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jedi nights

So after sitting through my third viewing of Revenge of the Sith, I've come to the conclusion that the Jedi suck.

Really, they piss me the hell off.

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And I distrust anyone who doesn't believe in passion. Which is all Jedi. Michele Catalano. [Read More]

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Me too, kind of. Just a little bit.

Spoiler alert:

Yes, there is much Jedi suckage in Sith. Suddenly Jedi, which have been prior badasses, are shocked and incapable of battle after finding out they've been betrayed. (The only three Jedi to make a decent showing were Yoda, Obi Wan, and unnamed youngling, and the kid doesn't survive.)

And then on top of that, weren't they really responsible for the whole Anakin situation anyway. We want you to spy on this guy and we won't really tell you why and we'll also suspect you because we asked you to spy on this guy and we'll give you no support at all and leave you alone at your most critical moment, and then wonder where we went wrong.

Yeah.

After only the one viewing, they did bring it upon themselves.

"LA LA LA!!"
/me running away with fingers in ears, singing loudly, as I've yet to see the movie in question.

I know, I know, but I'm a teacher and we are JUST getting out of school and I've been waiting for my level 3 movie partner to come for a visit. By Friday, though, I'll be all up in the Sith conversations.

Who are you calling a level 3, Sharon? I am a 2.99 thank you very much.

The jedi seriously reminded me of the Red Shirts of Star Trek fame. I just chalked it up to the fact that as in any organization there are bad-asses, wimps and the people in between. I'm assuming most of what we saw were the 'tweens and lower getting slaughtered. I have to assume that the other bad-asses we didn't see put up a bit more of a fight and some may even have survived. At least I hope that's it.

No, this has nothing to do with whether they were bad asses or not (though I do wish they put up more of a fight in the scene where they were turned on, even though that's probably my favorite scene from the movie).

The biggest clue to the Jedi suckage was this line:

"On the Sith deal in absolutes."

If I were Anakin, my immediate response would have been, "Are you absolutely sure?"

oh, my bad ... 2.99 ...

::cough:: Lavaberry poptarts ::cough::

/me ducks and runs away FAST

"On the Sith deal in absolutes."

I had a visceral reaction to that line. And also when Yoda talks about attachments leading to greed and the dark side.

Since the Jedi and their actions are sprung from Lucas's imagination, I would say that he is the one that sucks.

The Sith also come from his imagination, too. As do Ewoks and Wookiees and bounty hunters and....well, you get my point.

Sometimes authors or screenplay writers create characters that are BAD or SUCK or that you don't like!

Gads, that was a really stupid statement, Nate.

I know exactly what you mean. They were starting to piss me off in Ep I and definitely ratcheted it up in Ep II.

At risk of revealing myself to be almost a level 3, one thing I like about Knights of the Old Republic II is that it hammered home that most people don't see what the hell the difference between Jedi and Sith is. Most people didn't care which religion ran the show so long as it didn't make their lives anymore difficult. It'd be like a Jew trying to make a heartfelt theological argument in favor or Christianity or Catholicism when in actuality he just doesn't give a shit.

I could go on, but I must contain my geekitude.

"I had a visceral reaction to that line. And also when Yoda talks about attachments leading to greed and the dark side."

But, he was right about that. And we learn later (going off movies into books now) that Luke has the same problem, his attachments to his family lead him right down the dark side path.

That having been said, you are very on point that the Jedi really pissed me off. Obi-wan was the only one who wanted to treat "Ani" (oh how I loathe that nickname) with respect. The council leadership had no interest in doing so.

That also having been said...before swearing yourself to a Sith Lord (THE Sith lord, the one you've been looking for) and murdering the Jedi CHILDREN...why not fess up to Yoda who you were talking about and see if he has, you know, SOME FRIGGING VISIONS OF THE FUTURE? You're going to cut ties anyway, maybe Yoda could have helped. One last ditch effort to be honest with a master and see what happens seems to make sense to me. But no, just swear your allegiance to pure evil in less time than it took you to assemble a snappy all-black ensemble suitable for moody moping and ass-kicking.

(holy shit, was that approaching level 3?)

But no, just swear your allegiance to pure evil in less time than it took you to assemble a snappy all-black ensemble suitable for moody moping and ass-kicking.

But it wasn't that at all. His decline started when his mother died. That's when he started to let his anger and fear of loss rule him. He killed children before he killed the kids in the temple. Remember the sand people?

It wasn't a fast transition at all. It happened subtley, over time. Pledging his allegiance to Palpatine was just a culmination of all the fear, loss and anger he had been harboring for all those years.

Sometimes it only takes a straw to break a camel's back.

And also when Yoda talks about attachments leading to greed and the dark side.

Sounds like faux-Buddhism, sort of a pop imitation of that Samudaya/tanha/Nirodha stuff.

That's why I had to smile when Yoda said that.

Palpatine was the only person who was listening to him. He knew how to push Anakin's buttons and knew that his fear of losing another loved one could be used against him.

My only quibble is in Attack of the Clones, Dooku was showing a Death Star, ala Ep. 6, when it was basically in the rough skelatal stage in ROTS.

If only they listened to the jedi master with "Bad Mutha Fucka" engraved in his lightsaber...

"Sometimes it only takes a straw to break a camel's back."

True, true. I just REALLY wished for a moment or two of deliberation in that scene. Something to show that when the real moment of decision was upon him, he hesitated before actually deciding to become a childkiller. But yeah, I can see it was a series of events that got us there.

Fuck it. Lava battle. Trumps all that might be wrong with the film. Kick.Ass.Fun.

Michele, the Jedi strike me as viscerally afraid to make one single mistake, as if that one mistake (in AS's case , killing sand people kids) would lead to an unrecoverable downward spiral against which there could be no redemption.

Not even the most "you're going to hell" of the "you're going to hell" sects are this devoid of the chance of redemption.

Not to mention Windu's pride, Yoda's unfashionably (and fatally late) interventions... and yes, that whole "absolutes" line. And the whole "giving balance to the force... by exterminating the 'dark' side." Obi-Wan was way shortsighted then too.

Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.
Suffering leads to complaining.
Complaining leads to annoyance.
Annoyance leads to discontent.
Discontent leads to distraction.
Distraction leads to mediocrity.
Mediocrity leads to ewoks.
Ewoks lead to JarJar.
JarJar leads to talentlessness.

I sense much talentlessness in you.

Finally went and endured it.

Search your feelings, you know the truth. Not only was the acting horrendous, and the currents and undertones of the plot a machination of Lucas' childish poli-sci bent, but the whole tie the plot together thing was so damned mechanical. This wasn't so much a movie, as a stitched together pro-forma series of scenes puked out from ILM because Lucas 'owed' it to the fan base. A cinematic equivalent to promising to cut the lawn on saturday.

I wasn't at all into any analysis by 3/4 of the way through - I was praying for the credits to roll. The last 15 minutes of the flick were obligatory, after one of the lamest fight scenes of the entire series.

This whole thing sucked water from the Love Canal. Bad acting, disjointed script careening around looking to fill up 90 minutes of screen time - admit it, this thing was a freakin turkey.

And yeah, and I caught the Millenium Falcon cameo, in the first over view of the super-sized spaceport. On approach about to land. Big whoop.

George Lucas is a no talent hack that had a good idea. Once. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. At this point, however, I for one am relieved it is finally over.

Windy, I have a real problem with people who say things like "admit it, this movie sucked" when they know damn well I don't think the movie sucked at all.

Basically, you want me to drop my opinion and have yours.

You hated it, fine. Don't insult my intelligence by insinuating that I'm just not smart enough to figure out how bad it is yet.

I saw it over the weekend. During the two big fights at the end, Yoda/Palpatine and Obi-Wan/Vader, you lost a lot of suspense knowing all four combatants would live.
As I described it to my wife, it was the final, anticlimactic battle between good and evil.

The one line that bothered me most, though, was "How... uncivilized." when Obi-Wan needs to use a blaster. Lucas just turned his reminiscence with Luke "This belonged to your father..." from a desire for a better age into a lifelong dislike of icky nasty guns. I'm waiting for the DVD release when all the guns have been digitally replaced with walkie talkies.

Oh well. Have another barbecued ewok. They're delicious.

Ok, ok, fine, let the bloom come of the anticipatory rose one petal at a time.

Just sayin, when the fan base is infinitely more interesting and creative than the object of the adulation, somethin just ain't right.

And that movie just wasn't even close to anything approaching right.

Rail if you must. Wail against the truth you know to be out there Search your feelings and you know it to be so.

ROTS is as much an acronym as an apt description of what the entire enterprise descended into.

Shoot me as the messenger, and curse me as the pin to pop the illusion.

But curse George Lucas as well for bleeding us collectively for over 70 million bones at this point for this pretentious piece of cinematic garbage.

I hope he gets that yellow toenail fungus thing, and turns out to be allergic to Lamasil.

What part of "I loved this fucking movie so much I saw it three times in two weeks and it ranks second in my listing of favorite SW movies" did you not get?

Now, now, Michele, Wind Rider is right. I mean, sure I've seen the movie twice, and sure I loved it each time, but now (thanks to WR's posts) I've come to realize just how utterly wrong I was. It turns out that I didn't really like the movie after all, and was just deluded.

Thank you, Wind Rider, for setting me free from the awful burden of my own opinions.

Damn you George Lucas, for tuening these people into zombies. Damn you to hell...or that 100o year being digested in a worm stomach thing that happened to Jabba and all his buds, etc.

Intelligence/stupidity ain't got a damn thing to do with what I'm sayin. You folks all have the imagination and vision to see the reality Lucas gave us a window into, despite the half ass piece of crap representation that he's hawked off on us, and suckered us into paying for. And I don't. I see the gawdawful piece of dreck he's horked onto celluloid, and want to puke at the thought I forked over 8 bucks for the privelege of being sorely (but not totally unexpectedly) disappointed.

Sort of like seeing the image in those posters where you're supposed to unfocus your vision to see the beyong the noise of dots...Lucas' lame assed dots were all I could see.

But I'm not after your pity, I just need you to lend a hand to hold George down while I tattoo "BASTARD" backwards on his forehead so he's reminded every damned time he looks in a freakin mirror.

Anyway, back to the original topic. Someone told the Jedi that it was their destiny to get ganked, so they had no choice but to roll over like, um, what's that baseball team in New York? The one with all the pretty players?

Michele, you were right, the Jedi had it coming. Mace Windu was a total dick to Anikan the whole movie, and then he gets surprised that Anikan hates him.

I also thought that a paramilitary organization like the Jedi would also have better security on their main base.

I think Mace is my most hated character from EpIII. Total dick, indeed.

Yeah, it was hard to muster any real emotion at Mace's death.

The Jedi were idiots. I couldn't believe how easily Sidious could manipulate the whole crew. I mean, I could buy Palpatine playing Ki-Adi-Mundi and Mace for rubes, but I have (had?) more respect for Yoda. Whatta buncha proud, blind suckers they were this time around.

I think that's the best part of this whole trilogy. Instead of making it a black and white thing where the evil guys did all the work and the good guys were victims, the Jedi completely brought this upon themselves, and the Dark Side was shown in a less than completely evil light.

I think Lucas wanted the Dark Side to be appealing in this one.

And just how fucked up was Obi-wan, just leaving Anakin by the lava flow. That was low, and lame. He hacks off his legs, and one of his arms, Anakin's light saber is gone, plus he got pretty toasted with the whole fire thing. And Obi-wan just walked away to let him die. Lots of concern and compassion there. Didn't tow the whole Jedi line blindly, so write his ass off. Nice. And Obi-wan was supposed to be his mentor, his teacher, and he makes no attempt to demonstrate to salvage his student. Just completely wrote him off and turned his back, then takes off with the guys wife and kids.

What a sanctimonious dickhead. Perfect starting point to teach the young padwan the lesson of humility - which they (the Jedi) play acted about, but sorely lacked in any depth.

These characters aren't the epitome of good and evil, just different flavors of dysfunctional jerkwads.

Of course he didn't tow the Jedi line. He said himself he allegiance was to the Republic.

Anakin was a danger to him, to the Senate, to the Republic and to the Galaxy. What was he supposed to do, save him and then have to hear shit about it from the Jedi when Anakin just fucks them over?

And stop being purposefully dickish, Windy or you'll never sleep on my couch again.

This movie really puts a lot of arguments in motion. One of the most revealing epihanies I have had is that Qui-Gon and Luke are the only Jedi portrayed in the movies that really 'get' what the Force is about. Yoda comes close to understanding, but not fully. This news came to quite a shock to me, as I always figured Yoda to be the pinnicle of wisdom, Luke to be annoying, and Qui-Gon to be a washed up hippie. To completely reverse my attitude with them in the course of one movie leaves me in a disturbing paradigm shift that I'll try to justify.

In the time of the movies the Force is obviously out of balance. Sidious is growing in power (through genious manuvering, by the way), and the Jedi are waning in theirs. They even admit that they are losing the influence they once had in AotC and are AFRAID of telling the Senate about this. Yoda admits that arrogance is a growing problem in the Jedi Order. Even the friggen Jedi librarian has the gaul to insist that if its not in the Jedi Archives, it doesn't exist. Palpatine calls a spade a spade, when he tells Anakin that there is no difference between the Sith and the Jedi; both are vying for power. Now obviously the Jedi are doing it for the best intentions, but they are still imposing their Order on the universe and are blind to any critisism. They resort to having a spy on the Chancelor, Mace tries to kill Palpatine after Anakin reminds him he shouldn't, and they bitch-slap the Chosen One every chance they get when he should be their primary concern! I mean hell, even one of their elder Jedi, Count Dooku, goes to the Dark Side. Yoda begins to see this near the end of RotS and goes into exile to figure some things out. The Order does not follow the Force anymore, and is a manuvering, contemplating, posturing, movement; just like the friggen Sith are. It's no wonder Anakin is so confused about who to trust!

And it is also no wonder that to truly bring balance to the Force, both the Sith and the Jedi must be eliminated.

The scene with Anakin and Yoda is the most telling. Yoda tells Anakin what the Right Thing to do is. Now if the entire Order is wiped out, is it really the right thing to tell him? Idealists would yes, stick to the rules and damn the consequences. I'm more pragmatic, and I say, no.

Back to Qui-Gon. He doesn't obey the order. Obi-Wan says in EpI that is he just followed the Code he would be a master by now. "I will do as I must Obi-Wan." During the whole movie, he says to hell with the code and what Jedi are supposed to do, and he trusts in the Force to guide him. By doing so, he finds the Chosen One who ultimately brings balance to the Force. As a reward, he is bestowed the gift of immortaily, which he they teaches to Yoda and Obi-Wan (seeing a ghost of Qui-Gon would have been friggen awesome).

Back to Luke. He doesn't listen to the Order either. Yoda does right by training him in ESB to feel the Force (must be Qui-Gon's influence) and never even mentions the word Code, like he has learned his lesson. But Obi-Wan and Yoda are always saying, do this, do that, don't go save your friends, etc. like they are trying to bring the Jedi back to promanance with this New Hope. Luke disobeys them continuously, saves his friends, does not "murder his own father", and brings the Chosen One back from the Dark Side to fulfill his prophecy by destroying what's left of the Sith. Luke is the same Jedi Qui-Gon was, where the Force guides them, not some damn code.

Anakin brought balance to the Force by removing the two polar opposite dogmatisms. It was the will of the Force for this ultimate destiny to occur. Now that balance is restored Luke can train Jedi with more compassion and more understanding than the failing Jedi Order did, and probably do better at keeping the Dark Side at bay. A pendulum does not swing when it rests in the middle.

That being said though, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that EpIII is the best of ALL of them. (braces for rotten vegetables) I mean, what made Empire so great? Awesome lightsaber action; this movie has more and is even better choreographed. A big revelation; this movie has several! A great land battle; the space battle as the beginning of RotS is better. Learning about the Force from Yoda; we learned a lot about the Force in EpIII like what the Dark Side is capable of (hint...midicholrians.../hint), and how the ability to become a 'force ghost' was learned. Vader demonstrating how powerful he is; except for his loss to Obi-Wan, we saw a great deal of how powerful Anakin was, and the match between Palpatine and Yoda is a fine display of power also. And just all the little things thrown in every-now-and-then to bring the two trilogies together makes me question the imperviousness of the original trilogy every time I see it. The only thing the orginal trilogy has that can't be topped is Han Solo.

Sorry Wind Rider, the fanatical nature of Star Wars fandom must be slipping from my character (such a quality would never have considered the original trilogy being surpassed).

Spoilers Within!!!

Sheesh, you'd think life and death hung in the balance.

Not Lucas' finest work, but it was still a good movie. I have a problem with the details going from III to IV (mainly aging and progression of time).

And for all the talk about this having some serious political undertones, I didn't pick up on them. And let me nip one in the bud right off...I thought the speech Palpatine gave was more reminiscent of the Nazis.

Michele, I know you're saying it took time, but I had a problem with Anakin one minute weeping about killing Mace Windu and then a minute later agreeing to kill children. I realize that time was a factor and that it didn't matter too much, but I would have liked it had they let Palpatine work his mind a little more.

You gotta give props to the Emperor. How f'ing brilliant of him was it when he suggested to Anakin (Vader) that he killed his own wife, knowing he didn't? As Vader is freaking out, they cut to Sidious and show him cracking a small smile.

Torden, you are a SUPER DUPER SW GEEK.

Wow. Your geek-dom is untouched as far as I am concerned.

I mean that in a good way, as I enjoyed your comments very much.

Hey Michele, can't you say that Skywalker's turn to the darkside, or at least his distrust of the Jedi Council, started when Qui-Gon brought him before the council and they told him to go pound sand?

Right there Skywalker knows that he can never trust the Council. And what was the whole "he is to old" excuse that Windu throws out? Yoda is 700 years old and at six it is too late to learn the Jedi ways?

Anyway is there one moment where the council or any jedi other that Obi or Qui have Skywalker's back? Oh and the one scene where Yoda tells him to let go of everything he is scared of losing, you wanted Skywalker to look at him like he just grew a third eye.

The Jedi got what they had comming.

Amen, Rob. The Council treated Anakin like he had cooties since he was little. When he was young, they told him he was too old. When he got older, they treat him like he's too young.

Mace didn't want anyone with better powers than him on the Council. Why? Because Jedi are self centered bastards, that's why.

And I distrust anyone who doesn't believe in passion. Which is all Jedi.

Yoda and Obi-Wan didn't seem too broken up about the demise of the Jedi, did they? I mean, they're around for thousands of years and then they're toast. They treated it like just another day at the office.

ok. really, did anyone not notice that the Jedi were kinda assholes way way way before ROTS? shit, Yoda (at first) refusing to train Luke because "he's too old"? like, bitch, he's your only shot! obviously, you haven't done shit in 18 years, and you're gonna poo-poo the first glimmer of hope you get?

and that whole "there is another" bullshit. bitch, she's the same age as Luke! you're just gonna say that she's too old too!

and then... in ep one... they have "the chosen one", and they refuse to train him? what the fuck do you think is gonna happen? i mean, here, we have potentially the most powerful jedi ever, and you refuse to train him because he's too old? nice, Yoda. nice.

man, you'd think they'da learned something from the "he's too old" BS with Anakin, and they'd jump at the chance to train Luke.

plus, the Jedi are some damned cocky. Mace declaring (in ep I, again) something to the effect that the Sith couldn't be around without the Jedi knowing. sheesh. yeah, you Jedi know everything, right?

final thought: what's gonna happen to Leia? is she to become a Jedi? because last time I checked, she was in love with Han Solo. will there be a "birth" of a new kind of Jedi, that can fall in love and marry?

Some observations, after re-watching a bunch of Eps. I, II, IV and VI over the weekend and reflecting on III:

1. Yoda was either never a great warrior ("Wars not make one great") or old and washed up: he can fight Dooku and Palpatine to a standstill, but the only people he kills are a couple of clones.

2. How lame is Obi-Wan in the EpII fight with Dooku? A couple of flesh wounds and the guy is helpless. Couldn't he have used the force to make his lightsaber stab Dooku in the back when he's fighting Yoda? It's not like he hadn't used a similar trick with Darth Maul.

3. Also, Obi-Wan gives up way too easily in IV. I know he's beat down and aged beyond his years from two decades living alone in a cave in the desert, but he lets Vader kill him when he was still needed to train Luke and do battle for the Rebellion. I guess that was a needed diversion. But he also doesn't try at all to talk Vader out of the Dark Side, when you'd think he could have made at least a token effort. In fact, as we see in VI, he's so cynical about Vader that he tries to talk Luke out of appealing to Vader's memories of the good man he was.

4. While we're Obi-Wan bashing, why can Vader read Luke's mind to know he has a sister, but Obi-Wan can't figure out that Anakin has a wife?

5. On the merits of the fight itself, the Qui Gon/Obi Wan vs. Darth Maul fight in Ep I has to be the best of all the lightsaber battles.

6. It's interesting that Palpatine, who was so smooth with Anakin, has by Ep VI abandoned all efforts at sly persuasion; with Luke all he does is try to get him angry.

7. Re-watch Obi-Wan during the scene in IV where he tells Luke about his father - I don't know if Lucas told Alec Guiness to do this, but you can tell he's being evasive ("I've never owned any droids") and he keeps looking over at R2 with this "don't blow my cover story on this" look, which makes perfect sense when you see that they don't wipe R2's memory at the end of III.

8. In fact, I'd forgotten how much R2 drives the plot even in IV - which makes sense, given his familiarity with Tattoine and the fact that he's the only one who knows everything that's going on.

9. The characters who would have recognized each other from III or earlier mostly don't meet - Yoda never sees Chewie again, Vader barely encounters 3PO and sees even less of R2.

10. Isn't it uncharacteristic of Anakin/Vader - who usually insists on doing everything himself - that he doesn't personally go to Tattoine in IV to search for the droids? I mean, this is his home planet. Unless it's too painful to go back.

11. After III, I'm more convinced that Han comes back at the end of IV because Chewie nags him to (recall: "what are you looking at?"). Han may be a mercenary, but we never see any evidence that Chewie isn't a true believer. Recall that in IV, Obi-Wan hooks up in the bar with Chewie first, not Han (perhaps recalling that the Wookies were faithful allies who saved Yoda's little green ass).

Torden- very nice post. I hadn't thought of a lot of things you mentioned.
I wonder if the intricacies of the plot (i.e., the hypocricy of the jedi council leading to their downfall) were intentional on Lucas's part or are Star Wars fans' filling in the details with their own imaginations?

What do you think Michele? Did Lucas intend the detailed story evolution that Torden discussed above?

(I'm speaking as someone who loved the movie regardless, so I guess it doesn't really matter. I just think this is an interesting discussion).

Torden - Until proven otherwise, I remain convinced that the part about being able to prevent death was just Palpatine lying to Anakin. Palpatine's just lucky that after Padme dies, there's no one left that Anakin cares about to test the theory on.

I'm totally in agreement there. I never once thought that Palpatine knew how to make people come back from the dead. He was just BSing Anakin to get him over to the dark side. He knew that was the biggest carrot he could hold out in front of him.

Kind of ironic, then, that the only people who can "come back" after death are Jedi.

Crank-on your comment #3: Obi-Wan thinks that Anakin is totally lost to the dark side and that there is no good left in him. He then makes his statement that only a sith thinks in absolutes. (Which is itself an absolute statement). Of course, we eventually learn that Obi-Wan was wrong. Maybe that was part of the reason that almost all the Jedi council are now dead.

"PALPATINE: ...(smiles) Plagueis never saw it coming. It's ironic he could save others from death, but not himself. "

The way this line is delivered in the movie makes me believe the Dark Side did possess such a power. If one can gleam that Plagius is actually Palpatine's former master from Palpatine fondly remembering killing him, I don't see any reason to distrust the fact Plagius could sustain life. I also wonder about why midichlorians were ever put into the Star Wars universe to begin with, and the final revelation of Anakin's origins seem the only justification.

However, Palpatine saves the little footnote that he himself hasn't learned this trick yet until after Anakin has turned. He's still a lying bastard; hell, maybe after the turn, he actually does know the secret but lied again. I think it's impossible to discern where one lie begins and another ends because of the lack of information, so I guess this will just be left up each viewer to decide for themselves (which I think is lame).

One last thought on this: Is it possible that each side of the Force has an immortality ability in different forms?
The Dark Side: an unnatural extension of physical life, and perversely playing-god by creating supernatural beings.
The Light Side: ending your physical life to become one with the Force, and the ability to offer assistance to those who need it most.
Nothing to jusify this in the movies, but I find it poetic.

"5. On the merits of the fight itself, the Qui Gon/Obi Wan vs. Darth Maul fight in Ep I has to be the best of all the lightsaber battles"

Agreed! The most redeeming feature of EpI, IMO.

"11. After III, I'm more convinced that Han comes back at the end of IV because Chewie nags him to"

That is hilarious, and seems fitting.

The big question that remains unanswered through all of this is:

From everything I've seen of lightsabers, they basically cauterize wounds as they cut. Right? Oh, sure, you might see a token glowing red stripe on the chest of a freshly-lightsabered Jedi, but overall, it's instant, clean cauterization.

So how come, in Ep. V, Han can cut open that Taun-Taun, and the guts come burbling out like spaghetti noodles?

I mean, come on! Wouldn't lightsaber battles be that much more sweet to watch if they were like Kill Bill? Slice off Luke's hand, and a crimson geyser shoots ten feet in the air and then rains down on Vader's hood! That would have been so sweet! Dooku's head comes off, and the Chancellor gets spattered by the gore! And let's not even touch on the bifurcated torso of Darth Maul. That scene would have been immeasurably better if his bloody lower half would have toppled down into the abyss, while his upper half crawls around, leaving a squiggly trail of Zabrak blood behind him as his life force drains away. All this potential kick-ass imagery. . . totally untapped. It's kind of sad, really. Fucking Lucas.

Michele writes - "Kind of ironic, then, that the only people who can "come back" after death are Jedi." - I read this as a reference to the "Screwtape Letters"; in which the Lowerarchy is constantly trying to, or at least promising to, replicate what Jesus did.

Torden wins the prize for "SW essay of the week".

On Crank's #10 - think "sand". We already know that Anakin hates sand because it 'gets into everything', and being encased in a machine exoskeleton makes things worse. Beings 100% droid or flesh can manage; cyborgs have to worry about particles interfering with the interface between the two.

David - If so, that explains why Obi-Wan was wise to take Luke there.

Ryan - Also, how do you explain Obi-Wan's wounds in II in the fight with Dooku?

Lucas' Jedi religion really began to unravel when he added the statement by Yoda that "only the Sith deal in Absolutes."

Does anyone actually recognise how self-defeating that very statement is? If only Sith Deal in absolutes, then how can the Sith be said to be evil, and the Jedi good? How would you even be able to recognize the dark from the light side of the force? IF the Jedi really don't believe in absolutes then there should be no way for them to tell the difference.

And how can it be said that the Jedi fight for democracy, when they themselves, are elitist?

Heh. Best... discussion... ever.

Got to agree with most of the posters here: the Jedi ARE dicks. Arrogant, uncaring, stagnant, and totally cut off from real life in the rest of the galaxy.

If anyone here has played KotOR I or II, that's pretty much how they're portrayed as well. Hell, I wanted to lightsaber them myself. (And fortunately, in those games you can.) I realize the games aren't canon, but the Jedi are almost all wiped out in those games as well. You'd think they'd learn by now that they have enemies and that they are vulnerable.

I don't know if this has been explored here yet or not, but Darth Vader can guess your thoughts:

http://sithsense.com/flash.htm

No, he cannot guess my thoughts. Lameass couldn't even get Millennium Falcon. (though he did get sponge)

He guessed "toilet paper" in 17 questions. He had a tough time with "penis," but he must have suspected because he guessed "sex" an awful lot.

Everyone knows that the reason that light sabers are clean-cut weapons is for the PG /PG-13 rating.

I'm guessing Lucas wanted the biggest possible audience for the films, or at least, an young audience that wouldn't question the underpinnings of the story.

Having said that, Torden's post was great...the points made complete sense in explaining the Jedi's superior attitude. Heck, they didn't even know there was a clone army being built for them until they stumbled upon it by accident.

Re: Obi-Wan's apparent 'giving up' in his fight with Vader - recall that he looked over at Luke first, then lowered his weapon and allowed himself to be stuck down. If Obi-Wan had lived, Luke would have relied on him too much and his own powers wouldn't have become as strong as they did, and Obi-Wan knew that.

If Obi-Wan had lived, Luke would have relied on him too much and his own powers wouldn't have become as strong as they did, and Obi-Wan knew that.

I think he was just sick of dealing with Skywalkers and their whining. "But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converterssss!!!"

Torden -

I'm not a stick jock, but I'm in the SCA and saw the movie with a couple stick jocks (sword slinging types.) Their opinion of the light saber duels was, um, not high. My opinion, based on more limited knowledge, was alternating between action too fast to follow and overlong pauses with closeups of them glaring at each other (mainly Anakin/ObiWan, Yoda/Palpatine was dominated by a game of Giant Frisbee™.)

Evil Otto - that quote from Luke has been running through my brain since saturday night. What do I have to do to get it OUT?

Steve of Norway - I think that three Death Stars were being built at the same time. There are some things I really would have liked to see, though. Showing the turning of the Calamari against the New Empire, and the Emporers aversion to species not humanoid. Introducing the Maw, a region in the galaxy surrounded by black holes - the perfect place for covert construction of such huge craft as the Death Stars. The importance of the kessel spice mines. Things that would not need depth, but what might help set up the future resistance. Bail Organa was a more important figure in the next couple of years than he was here. Who does he see as possible allies?

While I don't think anyone could have done a much better job showing the transition from Aniken to Vader (any ideas?) I thought that the relationship with Obi-Wan was in many respects better in III than II.

Read the first Tinmothy Zahn trilogy, and see what great writing can do for a great story.

All in all it was a great ride.

lol, Otto - I heartily agree.

What a weenie he was.

One more hit me: do you think Anakin ever realizes that his entire romance with Padme was engineered by Palpatine? I mean, the assassination attempts on her (in II) presumably were directed by Sidious, right? And as far as I can tell, there was no serious political purpose for trying to kill her, although it did leave the pliable Senator Jar Jar in a useful position. Seems that Palpatine's whole purpose all along was to get them to shack up while Anakin was guarding her in an isolated spot (he had to know Anakin had a big crush on her).

This thread makes me feel like I've come home. ROTS was a great movie. Seen it five times already, and I love all the commentary here.
Tom - I am rereading the Timothy Zahn trilogy that takes place after ROTJ. If those are made into movies, my turn to the Dark Side will be complete. Grand Admiral Thrawn rules.

The one question no one's been able to answer for me:

Why the hell don't they have sonograms on Coruscant?

Padme was about to pop by the time Anakin gets turned into Sith flambe, and she wasn't visable after he hacks up Dooku. I'm assuming bare minimum that six months went by, and she had to have been getting checkups.

I'm also assuming that Senators and Jedi had cell phones. Or HoloNet phones. Or the post office or something, if he was off-planet.

So once she finds out it's gonna be twins, wouldn't she have told Anakin the good news? Unless he was dead set on raising an only child ...

And really, Vader could sense Luke in a teeny shuttle from the bridge of the Executor, but he couldn't sense two buns in the same oven right next to him?

So the only thing that really makes sens is that Padme's womb had the same obfuscating properties as the evil force cave that kept Yoda hidden from the Emperor's prying eyes for 20 years; and prenatal care doesn't exist anywhere in the galaxy.

Keep in mind Vader, was told that Luke would be coming to him, so Vader was out looking for Luke.

Anakin has no reason to go looking for his unborn child(ren).

As for the ultrasound, would you care to bemoan that they put sound and explosions in space? Neither of which are possible.

With regards to PixelFish's comment (2nd from the top, and no, I didn't make through all the comments) the Jedi weren't 'prior' badasses. They were actually pretty wussy. Sure they had the moves and knowledge and all sorts of cool shite at their disposal, but they lacked the gumption, or maybe it was the foresight, to use those tools when they should have. They were sedentary, lax in their false belief that their's was the only way of the Force that could be allowed to exist.
Keep in mind, these are PREQUELS. BEFORE Luke became the badass Jedi they should have been.
Also, there were like, what, a thousand Jedi? And 2 Sith?
Well, they proclaimed that Anakin was the 'Chosen One'; the one foretold by prophecy to bring about balance to the Force. Yes, they did misread the prophecy. In their arrogance, they assumed that the Sith, being evil, were the ones bringing about the unbalance when it was actually the Jedi Order that was unbalancing the Force. At the end of R.O.T.S., Anakin does indeed fulfill the prophecy and bring about order and balance to the Force. The movie ends with 2 Sith and 2 Jedi. (Well, 4 Jedi, but the babies don't really count, in that they're still susceptible to go either Light or Dark in their paths.)

The Jedi were responsible for the birth of Vader only in that they failed to provide him the proper guidance and teaching to enable him to control his emotions and not establish bonds with those whom the Darkside could subvert or use to manifest control over him.
As a caveat to this, however, bear in mind that Anakin was discovered late (relatively) in age and thus was not provided the proper upbringing and indoctrination the Younglings or other Padawan had. He was rushed through his training in order to prepare him to, in the Jedi's minds, bring about the the Prophecy.
Basically, the first 3 installments of the saga are a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, on a Galactic scale, where the wrong belief or mis-interpreted sign, or even the action of a single wrong thinking individual, could bring about catastrophic consequences for an entire Galaxy.
It is very well written and one can say all they want about how wooden the actors are/were or complain about the graphics or what have you. It doesn't matter. It comes down to this:
I was 1.5 years old when SW:IV came out in theaters. I took it in with my mothers milk, so to speak. I grew up with it. I lived it, I played it, even had the Under-Roos. (shut UP!) I was completely willing to suspend disbelief and step outside of reality for 2 and a half hours and witness some of the most dramatic story-telling our generation has ever seen. Don't cheat yourself, man. Watch it again, for the first time. And when you do, just remember, this is a gigantic story. Let yourself get swept away by the story and don't be distracted by the elements used in the story telling. They are ultimately irrelevant.
Enjoy it.

Oh come on... The Jedi are awesome... I bet if they had combined their powers they could have done something really hair raising like opened a jar or successfully driving a Volvo without a straw hat on the back windsill...

I mean we're talkin' POWERS here.

I forgot to mention the awesome Jedi Role Playing Game that's just come out.

It comes complete with a 20 sided die for the light saber battles.

It's super realistic.

If you roll a 1-19 you get your hand cut off.

If you roll a natural 20, you get your hand cut off and Darth Vader is your father.

Also, you can use the dice for stormtrooper battles. The blasters miss on a roll of 1-10, but on a roll of 11 or better they shoot right past your head. Exhilerating stuff.

I played this game, ooohh, easily for minutes on end... it was riveting...

I got lucky early on in the game and drew a "Jar Jar Doesn't Talk Anymore" card. I already felt like a winner.

Last night we had an Ewok versus ATST Regiment deathmatch. It was a close call. We killed an entire Ewok and made another limp and all they got was about 400 of our elite Scout Walker units. Phew! It was INTENSE!

I have to admit though that I suffered a serious injury playing the game as often as I did. I got repetitive strain from making "VVVvvVVVvvv" noises when we were having the lightsaber fights. I think it flared up and became septic when I did the Tie Fighter "RRRRRrrooooowwwWWWWW" flyby for the second time.

In all I'd have to review this game with two artificial thumbs up. I think it wholeheartedly lives of to its D+, for Dickheads Only rating.