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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga Unpopular Star Wars opinions!

Discussion in 'Star Wars Saga In-Depth' started by Feelicks, Feb 23, 2013.

  1. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 30, 2013
    I agree about Grievous, he is pretty pointless. I guess his purpose is to give Kenobi something to do while Anakin becomes a child murderer.
     
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  2. Ord-Mantell70

    Ord-Mantell70 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2009
    Just wanted to express a personal view that I thought would be pretty unpopular among Star Wars fan, PT gushers especially...Guess I hit the trigger here. :cool:
    There has never been any idea of bashing Lucas for what he did or did not on my part by the way. George Lucas makes the movies he wants to do. Wehther you like them or less.

    Topic is not on Anakin's turn here, as it has been discussed many times on these boards. But to put it simply, you're completely right, I had hoped and envisioned something pretty different indeed.

    I have well understood that the personal fears and insecurities of Anakin's character are the core of his downfall, and that it's consistent from TPM (although in TPM, Yoda only says that he senses much fear in him, and that his future is cloudy...Not so obvious when you see what he does and how he is in the movie by the way). Which doesn't mean he had to be pre-destined to fall from the beginning, and that a child attachment to his mother was that much of a problem.

    That's the whole issue to me. The political aspect, impatience, easyness, a flawed teaching, a real lust for power to achieve personal and non personal goals (become more powerful, win the war, overcoming the Republic's decaying, corruption and unefficiency etc...), and a real parting with the Jedi play almost no role. Even if a few elements of this kind are there more or less to suggest that the fall is not that clear cut.
    In the end. when Palpy reveals he's the Sith lord, all other issues crumble more or less, and he only joins him reluctantly because he can't stand the idea of losing his wife....

    To sum up, to me, Anakin's character ends up being basically immature, over-attached to his wife even as an adult, blind, desperate, making a sort of pact with the Devil who has toyed with him and didn't even have the power to save her. As tragic and "poetic" as it can be.

    I had really expected and hoped for something else, more realistic and believable (although of course it's just movies) to my tastes.
     
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  3. Ord-Mantell70

    Ord-Mantell70 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2009
    Not so unpopular pal..."I'm with you too" on 2 and 3.

    But 1 for sure is, at least among fans. Don't quite agree but won't sue you...:D

    Do you mean it's simply over-rated in general (not that little masterpiece many say it is since the mid 80's), or within the saga compared to the others ?
     
  4. anakin_skywalker_sct

    anakin_skywalker_sct Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2001
    Not so much, I practically despise the PT, especially AotC. What a waste of a film.

    Yoda and the Council quiz Anakin about his fear while he stands shaking before them, and seem particularly concerned that he dares continue to think of his mother after leaving her. I think it's clear in TPM they have a problem with attachment, and this is made explicit in AotC.

    It seems like you are hugely minimizing the background angst in Anakin and pulling the attachment to Padme to the foreground so that it looks like the only thing that matters. Anakin states plainly he would be fine with a dictatorship if it works and his general attitude seems to be one of the ends justifying the means. He's a soldier, a highly skilled killing machine, and an enormous contrast with the subtle and careful Qui-Gonn. He's constantly on the move, constantly fretting and unable to control his emotions. Just meeting Padme makes him sweat at the beginning of Episode II, and he has scenes where he is furious about being 'held back'. He clearly parts from the Jedi the second he marries Padme, the fact that he keeps it secret only compounds his unstable relationship with them. And while his breaking point comes when he fears Padme is about to die, it's not as if he wasn't already torn with divided loyalties. Palpatine offered him more than Padme; he offered power, order and respect that Anakin never felt he had with the Jedi. Regardless, I don't think it's inconsistent with TPM for the trilogy to tie up with Anakin finally succumbing to his well established fear of loss, and I'd argue it's only unbelievable because Lucas utterly botched the romance, making it hard to understand Anakin's desperation. And yes, he's pretty immature and overly-attached to his wife, but that's part of his core flaw.

    I still don't see what this 'something else' is that you were expecting. What you seem to have wanted is essentially what happened, just with the ingredients in different ratios from how you would have preferred. In your mind, what should have made Anakin turn if not the fundamental flaw he had in the first place: fear and inability to let go?

    Please note that I'm not trying to have an argument and you haven't hit a 'trigger', I'm just trying to understand your point. I have very little positive to say about the PT, but this is an area that I think the writing (while it could have been clearer) worked quite well. I certainly won't be troubled by reconsidering that.
     
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  5. Darkslayer

    Darkslayer #1 Sabine Wren Fan star 7

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2013
    The Prequel Trilogy are better than the Original Trilogy. Yep, I said it.
     
  6. Darkslayer

    Darkslayer #1 Sabine Wren Fan star 7

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2013
    You Rebel scum! :p
     
  7. obi-rob-kenobi4

    obi-rob-kenobi4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2007

    Cryo you are the best! =D==D=^:)^=D=
     
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  8. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Aww. Spank you very much! :p

    Here's another unpopular opinion for the good folk of the Star Wars Saga (In-Depth!) forum:

    Star Wars was dumb before the prequels. The prequels brought the clever.

    Actually, no. I think SW was always a singular, dynamic piece of art, but nowhere near the fiendishly fascinating saga it became once GL added his second, more personal trilogy to correct for, complement, and vivify the first.

    Lucas' earlier creation went from a childish -- if nostalgic-poetic -- hero's journey, to a a surreal, fantastic, arcane, beautiful, weird living mythic tapestry: a bold symphony of enchanted fractals ... a rapid-fire, sinusoidal koan megaplex.

    And it ain't over yet!
     
  9. anakin_skywalker_sct

    anakin_skywalker_sct Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2001
    I know we're here to share unpopular opinions, but I can't imagine for the life of me how it could be that somebody would find the PT less childish than the OT. They certainly were surreal, though: big bad Darth Vader became a mewling infant whose (successful) pick-up lines included "I hate sand" and "I killed a bunch of people".

    An opinion I hold that is more unpopular because it's just not commonly mentioned rather than people being in solid disagreement is that Padme was likely a monster herself. She doesn't blink when overthrowing the Chancellor or when racing into a firefight on Naboo, and in politics and her relationships she seems determined to get precisely what she wants. She's suspiciously forgiving of Anakin's massacre of the Tusken Raiders and of his belief in dictatorship, as if nothing about him could put her off because she has decided this guy will be, after a sufficient chase, the father of her children. She tells Anakin they cannot be together while practically overflowing from a corset, and generally wears things around him that obviously would drive him mad. On the surface I'm pretty sure it was just Lucas being Lucas, but a charitable if dark reading of the character could suggest she's just playing with him for her own amusement and does want a family as well as the power Anakin could bring her.
     
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  10. obi-rob-kenobi4

    obi-rob-kenobi4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2007
    Personally just I couldn't disagree more with every single thing anakin_skywalker_sct said.

    I guess my unpopular opinion would be what I always saw in the film (AOTC) which is:

    Padme was even more courageous, strong willed and noble than her daughter.

    She was always the true #1 threat to Palpatine and the biggest hope for the republic all through the PT until the puppet master ultimately won.

    The whole point of Padme was that she was the feminine nurturing earth mother. The exact living metaphor for the opposite of a monster --the monsters who will take over the galaxy in 4,5,6.

    The whole point of the corset was that it was symbolic for her both metaphorically and literally being chocked by anakin in the next film. The fire in that scene is also symbolic for the passion that consumes anakin both metaphorically and literally in the next film. Fire is also present in the scene where his mother dies in his arms.

    when anakin says the "sand" line that all the fanboys try to use as some kind of example of bad acting In reality, for what it was that the scene was trying to convey, the line is actually very clever and character driven...

    Padme is describing her childhood growing up on naboo, she goes on to say how one of her nicest memory's is lying on the sand enjoying the naboo sun with her friends. Anakin then says he doesn't like sand and its BECAUSE he comes from a planet made up of sand, he comes from a hard, rough life of slavery. Its simply his way of saying "well I don't like my childhood...but I do like you" It is a simple metaphor for how he regards his past as well as contrasting their homes and drastically different childhoods. In fact, if anything its an awesome line.

    See...I think this is just an example of how the line or the inflection in which it was delivered doesn't do any harm to the movie...but the forced memes do.

    Anakin is at times a cunning, ambitious and sympathetic james dean rebel without a cause in AOTC. To me he is absolutely "the Han Solo" of the PT by far. To me Anakin is more of a "badass" type than han ever was and with a nice tragic edge as well.
     
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  11. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    "Mewling". I haven't encountered that word in a wee while. Thanks. :)

    You're using the word "childish" in a different way to me.

    The black-hat/white-hat, David-and-Goliath dramatics of the OT, are significantly less engrossing on an intellectual/symbolic level, in my opinion, than the more disjointed, cynical, and ephemeral ambiance of the PT. In the former, good and evil are pretty sharply defined; in the latter, the presentation is significantly more complex.

    The PT strikes me as a lot more world-weary and grown-up than the OT, even though it obviously contains its share of farce and whimsy. Imagine a system where the lightest and meekest of elements are actually being put to use for dark purposes. Just as the Emperor tries to corrupt Luke at the climax of the OT, so does the accreting, confusing mass of the Dark Side in the prequel trilogy storyline -- the last days of a long-standing Republic* -- fill everything with a more sinister, angst-ridden edge.

    *Notice even in the naming a bald allusion to Plato: an amusingly-stark hint that this is an ungainly social experiment rupturing at the seams, destined for collapse. I mean the institution of the Republic, not the films themselves. Though you could apply it to the films just as easily. You know... *this* Republic, *these* movies... they must inevitably lose cohesion and break down to the more primitive, fallen world of the OT.

    The OT is really about ragtag individualism, while the PT is like a febrile deconstruction of society: a kaleidoscopic tapestry of the variables that underlie slavery, fanaticism, and war. The bitter pill is sweetened with the candy-coated allure of bright colours, pageants, lakeside retreats, and whatever else, but the PT is ultimately a dark tale. Yet not so dark that it doesn't find a way to end on a note of bittersweet nostalgia, even quiet triumphalism.

    Yet what you've said remains a valid objection, IMO. But, for me, that sense of the jarring is also part and parcel of the PT.

    It's like, "Hey, Vader was a young, love-sick guy, once!"

    "And he struggled to get his words out!"

    "And he cavorted in a field!"

    "And he dined at a holiday retreat!"

    "And he missed his mother!"

    The PT brings endless surprises -- explosive ironies -- to the pallid world of the OT, flooding it with colour and then some.

    This, I contend, is a good thing. The OT remains relatively sacrosanct, while the PT is more lush and radical.

    There is a bit of a dichotomy between the trilogies, but for me, this is part of the fun and the magic.

    Sorry if it sounds like I've been speaking in code here. But you try describing Aladdin's Cave if you ever actually saw it.

    That's true.

    Have you ever noticed the poetic dimensions of the saga?

    I'm not being facetious: have you ever noticed them?

    GL averred, in a much-lampooned declaration, "it's like poetry, they rhyme", but I wonder how seriously anyone has taken that; even those that do take it seriously?

    If a poet is aware of meter and structure, they should certainly be aware of the first and last lines of a given poem, and in the prequel trilogy, the first and last lines literally are:

    "Captain, tell them we wish to board at once."
    "What? Oh, no!"

    Threepio responds to Qui-Gon's impetuous, imperial command across mythic time: a robot sees the danger and the fatuity of the Jedi's impatience -- an impatience that ripples out to other beings. Like Padme when she turns on Valorum.

    The REAL "Phantom Menace" (another play on words: nothing is real << see?) might be this unrecognized appetite for action: the deeply-ingrained desire for a quick result; the presumption of some that they have complete right-of-way ("I have the high ground") and must tame or eliminate others that get in their way.

    That's dark! I like it!!

    Anakin does seem to pick up on something similar from Padme in ROTS: "Don't ask me to do that!" (when she asks him to appeal to the Chancellor to "stop the fighting and let the diplomacy resume").

    Later, Padme claims that all she wants is Anakin's love, which Anakin bats away by saying, in essence, that love isn't enough, and moments later gets a nasty shock when Obi-Wan appears at the base of Padme's ship, as if confirming that she was using him as a tool.

    Only, she wasn't. Or was she in some sense? Did she think she could tame this wayward soul, pound him gently into shape, and beatify him for her own ends? Did she really think she had a fighting chance? Did she love her "helper" persona that much? "So, love has blinded you?"

    That's an intriguing proposition.

    Maybe Padme was -- perhaps, unconsciously -- testing Anakin (on Naboo, anyway) in AOTC, to see what sort of a mate he'd be, what kind of thoughts and feelings he could unlock in her, and whether the two could form a healthy whole. But whenever rationality entered the frame, she'd recoil from her feelings, from her unconscious ploy, and deign to argue from a thinly-articulated pragmatic position, which wilted in the face of imminent death.

    Her response to the slaughter confession is interesting. She seems to be in a trance. And she seems not to fully believe in what she's hearing. In a movie in which we're told that a secretly-bred army of clones are "totally obedient, taking any order without question", it's edifying to note that Padme herself -- visually linked to the clones with her sleek white action garment and various gestures and responses (she supports Anakin, in theory, like the clones support the Jedi, in theory) -- seems to come under Anakin's pull for a while, snapping out of it later on, when fresh action calls, but never quite being the same again.

    I contend that all this is quite engaging. It takes Star Wars deeper into the realm of the mythic and the strange. This is the way GL has always wanted the series to be: full of epic happenings that broil and bubble away in an ineluctably thickening soup ... fog, clouds, vapour .... not really trusting first impressions or experiences. I don't think it's any coincidence that, of the three prequel movies, we're talking about AOTC at this moment. With its poetic, shifting layers of fog and cinematic intrigue, its bright, glowing colours, its varied locales, its "day in the life" of aesthetic hiding rich meaning in plain sight, and its jagged, knotted juxtapositions (just consider the "mistake" of the film switching from Anakin on a dark, rocky Tatooine with ominous sky, to a rocky spire puncturing the canvas on the pseudo-cloned world of Geonosis, which we might initially think to be Tatooine but is really Obi-Wan's parallel find-the-baddies storyline) -- oh, and its bewildering array of homages and allusions to cinema and visual art of the distant past, present, and future -- I think it roundly emerges as the weirdest of the saga. It has a hazy, meretricious architecture that demands interpretation. Yet it cruelly shuns interpretation utterly. It asks only to be watched further, so that its thick canopy may be penetrated momentarily, a gleaming city briefly glimpsed, then lost again. When your ship touches down, it is permitted only the briefest of respites, before being suddenly blown up. If you get off in time, you can explore this terrain further; if not, back to the Force you go to start again. Video game aesthetic. Platforms, obstacles, bosses, lives. Another coin for the slot?

    This is why I love loving the prequels. They're very lyrical. And the middle piece is George Lucas' open invitation to cine-stylists of the shifting present and unborn future. Decode and do better. And enjoy the struggle of the process. It's a great puzzle in and of itself: a retro-future monument to a new digital age. I eat this prequel trilogy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The feasting never ends.
     
  12. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 16, 2013
    Having read this I feel like Jack Burton when he gets an impromptu explanation of David Lopan in BTILC. A rather confused,'What'?..
     
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  13. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    A lot of my posts should come with a health warning. :p
     
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  14. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Great post here, Rob.

    Covers a lot of stuff I didn't get into.

    In the case of Leia/Padme, I did mean to bring one thing up when I was responding to the first part of anakin_skywalker_sct's post, which you've just reminded me of.

    One aspect I don't think the OT really did right by was the characterization of Leia. She was pretty cool in the first movie, but seemed to lose a lot of her spunk and fire in the sequels.

    The same thing sorta happened to Han in Jedi.

    Oh, but then the same sorta happens to Padme in ROTS, and Jar Jar across the PT, right? And Threepio gets a memory wipe.

    Well, shoot. It seems that SW characters have a habit of losing their mojo.

    Only, not to derail my point, Leia was never really developed to a point -- in my opinion -- where you could appreciate the decline. She just slipped away from George's pen, somehow. It was up to Carrie Fisher and the other directors to imbue her with an interior life, which they did a decent job of, I suppose, but somehow... she became a third wheel.

    Padme, on the other hand, while not always brimming with life and eccentricity, feels like more of a developed, rounded character, to me. You know... She's defiant, stubborn, even a little self-righteous, but also caring, gentle, sad, and ultimately, tragic. For me, at least, Lucas packed all these traits into her, and while Natalie Portman's performances have been maligned, I have to say, in time, I've really come to appreciate how she communicated Padme's wavering elan vital: a sad soul, someone who is young and beautiful, yet somehow old before her time. Overall, Padme seems like she has a fair bit more to her. We're get to know her that bit more, yet she remains avowedly mythical, too. A bit of an engima.

    On this level, the PT is again superior to the OT, in my view. Ultimately, it rescues the OT from its excesses, or its limitations, and the OT returns the favour. The two make a powerful whole. "You and the OT form a symbiont circle". Yes, Obi-Wan. Yes, they do.

    And Anakin... definitely a "Solo" Jedi. Love that James Dean vibe he has in AOTC. I miss that lean, rake-ish bad-boy quality in ROTS. And the sense that he is still experiencing the world and struggling to do good. And how Padme seems attuned to that struggle and does her best to respect it: to give Anakin that space she thinks he needs.

    AOTC really takes these young, uncertain characters on a journey. I absolutely love that about it.
     
  15. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2009

    Just change your avatar.

    [​IMG]
     
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  16. Jarren_Lee-Saber

    Jarren_Lee-Saber Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 16, 2008
    @Cryogenic
    Can you PLEASE write a book? Your dissertations on the nuances & meanings of the prequels have taken my Star Wars love to new levels. I wanna pass them out at the opening of Episode VII
    ;)

    I don't even want to post my USWO because I want to keep reading your posts.

    Also, you've got yourself a follower!
     
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  17. Darth Venator

    Darth Venator Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2013
  18. TheProtocol

    TheProtocol Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2012
    I really like TPM but I find the whole time on Tatooine to be really boring except the parts with Shmi and the Maul/Qui-Gon duel.
     
  19. Ord-Mantell70

    Ord-Mantell70 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2009
    I'm minimizing nothing. All the elements you refer to are rather lame and artificially conveyed to me, because it will amount to almost nothing when Anakin decides to join Palpatine and the dark side. He remains basically loyal to the Republic and the Jedi till the turn, even if he very briefly expresses his like for a dictatorship of the wises in AOTC, and resent the Jedi council's misgivings about him. He's even ready to hand Palpatine over to the Jedi when the later reveals himself, and therefore must now understand why the Jedi were opposing the chancellor and wary about him (Anakin). Even the Sandpeople's slaughtering and Dooku's killing, meant to show that he gave in to anger and the dark side before, don't appear to have made much of a difference...

    The over-attachment to his wife and the desperate need to save her in the foreground is not me...It's right plain in the movie (ROTS), as Lucas mentioned himself ("because it seemed poetic").
    Now it's not even only in the foreground, it becomes the real motive to join Palpatine and the dark side. Actually he never embraces the Sith and the dark side himself.

    This "something else" I was expecting was that, progressively, impatience, anger, lust for power and control, not only for himself but to win the war and solve the conflict, would be the key factors to oppose the Republic, join the Emperor and be seduced by the dark side. Not over-attachment to close people, or forbidden marriage and romance. (ESB : "With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the Galaxy...")

    Anyway, to me, such a story could only have worked if Palpatine woudn't have been this purely evil character (Sith lord) from the beginning, contemplating the war, the destruction of the Jedi and the Republic all in advance. And it becomes a complete different script...

    Hope I make myself clearer
     
  20. anakin_skywalker_sct

    anakin_skywalker_sct Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2001
    You say these elements are lame and artificially conveyed, and that's a reasonable opinion if you find Lucas' writing generally poor and confused, but since they are the bulk of Anakin's portrayal in the PT you are clearly minimizing them. I don't see how they amount to nothing when Anakin joins Palpatine because they are the reasons he is so adrift from the Jedi and anything else and feels like Palpatine is his last shelter in the storm. I don't see how Dooku's killing and the Tusken Raider slaughter make no difference, these are steps on Anakin's journey that show what he is capable of if wronged. Palpatine was able to convince him to murder Dooku for revenge. He killed the Tusken Raiders for revenge. Palpatine even connects the two actions together for us, showing in bright neon lights how Anakin has come to rationalise his behaviour, even if Anakin offers weak protests that he "shouldn't have done that".

    Anakin is not loyal to the Republic, and I'm not sure how you came to that reading. He's loyal to his ambition and his family. He is constantly at odds with the Jedi Council and doesn't accept their decisions at all peaceably. He fights for the Republic because that's what he does, he's a soldier, but he never expresses any political fielty to them. Rather he prefers that both sides just be made to listen to someone, and seems disinterested in the outcome. He shows no loyalty or trust in anyone but Padme and Palpatine, and it is the tragic irony of his life that he when he finally loses his faith in Padme he destroys the one thing he was fighting for.

    I never said the issue with his wife being in the foreground was about you, it is obviously plain. I believe I agreed with that already, but so what? Like I said, that doesn't make the complex background pressures Anakin is under go away, and I don't think you are clearly explaining what else you wanted. Anakin is redeemed, after a fashion, because of his love of family. It makes poetic sense that his fall would come from a similar foible. It is common in literature for a character's strength to also be their tragic flaw. Anakin's issue is a microcosm of the greater problem the Jedi face: learning how to respond reasonable and in a measured but ultimately compassionate fashion to matters of the heart. The Jedi are cold, Anakin is reckless and impulsive. They both must learn to follow the middle path.

    The impatience, anger and lust for power are all there from the beginning. Anakin is the embodiement of these things, I'd argue Lucas is actually too unsubtle with them, whereas you seem to find them sorely lacking. But they are there. Anakin is seduced by the dark side in the most classic way: it offers him a way to skip the painful reality of life he fears most, loss. In ESB, do you really believe the man who stood and watched a planet be blown apart is telling the truth when he says to Luke he wants to end the destructive conflict? He is appealing to the conscience he knows his son has, trying to sweeten the pot for someone he knows is good inside. He offers Luke what helped seduce him: a sense of security and the ability to protect those he loves. Vader was never a political figure who opposed the Republic for ideological reasons, so I don't see why it's such a problem that there's not much reason for him to oppose the Republic in the PT. There's reason enough for him to side with Palpatine: it will get him what he wants.

    If that's too simplistic, like I asked, how would you have done it? So far you've just reiterated that Lucas got it wrong by saying he didn't do what he actually seems to have done. I get you don't like the result and that's your perogative, but again you continue to minimize and dismiss characteristics that you want to bolt on to Anakin's character that he already had. What would this completely different script look like to you?
     
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  21. Ord-Mantell70

    Ord-Mantell70 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2009
    I won't go any further, I'm sorry.

    This topic is not the place to discuss the whole script and Anakin's journey in further detail anyway. Again I've understood and respect what Lucas wanted to do with the PT (the roots of Evil - how an ingenuous and good hearted gifted boy will become an agent of Evil), and his construction of the script.

    I was just hoping for something different, as I tried to explain above, that's all. To me, the turn is not convincing and he's never really seduced by the dark side of the Force.

    I see your point of view and I'm glad all this suits you well.
     
  22. Ord-Mantell70

    Ord-Mantell70 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2009
    I won't go any further, I'm sorry.

    This topic is not the place to discuss the whole script and Anakin's journey in further detail anyway. Again I've understood and respect what Lucas wanted to do with the PT (the roots of Evil - how an ingenuous and good hearted gifted boy will become an agent of Evil), and his personal vision of the script.

    I was just hoping for something different, as I tried to explain above, that's all. To me, on-screen speaking at least, the turn ends up being not convincing, and he's never really seduced by the dark side of the Force.

    I see your point of view and I'm glad all this suits you well.
     
  23. anakin_skywalker_sct

    anakin_skywalker_sct Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2001
    I don't see anyone complaining about us going into this in depth but if you don't want to explain what you wanted to see, fair enough. I think it's a shame, though, it would have been interesting to hear another take on how Anakin's fall could have been handled. And I can't blame you for not finding the turn convincing; I don't either, really. I do find it consistent, but it kind of loses its emotional impact when it's clear Anakin was kind of messed up to begin with, and some of his issues are somewhat artificially constructed by awkward writing rather than organic progress for the character.
     
  24. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005



    You guys -- and obi-rob-kenobi (now, I sound like the Emperor) -- do me too much credit.

    I wouldn't mind writing a book, if only I could figure out the proper angle.

    In the meantime, if you want to abide by or with me in any way, please do yourselves the credit of checking out links like the following -- links that I like, links that I have taken inspiration from, links that I want to derive more from:

    http://www.moongadget.com/origins/

    http://mstrmnd.com/log/1045

    http://starwarsverses.tumblr.com/

    http://canopycanopycanopy.com/4/star_wars__a_new_heap

    https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/notes-on-the-duel-of-the-fates/

    http://checkingonmysausages.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/examining-star-wars-saga-via-revenge-of.html

    http://www.lardbiscuit.com/lard/shroud0.html

    http://www.freewebs.com/padmeleiajaina/SW Images/AOTCCommentary.doc

    Ya know... glancing up at that list, I realized a few things:

    1) I love lists. Sometimes.
    2) I have a habit of making lists. Lists can even become self-aware!
    3) I love names. Some fabulous addresses up there.
    4) I love the interwebz.
    5) I love wordy/visual analysis of films that I love.
    6) I love, occasionally, overwhelming people.
    7) I love Star Wars, even though it's clearly sending me insane.
     
  25. obi-rob-kenobi4

    obi-rob-kenobi4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2007
    Cryo those links are excellent thank you for posting them!

    I especially love the "the shroud of the darkside has fallen" one because i actually remember it from back in the days of 2002 on these very boards (when it used to be much better here imo) god what a great time it was!!! Star Wars felt like it couldn't possibly get deeper and juicer in its own lore and ROTS was still 3 years away!

    I remember how special and amazing it was seeing the fabled "Clone Wars" and how they began. No matter what I always seem to keep coming back to AOTC as my "favorite" SW film even though to this day I prefer to say I dont have a "favorite" simply because I love them all so much but reading that page made me remember that if I had a favorite AOTC would definetly be it.@};-