ST "You will never be as strong as Darth Vader!"

In America they aren't. In Japan a few weeks ago a 20-something son of a famous actress raped a girl. The mother gave a tearful apology in front of the new Corp for over an hour. Eventually the charges were dropped after he may have confessed to the police and prosecution an paid off the victim. He gave a public apology included no tears, but he did a jackknife now that he held for 30 seconds.

 

Well, then I can just say that I find it morally wrong to blame the mother for her adult son's failings. Since SW is made for a western audience I don't expect the future films to place all the blame on Han & Leia.

 

Well, that is a very shallow assessment of Japanese society to imply that people generally blame the mother over the son’s crimes.

It’s not that his crimes were blamed on her; it’s the expectations of social behavior when someone from your inner circle does something socially unacceptable. This is an extremely community-based society that overemphasizes humble behavior, where civilized and well-educated people are expected to apologize for everything they do and everything that happens in their community/family/workplace, regardless if it’s their fault or not. There is a reason why Japanese people are known for apologizing and thanking you for literally everything.
Regardless, the guy was still blamed for his crimes and even though his lawyer managed to convince the victim to drop the charges, he lost his career and no agency is going to represent him in the future.

Anyway, that case has nothing to do with Star Wars because that kind of attitude does not exist in the saga; you don’t see Obi-Wan or Yoda apologizing to Luke over what happened to Vader. And it’s especially true in TFA where the Japanese culture influences are even less noticeable than in the OT or the PT. All characters in TFA behave like Westerners.

 

First of all, Little Grasshopper, if you say that this has no place in SW, address the person who first made the claim about parents not being responsible for their children's mistakes after their children have become adults. His assumption is culturally biased, and I pointed out how what he mistook as to be a universal truth is in fact what may be the norm in his culture may not be the norm in other cultures. He didn't qualify his statement.

Second, she did feel responsible enough to apologize for him--not because of in-group, but because it was her son. You might want to talk to some mothers here to overcome your shallow misinterpretation.

Third, you misunderstand 'literally'. No, Japanese don't literally apologize for everything. First, it's impossible to apologize for everything. Second, in Japan you needn't apologize for something that's not your fault.

Obi-Wan did take responsibility for his failure with Anakin. Might want to take more than a shallow look at ROTJ.

 

Okay, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.
I responded to your comment implying that people are held responsible for their sons’ crimes “in Japan but not in America”, not about parents/mentors personally feeling responsible for their sons/students actions.The latter is just normal individual guilt. Obi-Wan feeling responsible for Anakin it’s just it – individual guilt. It's not a cultural thing. You are right that for your typically raised Japanese person, that individual guilt probably bigger than, I don't know, your typical American person. But Obi-Wan/Leia/Han feeling personally responsible over Anakin or Ben =/= them being considered responsible (by society/viewers/law) for others' actions.
And uh, Japanese “culture of apologies” is uniquely a Japanese culture thing – that’s why that video does not make any sense outside the Japanese cultural context. And no, that has no place in Star Wars because Star Wars characters were never depicted so far to socially behave like that.

 

I never said people in Japan are responsible for their sons' crimes in Japan, not in America.

Individual guilt for Japanese? Or shame?

What have the mothers told you?

 

??

Sorry, not sure what point you're trying to make anymore. In any case, sorry for misinterpreting your earlier post.

 

I thought it was clear enough from context that I was giving my personal opinion. Is it really necessary to add "imo" to such a statement? If you take issue with my opinion than say why you disagree with it instead of dancing around by giving irrelevant examples from around the world. I'm not from the US myself but it is clear to me that SW is written for a western audience and follows western values.

And btw. I'm female despite the male avatar.

 

Oissan - That's just your opinions on ROTS and you are entitled to them. I wholeheartedly disagree. To come back on a few key points though you say there was 'no other way' for Anakin to get involved in Mace vs Palpatine - completely disagree, there is little reason to make such an assumption as there are hundreds of things he could have done, the scene doesn't make any sense or work at all. Yes much happens very quickly but it's very circumstantial and it doesn't change the fact that there were simply other ways it could have played out.

The core reason for his 'fall' and saving Palpatine to save Padme I actually like, the reason itself works at it's core. Unfortunately it didn't work for me in the movie and couldn't really have gone any worse.

The Anakin jump is just ridiculous, no reason whatsoever for him to do that. It makes 0% sense for Anakin to be arrogant and try to jump behind Kenobi. Nothing from AOTC or anything regarding his arrogance etc can save or sufficiently explain what is one of the most senseless scenes in any of the movies, it didn't work at all. Like I said, the scene is so awful it is probably a fair assumption to make that the writers either couldn't agree on his injury or simply couldn't come up with anything better so we were left with something that makes zero sense. Did it work? Not by a long-shot.

That being said, in general I enjoyed ROTS but feel it was far too much crammed into one movie. And although the reason's behind Anakin's fall makes sense it was handled sloppily and didn't translate well on screen. The outcome of the duel as I have said, is just hugely disappointing but overall the movie is twice the movie TFA is, they just screwed up on a lot of the key elements unfortunately but it's what I have come to expect.