TheForce.Net interviews Henry Gilroy... and Dave Filoni !!! (Your questions answered!)

"Dave: I truly believe that the Jedi try to humanize their clones and make them more individual, as Henry says. I think we saw that in Revenge of the Sith, when the Clones were colorful and named under the Jedi Generals, and then in the final shots of the film with Palpatine and Vader near the new Death Star, the ships are grey, the color and life is sucked out. The Stormtroopers are only numbers and identified by black and white armor or uniforms in A New Hope."

If the good guys "humanize" their soldiers by, um, having colored stripes on their uniforms....then doesn't that mean the Separatists are heroes since the droids are color-coded, too?

The clones were emphatically created, born, and bred to be murderous instruments of tyranny. Does having an orange stripe on their uniform really humanize them? If so, then doesn't that just make the clones that much more evil because they murder the only people that did treat them like individuals without even batting an eye?

 

DBrennan - I think we know your view on the clones at this point.

With respect to Obi-Wan's request for a Padawan, I think it was just a red herring so Anakin wasn't tipped off into thinking it was Obi-Wan's idea for Anakin to have a Padawan.

And thanks guys, but though I've had some contact with Henry Gilroy, it was Quest and Thrawn McEwok who put the interview together. And yes, thanks to them for sure!

 

That, uh, doesn't really answer the question about the clones. But nevermind.

As far as Obi-Wan's non-existent Padawan, I don't think that your theory really satisfies the point because (a) Obi-Wan would have zero reason to lie about getting Anakin a Padawan (in the movie, he and Yoda offer to relieve Anakin of her, anyway), and (b) even if he was trying to dupe Anakin, that'd be a pretty bad lie because eventually Anakin would figure it out because he'd see that Obi-Wan never got one.

In the movie, Obi-Wan seemed genuinely excited about getting a Padawan and there was definitely nothing substantive to indicate that it was a ploy (which, again, would be a senseless one).

My guess? The marketing folk wanted to inject some romantic undertones into the show, and what better way than to have a scantily-clad young woman bandying around with a virile young man, calling each other pet names and constantly flirting?

 

I guess you've never played a practical joke on someone before. The point is not to give it away beforehand.

 

Right. Ahsoka was a practical joke. "Hey, here's a child you have to babysit in the middle of a war! And don't expect her to leave anytime soon."

Let's be honest: they wanted to create a little bit of sexual tension for tweens and for young fanboys, so they hooked Anakin up with a scantily-clad young girl (ever notice that she's not wearing any armor?) They clearly thought that the ends were more important than the means, so they didn't bother to create a credible, coherent explanation for how he could have a Padawan in the first place. (But hey, the idea is so asinine that I can't really blame them: no explanation would've sufficed.)

Just another plot hole in a movie and show teeming with 'em.

 

It is a kids show after all, so having someone like Tano as a main character is expected.

 

Who's "Tano"?

Maybe we differ in our ideas about "kids shows". See, I don't expect salacious undertones between a grown man and a young girl in a child's show. In fact, excepting father/daughter relationships, I think that most kids shows probably veer away from putting children and adults in the same room even. CW puts them alone together on long journeys, making cute quips and giving each other suggestive glances while calling each other pet names.

Sounds more like a snuff film than a kids show.

 

It is more like an older brother/kid sister kinda of relationship. Although the nicknames are stupid at times, it is not anything that is malicious or inappropriate.

 

No offense, DBrennan...but I think you are the only person on earth who would watch Anakin and Ahosoka and think "snuff film".

Listen to what you are saying, here. To even say their relationship is intentionally flirty would be a stretch, IMO.

 

Okay, "snuff film" was clearly a stab at satire, but I have zero doubt - not a shred - that the romantic undercurrent that I'm claiming is there really is there, and is there intentionally to "spice up" the show. Guaranteed.

Why do they have pet names for each other?
Why doesn't Ahsoka wear armor?
Why does Ahsoka wear a skin-bearing midriff?
Why didn't they give Obi-Wan a Padawan?
Why does Ahsoka say, "That's my master" with a dreamy look on her face, the same way women are known to say, "That's my man"?
Why does so much of their dialogue seem like an obvious attempt to hack the screwball bantering of the famous romantic comedies of the 30's and 40's (such as 'It Happened One Night' and 'All About Eve')?

There's just no question: their relationship is supposed to trigger sexual and romantic feelings in the subconscious of the viewers. I don't consider this a controversial opinion, but a flagrantly obvious observation that any objective observer would share.

 

You are over analyzing the whole thing.

So what if they have nicknames for each other, people give each other nicknames all the time. For example, Ted Kennedy used to call his brother Bobby "Robbie" while Bobby would call him "Eddie." There just nicknames!

Number two, the whole reason for Skywalker getting a padawan was to teach him to be more responsible. And there was no dreamy look on her face when she said "Thats my Master."

You are the only one who thinks it is suppose to trigger sexual and romatic feelings. The viewers,(which are mostly kids) doubt look at their relationship the way you do. Like I said before, it is more older brother/kid sister type of thing.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree. First off, a nickname is materially distinct from a pet name. "Snips" and "Sky-Guy" are pet names.

Secondly, the Knight/Padawan relationship is about teaching the Padawan, not to glorify the Knight or to teach him "responsibility". (Would your mother let you go to a school where the goal wasn't to educate children but to make the teachers responsible?)

Then there's the issue of her midriff, the fact that she's not wearing armor, that they have a flirtatious banter, that Obi-Wan never got a Padawan....and on, and on, and on.

Any writer or anybody involved with pop entertainment will spot exactly what buttons the CW makers are trying to press on the viewers. Obviously, the makers have to have "plausible deniability" (otherwise, they might get into a peck of trouble), and so they can say, "Well, it's just supposed to be innocent joking between a teacher and student. It's all just a matter of opinion." But gimme a break, we can see what they're doing.

 

I agree with you that Ahsoka is sexualized in the series. That outfit makes it quite clear. That's nothing new to Star Wars, all females at one time or another wore a provocative outfit. The only dodgy stuff here is that Ahsoka is an adolescent. Now, if you're walking the streets and seeing the world outside, you should know that adolescents really ARE very sexualized, they dress provocatively and engage in romance, as they've always done. Now, I don't see anything particularly wrong with that, and with the translation of this reality into Star Wars.

I guess the only real taboo here is showing a romantic relationship between this adolescent and a grown man. However, here I disagree with you, I don't see the sexual tension with Anakin, for me the brotherly model fits very well. Now, I guess this issue is sort of like the cave in Dagobah: "What's in there?" "Only what you take with you". If you can't see a young girl and a man having an close relationship that is not romantic, then that is YOUR point of view, I don't share it, nor do most people around here. You're free to have your opinion, but stop preaching that the show is OBVIOUSLY insidious, and the creators EVIDENTLY inserted sexual tension between Ahsoka and Anakin.

 

Regardless if this show is sexualized or not, this show is not what I expected it to be. This show if anything is way less of everything. From Ashoka to Doku to Anakin. Filoni and Gilroy are doing a job that they may have done better, if GL had not gotten too inovlved with the show like we thought he wouldn't. Instead, we may have ......I'm not going there. This is going to be interesting, and after two years and 52 episodes are come back and judge the worthiness of the series a whole.

 

GrySarth:

If you look at all the pieces of evidence that I laid out, hopefully you'll respect my claim more than to just dismiss it as my random little opinion. (Usually, you'll find that I take great effort to substantiate every claim I make here, whether it's provocative or not.) I didn't just say, "It's romantic. Period." I laid out a whole body of evidence which, I think, overwhelmingly demonstrates that there's a two-way romantic tension, and that the makers have it there intentionally.

But you yourself admitted that they've put this teenager in red-light district clothes, which proves that they're willing to use an underage character for sex appeal. It's not a far leap to then say that they're willing to create a sexually suggestive relationship for that character.

 

Ewok response in the twin thread!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Alright, I respect your attempt to back your statement with "evidence", but I still say that your conclusions are still just your own personal view of things, not incontestable truth. Let's see:

- Why do they have pet names for each other?
Because they have a light-hearted relationship based on teasing each other. I give pet names to many people I befriend and I don't want to have anything romantic to do with them.

- Why doesn't Ahsoka wear armor?
Because most Force-users don't wear armor (Yoda, Luminara, Nahdar, Ventress, Dooku and Sidious. Plo, Kit and Mace just wear bracelets, which Ahsoka also does). So far Obi-Wan and Anakin are the ONLY Jedi we've seen wearing a little more armor.

- Why does Ahsoka wear a skin-bearing midriff?
She's a girl, it looks sexy. I agree that she has sex appeal, but I don't find that particularly wrong.

- Why didn't they give Obi-Wan a Padawan?
Because it seems he doesn't really want one. Him asking one was just a ruse to pair Anakin with Ahsoka. I don't see how this point relates to your argument.

- Why does Ahsoka say, "That's my master" with a dreamy look on her face, the same way women are known to say, "That's my man"?
Because she admires the guy. He's the most kick-ass Jedi she's ever seen, and if he's teaching her, maybe someday she'll be just as good. And her intonation is also the same people use when saying "That's my boy!" to a child they are proud of, or "That's my dad!" when your father beats the other kid's father.

- Why does so much of their dialogue seem like an obvious attempt to hack the screwball bantering of the famous romantic comedies of the 30's and 40's (such as 'It Happened One Night' and 'All About Eve')?
Because that's just one example of snappy dialogue. You could say it mimics several other kinds of snappy dialogue seen in several kinds of movies, from brothers in arms to cop buddies to kids adventures, etc etc...

 

The nicknames are not romantic whatsoever, It is a brother/sister thing. I don't know how you could get sexual tension out of it. And the Knight/Padawan relationship is not only about teaching the padawan, for example in the Episode III novel Obi-Wan says that Anakin had taught him so much in their time together.

I do agree about her clothes, but that has happened in thousands of kids shows. And the banter between Anakin and Ahsoka is like playful banter between brother and sister. Ahsoka may have been created to bring in the female audience, but I doubt they wanted to bring sexual tension into her and Anakin's relationship.

 

Sorry, but when a virile young man and a scantily-clad young girl are traveling around alone together for long periods of time, calling each other by pet names, confiding in each other and giving each other suggestive glances all the time, I put two and two together.

As far as the ROTS novel goes, the extra content has no merit other than the writer thought that it would make for good reading. I'd definitely agree that teachers benefit from the student-teacher relationship, but that's just ancillary: the goal of the relationship is for the pupil to learn about the given subject. If the Council assigned Ahsoka to Anakin strictly for his benefit as the teacher, it was totally irresponsible. The student's education should be the foremost priority in any such relationship. Period. (Again, imagine how many parents would send their kids to a school that advertised itself as "A place where the teachers are the priority, not the students!"

 

First off, I'll repeat myself and say that it makes no sense whatsoever for Obi-Wan to have lied when he said he was expecting a Padawan. The only reason he'd tell such a lie would be if he were then to dump her off onto Anakin, and Ahsoka then went along with the deception. To the contrary, Ahsoka lands and tells Anakin she was assigned to him by the Council. So where's the deception? What did Obi-Wan possibly gain by saying that he was expecting a Padawan? That argument is completely baseless.

Regarding the larger point of Anakin and Ahsoka's flirtatious, suggestive relationship, I'd be willing to accept your rationalizations for one or two of the points, but it's when you take all of the elements together (including some that I didn't list) that you have to arrive at the logical conclusion and say that their flirtatious banter is supposed to be romantic, and that it was done willfully. (It's like in statistics: suppose that we assigned a 75% probability to each of your arguments. This is fair, right? Well, there were six points that you responded to, and the odds of all of your arguments being right is therefore (3/4)^6. This leads to there only being an 18% chance that all of those explanations are accurate.)

 

Um...he was teasing Anakin. At least that's how I took it.

In any case, this isn't the right thread for this subject. I believe there is an open discussion on Obi-wan's Padawan a few topics down, as this is def. NOT the thread to bog down with this topic.

Thanks!

 

If TFN bullied everybody into staying "on point", I think there'd be a trillion threads and none of them would have more than two replies.

Your teasing hypothesis - the latest attempt at rationalizing this plot hole - is, in my opinion, also totally without merit. How is Obi-Wan's excitement about his newest Padawan any "tease" at all? He might've been teasing Anakin AFTER they learned that the Council had given him a Padawan, but that's totally different then saying he contrived a lie about how he was going to have a Padawan. "Whoa, SNAP, Obi-Wan! That was hilarious!"

 

DBrennan, as much as I respect your analysing abilities and views which, from a certain point of view, I can accept as a different aspect, I feel you need to rein it in. The problem here is that you seem to equate what your conclusions are with what the FACTS are (though I seem to recall you admitting you were in the minority in an issue...). Despite your being able to bring up pieces of evidence (evidence which, to some, seems dubious, you must admit), I'm afraid that it is just as easy (if not easier) to interpret it from a different perspective, some of them seeming more idealistic and attractive.

Nazis versus Allies...Obi-Wan and his ambiguous padawan...Ahsonikin or Anasoka (take your pick )...each different view has its merits and is equally plausible whether taken in the long run or at face value (though I am sure that you would beg to differ, which is fine, as different opinions make a community).
However, although I'm sure you have the best interests at heart (namely, the preservation of what you think is best for Star Wars), I dearly hope you realise that there IS a line between opinion and fact.

I also disagree on the matter of Anakin and Ahsoka having pseudo-sexual tension. It's somewhat narrow logic to think they are angling for a jailbait fetish on this show on CARTOON NETWORK (note the CARTOON) when a Teacher/Student bond (appropriate for kids and adolescents watching) or a brother/sister bond (again, great for families). If the show is becoming so sanitised and politically correct as you claim, wouldn't they be encouraging relationships that would benefit the community as a whole with wholesome values? I'm afraid this seems to be a glaring contradiction to me.

Other people have brought up reasons why these angles work, and they have done so in a similarly decent manner, bringing up their own pieces of evidence and having analysed it. I feel that Ahsoka's design and style are simply meant to capture a sort of 'modern, trendy teen' to increase her appeal to the target audience...hmm...what were they...oh, yeah, kids and teens who actually watch Cartoon Network on a regular basis.

To conclude my view, you're convinced that you are putting two and two together, meaning it is a concrete and final fact. Maybe in some areas (the Clones=Nazi thing I feel) you are. But what I see (from an abstract point of view) is that you've convinced yourself that X is Y, but not Z. But the others have brought up the question 'we don't know that X or Y isn't Z' or bring up evidence that brings up the possibility that X or Y is also Z. Yet you continue sticking with your initial hypothesis that X is Y but can NEVER, EVER be Z on pain of unraveling the space-time continuum.

 

Koonfan:

First, thanks for the thoughtful reply. You generously observed that, ....I'm sure you have the best interests at heart (namely, the preservation of what you think is best for Star Wars)" which is a positive observation about my motives. (Sometimes, me and people with similar mindsets get dismissed as cranks or reflexive contrarians, labels applied so that people don't have to engage in an intelligent discussion.)

"I also disagree on the matter of Anakin and Ahsoka having pseudo-sexual tension. It's somewhat narrow logic to think they are angling for a jailbait fetish on this show on CARTOON NETWORK (note the CARTOON) when a Teacher/Student bond (appropriate for kids and adolescents watching) or a brother/sister bond (again, great for families). If the show is becoming so sanitised and politically correct as you claim, wouldn't they be encouraging relationships that would benefit the community as a whole with wholesome values? I'm afraid this seems to be a glaring contradiction to me."

Your argument here seems to be that I said that post-canon SW is pro-government/politically correct stuff, and that pro-government means that they're promoting wholesome values, and yet I also said they're promoting an illegal romance between Anakin and Ahsoka, and so this is a contradiction.

However, this is inaccurate because I don't at all equate "politically correct" (read: pro-government) to mean "wholesome values". Not by a long shot! I won't get into a political rant here, but I think that political correctness actually encourages the destruction of wholesome families (through phony "womyn's rights" and nonsensical depictions of manhood as worshiping the military and watching sports) and has hyper-sexualized the culture (which, paradoxically, has lead to epidemics of male impotence and sterility in both sexes). Political correctness has lead to more evil, idiotic wars (since the dawn of political correctness in the 60's, the U.S. has always been at war, and we've mutated into an empire with military bases in 138 countries.)

So, I see no contradiction when I say that post-movie SW is both politically correct and is also promoting a subversive sexual tension between Anakin and Ahsoka. From my point of view, political correctness and sexual decadence are more than just compatible, they're great bedfellows.