Revenge of the Sith

[Agent ONE]

...

But I digress. . . I was startled to see that Anakin was crying in that scene after he slaughters all the seperatists. He's already completely given himself over to the Dark Side at this point. . . yet, when they come up on his face as he's just standing there gazing over the lava, you can see tear streaks running down his face. I was surprised to see that he still had conflict and remorse at this point. Even though he was obviously committed to seeing this path through.

H

Well, he never fully turned to the Dark Side, as we saw in ROTJ. Or maybe he fully tunred, but was never really evil. I think that distinction is there.

[Hurin]

...

But I digress. . . I was startled to see that Anakin was crying in that scene after he slaughters all the seperatists.  He's already completely given himself over to the Dark Side at this point. . . yet, when they come up on his face as he's just standing there gazing over the lava, you can see tear streaks running down his face.  I was surprised to see that he still had conflict and remorse at this point.  Even though he was obviously committed to seeing this path through.

H

Well, he never fully turned to the Dark Side, as we saw in ROTJ. Or maybe he fully tunred, but was never really evil. I think that distinction is there.

The story arc is about redemption. You can't be redeemed if you weren't evil.

I think people make too much of the "Once you start down the Dark Path" thing that Yoda always says. . . it's obviously not the case, given what Vader does at the end of RotJ. Yoda has been wrong before. It looks like he was wrong about that too.

But it's pretty f'ing clear that Vader was evil. You don't go around sabering scads of "younglings", killing everyone you used to care about (or attempting to) and taking part in the destruction of whole planets (the scale of this is often overlooked since planets seem like cities in SW) unless you are E-V-I-L.

H

[Effect]

She brings him back and in the end is her and Luke and Leia's unborn child(named Anakin) that brings and end to Palp(he wanted the unborn child for himself).

What?!

My bad. I meant to say Han and Leia. Was typing pretty fast.

[mikeszekely]

I think people make too much of the "Once you start down the Dark Path" thing that Yoda always says. . . it's obviously not the case, given what Vader does at the end of RotJ. Yoda has been wrong before. It looks like he was wrong about that too.

Except that, EU stuff aside, we don't know of any Jedi who turned to the Dark Side and were redeemed. It's possible that Yoda believed it couldn't be done, and it's possible that Anakin only did it because he was the Chosen One.

Then again, I don't think that's the case. I think Yoda was speaking of Luke specifically. It's part of the foreshadowing for a sequel trilogy I was speculating on a few posts back.

[Sundown]

Hehe, just at the point where Anakin and Obi-Wan are dueling, after they've gone across that tight-rope catwalk/pipe. . . did anybody else notice that little floating droid wander onto the screen, sorta look at them, turn towards the camera, and then wander off. . . that's classic neo-Lucas.

Yes, caught that right away, and found it pretty annoying. A little droid going "look at me!! Aren't I neat?!" when the attention should be fully focused upon Anakin and Obiwan. Was definitely a little distracting to the mood and atmosphere of the scene. And I was expecting an intense duel on the pipe, except no such luck.

-Al

[Agent ONE]

...

But I digress. . . I was startled to see that Anakin was crying in that scene after he slaughters all the seperatists.  He's already completely given himself over to the Dark Side at this point. . . yet, when they come up on his face as he's just standing there gazing over the lava, you can see tear streaks running down his face.  I was surprised to see that he still had conflict and remorse at this point.  Even though he was obviously committed to seeing this path through.

H

Well, he never fully turned to the Dark Side, as we saw in ROTJ. Or maybe he fully tunred, but was never really evil. I think that distinction is there.

The story arc is about redemption. You can't be redeemed if you weren't evil.

I think people make too much of the "Once you start down the Dark Path" thing that Yoda always says. . . it's obviously not the case, given what Vader does at the end of RotJ. Yoda has been wrong before. It looks like he was wrong about that too.

But it's pretty f'ing clear that Vader was evil. You don't go around sabering scads of "younglings", killing everyone you used to care about (or attempting to) and taking part in the destruction of whole planets (the scale of this is often overlooked since planets seem like cities in SW) unless you are E-V-I-L.

H

Don't agree... The KIDS were evil in his eyes.

[Hurin]

Don't agree... The KIDS were evil in his eyes.

Well, I think you're kidding. But on the off chance that you're not. . .

I didn't realize that you were initiated into the "Cult of Vader."

He's the bad guy. He's the villain. He may have had reasons for becoming the bad guy. But that doesn't change the fact that he eventually lost sight of even those reasons and was consumed by greed, a lust for power, and his own fear.

I just posted this at originaltrilogy.com. But it seems appropriate here as well:

It's always startling to me how we can be told that the Sith lie and manipulate and turn friends against friends and cause confusion between good and evil. . . and we know that Palpatine is the Sith Lord. . . and yet people who have this odd attachment to Vader and or The Empire repeat Palpatine's propoganda talking points as though they are objective truths.

Seriously people. . . there are good guys and bad guys in this story. It's a very simple Good Vs Evil scenario. Stop trying to look more deeply into it than even Lucas intends. He never intended his audience to believe that the Jedi were evil. . . he only wanted you to understand how Anakin could be fooled into believing it. Palpatine obviously spouts twisted propoganda at Anakin in order to fool him. How odd is it that some people, even knowing this, buy into it as well, just as Anakin does?

[JsARCLIGHT]

I think a point that Agent One is making is that in Anakin's mind he is not evil, he is the "good guy". He is believing in the republic and fighting to maintain it he thinks. On no level does that dismiss the bad things he does but it makes a good point as to his true mindset and polarity. Think of it in modern day terms that we can identify with: let's say you are a soldier for your country and the president tells you the army you belong to is a subversive element inside the government that is planning a coup. You are faithful to your country above your army and will follow the orders of your leader believing they are "right". In your mind, wiping out your own army to prevent the coup is "good"... but that is once again playing to the whole "who decides what is good and what is evil" angle of human nature. Good is usually defined by the majority or in the case of war, the victor. If the Nazis had won WW2 their warped values would have been considered "good" and those of their defeated enemies (us) would have been "evil". I will not argue that the killing of children is a very not nice thing, but in the context of the situation Anakin was placed in the children where an extention of the organization he was tasked with eliminating. Using another analogy, what do you do if you are confronted with children who are training to be terrorists? Or the Hitler Youth, children training to be Nazis? They will fight you just as their older members do, and if that one kid who is fighting the clones on the landing gantry when Bail shows up is any indication of the skill level of child Jedis they would have posed a threat to the empire/republic.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think Anakin thought he was in the right and seen from his side he sort of was. He was stopping a war in one action by killing the separatist leaders, he was stopping a coup by killing the Jedi and he was ensuring the safety of the republic by doing so. In the same breath I will also say that the SS thought they were right and Stalin thought he was right... it is only in the presence of good can evil be called evil. Without a proper measuring stick evil can be seen as good in some lights.

[Sundown]

Seriously people. . . there are good guys and bad guys in this story. It's a very simple Good Vs Evil scenario. Stop trying to look more deeply into it than even Lucas intends. He never intended his audience to believe that the Jedi were evil. . . he only wanted you to understand how Anakin could be fooled into believing it. Palpatine obviously spouts twisted propoganda at Anakin in order to fool him. How odd is it that some people, even knowing this, buy into it as well, just as Anakin does?

I wonder if it's the fact that Palatine's assertion-- that morality is subjective, that no moral truths exist, and that everyone acts upon personal interests alone... and that it's all a matter of "perspective"-- ring too close to what we hear daily in our postmodern culture. It sounds so familiar and we've been so programmed to accept this line of thinking that we just take it to be truth, even when the source is less than credible.

But it seems that the film is trying to show that one of evil's bag of tricks is confusing the moral issue, blurring the distinction between good and evil. But being able to recognize this requires being able to recognize evil in the first place-- something that our personal desires and fears can make difficult, as blatant as it might actually be.

-Al

[Hurin]

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think Anakin thought he was in the right and seen from his side he sort of was. He was stopping a war in one action by killing the separatist leaders, he was stopping a coup by killing the Jedi and he was ensuring the safety of the republic by doing so.

But, well, I don't think Vader truly has good intentions. By the end of the film, he's obviously just in love with power and the aquisition of more. He talks of overthrowing Palpatine and then, as an after-thought, sorta throws in the part about "making things the way they should be" to Padme so that he doesn't sound too megalomaniacal (after he realizes he's losing her). He's clearly not thinking of all the wonderful things he'll do for the galaxy when he's in power, he's just in love with the idea of being the one in power. It was the lies of Palpatine that Vader used to justify his transition over to being that person. He needed them to get over that hump and to bury what was left of his "good side". . . but once there, he fell hard and fast into evil. . . as Yoda would have warned.

The book explains this all very well actually. When he awakens and realizes that he killed Padme, he realizes all the lies he told himself to justify what he had done. . . and that it really was all about him. It wasn't about saving Padme, since he thought nothing of choking her to death as soon as she didn't want him. . . etc.

H

Edited June 6, 2005 by Hurin

[Knight26]

Well I finally saw Ep-3 while I was in Tucson on Vacation and these are my observations and comments:

It was better then the last two, but still not as good as the OT, except in terms of most of the effects.

The whole thing felt hurried, especially the openning battle, which if you read the book is like the first 1/3 of it, so I was expecting something much much bigger, especially with the saber duels.

The attitude of the characters in battle, if you looked at ANakin and Obi-Wan in the battle they treated it like fragging game, there was no tension or emotion, just calm like it was no big deal.

The saber duel with dooku had no emotion behind it, and I'm sorry Hayden can't act, there was no emotion in any of performances in this one.

Portman never looked full term at any point in the movie, especially not with a pair of healthy twins onboard, and even her acting was horrid this time around, I think everyone just wanted to be done and leave it all behind so they were not presenting their A games.

I never really got the sense that ANakin went evil, other then the dark brooding looks and the statement after the fact that he killed the younglings it seemed more like he was a guy who got trapped in the corner. You never even see him kill another jedi, only chop off Windu's hand. True he slaughters the sep leaders but so what, they were his enemy anyway, you never see him turn on his friends until the very end. If anything he is a pupper whose strings just got handed over to a new master.

The Sidous battle against four jedi masters, ok come on these four are suppossed to be the baddest sword fighters and mofo jedi there are and three of them go down like wimps. I can accept one or two going down in surprise, but not all three, maybe if Sidous pulled a few more darkside tricks, but only then.

The grevious duel, interesting but could have been better.

The jedi purge was one of the best montages of the film, I just wish we could have seen more of that, and maybe seen a few jedi escape and go to ground, bloodied, beaten but alive, and not all caught completely off guard like a bunch of punks.

The final duels were good, with lots of action, but once again no real emotion, you never really saw Obi-Wan attempting to bring Anakin back around. And, the way it ended was crap I'm sorry, I wouldn't even leave my worst enemy to burn to death like that. It would have been far more merciful to kill him right then and there. In the novelization of ROTJ and the Radio show, Obi-Wan clearly says to luke that he knocked Anakin into the molten lava and that somehow after he left Anakin clawed his way out.

The very end wrapped up nicely but still I would have liked to have seen some early model ties or x-wings or y-wings. The Guy who played Tarkin looked spot on from what I could see, but Hayden just couldn't fill out the Vader Armor, I guess Vader gets some more enhancements over the next couple of decades.

Overall opinion the movie was a good as it could have been given the two that came before. Had the first two been handled better this one could have been the super but kicker we all wanted to see. And, had the first two been handled better then someone who had never seen the original trilogy and watched them Ep-1 to Ep-6 sequenceially could still be caught by surprise with the Vader, "I am your father," line, if the movies had been written right in the first place.

Imagine this if you will. Ep-1 features a teenage Anakin, a force sensative young warrior,say 15, never discovered by the Jedi but living on Naboo as one of the Queens guards. A trio of Jedi come to assist with the trade dispute, Qui-Gon, with his newly knighted Padawan Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan's first apprentice. We skip Tatooine all together, but ANakin mentions that he was originally from there, or that he has a half brother there, maybe they even visit. Darth Maul kills both Qui-Gon and appears to kill Obi-Wans first apprentice, kicking him down a shaft, he disappears, body never found. Anakin is made a Jedi apprentice becuase he has already been honing his skills on his own, though the council disagrees with this becuase of his age, but Qui-Gon initially wants to train him. Midi-chlorians are explained not as the cause of the force but rather as like anti-bodies that concetrate in the force sensative, if they are even left in.

Ep-2 starts the clone wars, Anakin is a Jedi Knight now, maybe still an apprentice, but his relationship with Padme has grown over the intervening years and show more of his relationship to palps. The clone wars start earlier in the movie, keep Dooku but expand the character and have him make reference periodically to the fact that he will not be Sidious' apprentice long, that he is grooming another. Really show ANakins start down the dark path with him leading some major slaughter which Obi-Wan witnesses and confront him about. THis leads into their battle on Mustafar where OBi-Wan kicks Anakin into the lava, the movie ends with Padme revealing she is pregnant to Obi-Wan and a single mechanical hand clutching the volcanic sand.

Ep-3 starts a few months later. Padme is nearly full term and believes ANakin to be dead, only Obi-Wan and a few on the Jedi council know of her pregnancy. Obi-Wan defeats and kills Dooku, Dooku saying that another is already there to take his place. A new sithlord appears, a proto-vader, not quite the vader we all know and fear but an earlier suit. The clone wars are coming to an end an the jedi are being slaughtered, show that the Jedi have been set up in numerous battles into accidentally killing innocents, ruining their image. Palps can then more easily declare himself emperor and when the Jedi come to arrest him, after coming up with evidence he was behind the whole thing, Vader comes in and slaughters the lot of them. Keep Palps a manipulator not a fighter, having others fight in his place. Palps then declares himself emperor after revealing the Jedi tried to kill him and introduces the man who saved him, Darth Vader, announcing he will lead the Jedi purge and end the war. Vader goes out and kills all the Jedi and the Sep leaders. Obi-Wan recognizes his moves as those he taught his own apprentices, Anakin and the who died in Ep-1 so naturally assumes that he is one of them, but is not sure who at first maybe his figures it out but leaves it unstated. He and Yoda escape and go into hiding, show a few other Jedi also escape. Padme goes into hiding on Alderaan, but say she is injured and dies a few years later and that she married Bail Organa in order to cover up who the true father is.

In this way Obi-Wan really never lies to Luke either, he never knows for certain that Vader is Anakin, this allows for more surprise when he reveals the truth to Luke. Mind you this is all rough and just coming out of my head with no real work put into it, but from the few people I hace desribed just a scenario to it works much better. Perhaps if Lucas had written all three at once before starting filming on Ep-1 and had asked for help from better writers it may have come out something like this and we all would have gotten a better prequel trilogy.

[lord_breetai]

The story arc is about redemption. You can't be redeemed if you weren't evil.

I think people make too much of the "Once you start down the Dark Path" thing that Yoda always says. . . it's obviously not the case, given what Vader does at the end of RotJ. Yoda has been wrong before. It looks like he was wrong about that too.

I don't think that it's that Yoda was wrong... but it was a warning about how HARD it is to come back not that it's impossible... like how Jesus made the statement about "a horse passing through a needle's eye" in the Bible but through God nothing is impossible. Here it's very hard to escape the clutches of the dark side but through the force nothing is impossible...

But Yoda wanted to put extra strength in his warning. "if you do some poo it's not easy to fix it" is not as strong as "One you strike down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiney, consume you it will as it did Obi-wan's apprentice"

And there in the same statement that Yoda talks about the Dark Side being a no-return senario he mentions Vader as being CONSUMED by it... and Vader came back... I think Yoda's statement was just showing how hard it was to come back once you've given in and tasted the temptations of the dark side.

[RainBot]

Everyone was justified in their actions. Except for the Emperor, he is the only truly evil one. But I see this movie very much like real life... People are selfish and make less than logical decisions constantly.

Justified in what way? I am interested to see how you would justify each character's actions. I am not being sarcastic, I atually want to know what you think about this.

[RainBot]

I was going to write out a detailed response to your comments, and then I realized you must have seen a different version movie because your impression of it is so far from what actually happened, it's laughable.

Honestly, I'm all for people hating on the movie (you have a right to your opinion) but when you complain about motivations and actions that never existed and try to come off as some elitist film critic you're no better than those guys who hate on it just because it's the "cool" thing to do.

As for what everyone is saying about seeing it a second time, I totally agree, I enjoyed it a lot more the second time as well. Now I'm just waiting for my buddy to get back from Iraq so I can see it a third time. Poor guy was cussing me when I was telling him about my opening day tickets.

I would have liked you to write a detailed response to my points. Since we saw the same movie, and I labled each character as being reprehensible at the very least for not being communicative, I'd like to see where you think I detract from the movie.

It can understand why you assumed I hated the movie. Although I stated that the movie had horrible characters in it, I actually didn't hate the movie. I thought the music (that wasn't tracked from previous movies), the special effects and even Haden's acting (gasp) were laudable. Sure the script was nowhere near as tight as the original trilogy, but it far surpassed Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. In fact, Lucas held true to his word that the film would make us look at the original trilogy in a new way. I now will have emotional difficulty watching Episodes IV,V and VI knowing that Obi Wan is the kind of fellow to turn his back on someone he taught poorly. What I was extremely repulsed by were the characters and what they did and did not do at crucial moments. These are not complaints about the film, but of the characters.

Anakin was evil for killing the children? If you believed you had met your soulmate (what are the odds soulmates finding each other?Rare. We're nopt talking casual relationships here. We're talking soulmate. Not ships that pass in the night), and your soulmate was going to die if you did nothing, would you not want to find a way to save her? What if the way to save her would mean turning your back on culture, your family and friends? Perhaps we differ here, and that is your perogative. For me, I would choose my mate over a billion people's lives.

Would it be easy to do? No way. Anakin didn't find it easy, but he wanted to save his mate. Anakin's error was in not communicating any of this to Padme. He should have been able to talk to Obi Wan about it, but Obi Wan wasn't exactly the best person to go to for a heart to heart. Anakin didn't have anyone to go to for real, honest advice.

And don't forget Yoda. Yoda KNEW there was life after death, and he doesn't tell anyone until AFTER the big hoopla on Mustafar. WHAT about when Anakin went to see him? Yoda went on about how "death is a natural part of life". Bull crap: Yoda had a way out thanks to Qui Gon, and didn't tell Anakin. Fading away on Dagobah was a fate too good for him.

Please, outline what you think is wrong about my assessment, and I would be happy to discuss it. The movie did not suck. It was a Star Wars movie that, I guess, really opened my eyes to the fact that the characters were really annoying and destructively stupid.

[Agent ONE]

I think a point that Agent One is making is that in Anakin's mind he is not evil, he is the "good guy". He is believing in the republic and fighting to maintain it he thinks. On no level does that dismiss the bad things he does but it makes a good point as to his true mindset and polarity. Think of it in modern day terms that we can identify with: let's say you are a soldier for your country and the president tells you the army you belong to is a subversive element inside the government that is planning a coup. You are faithful to your country above your army and will follow the orders of your leader believing they are "right". In your mind, wiping out your own army to prevent the coup is "good"... but that is once again playing to the whole "who decides what is good and what is evil" angle of human nature. Good is usually defined by the majority or in the case of war, the victor. If the Nazis had won WW2 their warped values would have been considered "good" and those of their defeated enemies (us) would have been "evil". I will not argue that the killing of children is a very not nice thing, but in the context of the situation Anakin was placed in the children where an extention of the organization he was tasked with eliminating. Using another analogy, what do you do if you are confronted with children who are training to be terrorists? Or the Hitler Youth, children training to be Nazis? They will fight you just as their older members do, and if that one kid who is fighting the clones on the landing gantry when Bail shows up is any indication of the skill level of child Jedis they would have posed a threat to the empire/republic.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think Anakin thought he was in the right and seen from his side he sort of was. He was stopping a war in one action by killing the separatist leaders, he was stopping a coup by killing the Jedi and he was ensuring the safety of the republic by doing so. In the same breath I will also say that the SS thought they were right and Stalin thought he was right... it is only in the presence of good can evil be called evil. Without a proper measuring stick evil can be seen as good in some lights.

Thanks J... You just saved me a sh!tload of typing. Hurin, read that again and think of me.

[Hurin]

I think a point that Agent One is making is that in Anakin's mind he is not evil, he is the "good guy". He is believing in the republic and fighting to maintain it he thinks. On no level does that dismiss the bad things he does but it makes a good point as to his true mindset and polarity. Think of it in modern day terms that we can identify with: let's say you are a soldier for your country and the president tells you the army you belong to is a subversive element inside the government that is planning a coup. You are faithful to your country above your army and will follow the orders of your leader believing they are "right". In your mind, wiping out your own army to prevent the coup is "good"... but that is once again playing to the whole "who decides what is good and what is evil" angle of human nature. Good is usually defined by the majority or in the case of war, the victor. If the Nazis had won WW2 their warped values would have been considered "good" and those of their defeated enemies (us) would have been "evil". I will not argue that the killing of children is a very not nice thing, but in the context of the situation Anakin was placed in the children where an extention of the organization he was tasked with eliminating. Using another analogy, what do you do if you are confronted with children who are training to be terrorists? Or the Hitler Youth, children training to be Nazis? They will fight you just as their older members do, and if that one kid who is fighting the clones on the landing gantry when Bail shows up is any indication of the skill level of child Jedis they would have posed a threat to the empire/republic.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think Anakin thought he was in the right and seen from his side he sort of was. He was stopping a war in one action by killing the separatist leaders, he was stopping a coup by killing the Jedi and he was ensuring the safety of the republic by doing so. In the same breath I will also say that the SS thought they were right and Stalin thought he was right... it is only in the presence of good can evil be called evil. Without a proper measuring stick evil can be seen as good in some lights.

Thanks J... You just saved me a sh!tload of typing. Hurin, read that again and think of me.

Come on now, nobody actually believes that you would have typed all that!

And, in case you hadn't noticed, I've responded.

H

[Stamen0083]

For me, I would choose my mate over a billion people's lives.

Would it be easy to do? No way.

The needs of many outweigh the needs of one.

While it would be extremely difficult to sacrifice a mate to save a billion people, it would still be the right thing to do. The billion dead people will leave behind a billion mourning mates. I would rather mourn whom I've lost than make each of a billion people mourn one of the billions they've lost.

When Yoda was talking to Anakin about losing Padme, Yoda does NOT know about life after death yet.

If you've read the gunship segment I posted, you will see that Obi-Wan did not teach him poorly, and that he did not turn his back on Anakin. Anakin has always been negligent of the way of the Jedi, sometimes even going out of his way to subvert the rules completely.

The Jedi are not completely faultless, however. Communications is always the biggest cause of tragedy, I think (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, anyone?), and in this case, the Jedi failed to make it painfully clear to Anakin that not willing to give up the one you love can make one fall to the Dark Side, even though it is one of the most important tenet of the Jedi Order.

[Druna Skass]

Don't know if this was already brought up or not, it's a big thread and frankly I don't feel like going though the whole thing.

If you think about it though, Anakin did bring balance to the force. If you look at light and dark as two aspects of the same thing then you could think of the last 1000 years of the Jedi Order as an overabundance of light. Anakin brought an end to the Jedi Order and brought about a Sith rule, by bringing about the Sith rule he balanced out the abundance of light.

[Hurin]

If you think about it though, Anakin did bring balance to the force. If you look at light and dark as two aspects of the same thing then you could think of the last 1000 years of the Jedi Order as an overabundance of light. Anakin brought an end to the Jedi Order and brought about a Sith rule, by bringing about the Sith rule he balanced out the abundance of light.

Well, we did debate this at length. Start reading here.

[Uxi]

As the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and this is how it is with Anakin. Anakin means to do good and tries for many years but ultimately he succumbs to selfishness desire to keep those he loves alive. Forever. It's always been about him and not his loved ones at all. His lust for power to defy the natual order corrupts himself, especially once he decides to forgo his Jedi restraint . His twisted ideas that the Jedi are the evil ones are founded only in Sidious' morally relativistic deceit and erroneous justification of the actions caused by his own wicked selfishness. Anakin BECAME evil, mostly over the course of Ep 3, though the seeds were sown in Attack of the Clones and foretold in the Phantom Menace.

Rainbot, Yoda didn't understand what was happening with Qui-Gon and immortality until Revenge of the Sith, indeed not until after his confrontation with Darth Sidious.

Oh and Knight26, Midichlorians have NEVER been explained as causation of the Force, only as correlation. It's merely a fancy psuedo-biological way to say "the Force is strong in my family..."

[Warmaker]

Is it really selfish to keep your loved ones alive?

Is it really selfish to somehow prevent something disastrous to happen to someone you love?

Let me say this: For some unknown reason, you KNOW, it will be GUARANTEED, that your Wife/Husband/Girlfriend/Boyfriend, will be killed by something at a certain time, will you stand by and let it happen?

I, myself wouldn't. Fate be d**ned.

The Jedi Order seemed to have a desire to promote emotionless beings with absolutely no attachments. DROIDS, in a manner. If there was a Jedi with slight nuances, they are exempt from the highest levels of the Order. The best example in the Prequels? Qui-Gon. The Phantom Menace was subpar, but one of the best things I felt was Qui-Gon. Calm, never to anger, firm, yet does what is right and needs to be done. It is the latter, that tad bit of rebelliousness, that kept him from the Council.

If Anakin Skywalker had followed every teaching of the Jedi Order, he would never have risked his life to save Obi-Wan numerous times, if it risked an operation. Obi-Wan, for all his greatness, would have been dead LONG before Episode III. You hear about this in Episode III and Episode II. You hear repeated mention of Anakin saving Obi-Wan. In the book, you read about Anakin risking entire systems and operations, to save his friend, Obi-Wan.

P.S.- As for the Prophecy, Anakin does indeed restore balance. HE was the one to kill the Emperor. The road was twisted and long, but he did destroy Palpatine, due to his son.

Also, IMO, the Republic would have became an Empire and the Jedi Order STILL destroyed even if Palpatine didn't have Anakin's support. Palpatine's manipulations and stealth, and total control of the Republic military would have achieved the same. Turning Anakin was a huge bonus in the cause of the Sith. If he failed turning Anakin, he would probably have taken him down the same way he was going to take down Luke.

Edited June 7, 2005 by Warmaker

[Stamen0083]

Is it really selfish to keep your loved ones alive?

Is it really selfish to somehow prevent something disastrous to happen to someone you love?

No, it's not selfish to keep your loved ones alive. It's not selfish to prevent something disastrous from happening to someone you love.

It IS selfish when doing so results in the death of someone else.

Given a choice to save an entire star system or your loved one, what is your decision?

[Warmaker]

I try to save them.

If I was in THEIR shoes, I'd expect the same from a loved one and a true friend.

[Stamen0083]

So even if those billions of others died, leaving behind grieving loved ones, just so you are happy, that is not selfish?

[Hurin]

Is it really selfish to keep your loved ones alive?

Is it really selfish to somehow prevent something disastrous to happen to someone you love?

But you have to ask yourself if Anakin truly loved Padme selflessly. Or did he love her jealously? Did he love her or how just how she made him feel. . . the though to possessing her? Did he love her unconditionally?

The book demonstrates the nature of Anakin's love pretty clearly:

That there was no Vader.  That there was only you.  Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all you.  Is you.

Only you.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself.

It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the finaly cruelty of the Sith--

Because now your self is all you will ever have.

Edit: And if a friend of mine killed 10 billion people in order to save me from death, I think I'd shoot my "friend" myself.

Edited June 7, 2005 by Hurin

[wolfx]

Edit: And if a friend of mine killed 10 billion people in order to save me from death, I think I'd shoot my "friend" myself.

What if your "friend" was "battle damaged ala dragonball" Angelina Jolie?

Topic at hand, yes i think i would sacrifice my loved one for the sake of millions that I don't even know or care about. Because knowing i could've saved a million if i sacrificed one....i wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Actually i don't think i can live myself if I did the former either. Decisions decisions.

JEDI HARAKIRI!!

*puts lightsaber up a** and then turns it on*

[azrael]

But you have to ask yourself if Anakin truly loved Padme selflessly. Or did he love her jealously? Did he love her or how just how she made him feel. . . the though to possessing her? Did he love her unconditionally?

The book demonstrates the nature of Anakin's love pretty clearly:

You could kinda pick that up in the movie. It was a bit more sutle though. In the scene where Padme is on the patio, Anakin says "It's because I'm so in love with you." After the nightmare, he says "I won't let this happen." He may think he's doing it for her but he's doing it save himself from the pain.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Edit: And if a friend of mine killed 10 billion people in order to save me from death, I think I'd shoot my "friend" myself.

But to rub salt in the wound (and to make this a more accurate comparison) you were going to die tommorow in a car accident anyway. Because the Sith lord who promised your friend to help avoid your inevitiable death knew your death was inevitable anyway, and thought it was a pretty decent bargain since your friend didn't state in detail how the sith lord was supposed to prevent your death and in which instance it was to be prevented. (ie maybe you get shot, die of poisoning, car accident, train accident, old age, any of the above etc and he can cheat and say he prevented one of these but not something else that caused your death)

The devil always gets the better end of the deal see. Anakin didn't read the fine print and realise his wifes death may be because of what he is doing himself

Edited June 7, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Stamen0083]

What if your "friend" was "battle damaged ala dragonball" Angelina Jolie?

You are so cruel for bringing up such a torturous possibility.

[Chas]

I believe it is in episode two that Obi-Wan tells Anakin that love is not forbbiden to the Jedi, indeed it is a primary requirement, to love all living things, to love your enemies as you love your friends. But this notion of love is significantly different from that which we commonly have in mind when we talk about our loved ones, or our mates, the love he is talking about is: love WITHOUT ATTACHMENT. I think what Anakin never understood was that to fear the death of a loved one is a selfish act; because the fear has nothing to do with that person dieing but everything to do with us having to go on living without them. Death is not a loss for those that have died only for those left behind.

To love without attachment a Jedi has to be reconceiled with the transient nature of life, with the inevitability of death -all things pass-. For the Jedi death means becomming one with the Force which surrounds and penetrates all living things. Why would a Jedi fear that happening to anyone? Why would a Jedi mourn the loss of a friend (or and enemy for that matter) who has become one with the Force? This is why Yoda says he would not hesitate to sacrifice Obi-Wan to end the war and why Obi responds in kind.

To love without attachment does not require that one be an emotionless droid. It does require that one think of the other person and not oneself.

If you love something let it go.

(edit-typo)

Edited June 7, 2005 by Chas

[Sundown]

Is it really selfish to keep your loved ones alive?

Is it really selfish to somehow prevent something disastrous to happen to someone you love?

Well, depends on the motivation. And I'd think most motivations that tend to pick our personal favorites over others tend to be inherently selfish-- at least when it comes to allowing massive harm to come to numerous others... just so we can spare ourselves the grief of having to see that happen to folks we're fond of.

Well, I suppose "love" might make it all seem justifiable, but the cynical me has seen that sort of self-absorbed "love" cause plenty of blatant selfishness and insensitivity in lots of folks, myself included.

There's this CS Lewis quote I love that goes something like, Selfish pride is always lurking in us. First we might hug or embrace a person for our love of them and feel the pleasure of the embrace as a reward. The next time we hug them, we do it for the pleasure it brings. Anyway, it isn't long before we've made everything about our desires and our wants, even in things that were once pure and selfless.

-Al

[myk]

.............Yeah, anyways, 'just saw Episode 3 for the sith, I mean sixth time and what I'm enjoying is watching episodes 4, 5 and 6 with renewed interest. Suddenly, all of those relationships and stories that George Lucas had seemingly conjured from nowhere have substance. Reviewing Obi-Wan's second and final encounter on the Death Star with Vader was surprisingly exciting, after having seen their duel on Mustafar.

What is evil? That's just a point of view, as has been already discussed to death in this thread. As far as I'm concerned, after Vader murdered Padme and he awoke as his mechanical self, he decided that he would continue with his own personal plans for universal domination, waiting for the day that he would eventually be able to overthrow Palpatine-a being obviously far more powerful than he or any of the Jedi Order. I believe that Vader changed those plans however, when he learned of his kids. I might even say that he changed his plans for universal conquest to include Luke during their encounter in Bespin, but I'm probably just reading too much into this thing...

Evil? Evil's a label and subject to perspective. Selfishness? I can't actually attest to Anakin's selfishness because Hayden and Natalie's forced chemistry and dead-on-arrival acting was about as convincing as the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes. As for Vader, he just wants to conquer like you, me or any other creature and that's just natural....

Edited June 7, 2005 by myk

[myk]

Is it really selfish to keep your loved ones alive?

Is it really selfish to somehow prevent something disastrous to happen to someone you love?

No, it's not selfish to keep your loved ones alive. It's not selfish to prevent something disastrous from happening to someone you love.

It IS selfish when doing so results in the death of someone else.

Given a choice to save an entire star system or your loved one, what is your decision?

You bring up a great point on morality. However, my response to that question is this: the person that I'm trying to save is someone I know and therefor love. The other beings that would die or otherwise be sacrificed are people I don't know or even care to know-I don't love those people and I never will. Consequently, I would choose what Anakin chose. Also take into consideration that the only people that Anakin ever truly loved were his mother and Padme-both of which he was convinced had died and would die, respectively, because of his oath and ties to the Jedi; it's obvious why he chose what he did.

Keep in mind though guys, that Anakin did NOT choose his path easily. Although George Lucas did absoloutely NO justice to Anakin's decision to the Dark Side in Episode 3, the novelization gradually and thoughtfully shows Anakin's painful decision to eventually betray the Jedi Order and their beliefs.

Wait a minute....Just a second ago I was a heatshield scrubber....

Edited June 7, 2005 by myk

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

I don't view anakin the good guy as evil, but I do view him as being perverted towards evil. That is to say he was tricked by somebody more cunning than himself which is what makes his actions soo wrong, but not necessarily all his own fault.

There is a difference between the bad guys who are naturally evil (they get pleasure from other people's pain and thier greed stems from doing evil as a reward to themselves) and those who never started out evil in the first place but were lied to and tricked and fell from grace. (those who were misguided by thinking they could fight evil with evil. Which is where Obi-wan failed as mentor, because he didn't pay attention to anakin and his situation enough to protect him from Sidious' scheming before Anakin changed into the monster and it was too late by then)

This is why I think of anakin/vader as being two completely different individuals stuck in a single body - his conscience split in half and he became two people. (a little like Gollum from lord of the rings where you feel sorry for him but recognise the evil in him for what it really is, by not changing the definition of evil to make excuses for him. The compassionate part of you realises it would be unfair to kill him, but the just part says he "deserves" it. Neither is right or wrong, but you hold faith they will come back from it all and hope they will turn it around themselves.)

Luke's rescue of his dad involved first defeating the dark side by not letting fear morph into hate and let these emotions guide actions, which the emperor wants all along since he is looking for powerful recruits to make the dark side even more powerful by preying on people's fears, and hoping they will be seduced with promises of power if they pledge thier loyalty to the darkside, and through all this power, give themselves a false sense of security and control. (through dictatorship, possessiveness of others, jealously, mistrust of friends and family etc)

Haven't you ever done something in anger that you later regretted? This is what it is all about. Controlling that dark part of you so that you can at least limit the damage you do to others. Everyone at some point has gone through it which is why I think people can sympathise so much with anakin because we as humans are a fallen race. Nobody is perfect. That's why we feel sorry for the guy. He had so much power but wasn't allowed to do anything with it, and as a slave he must have felt other people were holding him back from rising in rank rather than protecting him from his recklessness.

Yeah it is true he was the 'chosen one' but he needed to learn discipline too. Just because you have power doesn't mean you can let pride get in the way of how things should be done. I think the prophecy was trying to teach him that if you were not going to listen to advice from people more wise than you, then you will learn the hard way and through painful experiences, learn why your decisions are so wrong. Like a kid who puts his hand on a hot stove and through the painful experience, remembers why not to do this in future and corrects himself.

Anakin's sufferings at least served a purpose: he can learn from his failings as much as his triumps and still save the galaxy from evil. So long as people cling on to hope there is still a chance the good in him triumps over the evil in him. But ultimately it was his choice to make. We can say that anakin was evil, but we can also say that anakin was good. It was hoping that his good would gain control that is the thing that determines if everyone else in the galaxy must suffer or not which is why it was important not to make excuses for his actions or he'll never learn and change to his former self. (the hero of the prophecy)

Edited June 7, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Sundown]

Evil?  Evil's a label and subject to perspective.

Ack?! The only one who claims this and forwards this line of thinking in the movies is Palpatine, who is obviously less than reputable. I think the movies are blatantly stating that there are definite goods and evils, even though certain events might be up for interpretation as to their specific meaning. It doesn't mean that the nature of evil can be chalked up simply to perspective.

Anakin's whiny delivery of "evil is relative, Jedi are bad!" on Mustafar is less than convincing and laughable... because it's supposed to be. It's obviously poppycock. It is then that Obi-wan pronounces Anakin as being lost, now for certain, to the Dark Side. Unless we start arguing about whether there really is a Dark Side...

I don't think for a moment the movies are suggesting that the Star Wars epic is just a case of subjective human misunderstandings and conflicts in perspective. When the obviously "evil" antagonists are the only ones pushing this morally relativistic drivel, and when a protagonist buys into this drivel for obviously selfish, twisted, unreasonable and specious reasons, and then procedes to parrot the drivel unconvincingly (right after killing kiddies and choking his beloved wife, I might add, which makes him a pretty bad judge of things in general in my book), we are probably supposed to be suspicious of their claims.

-Al

Edited June 7, 2005 by Sundown