The Key to what was Wrong

Anakin believes/worries that he won't see his mother again, and says so, in nearly those exact words when he says goodbye to her.

Anakin believes he won't see Padme again, and says so when he goes to say goodbye to her in TPM, even directly referencing his training as the reason why (and he isn't in any romantic relationship at that point).

The Council makes clear that Anakin's attachment to his mother is an impediment to his training, so much so that they don't want to train him at all, at first.

Just from TPM alone, I don't see why it's terribly hard to believe that Anakin was not allowed any contact with his mother while he was training as a Jedi, or that the Jedi forbid attachments generally. Even without Anakin explicitly saying so in AOTC. JMHO.

 

I wrote:

Seriously, I see your point. It's an incredible coincidence - kind of like how Shmi manages to hold out just long enough to die in Anakin's arms right when he's rescuing her!

Import_Jedi replied:

Don't forget Qui-Gon living just long enough to touch Obi-Wan's lips before dying in TPM

I know - it was so nice to see that romance had not left the "SW" saga! LOL!

 

I thought he meant attachments of the romantic variety.

Let's see...the conversation goes:

Padme: It must be difficult having sworn your life to the Jedi. Not being able to do the things you like...

Anakin: Or be with the people that I love?

Padme: Are you allowed to love? I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi.

Anakin: Attachment is forbidden, possession is forbidden...

Seems to me that Anakin was referring to love in general, not romantic love specifically.

Of course, I drew that conclusion from the context of the conversation - how foolish of me!

I drew a different conclusion. How foolish of me! I wish I could be as smart as you!

I didn't see his Mommy mentioned anywhere on the poster. Silly me, I thought the poster was referring to romantic love - especially since it showed him with Padmé, not his Mommy. Oh well, what do I know?

So much more than I do, evidently, because you are so clever and need things spelled out for you. Wait, that doesn't make any sense...

 

this thread has lost what little intelligence it had in the first place. apparently we're not allowed to discuss our opinions of descrepancies in the sw movies without three or four very vocal posters repeating themselves and others, and picking apart people's posts to the point of annoying redundancy, until the thread becomes a virtual argument. of course all this could be avoided if the people who don't want to read our negative opinions on the movies just didn't open the thread anymore. instead they insist on making any kind of discussion impossible with their offensive behavior.
peace.

EDIT: shelly, is it absolutely necessary to post five times in a row? we get the idea. you want everybody who posts in a thread about what's wrong with the movies to leave, so it can become yet another gusher thread.

 

There sure seem to be a lot of bashers overrunning the threads nowadays; it's driven some people away.

 

All of this does make sense with what is in the films. You have to be able to put things together in a logical fashion.

If you are waiting for every plot point to be explained for an hour, it's not going to happen.

Either you get into this enough to understand these films, or you leave it at "I don't understand".

If that's how you prefer it, that's great.

But don't expect Lucas to dumb this saga down for people who refuse to put in the effort.

 

There sure seem to be a lot of bashers overrunning the threads nowadays; it's driven some people away.


Yea--to the Episode III Forum

 

i love the fact that lucas started the saga with anakin as a young and innocent slave child... then as a brash and arrogant jedi padawan... then as the menacing vader. i believe that lucas knows exactly what he's doing. he said it himself in many interviews - it's his story to tell. if you don't like his story, then DON'T LIKE IT. no one is forcing anyone to like his story. fortunately for me, i love it.

cheers!

 

"Yea--to the Episode III Forum"

LOL Actually, I hang out at the SW Misc. forums more now than here... eventhe CT forums are more fun. OH well.


::slaps himself before Import_Jedi can do so::

 

Gomer:

But don't expect Lucas to dumb this saga down for people who refuse to put in the effort.

Oh, I understood this movie perfectly well. If anything, I think the movie is too "dumbed-down." That's why most of us wished for a stronger, tighter script, and some acting that at least shows some believability. I don't care if you think AOTC has hit the ceiling and can get no better in the script-writing or acting department -- I personally think there's still a lot of room left for improvement, and Lucas wouldn't have to lose and arm and a leg to achieve them.

 

You could say that about any film ever made.

 

every film except fear and loathing in los vegas, time bandits, star wars (anh), the great muppet caper, drugstore cowboy, the empire strikes back, and many others.

 

fear and loathing in los vegas, time bandits

You a Terry Gilliam fan Zeek. I love his work. Monty Python rules.

Oh and don't forget Brazil

 

i found room for improvement in brazil, which is why i haven't coughed up the 50-60 bux for the critieron collection (which looks very inticing) although gilliam is my fav director.

 

They have a criterion edition for Brazil? Wow, I really have been out of the loop. Yes, there was definitely room for improvement, but its still one movie that I love. I've shown it to my friends and they think I'm certifiably crazy. Terry Gilliam is one of my fav's too along with David Fincher as well.

How bout The Adventures of Baron Munchausen(sp?)

 

Lucas generally prefers action to plot, but everything you need to know is in the movies, even if we're not banged over the head with it.

Sometimes it is just a couple of words ("Will I ever see you again?"), sometimes it will only be implied ("Being a Jedi is a hard life") but the information is there.

Lucas is making those movies specifically knowing we will watch them multiple times. Given a choice between exposition and action, he will always pick action and let us sort out the details. He figures that after our 12th viewing, we'd much rather see a flying car chase, an asteroid battle, a clash in the rain or Yoda fighting than an exposition scene on why the Jedi can't have wives. And I tend to agree with him.

Remember, for every 5 minutes you would add to the movie for exposition, you have to remove 5 minutes elsewhere. What would you remove? The movie is tight enough as it is, I can't imagine what could be cut.

When you get the DVD, which scenes will you be watching the most? The Yoda fight scene or the "You have made a commitment to the Jedi order, a commitment not easily broken" scene? Will you be watching the asteroid chase or the "Attachment is forbidden" scene most? Come on, be honest.

Star Wars has always been like that. This is not something that popped up with the PT.

In the OT, we are never told why that tree on Dagobah was strong with the dark side, why Vader could sense Luke but not the Emperor, how Luke knows how to build a lightsaber, etc...

This is Lucas' way of doing a SW movie; it leaves a lot to our imagination and keeps us pondering long after the movie's finished. Even when episode III is done, I know a lot of questions will remain and a lot of people will again be upset and bash instead of trying to have fun figuring out the missing parts.

 

Anyway, as I was saying...

A guy called Darko Suvin in his analysis of Science Fiction and Fantasy speaks of it as resting on the concept of the "absent paradigm" by which he means that the things not said, but left to speculation give the genre its vitality. He quotes the example from the SF author Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers) of "the door dilated" - that's it, just dropped into the text in passing without explanation, but summoning up a wealth of backstory. In ANH, I think the "clone wars" did much the same - so of course, having it all literalised on screen is perhaps inevitably a disappointment. However, by the same token, Suvin says stories fall if they deploy paradigms that fall apart under their stated concepts, or worse, their absent concepts. And, ultimately, this is why (for the reasons I said at the start) that TPM and now AOTC doesn't work - in effect, it violates its own paradigm, its own canon (and please don't tell me the author is in charge here - not so as Criticism 101 will tell you.)

There you have it. No back flips. Just a director who fell off the trapeze - twice.


edit - poutine, exposition and action are not mutually exclusive! Though often that's GL's problem - it's either talk or action, never a shade of both.

 

I think it works just fine. Silly me.

 

It's not the film itself that isn't working, or none of us would get this stuff.

Let alone enjoy it.

 

thanks for the info, bellybutton. i'm intrigued by this author, and will have to give his book a go. joseph campbell also had much to say about myth, and even a bit about star wars.

"hey have a criterion edition for Brazil? Wow, I really have been out of the loop. Yes, there was definitely room for improvement,
but its still one movie that I love. I've shown it to my friends and they think I'm certifiably crazy. Terry Gilliam is one of my
fav's too along with David Fincher as well.

How bout The Adventures of Baron Munchausen(sp?)"

search amazon.com for brazil. it's on my wish list, but it just costs too freakin much.
you spelled munchausen just fine, and yes, i like it, especially uma thurman's exposed nipple, but i think it's an attempt to recapture the magic of time bandits, and not as good.
yes, i think fincher is a great director, however i find most of his subject matter to be too dark for my tastes, especially se7en.

 

When did watching movies become so complicated? I know that different people focus on different aspects for diffferent reasons. But listen to all of us. We sound ridiculous. On both sides.

I liked the movie simply because I enjoyed watching it. Is that a naive point of view? I just feel like I'm really not getting some of these reasons for thinking this movie is bad.

Oh well. To each their own.

 

I suppose I'm saying I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to, because of the things I saw in it. Nobody's sorrier but me.

 

Perhaps ignorance is bliss for some.

EDIT: Im talking about me, not you.

 

"I liked the movie simply because I enjoyed watching it. Is that a naive point of view? I just feel like I'm really not getting some
of these reasons for thinking this movie is bad."

i agree. i did like the movie just because i liked it, but when i think about technical aspects and the power of storytelling, it just somehow doesn't all add up for me. i'm a writer and musician, and sw has always been a big influence on both (especially the cantina songs on the musical influence.)
i can honestly sit back and watch tpm and clones and enjoy them just because they're visually beautiful, and obi-wan is quickly becoming my second fav character in the sw galaxy (no one will ever be better than solo) where before i didn't like him much at all. if i didn't love the movies so much, i wouldn't have so much to say about them, for both sides of the argument. i'll be the first on my block to own clones on dvd, and convince as many people as i can to go see ep3 with me when it comes out, to hear the differing responses.
over time, we will all come to accept the movies we have as just that, and hopefully, over time, i can write a story that is so powerful as to have thousands of people talking about it for years after it's read/seen.

"when did watching movies become so complicated?"

when real life started getting so hard to look at that entertainment is a vital part of daily life.

 

Brazil is an amazing movie and the Criterion Edition is the most complete DVD package I have ever seen.

The commentary tracks are fascinating, quite unlike TPM commentary track which was mainly Lucas going: "All this wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago" for two hours.