> If you had encyclopedic knowledge of the originals, you were a > huge nerd, but at least other nerds respected and feared you. > But with the prequels... even the nerds look down on you!;-)
>>As someone with an embarrassingly-encyclopedic knowledge >>of the movies*, I'd say Episodes I-III are as good as (and >>maybe better) than Episodes IV-VI.
> You know, if you reference a footnote, you should probably > put it in your post somewhere.
heh.
I was going to put that some could peer through my slashdot posting history for proof, but then I thought it would best to not call too much attention to it. After that, I forgot to delete the asterisk before hitting "submit"
> In 4,5, and 6, Darth Vader was primarily the "bad guy". Sure, he > had character, but it was primarily as the foil to the symbolic > "light side" of the force that ran as an undercurrent in the > rebellion / Luke's story.
> The story was good as Good vs. Evil rather than a "Look at > how Power Can Corrupt the Good".
Uh-huh. And the fact that Episode VI ended with Vader going from evil to good? The fact that Vader was the focus of those scenes with the Emperor? Episodes IV-VI were about Anakin/Vader, but it wasn't obvious until Episodes I-III came out.
> makes the plot seem convoluted and non sequitur.
Actually Episodes I-III make the plot to Episodes IV-VI make more sense.
Why did Luke suddenly think that Vader could be turned in Episode VI? Vader stood for everything that was evil to him, and yet in Episode VI, he works to save him.
Episode III provides the answer. Luke (and Leia) had Padme's personality more than than they had Anakin's. Although apparently whininess is carried on the Y chromosome and is dominant. So just as Padme told Obi-Wan that there was still good in Anakin, Luke knew the same. In a way, Luke redeems Padme because he proves she was right.
Why did Palpatine want Luke at all? As we learned from Episodes I-III, there can only be two Sith: a master and apprentice. And Vader was not as strong after Episode III -- it's clear that Vader in the suit would have been no match against a hypothetical Anakin pre-lava-bath. And Palpatine wanted a strong apprentice he could control.
More plot holes -- Why did Vader torture Han, Leia, and Chewie? Why did Obi-Wan allow himself to die in Episode IV? Episodes I-III all explain this.
So without those movies, the plots of Episodes IV-VI were pretty convoluted. With all six movies together, the plot is complete.
In the opening sequence of the new Star Wars movie, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," two Jedi knights fight their way through an enemy starship to rescue a hostage. Ever since I saw the movie, I have been annoying friends with a trivia question: "Who is the enemy? What organization owns this vessel?"...when I ask my question about the new film, everyone reacts in the same way: with a sudden intake of breath and a sideways dart of the eyes, followed by lengthy cogitation.
*sigh*
Maybe your friends think you're an idiot.
If you had read the crawler in the beginning of the movie, you would have read:
War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.
In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.
As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor....
So, the enemy is Count Dooku. The ship is owned by the Separatists. The ship has the Chancellor on it. He was "kidnapped" by General Grievous. No viewing of the Clone Wars DVD was required to understand this.
This guy's point is that the old movies had "geek" sequences that told the story, but he claims the movies have no story, just "veg out" sequences. But he's wrong. Someone with at least rudimentary reading comprehension skills would have figured it out.
Maybe the fact that he saw Episodes IV-VI a million times is the reason why he understands the plot. Since he was seeing Episode III for the first time (and obviously not paying attention), that could be why he didn't understand. Has nothing to do with the quality of the movies.
As someone with an embarrassingly-encyclopedic knowledge of the movies*, I'd say Episodes I-III are as good as (and maybe better) than Episodes IV-VI.
This guy is in a long line of people who must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the new Star Wars movies are not as good as the original trilogy. (The rest of the line will be posting in this story about how George Lucas ruined their childhood, etc).
> Funny, it looks like the Founding Fathers (you remember > them, they were the ones who WROTE the Constitution and Bill > of Rights) think that the Second Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL > right. Note especially Richard Lee's statement above, in which > a clear distinction is made between the "militia" and the > "select militia", which latter, in the modern world, closely > corresponds to the National Guard.
I guess this guy did a good job of explaining your "quotes", so I'll ignore that part.
But let's look at what's meant by "militia". If I understand correctly, if "militia" means "National Guard" or a military force set up by the states, then we're not talking about individual rights. If "militia" means a bunch of guys with guns, then we're talking about individual rights.
I'm not a constitutional scholar, so it could be my ignorance here, but I'm trying to rationalize the Second and Fifth amendments.
The Second Amendment makes it clear that the reason for the right to bear arms is related to a "well regulated militia"
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Here the "militia" is mentioned again. If the "militia" is just a bunch of guys with guns (individuals) why would the Fifth Amendment group them with "land and naval forces"? Seems to me it's closer to a military group set up by the states, such as the National Guard.
> Surely I'm not the only one who believes they'd be better off if > the damned box went black and they were forced to pick up a > book
Am I the only one who is a little disturbed by seemingly classist statements like that above? I'm reading the above as "the poor are too lazy!" They should open a book and get real jobs!
Sure there are lazy poor people. There are also lazy middle class people and lazy rich people, too. Being poor doesn't mean someone is lazy. Sometimes it's just nearly impossible for someone to get out of poverty on the jobs available. The book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America apparently does a pretty good job of illustrating this (although I haven't had time to read it yet!)
Sometimes if you're having to work two jobs the only thing you want to do when you get home is numb out in front of the TV. It would be a hell of a lot better if that weren't true, but we don't live in a perfect world.
Aside from that, one reason why television is important is to alert citizens about storms and whatnot. So it is up to the government to either keep the standard the same or providing a method for all citizens to have a way to decode public broadcasts.
And he puts Han in the carbon freezing chamber! What father wouldn't want to do that to someone who wants to date their daughter?
Seriously (or as seriously as one can be trying to rationalize the plot for a sci-fi movie), I don't think Vader knew that Luke/Leia were his kids in Episodes IV.
Vader figures out that Luke is his son probably because after Episode IV everyone knew that some guy with the last name of Skywalker blew up the Death Star. News travels fast about something like that. So Vader hears about it, and says, "Skywalker! Holy crap!" Who is this guy??" Has some records checked, figures out the kid was raised by Owen ("I remember Owen; he let my mother die. I'm glad he's dead!"), and by the time Episode V rolls around he's off trying to find Luke.
Vader sounds desperate to find Luke in Episode V, but he pretends that he's just looking for the rebels. Spotting Hoth, he says, "that's it! And Skywalker is with them!" So clearly it's important for Vader to find his son, where he can turn him to the dark side. If he had the same chance with Leia in Episode IV he would have done it.
In the beginning of Episode V, Vader sounds pretty melancholy (compared to Episode IV). In fact, he sounds like someone conflicted because an identity he rejected 20 years ago was re-awoken. Go back and listen to how James Earl Jones speak in Episode V compared to Episode IV, and you can hear the emotion.
If Vader had known that Leia was his daughter, he wouldn't have tortured her; he would have tried to turn her the way he tried with Luke in Episode V. Instead of asking about the "hidden rebel base" he would have said, "You know, your rebel 'friends' -- if they are your friends -- allowed you to be captured. In fact, they're going to leave you here to die. You wanna know why?" Very similar to how Palpatine drove a wedge between Anakin and the Jedi Council in Episode III.
In Episode V I think all three were tortured, but Lucas probably didn't want to show Leia being tortured; probably too gruesome. When Leia is tossed back in the cell, her eyes are sunken and she's pale; so I think Lucas was implying it.
> "You're right Luke. I knew that you and Leia were my children > all along. I did what I could to protect you, but now you have > saved me by bringing me back to the light side of the Force."
No offense, but that's a nice sentiment, but it goes against one of the major themes of Star Wars -- Anakin was "lost" when he became Vader and he had (seemingly) no redeeming qualities. However, Luke's love for his father and ability to see the good still in him (Luke inherited Padme's compassion it seems) rescued him and brought Anakin back from the dark side. Anakin seeing his son being killed by Sideous recognized that it wasn't the power of the Force that would save Luke (he thought otherwise in Episode II and III), but his love for his son and his willingness to sacrifice himself. Your dialog would remove the need for Anakin to be saved at all since he was trying to help Luke and Leia the whole time.
> And how did Luke become a Jedi so fast? He got the Cliff > Note's/Reader's Digest Condensed version. Anakin and Obi > Wan took 10 years before they took the test to become a Jedi > Knight. It took Luke a couple of days, and a fight with the old > man.
It's probably a couple of months. When Han says that Bespin is pretty far, but he thinks they can make it, maybe that means that they can limp along to Bespin in a couple of weeks (with rations and whatnot on board).
Luke probably did get the Cliff Notes version of his Jedi training. Yoda probably left out a bunch of stuff and just wanted to teach him enough to go after Vader and the Emperor. That explains why Luke's training is not very good. His lightsaber technique is pretty bad (compared to the Jedi in Episodes I, II, and III) -- Lucas mentions that Luke is "half trained".
That's what makes the victory in Episode VI so impressive. The strongest Jedi in the galaxy can't defeat Palpatine (Yoda and Mace) with their knowledge of the Force. But, Luke with his half-training confronts Palpatine not with his Jedi training, but with desire to rescue his father, and that's what defeats Palpatine.
> you've got to figure that with Vader's uberpowers, he'd have > figured out Leia was his daughter when he captured her
You might as well argue that Yoda, hanging out in Papatine's office in Episode II, should have been able to notice that Palpatine was the Sith Lord. As Mace and Yoda said in Episode II, the Jedi were blind to the Dark Side. Maybe the deal is the dark side and the light side (being "opposite" sides of the Force) cannot see the other without knowing for sure where they should look, and one cannot sense someone with the Force until one has actually met the person.
That would explain why the Jedi would have to have a physical blood test to search for Force-sensitive individuals (Episode I). But once they know who that individual is, they can find them easily (e.g., Yoda finding Obi-Wan and Anakin in Episode II, foreseeing they were in danger from Dooku; Palpatine finding Vader in Episode III foreseeing he was in danger from Obi-Wan; Vader sensing Obi-Wan in Episode IV, etc).
In Episode VI, Vader says that Luke is on the moon of Endor, while Palpatine says that he didn't sense it -- and he questions Vader's "sight". Vader knew that Luke was his son and he had met him before (in Episode V). Vader couldn't "call to" Luke in Episode V until he actually met him; that's why he had to torture Leia, Han, and Chewbacca in Episode V to draw Luke to him.
So until Vader knew that Leia was his daughter (learning this from Luke in Episode VI), he wouldn't have known about it even with her standing right in front of him.
Folks, the Mac platform is through--totally--and this may be the last, if not the next to last, Mac show. --John Dvorak, Jan 12, 1998
Being a consummate jerk is Dvorak's schtick. Moreover, Dvorak is a bull. He rushes headlong into an opinion because being dramatic grabs more headlines than being tentative but right most of the time. If he did, he'd have more respect and be more like Cringley. But then he wouldn't have his schtick.
Good for him that he went to an Intel meeting and Jobs was there and he drew a non-trivial conclusion. Good for him that he was only off by 6 months. Good for him that he received a lot of nasty emails for publishing his prediction, but he was sort of vindicated.
He should remember (in addition to the above quote) that he predicted IA-64 instead of IA-32, and he said that Apple would move the pro-machines first, so he's hardly a fortune teller.
> Why wouldn't a software-only solution be probable?
I'm not saying you wouldn't benefit from having a dual boot machine. I'm saying that it doesn't make sense for Apple.
Much of the Mac OS X experience (in terms of simplicity) is due to the fact that Apple sells the hardware and software, so they can tie things together pretty well. If Apple had to supports tons of hardware configurations, things wouldn't mesh together smoothly. Without that smooth integration, Mac OS X wouldn't have a huge advantage over Windows.
> I have insufficient funds to buy an OSX machine.
If you simply lack the income to purchase a Mac, you're probably not in Apple's target market. Generally it's tough for companies other than Wal-Mart to get exciting about serving a market of people whose disposable income is so constrained that they can't afford to buy their product. It's safe to say that Apple can grow its market without having to target people at or below the poverty level.
> I have insufficient room space to have both a OSX and Wintel > machine.
The $499 Mac Mini and a keyboard/monitor switch solves that problem nicely. Unless you live in a extremely space-constrained area, where you literally have no where to put the Mini unless it were in your lap.
> OS X is tied very much to the processor. Not the kernel per- > say but everything on top of it. Quartz, uses both the GPU and > Altevic.
You're correct in that Mac OS X is tied to the processor more than that sentence would imply. I believe that Core Audio and Video provide some abstraction, but things like Quartz Extreme rely on Altivec.
I wrote that text back in 2002, when it wasn't clear (to a non-developer) how much was going to get tied.
However, I believe that Mac OS X is more abstracted from the processor than the old Mac OS 9 was, thus making a move to another processor a little easier now than back then.
> Microsoft bought Connectix (authors of the VirtualPC software > that lets Macs emulate Wintel boxes) and then quickly dropped > their main product for no readily aparrent reason (other than > pure spite).
Huh?
Microsoft still sells Virtual PC for the Mac. In fact, they bundle it with Microsoft Office Professional.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're using it for XBox 360 compatibility. They've been selling it to do sand-boxing for Windows servers for a while too.
It's very unlikely that you'll see such a project until Apple can safely move as many Mac users there as possible, while stranding as few users as possible. The Mac market is too small for it to be successfully fragmented into Mac-PPC and Mac-x86 camps. But there is a path for Apple to get there.
1. Introduce Macintoshes running on as much PC-compatible hardware as possible. CHECK: current Macs use the same video cards, video memory, bus ports, and other parts as regular PCs. Just the processor is different
2. Introduce an operating system that can be run truely architecture independent. CHECK: Mac OS X is based on NeXTStep that used to run on x86. All they need is to get the majority of their users onto Mac OS X. Right now they're at 20% penetration.
3. Get Mac users off of Classic so they don't have to worry about PPC compatibility. IN PROGRESS: with Mac OS X 10.2, expect a lot more users spending all their time in Cocoa and Carbon. It'll probably be until 2004 before Classic will fall to a minority of users (once the specialized apps are replaced by Mac OS equivalents)
4. Introduce a Mac that uses a non-PowerPC processor (like AMD Hammer) which gives a definite performance advantage or price advantage. You'd better bet that Apple is at least considering this
5. Allow other PC makers to build Mac clones. But this time, Apple will have to negotiate from a position of strength, rather than one of desparation like before.
Clearly, I'm no expert. I think the AMD part I wrote is unlikely in the extreme, and I don't think Apple will be switching to become a software-only (item 5) business since their combination of hardware/software allows them to have a finely-tuned user experience. However, making such a prediction is pretty easy (particularly if you leave out the specifics), so Dvorak gloating about it is just silly.
That said, it's more likely Apple is announcing a WiMAX deal with Intel, or they're going to license PPC to Intel to make. Switching to x86 could be done, but it will be difficult to manage the transition (even with Mac OS X's advantages over Mac OS 9). Then again, Apple handled a processor change fairly successfully with the 68k to PPC, so maybe they can pull that off.
But it's probably best to not second guess Apple on this, and just wait until the announcement comes out. Apple sure knows how to get people to pay attention to its developers' conference!
>> A few things are left unexplained too. The Death Star. Why?
> It was shown in the first one (or was it Clones?) in a hologram > during a metting, but no other mention after
You know, I don't think there's a problem with Lucas's movies. There's a problem with viewing comprehension on the part of some members of the audience. I thought the Death Star part was pretty obvious.
In Episode II, there's a hologram of the Death Star. The king of the wasp people says something like, I'm going to order my soldiers to hide in the catacombs. He then says he can't allow them to find the ultimate weapon they're going to build.
Dooku responds that he'll take the plans to his master where they'll be safe. The shot has a close-up of Dooku taking the plans, turning them on for a second, and then turning them off again. He slips the info disk into his cloak.
Now in Episode III, we see that Sideous is starting to build that Death Star. Clearly, the Death Star will take 20 years to complete by the time Episode IV rolls around.
> The real question is: Why did Obi Wan have to talk Yoda into > training Luke? Why not 'Waiting for you, I have been. Late you > are; your training we must start.' What's with the 'no, he's too > old' stuff?
I think that's a good point.
Obviously I don't know for sure, but I think it's related to two things.
1. Yoda wants to make Luke want to do the training. The last thing he wants is for Luke to start the training and not finish. By forcing Luke to press his case to take on the training, Luke will psychologically work to complete due to his own internal pressures. In advertising this is called the Principle of Consistency. In general people tend to value things more when they must work hard for them. It's a similar concept to making someone rush to join a fraternity.
However, I think it's more than that, which leads to #2
2. In all the Star Wars movies, characters are reluctant to accept destiny (or what the Force wills them to do). Qui-Gonn is a notable exception. In Episode I, Qui-Gonn presents Anakin to the Jedi council and asks that he be trained. Yoda and Mace both say no (here the excuse that Anakin is too old is given). To me, this is a symbol of how arrogant the Jedi have become; they are denying the will of the Force because of one of their petty age requirement rules. But there's probably also an unwillingness to accept destiny here.
Then in Episode IV, Obi-Wan at first tries to avoid destiny. He's been in hiding for 20 years, and then one day, Anakin's son approaches him with two droids he knows well. One can't help but see the destiny there. However, his first reaction is to avoid it. "I don't remember owning any droids," he says coyly (not quite a lie, since that's not the same as saying he doesn't recognize them). When he sees the message is from Anakin's other child, he begins to see the destiny, and things move forward.
Next it's Luke's turn to avoid destiny. "I can't get involved; I've got work to do!" Eventually, he accepts his destiny to become a Jedi like his father.
Yoda, I believe, goes through the same stages in Episode V. He's been in seclusion for 25 years, and then one day Anakin's son drops in and wants to be trained. Yoda avoids destiny here as well, and balks at training Luke, only reluctantly taking him on. But once he does so, he recognizes the Force's will as well (note that during that scene Obi-Wan has accepted the Force's will as he tries to convince Yoda).
The only character that seems to accept the Force's will through the movies is Qui-Gonn. He consistently defers to the Force's will. For example, in Episode I, he refuses to despair at their situation on Tatooine; "A solution will present itself."
> That reference wasn't apparent to me. It's not like The Sound > of Music is the only movie in which people go outside.
I actually haven't seen "The Sound of Music", but I recognized the scene when Padme is running through the fields with the mountains behind them as being similar to the one from "The Sound of Music". During the movie, I turned to my wife and even (quietly) mockingly sung, "the hills are alive with the sound of music..." Of course, I knew nothing of the plot of the original movie, so I just assumed that it was a typical love story. I didn't realize the movie had a plot beyond just being a musical.
My wife had seen "The Sound of Music", so afterwards she pointed out some additional parallels. The movie takes place in Austria where Julie Andrew's character is apparently running from the Nazis. She falls in love with a young man, and he goes away, but when he returns, he's had joined the Nazis.
> Anybody else remember in Empire when Ghost Obi Wan is > talking about "he is our last hope" and Yoda says... "No, their > is another". Exactly why was Obi Wan so clueless!!!! That was > the first thing that popped in my head when I saw Obi Wan > hearing the names of the two kids and seeing them off.
It's the difference between hope and despair.
I know that some people are desperate to find plot continuity errors between Episodes I/II/III and IV/V/VI in hope to justify some sort of emotional reason to reject the latter produced episodes -- "See! Obi-Wan has a different mole in Episode IV than in Episode III, so the prequels don't count!!1!" However, this isn't the case.
This isn't simply a matter of hunting down the second twin and starting her training. Remember, Palpatine and Vader killed all the other Jedi. Palpatine defeated Yoda who was the strongest Jedi (after Anakin lost his limbs). Vader struck down Obi-Wan. In short, Sideous and Vader were tough to beat.
Obi-Wan had lost hope and he really thought that Luke was going to fail. Just like Anakin's love for Padme sent him to the Dark Side, Obi-Wan thought that Luke's love for his friends would send him to the Dark Side. Obi-Wan was feeling despair and he couldn't imagine they would succeed by starting over with the other twin. He had simply given up hope.
Yoda clearly was upset, but he was optimistic enough to at least try to start over. "There is another." I guess when you're ~800 years old, you have tremendous patience, and you're willing to fail 99 times and still start over for the 100th time. So while Obi-Wan lost hope, Yoda didn't.
However, in Episode V, Yoda and Obi-Wan both failed again the same way they did in Episode III; they gave up on their friends too easily. Remember how Yoda told Luke it was okay to let his friends die? Didn't he tell Anakin the same thing in Episode III? That's one of the things that drove Anakin to the Dark Side.
The reason for this is related to a flaw in the Jedi order. The Jedi knew that passions (like hatred and anger) lead to the Dark Side. Their answer was to eschew emotions. I believe one of Lucas's themes is that their choice was wrong.
Jedi weren't allow to have attachments or to love (Episode II). The Jedi were so afraid of using the Dark Side, that they went the wrong way and became unemotional. Lucas's point is that is wrong. Love and friendship were the right course of action. That's why the Force had to be brought back into balance. In their own way, the unemotional Jedi were as bad (okay, almost as bad) as the hate-filled Sith.
Luke on the other hand felt emotion. His love for his friends brought him to rescue Han Solo and eventually save his father. So emotions were not to be eschewed, but were to be used constructively. Was there a danger to allowing love to lead to the Dark Side? Of course (case in point: Anakin). But the risk of not feeling love at all was worse.
Ebert has always said that he hates the "star" ratings, but his newspaper makes him do it. Unfortunately, most readers just want to quickly glance at a rating rather than read a review and draw their conclusions.
Ebert has said before that the ratings are relative in that if the movie is intended to be a popcorn action movie, then he rates the movie compared to that. If it is expected to be art, he rates the movie against that.
Ebert is a very good reviewer, and he really knows his stuff about movies, although the wearing a sweater on TV and doing the thumbs up thing may mask that. I watched the DVD for "Dark City," and he did a commentary for it, and it was amazing what he drew out of it. Watching it and listening to it, I felt like I was sitting in a graduate level film class.
I think one problem is that Ebert is that he watches too many movies that he must review, and sometimes he glosses over a movie because he expects that he doesn't need to study it at a deeper level.
For example, Ebert's review of Episode II was very superficial (to the point that he even misquoted some key dialog in his review). However, on the whole he is probably correct that Episode II does not stand alone as a movie, and must be viewed in the context of the other movies, and his reviews rate movies based on how they stand alone.
In contrast, someone on Slashdot linked to another review of the movie by David Begor where he draws out the symbolism in the movie. The review is quite enlightening, and it changed the way I viewed the movies, as I could recognize the symbolism.
>> I guess it can go beyond that. If the Jedi are "slaves" to the Jedi >> order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a >> slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct >> about his dream where he freed all the slaves.
> Except the Wookiees. Please, will somebody think of the > Wookiees?
Aaah, no one cares about the Wookiees anyway. Why do you think Chewbacca didn't get a medal?;-)
> That's his plan all along. He tells Padme that they can rule the > galaxy together, and when that falls through he tries to recruit > Luke for ruling-the-galaxy duty. He just doesn't want to rule > the galaxy alone.
Interesting.
I also find it fascinating that Anakin is never free.
He starts life off literally as a slave on Tatooine. Then he starts his Jedi training, and he's not free there either. Remember in Episode II when Padme asks him if he's even allowed to love? He's still a slave, but now he's a slave to the Jedi order, in a sense.
Then he joins the Sith to save Padme, and he's now a slave to the dark side. he tells Luke in Episode VI that it's too late for him, he must obey his master. Anakin's situation makes one reinterpret Leia's line in Episode IV, about Tarkin holding Vader's leash.
The only time Anakin is truly free is when he kills Sideous. And he dies minutes after that.
I guess it can go beyond that. If the Jedi are "slaves" to the Jedi order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct about his dream where he freed all the slaves.
> It's not like the Jedi *don't* see things in absolutes, nor do > they seem to have a problem with absolutes of their own.
I think that's an interesting point. Perhaps the line is more telling that we think. The original lines are:
ANAKIN: Don't lecture me, Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire.
OBI-WAN: Your new Empire?
ANAKIN: Don't make me kill you.
OBI-WAN: Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic... to democracy.
ANAKIN: If you're not with me, you're my enemy.
OBI-WAN: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.
Obi-Wan should have tried harder to bring Anakin back to the good side, the way Luke did in Episode VI. But Obi-Wan did not, and I believe that Lucas is trying to say that Obi-Wan's subsequent actions were wrong.
Maybe dealing in absolutes is a Sith tendency, and Obi-Wan was falling for the same thing. He believed that Anakin was now evil, and no longer worth saving. In other words, Obi-Wan was considering that either Anakin was his friend or was a Sith. Perhaps Obi-Wan should have avoided the absolutes himself, and he should have tried to save Anakin. This was Lucas's way of indicating that while Obi-Wan's thinking was correct, his actions were wrong.
It seems that Obi-Wan learned his lesson after 20 years of solitude on Tatooine. In Episode IV he tells Han Solo, "There are alternatives to fighting."
This would not be the first time that Lucas has made a character say dialog incongruent to their actions to indicate when their actions are wrong. For example, in Episode II, Mace Windu tells Padme, "We're keepers of the peace. Not soldiers." However, at the end of the movie, Mace is leading clone troops into battle like... well... a soldier.
> Instead of basically just a one-liner saying how he'd run the > galaxy, it would have been more interesting for him to 'see' > lack of order in the galaxy causing chaos.
It wasn't just a one-liner. Anakin's feelings about this were all through Episodes II and III.
In Episode II, there was the whole discussion between Padme and Anakin on Naboo. Anakin says the system doesn't work. Padme asked how would he make it work.
Anakin: We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problems, agree what's in the best interests of all the people, and then do it.
Padme: That is exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't wlways agree. In fact, they hardly ever do.
Anakin: Then they should be made to.
Padme: By whom? Who's going to make them?
Anakin: I don't know. Someone.
Padme: You?
Anakin: Of course not me.
Padme: But someone.
Anakin: Someone wise.
Padme: That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.
Anakin: Well, if it works...
Anakin in the scene can tell that Padme is shocked, so he plays it off that he's joking. Padme can't believe that Anakin feels that way so she assumes he's just kidding.
In Episode III, when Obi-Wan laments that the Senate is going to vote for more direct power under Palpatine, Anakin is pleased because it will help them make decisions faster and fight more effectively.
> Note that in the original trilogy, episodes IV-VI of "Star > Wars" (SW), Lucas alludes that anyone can be part of the force. > Your participation depends solely on your commitment to > open- mindedness and the good side of the force. With this > force, you can transcend the difficulties that you currently > face. That message is a wonderfully uplifting message for kids > of past and present generations.
I think this illustrates the problem with many fans of the original trilogy with regards the new movies. Lucas never said what you described above, and the concept that you describe is not one of his themes. You may have drawn this conclusion as a theme after watching Episodes IV-VI, and it may appeal to you, but it's not part of Lucas's story.
You have to think of Episodes I - VI as as a single movie, and due to the way Lucas made the movies, you walked into the middle of "the film". You drew some conclusions based on incomplete information, and unfortunately your conclusion was wrong.
It's kind of like if you walked into the last half of -- oh I don't know, let's say "Star Trek: First Contact" and you missed the whole part about Picard having been captured and made into a Borg in the first scene. Without this information, you had to create your own "beginning" to make sense of it. So maybe you drew a conclusion that Picard had initially created the Borg initially. Maybe you thought that the movie had a theme similar to Frankenstein, where it was about science dabbling into things that should be left alone. You're happy with the theme, but some years later, you get the opportunity to go back and see the first half of the movie. You see the events you missed, and that new information kills the theme you thought existed.
Episodes IV-VI are like that. Lucas themes existed throughout the movies, but they may not match whatever back story that some fans have created in their own minds once they see all six films. The issue is probably compounded by the fact that Star Wars sprouted a host of ancillary novels and other paraphernalia, to which Lucas does not feel constrained to tie his story.
The midichlorians are important for two reasons. First, they help with a theme of when the Republic degenerates into a dictatorship, science makes way for religion and superstition. In Episode I, it is clear that the Jedi understand the science behind The Force. For example, they actually could measure someone's potential related to the Force by their midichlorians count. By the time Episode IV came around, no one even knew the science behind the Force, and people dismissed it as a "hokey religion." Asimov did a similar theme with his Foundation series of stories.
Second the midichlorians provide an important explanation of why Darth Vader had lost much of his power and why Darth Sideous wanted Luke to be his replacement. Anakin had the highest midichlorian count of any Jedi, including Yoda, and he was destined to be the most powerful Jedi of all. However, when he lost his arms and legs, he lost nearly half his body mass and thus his midichlorian count fell by half. Thus he went from being more powerful than Darth Sideous to being maybe 80% as powerful. Still strong, but not exactly as powerful as Sideous would like. Thus, Sideous sought a replacement in Luke.
As for whether midichlorian counts are contrary to egalitarianism, I don't agree. If you want to be a fighter pilot, you have to have good eyesight. If you're born blind, you could learn to fly a plane (with the audio equivalent of instruments), but it would be surprisingly if that blind pilot flew anywhere nearly as well as the pilot with perfect vision. And perfect vision is often related to genetics. In Lucas's story, Force ability is related to genetics via midichlorians. This was foreshadowed in Episode VI, when Obi-Wan said that Luke and Leia had to be hidden because if the Emperor discovered Anakin had any offspring, they would be a threat to him. In other words, Anakin would pass his genetically high midichlorian count on to his children.
> Luke never met his father until he discovered the truth and he > still tried to bring him to the good side of the force. Obi-Wan > trained Anakin from the start, created a strong bond between > both and he just gives up on him.
It's not a flaw. That's the whole point of the movie. Lucas talks about the duality of nature and the circular nature of violence. In each character, there is good and evil. More specifically, evil exists in good and good exists in evil. At the same time, violence begets violence, so the only way to end the cycle of violence is to refuse to fight. The only character who knows this as true is Luke Skywalker.
Obi-Wan tells Yoda he can't kill Anakin even after what Anakin had done (killed Younglings and aligned himself with Darth Sideous). Yoda tells him that Anakin is dead ("consumed by Darth Vader"). Obi-Wan accepts that reluctantly, and he confronts him. Obi-Wan tries to bring Anakin back, but he is too quick to use violence as his solution.
Luke on the other hand, throws away his lightsaber, and refuses to kill his father, which brings Anakin back (the spark of Anakin that was left in Vader). Anakin then kills Sideous (sacrificing himself) instead of allowing Sideous to kill Luke, and completes the fulfillment of the prophesy.
What people see as inconsistencies are often illustrations of the greater themes in the movies. Yoda was wise in Episode V, but he acted foolishly in Episodes II and III. Of course that makes sense, because how does one gain wisdom except by learning from one's mistakes? Yoda figures out that by Episode V that wars do not make one great. The events of Episode II and III taught him that. Except, Yoda did not learn one lesson between Episodes II and III: that he should not have given up on Anakin.
Luke for all his poor formal Jedi training understood that and that's why he prevailed in the end.
Slashdot Mirror
> If you had encyclopedic knowledge of the originals, you were a ;-)
> huge nerd, but at least other nerds respected and feared you.
> But with the prequels... even the nerds look down on you!
A nerd's nerd?
nerd^2?
meta-nerd?
>>As someone with an embarrassingly-encyclopedic knowledge
>>of the movies*, I'd say Episodes I-III are as good as (and
>>maybe better) than Episodes IV-VI.
> You know, if you reference a footnote, you should probably
> put it in your post somewhere.
heh.
I was going to put that some could peer through my slashdot posting history for proof, but then I thought it would best to not call too much attention to it. After that, I forgot to delete the asterisk before hitting "submit"
> In 4,5, and 6, Darth Vader was primarily the "bad guy". Sure, he
> had character, but it was primarily as the foil to the symbolic
> "light side" of the force that ran as an undercurrent in the
> rebellion / Luke's story.
> The story was good as Good vs. Evil rather than a "Look at
> how Power Can Corrupt the Good".
Uh-huh. And the fact that Episode VI ended with Vader going from evil to good? The fact that Vader was the focus of those scenes with the Emperor? Episodes IV-VI were about Anakin/Vader, but it wasn't obvious until Episodes I-III came out.
> makes the plot seem convoluted and non sequitur.
Actually Episodes I-III make the plot to Episodes IV-VI make more sense.
Why did Luke suddenly think that Vader could be turned in Episode VI? Vader stood for everything that was evil to him, and yet in Episode VI, he works to save him.
Episode III provides the answer. Luke (and Leia) had Padme's personality more than than they had Anakin's. Although apparently whininess is carried on the Y chromosome and is dominant. So just as Padme told Obi-Wan that there was still good in Anakin, Luke knew the same. In a way, Luke redeems Padme because he proves she was right.
Why did Palpatine want Luke at all? As we learned from Episodes I-III, there can only be two Sith: a master and apprentice. And Vader was not as strong after Episode III -- it's clear that Vader in the suit would have been no match against a hypothetical Anakin pre-lava-bath. And Palpatine wanted a strong apprentice he could control.
More plot holes -- Why did Vader torture Han, Leia, and Chewie? Why did Obi-Wan allow himself to die in Episode IV? Episodes I-III all explain this.
So without those movies, the plots of Episodes IV-VI were pretty convoluted. With all six movies together, the plot is complete.
*sigh*
Maybe your friends think you're an idiot.
If you had read the crawler in the beginning of the movie, you would have read:
So, the enemy is Count Dooku. The ship is owned by the Separatists. The ship has the Chancellor on it. He was "kidnapped" by General Grievous. No viewing of the Clone Wars DVD was required to understand this.
This guy's point is that the old movies had "geek" sequences that told the story, but he claims the movies have no story, just "veg out" sequences. But he's wrong. Someone with at least rudimentary reading comprehension skills would have figured it out.
Maybe the fact that he saw Episodes IV-VI a million times is the reason why he understands the plot. Since he was seeing Episode III for the first time (and obviously not paying attention), that could be why he didn't understand. Has nothing to do with the quality of the movies.
As someone with an embarrassingly-encyclopedic knowledge of the movies*, I'd say Episodes I-III are as good as (and maybe better) than Episodes IV-VI.
This guy is in a long line of people who must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the new Star Wars movies are not as good as the original trilogy. (The rest of the line will be posting in this story about how George Lucas ruined their childhood, etc).
> them, they were the ones who WROTE the Constitution and Bill
> of Rights) think that the Second Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL
> right. Note especially Richard Lee's statement above, in which
> a clear distinction is made between the "militia" and the
> "select militia", which latter, in the modern world, closely
> corresponds to the National Guard.
I guess this guy did a good job of explaining your "quotes", so I'll ignore that part.
But let's look at what's meant by "militia". If I understand correctly, if "militia" means "National Guard" or a military force set up by the states, then we're not talking about individual rights. If "militia" means a bunch of guys with guns, then we're talking about individual rights.
I'm not a constitutional scholar, so it could be my ignorance here, but I'm trying to rationalize the Second and Fifth amendments.
The Second Amendment makes it clear that the reason for the right to bear arms is related to a "well regulated militia"
The Fifth Amendment says
Here the "militia" is mentioned again. If the "militia" is just a bunch of guys with guns (individuals) why would the Fifth Amendment group them with "land and naval forces"? Seems to me it's closer to a military group set up by the states, such as the National Guard.
> Surely I'm not the only one who believes they'd be better off if
> the damned box went black and they were forced to pick up a
> book
Am I the only one who is a little disturbed by seemingly classist statements like that above? I'm reading the above as "the poor are too lazy!" They should open a book and get real jobs!
Sure there are lazy poor people. There are also lazy middle class people and lazy rich people, too. Being poor doesn't mean someone is lazy. Sometimes it's just nearly impossible for someone to get out of poverty on the jobs available. The book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America apparently does a pretty good job of illustrating this (although I haven't had time to read it yet!)
Sometimes if you're having to work two jobs the only thing you want to do when you get home is numb out in front of the TV. It would be a hell of a lot better if that weren't true, but we don't live in a perfect world.
Aside from that, one reason why television is important is to alert citizens about storms and whatnot. So it is up to the government to either keep the standard the same or providing a method for all citizens to have a way to decode public broadcasts.
> In Ep. V, why does he torture Han and not Leia?
And he puts Han in the carbon freezing chamber! What father wouldn't want to do that to someone who wants to date their daughter?
Seriously (or as seriously as one can be trying to rationalize the plot for a sci-fi movie), I don't think Vader knew that Luke/Leia were his kids in Episodes IV.
Vader figures out that Luke is his son probably because after Episode IV everyone knew that some guy with the last name of Skywalker blew up the Death Star. News travels fast about something like that. So Vader hears about it, and says, "Skywalker! Holy crap!" Who is this guy??" Has some records checked, figures out the kid was raised by Owen ("I remember Owen; he let my mother die. I'm glad he's dead!"), and by the time Episode V rolls around he's off trying to find Luke.
Vader sounds desperate to find Luke in Episode V, but he pretends that he's just looking for the rebels. Spotting Hoth, he says, "that's it! And Skywalker is with them!" So clearly it's important for Vader to find his son, where he can turn him to the dark side. If he had the same chance with Leia in Episode IV he would have done it.
In the beginning of Episode V, Vader sounds pretty melancholy (compared to Episode IV). In fact, he sounds like someone conflicted because an identity he rejected 20 years ago was re-awoken. Go back and listen to how James Earl Jones speak in Episode V compared to Episode IV, and you can hear the emotion.
If Vader had known that Leia was his daughter, he wouldn't have tortured her; he would have tried to turn her the way he tried with Luke in Episode V. Instead of asking about the "hidden rebel base" he would have said, "You know, your rebel 'friends' -- if they are your friends -- allowed you to be captured. In fact, they're going to leave you here to die. You wanna know why?" Very similar to how Palpatine drove a wedge between Anakin and the Jedi Council in Episode III.
In Episode V I think all three were tortured, but Lucas probably didn't want to show Leia being tortured; probably too gruesome. When Leia is tossed back in the cell, her eyes are sunken and she's pale; so I think Lucas was implying it.
> "You're right Luke. I knew that you and Leia were my children
> all along. I did what I could to protect you, but now you have
> saved me by bringing me back to the light side of the Force."
No offense, but that's a nice sentiment, but it goes against one of the major themes of Star Wars -- Anakin was "lost" when he became Vader and he had (seemingly) no redeeming qualities. However, Luke's love for his father and ability to see the good still in him (Luke inherited Padme's compassion it seems) rescued him and brought Anakin back from the dark side. Anakin seeing his son being killed by Sideous recognized that it wasn't the power of the Force that would save Luke (he thought otherwise in Episode II and III), but his love for his son and his willingness to sacrifice himself. Your dialog would remove the need for Anakin to be saved at all since he was trying to help Luke and Leia the whole time.
> And how did Luke become a Jedi so fast? He got the Cliff
> Note's/Reader's Digest Condensed version. Anakin and Obi
> Wan took 10 years before they took the test to become a Jedi
> Knight. It took Luke a couple of days, and a fight with the old
> man.
It's probably a couple of months. When Han says that Bespin is pretty far, but he thinks they can make it, maybe that means that they can limp along to Bespin in a couple of weeks (with rations and whatnot on board).
Luke probably did get the Cliff Notes version of his Jedi training. Yoda probably left out a bunch of stuff and just wanted to teach him enough to go after Vader and the Emperor. That explains why Luke's training is not very good. His lightsaber technique is pretty bad (compared to the Jedi in Episodes I, II, and III) -- Lucas mentions that Luke is "half trained".
That's what makes the victory in Episode VI so impressive. The strongest Jedi in the galaxy can't defeat Palpatine (Yoda and Mace) with their knowledge of the Force. But, Luke with his half-training confronts Palpatine not with his Jedi training, but with desire to rescue his father, and that's what defeats Palpatine.
> you've got to figure that with Vader's uberpowers, he'd have
> figured out Leia was his daughter when he captured her
You might as well argue that Yoda, hanging out in Papatine's office in Episode II, should have been able to notice that Palpatine was the Sith Lord. As Mace and Yoda said in Episode II, the Jedi were blind to the Dark Side. Maybe the deal is the dark side and the light side (being "opposite" sides of the Force) cannot see the other without knowing for sure where they should look, and one cannot sense someone with the Force until one has actually met the person.
That would explain why the Jedi would have to have a physical blood test to search for Force-sensitive individuals (Episode I). But once they know who that individual is, they can find them easily (e.g., Yoda finding Obi-Wan and Anakin in Episode II, foreseeing they were in danger from Dooku; Palpatine finding Vader in Episode III foreseeing he was in danger from Obi-Wan; Vader sensing Obi-Wan in Episode IV, etc).
In Episode VI, Vader says that Luke is on the moon of Endor, while Palpatine says that he didn't sense it -- and he questions Vader's "sight". Vader knew that Luke was his son and he had met him before (in Episode V). Vader couldn't "call to" Luke in Episode V until he actually met him; that's why he had to torture Leia, Han, and Chewbacca in Episode V to draw Luke to him.
So until Vader knew that Leia was his daughter (learning this from Luke in Episode VI), he wouldn't have known about it even with her standing right in front of him.
Exhibit A:
Being a consummate jerk is Dvorak's schtick. Moreover, Dvorak is a bull. He rushes headlong into an opinion because being dramatic grabs more headlines than being tentative but right most of the time. If he did, he'd have more respect and be more like Cringley. But then he wouldn't have his schtick.
Good for him that he went to an Intel meeting and Jobs was there and he drew a non-trivial conclusion. Good for him that he was only off by 6 months. Good for him that he received a lot of nasty emails for publishing his prediction, but he was sort of vindicated.
He should remember (in addition to the above quote) that he predicted IA-64 instead of IA-32, and he said that Apple would move the pro-machines first, so he's hardly a fortune teller.
> Why wouldn't a software-only solution be probable?
I'm not saying you wouldn't benefit from having a dual boot machine. I'm saying that it doesn't make sense for Apple.
Much of the Mac OS X experience (in terms of simplicity) is due to the fact that Apple sells the hardware and software, so they can tie things together pretty well. If Apple had to supports tons of hardware configurations, things wouldn't mesh together smoothly. Without that smooth integration, Mac OS X wouldn't have a huge advantage over Windows.
> I have insufficient funds to buy an OSX machine.
If you simply lack the income to purchase a Mac, you're probably not in Apple's target market. Generally it's tough for companies other than Wal-Mart to get exciting about serving a market of people whose disposable income is so constrained that they can't afford to buy their product. It's safe to say that Apple can grow its market without having to target people at or below the poverty level.
> I have insufficient room space to have both a OSX and Wintel
> machine.
The $499 Mac Mini and a keyboard/monitor switch solves that problem nicely. Unless you live in a extremely space-constrained area, where you literally have no where to put the Mini unless it were in your lap.
> OS X is tied very much to the processor. Not the kernel per-
> say but everything on top of it. Quartz, uses both the GPU and
> Altevic.
You're correct in that Mac OS X is tied to the processor more than that sentence would imply. I believe that Core Audio and Video provide some abstraction, but things like Quartz Extreme rely on Altivec.
I wrote that text back in 2002, when it wasn't clear (to a non-developer) how much was going to get tied.
However, I believe that Mac OS X is more abstracted from the processor than the old Mac OS 9 was, thus making a move to another processor a little easier now than back then.
> Microsoft bought Connectix (authors of the VirtualPC software
> that lets Macs emulate Wintel boxes) and then quickly dropped
> their main product for no readily aparrent reason (other than
> pure spite).
Huh?
Microsoft still sells Virtual PC for the Mac. In fact, they bundle it with Microsoft Office Professional.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're using it for XBox 360 compatibility. They've been selling it to do sand-boxing for Windows servers for a while too.
> since 1985.
Absolutely. It's a pretty easy prediction to make. Back in 2002, I posted how Mac OS X could allow Apple to switch to x86 on Slashdot:
Clearly, I'm no expert. I think the AMD part I wrote is unlikely in the extreme, and I don't think Apple will be switching to become a software-only (item 5) business since their combination of hardware/software allows them to have a finely-tuned user experience. However, making such a prediction is pretty easy (particularly if you leave out the specifics), so Dvorak gloating about it is just silly.
That said, it's more likely Apple is announcing a WiMAX deal with Intel, or they're going to license PPC to Intel to make. Switching to x86 could be done, but it will be difficult to manage the transition (even with Mac OS X's advantages over Mac OS 9). Then again, Apple handled a processor change fairly successfully with the 68k to PPC, so maybe they can pull that off.
But it's probably best to not second guess Apple on this, and just wait until the announcement comes out. Apple sure knows how to get people to pay attention to its developers' conference!
>> A few things are left unexplained too. The Death Star. Why?
> It was shown in the first one (or was it Clones?) in a hologram
> during a metting, but no other mention after
You know, I don't think there's a problem with Lucas's movies. There's a problem with viewing comprehension on the part of some members of the audience. I thought the Death Star part was pretty obvious.
In Episode II, there's a hologram of the Death Star. The king of the wasp people says something like, I'm going to order my soldiers to hide in the catacombs. He then says he can't allow them to find the ultimate weapon they're going to build.
Dooku responds that he'll take the plans to his master where they'll be safe. The shot has a close-up of Dooku taking the plans, turning them on for a second, and then turning them off again. He slips the info disk into his cloak.
Now in Episode III, we see that Sideous is starting to build that Death Star. Clearly, the Death Star will take 20 years to complete by the time Episode IV rolls around.
> The real question is: Why did Obi Wan have to talk Yoda into
> training Luke? Why not 'Waiting for you, I have been. Late you
> are; your training we must start.' What's with the 'no, he's too
> old' stuff?
I think that's a good point.
Obviously I don't know for sure, but I think it's related to two things.
1. Yoda wants to make Luke want to do the training. The last thing he wants is for Luke to start the training and not finish. By forcing Luke to press his case to take on the training, Luke will psychologically work to complete due to his own internal pressures. In advertising this is called the Principle of Consistency. In general people tend to value things more when they must work hard for them. It's a similar concept to making someone rush to join a fraternity.
However, I think it's more than that, which leads to #2
2. In all the Star Wars movies, characters are reluctant to accept destiny (or what the Force wills them to do). Qui-Gonn is a notable exception. In Episode I, Qui-Gonn presents Anakin to the Jedi council and asks that he be trained. Yoda and Mace both say no (here the excuse that Anakin is too old is given). To me, this is a symbol of how arrogant the Jedi have become; they are denying the will of the Force because of one of their petty age requirement rules. But there's probably also an unwillingness to accept destiny here.
Then in Episode IV, Obi-Wan at first tries to avoid destiny. He's been in hiding for 20 years, and then one day, Anakin's son approaches him with two droids he knows well. One can't help but see the destiny there. However, his first reaction is to avoid it. "I don't remember owning any droids," he says coyly (not quite a lie, since that's not the same as saying he doesn't recognize them). When he sees the message is from Anakin's other child, he begins to see the destiny, and things move forward.
Next it's Luke's turn to avoid destiny. "I can't get involved; I've got work to do!" Eventually, he accepts his destiny to become a Jedi like his father.
Yoda, I believe, goes through the same stages in Episode V. He's been in seclusion for 25 years, and then one day Anakin's son drops in and wants to be trained. Yoda avoids destiny here as well, and balks at training Luke, only reluctantly taking him on. But once he does so, he recognizes the Force's will as well (note that during that scene Obi-Wan has accepted the Force's will as he tries to convince Yoda).
The only character that seems to accept the Force's will through the movies is Qui-Gonn. He consistently defers to the Force's will. For example, in Episode I, he refuses to despair at their situation on Tatooine; "A solution will present itself."
> That reference wasn't apparent to me. It's not like The Sound
> of Music is the only movie in which people go outside.
I actually haven't seen "The Sound of Music", but I recognized the scene when Padme is running through the fields with the mountains behind them as being similar to the one from "The Sound of Music". During the movie, I turned to my wife and even (quietly) mockingly sung, "the hills are alive with the sound of music..." Of course, I knew nothing of the plot of the original movie, so I just assumed that it was a typical love story. I didn't realize the movie had a plot beyond just being a musical.
My wife had seen "The Sound of Music", so afterwards she pointed out some additional parallels. The movie takes place in Austria where Julie Andrew's character is apparently running from the Nazis. She falls in love with a young man, and he goes away, but when he returns, he's had joined the Nazis.
The parallels I guess are pretty obvious.
> Anybody else remember in Empire when Ghost Obi Wan is
> talking about "he is our last hope" and Yoda says... "No, their
> is another". Exactly why was Obi Wan so clueless!!!! That was
> the first thing that popped in my head when I saw Obi Wan
> hearing the names of the two kids and seeing them off.
It's the difference between hope and despair.
I know that some people are desperate to find plot continuity errors between Episodes I/II/III and IV/V/VI in hope to justify some sort of emotional reason to reject the latter produced episodes -- "See! Obi-Wan has a different mole in Episode IV than in Episode III, so the prequels don't count!!1!" However, this isn't the case.
This isn't simply a matter of hunting down the second twin and starting her training. Remember, Palpatine and Vader killed all the other Jedi. Palpatine defeated Yoda who was the strongest Jedi (after Anakin lost his limbs). Vader struck down Obi-Wan. In short, Sideous and Vader were tough to beat.
Obi-Wan had lost hope and he really thought that Luke was going to fail. Just like Anakin's love for Padme sent him to the Dark Side, Obi-Wan thought that Luke's love for his friends would send him to the Dark Side. Obi-Wan was feeling despair and he couldn't imagine they would succeed by starting over with the other twin. He had simply given up hope.
Yoda clearly was upset, but he was optimistic enough to at least try to start over. "There is another." I guess when you're ~800 years old, you have tremendous patience, and you're willing to fail 99 times and still start over for the 100th time. So while Obi-Wan lost hope, Yoda didn't.
However, in Episode V, Yoda and Obi-Wan both failed again the same way they did in Episode III; they gave up on their friends too easily. Remember how Yoda told Luke it was okay to let his friends die? Didn't he tell Anakin the same thing in Episode III? That's one of the things that drove Anakin to the Dark Side.
The reason for this is related to a flaw in the Jedi order. The Jedi knew that passions (like hatred and anger) lead to the Dark Side. Their answer was to eschew emotions. I believe one of Lucas's themes is that their choice was wrong.
Jedi weren't allow to have attachments or to love (Episode II). The Jedi were so afraid of using the Dark Side, that they went the wrong way and became unemotional. Lucas's point is that is wrong. Love and friendship were the right course of action. That's why the Force had to be brought back into balance. In their own way, the unemotional Jedi were as bad (okay, almost as bad) as the hate-filled Sith.
Luke on the other hand felt emotion. His love for his friends brought him to rescue Han Solo and eventually save his father. So emotions were not to be eschewed, but were to be used constructively. Was there a danger to allowing love to lead to the Dark Side? Of course (case in point: Anakin). But the risk of not feeling love at all was worse.
> Translation: "My job is so easy
Ebert has always said that he hates the "star" ratings, but his newspaper makes him do it. Unfortunately, most readers just want to quickly glance at a rating rather than read a review and draw their conclusions.
Ebert has said before that the ratings are relative in that if the movie is intended to be a popcorn action movie, then he rates the movie compared to that. If it is expected to be art, he rates the movie against that.
Ebert is a very good reviewer, and he really knows his stuff about movies, although the wearing a sweater on TV and doing the thumbs up thing may mask that. I watched the DVD for "Dark City," and he did a commentary for it, and it was amazing what he drew out of it. Watching it and listening to it, I felt like I was sitting in a graduate level film class.
I think one problem is that Ebert is that he watches too many movies that he must review, and sometimes he glosses over a movie because he expects that he doesn't need to study it at a deeper level.
For example, Ebert's review of Episode II was very superficial (to the point that he even misquoted some key dialog in his review). However, on the whole he is probably correct that Episode II does not stand alone as a movie, and must be viewed in the context of the other movies, and his reviews rate movies based on how they stand alone.
In contrast, someone on Slashdot linked to another review of the movie by David Begor where he draws out the symbolism in the movie. The review is quite enlightening, and it changed the way I viewed the movies, as I could recognize the symbolism.
>> I guess it can go beyond that. If the Jedi are "slaves" to the Jedi
;-)
>> order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a
>> slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct
>> about his dream where he freed all the slaves.
> Except the Wookiees. Please, will somebody think of the
> Wookiees?
Aaah, no one cares about the Wookiees anyway. Why do you think Chewbacca didn't get a medal?
> That's his plan all along. He tells Padme that they can rule the
> galaxy together, and when that falls through he tries to recruit
> Luke for ruling-the-galaxy duty. He just doesn't want to rule
> the galaxy alone.
Interesting.
I also find it fascinating that Anakin is never free.
He starts life off literally as a slave on Tatooine. Then he starts his Jedi training, and he's not free there either. Remember in Episode II when Padme asks him if he's even allowed to love? He's still a slave, but now he's a slave to the Jedi order, in a sense.
Then he joins the Sith to save Padme, and he's now a slave to the dark side. he tells Luke in Episode VI that it's too late for him, he must obey his master. Anakin's situation makes one reinterpret Leia's line in Episode IV, about Tarkin holding Vader's leash.
The only time Anakin is truly free is when he kills Sideous. And he dies minutes after that.
I guess it can go beyond that. If the Jedi are "slaves" to the Jedi order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct about his dream where he freed all the slaves.
> they seem to have a problem with absolutes of their own.
I think that's an interesting point. Perhaps the line is more telling that we think. The original lines are:
Obi-Wan should have tried harder to bring Anakin back to the good side, the way Luke did in Episode VI. But Obi-Wan did not, and I believe that Lucas is trying to say that Obi-Wan's subsequent actions were wrong.
Maybe dealing in absolutes is a Sith tendency, and Obi-Wan was falling for the same thing. He believed that Anakin was now evil, and no longer worth saving. In other words, Obi-Wan was considering that either Anakin was his friend or was a Sith. Perhaps Obi-Wan should have avoided the absolutes himself, and he should have tried to save Anakin. This was Lucas's way of indicating that while Obi-Wan's thinking was correct, his actions were wrong.
It seems that Obi-Wan learned his lesson after 20 years of solitude on Tatooine. In Episode IV he tells Han Solo, "There are alternatives to fighting."
This would not be the first time that Lucas has made a character say dialog incongruent to their actions to indicate when their actions are wrong. For example, in Episode II, Mace Windu tells Padme, "We're keepers of the peace. Not soldiers." However, at the end of the movie, Mace is leading clone troops into battle like
> galaxy, it would have been more interesting for him to 'see'
> lack of order in the galaxy causing chaos.
It wasn't just a one-liner. Anakin's feelings about this were all through Episodes II and III.
In Episode II, there was the whole discussion between Padme and Anakin on Naboo. Anakin says the system doesn't work. Padme asked how would he make it work.
Anakin in the scene can tell that Padme is shocked, so he plays it off that he's joking. Padme can't believe that Anakin feels that way so she assumes he's just kidding.
In Episode III, when Obi-Wan laments that the Senate is going to vote for more direct power under Palpatine, Anakin is pleased because it will help them make decisions faster and fight more effectively.
> Note that in the original trilogy, episodes IV-VI of "Star
> Wars" (SW), Lucas alludes that anyone can be part of the force.
> Your participation depends solely on your commitment to
> open- mindedness and the good side of the force. With this
> force, you can transcend the difficulties that you currently
> face. That message is a wonderfully uplifting message for kids
> of past and present generations.
I think this illustrates the problem with many fans of the original trilogy with regards the new movies. Lucas never said what you described above, and the concept that you describe is not one of his themes. You may have drawn this conclusion as a theme after watching Episodes IV-VI, and it may appeal to you, but it's not part of Lucas's story.
You have to think of Episodes I - VI as as a single movie, and due to the way Lucas made the movies, you walked into the middle of "the film". You drew some conclusions based on incomplete information, and unfortunately your conclusion was wrong.
It's kind of like if you walked into the last half of -- oh I don't know, let's say "Star Trek: First Contact" and you missed the whole part about Picard having been captured and made into a Borg in the first scene. Without this information, you had to create your own "beginning" to make sense of it. So maybe you drew a conclusion that Picard had initially created the Borg initially. Maybe you thought that the movie had a theme similar to Frankenstein, where it was about science dabbling into things that should be left alone. You're happy with the theme, but some years later, you get the opportunity to go back and see the first half of the movie. You see the events you missed, and that new information kills the theme you thought existed.
Episodes IV-VI are like that. Lucas themes existed throughout the movies, but they may not match whatever back story that some fans have created in their own minds once they see all six films. The issue is probably compounded by the fact that Star Wars sprouted a host of ancillary novels and other paraphernalia, to which Lucas does not feel constrained to tie his story.
The midichlorians are important for two reasons. First, they help with a theme of when the Republic degenerates into a dictatorship, science makes way for religion and superstition. In Episode I, it is clear that the Jedi understand the science behind The Force. For example, they actually could measure someone's potential related to the Force by their midichlorians count. By the time Episode IV came around, no one even knew the science behind the Force, and people dismissed it as a "hokey religion." Asimov did a similar theme with his Foundation series of stories.
Second the midichlorians provide an important explanation of why Darth Vader had lost much of his power and why Darth Sideous wanted Luke to be his replacement. Anakin had the highest midichlorian count of any Jedi, including Yoda, and he was destined to be the most powerful Jedi of all. However, when he lost his arms and legs, he lost nearly half his body mass and thus his midichlorian count fell by half. Thus he went from being more powerful than Darth Sideous to being maybe 80% as powerful. Still strong, but not exactly as powerful as Sideous would like. Thus, Sideous sought a replacement in Luke.
As for whether midichlorian counts are contrary to egalitarianism, I don't agree. If you want to be a fighter pilot, you have to have good eyesight. If you're born blind, you could learn to fly a plane (with the audio equivalent of instruments), but it would be surprisingly if that blind pilot flew anywhere nearly as well as the pilot with perfect vision. And perfect vision is often related to genetics. In Lucas's story, Force ability is related to genetics via midichlorians. This was foreshadowed in Episode VI, when Obi-Wan said that Luke and Leia had to be hidden because if the Emperor discovered Anakin had any offspring, they would be a threat to him. In other words, Anakin would pass his genetically high midichlorian count on to his children.
> Luke never met his father until he discovered the truth and he
> still tried to bring him to the good side of the force. Obi-Wan
> trained Anakin from the start, created a strong bond between
> both and he just gives up on him.
It's not a flaw. That's the whole point of the movie. Lucas talks about the duality of nature and the circular nature of violence. In each character, there is good and evil. More specifically, evil exists in good and good exists in evil. At the same time, violence begets violence, so the only way to end the cycle of violence is to refuse to fight. The only character who knows this as true is Luke Skywalker.
Obi-Wan tells Yoda he can't kill Anakin even after what Anakin had done (killed Younglings and aligned himself with Darth Sideous). Yoda tells him that Anakin is dead ("consumed by Darth Vader"). Obi-Wan accepts that reluctantly, and he confronts him. Obi-Wan tries to bring Anakin back, but he is too quick to use violence as his solution.
Luke on the other hand, throws away his lightsaber, and refuses to kill his father, which brings Anakin back (the spark of Anakin that was left in Vader). Anakin then kills Sideous (sacrificing himself) instead of allowing Sideous to kill Luke, and completes the fulfillment of the prophesy.
What people see as inconsistencies are often illustrations of the greater themes in the movies. Yoda was wise in Episode V, but he acted foolishly in Episodes II and III. Of course that makes sense, because how does one gain wisdom except by learning from one's mistakes? Yoda figures out that by Episode V that wars do not make one great. The events of Episode II and III taught him that. Except, Yoda did not learn one lesson between Episodes II and III: that he should not have given up on Anakin.
Luke for all his poor formal Jedi training understood that and that's why he prevailed in the end.