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Originally posted by: R2-G2
Word to that HotRod. If Lucas had the events of episodes 1 and 2 clearly in his mind since 1976, then I've got a real life size Death Star to sell you.
He said he had the films outlined. Major events, major characters, etc. I can believe that. I seriously doubt that he ever intended to even film the prequel trilogy, until around 1980 or so wherein he changed his mind. He claims to have been waiting for technology to catch up to his vision, but I personally think he was procrastinating.
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Yes, Lucas is a constant promoter of revisionist history, talking about the PT as if that is what he had in mind all along, which is ridiculous. Trentobi, before you jump to GL's defense, I don't need to read Lucas' mind, I just look at what he has said. His assertion about Greedo shooting first and his desire to make Jabba a big fat lizard instead of a big fat old man in ANH as things that he had planned to do all along are not corroborated by anything other than Lucas' self-serving statements.
I don't even think Lucas had it in his mind that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father until he started to write the story of Empire Strikes Back. I doubt he even made up his mind about Leia being Luke's sister. Though to hear Lucas tell it now, Star Wars is always about a guy and his twins.
Lucas knew from the start that Vader was Luke's father. Darth Vader = "dark" and "father" in some other language. He knew Luke had a twin, but wasn't sure if it was Han or Leia. This is kinda backed up by ESB in a way. I'm speculating that he wanted Luke's twin to be Han since... Luke and Leia kissed in ESB.
I don't buy Lucas' statements about Greedo either, for the record. I read somewhere that he attributed Han shooting first in the original ANH as an "editing error"... which I don't believe for one second. It was completely in character for Han to shoot Greedo first in that bar. To say (or do) anything else is an insult to everyone's intelligence.
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Trentobi writes: "Anakin piloted his pod in a winning race... which humans cannot do, strictly speaking. That was stated in plain English during the film. He was tested by the Jedi Council and demonstrated a sufficient enough skill in the Force (describing the objects in Mace Windu's holopad) that the Jedi Council all agreed that he had "exceptional skill"... even if he was too old to begin training as a Jedi. Since he was just a kid in TPM, we got to see him be an innocent, selfless kid... which makes him growing up into Darth Vader all the more heart-wrenching since he was such a good kid once. If Anakin had come out of the womb as a bloodthirsty maniac, why the hell would the Jedi have accepted him?!?! And moreover, why would the audience care about it? They'd say "that sicko was a demon right from the start!" He basically gave in to the Dark Side when he was first born, it kinda takes the sting out of the whole transformation.
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So Anakin can drive a pod-racer around really fast, on the same rationale, just because Jeff Gordon can win the Daytona 500 doesn't mean he'd make a great Delta Force commando.
Are you being this dense on purpose? For the purposes of a story, only Anakin can pilot podracers. If I can accept the other conventions of Star Wars, this is no problem.
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As for his "tests", oh wow, him reading the cards ("I don't know... a couple of wavy lines?"); could Lucas have come up with something more imaginative than that for a test? And why did they even bother if they already knew he was "too old", which is preposterous. If boy-child Anakin is "too old", then what is Luke? George just wanted to have lots of cute kids. The Jedi younglings in Episode 2 are another attempt to completely remove any gonads out of Star Wars, how saccharine.
Luke was trained as a Jedi during less-than-ideal circumstances. Yoda and Obi-Wan were both prepared to overlook his age in exchange for him bringing Vader and Palpatine down. It was an emergency situation.
How would you have written Anakin's testing scene? Mind you, Anakin can't really jump around yet, move objects, lightsaber duel, etc. He'd already had the midichlorian test and won a race he wasn't even supposed to be biologically capable of competing in. And anyway, to humor Qui-Gon, the Council decided to test Anakin. Anakin didn't prove himself until later in the film... and only when Obi-Wan threatened to train him outside of the Council, if necessary. So knowing all that, the Council probably agreed to let Obi-Wan train Anakin to keep Anakin under some kind of control.
Jedi were trained in the ways of the Force starting shortly after their birth. The scene with Bear Clan in AOTC didn't really bother me. It was brief, the kids were mostly window-dressing and they weren't anywhere near as annoying as one minute worth of Ewoks. Besides, that scene showed Yoda doing something else besides sitting around on his butt in the Jedi Temple.
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As for that "Yippee" stuff... kids say dumb stuff all the time. It's soooo wizard!!"
Stop being an apologist. Poor Jake Lloyd, he deserved better than that. I feel equally sorry for Daniel Logan ("Get him dad!!!" Get him!!! FIRE!!!")
Star Wars has crappy dialog. Always has, always will. TPM and AOTC were more of the same.
- Trentobi