TPM is "winning" IMDB's Worst Star Wars Film survey. WHY?

7. Vague Ethnicities - Watto is Mexican. Nute and his buddy are Japanese. The Jar Jar thing is highly debatable so I'm not bringing that up. I don't think this was done to be disrespectful in any way, I just think it was a little awkward.

Errr......GL isn't a racist and that accusion is pretty silly.
Made up by the same people who said Jango and Boba where racist because they were hispanics......right. LOL! They're from NEW ZEALAND and Jango isn't really evil either, same goes for Boba.

The characters in TPM aren't steriotypes, they are archtypes.

 

I thought Watto was Italian.... ?

 

Now I can't help but think of Chasing Amy

[image=http://www.heinzschen.r-h-privat.de/coverz/grafiken/C/Chasing%20Amy/Chasing_Amy_Front.jpg]

Hooper: Always some ... boy gotta
invoke `the holy trilogy'! Bust this -
those movies are about how the white
man keeps the brother man down - even
in a galaxy far, far away. Check
this .... You got ... farm-boy
Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy -
blond hair, blue eyes.
And then you've got Darth
Vader: the blackest brother in the
galaxy. Nubian God.

BANKY
What's a Nubian?

HOOPER
Shut ... ... up! Now Vader, he's a
spiritual brother, with the force and
all that .... Then this ...
Skywalker gets his hands on a light-
saber, and the boy decides he's
gonna run the ... universe - gets
a whole Klan of whites together, and
they're gonna bust up Vader's `hood
the Death Star. Now what the ... do
you call that!

BANKY
Intergalactic Civil War!

HOOPER
Gentrification!!! They're gonna drive
our the black element, to make the
galaxy quote, unquote `safe' for white
folks.

HOLDEN
But Vader turns, out to be Luke's
father. And in Jedi, they become
friends.

HOOPER
Don't make me bust a cap in your ...,
yo! Jedi's the most insulting
installment, because Vader's
beautiful, black visage is
sullied when he pulls off his mask to
reveal a feeble, crusty white man!
They're trying to tell us that deep
inside, we all want to be white!

BANKY
Well isn't that true!

Seriously, I don't think there's a racist element to the Star Wars saga, but perhaps a prejudical one with the addition of midichlorians.

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Disclaimer: This message is not intended as bait, but rather a certain point of view.

 

Midichlorians serve to make manipulation of the Force available to every living thing, not just Luke and his family as was the apparent case all through the classic trilogy.

 

Perhaps Go Mer. However, there's a reason why Qui Gon had Kenobi analyze Anakin's midichlorian levels.

 

So?

 

So...
...what?

 

So the midichlorians show that the individual has a bond with the Force, not that they cause it. I mean, Qui Gonn's little speech to Anni about them sounds alot like the oversimplified science lessons you see in elementary schools.

 

So what's the significance of the blood test?

 

To differentiate between people who have a higher natural ability than others.

 

If it's so natural, why do they need permission to be trained?

However, I do see your point why the Jedi discrimate against those that don't have the goods. So much for the notion of lumious beings are we... not this crude matter.

 

It's not permission to be trained, although I'm sure they ask permission before they take children to the Temple. They take people who have some ability to access the Force. It doesn't make sense to try and train non-Force Jedi.

 

The Jedi noticed that most of the really Force Sensitive people have a high midichlorian count.

After they came up with the dogma that they were to shun their personal attatchments and related feelings, they decided it would be better to train Jedi as soon after birth as possible, so they could be trained to control their emotions before they are able to form attatchments.

They use the midi count to see who has more natural ability, and then train them as Jedi hopefuls.

There is a certain point where some of these Jedi hopefuls will have taken too long to be taken on as a Padawan by a Jedi Master, and if that happens, their shot at being a Jedi is eventually revoked.

 

It's not permission to be trained, although I'm sure they ask permission before they take children to the Temple. They take people who have some ability to access the Force. It doesn't make sense to try and train non-Force Jedi.

Interesting. I thought Qui Gon asked permission from the Jedi Council to train the boy, but was denied to do so. Additionally, I thought the Council change their mind and gave Kenobi persmission to train the boy by films end. Perhaps a rewatch is in order for me.

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The Jedi noticed that most of the really Force Sensitive people have a high midichlorian count.

...

They use the midi count to see who has more natural ability, and then train them as Jedi hopefuls.

There is a certain point where some of these Jedi hopefuls will have taken too long to be taken on as a Padawan by a Jedi Master, and if that happens, their shot at being a Jedi is eventually revoked.

Thanks for explaining why the Jedi use blood tests and midichlorian count to dismiss those that don't have the genetic goods as they do and noting that size does matter. So much for, "Judge me by my size, do you?." With midichlorians we now can (pre)judge.

 

A Midi count has no bearing on size. It's a ratio, not a total count.

In the classic trilogy we could only pre judge based on lineage as far as we knew.

 

We do have a thread for midichlorian discussion. Let's keep this on topic of the survey ok?

 

Errr......GL isn't a racist and that accusion is pretty silly.
Made up by the same people who said Jango and Boba where racist because they were hispanics......right. LOL! They're from NEW ZEALAND and Jango isn't really evil either, same goes for Boba.

The characters in TPM aren't steriotypes, they are archtypes.

At no point did I say George Lucas was a rascist or using stereotypes. I only brought up the JarJar point because I know that there were certain interest groups that were batting that bit around at the time of the film and I was trying to draw a clear line between that and the point I was making. I guess I wasn't clear enough.

The Trade Federation aliens DO sound asian. Watto DOES sound Mexican or Italian or maybe a mix. I would challenge you to that they didn't. The JarJar matter I think hinges on maybe a word or two that I can see how it was blown out of proportion but I don't agree that it is true or correct at all. The point is that I don't think that GL was making stereotypes. I can't even really make a comparision on how he did or didn't. I do think he used certain ethnicities to portray these aliens linguistically and I think that was a bad choice because it DOES open the door to people making further comparisions and leaps in logic to say he was using stereotyping in his characters.

I don't remember any other Star Wars languages or accents sounding like those on other 'real world' cultures and I don't understand why they were used here. This is why I thought it was awkward and distracting and a point on which I feel weakened the movie.

The Midichlorian concept wasn't in the OT and I understood the Jedi concept fine and that's why I think it's a non-essential element now. I did make a post on the midi-thread that goes more in depth on why I dislike this part of the movie anyone is interested.

 

Everyone in the Star Wars saga sounds like different kinds of people.

The Empire is run by people with british accents, while the rebels have a more American flavor.

They have to sound like someone speaking our language, or we won't undertsand it, the accents add variety, and should not be inerpereted as a commentary any any race in particular. At the end of the day these people aren't speaking "English", they call it "Basic". Nute Gunray and Nute Hakko are "Nimodians", Watto is a "Toydarian", Jar-Jar is a "Gungan", and so on and so forth.

According to Lucas he always thought of the Niemodians as sounding Transylvanian, not even real Transylvanian, but that movie version of it from Dracula films.

At the end of the day, these characters are portraying individuals, not entire races of people.

 

I should have said the alien languages. The human accents are obvious because, well, those are really their accents. But the imaginary alien languages in the past (all of those presented in the OT) did not seem to be influenced by earth dialects. Chewbacca's Wookiee language is grunts, growls, and distinct. Ewoks make chirps and howls and are hard to mistake for anything else. Jabba sounds very unique. Bib Fortuna sounds very unique. Yoda sounds, eh, like Grover. But at no time did they remind me of real world counterparts. So when there are at least two alien languages in Phantom Menace that seem to me to be heavily influenced by those encountered regularly in everyday life, it is distracting. When I hear Nimodians, I just want to think "Nimodians", not "weird alien Japanese".

If George says he was going for Bela Lugosi then I guess that's what he was going for, but is he sure he didn't grow up watching the Japanese translation of Dracula?

 

Both Hutteese and the Ewoks were taken from real dialects from here on Earth.

Nien Numb (Lando's co pilot at the batte of Endor) was speaking some kind of African dialect. When the movie played there, a lot of people got exited to hear their own language being used correctly.

The Niemodians sound Transylvanian to me.

At the end of the day it has to be language we are fammiliar with from here on Earth.

 

The Neimoidians totally sound Asian to me... but I don't care. I like em the way they are.

 

[image=http://etm.freshegg.com/clientimages/17/resized_gizmo.jpg] Well, they're all foreign aliens unless they file the proper paperwork.

I found the Star Wars saga to have a bunch of British accents as well.

What's missing from the Star Wars Universe is some good old true American accents. Like these folks:

[image=http://www.antoniogenna.net/doppiaggio/telefilm/thebeverlyhillbillies.jpg]

I mean, Anakin's pod racer was on blocks in his driveway.

[image=http://ofb.net/~epstein/sl/20030523-bc3.jpg]

 

The Trade Federation aliens DO sound asian. Watto DOES sound Mexican or Italian or maybe a mix.

He also sounds Arab or Jewish, depending on who you ask.

I would challenge you to that they didn't.

I would challenge you to say what, exactly, "Asian," "Mexican," and "Italian" sound like.

The JarJar matter I think hinges on maybe a word or two that I can see how it was blown out of proportion but I don't agree that it is true or correct at all. The point is that I don't think that GL was making stereotypes. I can't even really make a comparision on how he did or didn't. I do think he used certain ethnicities to portray these aliens linguistically

He said that the Nemoidians were speaking with a Transylvanian accent.

and I think that was a bad choice because it DOES open the door to people making further comparisions and leaps in logic to say he was using stereotyping in his characters.

And those people need to a) get a life; and b) quit demeaning the cause they claim to champion by focusing on such nonsense when there are genuine examples of very pernicious racism every day in real life.

IMO the people who carried on about the so-called stereotypes in the PT were trying to cloak their hatred of SW and/or Lucas in moral righteousness, or else just trying to get attention. This is not a new thing, by the way. When the original SW movie came out, Lucas was accused of racism because there were no non-white actors in the major cast -- except for James Earl Jones, who played the voice of Darth Vader, aka the villain of the picture. Then when ESB rolled around, Lucas was again accused of racism because of Lando Calrissian, who betrays his friend Han Solo, was black.

There are people who will look for things to complain about, and if they can hide behind moral outrage, so much the better for them.

 

It would also be kinda bummer if everyone talked in American or English accents, especially in a galaxy far, far away that is so diverse.

 

Look, we humans have a natural propensity to rank things. We're always doing 'Top Tens', or 'what are ten things you most hate/love/want to experience/etc.etc.

Think of it this way. Rank the 5 Star Wars from best to worst/favourite to least favourite (and if you want to say that you can't, 'cause they're all one big saga, that's fine - but that doesn't disallow others from ranking). Now, the movie that is your least favourite, or you think is the worst (it might be TPM, might ANH, whatever) -- there are going to ALWAYS be members of the public and SW fans who will agree with you, and disagree with you.

There's really no need to take criticism of TPM, compared with other SW films, as if someone's threatened to shoot your family.

And please - do you know how immature and ridiculous these Anti-StarWars-Conspiracy theories sound? People might hate SW, fine. If you hate a movie, you don't watch it again, and you bitch about it to all your friends, and if you're a film critic, you write a negative review. You don't set up an international shadowy media-corporate alliance hell-bent on the destruction of all involved in the making of these films. Honestly. We're not trapped in an episode of the X-files here, people.

IMO the people who carried on about the so-called stereotypes in the PT were trying to cloak their hatred of SW and/or Lucas in moral righteousness, or else just trying to get attention.

Oh please... cry me a friggin' river.