I didn’t see the ending coming at ALL! Did you guys SEE what happened to Anakin? They put him in that whole black armor thing, and suddenly he sounded like Simba’s dad!
And–whoa! Twins! Padme had twins! Not crazy about the names she chose, but they’re not bad, I guess.
My question is…what now?! I mean, that’s how they END it? With so much left dangling? What happens to Yoda? And Obi Wan? And the kids? The bad guys just WIN in the end? What the hëll kind of ending is THAT? What a downer.
Has anyone heard if there’s gonna be a chapter 4? I’m dying to see what happens next!
Spoilers follow:
Okay, seriously…
THINGS I LIKED–Pacing was brisk. There were actual stray laugh lines that weren’t painful. The special effects, except for a few patchy moments during the lava flow battle, were superb and seamless. A number of dangling questions were dealt with (including the glaring “Why didn’t 3PO remember being built on Tattooine?) The lightsaber battles were outstanding, and some of the crosscutting sequences were deftly linked thematically (the birth of Darth Vader matching up with the birth of his children, for instance).
THINGS I LOVED–The scene where Palpatine, while watching that weird balloon glob opera, calmly and coolly seduces Anakin with the backstory of the Sith and the notion that Anakin might be able to save Padme if he just opens himself to the Dark Side. Not only did the chemistry between the two actors crackle, but I think it may well be the best dialogue scene in the entirety of the first three films. Plus I think we’re supposed to infer that Palpatine’s mentor was responsible for the creation of Anakin, which at least provides SOME kind of explanation. Love the John Williams score, interweaving new themes with the Empire March, Luke and Leia’s theme, etc. Also loved that Jar Jar didn’t speak. The visit to the planet of the Wookies, which Lucas ostensibly wanted to do since “Return of the Jedi,” but settled for half-sized Wookies called (spell it sideways and drop half the letters) Ewoks. Ewan McGregor convincingly aging into Alec Guiness. Anakin wearing an ensemble identical to what Luke was sporting in “ROTJ.” And, hey, now we’ve got a new fan gesture, taken from the Obi-Wan/Anakin battle: Jedi High Five, which consists of bringing your plams to within an inch of each other but not making contact no matter how hard you try. Also the cameo of a clearly young Grand Moff Tarkin.
THINGS THAT I DON’T BELIEVE: That Mace Windu is dead. I’m sorry, he’s the baddest bad-ášš there is. I don’t care that he was thrown halfway across the city. I think when he lands, he dusts himself off and says, “That all you got?” I also don’t believe the names of some of these characters. Darth Sidious. What’s his first name, “In?” General Grievous, as in Grievous Bodily Harm? C’mon. Certainly Lucas has had snarky names before, but at least he had the decency to put them into foreign languages (anyone for a serving of Mon Calamari?)
THINGS I HOWLED OVER: “It’s alive! It’s alive!” How in God’s name could Lucas have thought it a good idea to do an entire Frankenstein riff by having Darth Vader break his bonds on the operating table and lurch forward. I mean, it was hysterical. The lame spreading of arms and shouting, “Nooooo!’ was the capper on an inadvertently laughter-inducing sequence. With Vader believing that Padme had betrayed him, it might have been more effective for him to, upon learning of her demise, coldly saying, “Good.” Plus I was waiting for the legless, partly armless Anakin to shout after Obi-Wan, “Get back here! I’ll bite your kneecaps off, you pansy!”
THINGS I WAS ANNOYED OVER: No explanation of Leia’s remembering her mother or Luke looking around Dagobah and saying it seemed familiar. Granted, we can chalk it up to Force-induced dreams, but still… Also, it would have been cool to see how 3PO lost a leg and had to wear the silver replacement one he had in the subsequent films. Also…boy, the whole Jedi seeing-the-future thing is pretty freakin’ hit and miss. Seeing Jedi after Jedi caught by surprise by a massive conspiracy is a little like the psychic convention that was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. I know, I know, Yoda kept saying the force was cloudy, but sheesh.
THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE NEXT: An entire film called the Adventures of Han Solo. Recast with a younger actor, obviously, but charting his early years and how he hooked up with Chewie.
PAD
• 
“The Emperor approached what seemed to be the lifeless form of his new apprentice, yet he sensed that there was still a spark of life in him. He bent down, as if he heard something from the former Skywalker’s lips.”
“Tis…only…a…flesh…wound..”
As for the part about the Jedi not knowing what the Clones are going to do to them, I see it as that over the years of the War, the Jedi had come to trust their squads. So maybe that trust had blinded them to what would happen? heck, it would be the same reason why the Younglings trusted Anakin and creeped out from behind the council chairs.
Pretty cool, pretty cool. I’m there ASAP.
Ahhh, no sequels can match up to the original three—Lucas better leave it just from Phantom Menace through Revenge of the Sith.
*Grin*
When Leia says she remembers her mother, I just assume she’s talking about Mrs. Organa.
“Why didn’t 3PO remember being built on Tattooine?”
Did your version not have the throw-away line at the end “and wipe the protocol droid’s memory”? Presumably done to keep the existance of the twins a secret.
The Jedi not knowing about their betrayal?
“Always in motion, the future is.”
Yeah, I got nothing….
“”It’s alive! It’s alive!” How in God’s name could Lucas have thought it a good idea to do an entire Frankenstein riff by having Darth Vader break his bonds on the operating table and lurch forward. I mean, it was hysterical. The lame spreading of arms and shouting, “Nooooo!'”
If you ever want to know what a mixed bag “success” can be, watch AMERICAN GRAFFITI and STAR WARS and try to imagine the man who made those films ever being content with a scene like that.
Mike
Thought this was a great film, if not a happy one. It wrapped up most of the loose ends and tied the two trilogies together. The film I really waiting to see was the one advertised on the Coming Attractions marquee. It’s called “Batman Begins War of the Worlds”. Superheroes and Martians. It can’t miss.
Was I the only one who had a Homer Simpson flahback with the above mentioned Vader “nooooooo” scene?
“I just assume she’s talking about Mrs. Organa.”
Don’t know why PAD didn’t come up with that one. It’s been my working theory for the last month since a friend reminded me that Smitt’s charecter from Ep. 1 was named Senator Organa and that he was back in this one. Seemed cut and dry to me.
On Sith itself: This film did something that the last two films came no where near doing. This film had moments where I felt like the drooling, thrilled little fanboy that saw Star Wars at the drive in way back when. It may not be the best of the six films but it came a lot closer, for me, to living up to the first films then Menace or Clones did.
As for the cluelessness of the Jedis: doesn’t Palpatine have something to do with that? Isn’t he deliberately clouding their minds in some way?
I think we may have sat a little too close to the screen because I found many of the effects to be a little blurry. Also, the glare off the lightsabers had a tendency to bleach everything out in moments. I did like the shot of the pre-X-wing blowing up and the camera following the pilot as he is propelled through space.
The crowd cheered when Cewbacca helped Yoda up to his shoulder; the only action he had was protective and everyone seemed to dig that.
I also liked the Qui Gon reference at the end – a nice counterpoint to Palpatine’s false offer of saving Padme from death.
And I guess those swipes that Lucas took at George Bush were legit. At least according to an interview with him at Cannes: “I looked at ancient Rome, and how, having got rid of kings, the Senate ended up with Caesar’s nephew as emperor … how democracy turns itself into a dictatorship. I also looked at revolutionary France … and Hitler.
“It tends to follow similar patterns. Threats from outside leading to the need for more control; democracy not being able to function properly because of internal squabbling.”
“I hope that situation never arises in our country,” he said. “Maybe the film will awaken people to this danger.”
Bonus.
All in all, a fun film, glad Jar Jar had no speaking lines, wasn’t disappointed overall; would have like to have seen a full-size Star Destoryer, but, hey, dem’s da breaks.
Mark
My wife (reading over my shoulder) just pointed out that the Jedi seeing things problem was addressed in Menace. There is a throw away line between the Jedi about Yoda not telling one of the Senators about the problems with the visions being cloudy or some such stuff. The whole, “are the Sith here” theory being thrown there. I kinda remember it but would have to check it out again to be 100% sure. Anybody want to save me the time by remebering it better for me? Ring any bells?
I thought the film covered the Jedi’s myopia nicely with Yoda’s (or was it Windu’s?) line about how they should seen this coming, and they need tell the Senate that the Jedi’s powers seem to be waning.
I thought the movie was just plain incredible. Too many positives to really detail here, so let’s do the Interent messageboard thing and focus on the negatives: ditto on the freshly-minted Vader scenes. They really ought to have had him act like VADER from the moment on. He totally lost his humanity the moment he turned and it’s jarring to see any sort of a soul inside that armor.
I also wish that they hadn’t put him in the familiar armor. One of the biggest strengths of the Vader costume was that while he sure looked like he was inside a walking life-support system, it looked as though it had been modified and redesigned along the way to accomodate the need for a certain appearance. Just like the X-Wing-ish and TIE-ish and Stormtrooper-ish designs in the rest of the prequels, Anakin’s first set of armor should have looked like a previous iteration of the gear we came to know twenty years ago.
As for the Emperor — terrific, powerful scenes. Props to Palpatine. Going all the way back to Episode One, I loved the fact that here, at last, was an Evil Genius who had come up with a genuinely Cunning Plan, executed it flawlessly, and got away with it.
But I think his “transformation scene” was too over-the-top. I actually thought that he had been disguising his appearance all along…he didn’t look like he’d been disfigured. He looked like he’d gone to a plastic surgeon and said “Make me look like a Ðìçk Tracy villain.”
And if George W. had walked into the UN and said “We’ve vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!” wouldn’t there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery? I wish they’d underscored the (obviously huge) faith and support that Chancellor Palpatine had within the Senate.
But man alive…what a great movie. More comments are at my blog (http://www.cwob.com/yellowtext/).
THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE NEXT: An entire film called the Adventures of Han Solo. Recast with a younger actor, obviously, but charting his early years and how he hooked up with Chewie.
You’d really like to see something next? I haven’t seen this film yet, and while i’ve heard mostly positive reviews (and really positive, not like, “i expected it to suck so bad that it wasn’t terrible”)…the previous 3 films (episode 6 and episodes 1 and 2) were just so bad… my anticipation in seeing this movie is almost like a “i have to see it to get it over and done with”.
Lucas hasn’t shown me anything in the past 20 years that would make me want to see anything else he’s done. I’ve just invested enough time in the previous parts that I feel obligated to finish it up.
I wouldn’t mind if the man just retired and became a hermit after this.
“Did your version not have the throw-away line at the end “and wipe the protocol droid’s memory”? Presumably done to keep the existance of the twins a secret.”
Uh, yeah, it did. Reread what I wrote. I mentioned that 3PO’s apparent amnesia was one of the things that WAS explained.
As for the notion that the grown Leia was referring to her adoptive mother…well, no. If I may quote:
LUKE: Leia… do you remember your mother? Your
real mother?
LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very
young.
Sooooo…no. That one isn’t flying.
Although it should be noted that Luke has no memory of his mother. So maybe Leia specializes in remembering the past, whereas Luke–who foresees the danger in the Cloud City–specializes in the future.
PAD
In a neat bit of geek cross-polinization, the cameo role of a younger Tarkin was performed by none other than Scorpious himself, Wayne Pygram.
Ahhh,
Didn’t remember the “real” part of that line.
Oh Thank You Mr Smarty-Pants Peter David!!! Thanks for spoiling the end of the movie for me!!!!! I’ve been waiting many, many, many months to find out what happens!!! And. You. Have. To. Go. And. Ruin. It. ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Say there, PD, do you have the name of Chewie’s hairdresser handy?
“LUKE: Leia… do you remember your mother? Your
real mother?
LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very
young.”
But remember the rest of the dialog:
LUKE: What do you remember?
LEIA: Just…images, really. Feelings.
It’s not like she remembers having picnics in the park with her mother. You could argue that the force helped make an imprint in her memories.
I thought the movie was great fun but what really bothers me is the fact that now there is no suspense to the other three films. Think about it, if someone was watching them for the fist time in the proper order, by the time that they get to Empire and the big reveal, they’ll know about it. Heck, they’ll know that Luke and Leia are twins, making that kiss quite rather icky 🙂
And then of course, we’ll know that Leia is Anakin’s daughter, and we’d be wondering why on earth when Vader is with her, he doesn’t go “hmmm, the force is strong with this one”
So I guess that it would’ve been nice if we didn’t find out their names… although to be fair, having both anakin and luke share the same last name, also wouldn’t work suspense wise.
Guess I did misread that, sorry.
Really liked it. Yeah, the “NOOOOOOOOOOO” part annoyed me as much as it did everyone else. He might as well have dropped to his knees, raised his arms and screamed “MENDOZAAAAAAAAAAA!” while he was at it. Coupled with Anakin’s earlier “What have I done?” line and it’s obvious that Lucas is still pretty tone deaf to real dialogue.
But so what. The image of Vader burned, ruined body clawing its way up the lava pit was exactly as I’d imagined it would be since I first heard that’s how he got that way. It’s nice to see something you’ve imagined for nearly 20 years live up to expectations.
Occured to me that Anakin did bring balance to the Force. Think about it; at the end of the movie, we’ve gone from hundreds of Jedi and two Sith to two Jedi and two Sith. Seems balanced to me.
We’ve got interstellar travel. We’ve got human sentience level AIs. But do we have ultrasound? Nope. Everyone’s shocked by the discovery at apparently around month 7 of Padme’s pregnancy that she’s carrying twins. Who are awfully large and fully developed relative to the size of her belly.
The bit I really hated about the movie (well, other than a reprise of the most painful and unconvincing love scenes in cinema history from AOTC) was that Leia should be ashamed of her mother. Padme turned into a complete wimp, finally dying because, while physically healthy, she’d “lost the will to live”. This might actually have worked if it’d been written that Anakin had, as part of his transition to the ol’ dark side, been gradually dominating her more and more in the mode of emotionally abusive spouses, making her more and more dependent on her and her friends wondering what the heck happened to Blaster Girl from the previous movies.
On the whole, certainly much better than I, II, and a lot of VI, not up to IV and V, and somewhat dissatisfying in the sense that most of the things I disliked could’ve been easily fixed.
“And if George W. had walked into the UN and said “We’ve vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!” wouldn’t there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery?”
Not if he did it in front of the Republican controlled Congress! 😉
quote:
LUKE: Leia… do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
LUKE: What do you remember?
LEIA: Just…images, really. Feelings.
LUKE: Tell me.
LEIA: She was very beautiful. Kind, but…sad. Why are you asking me all this?
LUKE: I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.
A few things to add. R2D2 kicked all kinds of ášš. Still can’t stand C3PO but R2 is The Man.
I’m a bit puzzled by the supposed politics of the movie. Sure, we have the “Your either with me or against me” (or something like it) line followed by Obi Wan saying that “Only a Sith would deal in absolutes”…but then Darth later says that from his perspective it’s the Jedi who are evil so that seems to be a condemnation of nuanced relativism…if Lucas really wanted to show how democracies fall he failed. Why was the Senate so happy to hand over everything to Palpatine? Similarly, I don’t know why Anakin was so sure that Palpatine was telling the truth about being able to save Padame–he knew that Palpatine had lied about his true nature, why trust him with anything?
(That said, Yoda’s advise was not exactly awe inspiring–basically “Sick your loved one is? Bother you not such things should.” Yeah, ok, for nothing thanks, master.
Grevious wasn’t at all like he was in Clone Wars, where he seemed to be able to slaughter Jedi at will. He looked awesome at first when he fought Obi with 4 sabers but he was less of a fighter than Chris Lee, that’s for sure.
Speaking of, nice death by Chris. BOTH hands sliced off, ouch.
The scene in the temple. With the kids. Jeeze.
There was one scene, a fight scene early in the movie, where I was surprised that there was no music. Other than that, I really enjoyed how John Williams used so many of the themes throughout.
Peter, I’ve got to agree with most of your points, especially the Frankenstein riff with the newly-created Vader. It turned what should have been a seminal moment into something much less.
Things I liked. Yoda. The best use of photo-realistic CG in the film as far as I’m concerned, and I’m a big fan of the original Stuart Freeborn/Frank Oz version. What else? Ewan McGregor, doing a lot with very little. And a vastly improved Hayden H.
Things I didn’t like. The bad dialogue. A droid general with asthma? The bad dialogue. The ‘It’s just a flesh wound’ sequence that people mentioned already. For that matter, too many severed limbs, to the point where people in the audience were laughing out loud, which I don’t think was the desired effect. And did I mention the bad dialogue?
The thing that bugs me is that Lucas has enough money to pay for state-of-the-art sound, visual FX, digital equipment, and well, just about anything else he could possibly need. So why couldn’t he get somebody to do a serious dialogue polish for him? I can only imagine what somebody like, say, his pal Frank Darabont could do to sharpen things up. Or any of a hundred other good screenwriters out there, who would probably work for scale just for the bragging rights to say they’d worked on a Star Wars film. I can only imagine that Lucas honestly thinks his dialogue is good and nobody wants to tell the emperor that’s it’s not.
But here’s the thing that bothered me the most. It took me a while to figure it out. Just because you can fill the camera frame with groovy little droids and aliens and spaceships doesn’t mean you should. Okay, create some gorgeous establishing shots. Show us stuff we’ve never seen on the big screen before, but not in every f**king shot. I realize that Lucas has never felt completely satisfied with the first three films in terms of what he was able to put on screen. But look at the scenes in Empire for example, with Luke and Yoda in the swamp. I loved those scenes, with a brash young Luke wanting to be a Jedi and discovering he didn’t know šhìŧ. If Lucas had done those same scenes today, tht swamp would have been full of weird-looking alien insects buzzing through the frame every two seconds. And alien fireflies. And maybe some annoyingly endearing swamp droids. Suddenly those wonderful scenes would chock-full of visual clutter, and that’s how I feel about Phantom, Attack and Revenge: there’s just too much crap going on in every bloody shot.
So that’s my two cents, for whatever it’s worth.
LEIAS MOM: ok, Leia remembers images of her mother. Feelings mostly. She said her Mother was sad.
You dont get it? Think about it; Senator Organas wife, Leias mother, is seeing the galaxy that she loves dissappear in front of her eyes to the galactic Empire. So yeah, the woman was sad. And Leia remembering that makes perfect sense.
BOB JONES: you need to read the posts a bit more clearly. There is a spoiler warning message before Peters main blog on this entire subject. Or where you just kidding? I hope you were. Don’t blame Peter.
TOM GALLOWAY: You really didn’t get how Anakin brought balance to the force? AT THE END OF RETURN OF THE JEDI??????
And for the “Cross-Pollinization” fans out there (even though this is a huge stretch), I wonder if the reason that they had Vader break his bonds and shout “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”, was a small homage to “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hëll”. This was a british horror classic with Grand Moff Tarkin as Doc. Frankenstein and David Prowse (Darth Vader) as the Monster. I believe Christopher Lee was in some movie with these two also. Most likely a Dracula Vs. Frankenstien Monster movie. Anyway, you get the connection. Even though non of the actors are the same, they have played the same part at one time or another.
JORGE CHAPRA: you didn’t think this was gunna happen? That the suspense of the last 3 movies would be broken by these “first” three? Just show your kids the original trilogy and go from there.
CHARLIE GRIEFER: do we need to call the “WAAAAAAHH-mbulance for you? 😛
Hee hee heeeeeee. No, I hear you man. I’m just glad this movie was as fun as it was. But I’m too much of a geek to not be totally into anything Star Wars. I’ve got hope that there are some great stories out there. It’s a huge galaxy after all 🙂
I loved the film. I thought, like many of you did, that this movie had an original trilogy feel. Even though it was obvious at times (Organas ship for instance). I think Lucasfilm is finally realizing that special effects (to steal a line directly FROM Lucas back when Ep. 4 was brand new) is a tool to tell a story. Not vice versa, as what I felt ‘Menace and ‘Clones had a problem with. As I mentioned above; if there is to be more (like the TV show Ive heard so many rumors about) I hope that Chewie, Han and Tarrful are parts of that. Even though the name Tarrful is arful, I still get a kick outta that. Like “Mon Mothma” meaning “My Mother” and Mon Calamari and all that. It’s fun. And I think that other writers out there have been guilty of such fun styles of writing. Maybe not that blatant, but in the same tone.
Anyway, it’d be great to see Chewie and Han deal with Boba Fett and Bossk (Trandoshans being the sworn enemy of the Wookies) and so on. THAT would be great!
>> “Why didn’t 3PO remember being built on Tattooine?”
Did your version not have the throw-away line at the end “and wipe the protocol droid’s memory”? Presumably done to keep the existance of the twins a secret.
The thing is, did Owen & Beru Lars get mind-wiped as well? Or at least Owen, who in Episode IV buys C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Jawas without showing even the slightest memory of having lived with 3PO for years, or that both droids were at the funeral of his stepmother, Shmi? The whole idea of including 3P0 and R2 in the prequels at all, much less that the former had been constructed (!) by Vader, was probably better left on the table.
quote:
LUKE: Ben? Ben Kenobi! Boy, am I glad to see you!
BEN: The Jundland wastes are not to be traveled lightly. Tell me young Luke, what brings you out this far?
LUKE: Oh, this little droid! I think he’s searching for his former master…I’ve never seen such devotion in a droid before…there seems to be no stopping him. He claims to be the property of an Obi- Wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours? Do you know who he’s talking about?
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.
Did anyone else catch what appeared to be a cameo of Harry from “Harry and the Hendersons” during the first scene on the Wokkie planet? Also, I caught the Millenium Falcon (or a ship that appears amzingly similar to it) landing on Coruscant right before the scene where Obi-Wan says goodnye to Anakin!
Posted by Charlie Griefer at May 19, 2005 06:31 PM
THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE NEXT: An entire film called the Adventures of Han Solo. Recast with a younger actor, obviously, but charting his early years and how he hooked up with Chewie.
Actually, if you look back twenty-odd years, there’s a series of three authorised novels by the late Brian Daley that do pretty much that — even, in a truly geek-worthy moment, revealing the origin of Harrison Ford’s scar on Han Solo’s chin.
And they’re not bad books — rather better written than the movies that created the universe and characters.
Can’t recall the titles, but they all begin with Solo’s name.
Posted by: mike weber at May 19, 2005 11:57 PM
A goof.
I had somehow missed that it was Peter, not Charlie, who said that.
The thing is, did Owen & Beru Lars get mind-wiped as well? Or at least Owen, who in Episode IV buys C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Jawas without showing even the slightest memory of having lived with 3PO for years, or that both droids were at the funeral of his stepmother, Shmi?
On the other hand, it’s been about twenty years since they owned one copy of a mass-produced droid. How are they to know that it’s the same exact droid, especially when said droid doesn’t remember anything?
Posted by Andrew Timson at May 20, 2005 12:01 AM
On the other hand, it’s been about twenty years since they owned one copy of a mass-produced droid. How are they to know that it’s the same exact droid, especially when said droid doesn’t remember anything?
Well, there are two potential problems with that —
(A) 3PO is a standard type, but he was assembled by a brilliant kid from scrap, junk parts, and spit and bubblegum — not exactly mass-produced.
Sorta like the difference between a factory-original ’32 Ford 3-window coupe and a Deuce lowboy with a 427 engine and ten-inch slicks on the back. They’re obviously basically the same thing, but nobody with eyes would mistake one for the other.
(B) If 3PO is rock-stock, and Owen once owned him, then he ought to know what the capabilities of the model series are, intead of having to ask, as he does in Ep IV.
When Luke asks Leia about her mother, it’s before she finds out they’re brother and sister. And at that point, do we know that Leia has ever mentioned that she was adopted? Her name is Leia Organa, so it seems that she may not know she was adopted.
Which make Luke’s question about her “real mother” kinda wierd for him to be asking all of a sudden, but she plays along.
I also would have like to have the Siphadeous ordering up a clone army explained…like, maybe he was an earlier apprentice to Sideous, yet still a Jedi, and supposedly killed after ordering the clone army, then “preserved” as General Greivious.
“It’s not like she remembers having picnics in the park with her mother. You could argue that the force helped make an imprint in her memories.”
I think I actually DID argue that. I said that she has force-influenced backsight and Luke has force-influenced foresight.
Oh, and someone else complained about Grievous having trouble breathing. I had real problems with that as well…until I realized that Grievous isn’t a droid. He’s a cyborg. So apparently his respiratory system was still biological.
PAD
Oh, and Grievous’ trouble breathing? Go back and watch Volume 2 of the Clone Wars series. Just before he takes off with Palpatine from Coruscant, Mace Windu arrives and uses the force the crush Grievous’ torso shell. One could conceivably argue that the outer shell was replaced, but the internal organs suffered severe damage.
Grievous’ breathing prolems were explained by the cartoon – but just left to moviegoer’s imaginations, I guess.
I also thought a young Han series would be cool – espescially if they got that guy from Young Indiana Jones to play him.
the pre-X-wing – I suggest “asterisk wing”
Anakin brought balance to the force by destroying the sith. there are only two at any time. He killed the emperor, and died himself.
I assume Sipha Dious = Sidious (sound them out.) I would have liked to have seen that plot thread resolved.
I loved that there was a character named “Commader Cody”
I thought this movie was great. I liked the first two as well. I thought the reviews were overly harsh for the first two, and overly orgasmic for this one.
I think that I liked Attack of the Clones best out of the three prequels, mainly because I felt the ending(s) of ROTS were kind of tacked on.
And I’ve never had a problem with “wooden dialogue” Have you SEEN the first three movies? It’s not wooden – It’s just the way Star Wars sounds. Just enjoy it for what it is – Fun!
“Noooooooo!”
It’s the Star Wars version of
“Kahhhhhhn!”
I’m glad I’m not the only person who remembers “Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen”!
I always figured the way Anaking “brought balance” to the Force was by making sure his son, the last Jedi, had experienced the full panoply of human emotion – something nobody from the Jedi creches would have been permitted. Luke had known love, pain, sorrow, loss, even hatred, and had been forced to balance his emotions like a normal person. Once he was brought to his full potential, and shown that anger wouldn’t drag him down to the Dark Side, Anakin closed the circle by eliminating the last of the Sith.
“And if George W. had walked into the UN and said “We’ve vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!” wouldn’t there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery?”
Not if he did it in front of the Republican controlled Congress! 😉
Are you kidding? The Republicans would be trying to find a way to make themselves the emperor and would be murmuring about Bush! (As would the Democrats if Clinton had proclaimed himself emperor.)
Seriously, that was one of the weaker points of the movie for me. I know they had established in prior movies that the Senate was easily swayed, but with that many star systems, there is no way he would have been so overwhelmingly approved.
Another problem I had requires a minor spoiler, so skip this if you don’t want to know. At the end, Obi Wan just walks away from Anakin. I found that impossible to believe. Either put him out of his misery, or help him (and then get burned once again when he rejects you and turns to the dark side). I don’t know how deliberate it was, but I was turned off the attitudes and actions of some of the Jedi.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie better than the first two. As a movie, it was light years better in how it was made. As a worldview, things like Yoda’s saying to death is only a transition does ring hollow.
Iowa Jim
Ok, the “Noooo” was kinda off, but Star Wars has never really been on the subtle side. As for the earlier half of the scene, the Frankenstien moment, the Force crushing in Vader’s anger, his first words about Padme — I loved all that. From a pure techincal standpoint he *is* on new legs, so he ain’t gonna work them all that well, leading to all the lurching. Palpy’s evil sonofabitch smile really sealed that scene for me. And the “NOOOOOOOO!!” I felt was alright in a over-the-top tragic kind of way. Anyway, its too cool a moment in Star Wars mythology overall for me to chuckle at.
The “what have I done?!” bit was pretty cool, I Thought Hayden Christensen brought his A-game to this one for sure.
Leaving Anakin as a toro was pretty awesome. I liked both the actors in that scene, just spitting bile at each other. And how Obi-Wan couldn’t bring himself to kill him so he left him in a Really, really, dead state. I liked how Anakin survied on pure dark hatred for a while there.
The only genuine problem I had was Padme literally dying of a broken heart. I think that’s a George Lucas Prequel Outline Idea. You know: he sits down and writes 3 paragraphs for the whole trilogy and a small note in the Ep. 3 paragraph says “Vader’s wife dies of a broken heart” and he thinks to himself “Hmmmm, yeah, that’s a real nice mythological/ fairy-tale note there”. Neat concept, but the execution of it was kinda oooch.
I dug alot how Anakin went a killed the kids like a coward instead of mixing it up with all the Jedi ep. 1 Darth Maul Duel style. And I think it was basically just kids left at the Jedi temple anyway, all the other were out fighting the war.
“Execute Order 66” is probably one of the best lines of the movie.
I’ve seen it twice already, can’t wait to see it again, and again, and again. If just for Hayden Christensen and Ian McDirmond doing all that evil stuff. That and its Star Wars, and my brain shuts off and I just grin like an idiot for 2 hours. And I like dragging other “normal” people to it, just to see how it plays for them.
Whoot. Star Wars. Rock.
Of course – Qui Gon has proven that there is a life after death. And Yoda knew this…at some point, anyway.
Man, it really would have been nice to see Liam Neeson – “Show don’t tell.”
And it would have been great to hear someone say those immortal words –
“Qui Gon, take me away!”
Of course – Qui Gon has proven that there is a life after death. And Yoda knew this…at some point, anyway.
Man, it really would have been nice to see Liam Neeson – “Show don’t tell.”
I’m pretty sure they shot Liam Neeson for that scene, and I’m pretty sure it was cut. Haven’t read the novelization or comic or anything yet, but there might be Obi-Wan seeing Qui-Gon Jinn in the room. If you look at the close-up of Obi-Wan when he says “Qui-Gon”, Ewan’s eyeline seems a bit off, like he’s looking higher than eye-level at yoda… maybe the ghost appeared behind him and lucas cut it.
For pacing issues, I think he trimmed alot of stuff down to focus more on Anakin. Which is great, that’s the heart of the story. But a neat plotline about Padme forming the nexus of the Rebellion got chopped. Kind of a shame, but this is Hayden Christensen and Ian McDirmond’s show all the way.
Also, I loved the ironic twist how Anakin signed up to the Dark Side to cheat death, and the answer is on the Light Side. Yes, I suck at defining irony (gøddámņ you, Alanis!) but I’m 99.9% certain that falls under the irony umbrella.
This is supposedly from the shooting script…
*********
On the isolated asteroid of Polis Massa, YODA meditates.
YODA: Failed to stop the Sith Lord, I have. Still much to learn, there is …
QUI -GON: (V.O.) Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith.
YODA: Eternal consciousness.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed.
YODA: . . . to become one with the Force, and influence still have . . . A power greater than all, it is.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) You will learn to let go of everything. No attachment, no thought of self. No physical self.
YODA: A great Jedi Master, you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. Your apprentice I gratefully become.
YODA thinks about this for a minute, then BAIL ORGANA enters the room and breaks his meditation.
BAIL ORGANA: Excuse me, Master Yoda. Obi-Wan Kenobi has made contact.
The thing about Leia remembering her mother…
If I remember correctly, after the twins were born, Luke gets handed off, and Obi-Wan is holding Leia. Then he shows her to Padme. They even make a point of zooming in on her face. Sure, none of us remember the day we were born, but to someone who is predisposed to the force, “images and feelings” might very well be something one might be able to recall. At least, that’s how I took it…I could be wrong though, I was very tired by that point.
I also liked the way they kinda addressed the “why did Obi-Wan disappear when he got killed but Qui-Gon didn’t” thing too. The implication is that because Qui-Gon learned how to come back, and Obi-Wan got this training beforehand, that that’s why he was able to pull it off. It adds a little more humor to Vader poking around at the robes looking for the body too.
My big leftover question though is “why Shmi”? The implication is that either Palpatine or his mentor (Palpatine did say that he learned ALL the tricks before he killed his mentor after all) was Anakin’s “father”, but why was Shmi made the mother? Could be an interesting story.
One of the things I liked was the weird cognitive dissonance from Episode II – where Jedi were rescued by proto-Stormtroopers.
And here you got Jedi – in proto-TIEs – being shot down by CloneTroopers – in proto-Xwings.
Loved that.
“(A) 3PO is a standard type, but he was assembled by a brilliant kid from scrap, junk parts, and spit and bubblegum — not exactly mass-produced.
Sorta like the difference between a factory-original ’32 Ford 3-window coupe and a Deuce lowboy with a 427 engine and ten-inch slicks on the back. They’re obviously basically the same thing, but nobody with eyes would mistake one for the other.
(B) If 3PO is rock-stock, and Owen once owned him, then he ought to know what the capabilities of the model series are, intead of having to ask, as he does in Ep IV.”
C3PO looks identical to other 3PO droids, so far as we’ve seen. There’s one in the orginal trilogy that’s a different color, but otherwise identical.
And the last time Lars saw C3PO, he wasn’t covered in Gold. I had a red 1989 Tempo that I sold. I know I wouldn’t recognize it if somebody repainted it and refurbished it.
I imagine the asking what it can do is really an oversight, but it’s at least plausible that since the 3PO Lars had experience with was home built, he didn’t really know what a real one could do. Or he never paid enough attention to find out.
“Oh, and someone else complained about Grievous having trouble breathing. I had real problems with that as well…until I realized that Grievous isn’t a droid. He’s a cyborg. So apparently his respiratory system was still biological.”
I don’t get why so many people miss that. You can SEE his organs in his chest cavity in the fight scene with Obi Wan. Heck, it’s instrumental to how Obi Wan kills him.
Plus I think we’re supposed to infer that Palpatine’s mentor was responsible for the creation of Anakin, which at least provides SOME kind of explanation.
No, I don’t buy, or like that idea at all. The films themes hinge on innocence corrupted… being the creation of a Sith Lord pretty much dooms Anakin from the start. I much more like (and believe) that it was Lucas’s intention to show that Anakin was someone who could have been a force for good (as Obi-Wan cries, when he tells him that he was supposed to be the Chosen One), but simply chose the wrong path (in thematic contrast to his son).
How in God’s name could Lucas have thought it a good idea to do an entire Frankenstein riff
I thought that worked well. Very haunting and creepy. After all, he IS now essentially a Frankenstein-like creature.
The lame spreading of arms and shouting, “Nooooo!’ was the capper on an inadvertently laughter-inducing sequence. With Vader believing that Padme had betrayed him, it might have been more effective for him to, upon learning of her demise, coldly saying, “Good.”
I agree that the “Noooo!” didn’t come off as well as it could have, but I totally disagree that he should have been fine with Padme’s death. Keeping her alive was his motivation throughout the movie. The final thing to seal his bondage to the Emperor was to be told that he had killed the woman he loved. That broke his spirit and removed the last vestiges of Anakin Skywalker (at least until his son rekindled them).
“Another problem I had requires a minor spoiler, so skip this if you don’t want to know. At the end, Obi Wan just walks away from Anakin. I found that impossible to believe. Either put him out of his misery, or help him (and then get burned once again when he rejects you and turns to the dark side). I don’t know how deliberate it was, but I was turned off the attitudes and actions of some of the Jedi.”
I agree that the Jedi came off as ace high weenies in the movie but after what Obi Wan saw in the temple…a quick death was more than Anakin deserved.
What!!?? A Marin County Liberal, I mean, Progressive, took a swipe at the Republican administration? Shocking, just shocking. :-))