*** Official STAR WARS Saga (episodes I to VI) Discussion Thread: Part 4 - Page 15

Yeah I guess I agree that Anakin's ghost looks a bit too cocky (if I didn't know better, I'd almost think he's giving Leia the up and down look ... continuing some of those incestous Star Wars themes ... j/k) rather than the humbled look Sebastian Shaw had.

But I still like the new ROTJ ending better.

I believe ROTS is also the first time we see a male character cry ... Anakin sheds tears at least twice. Obi-Wan and Padme have emotional breakdowns.

And I believe this is the only Star Wars film I can remember that utilizes direct montage sequences, in fact, many of the film's strongest moments are montage.

The whole "Opera House" scene was really cool too IMO, not really what you'd expect from a Star Wars movie.

The only other montage I can think of is the celebration montage at the end of ROTJ. It's definitely one of the best parts of ROTS, and the entire saga for that matter.

Luke cries in ROTJ when Anakin dies. Also Anakin cries in TPM when he's seperated from his mother and AOTC when she dies and later when he confesses to the massacre.

I guess Anakin is a real crybaby

One thing that I never quite understood was the Vader that Luke fought on Dagobah. I understand it's significance, but not it's logistics. Was that a dream? What was Vader? Who was he or it? Was that cave strong with the darkside because it made you see things or it somehow physically manifested your inner dark side tendencies?

And there are some shots in the Milennium Falcon in the OT that could *almost* be considered first person. You see out the cockpit and some of the controls, but none of the 'crew'.

Did they use them in the 1950's Serials that this is based on?

Thats how I always interpreted it anyway It made you see your inner fears to see how you dealt with them.

I'm trying to find some odd transistions. How about this one from ANH:

That's a wacky one. I had forgotten about it. After watching most of the movies so many times, I just kind of gloss over the wipes/dissolves.

Great new sig pic Matt. I believe that's the one just before he ignites his saber to kill the younglings?

You are correct, Tim. Powerful image.

thanks for that cap , Kain.
i had thought that the films limited themselves to just the radial, linear, iris in & out, etc but i was obviously wrong.

Remember R2D2 and C3PO in Ep.4 from Ep.3

After he saved Luke from the Sandpeople, he looks to R2D2 and says..."Let's see what you are my little friend and where you come from"...

Also unless C3PO and R2D2 had their memories erased between Ep.1-Ep.4, shouldn't they know the name "Skywalker" from Anakin. Didn't Anakin build C3PO?.

I am not sure if this is the right thread to ask this or if it has already been asked.

Seems to me that Lucas really RUSHED "Ep.1-3" They allcould have been better. Episode 3 is by far the best of the newer ones.

Well in my worthless opinion, Chris

Sorry about the previous post I must have clicked the wrong button choice

C3P0 was mind wiped at the order of Bail Organa at the end of ROTS. R2D2 was not.

As to Ben's comment to R2- there are plenty of R2 and other astromechs in the universe so I don't see why Ben would assume that it was R2D2 at that point in time.

Or what makes you think Ben doesn't remember him.

He lied about Luke's saber, what makes you so certain he'd tell the truth about R2.

And R2 certainly remembers OBW. He plays the message with no prompting once they get back to Ben's shack.

Well, I am of the mind that Ben didn't lie at all. As he said, truths are determined by your own point of view. Ben never actually owned R2 as his dialogue states. Also, it is probable that Anakin would have wanted his son to own something he once did, passed down like a family heirloom. BUT since it's possible that Anakin did NOT know that Luke and Leia were born, maybe it was a lie. BUT Ben did not know necessarily that Anakin was unaware of his children's birth.

I think Anakin knew of his offspring despite what Palpatine's 'revelation' at the end of ROTS implied. It's confusing, but interesting to think about.

Sorry for the dbl post, but right now I am watching ANH for the first time since seeing ROTS.

Why would Ben wait until Luke is almost 20 before training him? Had Luke been 'lured' to begin training earlier, many of the mistakes he made could have been avoided.

I don't think Ben had much of a choice. By placing Luke in Owen's care he really couldn't have much of an impact until Luke was old enough to be on his own. Owen clearly wouldn't have approved of Ben training Luke.

Yoda mentions in the book that training will take place when the force wills it. The Jedi have been operating with archaic ideals which partially lead to Anakin's fall. They aren't going to make the same mistake twice.

You mean like Q-GJ training him when the Jedi "ideals" deemed it inappropriate because Anakin was too old for Jedi training? If it's anything, it's because the Jedi hadn't followed their own guidelines, which allowed the future psychopath, Anakin, to be trained in the Jedi arts.

But they basically did it half-assed: they took Anakin away at a time when he was still very attached to his mother. Had they taken him away either in infancy or when he would have set out on his own anyway then things very well may have been different.

Surely the Jedi couldn't get to every single baby born to test them for Jedi-hood. There would have always been kids who were missed. The sith can't be everywhere either, and their numbers were much less than the Jedi.

Lots more pages still complaining the turn was too abrupt, should have been gradual over the prequels (as implausible as THAT would be since the Jedi would sense it and take care of the matter). Episodes I and II were setups for the turn in Ep. III. Lucas has said as much. And if a turn is gradual, I'm not sure it's a turn. Wouldn't that be more of a slow slide or something?

And the new one, "Darth Vader is too evil now", to paraphrase. Never thought I'd see people complain that the villain was too evil. Only Star Wars fans... Darth Vader is supposed to be evil. Now that we have proof of what he's really capable of instead of just buying him as a cartoon-character villain people are upset?

You could edit back in Anakin's Jedi killing before the Younglings if you wanted, but really the film as-is is fine. The careful observer will notice the massacre in the Jedi Temple had been going for some time before he took out the children. It wasn't the first thing he did. He LED the troops into the temple. We see that they've been at work wiping out Jedi BEFORE the Anakin/Youngling scene, so you can determine Anakin was killing as well, being that he was the one who LED them in there. He didn't materialize in the Youngling's chamber. Anytime Lucas turns away from connect-the-dot storytelling he gets pounced on for it. He actually let the audience do some thinking instead of showing every little tidbit, and look what's happened. What did the kid say? "Master Skywalker. There are too many of them. What are we going to do?" That, too, should help the audience realize Anakin didn't just get there, but the massacre has been going on for a while. Do you think he just stood around? I think Lucas was purposely saving the obvious dark-side intoxication for the Mustafar dark-side eyes reveal later. Then the audience can say "Ahhh, what Yoda said is true. Consumed by Darth Vader/the dark side he IS. (And yet there's an inner conflict indicated by the tear.) You'll note you don't get a very good look at Anakin's eyes in the Temple. That's no accident. The editing makes thing happen at a fast pace, but there IS a passage of time and Lucas saves some things for later instead of gratifying the audience up-front. It's clever film-making if you ask me. Why do everything predictably when you can have a little fun with the audience? Maybe he gave audiences too much credit, but I'm not going to knock him for not dumbing it down. Nice to have a mainstream movie play with a little intelligence for a change.

I saw the movie with my dad this weekend. He loved it. This time (third) it was really obvious to me that Anakin made his decision to embrace the dark side fairly early on, well before he pledged his allegiance to Sidious. He talked to Padme after Palpy told him the Darth Plagious story--"I found a way to save you." She promises she won't die in childbirth. "No, I promise you!" It's quite clear that Anakin has already decided he will learn the ways of the dark side to save her, but he does not yet have a teacher, Palpy having not yet revealed himself as a Sith lord. Obi-Wan tells him he's taught him everything he knows which obviously isn't enough in his eyes to save Padme. He needs a NEW TEACHER. Palpy reveals himself; there's a conflict between his allegiances, but the last piece he needed to save Padme falls into place, and he accepts Sidious as his master. It wasn't a snap-decision to turn to the dark side. He had decided earlier. And since there weren't a lot of dark-side masters around to learn from...he becoame Sidious' dark apprentice. It's kind of like Neo's "choice" in Matrix Revolutions. He had already chosen Trinity's life over everyone else's just as Anakin had chosen Padme's over everyone else's.

As far as the OT focusing more on characters and story than the PT, I have to disagree. The PT films are far more personal in nature, and spend far more time with the characters (whether it always pays off is up to debate). In the OT, our easy-to-like, one-line description, heroes are caught up in something bigger. There are huge battles where the BATTLES themselves are the focus. In the prequels, the main characters tend to be the focus while the battle is more in the background. That's why the OT maintains the most spectacular, gripping space and ground battles. The PT is more concerned with staying with the characters and their stories, despite the flashy effects.

ROTS also has those extreme close-ups of Grievous and OB1'S eyes, and that really cool shot that goes right into the cockpit of Grievous' ship when they crash-land. It was interesting to see Lucas get a bit more flashy and creative even if it broke with Star Wars convention. Like he thought "This is the last one. If it looks cool, I'll do it, regardless."

My father and I were commenting how in the prequels, to by far the greatest extent Episode III, you feel more like you're right there in the thick of things, rather than watching a movie. He was amazed how 3D Episode III looked. Just wait until it comes out in real 3D! Video tends to have that dimensionalized look anyway, perhaps because it doesn't have film grain to "smooth and flatten" the image? And obviously all the graphics are rendered to look 3D.

On a separate note, it was morbdily fascinating to watch Anakin's eyes really glow orange when he was burning up at the end. The "I hate you!" bit. Like he was REALLY enraged and gripped by the dark side at that point. They glowed so much it almost made me think of an "explanation" for the sometimes red/transparent lenses Vader has in ANH. If he got really pissed his eyes might glow enough you could see them behind the lenses.

My guess is that Yoda and OB-1 feared Vader or the Emperor could sense two trained Force-users together. (Would explain why they split up.) It wouldn't do much good to start training Luke as a young child if it meant the Sith would hunt them down and kill them. Children and Darth Vader no mix, but maybe as an young adult Luke would stand a chance with the fundamentals.

If he'd started training him at 3 or 5, even if it took 5 years for the Sith to sense them, there's still only a little kid and an aging Jedi to fight the Sith, or more likely a legion of stormtroopers.

Obi-Wan might have restricted his Jedi exercises to mental/spiritual endeavors as well, to make him less easy to sense across the galaxy. Could explain how he became so pathetically weak in those 20 years. He didn't have that nifty dark-side cave to cloud his presence like Yoda. Not that Yoda stayed that spry, but he did have quite a rough showdown with the Emperor and the last 20 of those 900 years must be the toughest.

You would think if OB1 was going to watch over Luke, Yoda would watch over Leia. Another problem generated by the ROTJ-era decision that Leia be Luke's sister. Sure, you could think that since Vader was a big guy, chances are the son would be stronger and would be the best hope to face him (though both the kids are puny.), but especially as we've seent he Jedi don't always fight one-on-one you would think the best hope would be to train both Luke and Leia. Again, the only real explanation is both children were safer from the Sith when they didn't use the Sith. Vader sensed Luke using the Force in ANH during the battle of Yavin, and that's when he knew he had a son. He didn't know about Leia until ROTJ when he searched Luke's feelings.

So, after witnessing the events of ROTS, I can see why Yoda and Obi-Wan might have been a bit over-protective of the Skywalker twins. Knowing that once they were detected at any age they'd likely be riddled with laser blasts or hacked up by a red or pink or magenta lightsaber, depending on who was restoring the film.

This sums up a lot of my sentiments re: last weekend's discussion on Anakin/Vader. Since ANH we knew he was a murderer, we saw it in ESB, in AOTC, and now in ROTS. I believe the movies show the story of Anakin/Vader very well, but not to the point of redemption, but rather to a point of closure. I believe the Force ghosting is a skill, not a reward, and that's why Anakin appears.

Oh yeah, the dreams weren't planted (was that this thread or the ROTS one? )

But that's you filling in a lot of things based on your own Star Wars beliefs as a die hard fan.

I would bet that if you asked the casual fan, they would think that Luke had indeed helped redeem his father in Jedi, and if Vader/Anakin is just supposed to be evil (a la The Emperor) you can't redeem him.

And by the way, you're theory contradicts a lot of Lucas's interviews (on TV and print) about the redemption of Anakin in Jedi. He, himself, seems to think it's a redemption and that's why I believe the PT fails to establish the pathos necessary to feel like someone was redeemed.

To be a compelling character worthy of redemption at the end of the saga, he cannot just be evil.

Semantics aside, a turn is a turn, whether it is slow or gradual. Is a slow left hand turn in your car not really a turn compared to a quick 180? Nope, a turn is a stray from the path towards another path, the quickness/slowness of it doesn't change the fact that it's a turn.

Now in terms of storytelling effectiveness, especially when you want to redeem the character at the end, a slow, gradual and semi-justified turn [because of compelling external forces] is more worthy of a redemption than someone who just "snaps" and becomes evil very quickly.

Lucas does not believe Vader is absolved of his past crimes....


In contrast...

Vader's perception of his son in EMPIRE:




The SW saga basically deals with issues of selfishness and compassion.

Anakin percieves his choices as compassionate in SITH, but they are completely selfish. So it is understandable that once he starts down such a path, his ambitions would become even more gargantuan in their selfishness (I WILL BE KING SITH OF THE UNIVERSE....I WILL RULE THE GALAXY).

It was never about Padme. It was about HIS fear of loss -- how her death would affect HIM. That's why he wanted the power. That's why he wanted the 'control'.

I ---- ME ---- MINE

EGO --- EGO ---- EGO