Hurin

Disclaimer: By saying this, I'm not crapping on the Prequels, but rather sticking up for the OT. . . they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. I'd say a lot of that is due to the progression and infiltration of pop culture into the media. Back then, science fiction and fantasy got no respect. The thought of giving a favorable review to a "space opera" which they considered to be a "children's movie" was repugnant to the high and mighty film critics of the day. Tolkien's work received a similar lack of respect until recently. College professors couldn't be bothered to take a "children's book" seriously. But when its fans grew up and became professors themselves, and pop culture became more accepted by our critical elites, suddenly Tolkien's works are now seen as "heroic epics" and classes are taught about them. Just my take on it. H

You are just lookin for ANY reason to piss on this movie aren't ya? Hey A1, if you would, ya know, actually look at what I'm writing before spouting off, you'd see over in the various Ep3 threads that I enjoyed the movie and have actually been defending it. But, don't let facts stand in your way. . . H P.S. Not to mention, what I wrote there actually supports the new movie. Kindly start making sense.

He may have been given orders to lose, and even incapacitate Obi-Wan before doing so. Sidious (it has been said) had promised Dooku that he would not let Anakin kill him if the plan went awry. But, of course, Sidious can't be trusted. Must be something about the name. Or, alternatively, both Kenobi and Skywalker have become much more powerful since they met last. The book (I'm only about 30 pages in now) says that they have each learned a lot from each other, and comlemented each other's abilities. That was a while ago (see above). Things change. Anakin is the more powerful Jedi. Yet Obi-Wan is wiser. It is Anakin's overconfidence and idiocy that finally costs him the battle with Obi-Wan even with Obi-Wan warning him not to "try it." Man, I can't believe I'm going to these lenghts to defend a prequel. But that's just the way I think those concerns can be explained.

You're correct, butts in seats is better than inflation adjusted dollars as a guage. Yet, adjusted dollars are much better than regular ol' dollars since regular ol' dollars are essentially meaningless.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why these aren't adjusted for inflation. Whoever's making them shoud realize that they're essentially useless if inflation isn't taken into account.

Oh, and what about "Lightbulbs raped my childhood!"

Me too.

Or, it could be what George Lucas said it was. That reference by Palpatine doesn't have to have any relation to Anakin's birth. Now, I could see the need to assign it that meaning if it had been mentioned with no obvious purpose. But it already serves as the plot device that motivates Anakin to consider the Dark Side. It doesn't need to serve two purposes. And, according to Lucas, it doesn't.

Finding a Slave women who isn't getting poked by her master would be hard in itself. But look at Tatooine, It's got pod racing to sharpen Anakin's skills, it's out of the Jedi's sphere of influence, and it's got Tuskin Raiders who are likely very succeptable to jedi mind tricks. Ones like "kidnap this woman, hold onto her for weeks, & just barely keep her alive." Sidious can see a great deal of the future through the Force. He doesn't need to have caused each and every event in Anakin's life. Rather, he just needs to see them coming and be ready to exploit them.

You guys are cracking me up with this "Sidious as Anakin's dad" thing. Lucas has quite directly said that this is just not the case. Now, he may change his mind next week and alter the movies to match. But when the "god" of the Star Wars universe says something definitive like that, it's no longer "open to interpretation." I'd say the same thing about the "balace prophecy". . . but there is still a bit of wiggle room in what Lucas has said on the matter. Very little. But it is there. So interpret away!

I was just thinking about this in the car. If you consider that Anakin's destiny as the "chosen one" can be postponed, but not avoided. . . then I suppose that when he chose to turn on Mace and aid Palpatine, he was rejecting his identity as the "chosen one." But, eventually the Force had its way, and he embraced his destiny (with the help of his son) in RotJ. Yet, if Mace Windu could kill the Sith Lord unaided, why was Anakin and the prophecy necessary? If anything, from a certain point of view, you could say that Anakin needlessly extended the reign of the Sith by turning on Windu. Though, back to reality, when George Lucas originally wrote that "Son of the Suns" line (upon which, I believe the "chosen one" is based), I fully believe that he had Luke in mind. Only in light of the prequels can Vader begin to take on that identity.

Amen! I got off the SW bandwagon (the original films excluded) in about 1995 when all those freakin' novels started coming out. I didn't care for Zahn much. But they weren't terrible. At least he tried to maintain some SW spirit. But, then more and more novels and comics started coming out that were seriously out of step with what most people then considered Star Wars to be (the tale of a Galactic Civil War). We got inundated with stories of how Han and Leia got married, and almost Star Trek-esque plotlines (mysterious alien species invade the galaxy with some new weapon, etc.) So, for me, my abandonment of full-fledged Star Wars fan status began well before the prequels or even the Special Editions of the OT. Those two things merely solidified it and accelerated my disenchantment. Though, this latest movie has somewhat reversed that process.

Actually, that's not the balance. Balance isn't brought to the Force until Vader throws the Emperor down the shaft, and then dies. When this happens, there are no Sith left, and the old Jedi Order is no more. There is balance because both extremes have been wiped out. Luke is a new begining, but without the trappings of the past. In many ways, he is the heir to the teachings of Qui Gon, a disciple of the "living Force". But if we are going by numbers to determine the balance of the force, doesn't Luke throw that out of balance at the end of ROTJ since there is one Jedi and no Sith? What determines the balance? The number of Jedi versus Sith being equal? Wouldn't this be ridiculous since everytime a Jedi or Sith dies, doesn't it just throw balance out of whack again? I can't see how this can be avoided. Thanks to anyone that can explain. You're about two days behind in the thread. Keep reading. You can save yourself some time by just skipping anything written by me. I type too much. Or, just skip to this post which defines the "balance prophecy" as set down by Lucas. But, also check out this post by Uxi where he explains it all in a bit more detail. Uxi, to my mind, is the resident Star Wars expert. He has a very wide breadth of Star Wars knowledge/trivia, and has obviously reflected on it all quite a bit. And I say this with some trepidation because we've vehemently disagreed in the past, and now I'm loathe to do so again in the future.

Well, I was in the bookstore today and was considering picking up RotJ to see how well it holds up given everything we know now. I picked up a copy and flipped to the passage above just because (as I said) it's my favorite. And immediately after it: "[Vader] wished he had met Yoda. He wanted to thank the wise old Jedi for training his son so well." Needless to say, I put the book down. Even at just a glance at a random page, it's woefully out of step with the prequel-revised Star Wars. But, it did get my mind thinking again over what the Star Wars universe might have been like in Lucas's mind before he began writing the prequels and felt that overwhelming need to tie everything and everyone together in order to satisfy the desire for film audiences to think: "Ooooh! Look, that/he/she is from the original movies!" With Tolkien, his son has published 10-15 five hundred-page books documenting just about every draft and revision of each and every one of Tolkien's works. I'd love to see something like that done with Star Wars some day. While, I'm on record as not believing that he ever had the prequels developed to a recognizable degree earlier than a few years ago, I still think there must be some really cool stuff buried in his personal archives. H

Will giant robots or Luke Skywalker become involved in this thread at some point?

Well, I'm pretty sure Lucas is interpreting the prophecy correctly. And I think Uxi's view on how the number of Jedi don't constitute an imbalance (and they therefore didn't need to die) helps to make sense of what Lucas says (that the prophecy is that the Sith will be destroyed). But, I think I answered my own question though. I thought, when I first saw the movie, that Windu had actually defeated Palpatine and could have indeed killed him. I thought Palpatine was just acting so pitiful in order to get Anakin to help him. But, I now see that Palpatine was faking defeat and drawing Anakin towards a point of no return (attacking Windu). The sudden return of Palpatine's power (which I mistakenly chalked up to being given a breather during Anakin and Windu's argument) which he then uses to kill Windu as soon as Anakin has crossed the line to the Dark Side sorta seals the deal I guess. It looks as though, even had Anakin tried to assist Windu in killing Palpatine, they would not have been able to do so at that time. . . otherwise, the prophecy's purpose (as set down by Lucas) was pointless. H

Yes, it was obvious that he was hamming it up for Anakin's sake. But was he actually defeated? Or, to put it another way: Was he faking it that he was defeated? Or was he just faking his horror at possibly being killed by Windu for Anakin's sake in order to obtain his help? H

You're explaining to me why Anakin did what he did. . . but not why the prophecy "made" it happen that way. The thing about prophecy and destiny (in most fiction) is that they are unavoidable and that they really are sorta controlling things. Okay, let me rephrase: If the entire purpose of the prophecy and/or Anakin's destiny is to kill the Sith Lord, it seems awfully counter-productive for Anakin to stop Mace Windu from killing him. If the purpose of the prophecy is to destroy the Sith, it seems odd that its instrument would stop that from happening, only to accomplish it twenty years later. H

So, according to Lucas, Anakin/Vader restores balance to the force by killing Sidious/Palpatine who represented an imbalance in the force. He was causing the imbalance both due to his powerful nature and because the dark side is excercised without any concern for balance. And, I take it that we are to believe that Vader had to go through the whole sha-bang up through RotJ in order to fulfill the prophecy and kill him. Because only at that point did he have the power (having grown since Ep3), the proximity to the emperor (having gained a certain level of trust), and the motivation (provided by Luke). But, here's my problem: Couldn't Anakin have just allowed Windu to kill Palpatine (or even assisted him!) and then balance would have been restored just as easily. . . with a lot less heartache and destruction (including Alderran!)? Here's the only rationalization I can come up with: Palpatine wasn't actually defeated by Mace Windu. He was faking defeat (and obviously hamming the helplessness up to induce Anakin to do what he did) in order to bring Anakin over to the dark side when he killed Windu. So, even at that time, if both Mace Windu and Anakin had tried to kill Sidious, they would not have been able to do so. That's as close as I can get to an explanation. Does the novel explain this at all? H

Don't know how I missed your post until now. Look, I'm exhausted by this too. So I'm going to try to be as brief as possible: This is where I'm still confused. Obviously, if your point is that he once said that. Then, no, something he says in 2005 can't erase those words from history. But, that's not really the point here. The point is whether what he said back then was true. And, therefore, what he has to say now about the veracity of what he said then is very relevant. He is essentially saying that he helped perpetuate ("played into") the myth of the 9+ movie series, even though it wasn't ever really in his plans. That, therefore, must establish some doubt as to whether what he said on prior occasions was in fact true. Though you may consider what he says today to be unpersuasive, it is hardly irrelevant and cannot be simply dismissed as such. Persuasiveness is subjective. Relevance is objective. And what he said is objectively relevant given that he addresses exactly what we are talking about. No court of law would consider a witness's forthright disavowal of prior testimony as irrelevant. I truly have no recollection of writing (or even thinking) that you held out any hope for additional movies. If I gave that impression (I've written a lot. . . too much, actually), I apologize. Best Regards, Hurin

I was doing some reading over at the Original Trilogy Forums and they've tackled some of this stuff too. But some guy posted a great summation on what George Lucas himself has had to say about a lot of the questions raised here: Regarding the "Balance Prophecy": Regarding how Anakin was conceived (Sith involvement?): Should Anakin have been trained? Is Ben and/or Qui-Gon to blame for the fall of the Jedi?:

In ANH: "This astromech droid of yours looks a little beat up. You want another one?" "Not on your life! That little droid and I have been through a lot together!" Not exactly a refridgerator. I think there is concern and affection shown towards the droids quite a bit in all the films. They are just confident that they can repair them when something goes wrong. Hence, Luke not letting R2's blown dome get him down when it's time to celebrate that he just saved the entire friggin' galaxy (not to mention, he didn't seem all that broken up about Biggs either). And, in Empire They all seemed genuinely concerned when Threepio went missing, and when he showed up in parts. . . but Han immediately says: "Lando has people that can fix 'em." Anyways, really, this is supposed to be a fun topic. Because the real answer to why Owen didn't recognize Threepio in ANH is (of course): Lucas didn't even know back then that Owen should recognize him because Lucas hadn't written the prequels yet. I guess what we're debating here isn't that so much as whether it's really plausible that Owen wouldn't recognize him. Obviously, you guys think it is. . . I personally just don't think Lucas cared whether it was plausible or not. He wanted to tie Threepio into the prequels directly (by having "Annie" build him). . . and he did so. . . knowing that his fans wouldn't even notice the problem or that they'd do the heavy lifting of rationalizing it if it was noticed. H

Well, I see that Lucas just mucking it up isn't a possible option here. Regarding Threepio not being recognizable to Owen. He does have a distinct name. And he introduces himself by name in ANH. Now, I could be wrong here, because I don't know the timeline. How long were Schmi and Threepio at the homestead before Schmi was abducted and Anakin came by to get Threepio and murder a bunch of Tuskens? If it was brief (under a year?). . . I guess I could see Owen not remembering Threepio (though it's still a stretch). But, if it's any longer than that, I'm sorry, but saying that Owen wouldn't remember Threepio's name or mannerisms, or voice (which I believe is somewhat unique based on the voice of the protocol droid on Bespin) just doesn't strike me as plausible. You might as well say that Luke wouldn't remember R2 or Threepio ten years later because droids are just a dime-a-dozen. Then again, maybe Owen did recognize them, and that is why he was so hot to have both their memories erased. But, I think that's probably more likely to be standard procedure when you just purchased a couple of possibly "hot" droids. H

I guess you can't incestuously tie everything together like that without screwing up in some ways.

Was just flipping channels and saw a minute of Ep2 on Fox. Anakin was just arriving at the Lars homestead to look for his mom. I'm sure this has been discussed before elsewhere (if not here on MW). . . but why the heck doesn't Owen recognize Threepio in ANH when he obviously knew Threepio back then, by name, appearance, and voice?