Star Wars... Wherefore Art
Thou?!?
11 July 2005
This
page is FULL of "spoilers" for:
Star
Wars, Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith
If you haven't seen that film yet, then PLEASE, for the love of all
that is fictionally scientific, do NOT keep reading!!!
(Okay,
those of you left, please scroll down)...
Okay.
I saw the
"final" Star Wars the other day, and I need to BEGIN by
saying that I was thoroughly entertained by it. It was really fun to
go with my friends on OPENING day, and to sit in PERFECT seats (they
WERE perfect seats, by the way) -- but to just be there, with my
friends, to see the grand finale of the saga that was so much a part
of my life almost 30 years ago... it was GREAT.
On the other
hand....
I do have some
issues that I would love to discuss (in no particular order):
1) At one point Yoda
mentions that the prophecy (about Anakin being the "chosen
one" who "brings the Force into balance") might be
incorrectly understood. That is then the last time anything is said
about this, right? Other than Obi Wan shouting at him at the end, as
he lay there legless, "You were the chosen one!"...
But nothing else is explained. So what about that? Have I missed
something? You can't have all this talk, over THREE FILMS, about him
being the "chosen one", who will bring the Force into
balance, and then just say, "Oh, maybe somebody mis-read
that prophecy"... That is just LAME. And if your
answer is, "Well, LUKE was the chosen one!" -- then fine,
how come we never heard that in Episodes 4 to 6?!? All that talk of
Luke following his "destiny" -- surely THAT doesn't equal
"you are the CHOSEN one"?!? Really -- have I
missed something here? Or wait -- (I just thought of this) -- am
I supposed to read that "balance in the Force" means EQUAL
levels of evil and good?!? (i.e.--Anakin turns bad, and that
balances the Force)? If that's the case, then I think I'd rather the
Force was NOT with me, thank you very much.
RESPONSE:
Several people have e-mailed and said something to the effect
of, "But in Episode 6, Anakin (as Darth Vader) actually
kills the emperor -- so THAT brings balance to the
force."
Okay...
maybe... I don't like that answer, but maybe it's right. |
2) Padme supposedly
hid her marriage and pregnancy from those around her. Is that a
joke? She has TWINS, but no one knew? Ain't enough billowy robes in
all of Nabu to hide your pregnant butt, girl -- but no one knew? I
mean, you're telling me Obi Wan, who is a Jedi in touch with the
Force, didn't know until the last minute -- didn't even know they
were married? Even Yoda, the greatest of all Jedi, the one who
Anakin comes to for counsel when he is having dreams of his WIFE
dying -- even HE couldn't "sense" this girl was gonna poop
some kids? COME ON. "Secret pregnancies" are what
happens in SOAP OPERAS, not in a movie franchise that has made
BILLIONS of dollars over 30 years.
3) Okay, and why did
Padme die? I mean REALLY. This is a chick who was one of the most
powerful dames in the whole freakin' galaxy. Had been queen of her
planet, had served as senator for years... but you're telling me
even though she has carried these kids for nine months, and has all
of their future lives to look forward to -- even with all that, she
inexplicably "loses her desire to live"? I mean, Anakin
basically blew her off BIG TIME, dig? I didn't miss that. Fine. The
turning into a monster and choking her with the Force thing -- I saw
all that. But this uber-babe can't take the heat when she gets
dumped? A politician worthy of galactic acclaim, accustomed to all
the intrigue of intergalactic republican politics -- not to mention
dealing with freaking ALIENS, dude -- and yet she can't handle being
"betrayed"?!? She's so "crushed" by getting the
pink slip from her hubby that she gives up on life
COMPLETELY?!? I
mean, you're telling me she's gonna give birth to TWINS and then
just croak "for no medical reason"?!?!?!? I do NOT buy
that one. And neither do about ONE BILLION single moms out
there.
RESPONSE:
One of my friends said something like, "I think Padme
was so in love with Anakin, that when he turned to the dark
side, she just didn't want to live anymore."
But
this is my point, exactly -- that THAT is not a reason for her
to DIE. She is not that fragile a person that "lost
love" would actually KILL her. Make her depressed? YES.
Make her gain about 40 pounds and start wearing sweat suits
everyday? MAYBE. But make her just lay down and DIE, for no
medical reason, when surrounded by medical technology which
FAR surpasses our own?!? I don't think so.
We've
all had a broken heart, right? Maybe we even said to ourselves
that we "wanted to die," if we felt that bad... but
it's not like any of us just laid down and actually DID die,
for no reason, dig? Our "broken hearts" didn't
actually BREAK, and stop beating, thereby reducing the amount
of blood flowing through our veins to ZERO... you catch what
I'm saying?!?
I did
have another thought, though... What if Anakin really DID kill
her? What if his choking trick, along with his lingering
anger, actually killed her in a way that was undetectable...
In other words, the dark side killed her... What do you think? |
4) And another thing
-- a note to all directors in Hollywood and beyond -- do NOT hire
Natalie Portman for any child-birthin' scenes, nor for any dying
scenes -- and DEFINITELY do not hire her for any dying-while-child-birthin'
scenes. She looked like she had just stepped out of the salon,
for crying out loud. She was 1000 times more stressed in Anakin's
DREAMS about her dying while child-birthin' than she was when she
was supposedly actually croaking.
5) One more about
Padme -- I loved how she names the kids with no thought whatsoever:
| "Uh,
what chew wanna name dis here baby?"
"Luke..."
[short pause for more birthin']
"Uh,
lady, you got yo self 'nother one -- what chew gonna name
it?"
"Leia...
and now (gasp),
I shall die for no reason"... |
I grant that she had
nine months to think of names. But geez, she didn't even say it with
any emotion or love or anything. Just, "Luke" spoken in as
deadpan a delivery as humanly possible... She could
have been ordering lunch for all the significance it seemed to have
for her. Then again, I guess she was pre-occupied with figuring out
how to die for no reason, which was not going to be easy to
do given that the state of medical
technology is such that a man who has no legs or arms (and who has
been burned over his entire body in a sulfurous lava flow) can not
only be revived, but can go on to terrorize the entire galaxy over
the next three films.
(Yeah, sorry -- I
still ain't buying that one about her dying)...
6) Okay, let me ask
this -- but it's a little difficult to explain. You remember when
Palpatine is zapping Mace Windu? They are sitting there locked in
mortal combat, when for some reason Palpatine turns into a
wrinkly-faced blob all of a sudden. What caused that? Did the
effort of zapping just make his bodily fluids all pop out
permanently? Or was that his REAL face, and the nice, gentle
Chancellor face was a fake one? I'm genuinely asking about this --
because I keep thinking, was he REALLY almost gonna die because he
was exerting himself so much? That's what he said, right? "I
can't keep doing this!" or whatever, right? And so he stops
the zapping and Mace gets ready to kill him. Okay. So he was just
FAKING not being able to continue, right? Faking, see, because he wanted
to get Anakin to kill Mace, right? Or what?!? Do you see what
I'm saying? Remember how he was looking all sneaky at Anakin while
whining helplessly, "Please don't let him kill me, if I die
I can't save Padme" or whatever? BUT, if he was TRULY
exerting so much energy that it was gonna kill him, and he could
under no circumstance continue to fight Mace, then how come 60
seconds later, after Mace is armless (thanks to Anakin), he
suddenly perks up and zaps Mace out across the city, while shouting
at the top of his lungs, "UNLIMITED POWER!!!"
?!?!?!? -- Do you see what I'm saying?!? I'm like, "Unlimited
power, right -- except for 60 seconds ago, when my face turned into
a blob and you were about to KILL me"... But on the OTHER
hand, if he WASN'T getting beaten by Mace, then why did his face get
all messed up?!? I mean, if it was part of his "trick" to
make Mace (and Anakin) think he was losing his power, then why
didn't he just change back afterwards? I'm serious, dude, what was
going on? It doesn't make any sense...
RESPONSE:
Okay, one of my friends just said they are pretty
sure that what REALLY happened is that kindly Palpatine was
just a "front" -- that all that time he looked like
a gentle old politician it was a FAKE FACE, and that when
battling with Mace he finally let his REAL face come
out.
I totally
think that settles that one -- it makes sense to me -- problem
SOLVED!
|
7) It seems to me that
Anakin was pretty easy to "turn" -- you know? I mean, even
if I buy that in the heat of the moment he cuts off the arm of Mace,
thereby "saving" Palpatine, I still can't see why that
would "obviously" mean he is now committed to
Palpatine, good or bad. I mean, he makes a horrible mistake (he even
says, "What
have I done?!?"), but so therefore that's it?!? -- "Oh, well, I got Mace killed, I
guess I might as well join the dark side!!" -- is that how
it goes? I mean, he was trained HIS ENTIRE ADULT LIFE by the Jedi --
was that part of the training? "If you ever make a
mistake, then give up immediately and join the dark side"...
RESPONSE:
At least one person has told me that I do not have enough
appreciation for Anakin's anger, fear and resentment. In their
view, they can "understand" how he would choose the
dark side, as he genuinely felt he was being betrayed by the
Jedi Council -- who, coincidentally, made not even the first
gesture to try to help him save Padme.
I felt this was a good answer until it occurred to me,
"How would the Jedi Council even KNOW to try and help
save Padme?" -- I mean, they had deceived the council
about their relationship from the START, so how could Anakin
be angry that they weren't gonna help her?!? They didn't even
KNOW to help her, right?
|
8) And let's not even
mention that Anakin doesn't act even the SLIGHTEST BIT put out that
literally ONE MINUTE after committing himself to the dark side,
Palpatine reveals that, in fact, he has NO IDEA how to save Padme!!!
"Together we can learn that secret!" -- I'm
like, what the...?!?!? I just killed a master Jedi, and
committed myself to you, all for the SOLE REASON that you can save
my wife -- I mean, everything in me tells me to NOT support you, and
yet this ONE THING has made me give it all up and turn to the dark
side -- and that ONE THING you NOW reveal you can't even
do?!?!? In the voice of Ricky Ricardo: "Palpatine, joo got some 'splaining to do!!"
9) Okay, NOW -- you've
seen the ending to Episode 3, where Palpatine tells Vader he killed
Padme (presumably when their child was as-yet unborn). Only a
handful of people in the UNIVERSE even know Padme HAD any kids, much
less twins. Certainly the Emperor didn't know it -- right? Now think ahead to Episodes 4 to 6 -- how did Darth Vader
find out that Luke was his son? After all, HE is the one who tells
Luke, "I am your father!" in that
dramatic scene from Empire Strikes Back -- but how did he
know that? He could "sense" it? Maybe, but if THAT were
true, why couldn't he "sense" it when he was torturing his
own DAUGHTER on the Death Star?!?!? Stupid.
RESPONSE:
The main thing that two of my friends said about this was,
"The emperor told Vader about his son, and that's how he
knew."
I do
not buy this at all.
If Vader knew about Luke from the beginning (which he gives no CLUE to
that until the END of Episode 5), but if he KNEW, then why
would he not ALSO know about Leia?!? It is obviously a
shocking surprise to Vader in Episode 6 when Luke's
"feelings" reveal that he has a sister. Are
you telling me that they are able to sense the force so
strongly, but CAN'T sense that?!? And I STILL go back to the
fact that Vader actually tortured Leia FACE-TO-FACE on the
original Death Star -- torture which she was able to
withstand, I might point out (she never divulged the location
of the rebel base) -- and through all that, he never once
sensed, I mean, not for ONE SECOND, that, "Hmmm... The Force is strong in this one"...
?!?!?!?
STUPID. |
10) Finally, I just
have to say that for all the bluster of Vader's menace in Episodes 4
to 6, we now know that he was just a selfish sucker who was rather
easily manipulated by Darth Sidious -- his life held so much promise
when he was a young Jedi in training, but in the end he's just a
pitiable, ignorant pawn, literally only half a man. I guess
"evil" guys always end up looking tiny and weak when the
light hits them.
And the Tempter
whispering in their ear always
shows himself to be a liar...
. . .
Well, I hope you don't
think I'm an idiot and taking all this too "seriously" --
I'm not gonna show up at any Sci-Fi conventions to argue the finer
points of the Star Wars universe -- I'm a nerd, but not THAT big of
a nerd. And hey, like I said, I really enjoyed watching the film -- but there were
just some things that didn't quite "fit" or something.
That's all...
When we went to the
movie on Saturday, the kids asked if I had slept the night before --
they HONESTLY thought that I might have been so excited about seeing
it that I couldn't sleep!! That totally cracked me up!! I
assured them I was excited -- just not THAT excited!
But then afterwards,
they asked, "How come you're not smiling?!?" -- my answer
was immediate: "I'm THINKING!! I'm trying to make it all fit
together."
But sorry, guys --
I just can't...
|
