JCC Embrace The FU - Formerly the STAR WARS IS BAD thread

Now erased.

 

Nobody's saying "most complex villain ever," at most someone is saying "most complex villain ever featured in Star Wars" and the distinction is a fairly significant one.

I also don't think remarks on a Star Wars message board broach "actually making an entire movie" levels of silliness by default.

 

I haven't seen the EU.

Regardless, though, your post ought at least to have acknowledged how the character is a retread. It's a person in the exact same role, with the same powers, who has had some very similar life events. Don't pretend like it took some huge innovation to come up with it.

 

Literally nothing I said in my post could describe Anakin. Whose shoes did Anakin have to fill? What father did Anakin find weak? What family did he resent? His entire story is different.

 

Just because you left out everything in your post that parallels the two characters doesn't mean they aren't the same. It just means you chose not to acknowledge the similarities.

In point of fact, though, Anakin is also struggling against huge expectations. For whatever the new character's name is, that's about family legacy. For Anakin, it's about the weight of expectation around being "the chosen one." While the TFA character is resentful of his father, Anakin is resentful of Obi-wan, who was very deliberately presented as a father figure. Both ended up joining the Dark Side in the service of a man that (at least from the hints we have) both they and the family knew pretty well prior. Even your "unique" points aren't really very unique in the end.

 

Is there more EU material on this? Because I honestly didn't get that from the film.

He killed his Dad, who was trying to convert him. But I didn't see any big rationale about why he did so.

 

Did you... did you miss the scenes where he's talking to Snoke and Vader's helmet about how he needs help to find the strength to resist the pull to the light? Setting up essentially the entire reason Kylo's imploring Han for help prior to stabbing him was a moment of tension for the audience? We're not talking subtle motivations here, they spell it out for the viewers repeatedly.

 

I don't see how that equates to what Jello, said no. Yes, the film established that he had conflicted feelings. Villains who are conflicted about their behavior isn't terribly revolutionary, even within the Star Wars universe. More to the point, I don't think it is, on it's own, very interesting.

What would mark something as unique is the rationale for the conflict. That would offer insight into the character's psychology, and present challenges for how he might navigate the present circumstances. It offers ideas to debate or consider. For Vader, for instance, his own conflict was rooted in the notion that he was already too far gone. Thus, the film invited in-universe debates about whether the effects of the Dark Side were irreversible, and in a broader sense about the meaning and importance of family. It also recasts a lot of his actions before in a very interesting light, and one wonders what deeds he would and would not have done if he felt he had more free will.

By contrast, what do we have for this guy? He feels, non-specifically conflicted between "the light" and his current position. Why? Who knows. He likes Darth Vader, but we're not really clear about the reasoning for that, either. It's more a character concept than an actual character. "What if someone was a bad guy but was very aware of Darth Vader taking the same path?" I don't know. What if they were? I would have liked the film to try answering the question instead of just posing it vaguely.

 

Oh, don't forget the shop owner is also of a species immune to jedi mind tricks. Also his slave boy is the only human who can pod race. Also he's the most special jedi of all time and has no father but no one cares to explain or inquire about that. Also there's such a thing as pod racing.

 

A few more lines of dialogue could easily have clarified things. For instance, does he like Vader because:

1. He helped bring law and order to the Galaxy?

2. He was a powerful Sith Lord?

3. He embraced his destiny, whereas he views others as shirking from theirs or being too bound by morality/society's rules/whatever to go all the way?

4. He overcame tremendous adversity after a near fatal injury (After all, he keeps the guy's helmet, even though logically his actual skeleton should have survived the heat of a wood fire)?

6. He achieved "greatness/notoriety" in the sort of non-specific Greek ancient sense , and any old thing would have served so long as it established his reputation?

Maybe it was something else entirely. But each one of these would have really different implications for what sort of character this is supposed to be. But from the the film we have so far, I have no idea which it is. I just know that he thinks highly of something about Darth Vader.

 

What's the storyline for Attack of the Clones? I've forgotten. Something about a chef identifying a dart so the Jedi can find an army or whatever.

 

Yes, it really doesn't make sense. If Zam Weasel had simply escaped, or if Jango had not tried to use untraceable ammo (why was he doing that, anyway?) or if he had actually succeeded in having the ammo be untraceable, then Palpatine's whole plot would have collapsed.

 

You do realise that almost everything that happened was set up to happen that way right?
The Jedi were supposed to find Kamino, they were meant to know of the Clone army and lead it into war so Order 66 could be executed.
The villains seem like they are making dumb mistakes so they get caught or defeated but it was done to further the plan.

It's annoying that certain plot strands such as who set up the army never got resolved & TCW had to do it (very well I thought).

 

So if the Jedi were supposed to find Kaminoan how did they know Obi-wan would ask Fexter Jettsyer about it? What if he didn't know? Or was he part of the Sith conspiracy all along? That actually would've been a much more interesting narrative choice, come to think of it,

 

Dooku may not know Obi Wan that well personally, bit he knew Qui Gon very well. If Qui Gon had such connection with people in the know (as many Jedi probably would) it's reasonable to assume that Obi Wan would.
Dooku's knowledge of those close to Anakin was useful to Sidious, I would think that's a big reason he was selected to be his apprentice while the plan was taking shape.

Much of the plan was taking calculated gambles, luckily for Sidious they almost always worked out for him. Until ROTJ when it all went wrong.
Even the Mace Windy fight, which I still believe he went into knowing he'd lose. He could have died, but he planned on Anakin saving him. Luckily for him Anakin did exactly what he was supposed to do.

 

Richie are you defending the Attack Of The Clones plot now? Have you learned nothing?
The Jedi find an army of a million soldiers. They find out the army has been deliberately hidden from them. They find out that the man that led them to it is in the service of their arch-enemy. And then they USE that army, no questions asked.

Absurd.

 

They do ask questions. But they aren't in charge.
They are commanded to use the army.

I'm not saying the plot hasn't got holes, the Clone Army is the biggest hole in the PT.

I'm saying I think the story is more complex & clever than Lucas is given credit for, as TCW showed.
Lucas did a bad job at explaining that plot properly in the movies

 

And Bail stands by idly.
You're making excuses. The story is not clever - it's supposed to be clever IU but if Palpatine really built his plan on everybody turning into bumbling fools, how clever is that, really.
The story could have been clever, I'll grant you that much. If the author had been a bit more clever.

 

And Bail stands by idly.
You're making excuses. The story is not clever - it's supposed to be clever IU but if Palpatine really built his plan on everybody turning into bumbling fools, how clever is that, really.
The story could have been clever, I'll grant you that much. If the author had been a bit more clever.

 

And the kid races even though there is a fully trained and powerful Jedi there (actually two), who you would think should be able to easily win the race and if needed eliminate a few opponents with mind tricks. Oh! But he was following his instinct in letting the boy race, the will of The Force. Just like when he manipulated the die roll. Oh.

 

Yeah. If we're beingning up awkward parts of these films, someone really needs to take on the Qui-Gon/Watto bet sequence. Ye gods.

 

It's more the racist stereotype characters than anything else.

Even in TCW, they give the Jedi with dreadlocks a Caribbean accent