Saga SW Saga In-Depth In-Depth Discussion Thread

No, what's being questioned is their reading of the prophecy, that Anakin is the chosen one.

Obi-Wan brought Anakin's condition as the chosen one, which Mace carelessly confirms and that Yoda questions.

I might, yes, if I ignore the premiss of their conversation.

"I don't trust him."

"But isn't he the chosen one?"

"I guess."

"We could have misread it." (i.e: he might not be)

 

Alexrd Your chosen interpretation of what Yoda is specifically saying has been misread in the prophecy is a reasonable one, but it is not a fact. And you cannot use your chosen interpretation to assert that other people's interpretations have no premise. I have a similar notion that Anakin was not the chosen one. But that doesn't make it a fact and others have plenty of basis for thinking otherwise.

In fact by the end of the movie Obi Wan does not seem to have intuited what you say Yoda was referring to specifically. He still calls Anakin the chosen one. " You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness! " So if identifying Anakin as the chosen one was supposed to have been undermined by Yoda with his line then Obi Wan failed to interpret it the way you do. Obi Wan continues to refer to Anakin as the chosen one when, as you would put, he has no premise for doing so except for ignoring the premise of that conversation.

Obi Wan's the one who brings up the prophecy in the middle of that conversation, after its premise has been stated. The premise of a conversation does not usually get introduced midway through it.

The premise of their conversation is their (specifically Windu's) anxiety over Anakin's involvement with Palpatine. Not Anakin's identity. It is used to reintroduce things from TPM , i.e. a prophecy of a chosen one bringing balance to the force, and to introduce a new aspect not mentioned before - the chosen one destroying the Sith in order to bring balance to the force.

 

Just to dredge this issue up again - I said GL "could get away with murder", by which I meant he could be as clumsy as possible with tying up various plotlines. I don't think that would have extended to including an actual incestuous plotline in this worldwide phenomenon, it's far too taboo a subject for PG fare. The whole Luke/Leia romance was awkwardly retconned as having never really existed 'in that way' - and the genuine romantic feelings between them in the storyline existed prior to having them as siblings. Put aside Luke and Leia as siblings, then Luke discovering his real sister Nellith in Episode VII or VIII, I still can't see SW going that far.

Hell, it's 2017, we've had eight SW feature films and the franchise is yet to touch upon homosexuality, let alone the still taboo subject of incest (which, for the record, I'm not actually comparing to homosexuality). Incest still sparks controversy, and when it's used as a plot point, be it in Chinatown (1974), Excalibur (1981) or Game of Thrones (2011 onwards), it's included for that very reason. It's still considered 'unnatural' among civilised human beings, for good reason - serious issues regarding consent, along with straightforward genetic problems when it comes to offspring.
In Chinatown, it was included in order to confront the audience and challenge their immediate responses to one horrific crime (a man having raped his daughter) versus another (the very deliberate destruction/rape of the environment). In Excalibur, it's straight from the Arthurian myth, the point being that the offspring of this unholy union is an unnatural abomination.
Ditto GoT (with the vile Joffrey), although the incestuous relationship between twins Jaime and Cersei Lannister is far more complex, with in-universe parallels existing regarding the Targaryens, along with it simply being a dark plot point uniting these two rather twisted characters. It's still suggested through the A Song of Ice and Fire series, along with supporting material (The World of Ice and Fire etc), that such inbreeding was a major cause of the madness which plagued so many prominent figures in House Targaryen.

SW, however, has never courted such controversy, nor do I believe that it ever intended to do so. GL has always been a rebel - I realised recently that he's one of only a very few filmmakers who has never been a gun-for-hire (unlike Coppola, Scorsese, Friedkin etc - and even Kubrick) - but when it came to this 'Flash Gordon thing', he knew exactly who he was making it for. Despite whatever determination he had regarding final cut and getting it as right as possible, he was always going to have to answer the question, "Will it play in Kansas?"
Incest wouldn't.

 

It was highly disingenuous of Rinzler to falsify that passage in the first place! I hope you'll forgive me if I'm skeptical about the integrity of his research. But the tone of the passage in question changes markedly with those last two sentences, so I'd be inclined to trust literary analysis in this case.

Well, as I've said, a bare-breasted Leia during the Death Star escape wouldn't play well in Kansas either -- and yet that's what Ralph McQuarrie's storyboards indicate.



But you're right. As rebellious as George might have been once, the urge to play it safe with middle America and maximize cash flow ultimately won out. That's how we went from the anti-establishment feeling of "the Empire is like America ten years from now" in 1974 story notes to the market-ready, non-threatening, cute & cuddly Ewoks of ROTJ. Unlike the other directors you mentioned, when it comes to deciding between God & Mammon (or Art & Cash), for Lucas it's no contest. Cash wins every time.

 

In the same vein of "things in SW which might not play well in Smallville, Kansas": here's a 1975 sketch by Alex Tavoularis of Leia wearing considerably little.



Tavoularis seems to have been free-associating on the "goddess" imagery suggested by Lucas: in the upper right corner, there's an upside-down sketch of a big cat (probably not drawn from reference, given the slit-eyed pupils). The image may be referencing William Blake's "The Tyger": "In what distant deeps or skies / Burnt the fire of thine eyes?" Tavoularis' Leia appears to be newly woken from sleep -- or perhaps newly given life, in Michelangelo fashion.

Another sketch, by Ralph McQuarrie, looks to be the result of similar free-association, and probably represents Leia as well. This one too dates from around 1975 -- and it has blond hair, like most of McQuarrie's sketches of Leia from that time.



Note the Christian Trinitarian symbolism: three iron girders frame her head as a halo, and another girder provides the bench she sits on. McQuarrie is suggesting the same combination of graceful divinity and inner strength as Tavoularis' sketch with its William Blake allusions, but with more original & thought-provoking imagery.

In 2000, McQuarrie adapted this particular image for a small run of woodblock prints. He cropped the design severely, leaving only the woman's torso, like a fragment of an ancient Greek statue:



Interestingly, metal and wood are two of the five classical Chinese elements, corresponding to earth in the ancient Greek four-element cosmological system. Is this a McQuarrie drawing of Leia Organa as an Earth goddess?

NO. Edited Out inappropriate images. anakinfansince1983

 

You make it sound like it was his own decision, as opposed to something mandated by Lucas. Curious...

Not at all. You really only have "it is said" to go on, as though that cannot be Lucas speaking in his own voice, a dubious assertion at best; when it comes to the rest of it, any difference is undetectable.

Just as I remain skeptical regarding the motive behind throwing Rinzler under the bus.

 

I think it's interesting how ANH reflects the view popular with the hippies that industrial and military technology is bad and spirituality is good. Vader vs. Motti, targeting computer vs. The Force, ancient Rebel base vs. futuristic Death Star.

 

I think that ANH and ROTJ reflect the position that "primitive" civillisations or societies that are closer to nature can prevail where industrial and military technology is presumed to be able to crush it totally.


The example of the Vietnam war showed that inferiority in technology did not prevent the underdog from preventing the much larger enemy from achieving their strategic objectives, if not militarily.

 

I noticed the irony that the Sith hid not in the Unknown Regions, but rather on Coruscant, the home of the Jedi and the Republic.

 

Hardly. Might as well apply that to ANH in the first place then. Except that only works because of the result that happens afterward. ROTJ is only in any part "safe" due to that. Which also means that TESB is "safe" due to the same thing.

Except both doe crazy unsafe things with Luke and Vader.

If Lucas was really all about maximizing cash flow then he's made a poor career of it. The history of Star Wars would be very different.

As opposed to cure and cuddly droids, wookiees etc etc? Marketing was always part of Star Wars from the get go.

It's always a consideration but as we know he does what he wants. If it was all cash then as I said before he did a really bad job of it. If he had then he'd have sold SW for billions more than he did.

 

"If Lucas was really all about maximizing cash flow then he's made a poor career of it. The history of Star Wars would be very different."

This is ridiculous nonsense and quite frankly insulting to Lucas who basically pioneered tie in merchandising for blockbuster movies. Honestly, Lucas was 3 steps ahead of everyone else back in the 80s when it came to maximizing the revenue streams for his IP.

 

In 1977, did Lucas imagine Palpatine as a kleptocrat or as an idealogical zealot?

 

Not just entertainment Bz, but the industry itself and how the society works.

 

I wonder if the idea was that Palpatine was partying in his palace, going to the beach, etc. while people like Mas Amedda, Tarkin, and Vader did all the work.

 

In the 1975 second draft, something of the sort was definitely in the cards. The Emperor was a Nixonian gangster-politician whose rule was enforced by the Sith Lords, led by Prince Espaa Valorum (and possibly a shadowy hidden Master behind him!), and they held the real power. Vader wasn't going to be a major villain beyond the first film, though, as he dies in a kamikaze attack during the Death Star trench run in this draft.

A similar power dynamic is in the third draft later that same year: in that version Darth Vader was the Emperor's right-hand man, but Vader was the chief Sith Lord, while the Emperor was a military man and politician. This was the likely model for Timothy Zahn's conception of the fragile partnership between the Dark Jedi Joruus C'Baoth and Grand Admiral Thrawn (with Thrawn, interestingly, in the Emperor role).


Entirely unrelated, but something else notable I discovered recently: in LucasArts’ 1999 Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace video game, the corner of Mos Espa farthest from Anakin Skywalker’s house holds an otherwise-unseen Podracer that doesn’t match any of the craft in the film. Mawhonic and his Podracer are in the game, as is Teemto Pagalies -- but the mysterious podracer craft definitely isn't Teemto's, nor any other known as yet.

Where, then, did this unusual design come from, to be set so carefully as far as possible from the Anakin Skywalker we know?

 

Agreed. From the beginning of the ANH novelization:

Prologue
Another galaxy, another time.

The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time.
No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that…it was the
Republic.

Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights,
the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass
beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have
greed to match.

So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to
withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was
not visible from outside.

Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government,
and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself
to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected
among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.

Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from
the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had
appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.

Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights,
guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to
institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used
the imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their
own personal ambitions.

But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring
themselves opposed to the New Order they began the great battle to restore the Old
Republic.

From the beginning they were vastly outnumbered by the system held in thrall by
the Emperor. In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance
would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of
oppressed and beaten peoples…

 

Don't hear "boot-lickers" enough these days.

 

Interesting fact: in BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic, one character on the planet Taris is a swoop gang leader who lost his sight in a speeder-bike accident, and later received some disturbing-looking artificial eyes. (Shades of Dune Messiah.)

It seems Lucas' original idea for the third Star Wars film was to have Leia be blinded -- originally in a lightsaber duel (like Kanan in Rebels), but possibly also in a speeder crash on Endor. Like Rapunzel's prince falling into a net of thistles, or that one girl in the 1973 Tales from the Crypt film (incidentally starring Peter Cushing in a notable role).

That this is a reference to something in the deep basement of Lucasfilm's vaults is made clearer later on in the game: on Tatooine there's a wreck from a speeder-bike accident, and a woman's voice can be heard calling for help... but there's no one visible there. Because no, she's not blind, YOU'RE blind.

And speaking of KOTOR and early Star Wars: Bastila Shan's descent to Taris in an escape pod and capture by a swoop gang is a heavily sanitized version of what happens to Princess Leia in the 1974 rough draft.

 

An animator's model sheet for Sabine Wren’s stolen TIE fighter in Star Wars Rebels.

The colorful Chris Foss-style paint job is based on similar Imperial fighters that were captured and brightly painted by Wookiees in George Lucas' 1974 rough draft.

The schematic refers to it as the Spirit Of - an odd name for a ship, perhaps meant to suggest “The Spirit of ‘74” (a play on “The Spirit of '76”). It’s also a very obscure Buck Rogers homage: in one 1940s Sunday strip, Wilma painted a rocket ship called the “H O LOO”. The final paint job showed it was really the “H2O LOO” (ie, the Waterloo).

Interesting that the 1974 rough draft still provides inspiration for modern SW projects. (Another example: the tripedal medical droid that treats the burned Anakin in ROTS is based on R2-D2's design from that period, a scaled-down version of the War of the Worlds Martian tripods.)

So much so that you might even suspect there's an "experimental" film version of the 1974 draft in George Lucas' basement. One for the X-Files team, perhaps?

 

In the beginning of the PM, the Jedi were sent to negotiate and intimate the Trade Federation. Aren't the Jedi supposed to stay out of Politics, instead of choosing sides and bullying the Trade Federation. Aren't the Trade Federation part of the Republic at this time, it's not a Jedi matter.

 

TPM is chronologically the first film, if it establishes that the Jedi ARE involved in politics, who are you to say they aren't supposed to be?

I highly doubt corrupt galactic corporations can be "bullied." More like controlled and regulated. At the time they were literally invading another system.

"For a thousand generations the Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic.." .....HOW is this not a Jedi matter?





You got A LOT wrong there man. Which of the films have you watched?

The misinterpretation could easily have been that the Chosen One doesn't destroy the Sith. In fact that's what that scene implies. He has been hailed as the Chosen One since he was a child, he was apparently born from thin air and despite being young and somewhat unrefined he is considered by many to be the "most powerful" Jedi alive. IF THERE'S A CHOSEN ONE, IT'S HIM. However perhaps the role of the Chosen One and his ultimate purpose is not soley to destroy the Sith, perhaps there is more to it..

 

TPM is chronologically the first film, if it establishes that the Jedi ARE involved in politics, who are you to say they aren't supposed to be?

I highly doubt corrupt galactic corporations can be "bullied." More like controlled and regulated. At the time they were literally invading another system.

"For a thousand generations the Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic.." .....HOW is this not a Jedi matter?





You got A LOT wrong there man. Which of the films have you watched?




I watched all and read more than a few Cannon books. First of all it was a secret meeting, unsanctioned by the Republic. Who ordered the Jedi Counsel to negotiate between 2 groups of Senate members ? Chancellor Volarum who is controlled by bureaucrats.

It is shown that the Republic is corrupted and the Jedi act as henchmen for corrupt Politicians for the Republic, instead of the Citizens doing what's right for the people.[/quote]

 

Who is corrupt the Naboo being invaded and killed? What's best for the people of Naboo, being free or being occupied?

You play a REALLY BAD devil's advocate. Even I could do a better job of pretending the TF were innocent well-meaning entrepreneurs being bullied by the big bad Jedi and their oppressive democracy.