Margie and I went to a nearly-deserted showing of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith last night (the multiplex was definitely not hopping on a Tuesday night, and our theater was empty besides the two of us until the trailers started to run, at which time one popcorn munching fellow wandered in and sat down, of course, immediately behind us).
Brief review:
- Fabulous special effects
- A decently strong story line
- Some pretty awful dialog
- Acting that ran the gamut from mediocre to terrible
The general consensus is right — this is by far the best of the “new” trilogy, as the suspense and human drama actually exist here. It recalls, in epic sweep, Empire Strikes Back — but, sadly, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher can act rings around Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman (as scripted and directed by George Lucas, at least), so the top crown remains on the older film.
I’m glad I saw it in the theaters, I’m glad I didn’t wait in a midnight line to see it, and, when it was all over, it was with a faint sense of disappointment, nostalgia, and closure that I left the theater.
For more … there be spoilers below …
The Actors
Hayden Christensen remains Mr. Sulky of the 2000s. He’s sulky when happy, sulky when sad, sulky when angsty, sulky when triumphant, and so forth. Tormented beyond words (though not without a certain measure of justification), he slides from sulky to homicidal, then back to sulky again. His unwillingness until the very end to chew the scenery a bit (and his inability to do so effectively when he finally gets around to it) leaves his acting flat and unengaging, almost torpedoing the whole production. Heck, even James Earl Jones’ voice emotes more authentically than Christensen does with voice and body.
Natalie Portman is almost as bad, though she can be given something of a pass for having some truly awful dialog fed her, and only a very limited number of set pieces. That said, her costumes change more frequently than her worried expression, and the active, powerful, exotic, dynamic princess/senator from Naboo spends most of the movie mooning on her balcony and watching events around her unfold, passive bystander to a cosmic catastrophe. That she literally gives up at the end is not surprising, given that she’s not done all that much the whole rest of the movie.
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan at least makes a game attempt. As much as this movie is supposedly about Anakin’s descent into evil, it’s even more about Obi-Wan’s realization of what an utter failure he’s been as a Jedi master. This gives him some real drama to play with, amidst the banter, and McGregor does a decent job of it.
Speaking of scenery chewing, Ian McDiarmid‘s evolution as Palpatine is one of the roles that holds the movie together. Going from oily and beguiling to maniacally triumphant, he’s by far the biggest “winner” in the film, both as actor and as character — though in appearance he keeps varying between Colin Mochrie and Gary Oldman’s Dracula.
Jimmy Smits does a decent, if overly reverent and servile turn as Senator Organa. Christopher Lee’s appearance as Count Dooku is far too brief, more of a setup for the rest of the film than an actual chance to act. Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu seems uncomfortable with his clunky lines.
And who is the best actor in the whole production? The best-filmed, best dialoged, and most dynamic entity in the whole flick is the CG-based and Frank Oz-voiced Yoda. And how sad is that?
The FX
It’s not unexpected that the fx are a huge part of this movie’s wonder, and, to be perfectly honest, this film puts all previous installments to shame. Those who were wonderous in Return of the Jedi at the big climactic battle over Death Star II will be wetting themselves during the massive space battle at the very beginning of this film.
And things never let up from there, as every scene change leads to amazingly new planet vistas, new (and old) alien characters, bigger and more exciting explosions, and some of the best lava work on record. Not to mention, back on Coruscant, endless lines of aircraft and space ships.
Indeed, the fx parade is so unrelenting, one almost begins to hope for a simpler Tatooine, Endor moon, or similarly less fantastic location, and the “return” to “Imperial” technology and settings at the very end comes as almost a relief, putting us back on familiar ground.
Of special note is that ILM/Lucas finally have light sabers right. Never mind making them look like real rods of energy — these light sabers (and there are endless light saber battles) flash in an impressive way that actually shows you why the Jedi would prefer them to blasters and other, less elegant weapons.
All of which leads me to a great heresy. As much as I’ve detested Lucas’ didding with the original trilogy’s fx, I’m now sold. But he shouldn’t go halfway. I want to see near-complete remakes of all three of the original films, retaining only the actors/backgrounds, with all the fx updated and tweaked and made pretty. Avoid messing around with the (“Han shot first!”) plot, and this could be a real win for Lucas. Forget about the 3-D rumors — I want a Millennium Falcon vs. TIE Fighters duel that’s as exciting as the first five minutes of Ep III., and a surface of the Death Star that looks as real as the surface of Coruscant.
The Story
Anything that’s going to set up the rise of Darth Vader and the Empire is not going to be a happy tale. That said, Ep III is a fascinating story of corruption, which carries plenty of blame to pass around (perhaps its most convincing part).
Sure, there are the obvious bad guys — Palpatine, with his lust for power, other folks like the Trade Federation driven by cupidity or just plain old nastiness. But they largely take advantage of problems that are already present — for one, a Senate bogged down by internal rivalries and bureaucracy, but, more importantly, a Jedi Council that doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.
I’ve ranted at length before over how stupid the Jedi are during the first film. Here they compound that error — either blind to Palpatine’s evil, or, aware of it and carrying on with business as usual (“I’m sure he’ll give up power once Grievous is defeated; if not, we’ll worry about it then”). They continue to act as military shock troopers, even though it’s clear how vulnerable they are in that role. And, frankly, they treat Anakin like crap — peevish about his flaws, but not addressing them. Arguably, they are distracted by the war, but they both let the situation spiral out of their control and ignore what they can do about it along the way.
(As an aside, I still don’t buy “The Clone Wars” as what anyone would call this particular dust-up. People don’t name wars for the troops or weapons on their side.)
The movie starts on an up note. The banter between Obi-Wan and Anakin seems forced and clumsy at times, but it’s reminiscent of the bravado of the Luke/Leia/Han trio, making out even the direst of danger as a great romp. It doesn’t quite work, both because of clumsy writing and flat acting, but because the groundwork for it — the Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship — hasn’t really been well-established. Indeed, though it goes to the heart of the film’s conflict between the two, the brotherly love between them seems to come out of left field.
It is, though, Obi-Wan’s abject failure as a Jedi Master that drives the disaster. The Council was, in this case (back in Ep I), right — Obi-Wan was too young and headstrong to be a Jedi Knight, let alone master of his own padawan. All the advice that Yoda gives Anakin about letting go, about eschewing human relationships (as inhuman as that is — more on that in a moment) is exactly what Obi-Wan doesn’t do in his relationship with Anakin. he lets his love for him as a “brother” get in the way of teaching him as he needs to be taught, with tragic results. An insufficient advocate for his padawan against others, and an insufficient mentor to teach same, Obi-Wan is precisely correct when he tells Anakin late in the film about how badly he’s failed him.
And … um … hey, Obi-Wan, as painful as it must be, wouldn’t it actually be a more charitable and loving death to kill your former apprentice — you know, the one you loved as a brother, and who’s also responsible for the death of so many others — rather than leaving him to die, in agony and alone, next to a lava pit? Nice Jedi work there, dude — that’ll come back to haunt you, karmically.
For what it’s worth, though, his flaws (and awareness of them) makes Obi-Wan the most likable of the folks in the movie, and establishes a very strong basis for his whole behavior (if not apparent age) in the Alec Guiness role for the next three films. His continuity works best.
The other Jedi fare even worse. Mace Windu seems to go out of his way to alienate Anakin, with as sneering an arrogance as Palpatine ever manages. “I don’t trust you, so you’re going to have to prove you’re trustworthy, O Clearly Alienated Youth. Meanwhile, let me treat you like dirt.” You might want to consider what sort of feelings you provoke before you teach them to trust their feelings, eh? And, y’know, Anakin did have a point about, well, not killing Palpatine outright (nice Jedi teaching there, Mace).
Yoda, on the other hand, time and again lets himself get outmaneuvered, and is clearly wildly overconfident about both the Jedi’s ability to take down Palpatine and, one-on-one, his own abilities to that end. Yup, failed you have. That overconfidence, too, leads to the great tragedy.
Ultimately, the Jedi betray themselves. Eschewing attachments to others on an individual basis, they are unable to sense and deal with the flaws among their ranks. Acting in service to others, they are implicitly contemptuous of the masses, arrogant and full of hubris. Ostensibly great diplomats, they are heedless to the feelings of others if they are sure that they are following the right cause — that rightness not an intrinsic part of their power (since the same power is behind the Dark Side), but their own philosophy. Accusing the Sith of dealing only with absolutes, their own absolutes trip them up. They are a horrid example of a blend of church and state, smug in their elite righteousness, ripe for being exploited, and the unwilling abettors of the fall of the Republic.
Frankly, they deserve to have been destroyed. Palpatine has that much right.
Beyond that, the story, as a whole, holds up pretty well. There are some odd bits, and as we get toward the end, there’s a rush to establish (rightly) the ties to the next film. Two of those ties ring false:
- The toss-off Yoda line about Qui-Gonn having, beyond death, figured out how to “come back” (thus establishing why we see ghostly Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin in the final frames of Return of the Jedi — though not why we never hear or see Qui-Gonn in the same films, though Lucas’ revisionism may change that in later releases). The line is necessary to explain why we haven’t seen thus far ghostly Jedi advising the current Council, but it comes across as such a throw-away “Oops, we need to explain this” bit that it jars. (Yoda also seems, given the succession of tragedies we’ve just seen, unseemingly jolly about the matter. (“Never mind you about the fall of the Republic, the death of Padme, the slaughter of our friends — Qui-Gonn a message has for you!”)
- The Death Star scene. This film takes place about 20 years before Ep. IV (given Luke and Leia’s ages), but that Death Star scene implies (a) Palpatine already had the project going, and (b) it took two decades to finish building the first one (and only a year or so to nearly complete the second one). Doesn’t work, any more than Wayne Pygram’s cameo turn as a younger Tarkin.
Indeed, that two decade interval seems problematic from other perspectives. Granted, Obi-Wan has had a rough life out there in the Jundland Wastes. Still, the Alec Guiness iteration seems to have aged a great deal over those two decades (heck, so does Yoda). And the line “Obi-Wan? I haven’t heard that name since before you were born [except in chatting with Yoda later that day, or Qui-Gonn’s ghost in the succeeding weeks]” doesn’t quite fit any more. Unless he’s gotten forgetful out there, too.
Still, that’s all quibbling to some extent. Lucas has managed to do a remarkably good job of tying together the conclusion of a prequel released in 2005 with a movie hatched somewhat out of the blue almost three decades earlier. There’s enough grist there for geeky fanboy debates for decades to come, and that’s probably not a bad thing.
A few other, stray thoughts:
- While the concept of missiles that release little tech-destroying robots made for some exciting scenes, it’s a truly dumb idea (vs., say, oh, a warhead on a missile).
- No, I don’t believe even the spiffiest pilot of all time can maneuver a crippled chunk of spacecraft from orbit down for a near-perfect landing on a runway. (Runway? What ships use runways?)
- I liked Obi-Wan’s squonking lizard mount — though it seemed to run faster than it ought to, and its death (?) went unremarked.
- The whole General Grievous thang was fun from a bad guy perspective, but not terribly believable. He never showed enough brightness to be made a general, and he seems to have had a distinct design flaw …. He made a great distraction for Obi-Wan, though. (Grievoius may have been better established in the Clone Wars cartoons. Which I haven’t watched, so my comment stands.)
- Anakin drops into Palpatine’s camp awfully quickly. He goes from torn youth to “What have I done?” to “Here, let me kill these kids for you, my Master” in about thirty seconds. I understand what his motivation was supposed to be — it just didn’t seem to work.
- The Night of Long Knives against the Jedi was not nearly as engaging or moving as it ought to have been. Part of that may have been distraction by the amazing planetscapes. Part of it may have been that the majority of Jedi have been nameless light-saber-wielding drones, so far as the movies were concerned. It did raise some odd questions about the Imperial storm troopers (Were they “programmed” with that order? Was it distributed earlier? Why no hesitation?), and the Jedi, for the most part, seem to have been taken out far too easily, even if surprised.
The most moving Jedi death is the one that Organa witnesses.
- Ignoring the snarky debate over what sort of parallels George Lucas sees between the Empire and the US, the “This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause” line is a great one — even if Portman’s rendition of it is clunky.
- Again, nice to see the “Rebel Blockade Runner” ship showing up as Organa’s personal cruiser. Not sure it would actually still be in service twenty years later, but it was a nice touch.
- Okay, the How Anakin Physically Turns To Darth Vader scene was perfect. Agonizingly perfect. Except for the whole Obi-wan leaving him there to die a gruelling death. I’m a bit surprised that, after being consumed by hate, then subjected to the greatest of torture, Anakin manages to ask as his first words, without pause, how Padme is. There was a dramatic beat or a few lines missing there. But, by then, we’re already barreling toward the conclusion …
- The Emperor must have immediately ordered redecoration and uniform changes for the Imperial fleet, because while it was neat seeing them, they felt jarringly different from every other Republic starship interior and uniform design we’d seen to date.
- I still don’t get why Padme dies. I mean, yeah, her heart is broken, she has no reason to live, blah blah blah. It seems awfully sketchy, especially since neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda seem to do much to try to snap her out of her funk.
- Beautiful, beautiful lava. Though as the funky metal thingamabob fell into the lava, carrying Anakin and Obi-Wan in their life-and-death struggle with it, and they panned back and we saw it was about to go over a lavafall, as well, Margie and I couldn’t help but laugh. “And there’s a bus full of nuns down there, too, just to increase the suspense.”
- The role of the Senate is given short shrift here. That the Senate would follow Palpatine over into the abyss is not, to my mind, well enough founded — and it has to be, because it drives the whole reason why the Jedi go bonkers.
- Why do Yoda and Obi-wan have to go into exile? Why not start a resistance/rebellion right then and there? Heck, you’ve alread got Alderaan in your pocket …
- Speaking of which, it was poignant seeing Alderaan, knowing it was going to become sparkly space debris in a couple of decades.
- The Owen and Beru scene was really neat — it felt too abrupt, in some ways (ending the movie with two relative strangers on center screen), but it was also a nice tie-in to the past. Even if Owen never struck me before as a gaze-at-the-setting-sun sort of fellow.
So a lot of little complaints, and a few big ones, but, all in all, not the worst way to have ended the Star Wars cinema franchise. Indeed, it was enough to make me want to go back and watch the first trilogy (IV-VI) again, just to see how the continuity setups carry on.
And, yeah, I’ve got a yen again to play in a Star Wars campaign …
And on a completely different note, the trailers before the show:
- Narnia — Disney does Lord of the Rings. I hope it comes out far better than that sounds.
- Shark Boy & Lava Girl — Katherine is evidently quite interested in seeing this. My God.
- Fantastic Four — Might not suck.
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith — True Lies meets Undercover Blues meets The Bourne Identity. Could be either fun or stupid beyond words. Or, maybe, both.
- War of the Worlds — Might be as scary as it should be.
Rrg. Not only have most folks Ep III blog posts scrolled off their front pages, but most of the ones I’ve found have comments closed.
Again, rrg.
Easter Eggs.
Yes…the Jedi after life thing bothered me as well. I would have liked some sort of explanation of “being prepared for death you will your spirit/soul/essence to the Force”. Though, now with Lucas’ new explanation it bogs down even more. If Qui-Gonn had just figured the out after he was dead how did Vader find out about it at the end of return of the Jedi (especially after the whole Obi-Won “if you strike me down, I’ll become more powerful then you can imagine” line).
No, I’d want that whole thing to be a “Mystery of the Master Jedi”. Which works since the Sith seemed to be more concerned about living in this life forever, it would make a lot of sense that the Jedi had figured out how to live beyond death. And the good thing with this is it would remove the ghostly Anakin at the end of Jedi (yet another thing that really bothered me about that movie).
Ummmm… “NOOooooooooooooooo!” I laughed really hard at this. Then, I really enjoyed the scene of Palpatine chortling in the background, it was deliciously evil.
Padme came in to this universe stupid, and she went out of it stupid. Vader’s big mistake was blowing up Alderaan instead of Naboo when he had the chance.
I don’t remember what the time line was on DS II. I could see DS II being started, say ten years after DS I, and because of the whole “lessons learned” thing they were able to build it faster then the first one.
I would have loved to have had a lot more of the Night of the Long Knives thing. “Hey, look…the Jedi tower is burning…!” “Enh…it’s nothing.” It was just sort of an odd plot concept the way it was presented.
I could see the Obi-Won leaving Anakin there to burn as some sort of Force/fate thing. In fact I would have loved to have seen the whole down fall of the Jedi being a fought between those that tried to fight their down fall, and those that saw it coming and excepted their fate. Would have worked much better then what Lucas dreamed up.
And what is really sad is that all of these actors can act, they just needed somebody who could direct them.
At one point the guy that plays “Captain Feathersword” on the “Wiggles” was supposed to make an appearance as the owner of the Falcon (the owner that Lando gets it from before Han gets it from Lando…). Did that end up on the cutting room floor?
As for trailers…Narnia sounds good, but I have my doubts about War of the Worlds, mostly because I wish **somebody** would do it like it is in the book and **get those tripods right**!!!
Here’s an odd thought: Could it be that Lucas wanted the acting to be a bit wooden as a tribute to the old adventure serials that inspired him?
I like the idea that the life-after-death bit was something that Kenobi discovered during his years on Tatoine. Why bother making it something that someone else invented — this takes away from the idea that Kenobi was a great Jedi. Though, as you point out, his failure in training Anakin Skywalker also suggests he’s not that great a Jedi.
Though the Falcon actually makes a brief appearance (docking at the Senate, according to the Easter Egg site), that’s about it. Paul Paddick mentions it here, and there’s reference here, but no sign of it having actually happened.
Re the wooden acting — I think you give Lucas too much credit. (And, given the critiques of the actors, I suspect someone would have come forward and said, “No, no, it’s an homage to the old serials, that’s how George asked me to to do it!” by now.
The Death Star a-building might have been MkI to, say Mk IV in Ep 4 for all we know. Consider what the thing does to whole planets and that it is bleeding edge tech. MkI: blowed up. MkII: blowed up and took out half a star system. MkIII: etc.
The opening fleet battle was very pretty and super dumb. These things should engage at reasonable distances. Spider-Man could have jumped from ship to ship.
Padme had to die because they’d pretty well established that Anakin/Vader could find a live Padme anywhere.
I’m doubtful that Lucas tweaked the story much to reflect current events at all. There’s still a Senate in EpIV so Palpatine had to get elected somehow and EpVI clearly established that his MO is Temptation and Manipulation. Back when Lucas wrote the story he was probably thinking Rome and Hitler. That the neocons can’t remember that statements like, “If you’re not with me, you’re against me,” predate Prez Bush is laughable but not at all surprising.
Here’s an excuse for the Jedi ban on love and their other problems with emotional dysfunction: the Force, created by all life, is not humanocentric (or Yodacentric, etc) and is not a good fit with human personalities. It drives force-users nuts to various degrees. The more Force-mastery you have, the more messed-up you are. Hence Palpatine, Yoda, Dooku, Anakin, Windu, Maul and even Obi-Wan the weird old hermit.
First Death Star: 20 years of research and development, actually blew up a few times, changed major contractors once with cost overruns and misappropriation scandals. Suspended for two more months as token lib-uh-rules filibustered military funding but then DeathStar™ technology was tested on them. Finally put into service in time to blow up Alderraan.
Second Death Star: research done, infrastructure to build the thing still in existence, essentially a production item. Funding not a problem as no lib-uh-rules left. Workers informed that Lord Vader will be very unhappy if they do not meet this schedule. Brief encounter with Vader (along with some rumors and urban legends about his abilities) encourage a decision to “redouble our efforts.”
Cripe, I don’t care how pretty the special effects are, leave the original movies alone.
Lucas’ view of space battles is very explicitly based on WWII dogfights (and, presumably, “wooden ship” fleet actions). Yes, that’s dumb (even modern dogfights tend to happen outside of visual range, let alone fleet actions), but it’s also dramatic, and Lucas is hardly the only SF writer to rely on that visual convention.
That, and Lucas’ overall views (or presentation) of how land military engagements occur seems straight out of the 19th Century. 🙂
Back when Lucas wrote the story he was probably thinking Rome and Hitler.
In early drafts of the story (and, in fact, in the ADF-ghostwritten novelization of Ep IV), the emperor was portrayed as senescent and a figurehead, with the governors and military acting as warlords to wrest control from the Senate.
They are not the only ones who don’t seem to remember that.
As to Force-use driving people nuts — heck, it’s power, and we know what power does to people.
Oh, I probably agree with you. My thought, though, was if you’re going to do it, then do it.
Vader (and his troops) actually dispatched adult Jedi who were still at the temple, not just the children.
Given that the only Jedi we’d been given any reason to care about were Mace, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin himself, it’s not surprising not too much time was taken with the Order 66 scenes. Though I agree that the Jedi were taken out far too easily (but, then, Jedi are squishy against mass attack, as Ep II demonstrated — which is why having them lead the charge against the bad guys is such a goofy idea).
I had hoped for a movie about Darth Vader hunting down and destroying the Jedi Knights. Instead, the Jedi, each of whom is a veritable one-man army, were dispatched with a few blaster shots in the back. They couldn’t sense the attack and jump out of the way??? And the only Jedi actually killed by Vader were the children! The only ones! Bah.
The young folks I work with all enjoyed the movie very much. Some thought it was the best of all the Star Wars films! When I ask for specifics, they mumble something like, “I thought the action scenes were good.” Well, that’s not enough for me. Somewhere in the last two decades, Lucas, I’m afraid, forgot how to tell a story.
I suppose in another twenty years, he’ll release a version in which all the actors have been replaced with digital characters. Then he’ll be happy.
Your comments about continuity from episode III to episode IV inspired me to watch episode IV last night. I saw episode III for the first time Tuesday, so it was still pretty fresh in my mind.
Kenobi does look too old in epIV, as you suggested. He also calls Darth Vader “Darth” during their combat scene, which makes it sound like a first name rather than a title. It would have given too much away for Kenobi to call him “Anakin”, but I think “Vader” would have been better.
Kenobi’s willingness to train Luke in the use of the Force seems odd given his own admission of failure in training Anakin. You would think he would be more reluctant to try to train another person given how things turned out with Anakin. And Luke’s age is even greater than Anakin’s at the beginning of his training, which seems to make it even more dangerous.
The contrast between the rollicking style of epIV and the much more serious style of epIII is pretty dramatic. Somehow the wisecracks and lighthearted spirit of epIV got lost along the way.
Kenobi doesn’t appear to recognize R2-D2 or C3PO at all in epIV, but there’s enough banter about R2-D2 between Anakin and Obi Wan in epIII that I think Kenobi would remember that droid. Organa’s command that C3PO’s mind should be wiped at the end of epIII explains why C3PO does not recognize Kenobi, but I wonder why he didn’t want to wipe R2-D2’s memory too.
Kenobi’s speech to Luke about Anakin in Kenobi’s home after the Sandpeople rescue doesn’t sound right to me given what happens in epIII. It suggests that Kenobi has become much less open than he was in epIII, which I don’t buy. On the other hand, his comment about the name “Obi Wan” is that he hasn’t “used” that name since “oh, before you were born.” That doesn’t bug me since it sounds like he’s giving only a very vague approximation of the time in a way that Luke can understand it, and since he’s talking about the name he has “used”, presumably meaning on a regular basis.
R2-D2 is much less mobile in epIV than in epIII (or epII for that matter). I suppose that might be the result of being a 20-year-old machine, but it does seem a bit odd if you watch the two in sequence.
I think I would still recommend that people watch them in the order they were made rather than in the internal chronological order (believe it or not, someone recently told me he had only seen the original movie, and wanted to know what order he should watch them in if he wanted to watch the rest of them).
Hmmm. Actually, Darth’s set up pretty much as a first name in the movie. “Lord Vader. Only you would be so bold …”
The older Obi-Wan seems kind of desperate to redeem himself after his failure. Maybe his chats with Qui-Gonn included a pep talk or two. (Cough)
On the other hand, given Obi-Wan’s (and Qui-Gonn’s) independent thinking about training, I’m not surprised Kenobi thought he could do it. And it’s not like (a) the kid was untalented, or (b) he had many options.
Hmmm. If Qui-Gonn’s ghost is still hanging around, does that mean that Obi-Wan and Yoda are in contact (at least through him)? A smell a conspiracy.
Hmmmm. Actually, sitting out there for twenty years in the desert as a hermit, he’s probably gone a bit batty, monomanically focusing on Luke (as proxy for Anakin), which is why he’s forgetful about “there is another” Leia. Though now I have to go back and see if Ben indicated any familiarity with Leia beforehand (he dies before actually meeting her on the Death Star — but maybe it’s seeing that *she*’s escaped, too, that lets him “give up” against Vader).
Well, the first 15 minutes of Ep III reminds me of Ep IV … and, I suppose, the tragedy of Alderaan is an echo of the tragedies in III. But, clearly, III is meant to be a darker movie.
Y’know there are only so many letters in the alphabet, and droids come in model lines. We also don’t know how similar their voice and behavioral templates are within a model. There may be a million gold (or silver) supercillious protocol droids out there named C3PO. No reason why OBK (or even Vader) should specifically remember him, or equate him with the droid from two decades ago.
Now — why doesn’t he remember owning an R2 unit is another question. Though … hmmmm … actually, R2 was Ani’s, and there are certainly a zillion of them out there, too, so it’s not beyond possibility.
Because C3PO can’t keep his mouth shut, and humans don’t understand R2 data codes?
Yeah. I’d expect some of the more sophisticated parts (e.g., internal rocket packs) to wear out over a couple of decades aboard a starship, esp. if they weren’t being actively used on their shipboard duties.
I don’t know if I agree that there are a bunch of droids around with the same names or that look the same. It’s possible, but the story is set up (particularly epIV) to make C3PO and R2-D2 into individuals. Certainly in epI, Annikin has a special connection to C3PO, and in epIII, he seems to apologize to Obi Wan for R2-D2’s mistakes.
But thinking about this some more, I wonder about C3PO’s exclamation “Thank the Maker” when Luke puts him in the cleaning solution in epIV. I seem to remember some other point where C3PO calls Annikin “the Maker” — perhaps in epII? If C3PO’s mind is wiped, why would he still use that phrase?
BTW, I’m aware that most of these things can be rationalized in some way, and you’re doing a good job of it, but I also wonder if the need for such rationalizations is a good thing.
A bit of pure speculation here. At one time there was a rumor that the series was to be 9 movies. Later, Lucas cut that back to 6, probably for the very good reason that he would never be able to retire if he was going to make 9 movies at the rate he’s been going. But I wonder if he had some of the plot worked out for that, and if so, does it connect to the prophecy that Annikin was the one who would balance the Force? There’s a point in epIII where Yoda says that perhaps the prophecy was misinterpreted, and here’s my speculation: Annikin was not the one to bring balance to the force, Luke and Leia were to bring balance to the force.
The thing that suggests this to me is the fact that Luke seems to take the step that everyone says will lead him to the dark side of the force: he loses his temper when fighting Vader in epVI, and he seems to be fighting for emotional reasons connected to Leia and Han, not for the pure altruism that Yoda seems to expect of a Jedi Knight. But in spite of this, Luke doesn’t appear to succumb to the dark side of the force, and in fact he seems to destroy the emporer, and he converts his father back from the Dark Side.
So, my thought is that the remaining three movies were to be about how Luke and Leia fulfilled the prophecy and brought balance back to the force — whatever that means to Lucas.
One more continuity issue: storm trooper voices. In epI, epII, and epIII, they use the same guy’s voice for them all. In epIV, epV, and epVI, they have different voices that don’t all sound like clones of the same guy. It’s kind of distracting in a minor sort of way.
Even in the admitedly darker epV, there is enough light-hearted banter to make us care about the characters in the earlier films. The attempt to make Obi-Wan and Annikin seem close was too little too late for me (although some of this probelm is direction and not talent).
And, as I have said, I see their relationship more father/son than brotherly. Luke and Han seem more like brothers. If Lucas had written the Annikin and Obi-Wans relationship with the father/son dualism, it would have played out better for me.
And I am personally offended by the idea that personal entanglements are what bring us down. Folks who can’t form relationships are usually psychpaths, who have no concern for others. The Jedi in epIII seem to think only Jedi are worthy of having relationships with other Jedi, almost as bad an idea as only marrying your relatives.
With regard to Obi-Wan’s name, here’s the relevant dialogue from the script:
BEN: Obi-Wan Kenobi…Obi-Wan? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…a long time.
LUKE: I think my uncle knew him. He said he was dead…
BEN: Oh, he’s not dead, not…not yet.
LUKE: You know him!
BEN: Well of course, of course I know him. He’s me! I haven’t gone by the name Obi-Wan since oh, before you were born.
And with regard to Stormtroopers’ voices, remember that they are not Clone Troopers. In Eps I-III, the troopers are all clones of Jango Fett. In IV-VI, they’re just guys who joined the Imperial armed forces and wound up as blaster fodder.
We knew in 1977 that Vader was a Dark Lord of the Sith, and I always assumed that Darth was a contraction of that phrase (“Dar’th”?). (It later bugged me when my then-wife would call him “Darth,” and justify it by saying, “See? Obi-Wan calls him that!”)
Did everybody hear the Wilhelm? I knew there’d be one!
The Jedi weren’t expecting betrayal, at least not from those with them. I’d imagine that they were using their senses to find other people, looking forward, and just blocking out those behind them.
These scenes hit me more when I saw it the second time, because I knew it was coming. I still don’t find it all that implausable, considering what they were doing.
I don’t know if I agree that there are a bunch of droids around with the same names or that look the same.
We’ve never actually seen it (indeed, they may have gone out of their way to avoid it), but assuming that the naming schema we’ve heard is correct (letter-digit), there would only be 260 possible unique codes for an R2 unit (R2A0 thru R2Z9). That, too, seems unlikely.
It’s possible, but the story is set up (particularly epIV) to make C3PO and R2-D2 into individuals. Certainly in epI, Annikin has a special connection to C3PO, and in epIII, he seems to apologize to Obi Wan for R2-D2’s mistakes.
How droids fit into the scheme of things isn’t well spelled out in the movies (prolly there’s a lot of written fiction that addresses it, but I’m focused just on the movies). Clearly, though there are acknowledged personalities and foibles and the like, droids are still treated as chattel, smashed up or sold off or “restrained” as their owner sees fit, banned from bars, slaughtered unmercifully if need be, and, if looked upon with fondness with their owners (or builders), still eminently dismissable.
They’re the “house elves” of the SW universe.
So, to some degree, I can see certain droids being perceived as special, or as experience and the like build common bonds of memory. But people do that with cars, too. Would I recognize my first car if I ran across it again today? Assuming the seats had been replaced, and the paint was either redone or rusting out? I might recognize it as the same model as my first one, but, especially if I ran across them on a regular basis, I probably wouldn’t give it much more thought than that.
I’d always attributed that as a reference to some sort of vague Deist creator deity, as opposed to apaean to his manufacturer. Though that might still be the case, and “Thank the Maker” simply a traditional phrase used by droids (or programmed in?). (We don’t have much idea what sort of religions the rest of the sentients have in the SWU, except, perhaps, the whole Force thing.)
Sure sells a lot SW books, though, doesn’t it?
Of course, to the extent that SW is (or was intended as) a tribute to Saturday afternoon serials, detailed continuity and fully fleshed-out and rationalized universes likely weren’t high on Lucas’ list …
I’ve certainly heard that suggested, and the “last trilogy” was indeed supposed to be about the rise of the new Republic and new Jedi (and that’s the direction that the endless novelizations, which I’ve never much gotten into, have gone).
The question of whether the fall of the Emperor/redemption of Ani represents a balancing of the Force, or whether the rise of Darth Vader restored balance (by bringing the Dark Side into prominence vs the Light Side) is … difficult for me to figure out, since what “balance” means in this case is tough for me to figure out, let alone Lucas. Hell, what the Force is, how it ties to questions of Good or Evil (or Law and Chaos, or whatever the dichotomy is between the Light and the Dark), and what it means to be in balance, is probably dissertation fodder for someone out there …
Re: stormtrooper voices, clearly the idea that the STs are all clones of the original Jango Fett was part of the initial “concept.” On the other hand, I believe we’re beginning to see some differentiation in the clone troopers even by Ep III , and it may well be that the model varies further over the next few decades (either intentionally or not).
Though … I don’t know whether, movie-wise, it’s still confirmed that the STs are still the Ep. I model clones. The idea of the clone army was to get a huge standing army, trained and equipped, virtually overnight. Now that the Empire is established, clearly there are plenty of resources to bring in more “conventional” troops. (Though why all of them would be of the human stock, rather than other races, is another question that would raise.)
Actually, that plays out to me as one of the failings of OBK that leads to AS’s fall. If OBK had considered himself a father/mentor/teacher first, and an “older brother” second, he might have been a bit stricter on AS.
As I’ve said before, the Jedi of the Republic are a dysfunctional organization, and it’s little wonder that, when they fell, they fell big time. One can but hope that the Jedi of the New Republic learned those lessons. (Since only one Old School Jedi Master “survives,” Yoda, that transition may not be too difficult.)
Hmmm. Actually reminds me a bit of the whole “priests should not wed, but should cut themselves off from personal romantic involvement in favor of a cooler, more egalitarian, less corrupting fatherly love for the members of the church as a whole” thing. It’s doable, I suppose, but I think it cuts priests off from a major part of what it means to be human, while providing opportunities for corruption and the “dark side” to wangle their way in.
In the EU (Expanded Universe), it’s been clearly established that Emperor Palpatine is a bigot, and that only humans can join the Imperial forces. In fact, it’s an Imperial raid to gather Wookiee slaves that prompts Han to betray the Empire, and bonds him and Chewbacca.
Mind you, the EU is entirely non-canonical, so grant this whatever weight you like.
We see a bit of Imperial humanocentrism all the way back in Ep IV (“What is that … *thing*?”), so it wouldn’t surprise me — though I try to limit my discussions of SW stuff to the movies, not the EU.
Another continuity problem: in epVI, Leia tells Luke she remembers her real mother (clearly meaning her birth mother not her adoptive mother), but that her mother died when Leia was very young. In epIII, we see that Padme/Amidala dies immediately after giving birth.
Does she go into any more detail than that? Because, damn, with high-midichlorian folks, I’d be willing to believe that Leia (a) remembers her (very) brief encounter with her mom (or even a pre-natal connection) and (b) was told that her Mom died when she was very young.
Heard a lot of folks complaining about that, too.
In response to your question about more detail, Leia says her memory of her mother is “just images, really” but when pressed she says her mother was “very beautiful, kind, but sad.” Luke says he doesn’t remember his mother at all. I think Lucas changed his mind about when Padme/Amidala died in order to make epIII end more dramatically.
On another topic, the ghostly Obi-Wan Kenobi admits to having failed to train Anakin properly in a conversation with Luke in epVI. It happens after Luke asks Obi-Wan why he didn’t tell Luke that Vader was Luke’s father. In that conversation, Obi-Wan says he thought he could do a better job training Anakin than Yoda, but he was wrong. This doesn’t match what I remember happening in epI. I recall that Yoda didn’t want Anakin to be trained at all, not that there was any dispute about who would do it best.
In Lucas’ commentary on epVI, clearly recorded before the completion of epIII, he makes an interesting comment indicating that he will be curious to see all six in a row to see how the death of the emperor plays as the climax of the whole six-movie series.
Also, there’s been no dramatic closure on the idea that Anakin had no father. I wonder what Lucas had planned for that, if anything.
Well, the Leia comments might fit (Luke, of course, has always been whiny and self-absorbed, so no doubt he wouldn’t remember her).
Hmmm. Still wonder if Obi-Wan has gotten a bit daft out there in the desert. Or he may have been a bit too self-justifying, or perhaps even wasn’t being truthful to Luke (shocking, I know).
I’d forgotten the “Virgin Birth” thang. Interesting.
My friend and his wife told me that they wondered what the six films would be like if Lucas had made I-III in the 70s and 80s and IV-VI in the last few years. I opined that we would have been treated to Darth Vader saying things like (now be sure to say these in your best Vader voice for full efect), “Grand Moff Tarkin’s always telling me what to do!” and “The Emperor never lets me kill who I want.” They were highly amused, but I’m not sure it “translates” well.