PT Red Letter Media and other Prequel Reviews

That review is Stoklasa's world; he controls the message and says whatever he wants as if it's the rule.

Now, to be fair, the portrayal of a sympathetic and unfortunate main character finally achieving success is a valid way of doing a story so that it will appeal to people. But it's just one way. Stoklasa clips from a bunch of movies, but they're mostly from the same scifi/fantasy/superhero genre. And of course he chose which movies to clip from. He says that having an unlucky, or picked-on main character can get the audience on that main character's side. He also acknowledges that there can be exceptions to that, naming some directors without really going into the various ways that they do things differently (or as was pointed out, granting that same leeway to Lucas). This is actually one of the less objectionable parts of the RLM review. He says a basic subjective thing which can be true. But he's also subtly setting up the environment in favor of his own opinion.

Now, if you take a break from a narrow selection of scifi geek cinema, you'd quickly see that wimpy or put-upon main characters are not the rule or even norm for a lot of movies. Think about it for a second: The audience can't side with a strong or self-assured (and thus admirable and aspirational) character? They can't like a character who is already in charge, but has to deal with people who aren't as smart, capable, or disciplined as he is? They can't like a character who may simply be an idealist standing up for the right thing, or a professional who has to get the job done no matter the odds?

Action movies with tough guy heroes. War movies. Cop movies. Movies about wealthy corporate/law professionals who are already successful, but have to learn to be better people. Movies that are concerned with telling a story, instead of dwelling on how the main character has it bad, or taking an introspective approach to them. You can show down-on-their luck characters in any movie genre. Or you can not.

If someone can't see how movies can be made without a weak, disadvantaged, or picked-on main character, then he hasn't seen enough movies. If someone can't sympathize with a character unless they're like that, then I wonder if that person might have problems relating to people. I'm tempted to say that such a statement is indicative of a geek who doesn't understand or feel for other people, unless those people have the same type of problems that he has experienced himself. But I don't know Stoklasa, so I won't make a definite judgment like that against him (not that he granted George Lucas any kind of fair treatment while making up smears about Lucas's relationships with his employees).

TPM's two primary characters are Qui-Gon Jinn and Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon is written as a strong but soft-spoken man. He's a warrior faced with a military challenge. An open-minded, independent, and strong-willed man who has to resist the Jedi Council's pressure to fall in line. A kindly mentor and father figure who cares for Anakin, and wants to see the boy trained and given a new life. People who see Star Wars movies for the action can like him just for kicking butt. Grown men can like him for keeping his cool in the face of danger, and getting things done. Fathers can relate to his protectiveness for Anakin.

Anakin is a slave, who dreams not only of freedom, but of rising to heroism. He wants to set the galaxy right, especially for other slaves like himself. He's a talented and precocious child character, providing wish fulfillment for the child target audience. Anakin has almost nothing, so he clings to what he does have (his mother). His relationship to his mother, and their tearful goodbye, is something that can provide an emotional hook for real moms in the audience. TPM shows a mother letting go of her only son, because she knows in her heart that he is moving on to a better life.

Oops, I forgot that Stoklasa thinks that Qui-Gon can't be described apart from a single word (laughably the word he used was "s

 

The bottom line with this crap is this: if it's so obvious, why haven't all these critics done it themselves? Look at Lucas's student films: they're brilliant, and made with virtually nothing. With the same tools RLM uses to make their "reviews" Lucas would have made ten brilliant short films. By the time Lucas was this guy's age he'd made a bevy of brilliant short films, THX11, American Graffiti & Star Wars. Here's what RLM has come up with so far:

http://redlettermedia.com/films/

Laughable junk but also ironically pathetic when you consider how they've set themselves up as the Ultimate Guardians of How Films Should Be Made.

So c'mon guys, if this is all so damned easy, stop telling us how it's done & show us!
Make that perfect genre film that you keep talking about.
Teach Lucas how to do his job.
I mean...if it's so easy...and obvious...

Oh, and if it's a case of "we don't have that kind of money" to make an fx movie, the fact is, you don't need a lot of money, you just need talent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKXKZ0AfvS0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydBhX_Xhi3A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25SP4ftxklg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aicvo9lvjn8

So go on critics, show us how brilliant you are. But you'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting, I'd rather not suffocate to death...

 

That's all very true, & I agree that any reboot would be trendily made with darker elements emphasised to appease the fanboys. It could be potentially good, but give it a decade or two at least. The current SW franchise is still active.

There's also something fundamentally different between Star Wars and franchises like Spiderman, Star Trek, Batman & James Bond - they're all based around a concept, rather than a fixed story. Star Wars did begin as a more comic-book like concept, "The Adventures Of Luke Skywalker" as it was known until about 1979, but that changed when GL was making ESB and transformed his backstory into a trilogy of its own and began slapping episode numbers on the films. Prior to that, the idea was that Star Wars would be a simpler, ongoing series, with other directors and writers stepping in, much like James Bond, Batman and so on.
Once GL had the vision of "The Star Wars Saga", with a beginning, middle and end (which also went through its own changes), the future of the franchise became somewhat more restricted.

 

Yeah, but I said that wasn't the point he was making. He didn't say it's impossible to make a good movie without a main character, he said that having a main character would have made TPM better.

 

And I'd say that's a pretty weak point, imho. In fact, I think that for something that consists of six episodes, TPM is a terrific start. You do definitely know who the main players are going to be by the time TPM is over - except Qui-Gon and Darth Maul, of course, since they get killed.

Like Lucas said in the audio commentary, the first act is basically about getting the story rolling and introducing the characters. Things aren't supposed to be getting really interesting yet. And, to a minor degree, Lucas said, TPM can be said to be about Queen Amidala, because the story seems to largely revolve around what happens in Naboo. And though it's a fairly subtle one, Amidala does have a clearly delineated arc through TPM.

When I first watched ANH, ages ago, I didn't really think it had ONE main protagonist. There were certainly heroes (at least 3 major ones) and sidekicks and a wise old man and a very bad villain. Right at the start it did seem that Luke *might* be the most important character, but that didn't mean that there weren't other heroes that were, depending on your point of view, either as interesting as Luke or perhaps more interesting in some way.

Also, let's be honest, the initial perception seemed to be that Vader was just as interesting a character as any of the heroes.

In the long run, those of us who had seen it during the original release came to realize that Star Wars, in the larger sense, isn't really so much about the 3 heroes introduced in ANH, but really it is the story of the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. So, in a very real sense, the person we used to think of as "just the villain" in the first film actually turns out to be the tragic anti-hero, and the focus of the whole saga.

I do wish some of the people who come up with these penny-ante criticisms would look at the bigger picture and truly appreciate what Lucas set out to do, because in so many ways Star Wars started out seeming like a simplistic (albeit fun) story of good and evil, but over the years it has evolved into something far more complex, more nuanced, and definitely much more multi-layered.

Nearly everything you thought you knew about the SW universe if you were first introduced to it via the OT is more or less turned on its head by the PT. And it's just beautiful in the most intricate way, how so many things seem to take on a completely different meaning once you understand the full story.

 

If my memory serves, there's a cool piece of trivia in the "Episode I: Insider's Guide" CD-ROM, which I still have somewhere, that states Lucas perceived five main character journeys in TPM: one each for Palpatine/Sidious, Qui-Gon, Padme, Anakin and Jar Jar; maybe six if you're including Obi-Wan. One of my favourite films of recent times is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's (no relation to *the* Kurosawa) "Tokyo Sonata", which charts the course of four people -- a family -- in several movements, beginning with the relatively mundane occurrence of a father losing his job. Now, if you look up the meaning of the word "sonata", a term we may already think we can describe but it may be useful to check -- from thefreedictionary.com: "A composition for one or more solo instruments, one of which is usually a keyboard instrument, usually consisting of three or four independent movements varying in key, mood, and tempo." -- it seems clear, to me, that TPM might be called "Force Sonata", as each of its main characters has some aptitude with the Force, latent or realized, which ends up shaping the cosmic drama in all kinds of ways, and it all kicks off with a trade dispute. Similarly, the film is structured in four parts, beginning at Naboo, taking us to Tatooine, then to Coruscant, and back to Naboo for a big finale, coming full circle in a very melodic, musical sort of way. TPM is also the film that explicitly advances the theme of symbiosis: very starkly in its visual arrangements and overtly in actual dialogue. Even some of its marketing campaign riffed on this aspect, with a series of tone poems giving several of its characters a voice of their own, painting a picture of the narrative in mosaic-like terms. Now, if you put all of this together, I don't think it takes a genius to conclude that TPM is a little looser with who it wants the audience to see as their guide (indeed, the film's major would-be guide, Qui-Gon, describes Jar Jar as such: a clever piece of deferential rhetoric that deliberately muddies the waters as to whose knowledge and authority we should buy into; if at all). Like pretty much everything in the RLM videos, this is a manufactured controversy over something that seems consciously designed to be a certain way, in a manner that helps justify and expand upon the original story and which is commented upon and exploited in the movie itself. The whole matter of who's the main protagonist, and why, is also a very silly thing, in my opinion, to get hung up about in the first place. Although it can be fun trying to impose a sense of order on a film you want to have a deeper understanding of, the matter of who is and isn't the focus of attention, and whether they're adequately put to the test and made to overcome a sufficient number of obstacles, is so diverting as to be ridiculous. And to rule definitively on the matter for any given film is simply laughable. Yet that's what the RLM videos do; and have made other people do. I think there's a lot to explore and enjoy in TPM, but you won't find any of it just parroting the criticisms of a not-very-honest YouTube satirist.

 

The first 4 minutes of this: Harlan Ellison nails the internet back in the early 1990's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv5kT3SPVzA&feature=related

 

I choose to interpret Stoklasa's remarks as though he is expressing an opinion about what he personally feels would have made the movie(s) better, and I happen to agree with most of his opinions. I do not, by any means, think that the movies should have been made a certain way, and I can acknowledge that there are different interpretations for stories, all of which are equally valid.

That being said, I think the prequels would have been better served focusing on Anakin's story as the main protagonist.

The protagonist in the OT was quite clearly Luke Skywalker; the audience was brought along on his journey, from his humble beginnings, through to his loss of innocence, and finally to his realization as a hero. They may as well have subtitled the films "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker". There was certainly a terrific ensemble of characters, however, the story -the main underlying story- was about Luke.

Would it not have made sense, then, to focus on Luke's father's story for the PT and make the subliminal subtitle for that saga "The Adventures of Anakin Skywalker"? The story would not have been a carbon copy of the OT at all (as many of you appear to be arguing), but quite the contrary. In fact, where Luke succeeded in overcoming temptation and becoming the hero, Anakin failed and betrayed all those who cared for him. Yes, you can argue that, plot-wise, these things were covered in the PT, however, Lucas' scripts failed to demonstrate Anakin as the main protagonist.

I know that some of you have expressed that you cared for the Anakin character, and I respect your feelings on this, however, I did not find myself caring for him. I sort of cared for Obi-Wan a little bit at the moment where he screamed "You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you!", but he was not the protagonist, and we did not follow his journey the same way we followed Luke's in the OT. Although I have a huge crush on Natalie Portman, I did not find myself saddened when Padme died- the story didn't seem to be about her either. I found that AOTC and ROTS did a better job at honing in on the characters and their respective journeys, but it was a little too late, as TPM was a huge mess.

I know this is all subjective.

 

The thing is, if you see the SW saga as a whole, then Anakin *clearly* is THE main protagonist. No, Luke isn't really the protagonist of the OT although we could have been under that impression at the time, if we had started out watching Episode 4 first.

That's what I find beautiful about the PT even though I grew up with the more "traditional" interpretation of the OT being a somewhat traditional narrative with the "good guys" at the center.

Looked as a 6-part narrative, then it's pretty clear that the actions of Luke & company in the OT are just part of a longer struggle that seeks to restore the order to the galaxy, bring down a Sith who has proclaimed himself Emperor and also, especially thanks to Luke, to redeem Anakin by bringing him back from the Dark Side. Or we could say that in trying to right all the wrongs, Anakin finds the opportunity to somewhat redeem himself, and to truly bring balance to the Force.

What I hear you saying is something like wanting the movies to have a more traditional story arc... which would make them, imho, simply more conventional, less original, less remarkable.

Mind you, I don't want to suggest that there is something wrong with wanting the movies to have more traditional narratives. It's just that I really admire that Lucas set out to do something more interesting, to offer us a saga that is ever so full of incredible nuance and complexity, that challenges the expectations one might bring to *anything* in this genre.

 

Whoops, I totally misread that. Sorry!

 

No worries.

 

My big problem with his review is that most of it isn't his opinions. Most of it are arguments over matters of fact, which he is routinely wrong on. Earlier in this thread, you said that you agreed with most of his "points." Do you agree with:

-Him going on for several minutes claiming that Qui-Gon couldn't be described by a single word, apart from "stern?"

-His belief that the Trade Federation should've nicely sent the Jedi on their way back to Coruscant while openly admitting their aggression against Naboo, screwing themselves over for no one's benefit except Sidious's?

-His suggestion that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan charge head first into thousands of battle droids, just a minute after having to run from 2 Droidekas?

-His claim that the Jedi had no reason to believe that an invasion was going on, after escaping murder attempts and seeing the invasion force with their own eyes?

-His claim that Qui-Gon was an idiot for seeking help from the Gungans, because it would've been supposedly smarter to walk through miles of enemy occupied forests on foot?

I could go on for a hundred pages. Oh yeah, I did. These things are not "opinions," they're arguments he's making from a logical standpoint. They make up the vast majority of his review, and they're not just wrong. They're shamefully mindless if not dishonest. I'm curious about what you thinkg, because you've expressed agreement and support for his review in more than one post now. And you respond to criticism of it by seemingly brushing it off, or acknowledging it in the mildest of terms.

Again, I wonder how closely you even watched most of this review. Because like many people who support RLM, you mention the very beginning and don't much, if anything to say about the rest of it.

I've long suspected that most people who claim to like the RLM review aren't even aware of most of what he's saying. That they've simply elevated Stoklasa as a figurehead and avatar for all their frustrations with the prequels.

 

That is just the thing. I got in an argument with a persistent PT basher on another forum last week over the issue of Palpatine's plan in TPM and how it went from plan A to plan B. He relied heavily on RLM's arguments as the crux of his argument. He started out by more or less straight up paraphrasing RLM when that review states that getting Amidala to sign the treaty as Sidious so adamentely insists that the Federation make sure happens, is straight up pointless and would have made the whole invasion legal therefore would have given Palpatine no leverage to be elected Chancellor, and that it was ONLY plan B which was the way it ended up unfolding that was the ONLY pathway to getting elected chancellor. After I explained to him and a few of the other bashers that joined in the debate how plan A actually WOULD have worked, he still insisted that it would not have. He then went on some tirade how Lucas wasted storytime on plan A thus rendering TPM completely pointless as plan A didn't or wouldn't work. He likened it to an alternate scenerio he gave in ANH in which that rebels were led to believe that the plans of the Death Star imbedded in R2 had the info needed to destroy the station, but then after going through all of the trouble to get R2 to Leia they were to find out they didn't need the Death Star plans in R2 to blow it up at all and ended up destroying it without what was in R2, thus rendering a large chunk of the movie pointless. Of course his argument using that analogy was laughable, because in TPM plan B was literally put into motion just 2 or 3 minutes into the film even IF you were to condisider plan A to not logically be able to work (which is bunk anyways), as minimal screen time was wasted on it at most. Whereas in his ANH scenerio, half of the movie or more is w

 

Respectfully, I must strongly disagree. Vader was not meant to be the protagonist of the OT at the time that it was produced, and he most certainly wasn't. You can't just retroactively assign him as protagonist after the fact. Instead, he was one of the main antagonists of the OT. The story of the OT was not meant to be read as the "Tragedy of Darth Vader" until after GL wrote the PT to fall in line with the OT (this has been discussed and proven ad nauseum). I maintain that Luke was the protagonist of the OT, and I maintain that the PT would have functioned better in the overall saga had it followed Anakin's character arc more closely, focusing on him as the main sympathetic character. I was likely GL's intent to focus on the Anakin character arc, but in my book, the films failed to register him as the sympathetic protagonist- again, that part is opinion.

 

Yes, that's is what he was saying, and I agree with this. Anakin should have been the main character......... (and I would have liked the story to be dramatically different from what we got, but that's another topic).

 

I will just straight up go ahead and say that Anakin IS the main character and protagonist of the prequel trilogy. He may not have had the biggest part in TPM, but the movie is clearly about him. It just had to be presented slightly different than normal in that movie since he was a kid and couldn't carry the movie on his own. But once Qui-Gon discovers him on Tatooine, the heart of the movie clearly comes into focus and it is obvious that this story is centered around this boy with this aura about him. In AOTC and ROTS he clearly is the central character, and has the biggest part even though Hayden is only billed 3rd....that doesn't really mean anything other than the listing on the marqee.

 

Yes, I agree with the sentiment behind that portion of the review. I could probably come up with more adjectives than "stern", but the point that was being made in the review was that the films failed to thoroughly develop his character, which made him less memorable to many viewers. Speaking from my own experience, many casual viewers who saw the film only a couple of times (and are not die hard SW fans) could not even remember the name of Liam Neeson's character. The same people can rattle off all the main characters of the OT, but they seem to draw a blank on PT characters (even Anakin in some cases! - They refer to him as "the one who turns into Darth Vader"). If a movie fails to develop characters, the characters become boring, and when the characters are boring, the plot is less likely to draw the audience in. Again, I realize that the characters and the plot worked for many of the posters on here, and that's super for them. I wish I felt the same way, because then I'd have six SW that I was fully satisfied with.

I agree on this one as well. Wasn't the crisis on Naboo vital to Palpatine's plans, and the whole reason Palpatine got elected Chancellor in the first place? Shunning the jedi and sending them home before initiating an invasion would have had the same net effect as killing the jedi and initiating an invasion. I have read poster comments about Palpatine having a "Plan A" that failed, and he turned to "Plan B", but unless you've read the EU, this is as clear to the viewing audience as mud. When the plot is confusing, viewers tend to tune out. I'm glad you thought it was brilliant, though.

I've seen the TPM review many times, and I don't remember this. However, I must say that seeing how useless those pathetic droids were against the jedi, it seems feasible for me that the jedi could have wiped out the entire battalion in the hanger bay on their own.

I didn't agree with everything Stoklasa said, and I have stated that before. This was one thing I didn't fully agree with.

This was a nitpicking kind of argument, admittedly, but I can see his point. Why follow this useless bumbling idiot (Jar Jar)? Ignore the idiot. Stay on target. Focus on your mission. Just jedi mind trick him into forgetting about the life debt so that he'd just go away.

And why stow away on separate ships that could have landed hundreds of miles apart? Sty together! Watch each other's back!

And why not just stay in one of the tanks until reaching Theed instead of running through the woods with the enemy?

Wow. Y

 

That is not true in my case. I've seen the cult-like attitude that you are referring to (e.g. people popping in here to say "TPM Suxxors!... RLM rules!" (or whatever)), but I'm not one of those people. I find the reviews entertaining and I agree with most of Stoklasa's opinions, but I'm not a blind worshiper. He's just a dude who made a funny film review; that is all.

As I've said many times, I don't hate the prequels; I just wish they were better. I wish the story was different and the characters were more developed. I wish the Clone Wars were different. I wish the editing and pacing was better. I wish the acting was not so wooden. But alas, I can't have my wishes and I know it. (unless... in 20 years, we get a reboot? )

Let's end on a positive note, shall we? The Phantom Menace has an incredible action sequence in the form of the pod race, and the lightsaber duel was arguably the best in the saga. I wish they used Maul a little more in the subsequent films because he was great!

Have a nice day. Sincerely.

 

You agree with the "sentiment" of that part of the review...Why do you continually play things down with mild terminology? You clearly want him to be more correct than he is. It's one thing to say that you weren't particularly impressed with Qui-Gon as a character. It's quite another to completely exaggerate things against him, claiming that he couldn't be described apart from a single word. "Stern"...Stoklasa needs to pick up a dictionary if he thinks that's the case.

Yeah, Palpatine wants a crisis on Naboo...he wants the Trade Federation to agree to make a crisis on Naboo. The Trade Federation does not want to face legal consequences. The first time they talk to Lord Sidious, they're practically ready to give up simply because the Jedi showed up. The Viceroy asks whether the invasion would be legal, and Sidious assures them that he could "make it legal." As the movie shows, the treaty was how they would legalize it.

Come on, it's not that hard. I said it right there in my previous post. Do you seriously think that the Trade Federation would screw itself over just to benefit Sidious?

I've seen the TPM review many times, and I don't remember this. However, I must say that seeing how useless those pathetic droids were against the jedi, it seems feasible for me that the jedi could have wiped out the entire battalion in the hanger bay on their own. [/quote]

Yes, it's in there. I've said it before, the way you try to play down criticisms comes off strange to me. As if you want the RLM review to be more correct than it actually is.

And no one is arguing that the standard battle droid is all that tough. But there's a big difference between wiping out a squad of them, and charging head first into thousands, which is Stoklasa's idea of a superior combat tactic.

And as I said already, this is one minute after running from a mere two Droidekas.

"This was one thing I didn't fully agree with."

Do you have a problem with just saying that Stoklasa was w

 

Again you have to couch any acknowlegement of fault in the RLM review with mild and forgiving language. You can see his point? Really?

Whether Jar Jar is a klutz or simpleton was not the point there. That's not what I said, and that's not what Stoklasa said either. Stoklasa literally believes that seeking help in a nearby city is a choice so stupid that it completely destroys the logic of the plot...because apparently, anything but the most direct personal action is worthless. He doesn't provide a superior alternative - the assumption being that walking through miles and miles of enemy occupied forests alone and on foot is supposed to be better. This doesn't make sense, at all.

We saw the Jedi's combined fighting power in the movie already. It's inferior to that of two Droidekas. The objective was not to fight the droid army. If the Jedi were discovered together, the objective was lost whether they could back each other up or not.

So you're arguing that they should hitch a ride inside a tank. Which requires that they infiltrate, and possibly attack a tank. Tanks surrounded by other tanks, as well as battle droids. Yeah, okay. Easier said than done.

Stoklasa had enough time to make multiple hour-long reviews about movies he hates.

What's with you insulting everyone here as "overly sensitive?"

Then you must be aware of all the outrageous dishonesty and brain-numbingly illogical points he makes. Points which you don't seem to want to acknowledge.

EDIT: See, I don't really have a problem with it if someone doesn't like the prequels. Everyone is entitled to their own subjective opinion. And it's no big deal if say, you agree with the gist of say, the earliest (most subjective) part of the RLM review. What I refute is the idea that the entirety or majority of the RLM review was correct, or just "opinion." That's something that I want people to face, because the RLM review is so outrageously off on so many things.

If a conspiracy theorist website claimed that Osama Bin Laden, working with evil aliens, had somehow time traveled back to the 1960s in order to assassinate JFK, people have to come together and just say that's wrong. Y

 

And I have never said that it was meant to be perceived that way at the time. We certainly were under the general impression that the story's protagonist was Luke, as far as the existing movies went, because we only knew half the story at the time. But it shouldn't have taken much - even back then - to figure out that if ANH was redubbed "Episode 4," then a character that's just being introduced in the 4th episode isn't really going to be the main figure of the whole story.

It's not *me* doing any "retroactive reassigning".

It's the fact that Lucas has chosen to tell the story the way that he felt was appropriate, as a storyteller. When he'd only been able to show us the state of affairs under the Galactic Civil War, there was generally speaking only one way to interpret the story. But in going back and starting the story at its proper beginning - Episode I - then it becomes very clear that it really is the story of Anakin Skywalker, going through all 6 episodes. That's clearly Lucas's intent, and he has said as much many times, especially in regards to why there really isn't any need to go back and do episodes 7, 8 and 9. They're not part of Anakin's story.

Function better for whom? For me, it works just fine. You seem to be insisting on the need for a far, far more conventional storytelling technique, one that imho is far more archaic.

The thing is, Anakin is not a conventional hero and the whole story - encompassing all 6 episodes - certainly does not in any way, shape, or form, present him as a conventional hero. Not by any means. I suppose there are many different ways you could choose to call what Anakin's character is, overall... an anti-hero, or something more along the lines of a fallen angel, a figure whose only possible redemption depends on the love of his own children... the ability of at least his son to forgive what he has done and try to get him back to the good side.

There's a very deep message in there, that may not be apparent to you - certainly I don't see how it could be if you're just begging for a completely conventional narrative arc. But it is an important message, nonetheless, and one of the most beautiful things in the Star Wars saga. It is not something that could possibly work if Anakin was a cookie-cutter, conventional hero. It just wouldn't. It just wouldn't be as special as it is the way Lucas did it - because he dared to challenge expectations, to tell a story in a way that evidently many people were not expecting.

The point is, precisely, that Anakin is not *supposed* to be sympathetic in any conventional way. That's what, apparently, you still don't get.

 

Yeah, Anakin wasn't supposed to be sympathetic in a conventional way. He was portrayed as a very flawed and deeply troubled young man. But that was all rooted in his attachment to his loved ones, and his childhood dreams of heroism. His tragic flaws were the flip side of what made him a good person in the first place.

What I love about the Prequel Trilogy its nuanced portrayal of things. Anakin certainly deals with his emotional baggage in negative ways. But watch AOTC. Obi-Wan criticizes him even when Anakin is right. Obi-Wan commits his share of reckless mistakes, and needs Anakin to save him several times. Yet his criticism was always very one-sided, as if he always knew better. Obi-Wan came across just like several close-minded, overly critical older men I've known in real life. Going through life always with something negative to say about others, but blind to their own shortcomings.

Night of the Living Dead was considered biting social satire when it came out. It has a character like that: a middle-aged white father who bossed his wife around, and who kept naysaying the younger black hero. That character was a stand-in for the older generation that controlled things and kept the world from progressing.

Of course that character's portrayal was entirely negative, while Obi-Wan is a hero. That's why I admire the prequels. Obi-Wan can be a good guy while displaying very realistic and human flaws. As a 17-year-old at the time that AOTC came out, I was very aware of the way that younger and older generations can butt heads. I understood what Anakin was going through.

Obi-Wan is overly critical and distrusting, but by the end of the Prequel Trilogy he's the one in the right. The prequels don't portray a black-and-white story. The moral isn't that the younger person should be free to do whatever he wants, however he wants to do things. Anakin's flaw is his inability to let go of the pains of his past, while Obi-Wan and the Council's flaw is that they don't know how to mentor Anakin in an emotionally supportive manner. Together, their flaws combine with tragic results.

The various characters in the prequels were all right, and all wrong, in different ways.