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End of SE ROTJ...

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Im sorry to bring this up again, Im sure its one of the more tired subjects on the topic of 'old versus new' however I wouldnt mind hearing some peoples opinions on this.
I was watching the special edition dvd of Return Of The Jedi with the commentaries on, and towards the end of the film heard this little nugget of information from mr lucas.

On the subject of luke burning his father and how it closes the relationship between them and is his way of 'letting go' of his father:

"Even though later on as we get to the end of the movie, as he joins the force he is able to retain his original identity.
Its because of Obiwan and Yoda who learn how to do that, how to join the force at will and then retain your identity, but it was his identity as he was when he died as Anakin Skywalker


Bearing in mind this was being said whilst George was no doubt watching the film, looking at the image of Hayden as the ghost, but that wasnt his identity when he died, his identity was a blading old man (without eyebrows)

but it was his identity as he was when he died as Anakin Skywalker

Thoughts, comments?
Me, Sad?
"Disce quasi semper victurus; vive quasi cras moriturus"

- Han shot first!
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nothing more then his half assed excuse to destroy the Original trilogy.

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I have to say that the change made to the ROTJ ending doesn't bother me per se. It's the way it's executed. Hayden's stare towards Leia is even creepier than the kiss on Hoth! And I still don't see why the continuity department didn't spot the eye colour-thing earlier. Why muck up the original movies when they could've given Hayden a pair of blue contacts? I like the fact that Lucas is trying to make the two trilogies fit, but his execution is half-assed. It's gonna take a crapload of new CG changes to fix all the continuity errors between 'em!
"The things that stick in my mind and make me laugh were, like, memos worried about whether or not the Wookie should have pants. They're looking at this thing and saying, "Couldn't he have some lederhosen?" This is great. Of all the things to worry about, the Wookie has no pants." -Mark Hamill
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Look, if anyone wants to challenge me on this force-ghost bullshit, I'll take them. According to the PT, Qui-Gon taught Yoda AND Obi-wan how to retain their identities in the Force (which I will explain later, is to cover discontinuities created by Lucas in the first place) AFTER Anakin became Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker NEVER learned how to retain his identity in the Force. Therefore, according to this inadequate PT explanation, Anakin shouldn't have appeared at the end of Return of the Jedi AT ALL. Case closed.

The only reason GL needed to devise this whole 'retaining one's identity in the Force' BS is because he had the stupidity to show Qui-Gon's body after his death. If he had followed the pattern that he had followed with all Jedi deaths prior to that, he would have made Qui-Gon's body disappear upon being struck by Maul's lightsaber - no explanation required. But instead, he tried to be consistent with his mistake and had all these other Jedi die with their bodies intact in AOTC and ROTS (Uh, see, I MEANT to do it that way...). See, here's the thing - When Darth Vader struck Obi-wan with his lightsaber on the Death Star platform in ANH, OBI-WAN DIED. And when a Jedi dies, he disappears. When Yoda lay down on his death-bed, drew his last breath, said his last words, THEN disappeared - guess what - HE DIED TOO. Of old age, believe it or not! When Darth Vader listened to his son's pleas, and found the man that was his father deep down inside of him (Anakin Skywalker), he threw the Emperor down the shaft, and following that, HE DIED! So here we have 3 Jedi dying in the OT, and all three of them become apparitions at the end of ROTJ AS THEY WERE WHEN THEY DIED. Prior to the PT, all Jedi were SUPPOSED to disappear when they died, Lucas just stuffed it up. No BS explanations required. Case closed.
MTFBWY. Always.

http://www.myspace.com/red_ajax
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Anakin Skywalker NEVER learned how to retain his identity in the Force


Do you know what happend in those 20 odd years between episodes 3 & 4 then?
Serious question is there a book the tells the story of vader from his birth up untill we meet him at the start of ANH cause' if there is id sure like to get my hands on a copy of that, but if there isnt then how can you say he never learnt how to retain his identity in the force, for all we know his master could have taught him that?

"Disce quasi semper victurus; vive quasi cras moriturus"

- Han shot first!
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We shouldn't have to turn to books and other resources to find out stuff that we should've learned in the movie itself.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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My version: Jedi's are wise, spiritual, enlightened dudes. When they die, they become 'one with the force', they transcend the physical and progress to a higher level of existence.

George's version: something about Qui-Gon teaching Yoda who taught obi-wan and somehow Anakin figured it out and when he died he became one with the force, but it wasn't his old self it was his young self because that's how he was before he turned to the darkside. Or something. For more info, read a whole load of EU novels.

War does not make one great.

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Originally posted by: Mikes-Atomic-Dustbin

Do you know what happend in those 20 odd years between episodes 3 & 4 then?
Serious question is there a book the tells the story of vader from his birth up untill we meet him at the start of ANH cause' if there is id sure like to get my hands on a copy of that, but if there isnt then how can you say he never learnt how to retain his identity in the force, for all we know his master could have taught him that?

Per Lucas' own script for ROTS:

222 INT. POLIS MASSA-OBSERVATION DOME-NIGHT

On the isolated asteroid of Polis Massa, YODA meditates.

YODA: Failed to stop the Sith Lord, I have. Still much to learn, there is ...

QUI -GON: (V.O.) Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith.

YODA: Eternal consciousness.

QUI-GON: (V.O.) The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed.

YODA: . . . to become one with the Force, and influence still have . . . A power greater than all, it is.

QUI-GON: (V.O.) You will learn to let go of everything. No attachment, no thought of self. No physical self.

YODA: A great Jedi Master, you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. Your apprentice I gratefully become.

YODA thinks about this for a minute, then BAIL ORGANA enters the room and breaks his meditation.

BAIL ORGANA: Excuse me, Master Yoda. Obi-Wan Kenobi has made contact.


This would indicate that A) Not every Jedi knew the 'trick' yet B) There's no way in HELL that Anakin would have been able to learn this power prior to the moment of his death (though I can *stretch* logic and think that Ben and Yoda might have mystically had time to teach Anakin's spirit in the few hours between his death and them all showing up at the party and C) that one can infer NOTHING along the lines of the 'way you were when you died as a Jedi/Hayden' bullsh*t.

What actually made it on screen answers absolutely nothing though which leaves the door open for whatever Lucas excuse-du-jour is made up.

Originally posted by: Nanner Split
We shouldn't have to turn to books and other resources to find out stuff that we should've learned in the movie itself.


I agree 100% with that! The books, games, etc should *expand* the viewer's experience and NOT be required to know WTF is going on. And the way Lucas and LFL screwed up SW continuity (and continue to do so) even READING everything doesn't help one be any more claer on some things!
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Which is why I hate ROTS's General Grievous. He walks around crippled avter being wounded in the cartoons. I shouldn't have to watch the friggin' cartoons to see the villain! It should be in the movie!!!

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Originally posted by: Nanner Split
Which is why I hate ROTS's General Grievous. He walks around crippled avter being wounded in the cartoons. I shouldn't have to watch the friggin' cartoons to see the villain! It should be in the movie!!!


Even worse than that I wonder which came first, the cough or the cartoon. I've heard that the Clone Wars producers put it in to explain the cough, just as they put in Anakin's knighting ceremony, etc. But I haven't heard a clear timeline as to whether or not Lucas told them "this is how he got his cough" or if, when presented with the script of ROTS to 'animate the crawl' as they've said, the animators just thought 'this is stupid but let's try to explain it like we've had to do with everything else.

Part of me wishes I'd have never seen Clone Wars prior to seeing ROTS so that my mind would have been even freer to love or hate the film based on its own merits. (Not that my opinion of it could have been much lower)
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If memory serves, the cough came before the cartoon. Lucas wanted something like the Vader breathing to signify that Grievous wasn't all droid. Something about originally wanting Vader more forced. He settled on a cough.

So yes, the cartoon was designed to explain it. A guy at my showing of ROTS even said, "Why is the droid coughing" to which I responded, "he's not a droid". I agree that it is messed up you have to watch a cartoon to know that. I never finished that show either.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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Originally posted by: Nanner Split
We shouldn't have to turn to books and other resources to find out stuff that we should've learned in the movie itself.



yeah sure... but how georgie boy is going to sell SW stuff if the movies are complete (if only they could be good...)

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What he said, i think its really clever seeing a wounded old general that everyones scared of yet we know nothing about then a cartoon comming out telling his story, im not to botherd about spending more cash on more dvds / media. So not only am I being entertaind but george is making more dollah, which is what he wants at the end of the day.

Hence why ive bought all 6 the boba fett novels, to find out what happens to bobba between episodes 2 and 4

Snoogans
"Disce quasi semper victurus; vive quasi cras moriturus"

- Han shot first!
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The only problem is that there's nothing even remotely scary about him, starting with his crappy voice.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Grievous was an *attempt* at foreshadowing Vader's future state. A being, more machine than sentient. The coughing ruins everything, though - forces too many similarities between the two, and reduces Grievous to nothing more than a caricature (even though he was only a ring-in, disposable villain from the beginning of ROTS).
MTFBWY. Always.

http://www.myspace.com/red_ajax
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I just will never be able to live down the fact that Grevious sounds like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. I can't stand ROTS anymore because of that damn General character. He was a waste of space and screen time. He didn't movie the plot along and had he disapeared very little of the story would have changed.
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
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"The only reason GL needed to devise this whole 'retaining one's identity in the Force' BS is because he had the stupidity to show Qui-Gon's body after his death."

Actually, the only reason he needed this whole 'retaining one's identity in the Force' BS is because he killed off Obi-wan in ANH, and then wanted to bring him back in ESB.

"Prior to the PT, all Jedi were SUPPOSED to disappear when they died, Lucas just stuffed it up. No BS explanations required. Case closed."

Actually, prior to the PT, Lucas rewrote the events on ROTJ, stating that Anakin's body eventually disappeared from the armor, and Luke was dragging the empty armor on board.

"This would indicate that A) Not every Jedi knew the 'trick' yet"

The fact that we only see Obi-wan's ghost in ANH should be proof of that, not to mention Vader's insistence in ESB that Obi-wan could no longer help him.

"We shouldn't have to turn to books and other resources to find out stuff that we should've learned in the movie itself."

Agreed as well.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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I think the argument that before the PT all jedi disappeared when they die is completely flawed. When Vader strikes down Obi-wan in ANH, he looks puzzled (well, as much as he can with that mask covering his face) and steps on the clothing as if checking to see where the heck he went. That's not to say i like the idea of quigon teaching yoda & obiwanhow to dispper, just that i think it was always a special trick. It's also important not to forget that we actually encounter obiwan's spirit in ANH several times when he talks to luke.... So it wasn't just ESB that necessitated the "jedi ghost trick."
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Originally posted by: canofhumdingers
I think the argument that before the PT all jedi disappeared when they die is completely flawed. When Vader strikes down Obi-wan in ANH, he looks puzzled (well, as much as he can with that mask covering his face) and steps on the clothing as if checking to see where the heck he went.

That is a good point.

In my imagined backstory that I made up when I was about 8 years old and it was the nineteen-eighties, this is what I came up with:

"A young jedi named darth vader killed and murdered your father" - this makes me think that obi-wan's student, Darth vader, was young and inexperienced, and he fell to the darkside before he finished his jedi training, and therefore did not know that when somebody is truly one with the force, as obi-wan was, they disappear at death. Vader thought he was pretty hot shit, but he was a rank amatuer compared to Obi-wan, who truly understood the force, the universe, the way things are. Vader on the other hand gave in to evil and took the quick and easy path.

Of course, that was just a logical backstory based on the info we are given by the OT characters and has no relation to the actual backstory we were given in the PT. My imagined backstory had no 'jedi council' or any of that stuff. The jedi were more like wanderers, travelling around doing good heroic deeds.

War does not make one great.

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I've stated it here before and I'll state it again:
Lucas claims he had written most of the OOT and the backstory before filming Episode IV. But everything he has done after that proofs that this wasn't the case.
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Originally posted by: vtpeters
I've stated it here before and I'll state it again:
Lucas claims he had written most of the OOT and the backstory before filming Episode IV. But everything he has done after that proofs that this wasn't the case.


I imagine that he wrote some but not to the extent he makes it out to be. And i think he changed his backstory after Star Wars got popular.
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Originally posted by: Blackjack
nothing more then his half assed excuse to destroy the Original trilogy.


What? Are you serious?
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According to the script, the only way a Jedi can become one with the force is if they reach a higher state of mind through compassion. However, once they reach that "level" they can train themselves to fade away...which is what Ben and Yoda learn to do. When Qui Gon died he had reached that "level" but hadn't learned to let go at will...hence his body didn't dissapear, because his spirit already left his body after he was stabbed. So he can still appear as a ghost and make his voice heard. Ben and Yoda both trained to have the power to fade away at death. Anakin didn't train...but reached that "level" of compassion when he gave his life for Luke....so he gets to be a ghost.

Only problem is that Anakin finally attained that "level" as an old man...not when he was a kid, so the presence of Hayden isn't justified under any circumstance.
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Here's my take on this. Nobody ever actually "sees" the Jedi spirits -- Force-sensitive people like Luke just feel them through the Force. BUT, you need some way of representing that on film, so you make the spirits visible. Now, prior to the scene in question (in the episode 1-6 continuity), we have never really seen Sebastian Shaw as Anakin -- even during Vader's unmasking, Sebastian Shaw's scarred face does not resemble his spirit visage at all. Since we are more familiar with seeing Hayden Christiansen as Anakin (having seen the six films in order), we are more likely to recognize him than Sebastian Shaw. (I remember that, as a kid, I was so confused as to who the third spirit was, since I'd never seen him before.) But that's just a way to represent the invisible spirits on film, so it doesn't really matter.

If you have a problem with Anakin taking his younger form again, consider this -- why didn't you have a problem with him as a fine-looking (albeit old) man, instead of a badly burned and scarred figure?