I am never broken.

[melannen]

So. Revenge of the Sith. I saw it largely unspoiled, so I haven't read any other discussion of it yet. I can't tell you whether it was a good movie or not: I was watching it as an old-school Star Wars geek, not a movie-goer. To an old-school Star Wars geek, it was *awesome*. I'll have to see it again later to tell you if it's any good or not. (I hated Episode One when I watched it as a Star Wars geek, but as just a movie, after my pain from the midichlorians had time to scab over? It wasn't without good points. So it's possible that this one is the opposite, and I only liked it because it confirmed all my fannish preconceptions.)

It took me an embarrassingly long time to recognize the Narnia preview as Narnia. I recognized the quote in the voice-over and was racking my brains trying to figure out where it was from, and I didn't get it until she was actually stepping into the wardrobe. Yes, I think I shall take the Narnia books to read when we get Katy in North Dakota (I took the Space triology on the trip when we dropped her off, so there's a pleasing symmetry there too.) The preview actually looked pretty good, and except for Susan and Lucy not looking like themselves, it fit well with my vague and wavy remembrances from the book. It'll be interesting to see if they do with this movie like they did with the animated Tolkien and the Earthsea miniseries and The Black Cauldron: turn it into a fun fantasy while stripping out most of the deeper and more problematic elements. Of course, in those books, the deeper, problematic elements were part of what I liked; in Narnia they grated on me, and I liked the non-deep parts. So that could actually lead to me loving the movie much better than the books, which would be the *end* of the *world*.

Batman Beyond had good music, enough to make me want to see it maybe sometime. Fantastic Four looked awful-- I've read like four FF comics (and vol one of UFF, though I'd like to read more) and even I could tell that Johnny was the only one marginally in character. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is either one of the awfullest movies ever, or the perfect, until now unattainable blend of a chick flick and a guy movie. None of the other made any impression on me.

*mad SW spoilers from here on*











And on to the main feature. I had an epiphany while watching it, an epiphany which required a full six movies to be properly developed. Or, you know, I suppose I could have figured it out within the first two seconds of watching Episode Four, but hey, I did eventually get it, so give me *some* credit.

Anakin never fell.

To fall requires being on the high ground to start with. He never was. He always, always used his passions as the base of his power, and he was never wholly of the Light. His turn away from the Jedi Order had nothing to do with hate, or fear, or greed, or vengeance, or any of the other sins the Masters are so fond of spouting off about. It was about *despair*. The greatest of sins. And faced with nothing but a choice between two evils, he chose the one that offered him *hope*.

"A New Hope." I *get* it, George. Too bad it took me thirteen *years*. These movies aren't about dark and light or good and evil or passion and serenity, they're about hope and despair.

The Jedi order was weak and corrupt. The Emperor was right. I saw this coming from the first prequel, but I didn't trust them to carry it through properly, because the way it was presented in that movie was so not well done. But they carried it through. They did. The dark side is *passionate*, Palpatine said, and Anakin replied, the Jedi are about being selfless. That's when it was inevitable that the Jedi were lost. The opposite of passionate isn't selfless. It's *passionless*. It's *dead*.

To gratuitously mangle a Patricia McKillip quote, "Not passion, but *compassion*." The Jedi Order turned away from both. Palpatine didn't.

One thing that always impressed me about Palpatine was that he understands weakness, and he doesn't pity it in others or fear it in himself. Passion is a weakness. There are other kinds. He is not afraid of showing weakness, and he knows how to use it, too. (The part about submission and weakness and why it so disappointed me in this movie the first time we saw his glowing red phallic symbol can be saved for a later post, I think.) But that embracing of weakness is a part of why I fell a little bit in love with him in the first trilogy. The Jedi had forgotten weakness. Even Yoda, who can play at being small forest creature, must always make a show of strength when it matters. Palpatine won in this movie because he was willing to be the weaker, and that gave him the advantage.

And there's Yoda. Yoda fell to despair a long time ago. He knows: he's the only one on the Council who was yet wise enough to see that what they were doing was wrong, and yet he let it go on, anyway. By my reckoning, that makes him most culpable of them all. Even in Episode One, I could see that *Yoda* hadn't forgotten what 'balance' meant, and that he'd realized that as far as prophecies went, they were probably on the wrong side of the scale. And yet, he let it go on. He knew the clone troopers would turn: I saw that in Episode Two: and his glee in the fight with Dooku was the freedom of someone who knows that he's already lost and is glad of it. By Episode Three, he was actively taking part in the Council's more shady actions. And he was the only one who was prepared for treachery from the troopers. But he let it happen, and he didn't warn anyone. He saved himself, but he let them be killed. He decided to let evil win.

Yoda gave up on the Jedi Order. He saw that a cleansing was coming, and he aquiesced by his silence, because he knew that Jedi Order was corrupt, but he couldn't concieve of another way, a kinder way of achieving it. He lost faith in the Jedi, but instead of doing as Anakin and eventually Obi-Wan did, and search for hope, when he might have been the only one who could find it, he gave into despair, turned inward, and let the galaxy fall into darkness. When there is no passion or compassion, where is hope? Even in his training of Luke, he didn't really turn back from that emptiness to find redemption through hope until right before he died.

How this applies to my current political beliefs I'll leave as an exercise for the reader. q:


I agree with stellar_dust: Hayden Christiansen probably did the best acting of anyone in this movie. Okay, with most of his scenes and dialogue, it felt a little bit stilted, a little bit off, as if he wasn't in quite the same story as the others. That was *totally* in character: Anakin was meant to feel slightly off-kilter. The only people he had any emotional chemistry at all with were Padme (at times) and Palpatine. Once again: totally in character. And in contradiction to some of the reviews I'd read, I didn't find any of the dialogue painfully bad, unlike in Episode 2.

stellar_dust was also right that Ewan McGregor did a very good impression of Alec Guinness. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good Obi-wan. Natalie Portman occasionally approached good acting, given the conditions she had to work with. Ian McDiarmid, of course, rocked. (I didn't even think to rank his acting, because it was so good it was completely transparent.) Everybody else, ehh.

Also it could have stood to be about half an hour shorter. Pretty much every scene after Anakin kills the kids, it could have ended there and had just as much impact. Not that I didn't appreciate all the homages to the original trilogy, or the Yoda-kicking-butt, but they didn't have any trouble dumping us in media res with any of the other films. Bah. Death Star. *smite* If they wanted a homage they should have just stuck with the random OT quotes and scene-refs every five minutes: that was awesome. The lightsaber battles (well, most of the battle scenes) were confusing, and fairly boring as are all fight scenes, but had enough cool moments to keep my interest.

Also, the special effects in the original trilogy were better. Or, well, not better, but... in the original trilogy, it wasn't seamless: you could see the cracks in the illusion. But they were cracks in the illusion of reality, not the *world*-- that is, it felt like the movies had been filmed on real Star Destroyers and desert planets and Hutt palaces and the costumes had been bought off-the-rack. All the sci-fi elements felt *real*, and wonderfully commonplace, as if they had actually been filmed on location in a galaxy far, far away.

By contrast this movie felt like a really well-animated cartoon. And it wasn't just about the quality of animation-- that was generally seamless-- but about the quality of reality. Things like impossible camera angles, and sprawling pans of crowd scenes that you would never be able to manage on location or on a sound stage. That's probably part of my growing dissatisfaction of overuse of competer animation in general, like the way it really pissed me off in RotK the way that Gollum's loincloth always stayed decent, even when there's no way it would in reality, even with really good editing of the film. It's just that the original Star Wars effects were so near perfect that it makes a good comparison.

The only slash 'ship I want to see coming out of that movie (well, the only SW 'ship I'm interested in at the moment, really) is Palpatine and his master. This probably means I'm sick. But the Master/Apprentice relationships are the only interesting ones of any sort in the prequel trilogy, and oddly, I see that pairing as being moderately more healthy and less painful that Anakin/Obi-wan would be. After all, Plagus was at least capable of admitting to *love*. (Can you imagine what it would be like to be truly loved by a Sith Lord at the height of his power? Luke got a taste of it in RotJ, but only a taste.)

The only way I can make sense of General Grievous is to pretend that he's a Sorcerer of Tund. (I did mention that I am an old-school Star Wars geek, didn't I?) However, if I *do* pretend that he's a Sorcerer of Tund, he makes me very happy. I want to go re-read the Starcave of ThonBoka now.

And all the headings for this entry come from the song I have listed as current music. It got stuck in my head on the way back. It's very sad. I want somebody to do a RotS vid to that song, containing *all* the shots of people with their hands cut off. That would probably be enough footage for the whole vid, actually. I did mention that it's possible that I'm sick, right?

Note that all these opinions are subject to change after a good night's sleep and/or another watching of the trilogies. q:

Comments

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

This isn't supposed to be profound or anything, just playing with small numbers.

At the end of Episode 3, there were 2 sith-y people; Palpatine and Anakin.

At the end of Episode 3, there were 2 jedi-y people; Obi-Wan and Yoda (Luke doesn't count yet).

Now, since 2=2, doesn't that make the Force balanced, at least from a personel point-of-view?

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've had that thought ever since we first heard the prophecy in episode 1.

Not only that, but "There are always two: a Master and an Apprentice." In the second trilogy, Master Obi-Wan takes Luke as his apprentice; when he dies, Yoda resumes the mantle of Master and there are still two; when Yoda dies, he tells Luke to take Leia as his apprentice. Always one Master and one Apprentice Jedi to balance a Master and Apprentice Sith.

And then Luke pwns the Sith and Leia refuses to be taught, so Luke gets to spend the next ten years in the books fighting with himself, which was admittedly amusing in a whiny sort of way.

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

so Luke gets to spend the next ten years in the books fighting with himself

and starting a Jedi Academy with the cast of the Muppet Babies!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Muppet babies!

The Chosen One

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Yooouuu will bring me Narrrrnia aaaand the Zaaaaaahhhn trilogy ... *waves hand at you*

Same thoughts on previews, though we didn't have the Batman one, and having not seen anything about FF at all really, I thought that preview looked ok. Narnia looked better than I expected.

Whether Anakin "fell" or not depends on exactly what you mean by "dark side of the Force." There's no denying that he does EVIL BAD things that would *never* be justifiable to a Jedi. And he does embark on that path through despair - but what is despair but fear + anger? And coupled with agression - exactly where he takes his next step - the Dark Side of the Force are they. So I certainly think he "fell" as in "went over to the Dark Side and stopped being a Good Guy."

He took the choice that offered hope - but that choice was also the easy choice, the path of least resistance; if he had truly understood what the Jedi had try to teach him, he'd have known that the Dark Force couldn't save Padme, and moreover that she would never want that.

However - I'm sure that his conscience was intact throughout his tenure as Vader, and he knew that Palpatine's goals and methods were Evil and Wrong, but he also knew that the Dark Force was stronger than the Light. One of the main things that carried through from Anakin to Vader was the absolute, naive certainty that with one powerful and *good* person in charge of the government, order, peace, justice, freedom, etc could once again reign throughout the galaxy. He asked Padme to help him, he asked Luke, he was sure that with the power of the Dark Side and the aid of someone strong and capable he could toss out Palpatine and bring about ultimate good. Unfortunately for Vader, even if they had believed that his ends could possibly justify his means, they understood that his ultimate aim was impossible (or at least Padme did; Luke was *ded from teh evil* and not thinking that clearly d-:).

I don't think his conscience or his compassion ever completely fled; they were buried underneath his despair, and his eye on the bigger prize, until Luke showed up and showed him that 1) his despair was at least partly unfounded and based on a lie - the baby lived! Glory! and 2) small acts also count; and Vader was finally able to understand the balance of the Force, not Dark or Light or the characteristics of either, but living each moment completely and aware.

Shame he kicked it before he could share that with Luke, because I now firmly believe that Anakin *was* born to bring balance to the Force. Actually, he let his self-centeredness rule him to the end, so maybe he didn't understand quite so completely yet - he allowed the penultimate fact of his life to be "OMGSQUEE MY SON'S ALIVE AND LOVES ME" instead of processing and thinking and letting his life, complete, serve as a constructive example. But then Annie was never big on the introspection and philosophy. d-: So his progeny had to bring about the balance, decades later and from a completely roundabout direction, that he'd managed to find internally without recognizing it in so many words.

(YOU NEED TO READ THE NEW JEDI ORDER. LIKE, NOW. GO.)

So uh. Did Anakin fall to the dark side? From a certain point of view, hell yes. From a certain other point of view, it doesn't matter; all he did for his entire life and as long as his memory lasts was to bring balance to the Force, and he could do nothing else than that because of who he was.

I agree that the movies aren't about good/evil, passion/serenity, dark/light .. but I don't think the theme is hope/despair either. It's balance.

Re: The Chosen One

[melannen.livejournal.com]

>>There's no denying that he does EVIL BAD things that would *never* be justifiable to a Jedi.

That's the point. He does EVIL BAD things *while he is still wholly a Jedi*. The most heinous thing he does in ep 3 is kill kids, and he had killed kids already in Episode 2. However, at that point he still believed in the Jedi Order-- he believed that Jedi were better than that, better than him, that the things he had done would *not* be justifiable to a Jedi. When he killed Dooku it wasn't some anguished scene of fear and hate and giving into temptation-- it was him doing what he felt had to be done-- and what he says isn't that he regrets it, or that it was risky, but that it wouldn't be acceptable to the Jedi.

The rest of Episode 3 is Anakin being shown over and over that the Jedi *do* do these things. They lie, and deceive, and act out of fear and anger, and love selfishly. It's not a coincidence that what finally turns him against the Jedi is Mace being willing to *kill an unarmed Sith*-- he did that exact thing himself a few scenes ago, but he at least *knew it was wrong* by the codes of the Jedi. So did Palpatine. *But the head of the Jedi Council* apparently *didn't* know that.

The Jedi didn't try to teach him good *or* the true use of the Light Side. They'd lost touch with the Force before Ani ever came to Coruscant. Qui-Gon tried, for a little bit, and Obi-Wan did his best in his half-assed, from-a-certain-point-of-view way, but beyond that he was surviving on pure innocent idealism and the stories his mother told him.

When Mace fails the I-am-unarmed-strike-me-down test, Anakin finally realizes that the Jedi are no better than he is, and he already knows that *he's* evil, so what does that make the Jedi? So it wasn't that he stopped being a good guy-- heck, it wasn't even stop being a *Jedi*, in the OT he still identified as a Jedi-- it was that he lost his faith that *any* of the Jedi were good guys. At that point, might at least side with the guy who gives you *respect* and offers you a *chance* to try for good, who isn't so blinded by arrogance that he can't see his own evil.

It wasn't the easy choice, and it wasn't the path of least resistance, either. He had already *made* the easy choice-- he told Mace about Sidious, and got told to sit at home and be a good boy and maybe he'd get a cookie. To stay there, that was the easy choice. The hard choice was betraying his family and his most fundamental ideals in exchange for nothing but the slenderest hope of being able to rebuild what should have been the Jedi ideals-- Truth, and Justice, and love and family.

Of course, I obviously don't see his conversion as being about Padme really at all. Possibly because this theory of mine is based not so much on what was there on the surface of the film, but on what I was desperately searching for in hopes that I could make it make sense. It doesn't make sense that he'd fall that fast and that hard about that. At worst, it was just an excuse, either subconscious or conscious. At best ... the amazing thing about the tragedy of Darth Plagius is not that he used the Force to save the people he loved, it's that he *had* people he loved, and it wasn't treated as shameful or weak. Anakin's stilling clinging to the last shreds of his faith in the Jedi Order then, but his love for Padme is the best thing in his life, and it's the one thing that he can never believe is evil -- if the Sith approve of it when the Jedi don't, then the Sith can't be truly evil any more than the Jedi are truly good.

Re: The Chosen One

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Okay - all of your points are true and valid, however I seriously doubt that Anakin ever consciously evaluated his motivations to such a degree. I don't think it was all about Padme, either, but she was the immediate catalyst, and the reason he gave himself.

The Jedi were corrupt and out of touch with the true Force. I don't say that Anakin "should" have sided with the Jedi. But siding with Palpatine was not a choice for good either - the Sith themselves may not be always and completely evil, but I see no redeeming qualities whatsoever in Palpatine. The Sith teachings may condone love but it's clear to me that Palpatine doesn't at all, except as a tool that he can use for manipulating others. Yes - I want to know more about Plagius. (The other possibility, of course, is that that part of Palpy's story was fabricated and calculated to tug exactly on Anakin's strings.) I really don't think I believe the Sith condone love any more than the Jedi do. Darth Vader, the hard creature who could kill without a moment's hesitation, solidified into being the instant that Palpatine told him he'd killed his love - a completely calculated move. No, the Sith only condone love that they can *use*.

I definitely agree that Anakin never truly abandoned his ideals, that he had never been completely a good guy and nor had the Jedi, and that he was never completely a bad guy. He knew from the start of his apprenticeship that the Emperor was indeed completely bad (what have I done??). It does take a great deal of strenghth of character to hold fast, through everything, to the ideals he wishes the Jedi had truly personified. But he waited to take any sort of concrete action until Luke showed up with the right flavor of hope. (Oh god, now I'm flashing on Teal'c with Jack, helpplz) And I think that The Fall of Anakin Skywalker constitutes his complicity in, and perpetuation of, a galactic Empire that was, at its core, completely and utterly Evil. Not on whether he identified as Jedi or Sith, or what truths he held to in the core of his being, but his *actions.* And his redemption comes in admitting that he never lost that idealism, and repenting of his failure to let that be reflected in his actions.

Anakin made a lot of choices that day, some hard, some easy. By the time his choices had led him to the brink of kneeling at Palpatine's feet, he had lost the ability to even consider any other choice. So yes, that one, right there? That choice was easy.

(Yanno, I don't think Eps I and II need to exist. The essentials are all in III-VI.)

Re: The Chosen One

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. My point wasn't that siding with Palpatine was a *good* choice, and it certainly wasn't that any of the inducements that Palpatine offered him were *true*-- but it was that, by that point, even Anakin could tell that Palpatine was being more honest with him than the Jedi were. And the inducements he was offering at least gave the *appearance* of being morally correct. Palpatine says: believe in me, and you'll get truth, justice, peace, and love. Mace Windu says: believe in me, and maybe some day I'll give you the power and honor you deserve. And he already knows Mace has misled him. From that perspective, Palpatine was the lesser of two evils.

>>The Fall of Anakin Skywalker constitutes his complicity in, and perpetuation of, a galactic Empire that was, at its core, completely and utterly Evil.
Exactly. The Fall of Anakin Skywalker was not a fall from the Light Side to the Dark Side, it was that he lost faith in the existence of good *anywhere*. Despair. He didn't fall, he just stopped trying to climb up.

The times when you have only one choice are always the hardest choices. q-: But, yeah, he'd already decided before he knelt at Palpatine's feet- the turning points were when he took off after Mace and when he killed him. After that , it was all over but the screaming.

(And, yep, basically. although it would have been nice if they'd expanded ep 111 into three movies and used the extra time to develop the characters and plots enough that they made sense without several thousand words of f*ing fanwank. Of course, ep1 and 2 were beyond the help of even fanwank.

You know, maybe that's one of the things pissing me off about the computer animation: when spectacular special effects took actual *effort*, they took advantage of them. Ep IV had what, a couple mostly-interchangeble Imperial ships, the Falcon, the desert, Mos Eisley, and Yavin, with maybe four or five sets in each of the settings. You got a chance to really get used to the places. Now? Can you even list offhand how many planets were in that movie? It just constantly switches back and forth and you never get your bearings. And getting your bearings is essential in good sci-fi.)

The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

I don't agree about Palpatine and weakness. I didn't for ONE SECOND buy his begging, groveling, poor weak old man act. That was completely for the benefit of Anakin - he knew he'd never fool Mace, but Annie had compassion, and he used it against him in exactly the right way to complete his journey to the Dark Side (see above discussion of what this may or may not have entailed d-:). In fact, far from embracing weakness, he refuses to admit that he has any - his overconfidence is his weakness, as was immediately apparent to Luke. I've seen that through all six movies; Palpatine is arrogant and overconfident and lacks compassion of any sort.

He doesn't mind *feigning* weakness though. That's the crux of most of his plans, from Mace to taking over the Senate to the fully operational battle station at Endor. And he doesn't mind hiding behind someone stronger than himself, as long as he's absolutely sure of that other's abject devotion and loyalty.

In the prequels, he could use the compassion of others to his own ends; by the OT, he disregarded it completely in everyone, from Luke's "faith in his friends" to never imagining that Vader might still harbor some compassion deep inside. A very fatal flaw, considering how he won Anakin in the first place ...

Palpatine was never the weaker. All of his strength and advantage came from pretense of weakness. Had he showed his true strength earlier, he would have been defeated; he wasn't weaker for not doing so, merely cunning.

So, disagree there.

Yoda .. I agree with your interpretation to an extent. But I don't think Yoda ever despaired. Yoda counts his life in *centuries*. He's probably seen this coming since the Jedi Council was *formed*. He knows that, just as good cannot always win, neither can evil, and that while the Republic and Jedi must inevitably fall, so must the Empire and the Sith. I'm not sure he expected that day to come within his lifetime, or nearly so, until Luke completely surprised him by actually *returning* unDarkSide from his first encounter with Vader. That may be what you see as hope: not a renewal of hope, just an increase in its urgency.

Yoda is Old and Wise, and gets to vie with Sam and Artoo for the title of God. :D

Re: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[melannen.livejournal.com]

The point isn't that he's truly weak, you never know the true *anything* with Palpatine-- but the Jedi are weakness hiding behind strength, he is stregth hiding behind weakness. He doesn't *need* to make a show of strength. Can you imagine Obi-Wan standing unarmed before a lightsaber in the hand of somebody who is willing to kill him-- well, yes, but only after he's already made it clear that killing him will only prove that he's the stronger. Can you see him in that position, and trusting Anakin to save him? Trusting him so absolutely that he doesn't even flinch when the saber descends? Nope. Obi-wan is all pride and self-mockery. He always has to be the stronger. Where as Palpatine gives himself into the hands of the Force-- the Dark Side, granted, but it's more than the Jedi were doing. That first scene where Anakin and Obi-wan were fighting droids together? They were so out of harmony with each other that I kept expecting them to cut each other's limbs off. Same thing with the masters who cornered Palpatine-- they didn't trust on that visceral level that would let them fight as extensions of one being, one Force. And so they lost.

And that kind of got off topic there a bit. Anyway: when I said the Emperor could use weakness, I meant not that he was *absolutely* weaker than his opponent-- weakness and strength are in balance in everyone like dark and light, peace and passion-- but the Jedi denied their weaknesses, the Emperor used his, the Emperor won. It's weakness not as a vice, but as another kind of strength. It's very yin, it's very yonic. It's about trusting in the child of your heart rather than your three-foot-long red glowing phallic symbol. Oh, dear, I said I wasn't going to get into that. q-:

I said the Emperor *understood* compassion, not that he had any, or that he obeyed it. And by the OT, he had lost even that shadowed vestige, which was why he lost Luke, yes. But Compassion not passion ... maybe you'd have to read the Riddlemaster books to, but the original quote is reversed-- Our Hero has seen a glimpse of the dark side, and is trying to understand what would make someone fall into it, he says, how, they have no law, no compassion-- and the dark-sider answers him: "not compassion, but *passion*." Passion is beautiful in its own right, its own justification. If Anakin had been able to answer Palpatine that the Jedi have not passion but *compassion* ... then the whole tragic war wouldn't have needed to happen in the first place.

But the Jedi don't have compassion. It's against their principles. Obi-Wan has a natural facility for it that shines through in times of stress, but the Jedi have systematically been trying to beat it out of him. Yoda has plenty of compassion but ruthlessly refuses to act on it. Qui-gon has to much and gets smacked down for it by the Council. Anakin has *lots* and the only way for him to suppress it as a Jedi must is by using his selfish passion instead ...

Sweet, I exceeded the comment limit!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Being very old is no excusing for aquiescing to evil. Sorry, it just isn't. To quote another obscure-but-beloved fantasy novel, maybe good will never ultimately win, but that doesn't excuse us from *trying* to make it win. Yoda's all about Sithian absolutes though-- there is no try. So he doesn't. When you reach that level of vision, to see the balance, you understand the futility of striving-- and then you move beyond it, and learn to value striving as an end in itself. It's either that, or self-nullification.

Dude, I knew the do-or-do-not comment was pissing me off more and more. Now I know why.

I know you read "Time Enough for Love"-- what is that story? Here's a guy five times Yoda's age, has seen empires rise and fall, has actually *lived through* the war he's currently fighting and *knows* that even though the 'good guys' win this one, it will only hasten the triumph of evil. And his first thought is to run. But he changes his mind. Why? Because he's remebered, finally, that the ultimate outcome doesn't *matter*-- what matters is that you *fight*, because it's right, and because there are good people you love.

Oops, Jedi aren't allowed to love. I forgot. q-:

Besides, as I told Aaron, there were ways Yoda could have taken down the Republic and the Order which wouldn't have led to a massacre of the Jedi and twenty years of genocide. Heck, if he'd simply walked away from the Order and the Senate when Palpatine was given emergency powers, he commanded enough respect and allegience that it might have been enough to turn the tide right there. Or if he'd refused the clone troopers and sent them back to the manufacturer, and let the Jedi be defeated at the end of AotC, that might have broken their arrogance sufficiently. Or even if he'd made some attempt to show as much compassion and understanding to Anakin as Palpatine did. Just *anything* to give people a choice that was actually *good*.

But all of those would have required making the same hard choice that Anakin did, turning away from the family and security offered by the Jedi Order in exchange for nothing but hope and hard work and compromise. And he was too arrogant and complacent and self-righteous to take that risk himself. So he chose to give up, to act by not acting, by letting other people do the hard part for him. Coward. (He still kicks ass though. I'd probably do what he did. Heck, I *am* doing what he did, hiding in fantasy as our corrupt regime dims farther and the opposition mires itself in arrogance and smarm. But I don't claim to be some all-wise and influential Master of the Light, and Anakin would have no respect for me whatsover.)

So why didn't you make this a comment off the post you were *actually replying to*, then? d-:

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Ok, make up your mind - are the Sith evil or aren't they? I don't believe Yoda ever acquiesced to evil. He did what he could, always, to preserve the lives of Jedi and to defeat the Emperor, despite whether or not he approved of the methods of Jedi in their latter days. He may have sensed that a great evil was coming, but I doubt that he knew when or what form it would take. His greater experience and sensitivity to the Force, along with being one of the last Jedi targeted (by seconds to minutes, but it's enough) was sufficient to let him neutralize the clones that had been set against him. He suspected that the prophecy might have been misread, but I doubt that he knew exactly *how*, and he's certainly wise enough to understand that attempting to subvert a prophecy is most likely to fail spectacularly. Where do you see Yoda giving up? I don't see Yoda giving up.

Sure, there were things he could have done. You get to know the whole story. He didn't. He may have felt that he could do more good and save more lives by staying and working within the Order - he may have helped the Jedi survive other similar trials by doing just that. And without knowing exactly whence the threat would come, before he understood that their greatest enemy was their greatest ally, continuing to hold to the traditions that had served the Jedi throughout his entire lifetime probably seemed the best and most hopeful choice.

So yes, age can blind as well as inform. d-:

I think the "do or do not" was mostly for the benefit of stubborn, too-old-to-begin-the-training Luke. To succeed at lifting an object with your mind you have to first be 100% sure that you *can*. He was telling Luke not to expect, fear, or accept failure - no one could afford that.

But pulling an X-Wing out of a swamp with your mind is a whole different story from deciding what to do about rampant corruption. With the Force, it's do-or-do-not, because if you think you can fail then you will; life is not so absolute and trying is acceptable, but it was never his job to teach Luke about *life*. That was up to Owen and Beru. d-:

Plus? It's really hard being green on a planet made entirely of concrete and metal, with everyone constantly making fun of how you talk.

Wonder if there's ever been a Sith of Yoda's race? *EG*

Re: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

See, I do agree that Palpatine trusted the Force more than the Jedi did. He *knew* the Force better than the Jedi did, not having a large bureaucratic Temple and a whole Council of Masters between himself and the Force. I don't see that giving of himself completely to the Force as a show of weakness. He did not doubt for an instant that Anakin would step in and save him. It's not weakness in any way, but strength that comes from faith, and much stronger than the Jedi because they lack his pure connection to the living Force. Palpatine's weaknesses were not the same as those of the Jedi, but he denied those he had every bit as strenuously, and paid for it in the end.

Obi-Wan and Yoda do manage to find that balance between passion and compassion, I think, by the end of the saga, and Luke and his new Jedi go on to perfect it without the trappings of a Council .. and Anakin Solo could put the smack down on Obi-Wan any day of the week. d-:

The Anakin of Ep II *would* have answered Palpatine with "compassion." Sigh.

Re: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Eh. At this point I think we're basically only disagreeing about the meaning of the word 'weakness'-- I was using it for the lack of anything more precise in our language. Perhaps 'yin' in the yin-and-yang sense covers it best. I was calling it 'weakness' because Palpatine presents it as weakness for the benefit of the Jedi who only understand yang, as it is often mistaken for weakness in cultures that give priority to yang. And large glowing phallic symbols--did I mention the phallic symbols?

I like yin better than yang. It's an aesthetic thing. I like Peter Pettigrew, too.

Luke and his Jedi manage to perfect it by borrowing heavily from the better ideas of the Sith. After all, he didn't put the Academy in the *Jedi* temple. q-; I think you're right though, Ben and Yoda both found their own balances. (I haven't re-watched the OT yet.)

Stuff that Doesn't Fill as Many Paragraphs

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Hayden: definitely agree, although I think there was emotional chemistry with Obi-Wan too, at times. I also agree about the dialogue: it was much, much better in this movie than in II. Natalie was MUCH better in III as well.

My theory is that George has very little clue how to write or direct "happy." d-:

Why do you say Ewan didn't do a good Obi-Wan? I thought he was outstanding, and completely believeable as the person who turned into Ben. "How uncivilized!" SQUEE!

Pretty much every scene after Anakin kills the kids, it could have ended there and had just as much impact.

??? You can't end it there! You *need* the lava fight scene, and the last convo with Padme, and the birth of the twins and the first time he puts on The Last Suit He'll Ever Wear! And it needed to end with hope - passing Luke to Beru does it. The Death Star was gratuitous blah, though I did enjoy watching the ships evolve into OT designs, and how clear that makes it that technological advance virtually stagnates for the 20 years of Empire: i.e., seeing the Star Destroyer bridge was sweet. But even so, it should not take them 20 years to complete and test a Death Star. d-: Oh well.

The thing that annoys me most about the DVDs is how much they cleaned it up. *grinds teeth* Ah, sigh.

I don't get Master/Apprentice slash ships. Close friendships, like Jack and Daniel, absolutely, but ... or maybe it's just that practially every story I've seen with Qwi-Gon and Obi-Wan is all about how they're shagging like bunnies constantly and OH PLEASE COME ONNNNNNNN JUST NOOOOOO. Sovery Not Jedi, I don't *care* how "rebellious" Qwi-Gon was. Sith? Perhaps. Jedi? Not so much. To love I say, hell yeah, but to slash in its widespread interpretation, go away. d-: This isn't fear of gay sex. I don't want to see Mace and his female-apprentice-from-Shatterpoint-whose-name-I-forgot going at it either. Bleah.

Speaking of, wtf is with all the Obi-Wan Kenobi/Bail Organa shippers? *boggles*

... *shuts up about that now*

I do not recall the Sorcerers of Tund. I sort of assumed similar technology was used to keep Grievous alive as was used eventually in Vader's suit, and that he started out human, but other than wondering *who* or *what* he used to be, I don't see that he needs much more sense to be made of him.

Hi, this is me getting you back for the super-long Stargate thread in my journal the other day, signing off. d-:

Oh, and if this makes no sense? I had a Guinness with my tuna tonight, and I realllllly want an icon of Jack with a bottle that says "refreshing substitute for food." d-: Oh well.

Re: Stuff that Doesn't Fill as Many Paragraphs

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I just ... Ewan was vauguely stilted in every scene where he had dialogue. It didn't *mesh*. It didn't with Hayden either, but Hayden made it work. Obi-wan didn't. It was worst when he reminded me the most of Alec Guinness, actually, because that Obi-Wan was *definitely* never stilted or out-of-place. Anywhere.

The last convo with Padme was ... ehhh. Maybe. Padme has made basically no impression on me since Episode 1. And The story of this trilogy ended when Anakin swore allegiance to the Emperor, just as the story of the original trilogy ended when Anakin killed him. All the rest of it did nothing but uneccessary set-up for the original trilogy-- none of it added *anything* to the story of the prequel trilogy, and all of it is conveyed in all the relevant detail in the original trilogy. We learned nothing from it.

Yeah, ending with killing the kids would have been a bit abrupt; go from that cut right into the montage of Jedi being killed, end that bit with Obi-Wan escaping and flying back for Anakin, have Obi-Wan meet Padme and they realize upon seeing Ani's yellow eyes or the pile of blood that he's standing in that Ani has turned, a bit of duelling, Obi-Wan leaves Ani for dead and goes to ground with Padme, they have a bittersweet scene of resolution, then a quick shot of Anakin crawling out of the lava followed by a quick shot of Padme giving away the babies. Roll end credits. Or there are half a dozen other ways to bring it to a satisfying close by picking and choosing from those last two dozen or so scene. As it was it felt like he kept tacking on scene after scene with no purpose and no momentum just because he could.

The technology thing actually annoyed me. Fine, there's basically no technological advancement for twenty years, autocracy=bad, gotcha, although I don't really think that's fair to assume. However, working from that assumption, if there's going to be *any* technological advancement, it'll be in *military* tech. *Not* medical, or cosmetic. Thus, Luke's prosthetic hand being so much more realistic than Anakin's? Makes no sense.

The justification for Master/Apprentice slash ships is paederasty. In the original Ancient Greek sense. Although it's not just Greek. Anywhere you get a closed warrior culture, where everybody's forbidden to get married, and older warriors pair-bond with younger ones, they're so *totally* doing it. Historical truism. You can argue that the Jedi are above such things (although really, no) but that would mean you couldn't write any hot sex about them! Tragic! Honestly most M/A slash I've found is pretty putrid, too, but there's a couple quite good ones I've read. They generally admit that they're wildly AU. q: (And if you watch Ep 3 while assuming the Jedi *do* practice something resembling Athenian paederasty, Obi-wan and Anakin's relationship becomes so horribly tragic. Because Obi-wan expects it, because he follows the rules, and Anakin cares about him, but he sees it as cheating on Padme, but he daren't even show any sign that he loves Padme, so he goes along with it, but it kills him inside every time, especially every time he enjoys it, and Padme refuses to feel betrayed about it even though he thinks she should, and Obi-Wan just goes obliviously on assuming everything will work out in the end.)

The Sorcerer of Tund was from the Lando Calrissian books. He was a small, ugly, evil creature who was able to put on clothes and a carapace and look human, and he was able to use something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the dark side of the Force. He was cool. Unfortunately, apparently you were right: Grievous's backstory supposedly comes out in the cartoon.

Re: Stuff that Doesn't Fill as Many Paragraphs

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

I think it worked. This Obi-Wan is still young, and years of sitting around in the desert being calm and contemplative and watchful and amusing yourself by howling at sandpeople mellows a person. d-:

The Padme convo was necessary for *her* character. If she hadn't followed him, she would not have died when and how she did.

The thing, I think, is that you're still thinking of it as a prequel trilogy. If you think of it that way, *none* of them are necessary. However, if you take the complete saga as The Abridged Biography of Anakin Skywalker, all of those scenes are necessary and must be shown, just as much as his death and pyre are shown, and his accidental victory at Naboo at age 7 -

As it was it felt like he kept tacking on scene after scene with no purpose and no momentum just because he could.

OH WAIT! I KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM WAS! You must have accidentally wandered into an encore showing of RotK by mistake. d-: d-:

Really. Compared to the end of RotK, the end of RotS was outstanding. There were no "false endings." I didn't feel any sense of closure until the end. It totally worked for me. I'm just going to stick my tongue out and say "you suck" now. d-: (;

Maybe Anakin didn't *want* a realistic-looking hand? Or Padme likes it when he takes his skin off? Or it was the fashion of the day to get prosthetics that actually looked prosthetic? Dunno, but there could be any number of possible explanations for that.

Also, the galaxy is big, and even though official Imperial technology may stagnate, the Rebellion may have other sources - Corporate Sector, anyone? Who knows. Bail Organa's still using the same blockade runner 20 years later, so business must not be booming on Alderaan at least. d-:

I won't argue that the Jedi are above such things, but I will argue that it would not be condoned, much less expected. I mean, they're not just forbidden to marry, they're forbidden attachments! Of any kind! To anyone! Even other Jedi! They're not even supposed to admit that they love their apprentice or master! In that kind of atmosphere, any sexual relationship with another Jedi would be wildly dysfunctional at *best*. Anyway, they're basically warrior monks, married to the Force, and anything like that would be a betrayal of their vows and their calling.

If the Jedi Order in the last days of the Old Republic did sustain an official or unofficial paederastic system, it's no frickin' *wonder* they basically destroyed themselves, because you just can't *sustain* that kind of cognitive dissonance. d-:

Your Obi/Annie/Padme triangle? To me, that would make the story *less* tragic, because *my* Obi-Wan and Anakin are best friends and brothers and understand each other better than any other person in the galaxy, even Padme and Qwi-Gon, and the schism that opens between them in RotS is sudden and unexpected and incomprehensibly painful to both of them. If you stick the sex triangle into the mix, then clearly they don't really understand or know each other, and the pain of RotS has been simmering for *years* beneath the surface, and it's not so much tragic as inevitable. Ugh. Yeah, my Republic Jedi are So Totally NOT Doing It. So There. They're Partners in the Divine Mulder And Scully sense of the word.

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

*listens to Hands* Wow - that could be an awesome vid. Except sad and not so much gratuitously violent. d-:

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Heh. It was my Ginny Weasley song until it got stuck in my head and I decided it was totally Ani/Padme and Obi-wan and Luke&Leia instead. Even though it's still better Ginny. But the cutting off of hands in that movie got really monotonous! Dude.

[enemy-anime.livejournal.com]

Wow...this conversation is INCREDIBLE!!

Can I please link it in my LJ? O_O

On another note, is it me, or would the outcome of Episode III been completely different if Mace Windu didn't blow off Anakin YET AGAIN before facing Palpatine? If he had said "Yes, my brother, let's combat this scourge together!" and, you know, make the kid feel wanted for once? I think that's why Anakin ended up choosing Palpatine. He seemed to be the only one who gave a shit about the dude's feelings. Granted, Obi Wan did but like most Jedi (and men, for that matter), he's emotionally nuetered and unable to really express it.

Sorry if that observation isn't as deep as what you guys have got going here, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Feel free to link it wherever! (I am going to bed, *finally*, though, so I'm going to bow out for a few hours.)

Yeah, I really think that if a single Jedi had shown any sort of clear respect or caring for Anakin, the whole thing would have gone down very differently. But particularly at the last minute, if Mace had taken the time to see the kid and not the Chosen One.. who knows?

[enemy-anime.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks! If you kids are back in MD and are gonna do a SW marathon, let me know. I need to hear what comes out of it. ^__________^

Grievous

[theemptylife.livejournal.com]

Just a thought on the general. I have a clone wars book, Cloak of Deception, which I had given up on reading because a lot of these Clone Wars books seem to...ah....suck. The last one focused waaay too much on military logistics of supply..
Anywho, I'm going to start up on it again because the premise of the book is that the Jedi must stop a planet from selling its bio-droids to the separatists. The specific bio droid type the Jedi are worried about is a force-senstive droid that can take on a jedi. I'm hypothesizing that Grievous is a more advanced version of this.

Re: Grievous

[theemptylife.livejournal.com]

scratch that, its called Cestus Deception

Re: Grievous

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Cloak of Deception is a prequel novel though, is it? I think we have a copy of that one (which I haven't read...)

Bio-droid, ehh? Groan. But no, I think I did see something about how Grievous is a Sith in the Clone Wars cartoon who ends up in an exoskeleton like Vader's, only more so. Have you seen the cartoon?