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Originally posted by: R2-G2
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.
He could have made the films in the late 80's or early 90's, but I think he was so burned out he wanted to do anything but Star Wars. Saying FX tech wasn't up to snuff is just an excuse, but its a valid one to justify his long wait if he wants. He just wasn't ready to take the plunge back then. The wait was fine with me, unfortunately, I hated walking out of The Phantom Menace going "I waited sixteen years for this???". I can't for the life of me believe that Lucas really had Jar Jar in mind way back when he first typed "A Long Time Ago..."
Yeah, he specifically cited Mace Windu as one character that the outline didn't account for. Again, it was apparently pretty broad and general as a story. And only certain major characters were developed. I don't think he could've captured the finer points of Coruscant or other such places in the late 80's or 90's, but the basic story probably could've been covered (even if the scale of everything wasn't quite right). Pre-production on TPM began in 1994, so Lucas obviously spent quite a lot of time with it.
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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.
At last, we totally agree. That's good... you've taken your first step into a larger world...
I'm just pushing the BS button because it seems appropriate in this instance.
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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.
So Anakin is good at racing podracers, and if I recall correctly, it was said that no human had won the pod race. Not that it was completely genetically impossible for a human to win. Also, there's nothing that Anakin DID that really stood out as particularly indicative of his "greatness"; he never used the Force or did anything that was noteworthy in regard to Jedi potential.
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. Desperate times, desperate measures and other stuff.
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Which totally blows the whole "he's too old" argument completely out of the water. Jeez, Anakin is like a 4th or 5th grader, hardly a sage old timer. I still find the notion that the only acceptable Jedi candidates are babies to be completely preposterous. If that's the case, the Sith should find ample recruits... "Hey, can't be a Jedi? say you're TOO OLD? Well come on over to the Sith, we'll show you what the Force is all about!"
There's two ways you can look at this. 1- Under ideal circumstances back in the hey-day of the Jedi during the Republic era, the Jedi trained new Jedi basically from infancy and they wouldn't rarely change their practices. However, once all but two of them have been killed by the bad guys, they're willing to overlook their standard training policies and have Yoda give Luke a crash course in Jedi-ology in the space of about two months since the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake, even though (under ideal circumstances) Luke would never have been trained as a Jedi. The Council calling Anakin "too old" when he was 10 years old kind of underscores the seriousness of the situation when Luke is trained at almost 22 years of age. 2- Lucas is a hack.
The best evidence leads me to put my faith in #1.
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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.
Well, since you asked, I would never have written Anakin as a 9-10 year old. He would have at least been a teenager, around Luke's age, but probably just a little younger. I would have had Obi-Wan discover his Jedi potential inadvertently, such as witnessing Anakin doing stuff naturally that took Obi-Wan and other Jedi years of study and practice to learn. A little scene like when Luke first practiced against the remote in ANH, only Anakin would fare much better, making it all look easy. The Jedi would look at him with a sense of awe and fear. So powerful, but untrained, volatile, a wildcard, Obi-Wan convinces the others that they should take him and make him a Jedi, or risk him falling into the hands of the Dark Side.
No offense, but there's absolutely nothing creative about any of that. Lucas's method worked, for me anyway, because Anakin was fairly brimming with power, but he was also a good person who wanted to do good things and had the type of innocence only childhood can bring.
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Oh, and Anakin didn't "prove" himself in ANY way at the end of TPM. Everything he did at the end was by accident. He took off, accidentally, he got into the fight, accidentally, he got shot, accidentally, he went into the ship and just happened to get into sensitive area, accidentally, then he fires at the battledroids, but ends up hitting the reactors (I guess)... again, accidentally
The Force was with Anakin. He knew enough about piloting to do well enough when R2 deactivated the auto-pilot. Anakin's expertise was piloting, mechanics and such things. The Force used Anakin. In ANH, Luke used the Force. The situations were pretty different.
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There wasn't a single thing Anakin did ON PURPOSE during that part of the film. It was all by accident. Please, compare the scene there with Luke's trench run. Everything Luke did was deliberate and with purpose ("Luke, you switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong?" - "Nothing. I'm alright!") not... "Let's try rolling, that's a good trick!"
Luke received actual instruction from Obi-Wan, which is more than Anakin had to work with. Plus, Luke was just older, thus he might've been more inclined to pick things up quicker.
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Star Wars has crappy dialog. Always has, always will. TPM and AOTC were more of the same.
TPM, AOTC and some of ROTJ yes, but ANH and ESB have great scripts, the lines work and are delivered with conviction and believability within the context of their characters. I defy you to name groaners from those two films.
"I was going to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!!"
"Mos Eisley spaceport: you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villai