Revenge of the Sith! Wow! What a shocker!

204 comments on “Revenge of the Sith! Wow! What a shocker!”

1. 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.

   He actually does seem to recognize a C-3P0 type droid when he sees it, saying, “You. I suppose you’re programmed for etiquette and protocol?” Maybe he does remember his parents owned a similar machine.

   Uncle Owen can be forgiven for not recognizing a droid that belonged to his parents twenty years ago, especially one that’s been repainted and that doesn’t recognize him. It’s like a farmer in a slaveowning society not recognizing one of his Dad’s fieldhands who’s aged twenty years and lost his memory.

   I can only assume “C-3P0” is a common name for that model of droid.

2. I loved it and yeah the whole Leia thing bugged me from the time Anakin was having the dreams. I drove my boyfriend nuts commenting on it throughout the movie.

   I knew they HAD to wipe the memories of the droids, but I like that they kept R2s’, he was great in the beginning of the movie btw, loved when Obi-Wan kept trying to contact him…made me laugh.

   Loved the Jedi moves at the beginning also. Leaping out of their ships Lasers ablazing was totally cool.

   Loved Chewie picking up yoda

   Not a huge fan of Hayden’s acting, but at least I believed that he could actually be Vader, which I had a difficult time imagining with little Jake.

   Really liked seeing Anakin start having ideas of ruling the galaxy, but when he said it, I sorta cringed because it’s such a cliche line…brought images of him rubbing hands together and laughing maniacally, like Andrew, Johnathon and Warren from Buffy did when basking in their dreams of ruling Sunnydale.

   All in all, Lucas tied things together nicely I thought.

   Wonder if coming generations will watch it 4, 5, & 6, like we all did, or they will start with 1, 2, & 3? I know that’s what Lucas thinks, but somehow I don’t think it’s quite as fun.

3. —“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. “—

   Oh yeah I’d be into that!

   —“even, in a truly geek-worthy moment, revealing the origin of Harrison Ford’s scar on Han Solo’s chin.”—

   Wasn’t that from “Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade.” (River Phoenix was perfect as a young Indy, I thought).

   Or did they do it somewhere else for Han?

4. 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 [Palpatine] would have been so overwhelmingly approved.

   I just chalked this up to Palpatine’s mastery of the dark side being so strong that he was able to subtly — or not so subtly, I suppose — manipulate the Senate into approving of him. This sort of goes hand in hand with Yoda’s utterance: “The dark side clouds everything.”

   JAB

5. Anyone know what Padme says right before she dies? I saw the movie twice and STILL couldn’t make it all out.

6. >> Uncle Owen can be forgiven for not recognizing a droid that belonged to his parents twenty years ago, especially one that’s been repainted and that doesn’t recognize him. It’s like a farmer in a slaveowning society not recognizing one of his Dad’s fieldhands who’s aged twenty years and lost his memory.

   On the other hand, it’s established in the SW universe that the protocol droids have different voices (the one that shows up in Ep. 1, for instance). So might it not be safe to assume that 3PO’s voice, if not his physical form, would’ve triggered Owen’s memory? How many Upper-Class Twit of the Year voices does one hear on a backwater barren like Tattooine?

7. “Anyone know what Padme says right before she dies? I saw the movie twice and STILL couldn’t make it all out”

   Strictly from memory, what I got was something like “there is still…” which I took to be foreshadowing of Luke in ROTJ saying something similar, that there was still goodness in his father (and despite the claims from Yoda and Obi Wan to the contrary, he was correct).

   Or she might have said “The Castle of Aaaauuuggghhhh” Hard to tell.

8. Loved the movie. In my opinion, it would have been better if Anakin would’ve received a red lightsaber instead of staying with the blue one.

   Besides the Vader scene, which was funny. I was in stitches when the Clone Trooper hit the overkill button after the shot the very hot Twi’lek in the back, and continued to shoot her as the camera panned away.

   Also, there were Jedi “straggler’s”, those who survived the massacre, as it was put by Obi-Wan, so how knows? TV series anyone?

9. “Really liked seeing Anakin start having ideas of ruling the galaxy, but when he said it, I sorta cringed because it’s such a cliche line…brought images of him rubbing hands together and laughing maniacally, like Andrew, Johnathon and Warren from Buffy did when basking in their dreams of ruling Sunnydale.”

   Oh, no. No, I loved that…because it evoked “Empire Strikes Back.” When he said to Padme, “Together we can rule the galaxy,” not only was I cool with that, but I was waiting for him to say, “as husband and wife,” to bring it full circle back to him saying to Luke “Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.”

   In response to other comments:

   I had no problem believing Lars didn’t recognize 3PO’s voice. First of all, I figure that the 3PO models have, I dunno, an assortment of personalities, and the one we’ve seen is simply one of them. So he may well have encountered others with that personality type. And second, how many times have you answered the phone and it’s someone whom you haven’t heard from in years, and you don’t recognize their voice.

   Padme’s last words were, “There’s good in him…”

   And I’m sticking by my inference regarding Anakin’s conception. I mean, why the hëll else was it in there? Does it mean Anakin was doomed from the start? Perhaps. Perhaps it was a nature versus nurture thing. Besides, if he was destined for a fall, it makes it all the more impressive that he then revolted against evil and saved his son.

   PAD

10. to MIKE WEBERs’ question about 3po;

    Look at episode 4 again. Notice the silver protocol droid behind #p0 and R2 on Leias ship. Same exact design except fot the color. Another one of these appears in Empire of Cloud City. Same exact design except for the color. In this last installment, 3po has some definite new metal on his body as it’s all shiney and glossy. So Lars not recognizing him is fine. There are a ton of these droids all around. And even if the color is slightly different than the other PR. Droids? Why would Lars even care? He wants those moisture evaps. working by mid-day or there’ll be hëll to pay!

11. Response to a couple of PAD’s comments before reading the responses:

    THINGS I LOVED–Also loved that Jar Jar didn’t speak.

    He actually had one line — one word — of dialogue. On the landing pad when the senators meet Obi-Wan, Palpatine and Anakin after Palpatine’s “rescue,” he bumps into another Senator and says “Sorry.”

    Ewan McGregor convincingly aging into Alec Guiness.

    McGregor had him down cold. I think it could be worth a Best Actor nomination — but I’m also not holding my breath.

    Also the cameo of a clearly young Grand Moff Tarkin.

    Likewise, a young Mon Mothma could be seen in Padme’s funeral procession.

    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 could see this. Certainly, it could be grounds for exploration in the comics or novels or impending TV series. I’m sure there are surviving Jedi that haven’t been hunted down yet but presumably will be in the period between ROTS and ANH. The ability to sense the presence of other Jedi does seem to have some geographical limits. Windu could still be alive only to meet his end sometime later in an epic battle with Vader. Or he could have gone into seclusion as Yoda and Obi-Wan did. We could see a decrepit Mace show up to help Luke train new Jedi in the book series.

    THINGS I HOWLED OVER: 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 disagree. This scene compounded the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. I think he was out and out nutso by the time they got to lava land. After they rebuilt him (did it cost 6 million credits?), he’d had time to return to some semblance of sanity, and remembered that Padme was his motivation for turning to the dark side in the first place, and that she never would have betrayed him. While the Emperor was just plain being evil in telling Vader that he’d killed Padme, it was also true, in a sense. I thought it was a powerful scene.

    THINGS I WAS ANNOYED OVER: 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.

    I don’t think all Jedi have the same access to future-sight — some Jedis are more powerful and more adept at it than others. The Jedis had no cause to mistrust the Clone Troopers — heck, a moment before shooting him, the Clone Commander had just handed Obi-Wan his lightsaber and wished him well. They were in the midst of their battles and all of a sudden, all of their troops mutinied. Too much to predict, especially in the heat of battle. It worked for me.

12. Andy Ihnatko said: 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.

    I don’t think it’s too far afield from what happened after 9/11 with the Patriot Act passing almost completely unopposed. There was some token murmuring (Padme, Bail Organa, etc.), but most cheered and supported it in the name of security. Likewise, only a few (Dennis Kucinich comes to mind) opposed the Patriot Act.

13. Joe Nazzaro asked: A droid general with asthma?

    Grievous wasn’t a droid, he was a alien/cyborg hybrid. That’s why he had a beating heart. He also had lungs. And he was “asthmatic” because of events in CLONE WARS — Mace Windu did his torso some serious damage. Notice that by the time he has the big duel with Obi-Wan, he’s not coughing anymore.

14. Regarding Padme’s losing the will to live..

    I’ve seen a lot of reviewers complain about this, but in my eyes, they’re all missing the point. I thought it was obvious that it wasn’t her “will to live” that was gone and killing her. It was her spiritual, force connection with her loved one, Anakin.

    So, as Anakin died, so did she and as Vader was born, so were the twins. Love dies together and hope springs from tragedy, all in the same moment.

    Sooo… That means the Emperor wasn’t technically lying when he told Vader that he killed Padme. From a certain point of view, he did.

    -Joe S.

15. Peter Rios asked: Anyone know what Padme says right before she dies? I saw the movie twice and STILL couldn’t make it all out.

    A heard it as, “There is still… hope.”

    Nice symmetry with the title of the next chapter, no?

16. The problem wasn’t that Lucas was taking potshots at Bush. Those were lines and situations that have been around in fiction for millenia.

    No, the problem was that the Bush administration is speaking in bad movie villain dialogue. Frankly I’m a little more worried about that.

17. —“Oh, no. No, I loved that…”—-

    I really enjoyed the scene, don’t get me wrong, thought it was played well, and it did make you think of when Vader said that line to Luke, just saying the line sounded cliche to me. (Hmm perhaps “stock phrase” is a better word?)

    Maybe it’s like ‘Casa Blanca’; the movies been quoted so often, when you watch it now, every line is stock.

    I dunno I’ve probably seen too many parodys on Star Wars. It’s jaded me. 😉

    Which reminds of something I thought after watching this installment. I knew this one was “darker”, but I couldn’t hit on the right word for what I thought the original 3 were compared to this one. Then I realized that though we had good verses evil in those too, they were somehow more “innocent”.

    Back then, in the 70s and 80s, many of us who watched them were just youngins. But now we’ve grown up, and we’ve become more jaded. We’re so jaded we can’t believe that good vs. evil is as black and white as it used to be. We’ve lost our innocence too. Just as the first Star Wars was released at the perfect time, (a time when the post-nixon, post-Viet Nam, generation needed the “escape” and “innocence” of a story which had never been told in such a marvelous way before,) this last one he probably couldn’t have released at a more perfect time also. We are not post anything yet. We’re in the thick of it and perhaps if he had released it sooner or even later, we wouldn’t gel with it as much. And no, not because of the relevant political statements he was supposedly making, but because of how we *feel* about the state of our environment now. Yep, just like us our beloved ‘Star Wars’ has grown up too.

    That’s what makes Lucas good, he seems to intuitively hit on what the culture is feeling and put it before our eyes in cinematic allegory that just simply fits.

18. Why do I now have this urge to see the scene with Vader rising from the table and screaming “KHHAAAAAANNNNNN!”

19. I saw Revenge of the Sith last night, and liked it overall. There were a few points during the opening scenes of the Palpatine rescue operation where it seemed to drag, however. Grade A-.

    I liked the Grand Moff Tarkin cameo at the end. I also liked the fact that having had Peter Cushing in the original trilogy (albeit in just one of the films), you had Christopher Lee in the second trilogy. Nice bit of book-ending, given that the two often made films together back in the Hammer horror years (Nothing to do with the _Star Wars_ universe, of course, but still kinda cool).

    Like PAD, I also had a problem with Padme dying just after childbirth, given Leia’s memories of her real mother. A co-worker and I discussed this and other points about the _Star Wars_ movies this morning, and his theory is that Leia is actually remembering Sen. Organa’s wife. I suppose that could work with Luke’s question about Leia’s _real mother_ if that woman was Bail Organa’s _first_ wife, who died a few years later, leaving a second wife to help raise Leia.

    Yeah it could work, but it’s kinda clunky. It would’ve been so much easier to establish that due to complications from the births, Padme would only live for another year or so.

    Or, we can believe that Leia “remembered” Padme through the Force.

    As to Dagobah being familiar, maybe, for some as yet unknown reason, Obi-Wan took him there as a young child (or stopped over on his way to Tatooine). If the former, maybe that little “field trip” is why Owen Lars came to dislike Obi-Wan (or at least not approve of him).

    (Interesting to note that in the novelization of _Jedi_, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Owen Lars was _his_ brother).

    My co-worker and I also discussed how things might have played out had Mace Windu agreed to take Anakin along to arrest Palpatine. I think things would have ended roughly the same way, with Anakin, as the Grail Knight would put it, choosing poorly. On the other hand, with Anakin tagging along, Palpatine would’ve probably made it look like he was defending himself, rather than initiating the attack, as he did in the film.

    On a related note, I thought Anakin accepted his Vaderization a little too readily. Only seconds after his horrified “what have I done?” following the death (or mild inconveniencing, as PAD would believe) of Mace Windu, Anakin basically shrugs and says “O.K.” to becoming a Sith lord.

    And getting back to Padme and the children, Palpatine tells Anakin he killed Padme prior to his battle with Obi-Wan. Yet, years later, Vader learns he has a son. Are we supposed to believe that Vader, upon learning of his son’s existence, believed an emergency C section had been performed to save the boy? I can’t buy that. What I could buy is that he now realizes the emperor lied to him, and that realization has strengthened his resolve to overthrow him and become top dog of the Sith.

    By the way, the prophecy was true. Anakin Skywalker eventually did destroy the Sith. He killed the Emperor, and in taking that massive shock of electricity in so doing, also killed Darth Vader. So, it took a bit longer than everyone expected, and a lot of innocent people died in the interim. Details. Details.

    After I got home from seeing “Revenge of the Sith”, I put in my original trilogy DVDs, and watched key scenes involving Luke, Obi-Wan and Vader. One thing I don’t understand is why Lucas changed the dialogue of Vader’s communication with the holographic image of the Emperor in _Empire Strikes Back_ from “We have a new enemy, Luke Skywalker”, to “I believe he is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.” For one thing, Luke isn’t making any effort to hide his identity (and has no reason to). It’s perfectly reasonable to assume Vader and the Emperor would _know_ the guy’s name. So why change that bit of dialogue?

    I’ve been wondering about that for awhile, but I caught a key point yesterday that I’d missed before. Early in _Empire_ Vader mentions Skywalker by name. So, unless we’re to believe that Vader knew the name of the rebel who destroyed the Death Star _before_ the Emperor did (and was playing coy during his later conversation with the Emperor), Lucas ended up making a continuity error within that one film.

    On another note, PAD, you wrote in CBG about the lightsabers originally being wielded two-handed, like broadswords. In one of his commentary tracks, Lucas said this was done in the original _Star Wars_ because neither Obi-Wan nor Vader was at his prime. That makes sense, except for the fact that Vader is later doing the one handed fighting. Oh, well.

    And speaking of lightsabers, in _Star Wars_, Obi Wan told Luke his father wanted him to have it when he was old enough. I guess what he meant to say is that Anakin _would have_ wanted him to have it _if_ he’d remained a Jedi, and known he’d had a son. But hey, truth all depends on point of view, right?

    Also, speaking of lightsabers, I close with one of my all time favorite _Star Wars_ related lines, which never actually appeared in a _Star Wars_ movie:

    “I sense a great disturbance in the force….. Get his battery!”

    Rick

20. Leia remembers Padme through the Force. Luke doesn’t.

    Grievous was wounded by Mace in Clone Wars. His (Grievious’) history and more detail on Master Syfo Dyas and Darth Plageius is given in the novel “Labyrinth of Evil”.

    Anakin accepted dark apprenticeship so quickly after attacking Mace because Sidious was using Dominate Mind on him (Dark Side version of the Jedi Mind Trick – no silly hand gestures needed). You can see the confusion on his face, but since he is in turmoil he is more easily suggsted.

    -Joe

21. Jar Jar said “Excuse me,” not “sorry” as I have seen others mention.

    Also, I believe Padme said “There is still good in him,” like someone else above wrote.

    Lucas was said to have a brief cameo, and I think I caught it: When Anakin goes into Palpatain’s theater box, it looked like Lucas in costume outside in the corridor speaking to another background character. Anyone else notice?

    William

22. If we assume Palpatine created Anakin – then we can make the logical step he choose a Outer Rim planet that was out of reach of the Jedi to discover him early enough.

    It was probably not in the plan for Qui Gon to find Anakin. Perhaps in Palpatine’s opinion, Anakin was “corrupted” by Shmi, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

    Was there a reason, Vader didn’t hunt for the lost plans himself on Tatooine (sp?) in ANH?

23. ((How I would have begun Episode 2))

    FADE IN:

    EXT. – MARKET PLACE – DAY
    ANAKIN SKYWALKER and JAR JAR BINKS walk out of a store carrying various bags.

    JAR JAR
    Meesa…
    A SHOT rings out, killing Jar Jar instantly. Anakin and various members of the CROWD dive for cover.

24. Actually, Lars Owen & the droids does work, I think.

    Going on my memory of ANH, Lars buys two used droids from basically the local fix-it specialists. He wouldn’t expect them to be all gleaming metal and new parts – more spit & chewwing gum.

    But as soon as Luke mentions the R2 unit’s search for Obi-Wan, Lars is first alarmed, then says that first thing those droids need their memories wiped. Not put to work and taken care of later, but as soon as the place that does that opens.

    This explains to me why R2 wanted so desperately to be sold to Owen that he sabotaged the R5 unit. Not just to stay with C3PO, whose restraining bolt R2 should have had no trouble with after his was removed. R2D2 remembered Lars and that Luke was taken there by an Obi-Wan who intended to stay nearby.

25. —“If we assume Palpatine created Anakin…”—

    Wasn’t the inference that it was Palp’s master Darth “whatever” the one who created Anni through his manipulation of the mitichlorides?

    Or did I just assume that when Palp was talking about Darth “whatever”‘s student killing him while he slept mean he was talking about himself as that student?

    Perhaps I need to backtrack and reread.

26. ^ but, if you perfer PAD’s story, Skippy self-destructed in order to save the galaxy, and the girl with cinnimin buns in her hair.

27. that should have been two ^

28. —“that guy from Young Indiana Jones”—

    I missed this earlier when I commented on the Indi scar vs. the Han scar, but ‘that guy from the young Indiana Jones’ was River Phoenix and he passed away when he was way too young. (Loved him in ‘Stand by Me’ too by the way.)

29. 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?

    I guess you have to figure they’ve been through alot of droids over the years.

    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.

    Yet, this still makes no sense. Supposedly, Qui-Gon learns something that Yoda doesn’t, yet Qui-Gon doesn’t disappear then.

    Yoda disappears. Obi-Wan disappears. Both become ghosts.

    Anakin dies, doesn’t disappear, and he becomes a ghost? How would he know of this? He wouldn’t/shoudln’t.

    So, if anything, Lucas muddled this bit even more.

    I’m still not sure what to make of the “Virgin Birth” of Anakin (as I’ve called it since Episode I). However, while it is explained in Episode III, and I do think it was Palpatine, not Palpatine’s Sith master, that caused Anakin to be created/conceived, it’s still a hard concept to swallow when, yeah, as somebody mentioned above, this whole trilogy was about the corruption of a good person.

30. Peter David: 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?)
    Luigi Novi: Yeah, really. It’s just like this novel I read a while back with this character named (get this) “Apropos of Nothing.” And he was fighting these little guys called the “Harpers Bazarre” Where do these writers come up with this stuff? 🙂

31. Craig J. Reis posted: I’m still not sure what to make of the “Virgin Birth” of Anakin (as I’ve called it since Episode I). However, while it is explained in Episode III, and I do think it was Palpatine, not Palpatine’s Sith master, that caused Anakin to be created/conceived, it’s still a hard concept to swallow when, yeah, as somebody mentioned above, this whole trilogy was about the corruption of a good person.

    Well, that gets into a whole “nature vs. nurture” debate, doesn’t it? Is Anakin evil because of his parentage? Are Luke and Leia? I’d argue no in all cases.

32. Zeek posted: I missed this earlier when I commented on the Indi scar vs. the Han scar, but ‘that guy from the young Indiana Jones’ was River Phoenix and he passed away when he was way too young. (Loved him in ‘Stand by Me’ too by the way.)

    Yes, you’re right that River played a younger indie in LAST CRUSADE. But there was also a TV series called THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES that featured two actors as Young Indy. Sean Patrick Flanery played Indy at age 16, and Corey Carrier played him at age 10. There were also framing sequences on each episode that featured an aged, 90-something Indy (played by the late George Hall) telling the stories, and Harrison Ford also appeared as Indy in one episode.

    One assumes that since Flannery is six years older than me (and I’m 33), that he’s too old to play Young Han. Carrier is now 25, so he might work.

33. ” But there was also a TV series called THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES that featured two actors as Young Indy”

    AH, yes. Thought I might be missing something there…I shoulda remembered this crew has their shite together better than that!

34. “In one of his commentary tracks, Lucas said this was done in the original _Star Wars_ because neither Obi-Wan nor Vader was at his prime. That makes sense, except for the fact that Vader is later doing the one handed fighting. Oh, well.”

    Yeah, well, a nice excuse, but according to Mark Hamill, Lucas at the time of filming said they were supposed to have serious heft, like broadswords (tying in with the concept of Jedi KNIGHTS, I suppose.) Mark was envious of the fight sequences in “Phantom Menace” because they were whipping those swords around like katana, which is the direction he wanted to go in “Empire.” But Lucas instructed that the fight choreography be such that the light sabers seemed heavy, and that’s the way that Mark had to play it. They moved a bit faster in Ep5 than in Ep4, but nothing compared to Ep1.

    PAD

35. I assume Sipha Dious = Sidious (sound them out.) I would have liked to have seen that plot thread resolved.

    Based upon Obi-Wan’s recognition of the name, and subsequent asking if he had been instructed to order an army, it would seem that Sipho Dious was indeed a real Jedi. I presume he was killed by Sidious, Maul or Tyranus/Dooku, who placed the order in his name.

    (I do, however, recall reading that originally the line had a name that was even closer in sound to “Sidious” and was a complete fabrication, but it was then decided to use a true Jedi’s name to throw further confusion in…no way to confirm or deny that a dead Jedi had placed the order, but pretty easy to tell if the person placing the order never really existed.)

    *************************

    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.

    And, according to an article on CNN.com the other day, the legs and boots of the costume were contructed to be heavy to get that effect, for that very reason.

    *************************

    I can only assume “C-3P0” is a common name for that model of droid.

    Did Owen ever even hear the droids’ names when he bought them from the Jawas? Threepio introduced himself (and Artoo) to Luke in the garage during the cleaning.

36. And I’m sticking by my inference regarding Anakin’s conception. I mean, why the hëll else was it in there?

    I instantly thought the same thing. While Star Wars is not the most tightly written series (compared to, say, Babyon 5), this is a crucial line. I was not sure if it was Palpatine or his mentor, but I was left with the strong implication that Anakin’s “virgin” birth was finally explained.

    Was he doomed from birth? Within the parameters of the Star Wars world, the answer was no. But to steal a line from another universe, “with great power comes great responsibility” and “power corrupts.” As with many child protoges (sp?), Anakin was too young to handle it. Yoda, in episode 1, was rights. That is one thing Lucas was consistent about. The seeds of destruction were there. Palpatine did not have to put them into Anakin, he just had to bring out what was already there. (From an outsiders view, the Jedi philosophy did little to protect Anakin from such deception, at least as portrayed in the 6 movies. Jedi philosophy, in my opinion, was rather weak and compliant.)

    The end result: Anakin had the deck stacked against him, the same as a 7 year old who is handed the keys to an SUV and told to drive. Disaster tends to follow. But Anakin made his own choices. He could have said no — and almost did. He came close to making the right choice. And the question that one could ponder is whether it was a self fulfilling prophecy. If Anakin had chosen a different path and not interfered at that crucial moment but had stayed where he was told to stay, would his wife still have lived? If so, then Palpatine’s words to Anakin did have some truth. His actions did lead to Padme’s destruction.

    Iowa Jim

37. I think another reason for the somewhat minimal lightsaber choreography in Ep 4 was because the original effects technology for the lightsabers was extremely fragile. Several times during the Kenobi/Vader fight, the sabers broke from hitting each other too hard. They simply couldn’t go that wild with the duelling in 1977.

38. I posted this on another message board, and I’m pasting it here because we seem to have hit so many of the same points:

    12:01 a.m. show at the historic Senator theater in Baltimore. The marquee had the phrase “The Sith Hits the Fans!” (My comment: “Hey, they spelled it wrong. Twice.”) When the 20th Century Fox logo came on screen, followed by the Star Wars logo bursting into view to its orchestral cresceno, I knew there was no place on the planet I wanted to be except right there in my seat.

    My wife loved it. She was on the edge of her seat for the entire movie. She thought it compared to the original movie. She can’t wait to see it again.

    Myself, I thought it was a complete suckfest.

    [SPOILERS]

    I did enjoy the fight with General Grievous once I realized he was a cyborg and not a droid.

    I liked Anakin’s pun right before he killed Dooku.

    However…

    If he had a vision of Padme dying in childbirth, why didn’t he rush her to a hospital immediately? He has a bionic arm, for crying out loud. Given the level of medical technology, the statistics of dying in childbirth without outside complications must be incredibly low. Even if they didn’t find anything currently wrong, they could have removed the babies and let them grow in a tube or something.

    Anakin fell too hard, too fast. I can see him stopping Mace Windu from killing Palpy, but turning baby killer ten minutes later? No way.

    “A young Jedi named Darth Vader helped the emperor hunt down and destroy the Jedi.” That was a hunt? It was a smooth, evil move to catch them by surprise, but I would have liked to see some of the Jedi remember that they were Jedi: move real fast, perceive threats before they happen, use telekenesis, generally let the force be their guide, etc. Unfortunately, most Jedi only know one trick, i.e., batting blaster shots with their light saber, so yeah, I guess they deserved to get slaughtered.

    “Thank you, Chewbacca.” I am your father’s brother’s cousin’s uncle’s former rommmate…

    “That boy was our last hope.” “No, there is another. Remember? You helped deliver her?”

    “She has lost the will to live.” Poetic, but silly. She certainly didn’t seem to lose the will to have natural childbirth. And so much for my medical technology theory, since apparently they don’t have crash carts a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

    And the thing that completely ruined the movie for me: the birth of Darth Vader. He is a symbol of evil, cold and cool. When he raised up on that table, he had awful dialogue and threw a hissy fit. Tissue, Lord Vader?

    Renfield

39. 1

40. Has anyone else mentioned that Obi-Wan acts as if he’s never seen R2 before when Luke first finds him in ep IV? We can probably chalk this up to his whole deception (saing Vader killed Luke’s father…saying Anakin wanted Luke to have the lightsaber…etc), and it could be argued that he only says “I’ve never owned a droid.” But it’s the one piece of ROTS to ANH continuity that seems too stick out there for me

41. Hey did ya see the article, analysists fear that IT prodcutivity may be down due to the “Star Wars Flu”. (Too many people taking off work the next day because they were out late catching EpIII.)

    The Geek Squad even has a standard fill in the blank type letter to email employers as to why they are “calling off sick”.
    http://www.geeksquad.com/content/absentee/work.html

    Very Clever. Geeks of the World Unite!

42. I’ve had another thought about Padme’s death – was she his sacrifice to the Dark Side to truely become a Sith Lord? It seems that for everyone else who became a Dark Lord someone had to die. The apprentice has to kill the Master to become one. And Anakin/Vader would never devote himself completely to the Dark while Padme still lived.

43. I hope the conception of Annikan remains a mystery. Maybe it was a virgin birth, maybe it was plotted by a sith.
    But…I’m sure someone will have to write some story about it.
    Personally, I’d rather just leave it open-ended.

    Watching the prequels and then watching the originals, you are just amazed by how sucky a jedi Luke Skywalker is – he’s slow, he can’t do half the stuff the original jedi could…hëll, he didn’t even complete his training. He just showed up on Dagobah and said. “Well, I’m a jedi now. Yep.”

44. Oh, and I’ll bet we get a lot of these scenes back in “director’s cuts.”

    call me crazy…

45. “Has anyone else mentioned that Obi-Wan acts as if he’s never seen R2 before when Luke first finds him in ep IV?”

    AS the real movies went on, Obi-Wan went from being a wise mentor to a bald face liar, so just one more lie from him.

    Two of my fanboy dreams were for Jar Jar to die at the new Vader’s hands…which we didn’t see and could have actually been a powerful moment…and for them to have James Earl Jones go and redub Anakin’s lines in the first 2 prequels (“Yippee”)…didn’t get that, but we did get to here James Earl Jones whine like a good Skywalker, so I’m happy with that.

46. On not recognising C3PO:
    You know I’m not sure I’d recognise my old VCR from umpteen eyars ago either, even if I’d assembled it from a kit myself. I always understood that Anakin’s gift with machines (ironic in hindsight) didn’t mean he could ‘invent’ the 3PO droid, merely that it was unusual for a five/six year old to make.

    On ‘Nooooooooooooooo’:
    Yeah, the Simpsons has a lot to answer for. 🙂 I’d also ahve thought it more effective if Palpatine had claimed that Ob-Wan had killed her or that the Jedi were directly responsible. That pushes him further to the Dark Side.

    On Ian McDiarmid:
    Stunningly wonderful acting and insidiously slimy but clever character (in short: politician?). Only lost interest once he went simply boo-hiss baddie-like after the Mace Windu conflict.

    Moments of quiet:
    SO missing from the other prequels, the star across the city scene and the twin suns at the end of the film – nice touches.

    On ‘It’s like she’s lost the will to live…’
    So, that’ll be since she saw the script, then? Note to Lucas: she’s a good actress, but here she’s more wimpa than wampa.

    Over all: actually throughly enjoyable but I’m guessing it’ll work better on those who saw the originals than it will do for those who came to the party later.

    John M

47. “Watching the prequels and then watching the originals, you are just amazed by how sucky a jedi Luke Skywalker is – he’s slow, he can’t do half the stuff the original jedi could”

    Are you kidding? There’s the complete opposite…the Jedi Master’s get slaughtered. They go to arrest the Sith Lord, and then stand there when he slowly flies through the air at them and procceeds to stick them with his lightsaber. Bad Assed Mace Windu can’t even sense that he’s about to be attacked by the guy resonating with the dark side right next to him.

    Luke, however, with little training, by the time of ROTJ is able to defeat Vader and stand up to the Emporer.

    I, btw, hate hate hate Lucas’ thought that it’s Anakin who’s the big hero of the saga…he whines for 3 films, becomes evil, kills everyone, and then at the last moment, stops the Emperor at Luke’s urging. Luke saves the day, not Anakin…he was just the tool used.

48. “the chemistry between the two actors crackle, “

    I felt the life sucked out of me every time those two pieces of cardboard were on screen together.

49. Ok, this is very slightly off topic, but for those of you who like spoofs of Star Wars (ep 4-6), you have to check this one out:

    http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html

    Hey, I am from Iowa. You have to like something that has to do with the “farm.”

    Iowa Jim

50. Grievous a cyborg?

    I sense a missed opportunity for Lucas.

    Think about it. A Sith precedent for re-animating fallen warriors as cyborgs.

    General Grievous is DARTH MAUL.

Comments are closed.