The Key to what was Wrong

The Key to what was Wrong

Take that key and lock yourself in your Tower of Hate.

Then throw the key out the window.

 

I completely agree with Green_Destiny's first set of responses and some of the later ones as well.

Did you ever notice that each film of the OT could stand up on its own as a separate film?
The PT films merely build toward the OT without having any sense of beginning, middle, and end. Each PT film should have been a convincing story of its own.

Other ideas:

1. Scrap the Rule of Two. In some way, Maul should have been Dooku's Secret Apprentice. Agree that Dooku should have been in it from 1.


2. This would have made Qui Gon's Death more meaningful. Or, Qui Gon shouldn't have died but should have been shown having a greater role in raising Anakin as a Jedi.

3. Imagine this scene: Anakin is a young 14 year old Jedi. On a trip to Naboo, he breaks off (already showing signs of independent spirit) and visits his mother. He agrees to Pod Race to Free Her and Frees her...attempting to care for her. He leaves her on Tatooine. Then, her death in II would have been all that much more crushing.

4. By Mixing Padme into his life and love of his mother earlier...it would have explained a lot more.

5. Furthermore, having a bunch of scenes of Anakin training as a jedi would have been awesome!

Just some thoughts.

 

3. Imagine this scene: Anakin is a young 14 year old Jedi. On a trip to Naboo, he breaks off (already showing signs of independent spirit) and visits his mother. He agrees to Pod Race to Free Her and Frees her...attempting to care for her. He leaves her on Tatooine. Then, her death in II would have been all that much more crushing

I don't think this would have worked because I think, plot-wise, that Anakin needs something to turn him against the establishment of the Jedi. The Jedi not wanting Anakin to be attached prevented him from rescuing Shmi on Tatooine. If things had taken place as you descibed, then Anakin would have no one to blame but himself.

Edit: Also, GL has stated that he is making the prequels in the style of a three act play over the course of ten years. So, actually TPM and AOTC are not only building up to the OT, but to EP3 as well. GL has also said that EP3, the third act, will be the best because it will feature the "climax" of the PT.

 

Anakin could NOT be 24 in AOTC!

A lot of you seem to be missing the point that Anakin HAD to be 18 or 19 in AOTC!

Around 18 or 19 is when most of us leave high school and go off to college. At that point, we haven't yet discovered who we are or what we want to do in life. Hence, why so many people have such wild college experiences, since they are trying to find where they fit in.

By the time you are at age 24, you are already out of college and already have a good idea of where you are going in life.

It is by far more appropriate for Anakin to be 18 or 19 for those very reasons, since he is obviously confused and doesn't know quite what he wants.

 

i'm sick of this age difference thing.
anakin = 10?
padme =14?
during tpm

anakin = 20
padme = 24
aotc

hell even ebert can't do math he thinks shes 10 years older than anakin.
the split isn't that bad.

children=inocence that was the point all along its not hard to figure out.

 

Let me reiterate again what I said in my last post as to why I believe this has been a problem for some of us:


I think that the reason many disliked showing Anakin at 9yrs old is not so much Jake Lloyd or all discussion about the emotional detachment from his mother; but rather the problem stems from our preconceived ideas about how Anakin became a Jedi in the first place.

Before the Prequels, we knew nothing about how old children became Jedi, how they were found, and what it would mean to enter the Jedi order at an older age.

Even from the OT, when Yoda proclaimed that Luke was too old to begin the training, we had no information that Jedi children were discovered and entered the order shortly after birth.

So though Luke was around 18-20 yrs old in TESB, we all likely thought that maybe he was probably 10 years older than he should have been to start training as a Jedi, or Yoda was trying to find a way to not have to train this impatient young man.

Then there is what we thought of Obi-Wan and how he discovered Anakin; or so we thought he did until TPM. We for the most part got a completely different story than what we put together based on the info from the OT, even the words that Obi-Wan said in Yoda being the Jedi Master that instructed him.

So in reality, it is our preconceived ideas, notions and thoughts that have created these disappointments by some over seeing Anakin at 9yrs old.

The truth is, many of us wanted to see a middle-teen young man, with some anger problems, but powerful in the Force, and Obi-Wan discovers him and decides that he can train this young boy as well as Yoda trained him.

I think it is preconceived ideas from the OT that have contributed to people having a problem seeing Anakin start out at 9yrs old on his path to becoming Darth Vader.

The OT is the culprit in this case, or at least what we thought we were going to see after all these years of waiting for the Prequels.

From the OT, we had no idea about the Jedi order and its codes. It was not until TPM that we learned these things, and how one becomes a Jedi.

And as I said before, the whole idea of what we thought in terms of how Obi-Wan and Anakin became Master and Apprentice is much different than we all thought before we saw TPM. As a matter of fact, we were not even aware that it was forbidden for a Jedi to marry.

And by the way, how many of us had thought that Darth Vader was ever married!!



Darth Sin!

 

I didn't mean to say 75% of the films coming out of Hollywood were crap, it was just a manner of speaking. I suppose I should have said that SW films have been better than 75% of the films that come out of Hollywood.

I just don't understand how so much of our society can be so spoiled that TPM and AOTC can't entertain them.

Some of you sound like kids who keep asking their father to read them that bedtime story again, but who then complain the whole time because he is telling it "wrong". Why don't you guys go make a flawless film and let the rest of us enjoy what is actually possible? From where I sit, lamenting what will never be is counter productive to internal balance and harmony.

You only get one life, why not try to enjoy it?

I think I'll go pop TPM in the PS2 again just out of spite.

 

The best part of the PT. THERE IS NO LANDO!

 

Darth Sin

Man, I don't say this often...so take it with great pride.

I agree with you 100%.

The fact is that people cannot comprehend that there own expectations are what colored their views on the PT.

Everyone of us has guessed wrong about the true orgins of Vader.

And I, for one am glad. For Lucas has a tale to tell, and I for one am going to listen to what he says. Not Marvel Comics. Not EU. Not to what I believe.

Just Mr. Lucas and a couple of reels of film.

 

Well put Lukecash

 

Gee,
You guys have all got a lot more sensitive to criticism in the month I've been away...

Only one point I want to answer, and it's the dumbest of all: that it is George's baby and so we shouldn't ever complain about it (or go and make our own movie, yada yada.)

Er, no. GL might literally own SW, but the cultural value of the saga belongs to all of us. To say that no opinion we hold matters is absurd.

And by the way, he admits this himself.

 

I agree, BellyButton. It's totally ridiculous to not allow negative reviews of AOTC by saying "It's George's baby, he just tells the story he wants"

By that logic none of you is allowed to say anything bad about Godzilla. Why? Because it's Roland Emmerich's vision and story and ONLY HE knows what's right and wrong. Negative reviews are also forbidden for The Avengers and Battelfield Earth.

And PLEASE give me a break about this age-old argument "You're not allowed to criticise AOTC because you haven't made a film yourself and you have no talent in filmmaking".

Apart from the fact that I HAVE made films (I studied film together with the aforementioned Roland Emmerich actually but that's a different story) it is of course my right as a paying customer to review the product I payed for. When you pay a lot of money for a new computer and it's crap then you're entitled to badmouth the company even if you are NOT able to build a computer yourself. If you pay a lot of money in a fancy restaurant and the wine is bad you're entitled to say so despite the fact that you might not know how to make wine yourself.

Lucas is a better filmmaker than I am. So much is true. But the difference between us is that George only lets you see his work for money. And the moment you pay for something you do have the right to say whatever you like about it.

on a sidenote: I noticed that even the biggest bashers see some positive points in the PT, however the biggest gushers (Shelley) could never ever see even the slightest bit wrong with anything in those films. They will defend every single line of dialogue as 100000% perfect until they die. Sad really

 

"Lucas' reason was box office - the dumb idea that kids want to see kids in movies. When I was a 10 year old kid and saw Luke I wanted to be him - I didn't want him to be me."

Yeah, I guess that's the reason Home Alone and Harry Potter flopped. No one wants to see kids as the hero in a movie

 

Anakin so should have been 14 in TPM. That would have eliminated that creepy pedophile feeling about the "romantic feelings" between Anakin and Padme in TPM. Her making googly eyes at a 9 year old really disturbed me.

And anyways, if he was 14, he'd be a ball of hormones and I might get a better sense of Anakin actually having feelings for Padme. Even as a 14 year old it would still had been dramatic for him to leave his mom. I know I sure as heck wasn't ready to face life at 14.

Oh well, I can change history . . . not yet

 

It's not nearly as difficult for a 14 year old to be permanantly separated from his mother than it is for a 9 year old. If Anaking was 14 one of the key factors that turn him to the dark side, the attachment to his mother, would have been diluted an even lost. Anakin's character would fall apart.

 

But in Home Alone and Harry Potter, the child is actually the star of the film -- the main character. Anakin certainly doesn't have enough involvement with the story to make him feel like a true main character. If anything, TPM appears to be Qui-Gon's story, and to a lesser extent, Obi-Wan's.

(and the story of ILM's 1999 special effects portfolio)

 

"It's not nearly as difficult for a 14 year old to be permanantly separated from his mother than it is for a 9 year old."

Actually , you might be right.

14-year old "Away from my mother for 10 years? Yeah! Yippee!!!!! Party time!!!! Now I can play video games for as long as I want to and use those drugs that that Irish Jedi hippie seems to smoke on a regular basis"

 

I posted this earlier, but in case anyone missed it--

I hear a lot a criticism about the age difference between Padme and Anakin in TPM. One possible reason GL may have decided to have the Anakin character be 9, and thus pre-pubescent, was to indicate that his relationship with Padme was more than just sexual attraction. Just something to consider, I think.

 

I agree with most people here in that Anakin should have been older, 14 probably, then having Luke being trained at around 18-20 in ANH would be acceptable. When Yoda said in TESB that Luke was too old he didn't mention age. This would lead to Obi-wan being a little older then he discovers Anakin and wants to train him instead of needing Qui-Gon in the story. Most of us probably thought Obi-wan took it upon himself to train Anakin as a jedi instead of being forced to in order to keep a promise.

 

Go-Mer-Tonic

"I just don't understand how so much of our society can be so spoiled that TPM and AOTC can't entertain them"

Really? I mean, you've been on this board for three years and you are still incapable of understanding this?

Wow. I understood it within an hour of logging on here!

Can I ask, are the any films which you don't enjoy? If there are, do you blame yourself for not enjoying them?

I assume from the posts on this thread that we can't say that anything negative about Scooby Doo, because 1) most of us haven't made a film and 2) because Scooby Doo isn't "our baby".

On topic, I don't really see how many of the problems people seem to have with TPM and AOTC could be solved by simply upping Anakin's age by 5 years. If you think GL did a bad job of writing convincingly for a 9 year old, why do you think his writing would be any better for a 14 year old?

Also, problems that you might have with Obi-Wan's role would still exist.

Likewise, if the..."bond" between Padme and Anakin is unconvincing in TPM, surely the way to fix it would be to show greater interaction? Changing the age without changing the length and number of scenes these two have together would be ineffective.

 

Most of us probably thought Obi-wan took it upon himself to train Anakin as a jedi instead of being forced to in order to keep a promise.

People may have thought this, but that is irrelevent. What matters is what GL comes up with and brings to the screen. And I personally think that Obi-Wan training Anakin because of a promise between him and Qui-Gon makes the PT so much more powerful. It's sort of a "duty above self" kind of thing.

 

If you think GL did a bad job of writing convincingly for a 9 year old, why do you think his writing would be any better for a 14 year old?

The script writing would have been the same, but no Jake Lloyd

 

I can't believe I'm actually getting into this...

Whatever anyone thinks about the age of Anakin, Lucas says (in the Making of Episode I book) that deciding what age to make him was difficult. According to Lucas it would have been easier to justify stuff like the podrace if Anakin had been 15, and the casting sure would have been easier.

But as he reasons - there are actually 9 year olds who race go-carts and fly planes. It IS possible. And Anakin's separation from his mother is paramount to the story; a part that would be sacrificed if Anakin had been made a more independent adolescent.

As it is, Lucas had to make a choice. And he DID give it thought.

Be honest - are anyone of you really saying he made the wrong choice? That it would be better to sacrifice a key plot point in Anakin's fall to the dark side, just to avoid a 9 year old kid? Really?

 

Wait a minute... we were supposed to feel sadness for Anakin leaving his mother!? Since it was all over in 2 minutes, I didn't think it was that big a deal.

 

you heartless christmas poo!