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Post #339772

Author
Gaffer Tape
Parent topic
Prequel Living Arrangements
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/339772/action/topic#339772
Date created
16-Dec-2008, 1:08 PM

And maybe you're so used to well-written dialogue that you assume Lucas has the same intentions too? ^_~

I will definitely agree that those scenarios are possible, and, in other scenarios, probable.  While the absence of proof is not proof of absence, I find it a bit of a stretch in this case to assume that George had any of these good ideas in mind.  Because they do create drama and tension and let the viewers see the lack of enforcement they actually had with their code, I would think it would have been pointed out a little more clearly... or at all. 

As for Mace Windu... well, you made me laugh, that's for sure.  But he does have enough of a character that I'm able to tell that he's not quite sure about Anakin.  He doesn't trust him.  He thinks he's defiant.  He doesn't seem entirely convinced that Anakin is "The Chosen One."  It seems to me that if he knew Anakin was flaunting the Jedi Code that badly, he wouldn't just sit idly by and let him get away with it.  Like you said, friends might let poor decisions slide, but you can't say that Mace and Anakin were friends.  Ever since Jake Lloyd gave him that scowly look in Phantom Menace, it was clear that they had bad blood!  =P

It's not out of the realm of reality for those close to a heroic figure to cover up his/her faults to keep him/her from getting in trouble.  But when someone is flaunting the rules so openly (he lives with her, and she's pregnant!) so that anyone who could put two brain cells together could figure it out, they would have to take action, otherwise it would undermine their rules and other Jedi would start screwing around.  I'm not saying I agree with their code, but they do have a code, and the fact that those rules play such a pivotal part of the plot ("How can we be together with this stringent and damning code that says we can't?") suggests to me that the Jedi would take it very seriously if they actually knew.  Which they should because it's obvious... but they don't because they're stupid.  Ugh.  Like I said, this doesn't make any sense.

Writing this post, I'm beginning to wonder if this part of the plot got messed up in the same way the other big plot movement in this movie got muddied.  You know what I'm talking about:  the turn.  Where it was written one way and then changed in pick-up shots, so that you have half the movie assuming Anakin turned under one set of circumstances and the other half under the delusion that he changed for an entirely different set of circumstances.  That's the only way I can rationalize this.  That George wasn't sure himself how the living arrangements and knowledge of the Jedi was supposed to pan out, so he wrote it two different ways and simply forgot to rectify it when he cut the movie together.