PT [TFA Spoilers] Criticism of Anakin vs. Kylo Ren

Darth Downunder And which award would that be? The Teen Choice awards? From that list of nominations, I'm not surprised.

 

Exactly. I'm reminded of a passage in "Roots," where Kunta Kinte talks with another slave about Master Waller. The other slave says that people say Waller is a good master, and he's personally seen worse, but in the end, he's still a master. He can and will sell any slave he likes. And as it turns out, he sells Kunta's only child, Kizzy, when she is "disloyal" to him.

"Good master" is an oxymoron. No matter how "nicely" a master might treat his slaves, he is still a master. He still owns other human beings.

 

No question about that. Still it doesn't automatically follow that a person will be traumatized & mentally disturbed because they were categorized as a slave as a child. As we've said, in Anakin's case he had a loving devoted parent. Spent time doing the things he loved like building droids & pods & racing. He had friends & a comfortable home. Bcs he was a slave he didn't have freedom...but what freedom does an 8 year old have? He's going to stay alongside his parent no matter what. Shmi was the one who had her freedom & choices restricted. Anakin was only a slave for a few short years of his early life. Before he was old enough to enjoy any real freedom anyway.

 

So, just because he had a loving mother and friends when he was a slave, that means everything is going to be okay once he's freed. He would have no problems to leave his mother behind, the person he was the most attached to at this point in time?

 

Not sure what any of that is about. Anakin was a slave...bcs the dialogue told us he was. That's a terrible thing. Yet we need to look at his lifestyle & his environment. A comfortable home, a perfect loving parent & every day he got to do the things he said he loved doing. And he was free by the age of 9 to pursue his dreams.

You keep running with the silliness of Ben Solo's problems being petty & materialistic. Like he didn't get a toy he asked for so he turned evil. Keep going with that kooky head-canon if you like. Or you could form an intelligent theory of what R.Johnson will come up with for Kylo's backstory. Based upon the two key pieces of information we gleaned from TFA: that young Ben was sent away & that this exposed him to Snoke's manipulation. If you casually dismiss a young troubled person having his mind screwed with by an evil being with dark supernatural powers then...I don't know what to say to you.

I didn't once suggest people's opinions are invalid bcs of acclaim. You can plainly see that so enough with the straw-manning. I gave my opinion as to why he's been generally well received as a character. Was that a crime? People are free to dislike a character. There are some that I don't like. It's hardly a big deal.

You have seen TPM right? Anakin willingly left with the Jedi & chose to leave his mother behind. No one held a lightsaber to his head. He also promised he'd free her & did exactly jack-**** about it over the following 10 years.

 

I'm not so sure about this. The "critical acclaim" argument is more of a way to deter generalized statements that, for example, talk about what "people" find entertaining or why "people" even go to movies.

Let's take what you said here...

I could be wrong, but this does not seem like you're expressing why you don't like the character; it seems more like a generalized statement that attempts to define what "entertainment" is for people, what people should expect when they go to the movies, and what people are trying to get out of their movie-going experience. Well, when you bring up these kinds of generalized statements, that's when the "critical acclaim" arguments come in handy since they suggest that your thoughts about what "people" like may not actually represent reality after all....which is fine, of course. Personal opinions don't always have to line up with what others thought.

 

Let's just say Jacen Solo would roll his eyes at Kylo Ren's whiny attitude, if Kylo really felt "abandoned" in that way. Even though Jacen's transformation into a Sith was basically a rehash of Anakin to Vader, he was still a much better character, even after becoming a Sith.

Now, to be fair, we still don't know Ben's background in full yet. We know "why" Anakin fell to the dark side; we know "why" Jacen in Legends turned dark. Maybe it's as Han said in TFA....something was off about Ben from the get-go. Maybe he was more like Riddle/Voldemort (who was a nasty piece of work as a child before he knew he was a wizard) or Palpatine (in the Darth Plagueis novel). That's not to say he's not responsible for his own choices, but we're still missing information about his past.

 

Of course it's a terrible concept. As if anyone doesn't know that. Yet there's nothing in little Anie's day to day life & environment spent with his loving parent that explains or excuses his child-killing rampages in Eps 2 & 3. That was the original point. As far as we know he & Ben Solo were fine as very young kids. Their problems started later.

Again, you're making stuff up to suit your own narrative. No one has confirmed that his feelings are linked to his parents working too much. Also, what actors & former SW directors say in interviews is irrelevant. Only what's shown on screen counts. Is Johnson bound by Driver's remarks to E-Online? Shall we go though all of GL's comments over the years in interviews that were contradicted later by what he showed us on screen?

So your answer to a troubled child is for him to & be rational & mature? Forgetting the fact of the evil Force user poisoning his young mind. No understanding from you about that at all. The little fella should've put that nasty DS user & his Force powers in their place!

I'm also free to give an opinion about why I think people like him. Or why people like Vader or Luke or Han. If people feel all threatened & "shut out" by that simple observation then they're being too precious.

Spot on! People stating that "Kylo is not entertaining!" as some kind of fact is absurd. These movies aren't made for the express purpose of entertaining a particular person. That's when the issue of popularity & acclaim is completely relevant. What they should be saying is "Kylo didn't entertain me". Oh well. That's a shame. It's not all about you & you can't expect to like every single character.

 

So you think going from being a slave to being a Jedi, an organization that prohibit attachment would have no impact on him, at all? Remember during the meeting with the Jedi council in TPM when he didn't understand why fearing to loose his mother was important? It was even one the reason why they initially refused to train him.

 

The point isn't that people don't go to the movies for entertainment. The point is that a statement like "he or she has the right to expect entertainment" takes on the premise that what we are seeing onscreen of Kylo is not entertaining. No doubt that people should expect entertainment at the movies, but they can also decide for themselves what is entertaining and what isn't. Not everyone will agree with your premise that what is onscreen isn't entertaining.

And a statement like "They're not there for a psychological examination or a root canal" takes on the premise that Kylo's characterization is a painful, dry portrayal, akin to a psychological examination or a root canal procedure. And you're right that watching a movie should not be a painful, root-canal-esque, experience. But the problem again is that this statement takes on a premise that "people" in general found it to be that way.

Well, if you're going to make generalized statements about what "people" find entertaining or what "people" experienced with Kylo's character, then perhaps references to acclaim or polls generated by "people" is not so unreasonable to mention.

 

Like I've said all along, his issues did start here. Shmi being a slave though is beside the point. If she wasn't a slave but he had to leave her behind on a dangerous world it would've been the same issue. Yet he did choose to leave her. This is also all undermined by the absurdity of not freeing her. It would've been the easiest thing in the world to get someone to payoff a now poor & desperate Watto to get Shmi to safety. The Naboo could've arranged it. They're near Tatooine, they're rich & Anakin just saved their planet!

 

It it was so easy, don't you think Qui-gon, by being a Jedi, would have been able to free Shmi and all the other slaves on Tatooine?

 

He absolutely should've been able to free Shmi. More terrible writing from Lucas. Think of what they had to offer a poor & desperate Watto. The race winnings in local currency (that Anakin hands to Shmi). The championship pod (the fastest ever built), & whatever valuables & tech they had on the Naboo ship. As if Watto, now poor would value Shmi over all of that. She's a basic laborer. She can't race pods & has no other money making skills.

Because it's important to note that alot of us were entertained by him. He worked as a character. Working doesn't mean that every single audience member has to like him. If that were the measurement then every character ever created was a failure. The acclaim is relevant bcs it shows that a great number of the audience were entertained by him or found him compelling. Doesn't mean someone's wrong for thinking otherwise. Ditto with Han Solo or Luke or Vader or any other character.

 

wow, i havn't looked at this thread in a long. all i know is it has drifted into some strange territory. song of the south?!
Anakin fell to the dark side, and i know why because it played out on screen. i don't know why Ben fell to the dark side and killed his father, because that would have meant providing details and that would be so...so....prequelish. i guess han didn't let him fly the falcon one day.

so yeah kylo takes it for being 'whiny' over Anakin.

 

Did you know why Vader fell to the DS after only watching ANH? No bcs they didn't reveal it in the first movie. Sometimes it's as if people don't realise we're only one third of the way through a trilogy.

All you need to say is that you personally find Kylo annoying. Not try to suggest that he's objectively so.

No one could possibly think I suggested they need to align their opinion with anything. How many dozens of times have I said that people are free to dislike whoever they want. Who cares? No character is universally liked. As a separate point, the TFA writers & the actor can look at polls & acclaim & be satisfied that they created a character that was very well received. Same with Rey. Yet both have their critics, just as every character has.

 

You've made your point, but you might try practising what you preach, as your arguments are regularly filled with generalizations of how the character is generally percieved, rather than how you percieve the character. This point has been reiterated a number of times by different posters, but you conveniently choose to ignore this in favour of pressing your own point about generalizations by others.

 

His mother's death may have probably a pretty big factor in the killings, and then he promised to never let that happen again but it kind of backfired pretty hard.

Right, it's Lucas's writing, not because they said Tatooine is not part of the Republic or something.

 

I believe that you had said he was not "fun" and that the response was that he was not intended to be "fun". But fun does not equal entertaining; for example, Luke getting pissed at Vader and finally unleashing on him was not "fun" but it was a powerful moment in the film.

And here's your full post:

Here, you attempt to define which characters were entertaining and which were not, and then project your opinion of "entertaining" onto people in general. These sound like very matter-of-fact statements. And so the "popularity" arguments are trying to refute those types of statements, they're not trying to invalidate your personal dislike of the character.

I'm not actually against matter-of-fact statements since they can give one's arguments a sense of conviction. However, if you decide to employ this style of argument, you can't then expect that people won't try to refute it. If one's opinion is presented as fact, it's only natural that people will try to demonstrate otherwise; this is where critical acclaim or polls come in handy. For example, a statement like, "Character X was absolutely terrible. Nothing he did was entertaining and everything he did was absolutely irritating and that's not cool since people paid money to be entertained at the movies and they instead got stuck with this abomination of a character"....that kind of statement is basically inviting a response that goes something like "Woah, relax. I respect that you don't like him, but your insinuation that "people" in general were not entertained by him seems a bit off base if you take a look at the polls or the critical response to his character".

And, just to make the distinction absolutely clear, the point isn't to try to shut down your opinion, but rather to refute your statement of fact.

 

That's like saying " let's go to Iraq and bombed all of ISIS so everyone is ok! And we fix the country!"

You can't do that. That is out of our jurisdiction and it's much more complex Than that.



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