PT The reaction to the Rogue One Vader scene is exactly what Lucas wanted to avoid in ROTS

Great point. The Force is a scary thing in the wrong hands. While I can see why some people say this is a cheap thrill, it also lets us see how terrifying Darth Vader is in action and the effect one Force user has on a battle. Vader cuts through regular people just like the Jedi cut down Battle Droids and there is no one in the Rebel Fleet over Scarif that can stop him. A dozen Darth Vaders working together would rule the galaxy unchecked. Maybe we'll find out in The Last Jedi that the Jedi as Knights began as a way to stand up to threats in the force.

 

Not to complain about RO or TFA, but I found the TFA combat sequences and the RO corridor scene to be much more violent than I was used to in an SW film. I still enjoyed them, but I was surprised.

And just because kids can't recreate a particular scene doesn't mean it is or isn't more violent.

 

It's interesting you bring up the violence in TFA duel. I think it's a much more personal duel than anything we saw before in Star Wars. But if you look at what happens, it's the least violent of all the Star Wars duels. No one dies. No one looses any limbs. And the fight itself doesn't really have many tricks, it's a sword fight. Very little force powers used, no flips or giant leaps. Because it is so personal it feels more violent. I'm curious to see if this carries forward to The Last Jedi.

 

Anakin was a truly good person. He was raised by a truly good person.

Michael was a good person as far as it went being raised by a man who was a criminal and murderer who wanted one of his sons to specifically not be that. In fact he wanted him to be the "legitimate" one even though he knew that Michael was really himself and the best suited to take over. Sonny was too strong and Fredo was too weak.

Because he is a good person who makes bad decisions until he makes himself evil. The opposite of his mother and those he cared about.

As opposed to Michael who was surrounded by the killers who were his family. They were not good people. They may have been the least worst of the gangsters but they are still gangsters.

Which is exactly what happened but as I said and as the above what The Godfather references would seem to indicate what would really have gone over with them is an Anakin who was basically a bad guy who only thought he was good and then he found his true calling in being evil. The Godfather is about selfish people being selfish and staying there. Star Wars is about an unselfish person becoming selfish and through his son becoming unselfish again.

 

I don’t believe in hereditary morality…and neither do these films, for that matter.

But even if we do accept the concept of hereditary morality, then Anakin is still a nillion times worse than Michael Corleone ever was, because it’s very heavily implied that the Emperor manipulated the Force in orders to conceive him. And although I know you find narcissism, megalomania, paranoia, and child murder to be admirable qualities in a person, even you have to admit that Vito Corleone is a much better person than the Emperor is.

As for the implication that the Emperor manipulated the Force to conceive Anakin, the fact that they’re watching sperm floating inside of a giant egg cell as it’s being implied pretty much confirms it.

Well, I’m glad that you think Donald Trump is a good person. I don’t.

Yes, as opposed to Michael, who is actually smart, unlike Trump, who never murdered children, unlike Trump, who does not blame all of his failings on Obama/Obi-Wan, unlike Trump, who never advocated a fascist dictatorship, unlike Trump, who does not have a persecution complex, unlike Trump, and who doesn’t whine about how the only reason he isn’t the best ever at his job is because nefarious meanieheads are holding him back, unlike Trump.

Look, I understand if you like the prequels, and maybe Trump appeals to you for some inexplicable reason. Maybe you like the fact that he wants to make the galaxy by killing all the brown people/Sand People- including the women and children. But the fact is that Michael Corleone is objectively a better person than Trump is. It’s not that Michael is a good person. It’s just that Trump is so loathsome that everyone looks good next to him.

Well, since we got the story of “a bad guy who only thought he was good and then he found his true calling in being evil” with the prequels, I don’t see what your point is. The prequels are most certainly about a selfish person being selfish and staying there. It’s only at the very end of the original trilogy that he’s ever shown as being unselfish or a good man. The fact is that it’s not the story of a good man tragically seduced to evil. It’s the story of a think a narcissistic, egotistical, temperamental, megalomaniacal, paranoid, entitled moron who manages to become even worse over the course of the movies.

And until you answer this one question, I will automatically dismiss your claims about Anakin being good, despite his actions being nothing but evil, as being complete and utter nonsense. Aside from physical appearance, how is Anakin Skywalker any different than Donald Trump? Answer that before engaging any further.

 

The 'cinema wins' guy has a nice defence of Vader's 'hallway of terror' scene. He doesn't shy away from admitting that it is technically fan-service, but instead gives a nice defence of the fan-service itself, and why its OK for fans to like it.

 

Actually, when I said "combat sequences", I meant the scenes with the stormtroopers. The duel scene, however, is definitely grittier than the rest of the Saga.

 

I haven't watched the video yet.. .but one thing I don't understand in general is why "fan service" is something bad.

Let's think back to 1999. Lucas made sure that we'd see Jedi wreck stuff with lightsabers early in the film... one could certainly call this fan service... but WHO CARES. The first time I saw Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan waste those droids in TPM WAS AWESOME. I had been waiting for some awesome full-blown Jedi action since 1983.

Heck - one could argue that Darth Maul was only in the film to have an excuse for a lightsaber battle (fan service!!!) but you know what? Lightsaber battles are freaking awesome, so who cares.

 

People are just jumping all over the term fan service because they know it excites their followers.

 

This scene of demonic rage and despair, juxtaposed against the shining hope of the scene immediately following it, is an example of visual myth-making at its finest. We're transitioning from a dark world of Imperial dominance, oppression and pessimism to a brighter world of Rebel vim, vigor and hope.

George Lucas, I imagine, probably greatly appreciated this scene. Can't wait for someone to ask him.

 

To be fair, I think its alright to be critical of fan-service moments that legitimate do not seem to make any sense or serve any narrative purpose. IMO An example of which might be Dr Evazan and Ponda Baba's cameo appearance in Rogue One. Although I'll freely admit the moment doesn't really bother me, and even made me chuckle in the movie theatre.
Besides, as you correctly point out in a franchise as successful and iconic as Star Wars, may of its major institutions (lightsaber duels/space battles/trippy Force related stuff) are fan-service by their very nature. I know for a fact that if I'd paid for a Star Wars ticket only to discover that none of the above would be appearing in the film, I'd certainly be demanding my money back! Fan service is awesome.

I've probably said this somewhere else on these forums before, but I love that all you hear is a loud creak, before Vader just appears at the end of the corridor. Like a mini horror movie.

 

Interesting perspective. I agree it can be a lazy term to throw around and slap willy-nilly on whatever one dislikes, or, yes, I suppose, believes might generate more clicks and ad revenue. There's a fine line between making a good, interesting criticism and just being boring or going with the herd. That said, there's also some power in calling a spade a spade; if that's what one sees.

I despise Trump (given your other comments) and virtually everything he stands for, but I don't think there's too much good, Kuro, in so hastily condemning others (as above) on such obviously shaky, vituperative grounds. By the way, "child murder" is not a "quality" in the way narcissism, megalomania, and paranoia are "qualities". So that's particularly lazy rhetoric to cast down on anyone.

Anakin is a flawed individual. Worse than flawed: tragic, and even, in a sense, pathetic. But such is also the making of a fallen Greek hero. Don't forget, Greek gods and Greek heroes got up to some pretty repellent stuff; but we still find intriguing echoes of human nature (perhaps of a deeper, darker kind than modern psychology can yet fathom or adequately categorize; and what even a lot of supposedly "good" modern literature can adequately convey) in their various attributes and exploits.

I daresay, on some level, Lucas may have been thinking of the curious fates of particularly memorable Greek (and, in these various uses of the word "Greek", I mean "Ancient Greek") figures, like Tantalus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus


Why do I think he might be important or relevant to Anakin? Well, first of all, it's where we derive the word "tantalize"; so the fate of Tantalus is baked into the English language all these centuries later. Second, if you notice how Anakin's life story is rendered, he often seems to be in clasping distance of something, only to have something else snatched away in that same moment. For instance, when he learns, after winning the podrace, that he has been freed, his early jubilation turns to sadness when he is dealt the crushing blow that his mother is to remain in bondage and cannot accompany him. Later, he seems to stand up to the majority of the Jedi testing, but falls at the most crucial hurdle regarding his attachment to his left-behind mother. In the next film, he kisses Padme at a glittering lake, only for her to pull away and reprimand herself that she shouldn't have done that. He tries again, several times to woo her, but she rebuffs him again, just as he seemed to be inching closer to victory. Then he dreams of his mother, mounts a rescue, but she dies moments after he finds her. Padme later pledges herself to him, leaving Anakin surprised and overwhelmed, but he almost loses her and fails to apprehend Dooku and loses an arm. In ROTS, even though he defeats Dooku, it is a Pyrrhic defeat, leaving a deeper scar on his soul. And though he meets back up with Padme and deems news of her being pregnant "the happiest moment" of his life, he then dreams of her dying that same night. Anxious at becoming a Jedi Master, he is accepted onto the Jedi Council but denied the rank he expected to receive. Even when he turns to the Dark Side, he tries to appeal to Padme as her dark lover/protector, only to have Padme refuse his offer and Obi-Wan to scupper his appeal entirely.

I do think this sort of reading gives Anakin a measure of sympathy you appear to find lacking. I tend to feel that Lucas is drawing on ancient truths in the PT and not necessarily being as straightforward, or as modern, as people expected him to be. He gives everything a deeper angle, a deeper registration. Anakin being haunted by dreams/visions is very much a device one can find in Shakespeare and ancient stories. Typically, these things are seen as corny, contrived, and unrealistic in the eyes of modern audiences; but if Lucas was reaching back, it makes perfect sense he would avail himself of a classic storytelling device like this. And again, analogizing Anakin to be like a modern (and ultimately classic/ancient) rendering of a tragic Greek figure like Tantalus (I seriously think the lake-kiss imagery fits perfectly) puts him in a different category of tragic figure than Vito or Michael Corleone. Things happen to Anakin that are, in many ways, really "unfair"; even though he also seems to be making them happen to himself. This, again, echoes Tantalus, who is essentially rendered hungry and thirsty but punished every time he tries to sate his appetite or quench his thirst. It's much more mythical and abstract, I think, than what people were expecting or searching for from Star Wars. But that's also the fiendish brilliance of it, in my opinion. The prequels really are a sort of Greek tragedy in space, in my opinion. Something old made new. If the original trilogy appealed to people's basic desire for a swift, pulpy Hero's Journey, then the PT is only that much more a twisted-around, complex, angst-ridden, existential subversion: a polemical deconstruction.

I do like your reading of the two-tone nature of the final scenes of R1. Maybe there is a bit more to it for those with eyes to see it.

That said, I do intend to hopefully get back to my earlier post, and some of the responses that arose in relation to it.

 

By pathetic I don't mean Vader is incompetent, though his existence is a failure of Anakin's. Yes he is a competent warrior and intelligent, but that does not resolve him from being pathetic. He helps a evil despot and his dictatorship, that is pathetic. He kills a surrendered prisoner, which is pathetic. Helps commit a couple of genocides which is pathetic. Lures his son into a trap is pretty darn pathetic, etc. Plus he kills his comrades over petty things, which is pathetic. To be clear, it was Anakin, not Vader who killed Palps. There is a duality to Vader, he is capable of awesome feats, but misuses his abilities for the wrong reasons because he is pathetic as well as personality defects such as a short temper, violent mood swings, and violent outbursts.

Take TESB for example, instead of being concerned for destroying the fleeing rebel fleet. He instead uses all his forces to chase after one ship that has a friend of his son who he wants to use as bait for a trap for his son. Then he plans to either corrupt his own son, kill him, or offer him to his evil master, all of which are pathetic no matter how well his plan worked.

 

Ok, so I found the article I was talking about earlier. I will link to it and post the relevant paragraph which I think greatly supports Darth Nerdling's argument.

http://cinema.hbu.edu/revisiting-the-star-wars-prequels/

Credit to Luukeskywalker for the original posting of the link.

from the article:

"Although understandably grating, I’ve come to appreciate how Anakin’s teenage years are portrayed. Lucas deliberately shows him as unlikeable and petulant, exposing the banality of self-centeredness and maintaining moral clarity on what’s happening. Fans wanted Vader to wipe out the Jedi in high style, but instead Lucas points to the pathetic nature of evil. The Dark Side here is exposed as whiny and weak, another contrast to our culture that often glamorizes it. Great thought is taken on the psychological impact of these stories on children. Anakin is a model for kids to avoid rather than emulate. A moody blend of James Dean and Darth Vader, Hayden Christensen’s performance is very underrated, hitting a challenging range of emotion that erupts in Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005).

 

Fan service or not, Vader has a lightsaber. Of COURSE he's gonna be using that and the Force to get through the little group of red shirts. How else is he going to do it? Just stand there menacingly and hope they just run away?

 

See, I like Vader's behavior in TESB from a whole saga perspective. One of the ingenious things that Lucas did in ROTS is have Palpatine tell Vader that Vader himself killed Padme..... and Vader goes on believing this for about 20 years. Then we we start TESB... we have a Vader who learns that Palpatine may have been lying to him this entire time. So Vader's single minded obsession with finding this mysterious "Skywalker" that may indeed be his son makes sense to me.

 

That would be as weak an argument as could possibly be on so many levels but one need look no further than a basic production one. The Vader R1 scene was added as an afterthought and could be completely cut out with no consequence whatsoever to the movie.

I don't know why you would even bring that up. I mean who was talking about it?

Sorry but I really don't know what this has to do with what I was saying.

That is clearly not in the movies.

That is also clearly not in the movies.

That sounds pretty terrible. Thank goodness that is not the story of the prequels.

 

Anakin was a good person, not because he was born that way, but because he was raised to be a good person by Shmi. Just as he's not born to be evil because the Sith may have manipulated his birth. Anakin was raised to think of others over himself and to help people whenever he could. His problem is what Qui-gon pointed out, that he knows nothing of greed. He knows that Watto bets money on the pod races, but he doesn't understand why someone would put up a large sum of money to earn more money. The nature of greed. Of being selfish. Of always wanting more. Palpatine introduces this to him and Anakin finds it very tempting.

The difference is that Anakin is in many ways a combination of Corolone and Trump. Like Corolone, Anakin was good once. But over time he became corrupted and evil, and is ultimately broken by his desire to bring about a stability to an organization that is corrupt. The part of him that is like Trump is the negative qualities of the dark side. Arrogance, greed, obsessiveness, jealousy, anger, hate. The difference is that there is no good in Trump and there was in Corolone.

 

Some people mentioned jedi cutting up droids in the PT.

Take the start of TPM, when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are slicing up droids to get to Nute.
Nute is very scared and the Jedi seem unstoppable.
You have a smoke filled room and then two lightsabers ignite and the droids start shooting to no avail.

So in a way, that scene can be seen as a bit similar to the Vader scene in RO.
But here it is the good guys that are scared.
And both scenes end with Vader or Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan not accomplishing what they set out to do.

Sure, the way the two scenes were filmed and how they play out is a bit different.
The TPM scene is much more lighthearted and again, the people that get scared are the bad guys.
And no one dies.

But suppose that instead of droids, you had Neomodian soldiers that are sliced up. And you have more scary music and more dimly lit sets. Then the scene might look more scary.
No doubt Lucas did not want that as having the Jedi slice up living beings would most likely have increased the rating.

Take ANH, there Obi-Wan cuts of an army and there is blood there.
Yes later films changed it to lightsabers cauterizing wounds. Otherwise Luke would have bled to death in ESB.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

So does the C-3PO Geonosis droid factory scene hold any value?
- afterthought
- could be cut and nothing would change

Almost everything C-3PO did was unnecessary.

 

The C-3PO gag in AOTC is my one, true criticism for that film. I liked it well enough as a teenager, but as an adult watching the sequence it seems unnecessary. Anakin and Padme's predicaments are exciting enough, we didn't need 3PO calling himself "scrap" and telling the no-one's around him that "it's a nightmare."

Though "Die Jedi dogs" does still get a chuckle from me.

I'll add, as a side note, that seeing the quotes of others that equate the liking of the prequels/Anakin Skywalker being akin to being a Trump supporter makes me incredibly happy for things like the ignore feature. It really does.

 

I don't see fan service as a negative necessarily, especially in Rogue One's instance of using Vader in an action scene. When Tarkin sets course for Scarif with the Death Star and summons Vader's help, and you have these two iconic villains bearing down on this new cast, I do think that Vader needed to have his moment. Tarkin orders the destruction of Scarif base, killing his rival and eliminating the Rogue One crew. If Vader had just stayed on his destroyer, disabled Raddus' ship before pursuing a fleeing Tantive IV, I absolutely think that would have been hugely anticlimactic.

Having Vader on that ship as an unstoppable force, mowing down troops, and nearly coming within reach of getting the plans, I feel adds not only excitement but tension that would otherwise not been there had he stayed on his destroyer and gave the order to pursue a ship.

"Fan service" just seems like a derogatory term, like labeling something as being like "fan fiction."

Because Star Wars (and other franchises) have many moments that don't NEED to be there, but make things exciting for the fans.

Yoda vs. Dooku is pure "fan service." Yoda could have just walked up and Dooku could have just run away without a fight, but you can't tell me that's as exciting as Yoda taking up a lightsaber after the build up of he and Dooku exchanging Force attacks.

In Jurassic World, you get "Rexy" breaking through a Spinosaurus skeleton (Spinosaurus killed a Tyrannosaurus in JP3) to a musical fanfare as it comes to save the day. Big "fan service" moment, but the climax would have felt much different without it.

In Aliens we got Ripley going to to toe with the Alien Queen in a power loader. A very iconic moment in that franchise that didn't need to be there. They could have kept the game of cat and mouse going to the end, but it wouldn't have been so memorable.



Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

Cryogenic

I’m aware that child murder isn’t a quality, but it’s certainly a crime we see him commit more than once. I also wanted to throw it in there because of this:



Well, Anakin did just that. He took out their families. Many people accused Trump of advocating in favor of committing war crimes. I agree with them. His proposal to murder innocent women and children is loathsome and repugnant. Now how is Trump’s proposal any different from what Anakin did here:



The only difference I see is that Anakin is young and handsome.

As for the Greek element, I can definitely see that. It’s worth mentioning that in the original Greek mythology, Hercules murdered his wife and children, which isn’t that different from Darth Vader attempting to murder his pregnant wife. However, I’d argue that there’s a reason we don’t portray heroes like that anymore. The thing is that the most notable depiction of Greek mythology in recent times has probably been the GOD OF WAR series (that wretched whitewashed Disney HERCULES notwithstanding). Yet GOD OF WAR doesn’t even try to pretend that Kratos is a hero or a good person. He’s a barbaric, sociopathic, borderline-villainous antihero.

I also heavily disagree that Anakin’s life is tremendously unfair. The only time when he’s not whining about how unfair his life is and how much everyone around him is a horrible meaniehead trying to persecute him (again, just like Trump) is when his actually is unfair, and he’s subjected to the bonds of slavery. At that point, he actually would’ve been justified in complaining that his life was unfair…but it’s only when he achieves a life of wealth and privilege that he starts acting like a spoiled prima donna. Nothing irritates me more than when people of affluence and privilege whine and moan about how their life is so unfair.

My other problem is that it’s not consistent with how Darth Vader was portrayed. Vader was certainly evil and sadistic, but he was also shrewd, intelligent and cunning. He was a man who possessed a deep knowledge of and respect for the power of the Force, to the point where he scolded his colleagues for their shortsightedness in underestimating the Force. He was a brilliant strategist and always remained in control of the situation. He was a master of reading his enemies and understanding/exploiting their weaknesses. He wasn’t an impulsive, temperamental idiot. He wasn’t Donald Trump.

Qui-Riv-Brid

You claimed that Michael Corleone was genetically predisposed to evil because of his father. It’s a stupid argument, to say the least.

As for what’s in the movies, I just gave you a perfect description of Anakin. Anakin is a bad guy who only thought he was good and then he found his true calling in being evil. Anakin is a selfish man who remains wholly selfish throughout his entire adult life until his dying moments. Throughout his entire adult life, Anakin Skywalker has exactly ONE unselfish moment…and it's not in any of the prequels. It’s right here:



It is the only time in any of the films where Anakin is actually a good man. Throughout the rest of the films, he’s either a narcissistic, belligerent moron (i.e. he’s Trump) or he’s Darth Vader.

And I don’t know what version of the prequels you watched, but in the films made by George Lucas in 2002 and 2005, Anakin Skywalker is most certainly a narcissistic, egotistical, temperamental, megalomaniacal, paranoid, belligerent entitled moron who manages to become even worse over the course of the movies. That’s simply an indisputable, objective fact. That’s who Anakin is in these movies.

To be fair, I don’t think that George Lucas INTENDED for the movies to be about that. I think he genuinely intended for these movies to be the story of a good man who was tragically seduced to evil. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the movie he intended to make. The result onscreen is exactly what I described. Good intentions entirely botched by supremely ****ty execution.

darth-sinister

Like I said, I don’t believe in hereditary morality. I was simply pointing out that if we do buy into such an idiot concept, Anakin is still worse than Michael due to the fact that Anakin’s father, the Emperor, is a million times worse than Michael’s father, Vito.

It’s arguably true that Anakin became corrupted and evil over time. The only problem is that it happens offscreen in between movies. By the time we first see him in STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES, he is fully and completely Trump. All of the good qualities he may have had in the previous movie have been replaced by ugly, vile, repugnant, loathsome Trump qualities. The only differences between Anakin and Trump involve youth and physical appearance.

And no, it’s not Hayden Christensen’s fault. He’s actually a good actor and he did the best job he could with the role.

 

I disagree. The consequence would be a diminished price paid by the Rebellion in successfully stealing the plans. On top of all of their trials & losses on Scarrif, we see a group of them faced with a living nightmare that many of them don't survive. Those who did survive had to immediately go & change their pants. For future viewers, this gruesome cost carries forward to the next movie. They'll realise just how incredibly difficult securing those plans were. That's the great thing about R1. It adds a lot of emotional weight to the McGuffin that are the plans in ANH.
As another consequence the end of the movie would've felt far more muted & less thrilling. Finally, just bcs a scene is added during re-shoots doesn't diminish its importance one bit. It sounds like half of R1 was filmed in re-shoots. Plenty of other brilliant scenes in other movies were added in this way too.

 

Ah! That Lukey-duke fella. Still out there causing trouble. Wonderful extract (if a bit simplistic, in my estimation, at least, in its pejorative attitude) that could easily apply to some of this present discussion:

Check out early photos and YouTube recordings of Trump. He was also once young and handsome.

But, of course, dear Kuro, you are ultimately comparing (or mixing up) chalk and cheese.

Anakin strays far from the Jedi path when he enacts vengeance on the Tuskens. He is even all-too-aware of this himself: "I'm a Jedi. I know I'm better than this."

And, unlike Trump, he is not openly advocating for the abhorrent commission of war crimes. Even when Anakin becomes Darth Vader, he (arguably) maintains a shred more decency and compassion than that. We can debate Trump another time; but I agree with CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria that he is a cancer on democracy; and a dark moment in American and geopolitical history. Few things would please me more than to watch Trump repeatedly fall on his own sword and immolate his own presidency (which it looks like he is in the process of doing). Few things, in my opinion, need more desperately to happen than that; for the sake of America and the entire world. If we are to have a world at all fifty years from now...

Anakin's tragedy, and the various moral pestilences he is unable to shake, is the tragedy of an entire galaxy. Lucas implicitly and explicitly links Anakin's personal disintegration and re-making as Darth Vader into the chaotic, crumbling, and ultimately dark fate of the Republic. This aspect of the prequel trilogy, when the fuller work is seen, is undeniable, in my opinion. The films do not valorize Anakin's actions any more than they do Palpatine's. You seem perturbed (based on past postings) that Padme attempts to overlook or wash clean Anakin's actions; but she herself has her her own set of personal rationalizations and is flawed in her outlook. The prequels are ultimately holding a mirror up to human society and urging us: "Don't be like this. See the folly and walk a better path."

Well, you're correct that there is such a thing, I believe, to quote Richard Dawkins, as "the shifting moral zeitgeist". Things that were once looked upon as normal (slavery, say, or cruel and unusual punishments) are increasingly seen as oppressive and evil; things we might be better off, as individuals and a species, no longer supporting or applying anymore. So in that regard, a lot of what professed "heroes" of the past did, in ancient mythology and literature, are no longer quite so palatable to a great many of us. On the other hand, there might just be some broader existential truths in the ancient tales; and Lucas himself has said how he doesn't think humanity, in a deeper psychological sense, has moved on very much over the past 10,000 years. So I don't think Lucas echoing some of the less palatable stuff immediately or invariably renders his choices or his characters odious or bad. To me, there is such a thing as a middle ground in these matters.

You note a trenchant irony there. Anakin does, indeed, seem more patient and accepting when he is literally a slave by contract. It therefore becomes reasonable to ask the question: "What happened?" The long and the short answer is: "The Jedi happened". He seemed to be getting along relatively fine, in his own mind, before they entered his life. And this is a critical part of the prequel storyline: how various aspects of society are corrupting in their own way; and we shouldn't go through life blindly accepting rules and precepts that might require modification or are better off being rejected. Kind of goes back to the notion of "the shifting moral zeitgeist". We have, for the most part, collectively decided that slavery isn't such a good thing (though, as in Star Wars, it of course takes many forms; so saying we have "abolished" slavery is itself a gross simplification -- *which* slavery has been abolished?). It's a process of becoming successively better at organizing society and managing resources as we go.

Your charge that you don't like people of affluence whining about how difficult or unfair their lives are is a bit difficult for me. You have previously expressed a great affection for Sofia Coppola's "Lost In Translation"; and that film has been frequently maligned for featuring (or so goes the criticism) smug, privileged, wealthy American characters who spend all their time moping about their oh-so-horrible lives and looking down their noses at the freaky, silly, "little" Japanese oddballs around them. So I don't know. By the way, as I indicated before, I cherish that film also. Also, it is more the case that Anakin complains about facets of his life under the Jedi; he doesn't seem to regret his life as a whole. And given his slave background, one might imagine that his frustration stems, in part, from a certain paranoia or suspicion on his part that he is being looked at as a negative outside element and being deliberately held back; stymied due to his immense potential out of fear, disdain, vanity, jealousy, etc. And he has Palpatine constantly whispering poison into his ear.

I hear you, but I'm guessing that Lucas wasn't too interested in being 100% consistent, and instead decided that remaking Star Wars as an epic life chronicle was a better, more appealing option than having the backstory match up perfectly with the forestory in every aspect. It is quite possible that Anakin, in "pledging" himself to Palpatine's teachings, got quite a few lessons in the Force after Mustafar; and his actions on Mustafar so deform him that it is reasonable, in my opinion, to regard the immolation event itself as profoundly humbling (a literal "baptism by fire"). In short, Anakin almost has to start again after battling Kenobi; Lucas literally shows him crawling forward like a baby (nicely juxtaposed against Threepio -- Anakin's droid -- serenely piloting Padme's skiff away from Mustafar in the velvet coldness of space). So I agree with you that Anakin is quite sour and hot-headed in the PT more often than not; but not to the point where he doesn't have some Vader-ish traits (he does display a measure of patience and cleverness at some points) or grow into his Vader role later on after pivotally transformative events.

To keep this discussion on-point here, I wanted to close with the above.

Yoda vs. Dooku isn't necessarily "pure fan service". There may be a fan service element at work, but Lucas still shapes the violence a certain way and tells a story with their memorable yet unfruitful confrontation. Their encounter is effectively built up across the movie. We see Yoda training the younglings, we have talk of Dooku once being a Jedi and therefore incapable of being a murderer (LOL), and we see just how much damage is being done to the Republic -- and intended to be done -- with the initiation of a galactic civil war. Then, on Geonosis itself, Yoda senses something amiss between Anakin and Obi-Wan (this comes straight after their argument on the gunship) and calls for a transport to be brought to him. Ultimately, Yoda appearing in the hangar is an unwise intervention; throwing the Jedi's supposed sacrosanct "no attachment" policy into deep contravention. Yoda obviously has an attachment to Anakin and Obi-Wan (visually expressed in different ways earlier in the movie) and intervenes to save them; and to "teach" the wayward, renegade Dooku (again: Yoda as teacher of the younglings) a lesson. Yoda, in something of an echo of the Jedi Order accepting the clone army, and various other character arcs in the PT, is taking it upon himself to "deal" with a problem; to unwisely trust in his own authority to confront and overcome.

And in these aspects, AOTC is subverting -- or, at the least, recontextualizing -- the sagely portrayal of Yoda that is given in the middle chapter of the OT. Where Yoda once said, "Wars not make one great" and warned Luke that breaking with his training to save his friends would inevitably result in him destroying "all for which they have fought and suffered", not to mention that little aside to Luke about a Jedi using the Force "for knowledge and defence, never for attack", AOTC shows the other side of the coin when Yoda brings the clones to Geonosis, orders escaping ships be fired upon, and decides to leave the outer battlefield for the inner one of the hangar; sanctioning violence or violent interventions on levels both impersonal and intimate. And given the moral dimension at work in all these films, Yoda rightly loses against Dooku (he saves Anakin and Obi-Wan but fails to stop Dooku escaping), and later laments the stinging lack of victory that the Clone Wars actually signify, and how "the shroud of the Dark Side has fallen".

As cool as it looks to see Yoda taking on Dooku, Yoda loses the day. And unlike in RO, where Vader suffers a setback but leaves the picture looking victorious, Yoda obliquely regrets his failure at the end of the movie; adding immensely to the thematic ambivalence and melancholic tonality which AOTC is saturated in. AOTC therefore has a wider perspective on the actions its characters take and the pain they suffer as a result. The film is ultimately about fallibility and ruination; which, yes, even Threepio's abstract misadventure on Geonosis functions as commentary about. The characters are ripped apart by their own misdoings and a larger set of micro-tragedies they bring about. I am not sure that RO has the same degree of thematic intelligence running through it.