deeper picture, it makes sense that these scenes were analysed frame-by-frame. And the layering is more than just eye-candy IMO, there is a richness to the world presented in the prequels, particularly ROTS, that can actually make up for the less 'lived-in' feel when compared to the OT. I remember the intricately made clock quote, I agree wholeheartedly, these films are more complex than they intially appear. While I can relate to those lamenting what could have been, for example wishing more of the Jedi Temple raid was shown, I think a lot of critics chalk it down to laziness on Lucas' part. IMO is is quite the contrary, you can tell he has watched the different versions of the film during production repeatedly, and tried to look at how each version/stage affects and is affected by the other films in the saga.

Oh I get which vision you were talking about now. I was confused because the jealousy scene I was referring to was on Mustafar, when Anakin first sees Obi-Wan, who was there unbeknownst to Padme.
Your parallel universe approach is a fitting way of representing it. And what you are saying about the Anakin's emotions and limitations on his mind dictating what happens in Star Wars is a great point. Sidious seemingly offers a way beyond these problems, but ironically it just leads Anakin to end up trapped in his own mind.

HA! Thanks, guys!

Jim, I'd like to think I worded that well, but the observations are really a light synthesis of comments made here, and primarily, by Donald Trull, the web owner of Lard Biscuit Enterprises.

I don't know if you know, Jim, but Mr. Trull famously wrote a passionate polemic on TPM not long after it came out, vigorously defending it with a series of erudite chapters on why, in his opinion, it's a pretty terrific movie --> http://www.lardbiscuit.com/lard/ilovetpm.html

After AOTC came out, he did the same thing, but this time, he went deeper, structuring his essays more precisely, and talking about the movie on its own terms, rather than through the lens of defending it from, well, attack --> http://www.lardbiscuit.com/lard/shroud.html

The best of all those parts, in my opinion, is this one, from which I have taken the following --> http://www.lardbiscuit.com/lard/shroud2.html

Overall, Trull's treatises on I and II (he's never bothered writing one for III) probably still rank as the single best defence of these movies -- or extolling of their basic depths -- that has ever been undertaken. Definitely worth a read. There could be worse things to chew through as TFN shuts down and transitions to its new home.

Ok, everybody. The transition has finally occured. It has been a long wait, I think it is now time to continue this thread and take care of this unfinished business. Here is the next part of the RLM AOTC review:

See Padme has no reason to not want to be in a relationship. She is not the Queen anymore, she is just a senator. She should be on the prowl for action on the side. Edwards style baby. And Anakin should be trying to keep his composure instead and stick with what he had just been taught for the last 10 years, maybe be somewhat resistant at first....I dunno just seem to make more sense that way. And it'd be fitting metaphorically too. She tempts him and begins the process of ruining his jedi training and causing the destruction of paradise.....apple anyone?....but while Padme is supposedly against them falling in lovem she allows for them to take romantic walks through sceneic vistas, dine is elegant settings, frolic in the fields, and roll around with each other in the grass. Then she wears sexy revealing clothing. Often times in front of a fireplace, exposing the contour deatils of her sexy a** body and t*****S...I still can't decide if this is the worst screen writing ever or if this girl is the biggest galactic c**ktease since Angen (spelling?). It's almost comical how all of this is played out. These characters are so flat and uninteresting and Lucas doesn't seem to know how to write dialogue between two real people. That we basically have to be told that they are in love. We can't actually experience it or feel it, because I suspect he doesn't know how to convey it. They are both attractive people and smile alot. They're in love! They rode in on a space gondola, just like in venice...the most romantic city on earth. They're in love! There is no substance to any of this. (shows Han and Leia kissing from ESB) And in the end this simple moment between two characters had a million times more depth and realism than even this biggest fake waterfalls a computer could make. Now you say, maybe they are in love. And maybe I just don't see it cause I am a psycopath who butchers women. To that I say, lets turn to further anaysis to find our conclusion. NOw I have analysed this film with two experts in the field of true love. Pornstar Jocolyn James and Tiger Woods. Both have provided my with value insigh about love and stable monogomous relationships.Most men, especially Anakin, a 19 year old male with raging hormones, the list of what he is looking for in a relationship is rather short. 1. Is she hot? 2. Seriously bro. How hot is she?....and that's it. Now what women are looking for is a little more complex. Their list is as follows: (girl voiceover) does he have a good job? Where does he live and what kind of car does he drive? He needs to be confident without being too arrogant. He needs to be funny butnot tto funny..(goes on to list a slew of ther things as if rambling on a list of things). Now when courting a woman, she will be interested in two things: That you don't look like Danny DiVeto and that you do and say all of the right things. SInce Anakin looks like a guy from a JC Penny catalogue, he is safe in the looks department. But can his actions and his words hold up. Put it to the test. See when you say something right....(goes on to show his perverted footage of having a girl in captive who is horrified by a bag he pulls out and he is going to torture her with what he pulls out of the bag which he reveals to be an AOTC VHS ideo tape. He then yells,"you are going to watchi it!" as she screams in horror.)

Just wanted to say: does a story have to have a main character? Stories can be great without them - for example, see the acclaimed children's classic The Pushcart War.

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with having no main character when you like all of the semi-mains. Or even if you don't/

@DarthBoba

I was under the impression that Luukeskywalker transcribed that entire portion of the review, which is quite a bit of work in and of itself.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is really worthwhile continuing myself, but I do like discussing Padmé and her motivations (because I feel she's often dismissed a bit too readily). So, anyway, here's my analysis and rebuttal:

See Padme has no reason to not want to be in a relationship. She is not the Queen anymore, she is just a senator. She should be on the prowl for action on the side. Edwards style baby.

I don't agree that Padmé has "no reason not to be in a relationship." For one thing, I imagine it's quite a bit more difficult to pursue a relationship with a Jedi as a Senator than as a Queen. Why? Because the Jedi serve the Senate, and they are expected to act as mediators. Impartiality, then, is going to be an important characteristic. If Anakin and Padmé were married and he was ever involved in a dispute that concerned Naboo even remotely, the other parties could very well accuse him of bias and would reject Jedi involvement should the marriage be discovered. As a Queen, Padmé would have likely been more free to pursue a relationship with a Jedi. As a Senator, though, I can imagine that marrying a Jedi in secret would be an ethical violation and could get her dragged before an Senate committee.

All of this, also, does not even touch upon Padmé's vast devotion to duty. She never truly wanted to be a Senator in the first place, but felt compelled to serve because she felt the Republic needed her. That is, in some ways, one of her biggest flaws -- she martyrs herself to her causes, seeing herself as the only one who can "save" them. It's unselfish, but also a bit self-righteous of her.

She does want to be in a relationship, but she resists because she knows very well that she shouldn't, although she's much free than Anakin to be in one, ironically.

And Anakin should be trying to keep his composure instead and stick with what he had just been taught for the last 10 years, maybe be somewhat resistant at first....I dunno just seem to make more sense that way.

What exactly had he been taught? He knows nothing of romance. He probably never saw a healthy relationship on Tatooine, seeing how he was a slave and slaves live with the threat of being ripped apart every day. Likewise on Coruscant -- the Jedi do not involve themselves in romantic relationships and Palpatine does not seem to have a spouse or significant other. What training is he supposed to draw on? Anakin pursuing Padmé is also a reflection of his loneliness among the Jedi and his frustration with what he perceives to be their repression of emotions.

And it'd be fitting metaphorically too. She tempts him and begins the process of ruining his jedi training and causing the destruction of paradise.....apple anyone?....but while Padme is supposedly against them falling in lovem she allows for them to take romantic walks through sceneic vistas, dine is elegant settings, frolic in the fields, and roll around with each other in the grass. Then she wears sexy revealing clothing. Often times in front of a fireplace, exposing the contour deatils of her sexy a** body and t*****S...I still can't decide if this is the worst screen writing ever or if this girl is the biggest galactic c**ktease since Angen (spelling?). It's almost comical how all of this is played out.

Padmé's dresses are a visual symbolization of her subconscious. Look at how she dresses in Coruscant for example -- very restrained, tightly pulled back, everything held in. And to maintain this, she has to resist Anakin, despite the fact that she is interested in him. Their first scene alone together, as she's packing for example, features her wearing a dress with built-in body armor while reminding him not to "grow up too fast" -- a notion which he is quick to counter by reminding her that he has grown up. When they're alone on Naboo, together, though, she's free to dress more comfortably and freely and she does so because she does want Anakin's attention (subconsciously) despite the fact that she knows she shouldn't pursue it. That was the entire point of their first kiss, showing her giving in to what she wants before her conscious, rational mind intervenes and tells her she shouldn't.

These characters are so flat and uninteresting and Lucas doesn't seem to know how to write dialogue between two real people. That we basically have to be told that they are in love. We can't actually experience it or feel it, because I suspect he doesn't know how to convey it. They are both attractive people and smile alot. They're in love! They rode in on a space gondola, just like in venice...the most romantic city on earth. They're in love! There is no substance to any of this.

There's nothing really to rebut here -- it's pure opinion dressed up in the guise of "we." I always felt it was pretty clear why Anakin liked Padmé -- she treated him like a human being when he was just a slave, when even Jar Jar and Qui-Gon initially ignored him, she stayed behind and was concerned about him. And he grew to care about her a lot. So when he was isolated in the Jedi Temple, he often drew on those memories of Padmé and his mother for comfort. Meeting her again and seeing that she's just as kind and beautiful as he remembered, he wants to have her in his life. It's somewhat different for Padmé in that she's devoted herself to a job she doesn't really want but feels compelled to do, and here comes Anakin, all grown up, and not caring one whit about her title or accolades, only about the girl he met on Tatooine ten years ago that still holds a place in his heart. Along the way, he's grown into a competent Jedi who also managed to save her life not that long ago. I think it's rather romantic, actually (at least in my opinion).

(shows Han and Leia kissing from ESB) And in the end this simple moment between two characters had a million times more depth and realism than even this biggest fake waterfalls a computer could make.

No. I always hated this scene. It drives me up a wall. If Anakin pressed Padmé into a wall, wouldn't let go of her hand, and kissed her after she said "stop that," people would call him a rapist. I have always disliked the "No means Yes" undertones in Han and Leia's relationship in ESB. Not to mention the fact that Han behaves extremely childishly in the opening of the film for a supposed "experienced, suave" man. Their relationship in ROTJ is much better.

Most men, especially Anakin, a 19 year old male with raging hormones, the list of what he is looking for in a relationship is rather short. 1. Is she hot? 2. Seriously bro. How hot is she?....and that's it.

Wow, I still can't believe how much he missed the mark here. Did he really not see all of those women in the club checking Anakin out? A lot of them were quite good-looking. If all he wanted was easy sex (which is not against the Jedi Code -- attachment is), all he has to do is go and call one of those girls up. I'm sure these two really weren't interested at all in him:



Nope, not one bit :



Anakin completely and utterly ignores these women. He wants an emotional relationship. The Jedi forbid this, but he grew up with strong emotional attachments, and it's almost impossible to break one's need for them. Hence why he said he thought about Padmé so often. I doubt Anakin was thinking about hopping into bed with her when he was 10. Geez.

Now what women are looking for is a little more complex. Their list is as follows: (girl voiceover) does he have a good job? Where does he live and what kind of car does he drive? He needs to be confident without being too arrogant. He needs to be funny butnot tto funny..(goes on to list a slew of ther things as if rambling on a list of things).

Wow, way to reinforce gender stereotypes. But this all ignores one thing -- Padmé is not the type who seems drawn to power or prestige. She turned down an additional term as Queen because of her belief in democracy. Likewise, I'm sure Padmé, as a Senator, meets many men who are powerful, with great jobs, amazing cars, and who are bursting with confidence. But that hardly seems to be what she wants.

Now when courting a woman, she will be interested in two things: That you don't look like Danny DiVeto and that you do and say all of the right things. SInce Anakin looks like a guy from a JC Penny catalogue, he is safe in the looks department. But can his actions and his words hold up. Put it to the test. See when you say something right...

There's not much to say here. I think RLM really ignores how powerful it is to have someone completely interested in you, in you as a person, when you've spent so much time being a public servant and being perceived as a means to an end. Anakin is also unfalteringly honest with Padmé about his feelings for her but lets her make decisions in the end which I'm sure, in the world she's inhabited, is a rare quality indeed.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with this rebuttal but I have to disagree on your stance with Han and Leia. Han is a completely different type of character from Anakin and for that character, that approach to going after Leia works for him. For a character like Anakin who isn't smooth and has lived a large portion of his life in isolation, he would likely approach Padme with that more nervous attitude. I've been in love like that before and the types of things Anakin said aren't too far off from the types of things I said. So yes, I sympathize with Anakin because I see a bit of myself in that character, even though Han is the character I wish I was more like.

I agree that Han and Anakin are two completely different types of characters and that Anakin is necessarily more awkward than Han. I simply despise the implication in ESB that Han knows what Leia wants more than she does and because of this, he's allowed to invade her personal space and ignore her protests. I honestly don't mind that Leia is portrayed as not wanting to admit her attraction to him and that Han, being more experienced, recognizes this. Where I draw the line, however, is when he touches her after she specifically tells him not to. The two big examples of this are the scene where he holds on to her as she says "let go, please" and when he presses her up against a wall and kisses her after she said "stop that."

It really gives the whole thing a "no means yes" type of atmosphere that I'm very uncomfortable with. The scenes would have been immeasurably improved if Leia hadn't said anything, had perhaps blushed or something, but as it stands, it shows Han ignoring every word she says because he thinks he knows better. And I simply don't like it at all.

Uh, for your information I spend alot of time transcribing the review word for word listening to it (play, pause, and rewind) from youtube. It takes me about 30 minutes give or take to do one of those posts of the little sections of the review.

OMG. I knew RLM was a crazy person trying to be funny, but his comments about boy's and girl's desires are just so...stereotype and retarded.
All boys want is sex and girls are just looking for big cars and other big things...omg

Short and to the point. I likey!

Yeah, DB, put the knives down. In case you hadn't noticed, this has been Luuke's modus operandi since starting the thread. And I'd say it's worked really well. If thread now dies, it will be because it was decimated by a six-month board move, where hundreds of thousands of posts -- and dozens in this thread alone -- are still missing content.

Back to your transcript, Luuke...

Anij. Played by Donna Murphy. Captain Picard's fancy piece in "Star Trek: Insurrection", the ninth -- and some would say, rather lame -- Star Trek movie, and third of the TNG films. Personally, I never got the sense that Anij was being a "c**ktease", but merely a woman with a warm, sensual streak, bonding with a somewhat-uptight Starfleet captain. That may be instructive here, if only to indicate that Padme herself comes from a sensual planet, so this alleged "teasing" shouldn't be anything untoward for anyone schooled -- in-universe -- in the basics of Naboo society and customs.

I'm not sure why Stoklasa/Plinkett thinks that Padme should have been "on the prowl", either. He's rather dictatorial in this segment, and seems a little misogynistic, too -- but then, that *is* his character (well, Plinkett's), I suppose. It becomes a problem when other people take these suggestions seriously, though. What's missed here is that Padme is actually closer to the Jedi ideal than Anakin, in a way. She has been able to dedicate her life to public service and put relationships out of her mind; almost supernaturally conditioned herself out of sex and romance, even while the roots of it lie all around her. But Anakin is obviously frustrated with his time in the Jedi Order, and seeing Padme awakens the sleeping dragon within him. In turn, Padme herself is awakened, but she's obviously fighting it for a lot of the film.

The "forbidden" aspect of their love is wholly necessary to this span of the tale. Jedi and Senators are not meant to intermingle like this. There's meant to be a propriety distance between the institutions and, therefore, the members of those institutions. If people learned of this union, there might well be hard questions put about the trustworthiness and authority of the Jedi, and what good is their sacred code if members are breaking it in this fashion? Are the Jedi sleeping with Senators to gain more power and influence in the Republic? DOWN WITH THE JEDI! That sort of thing. And Senators would surely be made to feel discouraged from attempting to seduce Jedi in the first place. So it's a tricky path that Anakin and Padme are going down.

Ugh. That "dialogue between two real people" barb is such a cliched remark, even for Stoklasa/Plinkett -- who, at the very least, normally offers original-sounding criticisms. This one is straight out of Lucas Bashing 101.

Ironically, some might say, in comparison, it's the Han-Leia pairing that lacks substance. The actors have a chemistry, and I think their screwball affair is reasonably well-conveyed, lending their union a certain poignancy and beauty -- especially when Han is frozen -- but how well does either know the other, really? Anakin and Padme are actually more connected, owed to their early years of service to institutions that care little for them. In fact, when they first got to Coruscant, isolated and afraid, they were both rejected: Padme by the Senate and Anakin by the Council. They shared some early, precious moments together, and they knew the sting of being rebuffed at a desperate time, so their bond goes deeper than whatever exists between Han and Leia, I think. Lucas obviously throws up a lot of superficially-affecting locations in AOTC that scream "romance", but that doesn't mean he's solely relying on the locations to convey meaning, or that they must only be conveying one basic meaning at a time.

This is a rather cheap, snide bash against the pictorial beauty of AOTC, no? I guess, because some of it was done inside a computer, that must make it empty nonsense. What makes this even better -- *sarcasm* -- is that Plinkett otherwise ignores the meadow scene, except for a quick visual gag involving Anakin with a moustache and beret, and a misguided (if, in his context, apparently devastating) attempt to say the character supports fascism. No mention is made of how Padme is clearly warming to Anakin in a big way in this scene, or some of the smoother methods Anakin uses to break down her defences: showing some diligence/honesty about the political system and his frustration with it, making Padme think he's purely teasing her, and having her invest to the point of thinking he might be dead when he falls off the Naboo tic creature (I forget its name right now [EDIT: shaak]), which ends in some rather intimate touching/rolling in the grass.

This is more of a preamble for the ticks-and-crosses vignette Stoklasa pulls out in his next segment. I don't know what to say about this exact passage here, except that he is obviously being incredibly facetious with the "experts" remark and who he goes on to nominate. I do crack up at that remark, though, as well as the quips about Danny DeVito and Anakin looking like he comes from a J.C. Penney catalogue. Unfortunately, I think he also miscategorizes Anakin's pursuit of Padme. It is not merely about Padme's hotness, but also that reassuring, maternal quality she has, and even her social standing. I mean, she represents a high ideal: one that Anakin thinks he might have a chance with (cockiness during the packing scene), but is also sh*t-scared of truly imposing himself on (the kiss at the lake). Trust Stoklasa/Plinkett to reduce it to crude banalities that don't stand up in reality.

[EDIT: Nice post, PiettsHat. I only read it after submitting this one. I wanted a fresh crack of the whip before reading anyone else's. Seems you covered a lot of the same ground; and you made a lot of extra comments of interest, too. Good work.]

Given that he's an egotistical ******* anyway, the fact that he's also sexist doesn't surprise me in the least.

The way I see it, RLM's PT reviews are little more than a bandwagon for people who already hated them.

It seems that there was an RLM fan in another thread who flat-out said that that's what they were. That RLM had no intention of winning people to his side and his reviews are only there to preach to the choir.

And no, there is nothing wrong with a movie having more than one main character or "clear protagonist" or whatever the hell he wants to call it.

I like that AOTC showed us the restrictions Anakin had to deal with as a Jedi. It really helps explain why he would have gotten bitter with the Council and their strict code before the events in ROTS.

Along with the TPM, Episode II emphasizes why Anakin was doomed to fall to the dark side.

You see, he pretty much lived his entire life in chains. Watto first owned him as a slave, and he wasn't able to leave because of the slave device implanted in him. The Jedi Order did not allow him the freedom to do what he wanted, including returning to Tatooine to free his mother, because the Jedi Code forbade it. His actions as Darth Vader caused him to become dependent on technology to keep him alive, but again, it only served to keep him as a slave to the Emperor.

Which makes the Sith credo "Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me" all the more ironic- for him, turning to the Sith made him, ultimately, less free, not more.

Cryo posted:

The "forbidden" aspect of their love is wholly necessary to this span of the tale. Jedi and Senators are not meant to intermingle like this. There's meant to be a propriety distance between the institutions and, therefore, the members of those institutions. If people learned of this union, there might well be hard questions put about the trustworthiness and authority of the Jedi, and what good is their sacred code if members are breaking it in this fashion? Are the Jedi sleeping with Senators to gain more power and influence in the Republic? DOWN WITH THE JEDI! That sort of thing. And Senators would surely be made to feel discouraged from attempting to seduce Jedi in the first place. So it's a tricky path that Anakin and Padme are going down.

End quote.

This is exactly the point Lucas was trying to convey in the films. RLM just wanted to ignore it as some cheap excuse for them to not get involved.

I just caught up on a few of the posts.

One, the fact that people take RLM seriously when he thinks making fun of a character's looks constitutes good commentary, is so pathetic that it's hilarious.

Two, the fact that RLM thinks that no 19-year-old man can form a coherent thought about a woman beyond, "Dude, she's hawt," is also so pathetic that it's hilarious. RLM, speak for yourself. Bro. There are 19-year-old men who are capable of appreciating a woman beyond her appearance, and there are 19-year-old men capable of having intelligent conversations with women without gazing at their boobs or their asses. I have met several of them.

Three, the fact that he thought that Padme should be involved in John Edwards-esque-type affairs, again shows how deep in the gutter his mind really is. Maybe that's the type of thing RLM would be doing if he were Senator, but Padme was above that, which is why she is a better character than he would ever be.