Ah! Those are very good points, Jokergirl. I hadn't thought of it that way.

Speaking of names (most recent posts), I like the name Darth Sidious. That does sound sinister.

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There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the Cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while...in that crystal thought time in Mexico. ~Donovan

Insidious he is.

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion
When I was a kid, if someone brandished a shrink gun he'd get a little bit of respect!-Myron Reducto, Harvey Birdman

Or it could be a coincidence.

There're, what, something like ten thousand languages on Earth? No matter how you string vowels and consonants together, you'll find words out there, in some language, that sound like them.

__________________
If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion
When I was a kid, if someone brandished a shrink gun he'd get a little bit of respect!-Myron Reducto, Harvey Birdman

Nah, with Lucas' track record of names in the original trilogy, not likely.
At least most of those.

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Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

I wouldn't count myself as a huge SW fan, but I saw the original in the cinema and it did make quite an impression on my youthful mind. My issue with TPM is the overuse of CGI. In ANH, the actors were responding to real sets and locations (eg. they filmed the desert scenes in Tunisia) whereas in all the prequels, you just know it's a green or blue background with effects added. Shame, because the CGI is good, but there is way too much of it and has the effect of making the films seem flat and lifeless. Plus yes, Jar-Jar. There's a review over at IMDB that has the title 'Oh Jar-Jar, how do I hate thee, let me count the ways' which neatly encapsulated my feelings in one line.

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"Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools" - D. Bader

I note that The Force is explained by "midichlorians" in the blood. I suspect it's supposed to be a super variety of a "mitochondrion," but it ends up sounding like some kind of bathroom cleaning agent.

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Later . . .

Regarding the mitichlorans, it has been my understanding that they mediate The Force but are not The Force itself. Beings with more mitichlorans can make more use of The Force because they have a higher bandwidth, in a way.

Personally, I think the whole mitichloran concept is cheesy and was unecessary.

CJSF

P.S.
I swear there was a post in here about mitichlorans, but now I can't find it... well, my comment stands anyway.

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

perhaps if you search for midichlorians

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Oh.



Thanks!

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

"Use MIDICHLORIANS (R)(C)(TM) and you'll have the cleanest toilet bowl in your neighborhood! I'm Vincent Price, and I ought to know."

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Later . . .

I explained away the midichlorians as a sort of benign Force-feeding symbiont - if you concentrate more Force around you, you will have more living in your blood, I guess. So it's a marker, not the cause.

...what? Hey, if it makes me sleep better at night...

And agreed. A well-executed muppet to me is a lot more believable than an over-smooth CGI animation. I don't know, something about the lack of inertia in CGI motions throws me off.

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Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

I notice no one batted an eye at my "Darth Vader is not Skywalker" theory. (It's not actually "my" theory--I read it on USENET and it convinced me.)

Is this because it's already widely known among SW fandom that Darth Vader was not Skywalker in Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back?

Does it matter? things like that get rewritten to conform to a new plot. Sequels always throw up contrived 'surprises' if the writers think it will get readers or viewrs.

Soap Operas are the best example, how many lost or secret siblings and parents turn up?

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It's one thing to contrive a surprise. It's another thing to simply change things because you had a brain fart.

The Empire Strikes Back brilliantly expanded on Star Wars in a perfectly consistent and sensible way, as well as setting up an epic struggle between Darth Vader and the Emperor. In ESB, Darth Vader was secretly seeking out Luke Skywalker after realizing that "the son of Skywalker" was actually his son. In ESB, Darth Vader was secretly plotting to ally himself with Luke to overthrow the Emperor. In ESB, Obiwan Kenobi was neither a liar nor incompetent.

In RoJ, changing things so that Darth Vader = Skywalker turned Obiwan Kenobi into an incompetent and a liar.

Obiwan was turned incompetent because only a fool would "hide" Luke Skywalker in plain sight on his father's home planet living with his real relatives without even changing his name. This isn't a "plot twist". This makes no sense.

Obiwan was turned into a liar because he had previously told Luke that Darth Vader had killed his father. In SW and ESB, this was the truth. Darth Vader did indeed kill Luke's adoptive father, a Jedi warrior named "Skywalker" (the name Anakin isn't used until later). Obiwan told the truth, even if he didn't tell the whole truth.

Of course, ultimately none of this really matters in the big scheme of things. They're just movies.

It's extremely refreshing to see somebody mentioning that. Sometimes I wonder if people have lost their grasp of that basic, fundamental fact. By all means, high art is worthy of detailed analysis - but not something that grew arms and legs and shot off in unexpected directions as somebody made it all up as he went along. I think the assumption that Lucas had been working to some master plan, and had the whole story in mind from the very onset, is a false one.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

yes, they are "just movies" that are full of inconsistencies..

but...

it could be that Obi Wan was able to "protect" Luke on Tattoine because the Emperor allowed it- or even made it happen.
also, Vader didn't ever want to go back to that place- too many bad memories, what with his dead mom and the hacking to pieces of those sand people and all. that place was a part of his previous life, a place that probably reminded him of everything that he had lost to become the monster that he was. but he did win that one pod race that one time, so it wasn't all bad memories, i guess..
given the ways that the Emperor manipulated events before and during the prequel trilogy, i can see how maybe he kept the truth about Annakin's twin children surviving the death of Padme from Vader until it was to his advantage to let Vader know about them. he sensed that Luke was even more powerful than Vader was, and intended for him to take Vader's place at his side. this was all laid out in return of the Jedi shortly before he got thrown down that unfortunately placed tube that led directly to the reactor core, with only a small decorative guardrail in place to keep people from falling to their death..

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Which was a feature in all 6 films. Granted, the one featured it as a fight on moving hover cars, but all 6 had the "bottomless pit" thing somewhere.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Oh, I agree. You can't analyze art to the last minute detail as it is by nature formed in a creative process.
However, this says nothing about not being allowed to speculate, explain, and generally using one's fantasy to expand the glimpse of the world the specific piece of art shows. And why shouldn't we?

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Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

I don't really have a problem with what Lucas did with the prequels...he worked with what he had to work with at the time. The damage had been done in Return of the Jedi. On balance, I'd say the RoJ changes were on the whole a net plus for the prequels, because of Ian McDiarmid (the one and only ESB->RoJ change for the better). What the prequels did with Ian McDiarmid was worth the plot making no sense.

But consider the lengths to which you have to strain credulity in order to kinda sorta have a workable explaination in the prequels. All that could have been avoided had Lucas kept his head on when writing RoJ. How could he forget that Darth Vader and Skywalker were two different people? As it was, RoJ made the whole plotline fall apart.

Absolutely fair enough. But, just when you have it all rationalised and it seems to make sense after all, George Lucas is likely to pull something else out of where the Sun don't shine that makes you start the whole process again. Boba Fett is a clone now? What? Etc...

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

Well, not entirely.

For example: Han Solo is old enough to remember the Clone Wars and when the Jedi were a real, galaxy-wide group of people. He shouldn't have been "disbelieving," as he was in the original "Star Wars."

For that matter, Ben's reference in the original "Star Wars" to Vader helping the Emperor hunt down "the last of the Jedi" suggests that the Jedi were already in decline and the Emperor simply finished them off. This, of course, is consistent with Han's attitude. The prequels totally screwed that up.

But the (admittedly) minor bit that really torqued me off was having Padme die in childbirth. In "ROTJ," Leia remembered her. And Lucas is on record as saying that he wanted to have at least one of the two remember their mother precisely because the mother would be such an important character in Episodes I-III. Then he has her die when Leia's a mere minutes old.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

But that part is also consistent with Anakin becoming Vader after the majority of the Jedi was killed in the betrayal.
We didn't see all Jedi get killed in the betrayal so it's quite possible Yoda and Obi-Wan wasn't the only ones who lasted for a while after.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I too believe Lucas' original intent was that Luke's father had been killed by Darth Vader.

And no, it doesn't make sense that infant Luke would be "hidden" on Tatooine by other Skywalkers. And who are these people anyway? Shmi and Anakin came to Tatooine as slaves. He was later allegedly fatherless and "supernaturally" conceived. If Shmi's ex-slave relatives, then her name was Skywalker?

If one twin (Leia) would be very carefully and cleverly hidden away, surely the other would be too -- especially if it's a society wherein sons are favored a bit more than daughters and he has the family name.

Ah well.

I wish Lucas would have started off in the prequels with Anakin as Hayden Christensen was at the age of filming: He's already grown, has experience. He and Skywalker are buddies or long-time rivals of sorts, have a falling out, Skywalker is murdered, Anakin still becomes Darth Vader. Etc. Padme could still have been factored in somehow; she is my favorite SW character of all.

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There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the Cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while...in that crystal thought time in Mexico. ~Donovan

Do you think that's a valid interpretation, though? That the temple slaughter of the Jedi children was perpetrated by Anakin Skywalker before he was turned and became Darth Vader?

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I still think Anakin was the hottest Jedi ever.

Yeah baby!

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There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the Cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while...in that crystal thought time in Mexico. ~Donovan

So, if Lucas hadn't messed up the plotline in RoJ, would you prefer Hayden Christensen to have played Darth Vader (Luke's real father), or Anakin Skywalker (Luke's adoptive father)?

Bear in mind that only Skywalker would have a reason to be wearing the local garb of Tatooine (including Ben Kenobi's Jawa-style robes from Star Wars which would eventually become "Jedi-garb" in the prequels).

Darth would probably wear black leather. Maybe something like Luke's costume in RoJ.

Darth Vader.

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There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the Cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while...in that crystal thought time in Mexico. ~Donovan

I was discussing the sentence that Vader helped hunt down the last Jedi, which is entirely consistent with what was shown, as it didn't comment on what he did before becoming Vader.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Yep.

I think Lucas should have written it that Obi-Wan returns to tell Padme Anakin's turned to the Dark Side. She flees, successfully goes into hiding; later she dies somehow when the twins are 3 or 4 years old. And then the twins are taken into protective custody by others...but they'd have to be placed in joint custody, otherwise would be traumatized by separation. And then of course there'd be no "Luke falls in love with Leia" in the first 2 films.

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There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the Cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while...in that crystal thought time in Mexico. ~Donovan

i believe the slaughter of the younglings was the first order given to him after he "became" Darth Vader.. this was right after the confrontation between Palpatine and Mace Windu where Anakin helped "save" Palpatine from being arrested or killed by the Jedi.
right after Anakin/Vader was sent to kill the kids, Palpatine gave the order to the clone soldiers to kill all the Jedi.

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