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Episode I 3D Release Date Announced
TheBrakShow writes 'Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that the 3D theatrical launch of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now has an official release date — February 10, 2012!' Are enough fans interested in watching the weakest films of the trilogy again just to experience them in 3D?"
I for one am looking forward to a new and improved Jar Jar experience.
I for one am looking forward to a new and improved Jar Jar experience.
It would be an interesting debate to have on what is the WORST part of The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar? That little kid who couldn't act and was thrown into laughably implausible situations (like a bad straight-to-DVD Disney movie where NASCAR lets an 8-year old join the circuit just because the movie's called "The NASCAR Kid")? The introduction of Mitaclorians, which pretty much undermined everything Yoda taught Luke in Empire? The creepy child molester vibe Queen Amadalia was giving off talking to the aforementioned non-acting little kid?
I'm going to go with the fact that they brought Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, and Samuel Jackson into this godawful shitfest--actual talented actors with long resumes of much better films. It was like watching your favorite aunt get raped for 2 hours. No amount of overpriced popcorn could make that any better.
But now I get to see her raped in 3D, and pay twice as much for the privilege. Look Aunt Wanda, we get to keep the glasses! Awesome.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Meesa call moneygrab!
...lack of disturbance in the force, as if millions of people yawned in disinterest.
Too bad technology can't improve acting and dialog, because that's the real reason Star Wars I, II and III are forever stuck in the second dimension.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Who wants to see one dimensional characters in 3D?
The Horse is dead, you can stop beating upon its carcass.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Go fuck yourself George.
"I for one am looking forward to a new and improved Jar Jar experience." -- FOOMP
Read this dilbert strip to understand...
poking out one eye just so I CAN'T EVER see that in 3D!
GL releases a "new" version of these movies every few years to get money from the fans and they keep paying. next there will be another blu ray release with 3d and digital copy when he could have done it for the upcoming 2011 release
I've never heard of this "Phantom Menace" thing before. I'm sure if George Lucas was behind it, it must be humorous, entertaining and dramatic, with characters we can identify with for generations to come, just like the Star Wars trilogy we all loved as kids!
I'm so glad that somebody with the integrity of George Lucas is responsible for shepherding this loveable trilogy through the years. That way I can introduce these movies to my own children without having to worry about somebody coming along and pooping all over the memories of my childhood. You know, the temptation to edit or re-issue movies to capitalize on their enduring success might be quite extreme, but George is one of those guys who knows when to say "it was good enough 30 years ago, let's not mess with a good thing".
A lesser man might have, for example, decided to edit away some of the age-inappropriate roguishness of Han Solo in an effort to merchandize schlocky toys to kids. But not George, no.
I'm not really sure what this whole 3d thing is about though. I'm sure it's a sincere effort to make a genuine artistic statement that just happens to be set in that Star Wars universe we all know and love.
Thank god for George Lucas.
you couldn't pay me to see this garbage again, let along get me to pay to see it with a headace
Weakest of the three? Perhaps, but the competition is strong!
i dont understand this exaggerated bashing of the last 3 films that are made. stories are not so lacking in these last 3 movies. all that people show are jar jar binks, and some sloppy acting on part of the woman who played queen amidala. if you look at it, there were worse characters than jar jar binks in the early 3 movies, and on top of it, they were puppets. and there were actors who were more stiff than amidala in those films too.
i was of rather the same opinion until i watched the first 3 movies by chance again. i saw that, they are now 'too 1980s' for my standards. from hairdo, garment style to various jokes and whatnot. at least, hollywood is not retaining the 'fit the contemporary fashion/hairdo into films' mistake anymore, and there is much concentration on originality and realism. back before 90s, there was a habit of fitting whatever contemporary fashion or hairdo at that time into even historical movies.
i think this bashing of late 3 films and rather exaggerated praise of early 3 is more due to the fact that we grew up with the first 3 films, and they were dear to us. not only that, they shaped our expectations.
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I was under the impression that you need to film using a special camera? Did Lucas actually film the last three movies in anticipation of a 3D release?
Will it suck 1.5 times more? Is that even possible?
Patton Oswalt said it best: "If I had a time machine, I would go back to around 1993 or 1994 and kill George Lucas with a shovel."
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
OK, I am going to kill whatever goodwill (and karma) I may have had with these statements:
* I actually liked Jar Jar Binks -- he was the not so bright, but well-meaning, comic sidekick
* I think Jake Lloyd performed much better than Hayden Christensen
* I think the chemistry between Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen was as hot as the chemistry between gold and nitrogen at 0 Kelvin
* I do not think that Anakin's shift from good to evil is very convincing
But no matter what, the movies are not worth another ticket to me, 3D or not.
Is a 3-dimensional projection of a 2-dimensional movie with 1-dimensional acting.
mmmm, can't wait....
To put a witty saying into 120 characters, jst rmv ll th vwls.
The only room for improvement here is to reduce the scenes with this thing to a minimum. I can only remember one really funny scene, when Qui-Gon grabs his tongue during the meal with Anakin's family. Maybe there are one or two more, but besides that, JJB is just a plain annoyance that makes the movie even worse than it would have been without it.
C3PO was mostly funny, so they knew how to do it right. Why did they screw it up so much with that unfunny and annoying creature?
$15+ a ticket + $5 popcorn + $4 pop = no way!
And the first one is Episode IV.
I thought Attack of the Clones was by far the weakest:
ESB
...
...
RotJ
SW
TPM
RotS
Care Bears the Movie
Sex and the City
AotC
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I was going to tag this story with the obvious one ("nooooooooo"), but I don't see any tags. Anyone else have this problem?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I'm so freaking excited about this! I'm actually giddy just thinking about the day this comes out! I cannot wait to stay home and completely ignore it!
The beauty of 3D is that the Z axis works both ways. They could take Jar Jar and sink him into the BACKGROUND until he's gone.
Unfortunately we won't here that good line said in 3D for another decade...
"Angry Joe" from the infamous review site "That Guy with the Glasses" probably put it best (at least sums up most of my thoughts pretty well): http://angryjoeshow.com/2010/10/star-wars-3d-rerelease/ Not quite suitable for work... LOT of F-bombs... understandably. George... seriously man, just stop.
So does this mean we can watch Natalie Portman, naked and petrified and covered in hot grits IN 3D?
A train wreck in 3D is still a train wreck... it just looks more like you're going to get hit by the caboose.
Loved Ep. 4, 5, 6. Deeply despised 1. Still haven't seen 2 and 3, as by all indications Lucas still hasn't learned that clowns do not belong on the battlefield (and, in fact, trivialize any sense of heriosm or sacrifice or tragedy present in the non-clowns), Western audiences don't like the idea that galactic domination is genetic, a bad movie with eye candy is still a bad movie, and that sullen teenaged angst is only entertaining to sullen teenagers.
Will not buy or download.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Seriously, let me see how many suckers pony up for this crap in 3D.
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
The only way I'll watch this is if Natalie Portman reaches out of the screen and gives me a hand job.
To say Phantom was the worst implies the other two were any better.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The quality of Episode 1 has been discussed so many times its nearly boring as the film. Lets discuss how bad 3D technology is! I'll start. 30% less colour, ruined focal length and shot clarity. Illusionary pointy things in your face. Headaches. Its bad.
Was Episode I not bad enough by itself??? I understand that converting 2D movies to 3D is probably the second worst thing to happen to cinema, but you don't need to combine them! There is no prize for worst movie idea.
Aside from being an annoying character - some of you wouldn't realize how annoying many thought C3PO were in the first movie...
However - it's important to realize that sometimes you have to have the annoying side characters - they make the experience more real. Even real life is full of annoying people in one form or another.
Then you can look at Jar Jar from another perspective - what he looks like is well within what an alien may look like if we are to encounter them.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
So this will be the day people will rise up and take power, where we all agree to a little bit less, so everyone can have some and we tear down the walls of our manufactured lives, cause let's be honest: What The Fuck.
Perhaps George in his "wisdom" will fuck with this release even more than he did for the re-release of the original trilogy. At the very least redoing the voice overs could improve this movie. Hell, it's hard to imagine that any changes to it could make it worse.
Uh, never mind. This was the guy that was somehow able to take a series that I enjoyed during my youth and managed to turn it into what feels more like a Deliverance style ass rape'in. Somehow he could make it even worse.
Like Steve Jobs but I suppose at least he rips off other peoples ideas and does something a bit different every now and then.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=free%20hat%20southpark&hl=en&meta=
Free Hat (you NEED to see the episode if you like Star Wars or Indiana Jones)
"Free Hat" is episode 88 of the animated series South Park. It originally aired on July 10, 2002. The episode ridicules Lucasfilm's digital altering of George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy and Steven Spielberg's E.T.. The episode also shows huge criticism towards remake movies.
Jar jar shot first!
I was going to comment about how in the Star Wars universe, I'd put the Ewok movies above AotC. But you have Care Bears the Movie in there, so I guess you've covered that.
Jar Jar or the Will Smith family?!
We've got to be only a year or two from realizing that RealD is a dumb gimmick...
RealD Cinema, the technology used in all of these films, uses alternating frequencies of light which get filtered differently by each polarized lens of the glasses it requires. This gives up to two planes of vision at a time, which can move relative to each other. For whatever reason, we are calling this 3D (I'll use the term "biplanar" for the rest of this post). Disclaimer: this is a simplification and I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but I think it hits the point.
All this biplanar vision is good for is superimposing a flat view of something in front of (or behind) the main action. That's it. I saw Avatar and was impressed by a few scenes (specifically, the captions used in the diary entries ... which were 2D), but it was almost wholly a gimmick; neat trick, but a novelty that faded before the movie finished. Captions and other flat items can add to things, but (in their current state) they do not justify the extra cost or the need to wear sunglasses in a dark theater.
That's not to say we've exhausted the limits of what biplanar movies can do; I expect explosions and other instantaneous effects can benefit greatly from this; each frame of the explosion moves slightly closer to the audience on the Z-axis, and since it emits like a wave, there is no need to continue to display previous frames in their own dedicated Z coordinate. The same goes for anything opaque that's coming right at you, so long as it has no component that requires a different depth (so a car --or spaceship-- is out because the windshield is farther from you than the fender; turn your head and the perspective shows a 2D image). In fact, the only things I can think of that fit this bill are explosions and other things that move so fast the you don't have time to move and see their flatness plus anything that is so flat it has no depth, like maybe a propeller-driven device whose propeller is so big you can't see anything else, or a wall that the first-person perspective is driving into head-first (though those two examples are pretty lame and limited).
Re-releasing old hits (a generous term for the Star Wars prequels) won't do much unless you have a fanbase that will buy anything you make (in which you might as well stick with snorting commentary tracks and back-patting featurettes).
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I understood The Phantom Menace to be made for a new generation and therefore had little to do with Star Wars or the sequels. I dutifully went to see them, and the disappointment was less the story than the fact that throwing money at a slew of well known actors would solve the problem. It did not solve any problem in The Empire Strikes Back. The f/x was good, but again they can only go so far. In Return of the Jedi it seemed that there was a new appreciation of a combination of practical and special effects. Not more.
I think the the fact the prequels are pretty much animated stories with a bit of live acting thrown in will make them a very good 3D experience. Star Wars and the sequels will be less so because of the human element. It will certainly allow the kids who enjoyed the prequels to see them as adults and reflect on the story.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I might consider seeing a 2 1/4 hr. condensed version of the first 3 films in 3D. That's 45 minutes per movie, should be more than enough. All dialouge edited out as well. Yoda could do a narrative past tense voice-over as if filling in Luke during his training. "A great pod race he won. Giant fish they did escape. Killed by Darth Maul Gaugin Jin was. Clones they did create. Begun the clone war had. By the emporer betrayed they were. Like a coward ran I hid here until now I have. Train you I shall". Yeah, I'ld see that.
35 years ago you had a great idea for a film.
Unfortunately, you haven't had one since, and continue to hock the same repackaged crap over and over.
Fugeddabahtit!
So, in order to see the original trilogy in 3D, we have to pay Lucas to see the horrible crap he foisted on us as "prequels."
I think he's HUMPING the dead horse... Really George, what have you done LATELY?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
F'in Ewoks!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You haters are missing the point here. Jar Jar in 3D will be awesome! It will give you the opportunity you've been waiting for since Episode 1 first came out. Just bring a knife with you to the theater, and when Jar Jar appears it 3D, you can finally stab him in the face!
Might want to make sure no one's sitting in front of you, because if they are, you'll have to explain. I mean, they'll completely understand and forgive you, but since it won't look the same from their perspective, they'll probably be mad until you tell them.
This sentence no verb.
Mark Hamill was definitely not much better than this as the center role. he looked more out of place and less believable than phantom's obi wan and qui gonn.
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Is Meow Skywalker coming next?
'Nuff said.
Which goes to show you...
Not only was Han Solo frozen in carbonite, but apparently so was the dead horse that George Lucas keeps managing to pull out to beat again after thawing.
Any votes on how squishy that horse is now?
Excited to see StarWars back on the big screen? You bet! Excited for 3D, not so much...
...and Han will randomly show up to shoot Jar Jar
-- Adam McCormick
I notice that this story is tagged as entertainment. I believe that this is an error. The Phantom Menace was clearly not entertainment. How do I get the story re-tagged?
it's the complete and utter lack of proper storytelling and cinematography,
this is the exaggeration i am talking about. what the fuck does 'complete and utter lack' of 'proper storytelling and cinematography' means anyway.
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Just don't go. Tell your friends: don't go.
Burning down the theatre would be a bit much, though.
I was going to say "vote with your dollars" but in this case it's really "vote with your lack of dollars".
If this project massively loses money, George Lucas will give up on the idea. But that is what it would take. A slight loss? He'll go ahead with the others.
I think a lot of people might actually go to see this, unfortunately. But I predict a rapid fall-off in the numbers; it will have poor word-of-mouth. Once the initial curious people have seen it, the numbers will plummet. I don't know if they will plummet fast enough to put a stake through the heart of the idea, though.
You know, even proper 3D movies have their drawbacks. Trying to hack a 2D movie into 3D will have all those drawbacks and won't even have the benefit of actually being 3D. This will be fail upon fail.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Then MAYBE I'll see them - if George Lucas personally autographs my Laserdisc version of the only 3 movies that are really Star Wars.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Nobody does theatrical reruns any more. Will theaters even run the thing? It's just fake 3D, after all; the source material was filmed in 2D. I can't see exhibitors going in for re-releases of old movies just because they're 3D. Maybe for a film festival or something like that, but not for general release. This sounds like a limited theatrical release to promote the product for 3D TV displays.
This is just more ammunition for the 2012 doomsday clowns.
Some people apparently think 3D solves everything... ... this is not the movie depth you are looking for.
No. Just no. Hell no.
You know that enough people will go to the theaters that it'll make money. It's not like they're making a new movie, so they don't have to fill as many seats to turn a profit.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I agree with the haters, BUT::
Star wars I, II and III were not made to tell any story about anakin becoming darth vader or whatever. That could have been mentioned in a one-hour star-wars special after ROTJ. What the prequels brought were supreme effects and animations that brought space combat and lightsaber battles to a whole new level, up from that Obi wan vs darth vader battle in the death star. It wasn't a matter of storytelling. It was a matter of showing off, and that they did.
Dear George,
I heard that you will be re(rere)releasing Star Wars movies, starting with The Phantom Menace. Given previous rereleases of Star Wars movies, I think it is safe to assume you're willing to tinker with it. Might I politely suggest the following?
- Cut JarJar Binks antics out of the "Gungan war" scene. War isn't funny, and seeing a Goofy character succeeding in it lessens the impact of the scene. Basically, although Gungangs are dying by the hundreds, we can laugh at it because Goofy tripped over his feet, causing an implausible chain of events leading to the destruction of 10 enemy bots. This trivialises the whole war, and thus reduces its contribution to the story to somewhere near absolute zero.
- Cut the "uh-oh" sound from Anakin's mouth as he blows up the droid control station. Much as before, a highly implausible chain of events making things right is bad enough in itself. But adding slapstick comedy to that severs any connection the audience may have had with the plight of the fighters.
I actually think that with these two small changes, the movie will become quite a bit more enjoyable to watch.
Should this lead to sufficient success to warrant a rerererererelease of part II and/or II, I also have a suggestion.
In one of them, you inadvertently introduced a third aspect of the Force: the bouncy side. This is quite confusing, actually. Yoda is a bouncy-side master, who masquerades as a light-sider. On top of that, Yoda is the only bouncy-sider in the movie. Perhaps this could be reimaged to avoid any reference to the bouncy side, and just keep the Force as either light or dark?
In the event that success allows you to continue reimagining further movies in the franchise, I have a general request: please stop thinking PG-13 and start thinking about what you want to show. Situations, characters nor actions need to be completely black-and-white. If a story doesn't shrink from depicting violence in a mature fashion, why not have mature depictions of romantic / sexual relations/tensions?
Yes this may mean that 13 year olds cannot see your reimagined movie for the time being. However, you've already captivated quite an audience in the 70s/80s. Since all these are sufficiently mature to pass any age requirement, do not let a concern for the children ruin whatever remains of your artistic vision, please.
Finally, good luck! Many people will whine about it, but in the end the movie or movies are likely to turn out quite successful. Since that seems given, I hope you can make them into something you'll look back upon proudly. Even if no one else does. Like with The Phantom Menace.
Mel Brooks' parody was dead on. Star Wars (fill in a number): The Quest for More Money!!!
It's not 'biplanar', it's stereoscopic. I suppose they could use something like what you describe to reconstruct a stereoscopic view of a 2d film, but in practice they are more sophisticated than that. I know you're trying to simplify things, but calling it biplanar is selling it way short.
Don't get me wrong, I hate just about everything about this 3D fad, I just think you are confused about the implementation.
Are enough fans interested in watching the weakest films of the trilogy again just to experience them in 3D?"
No, definitely not. Are enough retards going to go to buy tickets to make this ridiculously profitable? Yes, definitely.
I thought TPM couldn't possibly suck more, but in crappy 3D, it will. Congratulations George for doing the impossible.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
on purpose anyway.
I know most geeks hate EP I, and think Jar Jar is TAH DEEVIL, but EP I rocked in my opinion.
Sorry if you remember the late 70s/early 80s as awesome, but get over your hate.
Best light saber fight ever and it doesn't require you to hold your vomit back due to Harrison Ford and Mark Hamills absolutely shitty acting ability and lines. Yoda and Obi-Wan were awesome in both, Qui-Gon was the bomb in EP I.
So yes, I know that I'll probably have half of slashdot dressed in full Jedi gear in front of my house threatening to beat me with their light sabers by dawn, I for one liked EP I
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Hello, i'm researching SW Theater Performance recordings (bootlegs), and would love to read people's memories of their viewing or knowledge of such a recording. post here or e-mail pl1x@earthlink.net. Yes it was a long long time ago, but oddly these recordings remain the only way to...
well this site puts it better:
http://savestarwars.com/
Any memory would be great. What movie? Format (PAL-NTSC, U-Matic/Beta/VHS/VCD/BinCue/etc, widescreen or pan-scan) When did you see it? What was the story behind seeing the tape? (friend who was a collector, sci-fi convention, just knew the right people, did you record it yourself!) Did you bring a cassette recorder to the 70mm screening? Are you responsible for the Hastings RotJ Heist? Did you go to jail for RotS? AotC? TPM? Was the version you saw, Good, poor, miserable. Did you buy it from an ad in a comic book journal? Surprise us with any detail no matter how irrelevant it may seem. thanks in advance.
Off topic, but can anyone here remember the -original- Episode 4 where Luke just gets rescued by Obi-Wan, and asks him "You fought in the Colonial Wars"? I swear that "Colonial" was the original dialog, and they changed it to"Clone" when they re-released it. I'm just going by memory here from an old VHS copy that I lost a long time ago.
How in the hell did you come up with that? I read the page you linked to, and what you said makes absolutely no sense. The page does not support your claim.
You take a picture from one angle, and at the same time from a different angle, true stereoscopic imaging. Project one angle with one polarization, the other with the other polarization, and you get a "true" 3-d image. It's not really true 3-D, but it's convincing enough, and far more than just biplanar images.
I think what you're talking about is when people take a 2D movie and try to make it into 3D. They generally do a terrible job, unless the original consisted of mostly animation. It's easier to lift the foreground, put the background behind it, and pretend it's 3D. The animation you can hopefully re-render stereoscopically.
The problem with Avatar was not being bi-planar, it was trying to merge animation with live action material. Somehow it just didn't work, although I enjoyed the animation-only scenes immensely.
Provide more sources that back up what you're saying, so we can read more about it, or get your eyes checked please?
So I can kick the crap out of Jar Jar as soon as he pops up.
why not spend time and money to do Ep 7,8,9? I know I know, it is supposed to only contain 6 episodes.. or was it?
My money's on Greedo.
You might recall all the warnings from the health sciences community and from manufacturers themselves about the possible damage 3D TVs could have on developing vision in kids. Shortly after that episode, all of the 3D TV gear and their hype, disappeared. Did anyone else notice an absence of 3D TVs in recent weeks?
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Full disclosure, I never thought the original three film were that exceptional. Bad science, mediocre acting, simplistic plot. At best, they were entertaining in a 30's movie serial sort of way; which I believe was what was originally intended. They did serve to popularize SF themes for the general public, and should have lead to higher quality fare. UNFORTUNATELY, they were wildly successful, and lead to formulaic prequels. You can actually go through the fils making notes: "There to appeal to the pre-teens... there for the toy market... there to appeal to the tweens. And the overwhelming need to twist everything out of shape to sync with the 'later' films. There are parts of the prequels that literally have me avert my eyes. Seeing them in 3D, and thus a DOUBLE headache, is something I'd pay to avoid. Hey, THERE'S a way to make some money from the franchise. "Send your PayPal donation to 'Stop Lucas now'..."
The virgin birth served the same purpose as all miraculous births in literature and religion, to foreshadow a mythical character, a chosen one. What's more, in "Revenge" Darth Sidious shares a story of one Darth Plagueis who "was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying." To me at least this strongly hinted that Plagueis engineered Anakin, using Shmi as an unwitting vessel, and this untold backstory was one of the reasons Lucas introduced midi-chlorians. Still, to prop up the mythical elements of Star Wars with factual explanations was a poor decision. As for fishy, Shmi was sold to Cliegg Lars (father of Owen, who later raised Luke) shortly after Anakin left Tattoine, who freed her and married her. She died in Episode II before the Clone Wars began, with the Battle of Geonosis and the clash of Yoda and Dooku.
The virgin birth served the same purpose as all miraculous births in literature and religion, to foreshadow a mythical character, a chosen one. What's more, in "Revenge" Darth Sidious shares a story of one Darth Plagueis who "was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying." To me at least this strongly hinted that Plagueis engineered Anakin, using Shmi as an unwitting vessel, and this untold backstory was one of the reasons Lucas introduced midi-chlorians. Still, to prop up the mythical elements of Star Wars with factual explanations was a poor decision.
Yes that's a very complicated backstory, but it's still my opinion that all of it was rather unneccessary. It seemed more of an artificial construct than anything else to add plot elements that were contrived. After all until the midi-chlorian things, the force sensitivity of individuals was something of a mysterious born ability. It ran in families and species but either someone had it or they didn't. So a child born on a distant world with superb force sensitivity wouldn't need any explanation.
As for fishy, Shmi was sold to Cliegg Lars (father of Owen, who later raised Luke) shortly after Anakin left Tattoine, who freed her and married her.
Yes but Anakin didn't know about this until he returned to Tattoine or at least that's what the conversation he had with Waddle would seem to suggest. So despite his fear and concern for his mother, he never inquired about her for ten or so years. After the battle of Naboo, I would think that the government and the Queen owed him a small debt. Did anyone even ask him what he wanted?
"Young Anakin Skywalker, the planet of Naboo owes you a debt, how can we ever repay it?"
"Free my mother on Tattooine."
"Done."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The virgin birth served the same purpose as all miraculous births in literature and religion, to foreshadow a mythical character, a chosen one.
Well, sure, but no one questions it. Including, most importantly, Shmi herself.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, you're married to a woman, and she gets pregnant without you having sex with her. Are you going to believe her when she says it's a miracle?
Bow-ties are cool.
Lucas is recasting Ashton Kutcher in the role as a romantic interest for Queen Amygdala.
See Kutcher in his groundbreaking role as King Hippocampus! Coming soon to a cerebellum near you!
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."