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Hey guys, Remember when Star wars had writing like this? — Page 10

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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
At least he does a good job at it.
Absolutley! And he still is! That's the great thing about George, is that he's not going to call it quits until the saga is just right! I'm just glad that he gives me the opportunity to pay to see his rough drafts every time they're done, so that I can keep up with his breakthroughs!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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I think the confusion lies in Lucas' contention that while he didn't set out to make it all about Anakin, that the story really was about Anakin all along.

He didn't intend it, that just sort of manifested itself to him as he went along.
Your focus determines your reality.
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His vision is still not realised.


Because he decided to create a "vision" after 1977. It was meant to be one movie until the original became wildly sucessful; as with all movies, a sequel was inevitable. Later, Lucas called it a "vision" in order to make money.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I think the confusion lies in Lucas' contention that while he didn't set out to make it all about Anakin, that the story really was about Anakin all along.

He didn't intend it, that just sort of manifested itself to him as he went along.

Problem is, there is a third possibility here that is supported by reality. Although he didn't set out to make it all about Anakin, he decided at some point to take it in that direction. It didn't magically manifest itself that way.


Imagine this: you take someone who has no knowledge of ANYTHING Star Wars and you sit them down and show them the OOT. Then, when it is over, you ask them one question: "Who is the one main character in that trilogy?" Anybody here think their answer would be anything other than Luke Skywalker?

The original films are not a story about Anakin Skywalker. They are the story of a young farm boy who dreams of bigger things, is able to realize his dreams and learn more about himself in the process. Always have been, always will be.

Pink Floyd -- First in Space

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Those people who had only seen the classic trilogy do not have the benefit of Lucas' full view of the story that included the prequels.

Lucas certainly did take it in that direction after he had decided that the story was already heading in that direction on it's own.

I mean even going on just the classic trilogy it's Anakin who saved the day at the end. Without him, Luke would have fried like a pork sausage.

The classic trilogy's resolution on it's own is fairly hollow without the prequels.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Yes, Anakin saves the day, but so does Lando. So does Han in the first one. Even R2D2 does it in Empire. That was the Star Wars Style: The last minute escape/rescue. It didn't suddenly make Anakin the most important character. And the trilogy's resolution is hollow only if you don't care that Luke becomes a true Jedi, the emperor is killed, the war is won, the whole gang made it through alive and everyone lived happily ever after.
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No it's hollow for redeeming someone we were never introduced to.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
No it's hollow for redeeming someone we were never introduced to.


But this logic is circular. Making the redemption about Vader and then saying the redemption of Vader is hollow without his backstory is self-confirming. But if the story was about Luke and how he was able to overcome his temptation to the darkside and how he redeemed his father, the story is anything but hollow.
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If Luke had saved the day, sure.

But the ultimate hero is someone we were never introduced to.
Your focus determines your reality.
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"Hollow"?? This, the most poignant scene in the film, is "hollow"? My friend, perhaps you do not remember a time before the year 2005, but this scene was touching and emotional without the benefit of the prequels. Its touching because here is a monster, an evil man, who turns to good to save his son whom still believed in him.

Furthermore--how the fuck does the PT suddenly add emotion to a "hollow" scene? What we learn in the PT--the particulars of his downfall--have almost no bearing on the ROTJ scene. The ROTJ redemption is powerful because its an evil man brought to goodness by his sons suffering--learning how he turned to evil in the first place (he wanted to save his wife from visions of death) does not really add anything to the specific scene, nor transform it from "hollow" to "emotional". We know that Vader was once a good man named Anakin who was a heroic Jedi and turned bad--we don't need to know anything more to make the scene work. In fact we don't even need to know this--the scene works because its a man who was the villain sacrificing himself in the name of good.

This is just a fucking stupid argument Go-mer.
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It was okay, it's just much more sunstantial now. Before it was a stick figure of meaning, now it's fully fleshed out.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
No it's hollow for redeeming someone we were never introduced to.
I'm with you, here! I mean, who IS this Darth Vader that we're suddenly supposed to give a shit about? George knew this was a problem, 'cos it's that guy's story! It's all about Vader! So he had to fix this major, major problem that occurred due to studio interference and lack of time and the primitive technology he had to work with.

I mean, who wants to go back to the days when he had to cobble the character together from different actors?! Shoddy!!!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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As long as you come to the right conclusion, I won't nitpick your logic.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Well, if one truly wants to appreciate George, one must embrace his modus operandi, most particularly that "the ends justify the means".
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Yeah, and when will we learn E.T.'s backstory? His death/rebirth has no depth. And I wish I knew the complete history of Gizmo. Gremlins is so hollow without knowing his life story.
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You guys are just so resistant to change that you refuse to understand what Lucas did in the end.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Hey, less talk about the "end", buster! George is far from done with the saga! There needs to be a lot more changes before his vision is fully realised, you mark my words!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Long after Lucas is gone, you will still be sarcastic about him.
Your focus determines your reality.
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George will never die until his vision has been realised! He will have his body frozen and order that he be revived only when technology has progressed to a stage whereby the SW saga can be completed according to his true vision!

It is you and I who will be gone, Mr Tonic, and Mr Luca$h who will have the last laugh! I just wish I could be there when the saga is finally finished...

Sorry...

I'm choking up a little here...

I promised myself I wouldn't cry!

[SOBS]
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
No it's hollow for redeeming someone we were never introduced to.


Hah, Go-Mer, I love how you make idiotic replies just to rile people up. It makes me wonder if you truly believe the SE and the "saga" are better. If you can treat truth and reason so lightly, then how am I to believe you are even expressing your honest beliefs and your actual reasoning? Heh, whenever your idiocy is answered, you immediately drop that logical point and bring up yet another. I already know that you spout shit just because you like provoking people, but perhaps that is the end you actually seek. (If you're not allowed to change the topic you simply run away from a conversation.) It's funny. I now believe that there's a good chance that actually you prefer the OT and hate the saga.


You bring up an interesting discussion point though: the meaning that the original form of Vader's redemption had. Darth Vader had no need to be introduced any further than he had already been for us to care about him. It was gripping to know that a man who had fathered Luke (and Leia), had elicited warm memories from Ben, and had fought for the side of good had also somehow fallen into evil and become a monster. But it is a great spiritual truth that no man can know the heart of another completely. The question of whether or not Luke could reach out to Vader’s goodness was an unknown to the other characters and particularly to the audience. Would Vader turn from evil? Could he even if he wanted to?

When Vader saves Luke by killing the emperor, we see that Luke had succeeded in his chosen mission. He took a stand and refused to kill his own father because he believed there was good in him. That's hardly hollow on its own (it gives me goose bumps) but another big question after that concerned the actual redemption. It's one thing for a monster to save the life of his child (he could simply be turning from one evil and embracing another). It's a totally different thing for a monster to have a complete change of heart. We didn't know if Vader would be lost forever or not. But, at the end, we see him standing alongside Ben and Yoda in light. That's very moving.

My point is that the redemption of Darth Vader is so gripping precisely because we know so little about him. Would Luke be able to appeal to his goodness? Could Luke convince him to repent? Would Vader genuinely turn away from darkness and would the good side of the force prevent his spirit from being consumed by it forever? We didn't know! It was fantastic, human drama precisely because we weren’t introduced to Vader in any close way.

I never believed that George Lucas could actually ruin this, however. I thought that no matter how the PT unfolded, Vader would still be a rational man who would make evil choices out of mistaken ideals and impatience. In other words, he would degenerate into a monster, but that the monster would be seen as one that still had the capacity for goodness. Instead, we got a very different kind of monster. We got a psychopath. We got someone so evil and self-centered that we can't even believe he was ever even good in the first place! Even when he seemed to act like a good guy, those actions had to have been only for his own, selfish, psychotic reasons (if the overall character is to make any sense). There's no true goodness to be found there. No real ability to repent. You have a heart that can protect innocent children in one second and then murder them senselessly in the next without any empathy or even a second-thought concerning the wisdom of it all. We weren’t given a rational descent into evil, one that still tried to be honorable and was tortured by what he had become. Instead we got a pathetic crybaby whose only tears were tears of selfish greed.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Tiptup, I actually didn't have a problem with the Anakin character til ROTS, then I started to ?????????????? what the fuck Lucas was trying to say?

In TPM, he is a good kid, and even though Jake Lloyd was pretty bad, it put away all preconceived notions that Vader was a bad kid from the start, and he was actually alot like Luke in ANH.

TPM Anakin = Mission Accomplished.

In AOTC, he is a whiny, and should have been more likeable, and he can't talk to girls, but he is a teenager so I will let it slide. He finds his mother and she dies in front of him, so he goes apeshit on a bunch of tuskens in revenge, and though he did go overboard, revenge is a powerful thing when faced with a loss of a loved one.

AOTC Anakin = I am still on board

In ROTS, he kills a bunch of Jedi kids as his FIRST act as Palpatines pupil, even after he says, "What have I done?" He then goes on to choke his wife, and has to take some credit in her death, even though that is not the reason she died because technically lost the will to live.

ROTS Anakin = You lost me

When I see Anakin as a force ghost in ROTJ now, whether it be Shaw or Hayden, and I think about it in the context 1-6, I don't think he should be there for what he did. I understand he redeemed himself by saving his son and killing the sith, and his last scene should have been with Luke as he dies with his mask off. By never seeing Anakin after that it says this moral message after 6 movies, "Good people do bad things, good people can do awful things too, and in the end, even if you do good at the end of your life, it still doesn't erase the horrors you put on people for many years." By Anakin not being a force ghost, and only Kenobi & Yoda staring back at Luke, it says that Anakin was able to see his son as the good man he was, but he will pay a price for his horrors as he can never become a force ghost.

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Originally posted by: CO
Tiptup, I actually didn't have a problem with the Anakin character til ROTS, then I started to ?????????????? what the fuck Lucas was trying to say?

I agree for the most part. The idea of Vader as once being a good kid worked for me totally and, as annoying as he was, I could still accept Anakin in AotC. The worst part about Anakin in AotC is how he is so whiny and his dialogue so atrocious, and in those aspects I cannot transfer them to Vader. But, yeah, overall I could still understand his actions. It’s the RotS Anakin that I cannot identify with in any worthwhile way. So we basically agree.


Originally posted by: CO
When I see Anakin as a force ghost in ROTJ now, whether it be Shaw or Hayden, and I think about it in the context 1-6, I don't think he should be there for what he did. I understand he redeemed himself by saving his son and killing the sith, and his last scene should have been with Luke as he dies with his mask off. By never seeing Anakin after that it says this moral message after 6 movies, "Good people do bad things, good people can do awful things too, and in the end, even if you do good at the end of your life, it still doesn't erase the horrors you put on people for many years." By Anakin not being a force ghost, and only Kenobi & Yoda staring back at Luke, it says that Anakin was able to see his son as the good man he was, but he will pay a price for his horrors as he can never become a force ghost.


That would have been an interesting direction to take the ending. (It would be more meaningful than saying that the younger, good version Anakin was “resurrected” as George now claims.) Still, to the degree of our own will, I firmly believe that it’s possible to commit the most heinous crimes and still have the possibility of redemption. Of course, the more evil we commit, the less likely it is that we have any desire for goodness, but our hearts are not rigidly predictable and we may have the possibility of turning away from our own evil. RotS Anakin, however, shows us someone so evil that I have an almost impossible time imagining him ever rationally desiring goodness. He’s evil to the core as far as I can tell. Perhaps I can identify with that, but I would never enjoy it.

What I wanted in PT was two things: Anakin having a tragic, but understandable fall into darkness (involving small steps) and an explanation for the enslavement that the dark side of the force had on Darth Vader in RotJ.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Tiptup,

Anakin turning evil should have been because of the Clone Wars and getting 'caught' up with all the politics of the galaxy. Anakin should have never choked his wife, nor killed loads of kids 10 seconds after he says, 'what have I done?" It just makes him a sociopath, and those guys are never redeemed. Think of Jeffrey Dahmer and all the other serial killers, they are never redeemed at the end of their life, cause they are so reviled by the public for their awful crimes, and that is the way I feel about Anakin now. I look ROTS and think, The guy is a baby killer and wife abuser, and he gets to smile back at Luke at the end of ROTJ while Luke is not told of ANY of his crimes? What kind of message does that send?

Anakin should have been killing jedi like the Conehead guy, and all the other jedi on the council that we atleast got to see during the PT movies. He should have turned cause he either felt the republic was the bad guys and the jedi were the evil doers, and that should have come from Palpatine continuously praying on his naivity for 3 movies. The whole dream and Padme is just plain stupid and to me and easy out for Lucas not coming up with something very interesting.

Wars bring out the best and worst out of people, and there are many grey areas when looking at a war. Is the Iraq war worth it? Was the war in Vietnam worth it? Should the Americans dropped 2 Atom bombs on Japan in 1945? Lucas could have challenged the viewer to actually consider Anakins stance in the Clone Wars, and maybe think it was wrong, but understanding he may be right.

There would have been nothing more cool then Anakin/Mace going at it in ROTS as part of the Clone Wars as Mace & Co. go after Palpatine, and Anakin finallly takes Palps side by killing Mace and then truly going over to the darkside. Then he begins to track down all jedi through ROTS as he battles them one on one which eventually leads him to Mustafar where he & Kenobi meet in their climatic duel. As Padme hears of Anakins turn to the darkside, she gives Luke to Kenobi to take to Owen, and takes Leia in hiding on Alderran with her friend Bail Organa. That would have matched up perfectly with the OT as now we understand why Vader stood by The Emperors side in ROTJ.

Instead we get a guy who has a bad dream, and then turns in 3 seconds, and kills kids and chokes his wife, and ends up smiling as a young guy as a force ghost in ROTJ as Kenobi is this old crusty man standing there next to him. Sorry George, I just don't buy it.
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I agree with your sentiments, guys! A fall to the Dark Side by good intentions would work very well. I think Luca$h was gesturing vaguely in that direction with the saving Padme thing but it falls flat in the execution, I think.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Lucas failed in the turn because he spent five hours on subjects from a high school civics class. The PT failed because of the turn, maybe the entire SW saga is ruined by the 6 film torture