How "Immaculate" Is Anakin?

It bothers me that this might get locked unless there's an official discussion thread for this.

I still see room for Plagueis to be the "start" of Anakin, and it bothers me to the core that people are so stuck in their "all-knowingness" that we aren't even discussing the possibility.

It makes sense, even in the context of Lucas' statements about "immaculate conception" and Sidious' admission that he was the apprentice who killed Plagueis.

Envision this backstory: Darth Plagueis is an aspiring Sith Master in search of an apprentice... Having learned the ability to create/sustain life, he uses the Dark side of the Force to impregnant one of his females slaves whom he senses to be rather strong in the force. He knows that a child conceived by the Force will grow into the ultimate apprentice.

Unfortunately, around the same time at which he would've begun training the slaveboy his apprentice, Darth Sidious, murders Plagueis and takes his position as Sith Master. Sidious, in his role as Dantius Palpatine is a politician from the planet Naboo and as such cannot hold slaves and is thus forced to sell the Skywalkers to Gardulla the Hutt.

MODS: If there is an active discussion of this possibility in another thread, please redirect, but I would hate to see that you are locking threads just because you disagree with the premise.

 

Lucas dropped that concept. Meaning it's done and over with. He's sticking to his old ideas. Lucas, for whatever reason, has decided to drop what Palpatine claims Plaugeis did. Just as he dropped the other stuff, including Han's cameo.


"The Midi-chlorians have brought Anakin into being as ?the chosen one? who will balance the universe. The mystery around that theory is that we don?t know yet whether the chosen one is a good or a bad person. He is to bring balance to the Force; but at this point, we don?t know what side of the Force needs to be balanced out."

? George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999

"It was a virgin birth in an ecosystem of symbiotic relationships. It means that between the Force, which is sort of a life force, and reality, the connectors between these two things are what we call midichlorians. They're kind of based on mitochondria, which are a completely different animal, that live inside every single cell and allow it to live, allow it to reproduce, allow life to exist. They also, in their own way, communicate with the Force itself. The more you have, the more your cells are able to speak intuitively to the Force itself and use the powers of the Force. Ultimately, I would say the Force itself created Anakin. I don't want to get into specific terms of labeling things to make it one religion or another, but basically that's one of the foundations of the hero's journey."
--George Lucas, Feburary 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, page 117.

 

Well, that means it's not going to be "canon" and not going to appear in the movie...but the simple fact that he considered this, and wrote around it--shouldn't that count for something?

Personally, I actually would *prefer* that Lucas' leaves this sort of thing open to interpretation. That's the beauty of the official-unofficial nature of EU. You can accept the EU explanation, if you like, or you can make your own...either way, the movie stands on its own.

 

"MODS: If there is an active discussion of this possibility in another thread, please redirect, but I would hate to see that you are locking threads just because you disagree with the premise."

Kind of a presumptuous why to start a thread, don't ya think? A little aggressive/bitter/angry sounding to me.
Already on the defensive!

Anyway, part of the fun of SW is that there are some mysteries, secrects, things we get to ponder and imagine. Just like you just did! So, it's not in there, but that was fun to envision, was it not?

 

Sorry, I'd tried to make this point already twice today only to have the thread locked before I could submit. (I'm trying to actually do my job at the same time y'know...)

 

It can't be.
If Palps manipulated the force, then Anakin is not the chosen one. The chosen one is decided wholely by the will of the force. Anakin fullfills the prophecy, so he is the chosen one.
Remember, any dialogue contributed to or considered to be given to Palps is a lie. It is his nature to lie. The seperatists and Vader serve him better than anyone, and what is their rewards? The seperatists get slaughtered, and Palps tries to get Vader's son to kill him.

 

I have not been a picky poster recently about posts. I would just like to point out one thing. The immaculate conception theory, to which the initial post refers, is misused. Be mindful that the Immaculate conception refers to the Catholic dogma of Mary being born into this world without the taint of Adam's original sin. In this way her birth, not the birth of Christ, was immaculate.

The theory posited in the initial post should refer to the virgin birth. Please use the correct nomenclature.

There I was my picky-old-self again and now I'll respond to the actual contents of the post...

I like what yoshifett said.

 

Reading your second post I can see we're in agreement anyway, Thulium!
Some things should be left open...
And, yes I can see how you'd be a little defensive if you've already had two threads locked today!

 

He did consider it, but then he considered a lot of things which he changed or never followed up on. And since we won't have anything else from Lucas, it won't matter. If a scene was filmed and cut, then you'd have something. Like with the full version of the AOTC Lightsaber battle or Padme's family scenes. Those concepts carried over into the eu. Same with Biggs talking to Luke, even though we only saw the second scene in ANH.

But when it's a concept that was never filmed, it doesn't matter. Lots of things were written and never filmed. Some were taken by the eu, but only with modifications.

 

In regards to Sinister's Lucas quotes, I think they are quite valid. Clearly, Lucas was explaining his motivation for having an "immaculate conception" and that it's not simply an allusion to one religion over another (Christianity, for example) but rather a classic step in the evolution of the mythological archetype.

I don't think it's requisite, however, to stop there. If we are going to explain the mechanics of the supernatural GFFA through midichlorians, etc., there's nothing holding you back from examining the supernatural motivations as well. From a literary standpoint, having Plagueis figure into the genesis of Anakin provides a fantastic irony: In an attempt to empower Evil, he creates the ultimate hero, who is later corrupted to be a powerful force of Evil, but ultimately brings the whole thing into balance by destroying the line of Evil once and for all.

 

The term immaculate, however, is misused. The term "immaculate conception" does not refer to the classic step of evolution that you're speaking about. I'm not talking religion here either...just semantics and word usage.

 

If it's just semantics, why bother?

 

It's very much the mythological aspects. The problem is people get hung up on it, because Jesus Christ gets all the good publicity and press agents. No, that's not a slam on religion, just a fact. You've got multiple versions of the Bible and a few million religious leaders talking about his life story. All the other figures in literature, don't get that kind of treatment. Hence all the Jesus comparisons.

Anyway, it may seem open in the film, but then Palpatine's not exactly trustworthy. First he says he learned how to do it, then he backtracks and says that's not true. Makes it look like he's full of it.

 

No reason really. Just because.

 

Well, the following Lucas quote is from 1999. In 2002, he was considering the fact that Anakin was created by midichlorians, but they were directed to create him by Sidious. So, the quote would still have been valid, if he had continued along those lines. Including "balancing" the Force.

"The Midi-chlorians have brought Anakin into being as ?the chosen one? who will balance the universe. The mystery around that theory is that we don?t know yet whether the chosen one is a good or a bad person. He is to bring balance to the Force; but at this point, we don?t know what side of the Force needs to be balanced out."

I personally think this one will be up for individual interpretation. Consider the casual fan who doesn't walk around with huge books filled with Lucas quotes and doesn't spend endless hours on messageboards. This person hears in TPM that Anakin's birth is unusual, his mother can't explain what happened, and Qui-Gon thinks he was created by midichlorians. In RotS, he is told that the Sith - the wise Plagueis - had the ability to create life by influencing midichlorians. At least a few people will put 2 and 2 together to come up with their own number - that is, Plagueis may have been responsible for creating Anakin before he died.

It will be not be possible to convince every last person on earth that this is impossible, this can't be true!!!

 

^^^
Could be, but it won't be revealed that way in ROTS.

 

That one about the mystery is surrounding the question on what it means to bring balance. However, that is answered when Obi-wan says his good-bye to Anakin on Mustafar. It was Lucas' way of raising doubt about the Prophecy and Anakin's role in it. Then in ROTJ, we see that Anakin does bring balance. Thus he is the one fortold.

 

I'm not expecting it, but do we know this with absolute certainty? This is all dialog details that could be changed easily in ADR. I would presume the script we have was written before the first scenes were filmed, and we know that scenes have been reshot and ADR has been done and that Lucas is reknown for making changes right up until the last minute. Is there a confirmed change/not-changed list?

 

Well, that means it's not going to be "canon" and not going to appear in the movie...but the simple fact that he considered this, and wrote around it--shouldn't that count for something?

Well, if you want to go there, then Han Solo's a green-skinned alien, Luke's a midget, Padme had a thing for Obi-Wan in TPM and Darth Vader is not actually Luke's father.

I mean, Lucas considered a lot of stuff that didn't make the movies. None of them are canon.

 

"I'm not expecting it, but do we know this with absolute certainty? This is all dialog details that could be changed easily in ADR. I would presume the script we have was written before the first scenes were filmed, and we know that scenes have been reshot and ADR has been done and that Lucas is reknown for making changes right up until the last minute. Is there a confirmed change/not-changed list?"

Arg. This is what's frustrating about these boards right now. People won't accept that they've spoiled themselves beyond the point of no return, and so they are looking for spoilers that aren't there anymore.

If this were to be in there, it would have been in the book, illustrated screenplay...there probably would have been a question about it on the new trivial pursuit game! Lucas is not going to contradict all this stuff he's sold.

At this point, the movie is pretty much going to look like what we've read. If this point is ever addressed, it will be EU.

 

Good point and well taken, Dehrian. However, there is a signifigant difference between concepts that Lucas changed direction on and are in conflict with the "canon" of film--like those you mention--and concepts that Lucas just abandoned altogether, like giving a direct answer to the Sifo-Dyas question, where the "official" answer will never appear onscreen.

Yoshi: I feel your frustration, but I'm talking about changes that DON'T invalidate published materials. For example, if Lucas were to include a Sifo-Dyas explanation in line with LoE it would be an total surprise, but in the long run it changes nothing. The same goes here. Not having a list of what has changed (and we KNOW things have changed since the script was written--I mean, get real.), begs the question.

 

However, there is a signifigant difference between concepts that Lucas changed direction on and are in conflict with the "canon" of film--like those you mention--and concepts that Lucas just abandoned altogether

They're basically the same. Look at "Owen is Ben's brother," edited out of ROTJ. He removed it, then later changed direction on it.

In this case, there's no next film for him to go in another direction on the subject with, so it's relegated to the field of dropped idea by default.

 

Thulium, I think that this would have been a big enough revelation that we would have heard about it by now, you're not talking about something minor..

 

Yeah, well attribute it to fanboy fantasy... First we had "Luke, I killed your Father" turned into "I am your Father". Next was "Revenge of the Jedi" turned into "Return of the Jedi." Now that we have "Revenge of Sith," I'm itching for a "Anakin, I killed your father...er, kinda, not really."

 

^^^I hear ya...just, I think at this point we need to accept our spoiledness.