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Just got back, and if I start typing my thoughts will come out somehow.
In general: Worked for me! The story basically just works ideawise, so even when they can't really put it across it didn't make everything fall apart. I remember spending a lot of PM and AOTC (when I wasn't falling asleep) just saying, huh? But here, even when I didn't think they quite managed to dramatize what the idea was, the idea itself made sense so I could go with that.
For instance, I liked the way "conquering death" was set up as a bad goal--this is, of course, something important to HP's villain too, but I thought this laid it out better. The problem wasn't wanting to conquer death but the way you go about it. Yoda isn't crazy when he tells Anakin he has to learn to let go of everything he fears to lose...he's maybe just Buddhist.:-) But yeah, I mean, it's just that Anakin is just living in fear and clinging to things that are going to disappear because they always do. Everyone dies, people age, people get sick. Obviously that doesn't mean you don't ever intervene--you try to cure the sick and protect people from danger. But the fear that you literally can't live without someone else, or that you can't face death at all...that's just going to make life impossible, imo.
Anakin's thoughts on that reminded me of Leia in ANH: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. That was Anakin all over there, tightening his grip on everyone until it all slipped through his fingers. Meanwhile Yoda announces he's discovered the key to immortality, the very thing Palpatine claimed you *couldn't* learn from a Jedi. It's like any myth, really, the hero always has to "die" in some way before they can move on to the next level. The hero of the Sith legend doesn't just die, he's murdered, and there's no hint that he lives on the way Obi-wan does.
Anakin was also always tightening his grip on the galaxy, wanting peace, order, control. (Or perhaps he just realized that an Evil Empire made for good movies and a messy Republic made for boring ones), which It's funny, because the whole first half of the movie is basically the story of a young man who's good in a fight but just really not very bright when it comes to politics--it's fitting Obi-wan claims to be leaving him to deal with exactly that early on. Unfortunately, Anakin is not the type of guy who just isn't interested in them. He's pulled into this conflict with both sides trying to use him and he's just not really bright enough to see what's going on. It's funny that he spends so much time showing off that Skywalker whine, wondering why he can't be made a Jedi Master when everything he does shows why he's not a Jedi Master--particularly not noticing how blatantly Palpatine flatters him to encourage his sulking against the Jedi. Sulking that he wasn't made a Jedi Master was just pure teenaged idiocy and impatience. Why should he consider it an insult? More importantly, why would he not understand why the Jedi would refuse him just because they didn't like Palpatine telling them what to do? Well, that sort of thing was what made Anakin work, really, that he was a very unsubtle thinker who wanted to do good, surrounded by subtle manipulators.
I didn't quite buy the actual moment of his turning. I liked it when he rejected Palpatine the first time and I could buy him as a confused Jedi who wanted to do the right thing but would later make a mistake. Having him get even more confused when Mace Windu wanted to kill Palpatine was probably a good idea. I guess the big problem was it was hard to really get behind his fears about Padme, because Padme was so not worth it. Like any one with ears, I found their love scenes close to unbearable. They seemed, at best, like two dippy teenagers who liked playing house and were too dumb to use birth control. So now Padme was chattering on about making a nursery while Anakin was all, "Shit, is this going to interfere with my band?"
The one good thing about this was it made it kind of cool that he thought she would die in childbirth. The funny thing about Anakin's visions of Padme was...didn't they just look like normal birth? Honestly, I thought he was just so clueless he mistakenly thought something was wrong when she was just in pain because she was pushing a human being out of her. But given out completely immature Anakin was, it sort of made sense that he'd see the pregnancy as something that would take Padme away from him. He didn't seem at all ready to really be a father, so it was almost like he preferred to go around slaughtering children out of some misguided sense of protectiveness rather than have to deal with the reality of children. Also I have to admit I'd probably prefer slaughtering children and clones on lava planets to having to suffer through another conversation at home with that dialogue.
Other random thoughts: Padme has ropes of pearls on her nightgown that wrap around her shoulders. Is she trying to make sure she never gets a good night's sleep?
I loved the way the movie tied into people from the OT, and while we couldn't get Baby!Han there was one moment I considered a shout out to him anyway. When Obi-wan shoots Grievous with the blaster I thought, "Ha! Hokey religions are no match for a good blaster by your side!" and Obi-wan grumbled, "So uncivilized!" That was Han's moment.
I've heard a lot of people wondering over Leia's line in ROTJ about remember her mother, but I've got no problem with the idea she's talking about Jimmy Smits' wife. She talks about her father more than once in the OT, meaning him.
You could see shades of Luke in Anakin in the whininess and the way he wanted respect, but I saw a lot of Leia in Anakin as well. Thank goodness she didn't take after her mother except for the hairdo, really. But it was kind of interesting the times I thought the two were similar, when I'd think about how Leia was so well-balanced by Han. A few "absolutely, your worship"s might have done Ani some good. This also makes Leia's first scene with Vader pretty awesome, the way she refers to Tarkin holding him on a leash. You could really get a sense of how things would be if Darth Vader had actually been raising teenaged Luke and Leia. Luke would whine a lot and stomp around; Leia would be constantly up in Dad's face, rebelling and staying out late.
R2D2 and Yoda kicked arse, obviosly. I'm so happy for R2--he's always probably been my favorite. I was a little disappointed in my audience, though. They just didn't react much. The only time there was a loud reaction was when Yoda made his badass entrance into the Emperor's chamber. There was a little audience gasp when R2 was kicked over as well.
The fun thing about Star Wars is the way it really just invites you to embrace the cheese, and that was totally on display here. Sometimes it's just really clunky, with Anakin saying, "From my pov, the Jedi are evil!" (I admit when I heard that line I imagined many HP fans hurrying out to build straw men claiming anybody who had a problem with anything a good guy in HP did was Just like Anakin OMG!111! Because it's so stupid to ever think the good guys could be wrong!!11) But anyway, there's times when you just had to go with it. Like when the final battles have the two combatants fighting on large visual symbols: Yoda and Palpatine fight in the senate chamber, and the seats of democracy fall. And Anakin dies because he thinks his speshul new powers can gain him the high ground, literally. Weeee!
Oh, and I didn't mind Anakin's force-choke of Padme, maybe because it seemed brief and like it was more for show than for hurting her. I was also not bothered by Obi-wan leaving Anakin behind at the end. Killing him would have seemed wrong--not just because then he couldn't come back for Episode IV, but just because I think it wouldn't come out right. I took it as Obi-wan having good reason to think he'd be dead very quickly.
Vader's final transformation was really good, I thought. Going back to the heavy-handed symbolism and cheese, why shouldn't we have those two "births" juxtaposed, with Vaders the more painful and unnatural? Also I liked the way James Earl Jones gave a performance very different from his performances in the other movies. He sounded more like Anakin--younger, more human, less confident.
I love Young!Owen and Baroo, though I can't for the life of me remember who they are exactly. We met them before, iirc, but I can't remember exactly who they're related to and how, besides Luke somehow.
Do you put in an order for the chair you want when you get on the council? Because everybody had their own special made-to-order. The person I saw it with suggested you only got to do this when you were a Jedi Master, and that this was why Anakin really turned to the Dark Side. Because he had to sit on a lumpy couch.
I agree with whoever suggested that maybe they should have been looking at Death Star plans at the end. Why does it take that long to build the thing, particularly when they build another one by ROTJ?
For that matter, that desert sun is not good for Obi-wan, is it? Only sixteen years after this he'll have gone from his 30s to his 70s or thereabouts!
So R2D2 didn't have his mind wiped? Did he ever tell Threepio anything about their past, or did he think it not a good idea?
This came up somewhere else and now that I've seen the movie I stand by my thought on it before: I like Obi-wan's saying he doesn't recall ever knowing a droid in ANH. Alec Guiness' reading definitely leaves room for the possibility that there's more to his reaction than just puzzlement.
Late addition: the murdering of the Jedi was really effective. I don't just mean the Younglings, but all of them.
Late addition 2: I forgot to mention this, but when it was said that the Dark Side of the force could create life, I thought that was supposed to explain Anakin's mysterious birth with no father. I have no idea if that's true or not, since the Emperor actually seemed to be working up to claiming he could save Padme, but that's what it made me think of. I had completely forgotten about that line from PM until I read a reference to it recently.
In general, I look forward to watching the OT again. This movie wasn't perfect, but there were enough things in it that worked that I can see it as being backstory for the other movies, and in ways that make them more interesting.
In general: Worked for me! The story basically just works ideawise, so even when they can't really put it across it didn't make everything fall apart. I remember spending a lot of PM and AOTC (when I wasn't falling asleep) just saying, huh? But here, even when I didn't think they quite managed to dramatize what the idea was, the idea itself made sense so I could go with that.
For instance, I liked the way "conquering death" was set up as a bad goal--this is, of course, something important to HP's villain too, but I thought this laid it out better. The problem wasn't wanting to conquer death but the way you go about it. Yoda isn't crazy when he tells Anakin he has to learn to let go of everything he fears to lose...he's maybe just Buddhist.:-) But yeah, I mean, it's just that Anakin is just living in fear and clinging to things that are going to disappear because they always do. Everyone dies, people age, people get sick. Obviously that doesn't mean you don't ever intervene--you try to cure the sick and protect people from danger. But the fear that you literally can't live without someone else, or that you can't face death at all...that's just going to make life impossible, imo.
Anakin's thoughts on that reminded me of Leia in ANH: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. That was Anakin all over there, tightening his grip on everyone until it all slipped through his fingers. Meanwhile Yoda announces he's discovered the key to immortality, the very thing Palpatine claimed you *couldn't* learn from a Jedi. It's like any myth, really, the hero always has to "die" in some way before they can move on to the next level. The hero of the Sith legend doesn't just die, he's murdered, and there's no hint that he lives on the way Obi-wan does.
Anakin was also always tightening his grip on the galaxy, wanting peace, order, control. (Or perhaps he just realized that an Evil Empire made for good movies and a messy Republic made for boring ones), which It's funny, because the whole first half of the movie is basically the story of a young man who's good in a fight but just really not very bright when it comes to politics--it's fitting Obi-wan claims to be leaving him to deal with exactly that early on. Unfortunately, Anakin is not the type of guy who just isn't interested in them. He's pulled into this conflict with both sides trying to use him and he's just not really bright enough to see what's going on. It's funny that he spends so much time showing off that Skywalker whine, wondering why he can't be made a Jedi Master when everything he does shows why he's not a Jedi Master--particularly not noticing how blatantly Palpatine flatters him to encourage his sulking against the Jedi. Sulking that he wasn't made a Jedi Master was just pure teenaged idiocy and impatience. Why should he consider it an insult? More importantly, why would he not understand why the Jedi would refuse him just because they didn't like Palpatine telling them what to do? Well, that sort of thing was what made Anakin work, really, that he was a very unsubtle thinker who wanted to do good, surrounded by subtle manipulators.
I didn't quite buy the actual moment of his turning. I liked it when he rejected Palpatine the first time and I could buy him as a confused Jedi who wanted to do the right thing but would later make a mistake. Having him get even more confused when Mace Windu wanted to kill Palpatine was probably a good idea. I guess the big problem was it was hard to really get behind his fears about Padme, because Padme was so not worth it. Like any one with ears, I found their love scenes close to unbearable. They seemed, at best, like two dippy teenagers who liked playing house and were too dumb to use birth control. So now Padme was chattering on about making a nursery while Anakin was all, "Shit, is this going to interfere with my band?"
The one good thing about this was it made it kind of cool that he thought she would die in childbirth. The funny thing about Anakin's visions of Padme was...didn't they just look like normal birth? Honestly, I thought he was just so clueless he mistakenly thought something was wrong when she was just in pain because she was pushing a human being out of her. But given out completely immature Anakin was, it sort of made sense that he'd see the pregnancy as something that would take Padme away from him. He didn't seem at all ready to really be a father, so it was almost like he preferred to go around slaughtering children out of some misguided sense of protectiveness rather than have to deal with the reality of children. Also I have to admit I'd probably prefer slaughtering children and clones on lava planets to having to suffer through another conversation at home with that dialogue.
Other random thoughts: Padme has ropes of pearls on her nightgown that wrap around her shoulders. Is she trying to make sure she never gets a good night's sleep?
I loved the way the movie tied into people from the OT, and while we couldn't get Baby!Han there was one moment I considered a shout out to him anyway. When Obi-wan shoots Grievous with the blaster I thought, "Ha! Hokey religions are no match for a good blaster by your side!" and Obi-wan grumbled, "So uncivilized!" That was Han's moment.
I've heard a lot of people wondering over Leia's line in ROTJ about remember her mother, but I've got no problem with the idea she's talking about Jimmy Smits' wife. She talks about her father more than once in the OT, meaning him.
You could see shades of Luke in Anakin in the whininess and the way he wanted respect, but I saw a lot of Leia in Anakin as well. Thank goodness she didn't take after her mother except for the hairdo, really. But it was kind of interesting the times I thought the two were similar, when I'd think about how Leia was so well-balanced by Han. A few "absolutely, your worship"s might have done Ani some good. This also makes Leia's first scene with Vader pretty awesome, the way she refers to Tarkin holding him on a leash. You could really get a sense of how things would be if Darth Vader had actually been raising teenaged Luke and Leia. Luke would whine a lot and stomp around; Leia would be constantly up in Dad's face, rebelling and staying out late.
R2D2 and Yoda kicked arse, obviosly. I'm so happy for R2--he's always probably been my favorite. I was a little disappointed in my audience, though. They just didn't react much. The only time there was a loud reaction was when Yoda made his badass entrance into the Emperor's chamber. There was a little audience gasp when R2 was kicked over as well.
The fun thing about Star Wars is the way it really just invites you to embrace the cheese, and that was totally on display here. Sometimes it's just really clunky, with Anakin saying, "From my pov, the Jedi are evil!" (I admit when I heard that line I imagined many HP fans hurrying out to build straw men claiming anybody who had a problem with anything a good guy in HP did was Just like Anakin OMG!111! Because it's so stupid to ever think the good guys could be wrong!!11) But anyway, there's times when you just had to go with it. Like when the final battles have the two combatants fighting on large visual symbols: Yoda and Palpatine fight in the senate chamber, and the seats of democracy fall. And Anakin dies because he thinks his speshul new powers can gain him the high ground, literally. Weeee!
Oh, and I didn't mind Anakin's force-choke of Padme, maybe because it seemed brief and like it was more for show than for hurting her. I was also not bothered by Obi-wan leaving Anakin behind at the end. Killing him would have seemed wrong--not just because then he couldn't come back for Episode IV, but just because I think it wouldn't come out right. I took it as Obi-wan having good reason to think he'd be dead very quickly.
Vader's final transformation was really good, I thought. Going back to the heavy-handed symbolism and cheese, why shouldn't we have those two "births" juxtaposed, with Vaders the more painful and unnatural? Also I liked the way James Earl Jones gave a performance very different from his performances in the other movies. He sounded more like Anakin--younger, more human, less confident.
I love Young!Owen and Baroo, though I can't for the life of me remember who they are exactly. We met them before, iirc, but I can't remember exactly who they're related to and how, besides Luke somehow.
Do you put in an order for the chair you want when you get on the council? Because everybody had their own special made-to-order. The person I saw it with suggested you only got to do this when you were a Jedi Master, and that this was why Anakin really turned to the Dark Side. Because he had to sit on a lumpy couch.
I agree with whoever suggested that maybe they should have been looking at Death Star plans at the end. Why does it take that long to build the thing, particularly when they build another one by ROTJ?
For that matter, that desert sun is not good for Obi-wan, is it? Only sixteen years after this he'll have gone from his 30s to his 70s or thereabouts!
So R2D2 didn't have his mind wiped? Did he ever tell Threepio anything about their past, or did he think it not a good idea?
This came up somewhere else and now that I've seen the movie I stand by my thought on it before: I like Obi-wan's saying he doesn't recall ever knowing a droid in ANH. Alec Guiness' reading definitely leaves room for the possibility that there's more to his reaction than just puzzlement.
Late addition: the murdering of the Jedi was really effective. I don't just mean the Younglings, but all of them.
Late addition 2: I forgot to mention this, but when it was said that the Dark Side of the force could create life, I thought that was supposed to explain Anakin's mysterious birth with no father. I have no idea if that's true or not, since the Emperor actually seemed to be working up to claiming he could save Padme, but that's what it made me think of. I had completely forgotten about that line from PM until I read a reference to it recently.
In general, I look forward to watching the OT again. This movie wasn't perfect, but there were enough things in it that worked that I can see it as being backstory for the other movies, and in ways that make them more interesting.
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As far as plans are concerned, plans don't equal a working battle station. They probably needed to run sims, make prototypes, and so on for at least a few years before they know how to make the space station safe for human habitation.
And to those fans who think that opposition to Harry's acts in OotP=Sith Lord ignorance/hatred, I recommend that they read the Star Wars Expanded Universe book, New Jedi Order: Traitor, and get a taste of real Force philosophy... this stuff is heavier than what they sold us in the OT. Really, HP magic, like SW Force, is all about not what you do, or how the act is percieved, or even what the result is, but rather why you do it... therefore, in HP terms, Percy's writing the letter, because it was motivated out of concern for his brother, is either equally or less bad than Harry's attacking Bellatrix with an Unforgivable, which was motivated by sorrow and anger.
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Ah yes! I knew we met them somehow earlier. Thanks!
I am happy thinking of that thing they were working on as a prototype of some kind--that makes sense.
And to those fans who think that opposition to Harry's acts in OotP=Sith Lord ignorance/hatred, I recommend that they read the Star Wars Expanded Universe book, New Jedi Order: Traitor, and get a taste of real Force philosophy
That does seem to go with what was hinted at in the movies. Though of course I don't want to make it seem like I've actually *heard* anyone make that comparison, it was just Anakin's line of "from my pov, the Jedi are evil," that made me think of fandom discussions which didn't really apply.
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There were a lot of teenagers laughing in the theatre where I saw it during the moment of Anakin's turning, which annoyed me even though the dialogue was hokey. You're not the only one who didn't quite buy it. I've never heard people laugh that much at a movie except for "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" which I only saw because of half-naked Diego Luna.
I kept thinking, "that's what the Imperius Curse looks like."
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Once he made the choice, though, I could buy it and was happy to go along with it.
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The Star Wars movies are action/dramedy with a dash of myth... you're not supposed to take them as seriously as you would, say, Blade Runner.
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Despite certain similarities, they're totally different movies. Both brilliant, but not at all in the same genre.
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I mean, really. Laugh at Threepio. Laugh at Artoo. Laugh at the wookies, if you want... just don't laugh at Vader.
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Also, to combine this with my reply to the original post:
So now Padme was chattering on about making a nursery while Anakin was all, "Shit, is this going to interfere with my band?"
OMGYES! Anakin = too immature for kids. Padme? Biological clock ticking. This is not an infrequent issue when wife is older than husband.
The one good thing about this was it made it kind of cool that he thought she would die in childbirth. The funny thing about Anakin's visions of Padme was...didn't they just look like normal birth?
: thinks back in time about five and a half weeks.
Yeah.
Don't they have technology there? I wasn't even sure why she seemed to deliver vaginally anyway - she's dying so shouldn't they do a c-section? Or maybe they don't have the ability to cut into the uterus to remove the babies quickly? WTF?
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Well, to be totally blunt...
But I don't think it was a vaginal delivery. They had that thing over her belly. Of course it was very amusing, the size of those babies. They did not come out of her, no way no how, and whoever they did come out of, it was a while ago! lol!
I don't think her death was natural either though. Anakin or Palpatine working through Anakin did something to her, because I've had asthma attacks where I couldn't breathe for longer than that and I didn't end up on life support.
For all that the Jedi wanted those two separated, it was Sidious who needed them to be separated; she was a brake on Anakin's conscience and he knew that.
I didn't like Sirius, so I don't understand a lot of the omgrage over his death, but JKR did a lousy job of killing him--his death didn't mean or accomplish anything except to prove that Bellatrix, far from being Bad Tommy's most determined and loyal minion, is so batshit the mere sight of her disgraced cousin prevents her from concentrating on what she's there to do because the stain on the Black family honour MUST be wiped out. *eyeroll* She was SUCH a disappointment. They all were.
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Except for the fact that Padme is only five years older than Anakin. So he's nineteen, right? She's 24. A little too soon for any ticking.
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Laughing would have pissed me off too.
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Bwah!
So much to agree with here. omg yes, to whiny teen!Anakin. Dude, you're a whiny teen, of course they're not going to make you a master, no matter how powerful you are! But that's typical teen logic to think he should be one anyway. He's like "I'm not a kid omg! >:0!"
His turning... It was weird. It seemed to me, watching Hayden's face when he kneeled, that he was just going along with Sidious to get the eternal life for Padme thing, and that he didn't really believe what Sidious was saying about the Jedi. That would have made sense. But then when he's fighting with Obi, he's talking about the Jedi trying to take over, and I'm like bwah, you actually believed that shit?
With Obi leaving him, it felt to me like he literally could not make himself kill Anakin. It seems very in character with what we know of him and what he tells Luke and all that. It would have been kinder to kill him than let him suffer, and of course it would have made sure he was dead, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Is Luke really supposed to be sixteen in A New Hope? Wow, that's unbelievable. I thought he was in his mid-twenties. Shows you how much attention I paid.
And yes, most everyone I've seen comment seems to agree that Sidious created Anakin from midichlorians. So really no, he never had a chance.
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Luke being nineteen (as Heidi reveals below) works better than 16, so I'm glad he's 19. Sixteen is still too young for Luke to really have reason to gripe to his uncle, but if he's 19 Owen clearly has been keeping him home for too long.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who had that thought about Anakin's birth!
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I figure it's due to all that "communing" Obi-Wan is going to be doing with Qui-Gon; all that...er...interaction with a dead guy might very well start sucking the life out of you, even if you *are* a Jedi. *g*
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There was a funny line about Anakin's conception in the Sith Academy somewhere, with Shmi saying something like 'It was dark, I was lonely, he said "Trust me, I'm a Senator ..."'
Late addition: the murdering of the Jedi was really effective. I don't just mean the Younglings, but all of them.
I know - it's funny to know ahead of time that this was going to happen, and yet when the slaughter started I found it incredibly upsetting. I hadn't read any spoilers, so I guess there was part of me that expected most of the Jedi to die in combat and not be isolated and ruthlessly killed like that. Not to mention the attack on the Jedi temple, which made a fair few people around me cry audibly (and yeah, I was sniffling, too).
And Anakin's conversion scene - it was the best part of the movie, for me, and the most dramatic. I can see where the hideous and fake-looking makeup would ruin it, but Hayden Christensen was just so fabulous at that point, so weak and powerless and desperate, I loved it.
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Great thoughts, wish I could contribute!
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Anakin sounds very much like OotP!Harry - wah, why can't I be a Jedi Master/prefect even if I'm patently unsuitable for it? I wannnnnnna! It's all Obi-Wan/the Slytherins' fault! ;)
(Oh, and for the last snarkery chapter of OotP, with the whole GoF repeat, we totally need to make it clear that
GreedoDraco shot first this time!)For some reason, I'm most interested in what happens to Padme. I have no idea why, I usually tend to root for 'baddies', and her role in the films seems to have gone from asskicking senator to a Lily-type Dead Mommy, which is usually something that irritates me. I guess maybe because the rest of the SWverse is so macho, with all the wars and lightsabers and all, that she's kind of intrigued me.
Also, I love the romantic scenes, purely because they're so corny that they're entertaining for me - I've seen this one's trailer with 'You're breaking my heart!' and am taking great pleasure in mimicking it at my sister every time she, like, changes the TV channel.
I'll tell you what I think when I see it, though, if ya like.
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See, the comedy value is a good thing. That's why it's so silly when people act like they're stupid because they're not more serious like Blade Runner. They're intentionally so cheesy--trying not to laugh is just a bad idea. The whininess of the Skywalker men, for instance, is really important. In fact, it's kind of refreshing because nowadays boys are treated too seriously that way. Like with Harry his whininess is supposed to be coming from this big place of pain yadda yadda, but in SW you can easily just say these two boys are whiners. One of Luke's best lines is when he tells his Owen, "Oh, but I was gonna to go to T'hoshi (sp?) Station and pick up some power converters!" It is possibly the whinest line in all of cinema and when I saw the re-release it got cheers every time. He's just such a dork!
I remember when I was working on the Wishbone series and this guy was doing an adaptation of 3 Musketeers and he kept getting D'Artagnan wrong. I told him, "You keep making him Tom Cruise in Top Gun when he should be Luke Skywalker." Meaning he wants respect and he thinks he's better than everyone, but really he's an idiot teenager.
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Probably because she didn't chnage her clothes every five minutes!
You worked on Wishbone? OMG, those shows were fantastic! I used watch them with my kids.
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But yes, the difference between the two female characters was amazing. The hair alone said it all. Leia's hair, even when elaborate, was usually obviously practical, as were her clothes, usually.
I just read a great rant about Padme linked to on metafandom, I think. The character almost never leaves her apartment and I'd forgotten she's worried she can't be a senator anymore now that she's pregnant. Um, yeah. As this poster put it: "what, are they going to send her to the unwed senators' home? The Magdalene sisters have a Naboo branch?"
Entire rant here. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/odalisques/223117.html)
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*attmepts to smite envy*
*fails*
You get to write good stuff! I'm embarrassed to even mention what I get paid to write.
Unwed Senators home! ROFLMAO!
And yeah, Leia's wardrobe was pretty practical--except that Sand Planet ensemble and I don't think we can even blame her for that one.
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Do you mean Cloud City, the mining satellite over Bespin? Bespin's a gas giant, not a rocky planet.
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*brain farts*
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And yes, Leia could kick her mom's ass from here to Sunday... not today, another Sunday. Whenever. Anyway, it's like when they split the traits up to form the Amidala-Skywalker clan, they gave Luke his father's whininess and his mother's idealism, and Leia her mother's diplomacy and her father's stubbornness.
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Like tho Anakin was sometimes a whiny dork that (even in spite of everything horrible he did) he wasn't REALLY the villain of the piece... and he wasn't evil. He did evil... but he wasn't evil.
And that perhaps our friends the Jedi weren't entirely... you know... the good guys. ROTS showed us a world greyer than that... it was what I liked about the movie. Lucas almost seemed to be trying for a more yin/yang subcreation... a hint of evil amid even the purest good... a spot of good even in the middle of the darkest evil.
And the Anakin/Padme thing. The kids were okay in their scenes when they were just looking at one another, hugging one another, etc. Hayden has quite a charming smile; its no hardship for me to look at it, so I imagine it wouldn't be for Padme. Both of them STARE very well. But - oy - once they open up their mouths and sprout THAT DIALOG (anyone care to join me for a tar and feathering, with ole George as the special guest?). Ugggghhh (shudders).
Wandering off to think deep thoughts about balancing the force, tragic destinies, and twins...
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It really was cool the way the Jedi were just part of the system. In ANH they seem like this mythical legion of superheroes that so romantic but really they were no such thing. In a way, Luke sort of makes them something more than they were because he imagines them that way and then strives to live up to his own imagination. And I always like that sort of thing.:-)
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Yeah, but didn't Luke ask Leia about her "real mother"? And ROTJ also said that Padmé separated Luke and Leia herself to protect them. Which she didn't have time to do in ROTS, seeing that she died about 10 seconds after they were born.
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Of course, I realize really Lucas just changed his mind, but I can make it work for me.
From: (Anonymous)
The Skywalker whine
I love both SW and the Three Musketeers to bits, but I have always found both Luke and D'Artagnan seriously annoying. (I'm more of an Athos and Han kind of girl...) I realised when reading your comment that yes, they're very similar in the way the behave, and it's that bloody WHINING that gets to me. Whining without self irony. Shudder. I can't stomach that in RL either, so I don't know why I haven't been able to single out this trait of D'Artagnan's before (possibly because he's also self important and pompous, heh), but it's very helpful in making peace with the characters.
And having that in mind helps with Sith, too. I don't like Anakin either, which is kind of a problem when watching the new trilogy, as there is no real secondary "hero" to focus on, but reminding myself that the reason why I don't like him isn't that he is a badly constructed character or out of place in the movie (even though I do think the actor was a bad choice), it's just that I don't like whiners, that does wonders for my perception of the movie. So thanks!
You shouldn't feel too bad about your audience's lack of reaction, though, even though it sounds a bit ... sad. I had the opposite experience. Sure, a midnight premiere with people in dress up, and a storm trooper show should have *some* cheering and general high spirits ;-) but my audience cheered and clapped: when the lights went out; when the 20th C Fox jingle thing came on; when the titles came on; when we first met Anakin, Obi Wan, Yoda, Chewbacca, Mace, etc; first fight; first spaceship; first explosion; every time Yoda was on screen; every time Chewie was on screen; the Emperor's "turning"; Anakin's turning; Lord Vader's naming; Lord Vader's rebirth; every time Obi Wan chopped off limbs; did I mention *every* time Yoda was on screen...; and at the end credits...
It got distracting, even though it was good natured, and came from the big SW love. I kind of felt embarrassed after a while, like when at the ballet and parts of the audience starts applauding at *every* solo, even though they weren't spectacular, and I secretly want to shout "bloody idiots, can't you see the difference between a *fantastic* performance and somebody who just did their job and didn't fall on their arse?"
Oh, all right, Yoda did deserve it. :D
Oh, and Harry's "big place of pain, yadda, yadda"? Yep. Another whiner. Heh.
- Clara
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Re: The Skywalker whine
From: (Anonymous)
Re: The Skywalker whine
I agree, foolish characters are very much to be desired. And I think that even in my dislike of the whiny boys they have an impact and truth that is much greater than some generic hero.
Have you read any of Stephen Fry's novels? He's rather good with non-hero boys and men. "The Hippopotamus" in particular, is filled with people who are shitty bastards as well as beautifully nice, and "The Liar" (which also includes a Dickens fanficion play!), too.
- Clara