PT The Yippee hatred phenomenon

I'm creating this thread in an attempt to understand the vehement feelings brought by Anakin's yippees. Whilst most people hating the prequels(or major chunks of it) have valid deeply-thought-of reasons for their dislikes, oftentimes I'll still see the word 'Yippee' listed as the (or a) primary source of 'Prequels/TPM sucking' or 'Anakin sucking'. Now even taking into account fans prioritizing different elements in a movie, I am struggling to understand why 'Yippee' is given special 'consideration'. Is that not a line only said twice in a movie by a nine year old? Or am I missing some underlying disgrace connected to the line?

I have brainstormed a few possible reasons for this much socially jeered exclamation, and I am requesting feedback from fellow fans concerning this matter for any option supplied by my mind doesn't satisfy me. Here:

1)'Yippee' is viewed as childish.

Not by nine year old standards. Surely folks have noticed kids under ten tending to freely babble & exclaim their inner thoughts/feelings no matter in what settings, deeply unaware of shallow social stigmas like 'One's vocal chords are not to be utilized for uncouth exclamations' right from MissManner (Or Miss SuperStiff Killjoy) guidelines? Especially if they are extroverted. I can't claim any maternal nature or innate connection to children, but if there is one thing they have in heaps it's genuineness of spirit. Should that innocent mindset not be celebrated?

In any scenario, Anakin as a lifelong slave until then should not be peed on for rejoicing in his much deserved freedom. Who cares if 'Yippee' is the first thing that comes out of his mouth? Would most people of any age under the overwhelming news of their freedom be able to form coherent thoughts, let alone sophisticated remarks?

2)'Yippee' sounds weird, it's not even a used exclamation in the real world!

'This is sooooo wizard' is not an expression uttered by anyone IRL either, yet I don't notice the same mockery surrounding it. Likewise there is a great discrepancy in how much the term 'youngling' gets ridiculed and the amount of tomatoes thrown at 'yippee'. Why the single-minded focus on 'Yippee' then, how does that differ from other Star Wars invented terms? For that matter why aren't the same persons harping on 'womp rats' or un-Earth mesures/systems?

In a galaxy far far away, I would say it's an OBLIGATION on the part of sci-fi filmmakers to insert differences in every system from technology to language to properly sell the universe. I see Star Wars as one of the few universes bothering with the minutiae of a properly unique world.

In any case, I would have to take issue with anyone disliking 'yippee' for its supposed strangeness of sound. Not much different than anyone having a knee-jerk reaction at hearing foreign languages/foreign accents/foreign pronunciations/terms if you think about it, and I don't need to explain why THAT is wrong.

3)'Yippee' is not something Darth Vader would say.

Well he's not quite Darth at this point in time, isn't he? I realize many have difficulty accepting that villains do not come from their mother's wombs as 'evil',but honestly, expecting any nine year old to match their adult demeanor is a bit much. There is much room for him to grow in the rest of his childhood, then teenage years, and even after that it's not uncommon for adults to undergo massive changes. I have a feeling many expected Anakin to be an ice-machine, sociopath, or even choke people at the tender age of nine...not impossible but extremely improbable. Anyway one's future as a killer is not decided by their child exclamations...

4)The actor's delivery of the line didn't work for me.

Fair enough, but is a line uttered twice, not even lasting one full minute of the TPM movie if put together, really warranting so much attention? If you thought most of Jake's acting was fine, why care about a few bad performances? If you think he and other leads suffered from 'bad acting' in TPM/all Prequel movies, why not focus on that as the reason you couldn't buy the story instead of typing 'Yippee' as if that word alone illustrates that opinion(addressing only people engaged in this behavior of course)?

To finish I only 'remembered' that 'Yippee' was even used at all in TPM because of how much it is being bashed. It's not like a variant of 'Yay!'/'Youpi!' is really memorable after all...

My questions for fans reading this are:

a) If you profoundly dislike the 'yippees', why is that so?

b)If you are indifferent to the use of 'Yippees', care to still share your observations on the Yippee hatred phenomenon? Why do you think it is used as a Prequel-jeering bait?

As someone who usually intuitively understands the variables of taste, I have to confess myself stumped on this one.

DO enlighten me.


'Only now, at the end, will I understaaaaaaand'

 

I've never understood the outright hatred of the yippees, either. Sometimes I think folks forget what it was like to be nine years old.

 

I suspect part of it may be that some really take issue with 'Earthisms' in fantasy/scifi. Likewise that some can't get past 'this isn't how I envisioned it' enough to allow room for the creator's own tastes.

 

Eloquent post.

I'm not sure I like "yippee" -- confessedly, I think it is a bit forced, if you'll pardon the pun -- but I don't find myself hating it, either.

People should be glad Lucas cut out Anakin's other exclamation: "mighty blasters!"

Imagine the uproar over that one if you can.


* * *

As for Jake Lloyd's acting? I think he's pretty natural in TPM for the most part.

There's an innocence to his performance that's quite charming. That and he manages the darker bits quite well, IMO.

People would do well to remember that he's saddled with some pretty complex material, and clunky dialogue, both.

I say "clunky" with qualifications. There's a sneaky artistry to it; and, in totality, quite a lot of shading to the performance that Lucas managed to extract from Lloyd.

My view, anyway.

 

I chose "I don't like it, but it's too minor to actually ruin anything for me". I'm not a fan of the line, but there are bigger issues with the film that in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal. I've always heard more people say "yay" rather than "yippee," but hey... Anakin's a little boy and we should expect that at times he will act like one.

 

Long story short, I like it BECAUSE it doesn't fit, and because it comes from Anakin

It represents a time period vastly different from even the other eps, and stands out to show Anakin's sweet innocence and also that he's from a place where he's been exposed to very little outside of his home and other slave children

 

Ha ha ha ha at this thread!

I dont like the Yippie thing, but TPM is about Padme Amidala, Anakin is not the focus until the end of TPM

 

I am happy this does not bother people that much.

 

Yes -- in some ways, it's a LOT more about Padme Amidala than it is the mop-haired brat from Tatooine.

That said, TPM is more of an "ensemble" movies than the others, I think; a slice of the story where things are less "settled" upon.

It could be said to be Qui-Gon's movie, or Obi-Wan's, or Jar Jar's, or Palpatine's. Hell, it could be the Tragedy Of Toydarian Slave Owners.

Your focus determines your reality.

 

Is it too late to petition for the addition of that exclamation in the prequels? I have found myself a new line fetish, ehh. 'Mighty blasters' just sounds so mighty.

I never had any problem with any of the Anakin actors we got in the Prequels. I feel Lloyd comes off as sincere in his performances-he exhibits exactly the mannerisms I would expect from an optimist 9 year old. Yet he still knows how to glare.

My overall view of the Star Wars dialogue its that its innate genuineness has a tendency to unnerve people. It doesn't strive to be 'cool'. That's what I like about it.

Glad to have amused you

I personally think TPM is mostly about Anakin. I don't think his late movie introduction precludes him from being the protagonist.

Interesting insight, Cushing's Admirer. I had speculated that there was some inherent dislike to 'Yippee' because it was not an expression widely used in Earth, but you seem to think there is something Earth-like in this exclamation? Can you elaborate on what you perceive to be Earthisms in Star Wars/the Yippee scenes?

I confess being really surprised at the poll results so far. Doesn't really match what I have observed(in your face 'yippee sucks!!') in other places such as youtube, but it is true that the JC forums are not a troll fest like youtube/other online communities. Very happy to see indifference/moderate dislike instead of 'it's the end of the world' cries. Very happy indeed.

 

I have no problem with the line as written, or with "wizard" (which was a fairly common expression for something good in the roaring 20s). But Loyd's delivery is one of the low points of a very uneven acting performance.

 

Oh, I agree, Shatterpoint. I think many don't like it because it strikes them as too dialect hookey to 'fit' in SW. However, it's not like it isn't an Earthism. I think it's tied to preconceived notions of what is 'proper' speech.

 

You never know. GL likes to tinker.

Well, shoot -- I don't have any problems with them, either. Anakin is more a Rothko-esque confluence of emotional shades than -- at times -- a real person, anyway. And obviously, he's not real-real.

The performers bring the necessary "meat". The director then sculps and gets the pieces he wants. Which fit into a much more complex scheme of visual and psycho-hallucinogenic artistry -- coruscating visual tableaux -- than anything the actors do in and of themselves.

So, in a way, fans focusing overtly on lines or performance are missing the galaxy for the bit of space dust.

Me, too.

These films are quite old-fashioned, and rather arcane, in any number of their components and syntax.

 

I don't mind the "Yippee!" at all. He is a 9 year old kid, after all. It actually helps to make him seem more normal, it's just another detail that makes his downfall that much more tragic. How could a good child with such an innocent sounding "Yippee!" turn into the evil monstrosity that is Darth Vader, and end up killing as many people as he did. Sure, it was to save the one he loved, but he did it for purely selfish reasons.

 

To me, it's not much different than Han's silly "Yahoo!" when he swoops in to help Luke in ANH. Neither bother me, but when I think about it, a kid saying "Yippee!" actually makes more sense (to me) than a grown man shouting "Yahoo!" To me, both are fairly corny (or old-fashioned) bits of dialogue...but that's just a part of SW, isn't it?

 

Or Lando's "YEEHAW!!" after escaping an exploding Death Star ...or Chewie yelling like Tarzan when swinging atop an AT-ST walker.

In other words, par for the course. The line in question simply reminded fans that they were watching calculatingly dumb movies, and they didn't like that.

Life. Whaddya gonna do?

 

^This x 1000! To me, this is a fundamental component of what I would call "that Star Wars-y" feeling

Oh, and I love the title of this thread, btw

 

I never understood the hatred of the word. Anakin, at the time, was nine goddamned years old! What child that age wouldn't say something like 'Yippee!' 'Yaaaay!' 'Hooraaay!' From what I gather they go with their feelings, and if they're feeling excited and very happy, they're going to vocalize it. It also reeks of hypocrisy as noted above. It's OK for Han to scream, "YAHOO!" and Lando to cry out, "YEE-HAW!" but a small child who is, for the first time in his life, seeing a possible door to his freedom and vocalizing how happy he is about it...when he does it, it's not okay? Really?

Just be thankful Kid!Anakin didn't have to recite the 'I hate sand' speech. I'll take 'YIPPEE!' and 'Now this is podracing!' any day.

 

when i drive a fast car i have the inclination to say "Now this is Podracing !!"

 

You have no idea how often I say, "It's working! It's working!" whenever I turn on a household appliance.

 

I thought the "WAHHHHOOOOO!" like was better personally, but "Yippee!" isn't a movie killer.

 

Indifferent. It's a bit cheesy, but you'll get that every now in then in a series that off the bat was throwing out lines like "not this ship, sister."