PeterDavid.net

"The Emperor approached what seemed to be the lifeless form of his new apprentice, yet he sensed that there was still a spark of life in him. He bent down, as if he heard something from the former Skywalker's lips."

"Tis...only...a...flesh...wound.."

As for the part about the Jedi not knowing what the Clones are going to do to them, I see it as that over the years of the War, the Jedi had come to trust their squads. So maybe that trust had blinded them to what would happen? heck, it would be the same reason why the Younglings trusted Anakin and creeped out from behind the council chairs.

Pretty cool, pretty cool. I'm there ASAP.

Ahhh, no sequels can match up to the original three---Lucas better leave it just from Phantom Menace through Revenge of the Sith.
*Grin*

When Leia says she remembers her mother, I just assume she's talking about Mrs. Organa.

"Why didn't 3PO remember being built on Tattooine?"

Did your version not have the throw-away line at the end "and wipe the protocol droid's memory"? Presumably done to keep the existance of the twins a secret.

The Jedi not knowing about their betrayal?

"Always in motion, the future is."

Yeah, I got nothing....

""It's alive! It's alive!" How in God's name could Lucas have thought it a good idea to do an entire Frankenstein riff by having Darth Vader break his bonds on the operating table and lurch forward. I mean, it was hysterical. The lame spreading of arms and shouting, "Nooooo!'"

If you ever want to know what a mixed bag "success" can be, watch AMERICAN GRAFFITI and STAR WARS and try to imagine the man who made those films ever being content with a scene like that.

Mike

Thought this was a great film, if not a happy one. It wrapped up most of the loose ends and tied the two trilogies together. The film I really waiting to see was the one advertised on the Coming Attractions marquee. It's called "Batman Begins War of the Worlds". Superheroes and Martians. It can't miss.

Was I the only one who had a Homer Simpson flahback with the above mentioned Vader "nooooooo" scene?

"I just assume she's talking about Mrs. Organa."

Don't know why PAD didn't come up with that one. It's been my working theory for the last month since a friend reminded me that Smitt's charecter from Ep. 1 was named Senator Organa and that he was back in this one. Seemed cut and dry to me.

On Sith itself: This film did something that the last two films came no where near doing. This film had moments where I felt like the drooling, thrilled little fanboy that saw Star Wars at the drive in way back when. It may not be the best of the six films but it came a lot closer, for me, to living up to the first films then Menace or Clones did.

As for the cluelessness of the Jedis: doesn't Palpatine have something to do with that? Isn't he deliberately clouding their minds in some way?

I think we may have sat a little too close to the screen because I found many of the effects to be a little blurry. Also, the glare off the lightsabers had a tendency to bleach everything out in moments. I did like the shot of the pre-X-wing blowing up and the camera following the pilot as he is propelled through space.

The crowd cheered when Cewbacca helped Yoda up to his shoulder; the only action he had was protective and everyone seemed to dig that.

I also liked the Qui Gon reference at the end - a nice counterpoint to Palpatine's false offer of saving Padme from death.

And I guess those swipes that Lucas took at George Bush were legit. At least according to an interview with him at Cannes: "I looked at ancient Rome, and how, having got rid of kings, the Senate ended up with Caesar's nephew as emperor ... how democracy turns itself into a dictatorship. I also looked at revolutionary France ... and Hitler.

"It tends to follow similar patterns. Threats from outside leading to the need for more control; democracy not being able to function properly because of internal squabbling."

"I hope that situation never arises in our country," he said. "Maybe the film will awaken people to this danger."

Bonus.

All in all, a fun film, glad Jar Jar had no speaking lines, wasn't disappointed overall; would have like to have seen a full-size Star Destoryer, but, hey, dem's da breaks.

Mark

My wife (reading over my shoulder) just pointed out that the Jedi seeing things problem was addressed in Menace. There is a throw away line between the Jedi about Yoda not telling one of the Senators about the problems with the visions being cloudy or some such stuff. The whole, "are the Sith here" theory being thrown there. I kinda remember it but would have to check it out again to be 100% sure. Anybody want to save me the time by remebering it better for me? Ring any bells?

I thought the film covered the Jedi's myopia nicely with Yoda's (or was it Windu's?) line about how they should seen this coming, and they need tell the Senate that the Jedi's powers seem to be waning.

I thought the movie was just plain incredible. Too many positives to really detail here, so let's do the Interent messageboard thing and focus on the negatives: ditto on the freshly-minted Vader scenes. They really ought to have had him act like VADER from the moment on. He totally lost his humanity the moment he turned and it's jarring to see any sort of a soul inside that armor.

I also wish that they hadn't put him in the familiar armor. One of the biggest strengths of the Vader costume was that while he sure looked like he was inside a walking life-support system, it looked as though it had been modified and redesigned along the way to accomodate the need for a certain appearance. Just like the X-Wing-ish and TIE-ish and Stormtrooper-ish designs in the rest of the prequels, Anakin's first set of armor should have looked like a previous iteration of the gear we came to know twenty years ago.

As for the Emperor -- terrific, powerful scenes. Props to Palpatine. Going all the way back to Episode One, I loved the fact that here, at last, was an Evil Genius who had come up with a genuinely Cunning Plan, executed it flawlessly, and got away with it.

But I think his "transformation scene" was too over-the-top. I actually thought that he had been disguising his appearance all along...he didn't look like he'd been disfigured. He looked like he'd gone to a plastic surgeon and said "Make me look like a Dick Tracy villain."

And if George W. had walked into the UN and said "We've vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!" wouldn't there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery? I wish they'd underscored the (obviously huge) faith and support that Chancellor Palpatine had within the Senate.

But man alive...what a great movie. More comments are at my blog (http://www.cwob.com/yellowtext/).

THINGS I'D LIKE TO SEE NEXT: An entire film called the Adventures of Han Solo. Recast with a younger actor, obviously, but charting his early years and how he hooked up with Chewie.

You'd really like to see something next? I haven't seen this film yet, and while i've heard mostly positive reviews (and really positive, not like, "i expected it to suck so bad that it wasn't terrible")...the previous 3 films (episode 6 and episodes 1 and 2) were just so bad... my anticipation in seeing this movie is almost like a "i have to see it to get it over and done with".

Lucas hasn't shown me anything in the past 20 years that would make me want to see anything else he's done. I've just invested enough time in the previous parts that I feel obligated to finish it up.

I wouldn't mind if the man just retired and became a hermit after this.

"Did your version not have the throw-away line at the end "and wipe the protocol droid's memory"? Presumably done to keep the existance of the twins a secret."

Uh, yeah, it did. Reread what I wrote. I mentioned that 3PO's apparent amnesia was one of the things that WAS explained.

As for the notion that the grown Leia was referring to her adoptive mother...well, no. If I may quote:

LUKE: Leia... do you remember your mother? Your
real mother?

LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very
young.

Sooooo...no. That one isn't flying.

Although it should be noted that Luke has no memory of his mother. So maybe Leia specializes in remembering the past, whereas Luke--who foresees the danger in the Cloud City--specializes in the future.

PAD

In a neat bit of geek cross-polinization, the cameo role of a younger Tarkin was performed by none other than Scorpious himself, Wayne Pygram.

Ahhh,

Didn't remember the "real" part of that line.

Oh Thank You Mr Smarty-Pants Peter David!!! Thanks for spoiling the end of the movie for me!!!!! I've been waiting many, many, many months to find out what happens!!! And. You. Have. To. Go. And. Ruin. It. ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Say there, PD, do you have the name of Chewie's hairdresser handy?

"LUKE: Leia... do you remember your mother? Your
real mother?

LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very
young."

But remember the rest of the dialog:

LUKE: What do you remember?

LEIA: Just...images, really. Feelings.

It's not like she remembers having picnics in the park with her mother. You could argue that the force helped make an imprint in her memories.

I thought the movie was great fun but what really bothers me is the fact that now there is no suspense to the other three films. Think about it, if someone was watching them for the fist time in the proper order, by the time that they get to Empire and the big reveal, they'll know about it. Heck, they'll know that Luke and Leia are twins, making that kiss quite rather icky :)
And then of course, we'll know that Leia is Anakin's daughter, and we'd be wondering why on earth when Vader is with her, he doesn't go "hmmm, the force is strong with this one"
So I guess that it would've been nice if we didn't find out their names... although to be fair, having both anakin and luke share the same last name, also wouldn't work suspense wise.

Guess I did misread that, sorry.

Really liked it. Yeah, the "NOOOOOOOOOOO" part annoyed me as much as it did everyone else. He might as well have dropped to his knees, raised his arms and screamed "MENDOZAAAAAAAAAAA!" while he was at it. Coupled with Anakin's earlier "What have I done?" line and it's obvious that Lucas is still pretty tone deaf to real dialogue.

But so what. The image of Vader burned, ruined body clawing its way up the lava pit was exactly as I'd imagined it would be since I first heard that's how he got that way. It's nice to see something you've imagined for nearly 20 years live up to expectations.

Occured to me that Anakin did bring balance to the Force. Think about it; at the end of the movie, we've gone from hundreds of Jedi and two Sith to two Jedi and two Sith. Seems balanced to me.

We've got interstellar travel. We've got human sentience level AIs. But do we have ultrasound? Nope. Everyone's shocked by the discovery at apparently around month 7 of Padme's pregnancy that she's carrying twins. Who are awfully large and fully developed relative to the size of her belly.

The bit I really hated about the movie (well, other than a reprise of the most painful and unconvincing love scenes in cinema history from AOTC) was that Leia should be ashamed of her mother. Padme turned into a complete wimp, finally dying because, while physically healthy, she'd "lost the will to live". This might actually have worked if it'd been written that Anakin had, as part of his transition to the ol' dark side, been gradually dominating her more and more in the mode of emotionally abusive spouses, making her more and more dependent on her and her friends wondering what the heck happened to Blaster Girl from the previous movies.

On the whole, certainly much better than I, II, and a lot of VI, not up to IV and V, and somewhat dissatisfying in the sense that most of the things I disliked could've been easily fixed.

"And if George W. had walked into the UN and said "We've vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!" wouldn't there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery?"

Not if he did it in front of the Republican controlled Congress! ;)

quote:

LUKE: Leia... do you remember your mother? Your real mother?

LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.

LUKE: What do you remember?

LEIA: Just...images, really. Feelings.

LUKE: Tell me.

LEIA: She was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad. Why are you asking me all this?

LUKE: I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.

A few things to add. R2D2 kicked all kinds of ass. Still can't stand C3PO but R2 is The Man.

I'm a bit puzzled by the supposed politics of the movie. Sure, we have the "Your either with me or against me" (or something like it) line followed by Obi Wan saying that "Only a Sith would deal in absolutes"...but then Darth later says that from his perspective it's the Jedi who are evil so that seems to be a condemnation of nuanced relativism...if Lucas really wanted to show how democracies fall he failed. Why was the Senate so happy to hand over everything to Palpatine? Similarly, I don't know why Anakin was so sure that Palpatine was telling the truth about being able to save Padame--he knew that Palpatine had lied about his true nature, why trust him with anything?

(That said, Yoda's advise was not exactly awe inspiring--basically "Sick your loved one is? Bother you not such things should." Yeah, ok, for nothing thanks, master.

Grevious wasn't at all like he was in Clone Wars, where he seemed to be able to slaughter Jedi at will. He looked awesome at first when he fought Obi with 4 sabers but he was less of a fighter than Chris Lee, that's for sure.

Speaking of, nice death by Chris. BOTH hands sliced off, ouch.

The scene in the temple. With the kids. Jeeze.

There was one scene, a fight scene early in the movie, where I was surprised that there was no music. Other than that, I really enjoyed how John Williams used so many of the themes throughout.

Peter, I've got to agree with most of your points, especially the Frankenstein riff with the newly-created Vader. It turned what should have been a seminal moment into something much less.

Things I liked. Yoda. The best use of photo-realistic CG in the film as far as I'm concerned, and I'm a big fan of the original Stuart Freeborn/Frank Oz version. What else? Ewan McGregor, doing a lot with very little. And a vastly improved Hayden H.

Things I didn't like. The bad dialogue. A droid general with asthma? The bad dialogue. The 'It's just a flesh wound' sequence that people mentioned already. For that matter, too many severed limbs, to the point where people in the audience were laughing out loud, which I don't think was the desired effect. And did I mention the bad dialogue?

The thing that bugs me is that Lucas has enough money to pay for state-of-the-art sound, visual FX, digital equipment, and well, just about anything else he could possibly need. So why couldn't he get somebody to do a serious dialogue polish for him? I can only imagine what somebody like, say, his pal Frank Darabont could do to sharpen things up. Or any of a hundred other good screenwriters out there, who would probably work for scale just for the bragging rights to say they'd worked on a Star Wars film. I can only imagine that Lucas honestly thinks his dialogue is good and nobody wants to tell the emperor that's it's not.

But here's the thing that bothered me the most. It took me a while to figure it out. Just because you can fill the camera frame with groovy little droids and aliens and spaceships doesn't mean you should. Okay, create some gorgeous establishing shots. Show us stuff we've never seen on the big screen before, but not in every f**king shot. I realize that Lucas has never felt completely satisfied with the first three films in terms of what he was able to put on screen. But look at the scenes in Empire for example, with Luke and Yoda in the swamp. I loved those scenes, with a brash young Luke wanting to be a Jedi and discovering he didn't know shit. If Lucas had done those same scenes today, tht swamp would have been full of weird-looking alien insects buzzing through the frame every two seconds. And alien fireflies. And maybe some annoyingly endearing swamp droids. Suddenly those wonderful scenes would chock-full of visual clutter, and that's how I feel about Phantom, Attack and Revenge: there's just too much crap going on in every bloody shot.

So that's my two cents, for whatever it's worth.

LEIAS MOM: ok, Leia remembers images of her mother. Feelings mostly. She said her Mother was sad.
You dont get it? Think about it; Senator Organas wife, Leias mother, is seeing the galaxy that she loves dissappear in front of her eyes to the galactic Empire. So yeah, the woman was sad. And Leia remembering that makes perfect sense.
BOB JONES: you need to read the posts a bit more clearly. There is a spoiler warning message before Peters main blog on this entire subject. Or where you just kidding? I hope you were. Don't blame Peter.
TOM GALLOWAY: You really didn't get how Anakin brought balance to the force? AT THE END OF RETURN OF THE JEDI??????
And for the "Cross-Pollinization" fans out there (even though this is a huge stretch), I wonder if the reason that they had Vader break his bonds and shout "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!", was a small homage to "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell". This was a british horror classic with Grand Moff Tarkin as Doc. Frankenstein and David Prowse (Darth Vader) as the Monster. I believe Christopher Lee was in some movie with these two also. Most likely a Dracula Vs. Frankenstien Monster movie. Anyway, you get the connection. Even though non of the actors are the same, they have played the same part at one time or another.
JORGE CHAPRA: you didn't think this was gunna happen? That the suspense of the last 3 movies would be broken by these "first" three? Just show your kids the original trilogy and go from there.
CHARLIE GRIEFER: do we need to call the "WAAAAAAHH-mbulance for you? :P
Hee hee heeeeeee. No, I hear you man. I'm just glad this movie was as fun as it was. But I'm too much of a geek to not be totally into anything Star Wars. I've got hope that there are some great stories out there. It's a huge galaxy after all :)

I loved the film. I thought, like many of you did, that this movie had an original trilogy feel. Even though it was obvious at times (Organas ship for instance). I think Lucasfilm is finally realizing that special effects (to steal a line directly FROM Lucas back when Ep. 4 was brand new) is a tool to tell a story. Not vice versa, as what I felt 'Menace and 'Clones had a problem with. As I mentioned above; if there is to be more (like the TV show Ive heard so many rumors about) I hope that Chewie, Han and Tarrful are parts of that. Even though the name Tarrful is arful, I still get a kick outta that. Like "Mon Mothma" meaning "My Mother" and Mon Calamari and all that. It's fun. And I think that other writers out there have been guilty of such fun styles of writing. Maybe not that blatant, but in the same tone.
Anyway, it'd be great to see Chewie and Han deal with Boba Fett and Bossk (Trandoshans being the sworn enemy of the Wookies) and so on. THAT would be great!

>> "Why didn't 3PO remember being built on Tattooine?"
Did your version not have the throw-away line at the end "and wipe the protocol droid's memory"? Presumably done to keep the existance of the twins a secret.

The thing is, did Owen & Beru Lars get mind-wiped as well? Or at least Owen, who in Episode IV buys C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Jawas without showing even the slightest memory of having lived with 3PO for years, or that both droids were at the funeral of his stepmother, Shmi? The whole idea of including 3P0 and R2 in the prequels at all, much less that the former had been constructed (!) by Vader, was probably better left on the table.

quote:

LUKE: Ben? Ben Kenobi! Boy, am I glad to see you!

BEN: The Jundland wastes are not to be traveled lightly. Tell me young Luke, what brings you out this far?

LUKE: Oh, this little droid! I think he's searching for his former master...I've never seen such devotion in a droid before...there seems to be no stopping him. He claims to be the property of an Obi- Wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours? Do you know who he's talking about?

BEN: Obi-Wan Kenobi...Obi-Wan? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...a long time.

LUKE: I think my uncle knew him. He said he was dead.

BEN: Oh, he's not dead, not...not yet.

LUKE: You know him!

BEN: Well of course, of course I know him. He's me! I haven't gone by the name Obi-Wan since oh, before you were born.

Did anyone else catch what appeared to be a cameo of Harry from "Harry and the Hendersons" during the first scene on the Wokkie planet? Also, I caught the Millenium Falcon (or a ship that appears amzingly similar to it) landing on Coruscant right before the scene where Obi-Wan says goodnye to Anakin!

Posted by Charlie Griefer at May 19, 2005 06:31 PM

THINGS I'D LIKE TO SEE NEXT: An entire film called the Adventures of Han Solo. Recast with a younger actor, obviously, but charting his early years and how he hooked up with Chewie.

Actually, if you look back twenty-odd years, there's a series of three authorised novels by the late Brian Daley that do pretty much that -- even, in a truly geek-worthy moment, revealing the origin of Harrison Ford's scar on Han Solo's chin.

And they're not bad books -- rather better written than the movies that created the universe and characters.

Can't recall the titles, but they all begin with Solo's name.

Posted by: mike weber at May 19, 2005 11:57 PM

A goof.

I had somehow missed that it was Peter, not Charlie, who said that.

The thing is, did Owen & Beru Lars get mind-wiped as well? Or at least Owen, who in Episode IV buys C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Jawas without showing even the slightest memory of having lived with 3PO for years, or that both droids were at the funeral of his stepmother, Shmi?

On the other hand, it's been about twenty years since they owned one copy of a mass-produced droid. How are they to know that it's the same exact droid, especially when said droid doesn't remember anything?

Posted by Andrew Timson at May 20, 2005 12:01 AM

On the other hand, it's been about twenty years since they owned one copy of a mass-produced droid. How are they to know that it's the same exact droid, especially when said droid doesn't remember anything?

Well, there are two potential problems with that --

(A) 3PO is a standard type, but he was assembled by a brilliant kid from scrap, junk parts, and spit and bubblegum -- not exactly mass-produced.

Sorta like the difference between a factory-original '32 Ford 3-window coupe and a Deuce lowboy with a 427 engine and ten-inch slicks on the back. They're obviously basically the same thing, but nobody with eyes would mistake one for the other.

(B) If 3PO is rock-stock, and Owen once owned him, then he ought to know what the capabilities of the model series are, intead of having to ask, as he does in Ep IV.

When Luke asks Leia about her mother, it's before she finds out they're brother and sister. And at that point, do we know that Leia has ever mentioned that she was adopted? Her name is Leia Organa, so it seems that she may not know she was adopted.

Which make Luke's question about her "real mother" kinda wierd for him to be asking all of a sudden, but she plays along.

I also would have like to have the Siphadeous ordering up a clone army explained...like, maybe he was an earlier apprentice to Sideous, yet still a Jedi, and supposedly killed after ordering the clone army, then "preserved" as General Greivious.

"It's not like she remembers having picnics in the park with her mother. You could argue that the force helped make an imprint in her memories."

I think I actually DID argue that. I said that she has force-influenced backsight and Luke has force-influenced foresight.

Oh, and someone else complained about Grievous having trouble breathing. I had real problems with that as well...until I realized that Grievous isn't a droid. He's a cyborg. So apparently his respiratory system was still biological.

PAD

Oh, and Grievous' trouble breathing? Go back and watch Volume 2 of the Clone Wars series. Just before he takes off with Palpatine from Coruscant, Mace Windu arrives and uses the force the crush Grievous' torso shell. One could conceivably argue that the outer shell was replaced, but the internal organs suffered severe damage.

Grievous' breathing prolems were explained by the cartoon - but just left to moviegoer's imaginations, I guess.

I also thought a young Han series would be cool - espescially if they got that guy from Young Indiana Jones to play him.

the pre-X-wing - I suggest "asterisk wing"

Anakin brought balance to the force by destroying the sith. there are only two at any time. He killed the emperor, and died himself.

I assume Sipha Dious = Sidious (sound them out.) I would have liked to have seen that plot thread resolved.

I loved that there was a character named "Commader Cody"

I thought this movie was great. I liked the first two as well. I thought the reviews were overly harsh for the first two, and overly orgasmic for this one.
I think that I liked Attack of the Clones best out of the three prequels, mainly because I felt the ending(s) of ROTS were kind of tacked on.
And I've never had a problem with "wooden dialogue" Have you SEEN the first three movies? It's not wooden - It's just the way Star Wars sounds. Just enjoy it for what it is - Fun!

"Noooooooo!"
It's the Star Wars version of
"Kahhhhhhn!"

I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers "Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen"!

I always figured the way Anaking "brought balance" to the Force was by making sure his son, the last Jedi, had experienced the full panoply of human emotion - something nobody from the Jedi creches would have been permitted. Luke had known love, pain, sorrow, loss, even hatred, and had been forced to balance his emotions like a normal person. Once he was brought to his full potential, and shown that anger wouldn't drag him down to the Dark Side, Anakin closed the circle by eliminating the last of the Sith.

"And if George W. had walked into the UN and said "We've vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!" wouldn't there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery?"

Not if he did it in front of the Republican controlled Congress! ;)

Are you kidding? The Republicans would be trying to find a way to make themselves the emperor and would be murmuring about Bush! (As would the Democrats if Clinton had proclaimed himself emperor.)

Seriously, that was one of the weaker points of the movie for me. I know they had established in prior movies that the Senate was easily swayed, but with that many star systems, there is no way he would have been so overwhelmingly approved.

Another problem I had requires a minor spoiler, so skip this if you don't want to know. At the end, Obi Wan just walks away from Anakin. I found that impossible to believe. Either put him out of his misery, or help him (and then get burned once again when he rejects you and turns to the dark side). I don't know how deliberate it was, but I was turned off the attitudes and actions of some of the Jedi.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie better than the first two. As a movie, it was light years better in how it was made. As a worldview, things like Yoda's saying to death is only a transition does ring hollow.

Iowa Jim

Ok, the "Noooo" was kinda off, but Star Wars has never really been on the subtle side. As for the earlier half of the scene, the Frankenstien moment, the Force crushing in Vader's anger, his first words about Padme -- I loved all that. From a pure techincal standpoint he *is* on new legs, so he ain't gonna work them all that well, leading to all the lurching. Palpy's evil sonofabitch smile really sealed that scene for me. And the "NOOOOOOOO!!" I felt was alright in a over-the-top tragic kind of way. Anyway, its too cool a moment in Star Wars mythology overall for me to chuckle at.

The "what have I done?!" bit was pretty cool, I Thought Hayden Christensen brought his A-game to this one for sure.

Leaving Anakin as a toro was pretty awesome. I liked both the actors in that scene, just spitting bile at each other. And how Obi-Wan couldn't bring himself to kill him so he left him in a Really, really, dead state. I liked how Anakin survied on pure dark hatred for a while there.

The only genuine problem I had was Padme literally dying of a broken heart. I think that's a George Lucas Prequel Outline Idea. You know: he sits down and writes 3 paragraphs for the whole trilogy and a small note in the Ep. 3 paragraph says "Vader's wife dies of a broken heart" and he thinks to himself "Hmmmm, yeah, that's a real nice mythological/ fairy-tale note there". Neat concept, but the execution of it was kinda oooch.

I dug alot how Anakin went a killed the kids like a coward instead of mixing it up with all the Jedi ep. 1 Darth Maul Duel style. And I think it was basically just kids left at the Jedi temple anyway, all the other were out fighting the war.

"Execute Order 66" is probably one of the best lines of the movie.

I've seen it twice already, can't wait to see it again, and again, and again. If just for Hayden Christensen and Ian McDirmond doing all that evil stuff. That and its Star Wars, and my brain shuts off and I just grin like an idiot for 2 hours. And I like dragging other "normal" people to it, just to see how it plays for them.

Whoot. Star Wars. Rock.

Of course - Qui Gon has proven that there is a life after death. And Yoda knew this...at some point, anyway.
Man, it really would have been nice to see Liam Neeson - "Show don't tell."

And it would have been great to hear someone say those immortal words -
"Qui Gon, take me away!"

Of course - Qui Gon has proven that there is a life after death. And Yoda knew this...at some point, anyway.
Man, it really would have been nice to see Liam Neeson - "Show don't tell."

I'm pretty sure they shot Liam Neeson for that scene, and I'm pretty sure it was cut. Haven't read the novelization or comic or anything yet, but there might be Obi-Wan seeing Qui-Gon Jinn in the room. If you look at the close-up of Obi-Wan when he says "Qui-Gon", Ewan's eyeline seems a bit off, like he's looking higher than eye-level at yoda... maybe the ghost appeared behind him and lucas cut it.

For pacing issues, I think he trimmed alot of stuff down to focus more on Anakin. Which is great, that's the heart of the story. But a neat plotline about Padme forming the nexus of the Rebellion got chopped. Kind of a shame, but this is Hayden Christensen and Ian McDirmond's show all the way.

Also, I loved the ironic twist how Anakin signed up to the Dark Side to cheat death, and the answer is on the Light Side. Yes, I suck at defining irony (goddamn you, Alanis!) but I'm 99.9% certain that falls under the irony umbrella.

This is supposedly from the shooting script...

*********

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.

The thing about Leia remembering her mother...

If I remember correctly, after the twins were born, Luke gets handed off, and Obi-Wan is holding Leia. Then he shows her to Padme. They even make a point of zooming in on her face. Sure, none of us remember the day we were born, but to someone who is predisposed to the force, "images and feelings" might very well be something one might be able to recall. At least, that's how I took it...I could be wrong though, I was very tired by that point.

I also liked the way they kinda addressed the "why did Obi-Wan disappear when he got killed but Qui-Gon didn't" thing too. The implication is that because Qui-Gon learned how to come back, and Obi-Wan got this training beforehand, that that's why he was able to pull it off. It adds a little more humor to Vader poking around at the robes looking for the body too.

My big leftover question though is "why Shmi"? The implication is that either Palpatine or his mentor (Palpatine did say that he learned ALL the tricks before he killed his mentor after all) was Anakin's "father", but why was Shmi made the mother? Could be an interesting story.

One of the things I liked was the weird cognitive dissonance from Episode II - where Jedi were rescued by proto-Stormtroopers.

And here you got Jedi - in proto-TIEs - being shot down by CloneTroopers - in proto-Xwings.

Loved that.

"(A) 3PO is a standard type, but he was assembled by a brilliant kid from scrap, junk parts, and spit and bubblegum -- not exactly mass-produced.

Sorta like the difference between a factory-original '32 Ford 3-window coupe and a Deuce lowboy with a 427 engine and ten-inch slicks on the back. They're obviously basically the same thing, but nobody with eyes would mistake one for the other.

(B) If 3PO is rock-stock, and Owen once owned him, then he ought to know what the capabilities of the model series are, intead of having to ask, as he does in Ep IV."

C3PO looks identical to other 3PO droids, so far as we've seen. There's one in the orginal trilogy that's a different color, but otherwise identical.

And the last time Lars saw C3PO, he wasn't covered in Gold. I had a red 1989 Tempo that I sold. I know I wouldn't recognize it if somebody repainted it and refurbished it.

I imagine the asking what it can do is really an oversight, but it's at least plausible that since the 3PO Lars had experience with was home built, he didn't really know what a real one could do. Or he never paid enough attention to find out.

"Oh, and someone else complained about Grievous having trouble breathing. I had real problems with that as well...until I realized that Grievous isn't a droid. He's a cyborg. So apparently his respiratory system was still biological."

I don't get why so many people miss that. You can SEE his organs in his chest cavity in the fight scene with Obi Wan. Heck, it's instrumental to how Obi Wan kills him.

Plus I think we're supposed to infer that Palpatine's mentor was responsible for the creation of Anakin, which at least provides SOME kind of explanation.

No, I don't buy, or like that idea at all. The films themes hinge on innocence corrupted... being the creation of a Sith Lord pretty much dooms Anakin from the start. I much more like (and believe) that it was Lucas's intention to show that Anakin was someone who could have been a force for good (as Obi-Wan cries, when he tells him that he was supposed to be the Chosen One), but simply chose the wrong path (in thematic contrast to his son).

How in God's name could Lucas have thought it a good idea to do an entire Frankenstein riff

I thought that worked well. Very haunting and creepy. After all, he IS now essentially a Frankenstein-like creature.

The lame spreading of arms and shouting, "Nooooo!' was the capper on an inadvertently laughter-inducing sequence. With Vader believing that Padme had betrayed him, it might have been more effective for him to, upon learning of her demise, coldly saying, "Good."

I agree that the "Noooo!" didn't come off as well as it could have, but I totally disagree that he should have been fine with Padme's death. Keeping her alive was his motivation throughout the movie. The final thing to seal his bondage to the Emperor was to be told that he had killed the woman he loved. That broke his spirit and removed the last vestiges of Anakin Skywalker (at least until his son rekindled them).

"Another problem I had requires a minor spoiler, so skip this if you don't want to know. At the end, Obi Wan just walks away from Anakin. I found that impossible to believe. Either put him out of his misery, or help him (and then get burned once again when he rejects you and turns to the dark side). I don't know how deliberate it was, but I was turned off the attitudes and actions of some of the Jedi."

I agree that the Jedi came off as ace high weenies in the movie but after what Obi Wan saw in the temple...a quick death was more than Anakin deserved.

What!!?? A Marin County Liberal, I mean, Progressive, took a swipe at the Republican administration? Shocking, just shocking. :-))

I imagine the asking what it can do is really an oversight, but it's at least plausible that since the 3PO Lars had experience with was home built, he didn't really know what a real one could do. Or he never paid enough attention to find out.

He actually does seem to recognize a C-3P0 type droid when he sees it, saying, "You. I suppose you're programmed for etiquette and protocol?" Maybe he does remember his parents owned a similar machine.

Uncle Owen can be forgiven for not recognizing a droid that belonged to his parents twenty years ago, especially one that's been repainted and that doesn't recognize him. It's like a farmer in a slaveowning society not recognizing one of his Dad's fieldhands who's aged twenty years and lost his memory.

I can only assume "C-3P0" is a common name for that model of droid.

I loved it and yeah the whole Leia thing bugged me from the time Anakin was having the dreams. I drove my boyfriend nuts commenting on it throughout the movie.

I knew they HAD to wipe the memories of the droids, but I like that they kept R2s', he was great in the beginning of the movie btw, loved when Obi-Wan kept trying to contact him...made me laugh.

Loved the Jedi moves at the beginning also. Leaping out of their ships Lasers ablazing was totally cool.

Loved Chewie picking up yoda

Not a huge fan of Hayden's acting, but at least I believed that he could actually be Vader, which I had a difficult time imagining with little Jake.

Really liked seeing Anakin start having ideas of ruling the galaxy, but when he said it, I sorta cringed because it's such a cliche line...brought images of him rubbing hands together and laughing maniacally, like Andrew, Johnathon and Warren from Buffy did when basking in their dreams of ruling Sunnydale.

All in all, Lucas tied things together nicely I thought.

Wonder if coming generations will watch it 4, 5, & 6, like we all did, or they will start with 1, 2, & 3? I know that's what Lucas thinks, but somehow I don't think it's quite as fun.

---"THINGS I'D LIKE TO SEE NEXT: An entire film called the Adventures of Han Solo. Recast with a younger actor, obviously, but charting his early years and how he hooked up with Chewie. "---

Oh yeah I'd be into that!

---"even, in a truly geek-worthy moment, revealing the origin of Harrison Ford's scar on Han Solo's chin."---

Wasn't that from "Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade." (River Phoenix was perfect as a young Indy, I thought).

Or did they do it somewhere else for Han?

Seriously, that was one of the weaker points of the movie for me. I know they had established in prior movies that the Senate was easily swayed, but with that many star systems, there is no way [Palpatine] would have been so overwhelmingly approved.

I just chalked this up to Palpatine's mastery of the dark side being so strong that he was able to subtly -- or not so subtly, I suppose -- manipulate the Senate into approving of him. This sort of goes hand in hand with Yoda's utterance: "The dark side clouds everything."

JAB

Anyone know what Padme says right before she dies? I saw the movie twice and STILL couldn't make it all out.

>> Uncle Owen can be forgiven for not recognizing a droid that belonged to his parents twenty years ago, especially one that's been repainted and that doesn't recognize him. It's like a farmer in a slaveowning society not recognizing one of his Dad's fieldhands who's aged twenty years and lost his memory.

On the other hand, it's established in the SW universe that the protocol droids have different voices (the one that shows up in Ep. 1, for instance). So might it not be safe to assume that 3PO's voice, if not his physical form, would've triggered Owen's memory? How many Upper-Class Twit of the Year voices does one hear on a backwater barren like Tattooine?

"Anyone know what Padme says right before she dies? I saw the movie twice and STILL couldn't make it all out"

Strictly from memory, what I got was something like "there is still..." which I took to be foreshadowing of Luke in ROTJ saying something similar, that there was still goodness in his father (and despite the claims from Yoda and Obi Wan to the contrary, he was correct).

Or she might have said "The Castle of Aaaauuuggghhhh" Hard to tell.

Loved the movie. In my opinion, it would have been better if Anakin would've received a red lightsaber instead of staying with the blue one.

Besides the Vader scene, which was funny. I was in stitches when the Clone Trooper hit the overkill button after the shot the very hot Twi'lek in the back, and continued to shoot her as the camera panned away.

Also, there were Jedi "straggler's", those who survived the massacre, as it was put by Obi-Wan, so how knows? TV series anyone?

"Really liked seeing Anakin start having ideas of ruling the galaxy, but when he said it, I sorta cringed because it's such a cliche line...brought images of him rubbing hands together and laughing maniacally, like Andrew, Johnathon and Warren from Buffy did when basking in their dreams of ruling Sunnydale."

Oh, no. No, I loved that...because it evoked "Empire Strikes Back." When he said to Padme, "Together we can rule the galaxy," not only was I cool with that, but I was waiting for him to say, "as husband and wife," to bring it full circle back to him saying to Luke "Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son."

In response to other comments:

I had no problem believing Lars didn't recognize 3PO's voice. First of all, I figure that the 3PO models have, I dunno, an assortment of personalities, and the one we've seen is simply one of them. So he may well have encountered others with that personality type. And second, how many times have you answered the phone and it's someone whom you haven't heard from in years, and you don't recognize their voice.

Padme's last words were, "There's good in him..."

And I'm sticking by my inference regarding Anakin's conception. I mean, why the hell else was it in there? Does it mean Anakin was doomed from the start? Perhaps. Perhaps it was a nature versus nurture thing. Besides, if he was destined for a fall, it makes it all the more impressive that he then revolted against evil and saved his son.

PAD

to MIKE WEBERs' question about 3po;

Look at episode 4 again. Notice the silver protocol droid behind #p0 and R2 on Leias ship. Same exact design except fot the color. Another one of these appears in Empire of Cloud City. Same exact design except for the color. In this last installment, 3po has some definite new metal on his body as it's all shiney and glossy. So Lars not recognizing him is fine. There are a ton of these droids all around. And even if the color is slightly different than the other PR. Droids? Why would Lars even care? He wants those moisture evaps. working by mid-day or there'll be hell to pay!

Response to a couple of PAD's comments before reading the responses:

THINGS I LOVED--Also loved that Jar Jar didn't speak.

He actually had one line -- one word -- of dialogue. On the landing pad when the senators meet Obi-Wan, Palpatine and Anakin after Palpatine's "rescue," he bumps into another Senator and says "Sorry."

Ewan McGregor convincingly aging into Alec Guiness.

McGregor had him down cold. I think it could be worth a Best Actor nomination -- but I'm also not holding my breath.

Also the cameo of a clearly young Grand Moff Tarkin.

Likewise, a young Mon Mothma could be seen in Padme's funeral procession.

THINGS THAT I DON'T BELIEVE: That Mace Windu is dead. I'm sorry, he's the baddest bad-ass there is. I don't care that he was thrown halfway across the city. I think when he lands, he dusts himself off and says, "That all you got?"

I could see this. Certainly, it could be grounds for exploration in the comics or novels or impending TV series. I'm sure there are surviving Jedi that haven't been hunted down yet but presumably will be in the period between ROTS and ANH. The ability to sense the presence of other Jedi does seem to have some geographical limits. Windu could still be alive only to meet his end sometime later in an epic battle with Vader. Or he could have gone into seclusion as Yoda and Obi-Wan did. We could see a decrepit Mace show up to help Luke train new Jedi in the book series.

THINGS I HOWLED OVER: With Vader believing that Padme had betrayed him, it might have been more effective for him to, upon learning of her demise, coldly saying, "Good."

I disagree. This scene compounded the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. I think he was out and out nutso by the time they got to lava land. After they rebuilt him (did it cost 6 million credits?), he'd had time to return to some semblance of sanity, and remembered that Padme was his motivation for turning to the dark side in the first place, and that she never would have betrayed him. While the Emperor was just plain being evil in telling Vader that he'd killed Padme, it was also true, in a sense. I thought it was a powerful scene.

THINGS I WAS ANNOYED OVER: Also...boy, the whole Jedi seeing-the-future thing is pretty freakin' hit and miss. Seeing Jedi after Jedi caught by surprise by a massive conspiracy is a little like the psychic convention that was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. I know, I know, Yoda kept saying the force was cloudy, but sheesh.

I don't think all Jedi have the same access to future-sight -- some Jedis are more powerful and more adept at it than others. The Jedis had no cause to mistrust the Clone Troopers -- heck, a moment before shooting him, the Clone Commander had just handed Obi-Wan his lightsaber and wished him well. They were in the midst of their battles and all of a sudden, all of their troops mutinied. Too much to predict, especially in the heat of battle. It worked for me.

Andy Ihnatko said: And if George W. had walked into the UN and said "We've vanquished Saddam! And now, I declare myself Emperor of a brand-new World Empire!" wouldn't there have been, you know, a little murmuring among the gallery? I wish they'd underscored the (obviously huge) faith and support that Chancellor Palpatine had within the Senate.

I don't think it's too far afield from what happened after 9/11 with the Patriot Act passing almost completely unopposed. There was some token murmuring (Padme, Bail Organa, etc.), but most cheered and supported it in the name of security. Likewise, only a few (Dennis Kucinich comes to mind) opposed the Patriot Act.

Joe Nazzaro asked: A droid general with asthma?

Grievous wasn't a droid, he was a alien/cyborg hybrid. That's why he had a beating heart. He also had lungs. And he was "asthmatic" because of events in CLONE WARS -- Mace Windu did his torso some serious damage. Notice that by the time he has the big duel with Obi-Wan, he's not coughing anymore.

Regarding Padme's losing the will to live..

I've seen a lot of reviewers complain about this, but in my eyes, they're all missing the point. I thought it was obvious that it wasn't her "will to live" that was gone and killing her. It was her spiritual, force connection with her loved one, Anakin.

So, as Anakin died, so did she and as Vader was born, so were the twins. Love dies together and hope springs from tragedy, all in the same moment.

Sooo... That means the Emperor wasn't technically lying when he told Vader that he killed Padme. From a certain point of view, he did.

-Joe S.

Peter Rios asked: Anyone know what Padme says right before she dies? I saw the movie twice and STILL couldn't make it all out.

A heard it as, "There is still... hope."

Nice symmetry with the title of the next chapter, no?

The problem wasn't that Lucas was taking potshots at Bush. Those were lines and situations that have been around in fiction for millenia.

No, the problem was that the Bush administration is speaking in bad movie villain dialogue. Frankly I'm a little more worried about that.

---"Oh, no. No, I loved that..."----

I really enjoyed the scene, don't get me wrong, thought it was played well, and it did make you think of when Vader said that line to Luke, just saying the line sounded cliche to me. (Hmm perhaps "stock phrase" is a better word?)

Maybe it's like 'Casa Blanca'; the movies been quoted so often, when you watch it now, every line is stock.

I dunno I've probably seen too many parodys on Star Wars. It's jaded me. ;)

Which reminds of something I thought after watching this installment. I knew this one was “darker”, but I couldn’t hit on the right word for what I thought the original 3 were compared to this one. Then I realized that though we had good verses evil in those too, they were somehow more "innocent".

Back then, in the 70s and 80s, many of us who watched them were just youngins. But now we’ve grown up, and we’ve become more jaded. We’re so jaded we can’t believe that good vs. evil is as black and white as it used to be. We’ve lost our innocence too. Just as the first Star Wars was released at the perfect time, (a time when the post-nixon, post-Viet Nam, generation needed the “escape” and “innocence” of a story which had never been told in such a marvelous way before,) this last one he probably couldn’t have released at a more perfect time also. We are not post anything yet. We’re in the thick of it and perhaps if he had released it sooner or even later, we wouldn’t gel with it as much. And no, not because of the relevant political statements he was supposedly making, but because of how we *feel* about the state of our environment now. Yep, just like us our beloved 'Star Wars' has grown up too.

That’s what makes Lucas good, he seems to intuitively hit on what the culture is feeling and put it before our eyes in cinematic allegory that just simply fits.

Why do I now have this urge to see the scene with Vader rising from the table and screaming "KHHAAAAAANNNNNN!"

I saw Revenge of the Sith last night, and liked it overall. There were a few points during the opening scenes of the Palpatine rescue operation where it seemed to drag, however. Grade A-.

I liked the Grand Moff Tarkin cameo at the end. I also liked the fact that having had Peter Cushing in the original trilogy (albeit in just one of the films), you had Christopher Lee in the second trilogy. Nice bit of book-ending, given that the two often made films together back in the Hammer horror years (Nothing to do with the _Star Wars_ universe, of course, but still kinda cool).

Like PAD, I also had a problem with Padme dying just after childbirth, given Leia’s memories of her real mother. A co-worker and I discussed this and other points about the _Star Wars_ movies this morning, and his theory is that Leia is actually remembering Sen. Organa’s wife. I suppose that could work with Luke’s question about Leia’s _real mother_ if that woman was Bail Organa’s _first_ wife, who died a few years later, leaving a second wife to help raise Leia.

Yeah it could work, but it’s kinda clunky. It would’ve been so much easier to establish that due to complications from the births, Padme would only live for another year or so.

Or, we can believe that Leia “remembered” Padme through the Force.

As to Dagobah being familiar, maybe, for some as yet unknown reason, Obi-Wan took him there as a young child (or stopped over on his way to Tatooine). If the former, maybe that little “field trip” is why Owen Lars came to dislike Obi-Wan (or at least not approve of him).

(Interesting to note that in the novelization of _Jedi_, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Owen Lars was _his_ brother).

My co-worker and I also discussed how things might have played out had Mace Windu agreed to take Anakin along to arrest Palpatine. I think things would have ended roughly the same way, with Anakin, as the Grail Knight would put it, choosing poorly. On the other hand, with Anakin tagging along, Palpatine would’ve probably made it look like he was defending himself, rather than initiating the attack, as he did in the film.

On a related note, I thought Anakin accepted his Vaderization a little too readily. Only seconds after his horrified “what have I done?” following the death (or mild inconveniencing, as PAD would believe) of Mace Windu, Anakin basically shrugs and says “O.K.” to becoming a Sith lord.

And getting back to Padme and the children, Palpatine tells Anakin he killed Padme prior to his battle with Obi-Wan. Yet, years later, Vader learns he has a son. Are we supposed to believe that Vader, upon learning of his son’s existence, believed an emergency C section had been performed to save the boy? I can’t buy that. What I could buy is that he now realizes the emperor lied to him, and that realization has strengthened his resolve to overthrow him and become top dog of the Sith.

By the way, the prophecy was true. Anakin Skywalker eventually did destroy the Sith. He killed the Emperor, and in taking that massive shock of electricity in so doing, also killed Darth Vader. So, it took a bit longer than everyone expected, and a lot of innocent people died in the interim. Details. Details.

After I got home from seeing “Revenge of the Sith”, I put in my original trilogy DVDs, and watched key scenes involving Luke, Obi-Wan and Vader. One thing I don’t understand is why Lucas changed the dialogue of Vader’s communication with the holographic image of the Emperor in _Empire Strikes Back_ from “We have a new enemy, Luke Skywalker”, to “I believe he is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.” For one thing, Luke isn’t making any effort to hide his identity (and has no reason to). It’s perfectly reasonable to assume Vader and the Emperor would _know_ the guy’s name. So why change that bit of dialogue?

I’ve been wondering about that for awhile, but I caught a key point yesterday that I’d missed before. Early in _Empire_ Vader mentions Skywalker by name. So, unless we’re to believe that Vader knew the name of the rebel who destroyed the Death Star _before_ the Emperor did (and was playing coy during his later conversation with the Emperor), Lucas ended up making a continuity error within that one film.

On another note, PAD, you wrote in CBG about the lightsabers originally being wielded two-handed, like broadswords. In one of his commentary tracks, Lucas said this was done in the original _Star Wars_ because neither Obi-Wan nor Vader was at his prime. That makes sense, except for the fact that Vader is later doing the one handed fighting. Oh, well.

And speaking of lightsabers, in _Star Wars_, Obi Wan told Luke his father wanted him to have it when he was old enough. I guess what he meant to say is that Anakin _would have_ wanted him to have it _if_ he’d remained a Jedi, and known he’d had a son. But hey, truth all depends on point of view, right?

Also, speaking of lightsabers, I close with one of my all time favorite _Star Wars_ related lines, which never actually appeared in a _Star Wars_ movie:

“I sense a great disturbance in the force..... Get his battery!”

Rick

Leia remembers Padme through the Force. Luke doesn't.

Grievous was wounded by Mace in Clone Wars. His (Grievious') history and more detail on Master Syfo Dyas and Darth Plageius is given in the novel "Labyrinth of Evil".

Anakin accepted dark apprenticeship so quickly after attacking Mace because Sidious was using Dominate Mind on him (Dark Side version of the Jedi Mind Trick - no silly hand gestures needed). You can see the confusion on his face, but since he is in turmoil he is more easily suggsted.

-Joe

Jar Jar said "Excuse me," not "sorry" as I have seen others mention.

Also, I believe Padme said "There is still good in him," like someone else above wrote.

Lucas was said to have a brief cameo, and I think I caught it: When Anakin goes into Palpatain's theater box, it looked like Lucas in costume outside in the corridor speaking to another background character. Anyone else notice?

William

If we assume Palpatine created Anakin - then we can make the logical step he choose a Outer Rim planet that was out of reach of the Jedi to discover him early enough.

It was probably not in the plan for Qui Gon to find Anakin. Perhaps in Palpatine's opinion, Anakin was "corrupted" by Shmi, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

Was there a reason, Vader didn't hunt for the lost plans himself on Tatooine (sp?) in ANH?

((How I would have begun Episode 2))

FADE IN:

EXT. - MARKET PLACE - DAY
ANAKIN SKYWALKER and JAR JAR BINKS walk out of a store carrying various bags.

JAR JAR
Meesa...
A SHOT rings out, killing Jar Jar instantly. Anakin and various members of the CROWD dive for cover.

Actually, Lars Owen & the droids does work, I think.

Going on my memory of ANH, Lars buys two used droids from basically the local fix-it specialists. He wouldn't expect them to be all gleaming metal and new parts - more spit & chewwing gum.

But as soon as Luke mentions the R2 unit's search for Obi-Wan, Lars is first alarmed, then says that first thing those droids need their memories wiped. Not put to work and taken care of later, but as soon as the place that does that opens.

This explains to me why R2 wanted so desperately to be sold to Owen that he sabotaged the R5 unit. Not just to stay with C3PO, whose restraining bolt R2 should have had no trouble with after his was removed. R2D2 remembered Lars and that Luke was taken there by an Obi-Wan who intended to stay nearby.

---"If we assume Palpatine created Anakin..."---

Wasn't the inference that it was Palp's master Darth "whatever" the one who created Anni through his manipulation of the mitichlorides?

Or did I just assume that when Palp was talking about Darth "whatever"'s student killing him while he slept mean he was talking about himself as that student?

Perhaps I need to backtrack and reread.

^ but, if you perfer PAD's story, Skippy self-destructed in order to save the galaxy, and the girl with cinnimin buns in her hair.

that should have been two ^

---"that guy from Young Indiana Jones"---

I missed this earlier when I commented on the Indi scar vs. the Han scar, but 'that guy from the young Indiana Jones' was River Phoenix and he passed away when he was way too young. (Loved him in 'Stand by Me' too by the way.)

The thing is, did Owen & Beru Lars get mind-wiped as well? Or at least Owen, who in Episode IV buys C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Jawas without showing even the slightest memory of having lived with 3PO for years, or that both droids were at the funeral of his stepmother, Shmi?

I guess you have to figure they've been through alot of droids over the years.

I also liked the way they kinda addressed the "why did Obi-Wan disappear when he got killed but Qui-Gon didn't" thing too. The implication is that because Qui-Gon learned how to come back, and Obi-Wan got this training beforehand, that that's why he was able to pull it off. It adds a little more humor to Vader poking around at the robes looking for the body too.

Yet, this still makes no sense. Supposedly, Qui-Gon learns something that Yoda doesn't, yet Qui-Gon doesn't disappear then.

Yoda disappears. Obi-Wan disappears. Both become ghosts.

Anakin dies, doesn't disappear, and he becomes a ghost? How would he know of this? He wouldn't/shoudln't.

So, if anything, Lucas muddled this bit even more.

I'm still not sure what to make of the "Virgin Birth" of Anakin (as I've called it since Episode I). However, while it is explained in Episode III, and I do think it was Palpatine, not Palpatine's Sith master, that caused Anakin to be created/conceived, it's still a hard concept to swallow when, yeah, as somebody mentioned above, this whole trilogy was about the corruption of a good person.

Peter David: I also don't believe the names of some of these characters. Darth Sidious. What's his first name, "In?" General Grievous, as in Grievous Bodily Harm? C'mon. Certainly Lucas has had snarky names before, but at least he had the decency to put them into foreign languages (anyone for a serving of Mon Calamari?)
Luigi Novi: Yeah, really. It's just like this novel I read a while back with this character named (get this) "Apropos of Nothing." And he was fighting these little guys called the "Harpers Bazarre" Where do these writers come up with this stuff? :-)

Craig J. Reis posted: I'm still not sure what to make of the "Virgin Birth" of Anakin (as I've called it since Episode I). However, while it is explained in Episode III, and I do think it was Palpatine, not Palpatine's Sith master, that caused Anakin to be created/conceived, it's still a hard concept to swallow when, yeah, as somebody mentioned above, this whole trilogy was about the corruption of a good person.

Well, that gets into a whole "nature vs. nurture" debate, doesn't it? Is Anakin evil because of his parentage? Are Luke and Leia? I'd argue no in all cases.

Zeek posted: I missed this earlier when I commented on the Indi scar vs. the Han scar, but 'that guy from the young Indiana Jones' was River Phoenix and he passed away when he was way too young. (Loved him in 'Stand by Me' too by the way.)

Yes, you're right that River played a younger indie in LAST CRUSADE. But there was also a TV series called THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES that featured two actors as Young Indy. Sean Patrick Flanery played Indy at age 16, and Corey Carrier played him at age 10. There were also framing sequences on each episode that featured an aged, 90-something Indy (played by the late George Hall) telling the stories, and Harrison Ford also appeared as Indy in one episode.

One assumes that since Flannery is six years older than me (and I'm 33), that he's too old to play Young Han. Carrier is now 25, so he might work.

" But there was also a TV series called THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES that featured two actors as Young Indy"

AH, yes. Thought I might be missing something there...I shoulda remembered this crew has their shite together better than that!

"In one of his commentary tracks, Lucas said this was done in the original _Star Wars_ because neither Obi-Wan nor Vader was at his prime. That makes sense, except for the fact that Vader is later doing the one handed fighting. Oh, well."

Yeah, well, a nice excuse, but according to Mark Hamill, Lucas at the time of filming said they were supposed to have serious heft, like broadswords (tying in with the concept of Jedi KNIGHTS, I suppose.) Mark was envious of the fight sequences in "Phantom Menace" because they were whipping those swords around like katana, which is the direction he wanted to go in "Empire." But Lucas instructed that the fight choreography be such that the light sabers seemed heavy, and that's the way that Mark had to play it. They moved a bit faster in Ep5 than in Ep4, but nothing compared to Ep1.

PAD

I assume Sipha Dious = Sidious (sound them out.) I would have liked to have seen that plot thread resolved.

Based upon Obi-Wan's recognition of the name, and subsequent asking if he had been instructed to order an army, it would seem that Sipho Dious was indeed a real Jedi. I presume he was killed by Sidious, Maul or Tyranus/Dooku, who placed the order in his name.

(I do, however, recall reading that originally the line had a name that was even closer in sound to "Sidious" and was a complete fabrication, but it was then decided to use a true Jedi's name to throw further confusion in...no way to confirm or deny that a dead Jedi had placed the order, but pretty easy to tell if the person placing the order never really existed.)

*************************

From a pure techincal standpoint he *is* on new legs, so he ain't gonna work them all that well, leading to all the lurching.

And, according to an article on CNN.com the other day, the legs and boots of the costume were contructed to be heavy to get that effect, for that very reason.

*************************

I can only assume "C-3P0" is a common name for that model of droid.

Did Owen ever even hear the droids' names when he bought them from the Jawas? Threepio introduced himself (and Artoo) to Luke in the garage during the cleaning.

And I'm sticking by my inference regarding Anakin's conception. I mean, why the hell else was it in there?

I instantly thought the same thing. While Star Wars is not the most tightly written series (compared to, say, Babyon 5), this is a crucial line. I was not sure if it was Palpatine or his mentor, but I was left with the strong implication that Anakin's "virgin" birth was finally explained.

Was he doomed from birth? Within the parameters of the Star Wars world, the answer was no. But to steal a line from another universe, "with great power comes great responsibility" and "power corrupts." As with many child protoges (sp?), Anakin was too young to handle it. Yoda, in episode 1, was rights. That is one thing Lucas was consistent about. The seeds of destruction were there. Palpatine did not have to put them into Anakin, he just had to bring out what was already there. (From an outsiders view, the Jedi philosophy did little to protect Anakin from such deception, at least as portrayed in the 6 movies. Jedi philosophy, in my opinion, was rather weak and compliant.)

The end result: Anakin had the deck stacked against him, the same as a 7 year old who is handed the keys to an SUV and told to drive. Disaster tends to follow. But Anakin made his own choices. He could have said no -- and almost did. He came close to making the right choice. And the question that one could ponder is whether it was a self fulfilling prophecy. If Anakin had chosen a different path and not interfered at that crucial moment but had stayed where he was told to stay, would his wife still have lived? If so, then Palpatine's words to Anakin did have some truth. His actions did lead to Padme's destruction.

Iowa Jim

I think another reason for the somewhat minimal lightsaber choreography in Ep 4 was because the original effects technology for the lightsabers was extremely fragile. Several times during the Kenobi/Vader fight, the sabers broke from hitting each other too hard. They simply couldn't go that wild with the duelling in 1977.

I posted this on another message board, and I'm pasting it here because we seem to have hit so many of the same points:

12:01 a.m. show at the historic Senator theater in Baltimore. The marquee had the phrase "The Sith Hits the Fans!" (My comment: "Hey, they spelled it wrong. Twice.") When the 20th Century Fox logo came on screen, followed by the Star Wars logo bursting into view to its orchestral cresceno, I knew there was no place on the planet I wanted to be except right there in my seat.

My wife loved it. She was on the edge of her seat for the entire movie. She thought it compared to the original movie. She can't wait to see it again.

Myself, I thought it was a complete suckfest.

[SPOILERS]

I did enjoy the fight with General Grievous once I realized he was a cyborg and not a droid.

I liked Anakin's pun right before he killed Dooku.

However...

If he had a vision of Padme dying in childbirth, why didn't he rush her to a hospital immediately? He has a bionic arm, for crying out loud. Given the level of medical technology, the statistics of dying in childbirth without outside complications must be incredibly low. Even if they didn't find anything currently wrong, they could have removed the babies and let them grow in a tube or something.

Anakin fell too hard, too fast. I can see him stopping Mace Windu from killing Palpy, but turning baby killer ten minutes later? No way.

"A young Jedi named Darth Vader helped the emperor hunt down and destroy the Jedi." That was a hunt? It was a smooth, evil move to catch them by surprise, but I would have liked to see some of the Jedi remember that they were Jedi: move real fast, perceive threats before they happen, use telekenesis, generally let the force be their guide, etc. Unfortunately, most Jedi only know one trick, i.e., batting blaster shots with their light saber, so yeah, I guess they deserved to get slaughtered.

"Thank you, Chewbacca." I am your father's brother's cousin's uncle's former rommmate...

"That boy was our last hope." "No, there is another. Remember? You helped deliver her?"

"She has lost the will to live." Poetic, but silly. She certainly didn't seem to lose the will to have natural childbirth. And so much for my medical technology theory, since apparently they don't have crash carts a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

And the thing that completely ruined the movie for me: the birth of Darth Vader. He is a symbol of evil, cold and cool. When he raised up on that table, he had awful dialogue and threw a hissy fit. Tissue, Lord Vader?

Renfield

1

Has anyone else mentioned that Obi-Wan acts as if he's never seen R2 before when Luke first finds him in ep IV? We can probably chalk this up to his whole deception (saing Vader killed Luke's father...saying Anakin wanted Luke to have the lightsaber...etc), and it could be argued that he only says "I've never owned a droid." But it's the one piece of ROTS to ANH continuity that seems too stick out there for me

Hey did ya see the article, analysists fear that IT prodcutivity may be down due to the "Star Wars Flu". (Too many people taking off work the next day because they were out late catching EpIII.)

The Geek Squad even has a standard fill in the blank type letter to email employers as to why they are "calling off sick".
http://www.geeksquad.com/content/absentee/work.html

Very Clever. Geeks of the World Unite!

I've had another thought about Padme's death - was she his sacrifice to the Dark Side to truely become a Sith Lord? It seems that for everyone else who became a Dark Lord someone had to die. The apprentice has to kill the Master to become one. And Anakin/Vader would never devote himself completely to the Dark while Padme still lived.

I hope the conception of Annikan remains a mystery. Maybe it was a virgin birth, maybe it was plotted by a sith.
But...I'm sure someone will have to write some story about it.
Personally, I'd rather just leave it open-ended.

Watching the prequels and then watching the originals, you are just amazed by how sucky a jedi Luke Skywalker is - he's slow, he can't do half the stuff the original jedi could...hell, he didn't even complete his training. He just showed up on Dagobah and said. "Well, I'm a jedi now. Yep."

Oh, and I'll bet we get a lot of these scenes back in "director's cuts."

call me crazy...

"Has anyone else mentioned that Obi-Wan acts as if he's never seen R2 before when Luke first finds him in ep IV?"

AS the real movies went on, Obi-Wan went from being a wise mentor to a bald face liar, so just one more lie from him.

Two of my fanboy dreams were for Jar Jar to die at the new Vader's hands...which we didn't see and could have actually been a powerful moment...and for them to have James Earl Jones go and redub Anakin's lines in the first 2 prequels ("Yippee")...didn't get that, but we did get to here James Earl Jones whine like a good Skywalker, so I'm happy with that.

On not recognising C3PO:
You know I'm not sure I'd recognise my old VCR from umpteen eyars ago either, even if I'd assembled it from a kit myself. I always understood that Anakin's gift with machines (ironic in hindsight) didn't mean he could 'invent' the 3PO droid, merely that it was unusual for a five/six year old to make.

On 'Nooooooooooooooo':
Yeah, the Simpsons has a lot to answer for. :) I'd also ahve thought it more effective if Palpatine had claimed that Ob-Wan had killed her or that the Jedi were directly responsible. That pushes him further to the Dark Side.

On Ian McDiarmid:
Stunningly wonderful acting and insidiously slimy but clever character (in short: politician?). Only lost interest once he went simply boo-hiss baddie-like after the Mace Windu conflict.

Moments of quiet:
SO missing from the other prequels, the star across the city scene and the twin suns at the end of the film - nice touches.

On 'It's like she's lost the will to live...'
So, that'll be since she saw the script, then? Note to Lucas: she's a good actress, but here she's more wimpa than wampa.

Over all: actually throughly enjoyable but I'm guessing it'll work better on those who saw the originals than it will do for those who came to the party later.

John M

"Watching the prequels and then watching the originals, you are just amazed by how sucky a jedi Luke Skywalker is - he's slow, he can't do half the stuff the original jedi could"

Are you kidding? There's the complete opposite...the Jedi Master's get slaughtered. They go to arrest the Sith Lord, and then stand there when he slowly flies through the air at them and procceeds to stick them with his lightsaber. Bad Assed Mace Windu can't even sense that he's about to be attacked by the guy resonating with the dark side right next to him.

Luke, however, with little training, by the time of ROTJ is able to defeat Vader and stand up to the Emporer.

I, btw, hate hate hate Lucas' thought that it's Anakin who's the big hero of the saga...he whines for 3 films, becomes evil, kills everyone, and then at the last moment, stops the Emperor at Luke's urging. Luke saves the day, not Anakin...he was just the tool used.

"the chemistry between the two actors crackle, "

I felt the life sucked out of me every time those two pieces of cardboard were on screen together.

Ok, this is very slightly off topic, but for those of you who like spoofs of Star Wars (ep 4-6), you have to check this one out:

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html

Hey, I am from Iowa. You have to like something that has to do with the "farm."

Iowa Jim

Grievous a cyborg?

I sense a missed opportunity for Lucas.

Think about it. A Sith precedent for re-animating fallen warriors as cyborgs.

General Grievous is DARTH MAUL.

"Watching the prequels and then watching the originals, you are just amazed by how sucky a jedi Luke Skywalker is - he's slow, he can't do half the stuff the original jedi could...hell, he didn't even complete his training. He just showed up on Dagobah and said. "Well, I'm a jedi now. Yep.""

Considering that he only had a few days with Obi Wan and maybe a few months max with Yoda, I'd say he showed impressive abilities. Meanwhile, Jedi masters trained virtually from birth let themselves get shot in the back by clones. Feh.

True, he never did any of that cool lightning from the hands stuff but then again, neither did Vader....which is odd since all the other Sith had it in their arsenal of tricks.

Hey did ya see the article, analysists fear that IT prodcutivity may be down due to the "Star Wars Flu". (Too many people taking off work the next day because they were out late catching EpIII.)

I think it would be great of the media weren't filled with dipshits who get their jollies by insulting people in the technology field.

Obviously, being in IT still automatically equates with being a geek, and being a 'geek' is still a great slur to throw about.

It's fucking pathetic on the part of the media.

I absolutely love the movie PAD.

Hearing James Earl Jones as Vader sent shivers up and down my spine. Fan Boy Heaven.

Hell it was worth seeing the Midnight show on Wednesday and being dead tired at work on Thursday.

Kudos to Lucas.

I just wish Mace Windu could have died saving Yoda. I agree with your early statement...Samuel L is a bad Mother shut your mouth...and I expected him to reappear at the last minute to fight Darth Sidious and save Yoda.

Still all and all I give it a 8 out of 10, best part of the preview was getting to see the FF trailer.

And I picked up your novelization yesterday.

Regards:
Warren S. Jones III

I saw EP 3 today, and I thought it was very good. The story held together well (unlike Ep 2, which dragged way too often), thank the Force that Hayden got acting lessons (last time he acted like a petulant teenager), and the end provided a nice wraparound with A NEW HOPE.

As for PAD's comments about names, General Grievous didn't bother me. (Has anyone complained a villain named Doctor Doom is too on the mark?) I can't believe that George Lucas named one of the meaned villains in his universe Dooku. Every time I hear that I think it's a new muppet (and not a cool one like Yoda).

And I'm sticking by my inference regarding Anakin's conception. I mean, why the hell else was it in there?

I felt Palpatine mentioned it to show off how powerful his master was... that he could essentially play God. Basically, the ultimate power of Force, the creation of life. It certainly wasn't an unprecedented, or exclusively Sith phenomenon, or else Qui Gon and Obi-Wan would have freaked out when they first learned Anakin was conceived that way, instead of harkening to the prophecy.

Does it mean Anakin was doomed from the start? Perhaps. Perhaps it was a nature versus nurture thing.

Well, that I'd agree with, though maybe not in the way you mean. I think one of the key differences between Anakin and Luke was that Anakin suffered the harsh realities of slave life... and that coupled with being forced to leave his mother in bondage at such a young age created a lot of bitterness and anger within him that made him more susceptible to the Dark Side than Luke, whose formative years were pretty stable.

Besides, if he was destined for a fall, it makes it all the more impressive that he then revolted against evil and saved his son.

Yeah, but it makes his death less tragic, IMO, if he was a creation of evil from the start. The tragedy, especially in the first three movies, is thinking about what COULD have been. If he was doomed from the start, that's removed.

I agree with the Mace Windu gripes. But, as a really sarky coworker said tonight, there is still hope (or a new hope)for the angry fan. See, as she explains it, Lucas will look around at all the new toys he has to play with to "complete his vision" in 15 or 20 years. He'll look at the great toy and product options and we get our wish. Mace, thanks to 15 years of fan griping, will make a last minute escape/save in the new and improved Star Wars movies in the same fashion that Fett did. Hell, with enough make up or improved effects you could even see Samuel back for the new scene.

Can you tell that she's still ticked about the whole new versions thing? Didn't think so.

Posted by Anthony Marrano:

>Has anyone else mentioned that Obi-Wan acts as
>if he's never seen R2 before when Luke first
>finds him in ep IV? We can probably chalk this
>up to his whole deception (saing Vader killed
>Luke's father...saying Anakin wanted Luke to
>have the lightsaber...etc), and it could be
>argued that he only says "I've never owned a
>droid." But it's the one piece of ROTS to ANH
>continuity that seems too stick out there for me

Ah, but in ANH, when Obi-Wan first sees R2D2--while Luke is unconscious--he says to Artoo "Come here, my little friend. Don't be afraid." Now knowing all the backstory between Obi-Wan and R2 in the prequels, one might be able to read a little more affection or familiarity into that line. When Luke's conscious and aware, Obi-Wan's tendency to dissemble and deceive comes up, but when it's just R2D2 and Obi-Wan, it might be a different story.

Yeah, well, a nice excuse, but according to Mark Hamill, Lucas at the time of filming said they were supposed to have serious heft, like broadswords (tying in with the concept of Jedi KNIGHTS, I suppose.)

Lucas changed his approach to lightsaber duels between the first three films and the prequels. The first three portray the duels more as (Japanese) Samurai fights, but by the time Lucas got around to the prequels, he'd turned more toward Hong Kong wuxia ping films, with their acrobatic, high-speed, single-handed swordplay with the Jedi using the Force in ways similar to the way Hong Kong characters use shaolin.

On Anakin being fated to become evil or not:

I think that's missing the point. I don't think the point is whether or not Anakin was fated to become evil before he was born or not, even if some Sith did cause his birth. I think the point is that, at no point in his entire life until that crucial climax in Return of the Jedi did Anakin have control over his life. He was always a pawn of something, controlled by someone. When he makes the choice to stop Windu, he's still chained down by feelings for Padme, beyond his control (he often talks in Episode 2 about how intense his need for her is).

He never has control of his life. It's not that he's evil, he's just weak. Even as Darth Vader, he never does something he isn't told. He's always a puppet, through and through.

And then finally he breaks free by choosing to do something for the right reasons.

I don't remember if I was first linked to it from here, or from somewhere else, but Cheeseburger Brown's brilliant pseudo-blog, "The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster", has in its penultimate entry one line that pierces to the heart of Anakin Skywalker, and Darth Vader:

"All my life, I have waited to stop being someone's padawan."

It wasn't until he threw his former master down that shaft that Anakin was finally free of the whole teacher/learner dynamic. And, of course, changing his life cost him his life...

...ain't that a bitch...

Many of the questions in this thread are answered in the novelization. While often painful to read, it serves as a useful filling in of several issues including, but not limted to:

1. Why Palpatine wiped the floor with the 3 jedi with Mace.
2. Qui-gon and Yoda's deal with exile (and, by the way, no one has considered that the reason Degobah seems "familiar" is because Yoda's presence is there, as it was at his birth).
3. Several of the collapsed-time issues necessitated by the brisk pacing of the film.

Topping out at 400 pages, it still remains an easy read. Oddly, however, it skips the whole Chewbacca scene, and doesn't give nearly enough credit to the clever and (honestly) vicious R2.

On the issue of painful reading: I don't know what it takes to write a Star Wars book or novelization, Peter, but I must say that (having read several of your books, novelizations, and many, many of your comics), I would have greatly appreciated a talent like yours directed at such an "important" (large, wide-spread, massive) film.

Looking forward to the FF read, though.

Is it possible that Leia had two adoptive mothers, one who died when she was young, and one who raised her afterwards?

Also, am I the only one who was disappointed that Lucas spelled out every detail about the relationship between Anakin, Luke, and Leia? That pretty much screws any of the revelations that we got to enjoy when seeing the second trilogy first. Anyone who comes fresh to the series from now on won't get the same impact when Vader tells Luke that he's his father. And likewise when we learn that Leia is his sister, and Yoda's whole "There is another" bit. I really wish Lucas would have left those details ambiguous.

BTW, did anyone else notice that when Grievous ignites his 4 sabres, this is a blatant homage to Harryhausen's "Golden Voyage of Sinbad"?

"i always assumed she was talking about mrs. organa."

that doesn't really fit because she was smiling when she was handed leia. presumably she might have had some tragedy that would cause leia to remember her sad, but i would think that when luke asked her, due to their twin bond and force connection, she would know what he was talking about, especially since it looked like it would be public knowlege that she was adopted (aka leia knew she was adopted cause we all know lucas is a proponent of adoption).

Also, am I the only one who was disappointed that Lucas spelled out every detail about the relationship between Anakin, Luke, and Leia? That pretty much screws any of the revelations that we got to enjoy when seeing the second trilogy first. Anyone who comes fresh to the series from now on won't get the same impact when Vader tells Luke that he's his father. And likewise when we learn that Leia is his sister, and Yoda's whole "There is another" bit. I really wish Lucas would have left those details ambiguous.

It's an interesting question, what the viewing experience would be like to see these movies for the first time in Episode order 1-6, instead of the way we older viewers experienced them (4-6, 1-3) Some friends of friends with newborns have pledged to show the movies to the kids in 1-6 order, to see how their experience holds up.

A friend of mine wrote a fun article for metaphilm.com (at http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=416_0_2_0_M ) about fans' involvement in fictional universes' continuity. It also touches on current and future movie-watchers' dilemma of viewing order of the Star Wars movies. I don't know what I'll do when my daughter's old enough to appreciate them, but it's an interesting question. (Not the most portentious of parenting decisions, admittedly...)

"BTW, did anyone else notice that when Grievous ignites his 4 sabres, this is a blatant homage to Harryhausen's "Golden Voyage of Sinbad"?"

D'oh! I hadn't noticed that but great call, Del.

Further musings:

I guess I didn't see all the Clone Wars cartoons because Grevious was just a total badass in the ones I saw and in the film he was sort of a coward. I also question the way they gave him an almost Groucho Marx kind of walk--if he's just wiggled his eye brows and said "I killed a Jedi in my pajamas!" it would have been perfect.

Was Bail Organa alive when Alderan was blown up? Maybe Lea's mother was sad because of something that happened to him. Also, why is she a princess? Was Bail king? Why does Lucas seem to regard monarchy as the ideal political system?

Peter. I agree with you that Mace is not dead. Therefore YOU, Peter David, should write a trilogy of post ROTS books in which Mace helps start the fledgling rebellion and ends with a Vader/ Windu fight to the finish.

Incidentally, folks, my guess as to why we don't see "phantom Qui-Gon" has to do with Liam Neeson's stated feelings towards working on 'The Phantom Menace'. (Which were, in case you haven't heard, pretty unhappy. He talked at the time about quitting the profession altogether, if Lucas represented the future of cinema.)

I agree, the scene needed Qui-Gon to actually appear for it to work at all, but I also understand why he wasn't in it.

Bill Mulligan: True, he never did any of that cool lightning from the hands stuff but then again, neither did Vader....which is odd since all the other Sith had it in their arsenal of tricks.
Luigi Novi: No they didn't. Maul didn't have it. Grievous didn't have it. So Darth is simply one more who doesn't. Only a minority of two--Palpatine and Dooku--had it.

At the end of ROTS, we have Yoda who only narrowly lost to Sidious and Obi-Wan who narrowly beat Vader. Why don't Yoda and Obi-Wan team up against the Emperor right after that? Then, Vader would still (presumably) be weak and easy pickings.

Sure seems like a better strategy than waiting 20 years, giving a kid three weeks of training and hoping for the best.

Luigi Novi: No they didn't. Maul didn't have it. Grievous didn't have it. So Darth is simply one more who doesn't. Only a minority of two--Palpatine and Dooku--had it.

Since when is Grievous a Sith?

Why don´t Obi-Wan remember the droids in "A new hope"? sorry for my english

I assumed that Vader couldn't use the Force lightning because he was mostly machine, which seems like as reasonable an explanation as any.

The movie was very,very good. Better than I expected. More later.

Now I am not so up and up on all my starwars knowledge,,, so You will never catch me playing star wars triviol pursuit.. BUT a few points that I took away from it I will dare to voice here anyways.

Leia- When she comments on her mother,, I always assumed that her adoptive mother died, and Organa remarried... ?? After seeing the first movie,, ObiWan was holding Luke while talking to Padme, the robot was holding Leia,, And Leia never said she knew she was adopted, so she could have fully believed that Organas first wife WAS her real mother.

Yoda and the "there is another" comment,, as far as I could understand he ment hope to bring balance to the force. NOT people in general. Obi would have known about Leia,, hell he was on his way to SAVE her. Yoda said in the last movie something about misplaced faith in Anikin to Palpatine.. Yoda I think always knew it was Anikin, or had hope that it would be Anikin to finally destroy palpatine and the sith, since no one was as strong as he was in the force, Anikin was or will be the strongest,, even palpetine knew it.

Lars and the droids... Lars very well might not have been at the farm alot to know the droids either. He was not married yet,, so maybe he was out wooing his girl, then only came back when his dads new wife got abducted. Plus 3po did look totally different when he last saw him,, and there are alot of droids out there,, its like a needle in a haystack.

Anakins birth- Maybe when great knowit all sith was mucking around with it,, Anakin was created by accident without anyones knowledge.. Schmi was a slave,, who knows wehre she was or where he was when it happened or if there is any restrictions on distance it affects. Long dead master might have had a incling that it happened, or maybe palpetine knew from Anikin that Schmi told him she was nocked up by nothing and he LIED about it to seduce anikin... or palpetine puts two and two together and voila, so THATS what my dead master was talking about,,, HMMMM

Vader doesn't use Sith lightning (nor is he immune to it) because he no longer has his own hands. It's explained in the Episode 3 Visual Dictionary.

I'd also ahve thought it more effective if Palpatine had claimed that Ob-Wan had killed her or that the Jedi were directly responsible. That pushes him further to the Dark Side.

On the contrary, Anakin having killed her (directly or indirectly) -- or at least believing he had killed her -- cements him more firmly in Palpatine's pocket.

It's a standard indoctrination technique: Get your subject to commit an act that completely goes against his moral code. If they go through with it, most people will find some way to rationalize having done it... usually your authority, or the "cause" they think they're fighting for. Throughout the whole movie Palpatine makes Anakin do more and more despicable acts. First killing an unarmed prisoner, then turning against Mace Windu, then slaughtering the Jedi children. And now he's sacrificed Padme and their children for the sake of the Empire.

Quick comment regarding the Jedi being caught flat - according to the book (had to read it after seeing the move - LOL): pg 349 - something about war, clouding perceptions and the fact that the clones had no malice, etc to trigger any warnings in the Jedi. Nice explanation but I didn't pick up on it in the movie, but then maybe I was just sucked into the eye candy...

Re: Force Lightning

Luigi Novi: "No they didn't. Maul didn't have it. Grievous didn't have it. So Darth is simply one more who doesn't. Only a minority of two--Palpatine and Dooku--had it."

Though I would never credit a video game for being the authority on Star Wars matters, the sub-par Phantom Menace game, which featured Darth Maul as the final boss, did show him using Force Lightning.

"Grievous didn't have it."

I don't think Grievous could have been Sith--there can only be two and Dooku was alive for most of the war. I suppose Grievous could have become the new apprentice after Dooku's death but there's no reason to believe that.

But you're right that Darth Maul couldn't do it either--or he just never felt the need to (he pretty much cleaned the floor with both guys and would have won had he not dicked around when Obi was apparently helpless.

Bill, there can be more then two sith at a time, there just can't be more than two dark lords.

As for Grievous, it has been stated numerously that he is not adept in the ways of the force. I read in SW Insider that a collection of short comics is coming out by the name of "SW: RotS Visonary" (or something to that effect), which contains a story about the birth of Grievous. Also, there is a mini about the character by Dixon, but I haven't got past the first issue, so I don't know if it goes into the birth of Grievous.

http://www.uri-geller.com

Bill, there can be more then two sith at a time, there just can't be more than two dark lords.

Is this right? Because my recollection of the conversation between Mace Windu and Yoda at the end of Ep 1 had Mace confirming that the assassin they killed--Darth Maul--was a Sith. Then Yoda says they have to keep an eye out for the other one, for there are always 2 Sith, no more and no less, one master and one apprentice. Then Mace muses about which one Maul was, the apprentice or the master. (Then we cut to a bunch of folks standing at Qui-Gon's byre, and the camera pans across to finally rest on Palpatine. Which caused some fans in the know to go "oooh!", and some clever non-fan movie-goers to figure out that Palpatine was a more sinister guy than he appears.)

"Vader doesn't use Sith lightning"

Go Sith Lightning, you're burning up the Jedi Knights
(Sith Lightning! Go Sith Lightning)
Go Sith Lightning, you're good to have around in fights
(Sith Lightning! Go Sith Lightning)
I am Supreme! My victims scream
From Sith Lightning!

PAD

Was Bail Organa alive when Alderan was blown up?

Since the radio dramas are considered to be canon...yep, he was, as he was in at least one episode taking place immediately prior to the Tantive IV's mission to retrieve the Death Star plans at the beginning of the movie.

No, I'm fairly certain that there can't be more than 2 Sith at a time, master and apprentice.

And, because I'm really bored waiting for my friend to get out of work so we can go to Jillians, I even looked it up on Wikipedia... you can check the entry out here.

I'll stop nerding out now... :-)

-eD!

I'm pretty sure what Padme said before she died was "There's still good in him," which I think is a line used somewhere in 4 - 6, too.

As for Owen recognizing C3PO, I now take this to be an act of valor on Owen's part; once R2D2 and C3PO came around, he knew the jig was up. Certainly, even if he didn't recognize the droids, he knew what he was doing sending Luke to see Obi-Wan Kenobi. Adds a whole level of bravery to Owen and Beru's characters.

PAD says:
Go Sith Lightning, you're burning up the Jedi Knights
(Sith Lightning! Go Sith Lightning)
Go Sith Lightning, you're good to have around in fights
(Sith Lightning! Go Sith Lightning)
I am Supreme! My victims scream
From Sith Lightning!

It can't be said enough; you are a genius.

Quick question: When does R2-D2 lose the power of flight?

There are only two Sith at any one time - as far as the Jedi know. They could be wrong, you know - remember how certain the librarian was that if the Jedi archives didn't mention Kamino, it didn't exist?

I'm guessing R2 lost the power of flight about the time he ran out of fuel, and nobody around understood that "Beep beeep BEEP >whirrr

Randall Kirby

Watching the prequels and then watching the originals, you are just amazed by how sucky a jedi Luke Skywalker is - he's slow, he can't do half the stuff the original jedi could...hell, he didn't even complete his training. He just showed up on Dagobah and said. "Well, I'm a jedi now. Yep."

Well...at least Luke is able to have a relationship and get married out in the open. Good thing he decided to ditch that aspect of the Jedi.

Meanwhile...I've seen it twice (once because I went with family and that's what they wanted to see and another time because I'd already promised someone I'd go with them) and thought it was pretty bad both times. Neither time did I see the vastly improved acting of Hayden. The only acting I liked was the bits of the Emperor peeking thru Palpatine and the "you were the chosen one!" scene. Beyond that everyone was same lifeless uninteresting characters they'd been since ep 1.

Some of the lightsaber stuff was pretty cool, too.

In fact, after my first viewing, my mental review was "it looked pretty, but was dull" - or just "pretty dull."

I took the Vader primal scream as the death (for now) of Anakin Skywalker. The Republic is gone, his friends, mentors and wife killed by his own hand. So, I understood it. It would have been better placed in the story when Palpatine finds him by the lava pit, or just as the mask was being put on. Having said that, I consider it relatively minor. About the only other minor nitpick I've got is why did Yoda retreat? He knew he was going to fight Palpatine. The battle seemed to be going fairly evenly - it's not like Yoda got his butt kicked. That was the only part that didn't ring true to me. The rest was good.

Kudos to Lucas, though, he did this one right.

Okay, I'm sure this won't hold much water because it's a video game for X-box; however, it's on the Starwars.com page and it's considered the "expanded universe."

It takes place 4000 years before Episode 1, it's Knights of the Old Republic! (Awesome game... Part 1 and 2).

There was ONE dark lord and an army of sith. Shoot, a planet full of sith, with a temple dedicated to training them!

Since Episode 1 - 6 is over and done with, I think it would be pretty neat to make a movie based on KoTR.. Revan and Malak @.@

KOTOR is also avaialble for PC and Mac:-)

At some point (I guess in the TOTJ comics) the Sith go to war with themeselves because they're too evil and too powerful...Eventualy, they wipe themselves out to the final 2, and start the only 2 thing, so they don't start fighting again.

So you get 2 Sith Lords at any given point, but tons of Dark Jedi running around.

Thing to remember, is that "Sith" is just a religion, a certain way of looking at the Force which gets certain powers like sith lightning...just like the "Living Force" guys get the come back as ghosts thing...

Regarding Anakin's origins:
It was a rumor before Episode 2 came out, that Sidious impregnated Anakin’s mom and he wiped her mind.
If you watch ROTS again, Palpatine has a cocky grin when he talks about the Sith lord getting killed in his sleep by his apprentice AFTER TEACHING HIS APPRENTICE EVERYTHING HE KNEW. That implies that Palpatine was the apprentice, or that he learned the creating life trick from his master, who was the apprentice. Or that knowledge was just passed down from Sith to Sith.

It's long been my opinion, that Luke WASN'T a Jedi. He was shone just enough to beat Vader, and maybe the emperor, but not enough to really be a Jedi. That makes the proposed title to episode 6: "Revenge of The Jedi" a little more plausible. All Luke was was a weapon for Obi-Wan and Yoda to use against the Sith. Which goes a ways towards explaining Ob-Wan's lies to Luke. "Tell him anything that'll get him to kill the Sith."

And the explanation of the scar on Han's chin? A few years back, they did a second Young Han Solo trilogy, and the explained it away in that set of books too.

And even if Mace survived the fall, and some Jedi didn't get killed yet, Vader still has sixteen or so years to find them and kill them.

I liked Episode 3, it was better than 1, and on par or better than 2. WAY better than 4, but my nostalgia for that flick disappeared years ago.
Matt
("Go Sith Lightning" man that's gonna be stuck in my head for days!)

Regarding Anakin's origins:
It was a rumor before Episode 2 came out, that Sidious impregnated Anakin’s mom and he wiped her mind.
If you watch ROTS again, Palpatine has a cocky grin when he talks about the Sith lord getting killed in his sleep by his apprentice AFTER TEACHING HIS APPRENTICE EVERYTHING HE KNEW. That implies that Palpatine was the apprentice, or that he learned the creating life trick from his master, who was the apprentice. Or that knowledge was just passed down from Sith to Sith.

It's long been my opinion, that Luke WASN'T a Jedi. He was shone just enough to beat Vader, and maybe the emperor, but not enough to really be a Jedi. That makes the proposed title to episode 6: "Revenge of The Jedi" a little more plausible.

And the explanation of the scar on Han's chin? A few years back, they did a second Young Han Solo trilogy, and the explained it away in that set of books too.

And even if Mace survived the fall, and some Jedi didn't get killed yet, Vader still has sixteen or so years to find them and kill them.

I liked Episode 3, it was better than 1, and on par or better than 2. WAY better than 4, but my nostalgia for that flick disappeared years ago.
Matt
("Go Sith Lightning" man that's gonna be stuck in my head for days!)

Not sure if this has been suggested or not but...
As for Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru not remembering the droids... especially 3PO... well consider that both Owen and Beru were most definately in on the plot to hide Luke from Vader... And Vader from Luke... Owen seemed to be very proactive in keeping Annakin's past away from Luke. Buying familiar droids just on suspicion, as well as on needed function, seems likely to me. Especially if they're talking about space battles and Obi-Wan Kenobi... I mean they're going to get their memory wiped anyway..

...[Owen] knew what he was doing sending Luke to see Obi-Wan Kenobi...

But...Owen didn't send Luke to see Obi-Wan. He told Luke that Obi-Wan was "just a crazy old wizard," then instructed him to take the droids for memory wipes first thing in the morning. It was Artoo's "jailbreak" to go find Obi-Wan that took Luke to Obi-Wan.

-----------------------

At some point (I guess in the TOTJ comics) the Sith go to war with themeselves because they're too evil and too powerful...Eventualy, they wipe themselves out to the final 2, and start the only 2 thing, so they don't start fighting again.

For those interested, the beginnings of the "only 2" rule are shown in Dark Horse's mini series Jedi vs. Sith.

Everyone keeps talking about Padme's last words before dying - but am I the only one who thinks that perhaps she is not dead? In the funeral procession, there was a definite Padme-look-a-like (in all white robes and makeup, as i recall) in the procession. While it would be incredibly stupid for someone going into hiding to be in their own procession, my immediate thought was that they faked Padme's death.

As I recall, R2D2 belonged to Anakin, not Obi-Wan...so when he said, I've never owned a droid...he wasn't lying.

This movie made me giggle like a school girl & fall in love w/ star wars all over again.

"As I recall, R2D2 belonged to Anakin, not Obi-Wan...so when he said, I've never owned a droid...he wasn't lying."

...from a certain point of view... :-)

In the funeral procession, there was a definite Padme-look-a-like (in all white robes and makeup, as i recall) in the procession.

I assumed that was the current queen of Naboo. Amidala was clearly very well-loved by her people, and certainly some of the royal advisors we'd seen were there. Sure, she wasn't the same queen we saw in Episode II, but it's not clear how much time has passed, so it's entirely possible they've held an election.

I'm not ruling out the possibility, though -- particularly since I'd spent the last 3 years assuming she was going to fake her death (and being thrown for a loop when she apparently did die). I'm definitely going to have to look more closely at the procession the next time.

Another take on the "Losing the will to live" reasoning behind Padme's death:

SPOILER

No one here has mentioned the part where Anakin, upon being confronted on the lava world by Padme and Obi-Wan, determines they are conspiring against him and Force chokes her into unconciousness. I assumed when the line came up about her losing the will to live that Padme had been dealt a tremendous emotional (and possibly physically damaging) blow by Anakin's actions, she did indeed just lose the desire to go on. The fight had finally left her body and mind.

Or maybe that Force choke was more damaging than anyone acknowledges.

For what it's worth...

Tom Galloway says "Everyone's shocked by the discovery at apparently around month 7 of Padme's pregnancy that she's carrying twins. Who are awfully large and fully developed relative to the size of her belly."

That seems to be one of the biggest plotholes in the movie. Just how much time does pass from when Padme surprises Anakin that she's pregnant and when she gives birth at the end?

Maybe babies have accelerated development in hyperspace?

Still, most of our questions were answered in one form or another.

Neil

>>That seems to be one of the biggest plotholes in the movie. Just how much time does pass from when Padme surprises Anakin that she's pregnant and when she gives birth at the end?

I kind of figured that her expanding stomach was the way of tell us that this movie occured the space of months, not days.

Was Bail Organa alive when Alderan was blown up? Maybe Lea's mother was sad because of something that happened to him. Also, why is she a princess? Was Bail king? Why does Lucas seem to regard monarchy as the ideal political system?

Oh, I don't think Lucas is implying that monarchy is the ideal political system. Not only does he have characters making grand statements about the republic and democrary, but the monarchy depicted on Naboo differs greatly from what we might normally think of. The Queen of Naboo is apparently an elected office, after all, and Padme speaks of having served only two terms. I don't know if the political system of Alderaan has ever been discussed ("canonically" or otherwise) but given the variations on monarchy Lucas has already given in the series, there's no immediate reason to think Alderaan has a conventional monarchy.

Just my two cents

I based on the conversation in the "opera house" Either Palpatine or his former master is the one who impregnated Shmi. I personally would like to think it was Palpatine. This is a guy I never want to play chess with. He plots out his moves so far in advance and sets them up to fruition.

I think Anakin was created to trick the jedi into believing that a prophecy was fullfilled when it was just a ploy to instigate their demise. (it ultimately backfires since luke is born, but it is one hell of a long range plan).

I like this specifically because it sets Anakin up as the penultamite tragic figure. No matter how much he may want to be a jedi, to make the right decisions he is doomed from the start. He was completely shafted by fate. He is never happy, nor can he be. Thus the fleeting moments of love are that much more important. The fact that he is doomed from the start is what makes him so tragic, so sad. And I think it's the only interesting concept in the new prequels. This also sets up Palpatine not only as a father figure for Anakin, but an actual father, keeping everything in the family as is the case in the original trilogy.

But that's just my interpritation based on my knowledge of star wars. I am not a big star wars fan; I hated ep1 only watched ep2 in fast forward, have been luke warm (no pun inteneded) towards the original trilogy since I turned thirteen, and I haven't read any of the expanded canon (be it novels, video games, radio shows, christmas specials, or comic books).

Ali Kokmen wrote:

"Oh, I don't think Lucas is implying that monarchy is the ideal political system. Not only does he have characters making grand statements about the republic and democrary, but the monarchy depicted on Naboo differs greatly from what we might normally think of. The Queen of Naboo is apparently an elected office, after all, and Padme speaks of having served only two terms. I don't know if the political system of Alderaan has ever been discussed ("canonically" or otherwise) but given the variations on monarchy Lucas has already given in the series, there's no immediate reason to think Alderaan has a conventional monarchy."

I don't think there was any real implication of a traditional monarchy. I've always took it as a cue from the British monarchy in its current form, where the royals often serve diplomatic roles. In the the case of Leia (and presumably Bail as well) it's simply more formal, with them serving as ambassadors from Alderaan to the Republic.

"I kind of figured that her expanding stomach was the way of tell us that this movie occured the space of months, not days."

I just didn't notice her stomach expanding all that much and at the end, she just didn't look all that large.

Still, Anakin's seduction by the dark side makes a lot more sense if the events of the movie do take place over several months. Then he will have had a lot more contact with Palpatine, who will have had more chances to bend his thinking.

Neil

Was Bail Organa alive at the destruction of Alderan? In Leia's original message to Ben she said "General Kenobi, years ago you fought with my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire." So that at least implies that he was alive, unless Leai was speaking figuratively, but he may not have been on Alderan when it was destroyed by the Death Star.

I think, realistically speaking, that the total absence of Leia's adoptive parents from the subsequent two films would seem to indicate that they're space dust.

PAD

Repeating myself from elsewhere on the intarnet...

Why Mace Windu is the second-dumbest character in Revenge of the Sith:

Mace, ya schmuck! When you've found out that the Big Evil Sith Lord Mastermind has been under your nose all this time and disguised as a high-powered government official, blurting out loud your plans to capture the guy right in front of his favorite Jedi (whose loyalties you're already in doubt about) is a really stupid thing to do! Three points for telling Anakin to stay in the Jedi Council Chambers, but minus ten bazillion for opening your big yap in front of the kid. What if he had a microphone on him, for Pete's sake?

What Mace should have done was this:

Mace: "Palpatine is the Sith Lord? Great work, Anakin! I'm going to recommend you for full Jedi Masterhood next week for this! Hey, you've been working hard, why don't you go celebrate and unwind. Here, I've got a pair of tickets to the Outer Rim to see Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six. The show's in three hours, you can catch it if you take the next shuttle out -- grab a friend and go have a great time, my treat!"

Anakin: "Thanks, Master Windu! I take back half the stuff I've ever said about you! Bye!"

Mace: "Stuff a few bills in her G-string for me!"

(pause)

"Is he gone? Great. Grab every Jedi we've got, w're gonna go kick some Sith ass. Don't limit me to the three wusses we have who will fold up like a card table in the first ten seconds, I want everyone we've got for this! Hell, grab a few of the brighter students, too -- it won't hurt to have some extra backup for this one. Maybe a sniper or three..."

And in case you're wondering, Anakin Skywalker is the first-dumbest character in Revenge of the Sith:

Anakin, you've just found out that your pal Palpatine is secretly the Big Bad Evil Secret Dark Sith Lord everyone's been looking for, and that he's been lying to you the whole time about being a helpless innocent jovial little aw-shucks politician. Why the fark didn't you immediately become suspicious about everything else he's told you before?

Anakin: "My lord, I've betrayed my fellow Jedi and slaughtered my friends, just as you ordered. Will you now teach me the dark secrets of eternal life so I may save my hotchie mama?"

Palpatine: "'Dark secrets of eternal life'? You believed that crazy-ass bullshit? Man, you're more gullible than I thought! There's no such secret, I was just jerking your chain around, ya idiot! Psyc!"

--R.J.

Robert Jung,

that was funny.

joe v.

One scene near the end that they needed should have been Obi-Wan after being shot at by the trojan horse clone troopers saying, "I guess that's why that planet was hidden in the Jedi database. I had been meaning to follow up on that. Too late now."

Neil

Mace, ya schmuck! When you've found out that the Big Evil Sith Lord Mastermind has been under your nose all this time and disguised as a high-powered government official, blurting out loud your plans to capture the guy right in front of his favorite Jedi (whose loyalties you're already in doubt about) is a really stupid thing to do! Three points for telling Anakin to stay in the Jedi Council Chambers, but minus ten bazillion for opening your big yap in front of the kid. What if he had a microphone on him, for Pete's sake?

What Mace should have done was this:>>

HAHA! I love it!

Personally, Windu should've instructed ANakin to go keep watch over Padame.... He just found out Palp is the darklord, she could be in danger, protect her!!

Okay. I stayed away from this thread until I'd actually seen the movie (I've been avoiding watching previews, even, I wanted as little revealed as possible). (My brother and father are coming in to town for my wedding this week, and we were considering seeing it for the first time together; otherwise, I probably would have seen it before Sunday evening, even.)

"Revenge of the Sith" was incredible.

Now, I am a pretty big Star Wars fan; the original trilogy was a large part of my formative years, "Empire" ultimately (and still) being my favorite. I enjoyed "Phantom Menace" when it first came out, though as time passed, flaws I recognized from the start became harder to ignore, and new flaws came to my attention. "Attack of the Clones" - my thought after seeing it for the first time was "THIS is the movie we waited sixteen years for." (I've just edited out my reasons why, because this was just getting too long, but I still, while admitting a few weaknesses, greatly enjoy this movie, and feel it hasn't gotten a completely fair shake because of "Phantom Menace" backlash.)
Now, "Revenge of the Sith" ... wow.

I'm having a hard time getting my thoughts "on paper" here; this is the final Star Wars film. The end of - twenty eight years in all - a twenty four year experience for me, since first seeing "The Empire Strikes Back" in 1981. Between the weight of the movie itself, and that ending - one thought I've had which I've been aware of for a long time is wanting to live to see the final Star Wars movie - my mind was just ... swimming, kind of overwhelmed after seeing this film.

Anyway, now that I've contextualized, let's get to specifics ;)

I really felt that George Lucas returned to his filmmaking peak with this film (almost as though the other two films were just necessary to set up the main story he really wanted to tell, right here? Or maybe that he put even more effort into this one, knowing that it was the end.). Artoo got to be really cool, and comic relief at the same time .... I felt all of the actors were excellent. Natalie Portman - if the romance didn't always completely work in "Clones" (one of those weaknesses I _will_ admit) - I thought she was completely on in this one. The early scenes between Padme and Anakin I thought really worked. Ian McDormiad was great, of course - very sinsiter. I didn't totally like his change in appearance - I always had just figured that the Emperor was very old by "Jedi", holding on by the power of the dark side. This is an interesting twist, I suppose, but the makeup occasionally bugged me (and sometimes his voice seemed a bit off; but I think Palpatine was a bit derranged - as opposed to the totally sane evil he had been - by the results of the attack). Christensen did bring the right level of tragedy and darkness to the role; he also presented clearly form the start that Anakin was more seasoned and mature than he had been in "Attack of the Clones". And Ewan McGregor - yes, he has become an outstanding Obi Wan (even as we learn, more and more, that Obi Wan wasn't as outstanding as "A New Hope" might have lead us to believe). I loved the moment at Padme's apartment - I can't recall the exact line - when he seems near tears while telling her of Anakin's fall. He brought powerful emotion to his role.

We got the battles we expected - Obi Wan vs. Anakin/Vader, Anakin vs. Dooku, Mace Windu's big death (?) - okay, the ambiguity of that was another surprise. And Yoda vs. the Emperor - ! I never expected that. It would take a long time to describe eveything I liked (and I need more viewings to more fully absorb everything). To address some specific issues which have come up here:

I like how it was implied, without ever being spelled out, that Palpatine was the apprentice to the great Sith of his fable ....

Vader as Frankenstein: did bug me a bit for a second, but since the entire series is supposed to be a tribute to matinee movies of old, it made sense in a tribute kind of way (and maybe makes even more sense in light of the Hammer Films connection mentioned above). And it is logical, storywise, that using his new legs for the first time could be awkward (though it could have been done less Frankenstein-esque if Lucas had wanted). (Loved the - Force of his anger, so to speak - crushing the walls.) And I'm part of the camp that liked his first lines. It was a bit of a surprise, initially; but it makes sense that Padme's death, at least partially (and completely, as far as he knew) by his own actions, would be the final, final nail in Anakin's coffin (yes, until the end of "Jedi"). Her loss causes Anakin Skywalker to completely die away, giving rise to the Darth Vader we will see in Episode IV and on. And, I enjoy hearing James Earl Jones' voice saying those words. It connects a final circuit in my mind somehow, I think, helping me - well, grok what I already know intellectually - that the Anakin Skywalker we've come to know in this prequel trilogy became our Darth Vader.

So many of the Jedi dying by blasters in the back was another surprise - another good one. Palatine manipulating things so that the Jedi GET the Clone Army suddenly makes complete sense. And it's not like Anakin/Vader could've slaughtered them _all_ himself (well, if nothing else, would've taken a LONG while). (At some point in the three years between films, I was thinking about Yoda's kid class there: Is Anakin gonna slaughter the _kids_? Well ... yeah.)

A couple of little disappointments:

Not enough Wookies! Not nearly enough Chewbacca! A glorified cameo, really; at least he did help Yoda to escape the slaughter. Hopefully, some lost scenes on the DVD? And, while I didn't expect it, would've loved more Lord Vader, in full armor and Jones-voiceness .... (And, they couldn't ask Threepio if he would get his mind wiped? Just DOING it to him seems cruel and dismissive.)

The question of what order new viewers should watch Star Wars in is an interesting one. You do lose many of the big surprise in IV - VI by watching I - III first. It did lead me to think, though - what surprises did we lose, by seeing IV - VI first? If someone could watch the prequels without knowing what Anakin's fate will be .... I suppose Vader would seem more tragic in IV - VI, then (though I myself am happier about Vader's turning at the end of "Jedi" than I used to be, beccause of the prequels). And the other characters - if later viewers could see the episodes from I on without knowing if, say, Obi Wan will live .... The characters may just be too out in the open for anyone to actually be able to start with such a clean slate; but, in theory, a whole different set of surprise and mysteries would be set up for someone seeing Star Wars for the first time in I - VI order.

ANYWAY ... I was not disappointed; a film worthy of concluding this most significant movie saga.

I loved seeing Padme--nine months pregnant with TWINS--briskly run down a gang-plank to greet Anakin. Also the fact that this "advanced" society apparently had provided no prenatal care to clue her in on the double-loaf she was carrying in the oven.

Yeah, well, a nice excuse, but according to Mark Hamill, Lucas at the time of filming said they were supposed to have serious heft, like broadswords (tying in with the concept of Jedi KNIGHTS, I suppose.) Mark was envious of the fight sequences in "Phantom Menace" because they were whipping those swords around like katana, which is the direction he wanted to go in "Empire."

Just a sword nitpick: European "broadswords" (an anachronistic term, BTW) have no more heft than a Japanese katana. Often less. A European "hand-and-a-half" longsword would run between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds. You will rarely find a sword over 4 lbs except true two-handers, which got up to about 8 lbs. Katana average about 3 pounds.

And in most styles of Japanese sword-arts, katana are weilded primarily with BOTH hands except when being drawn. That's why the hilts are so long.

Also, the European bastard sword (hand-and-a-half, boradsword) was balanced more for the swing, in order to penetrate plate armor. The katana is balanced more toward the hilt, enabling more artistic swings and penetration of laquer armor. That's why the hilts are so long...

Just some thoughts from me. Overall I liked the movie but only as a "suspend logic" type of evening watching great effects and getting into the whole "modern epic" thing.

Other issues with this supposedly great movie:

1. Soppy start.

2. Hayden Christensen: Either he is an awesome actor and can play the part in a manner reminiscent of a log of wood as well as Mark Hamill played Luke (hereditary woody anyone?) or he just can't act. My money is on the latter.

3. Jedi Knights. For an elite force these guys are , well, crap. Unless you are Obi Wan Kenobi (OWK), Anakin, Luke or Yoda forget it, 2 guys with laser pistols getting told to implement order 66 will overcome you. Not at all like
OWK leaping into the midst of thousands or Anakin doing his bit. Sorry George, slight consistency problem there.

4. Ewan McGregor. Was he taking the piss or what? OWK as a Lord Flash / Ace Rimmer variant? What a complete crackup.

5. The Lava scene - OH COME ON! OWK is now officially responsible for everything that goes wrong. Plus we know that light sabres are pissweak weapons because they cauterise everything so cutting off 2 legs and an arm leaves the victim alive and well for a significant period of time and able to think and
comprehend. Hmm, great weapons technology that. Unless you hit a vital point then your oppoent lives. Awesome.

6. The Anakin/Darth metamorphosis. Let me get this right - for the love of a woman Anakin throws everything away to save her. Fair enough, not really plausible from the chosen one but still, a fair concept. So why, when she dies
anyway (and apparently it's his fault), does he continue going Darth anyway?

Such strong love and no penitance or grovelling for forgiveness after killing the emperor/Sith Lord who told him everything would be fine only for it not to be?

7. And if he gets these premonitions why doesn't her get one about his own future? Or is "the farce" there simply to really, really encourage Jedi to the Dark Side? Has any Jedi EVER interpreted a dream sequence/premonition correctly? What a wonderful power to have "here's a view of the future, bet you guess wrong!". Who gives these Jedi this stuff, if it's a God concept that's a God I could do without. If it's just "the farce" then Darwinian logic clearly shows it is trying to wipe itself out because it does a damn fine job of it.

8. The Yoda "I will teach you how to project yourself back from the grave if you learn from me in a Tunisian desert" bit. Come on, exactly how useful have those Jedi been anyway? Seems to me that the only reason the Jedi exist is
because they are so pissweak that they produce so-so warriors to be converted to the dark side and made really strong. I'm thinking - "take the Dark Path, there is no downside. Become as powerful as you want, do what you want, and because you're so freaking smart you can rule benignly anyway". AS opposed to the Republic which gets ruled by a nutter.

9. Story in general: Greivous - what a cockamamy story. And a pissweak resolution. Same for Dooku (could you take a bad guy with a name like that
seriously - me either).

10. Birth/Death scene: Um, yeah, right. Orgnana just picks up the girl child and says - spoilt princess school for you. OWK and Yoda decide to head off to a desert. And somehow NOT telling these kids who and what they are is supposed
to prepare them for the real world/galaxy. Um, OK, no wonder those Jedi got shafted, they lie even to the ones who are supposed to save the universe.

11. OWK aging. I give him an age of about 25-30 in Sith. Move forward to Star Wars A New Hope (soon to be retitled Star Wars - The Franchise that Doesn't Deliver and Isn't Free)and OWK is about 65. Which should make Luke 35-40. Heck, make allowances for OWK running around in the Tunisian Desert without sunblock preventing him getting prematurely wrinkly and call him 55-60. Luke should still be about 30. All that trouble they had taking Anakin at age 5 or whatever he was? Doesn't that multiply across a bit to Luke?

No. Apparently not. Or OWK just doesn't learn from his Master's mistakes.

Somehow he goes from not really knowing Ben to being a full master class Jedi Knight (he can do stuff those other masters couldn't do to counter order 66 remember) in about 3 months at an age where he should be wondering about hair
loss, thinking it might just be time to leave home and what was all that stuff about going to the Academy. Does the modern Tatooine Gap Year extend for about 12 Standard years?

12) Emperoror vs Mace - use the capsicum spray, Mace isn't working. So much for yet another Jedi master accompanied by 2 of his mates. And how did that massive disturbance in the force go unnoticed for so long?

I know George had to wrap it all up nicely and storylines were never his strong thing but really, is this the best he can do? A HUGE improvement over the last 2 episodes but, as per usual, saved only by the special effects (and thank god for no product placement!).

Rob

Also, the European bastard sword (hand-and-a-half, boradsword) was balanced more for the swing, in order to penetrate plate armor. The katana is balanced more toward the hilt, enabling more artistic swings and penetration of laquer armor. That's why the hilts are so long...

Neither sword was intended to penetrate plate armor, and the fallacy that the Japanese used "lacquer" armor seems to have originated with D&D. A feudal Japanese o-yoroi, made of overlapping iron plates, was darn sturdy, and later plate armor was every bit as resistant to sword-cuts as anything short of a full European jousting harnass. The only sword that would penetrate plate armour would be a tuck or escoc, which is basically a big ice-pick.

As for the balance, while the two styles of swords differ in their "feel", it isn't as simple as saying the Japanese swords were balanced more towards the hilt. The Japanese didn't use heavy pommels to counterbalance the blade. Moreover, their was a great deal of variation in balance-point in BOTH sword designs, depending on the style of blade, period of construction, etc. I don't have my swords in front of me, but I have a Euro-style Type XIV with a point-of-ballance at about 2" from the cross, and a katana with a POB about 4.5" from the tsuba, and BOTH are well balanced for their particular style of sword.

Katana average about 3 pounds.

Never one to let even myself get away with an error, katana average more like 2-2.5 lbs. A 3 lb katana would be on on the big side, though they exist even bigger.

I think I know the story behind 3P0's silver leg in the original trilogy:

Some time between episodes III and IV, his lower-leg is replaced with a silver bail (no relation to Senator Organa), which forms part of a wicket (no relation to the Ewok), which in turn can be used as a key to unlock a quarantined planet.

It all fits together nicely.

"Bill, there can be more then two sith at a time, there just can't be more than two dark lords."

"Is this right? Because my recollection of the conversation between Mace Windu and Yoda at the end of Ep 1 had Mace confirming that the assassin they killed--Darth Maul--was a Sith. Then Yoda says they have to keep an eye out for the other one, for there are always 2 Sith, no more and no less, one master and one apprentice. Then Mace muses about which one Maul was, the apprentice or the master. (Then we cut to a bunch of folks standing at Qui-Gon's byre, and the camera pans across to finally rest on Palpatine. Which caused some fans in the know to go "oooh!", and some clever non-fan movie-goers to figure out that Palpatine was a more sinister guy than he appears.) "

I know this has already been explained to some degree but I thought I'd give a little clarity to the subject of the Sith.

The Sith were originaly a race far different from any humans or known creatures. Their teachings rivaled that of the jedi knights to the extent that the were exterminated n the resulting war.
Shortly after this when jedi were expelled from the order they began to study the ways of the sith and formed a new alliance with the dark side of the force. the rules of the Sith dictate that when a master can be defeated by their apprentice by any means necessary the apprentice has completed his training. However problems arose when this concept grew to mean that sith masters would conspire with and against other sith msaters for more power, for as we know, to he that has power more power is needed. The result was the near total annihillation of the Sith.
From this was birthed the Rule and ancient secret to the survival of the sith, "One Master, One apprentice." this was well over four thousand years before the star wars saga began

this is how the jedi knew that the would be only one master and one apprentice

Just remembered one thing that disappointed me a bit. The final light saber fight between Obi and Darth was awesome...but there was one thing missing. From looking at the way cool action figures (ok, dolls) they released right before the movie, they made it appear as though the combatants were using the force to actually hurl lava at each other while fighting. Which would have been extremely neat and I'm surprised Lucas didn't think of it himself.

Regarding Palpatine & Mace Windu:

Assuming Palpatine was a sith before a senator, has he been concealing his grotesque appearance all this time and is this his natural state? The temptation is there to believe Windu disfigured him in the fight, as in several reviews I read. Palpatine is only testing Anakin, right? And could destroy Windu as easily as the others? Or does he truly lose his light saber accidently, weakened by Windu. I am assuming he is only hamming it up for Anakin's sake, look how helpless I am and your Jedi pal is still going to murder me, they really are trying to take over and etc. And then later in the Senate his "injury" gains him sympathy. Pretty clever.

I agree with the above; Windu should have showed up to save Yoda. Throw open the door to the Senate all bloodied and light up his saber. Good idea! Suppose it might weaken Yoda's character, he didn't exactly lose that fight, seemed like a draw. Wimpy for him to run away and leave it to Windu, but since Yoda is on the run from that point on anyway I can't see the harm. Maybe Windu could have scarred Palpatine up before he got his, run a light saber down his side or something. An injury we wouldn't have noticed later.

On ghosts:

I also sorta would have liked to see Obi-Wan stumble into his Tatooine shanty after handing off baby Luke and a bunch of Jedi ghosts hanging in there, ready to start scheming. Kind of a silent dissolving scene, and THEN the final double-sun fadeout. Qui-gon was the first to figure this out, come on? We should have seen him in this movie then. I do like the idea that the Jedi are still learning though, as if they got stagnant & steeped in old religion, and kind of blinded BUT are figuring it out slowly. New skills like returning as a ghost would emphasize this, there is more to being a Jedi than they thought. It fits with Luke learning to balance being a Jedi with having relationships, love for his father, sister, and later on a wife and family I would assume. Jedi adaptation. What's the deal, the force never ran in a family before? I guess not, since the Jedi don't reproduce.

Anyway, food for thought. I've been thinking on this far too much!

I haven't seen the movie but I've read the novelization and what I came away with regarding the Windu/Palpatine duel (and especially where it concerns Palp's face) was that it was basically the dark side of the Force eating him from the inside out.

Which is probably a bit more philosophical than Lucas would ever want to get but that's how I read it.

Literally.

And it holds up quite well if you think about what Anakin Skywalker looked like in the original footage of Return Of The Jedi as Luke takes off his mask.

He looks like a decrepit old man, even though he should be 40ish (no more than 50).

Just my two cents on the cosmetics of Palpatine.

--Chris

One thing that bugs me about the new prequels:

There's a line in one of the three prequels that's says.. and I'm not getting the exact words here .....that evil depends on your "point of view"..I just have to disagree with that one.

What I didn't like about the prequels is that Darth Vader is made to look like someone we feel sorry for. The guy may have been thru some horrific life events; but it doesn't excuse him from wiping out entire worlds...

However it's only a movie....

It makes you wonder when Lucas says there are going to be no more Star Wars films. I don't believe it for a minute. If you have a cash cow, Lucasfilm will keep milking it.

There is a TV show planned and I hope it's done with the same style and care the Young Indiana Jones series had. If I remember they had 10 or so episodes a year and from what I remember the episodes were better written than most of the action/adventure shows on TV and cable at the time. I don't remember what network it was on though...

The release of the this film makes me wonder about the recent comments made about Star Trek by Orson Scott Card. I did meet him in person in Borders and his comments really surprise me. If it wasn't for reading the Star Trek and Star Wars books; I would have never read Heinlien, Assimov, Bradbury and the list is endless.

One of the first novels I read as a child was "Spock must Die" by James Blish. It was about a tranporter double accident with Spock. After reading many of the Trek books I purchased a paperback collection of H.G. Wells original novels like War of the Worlds, Food of the Gods, Invisible Man. I read them all when I was ten years old and still enjoy them.

A couple of things...

Why did Yoda run? Why didn't he come back with Obi-Wan? Probably because of the squads of clones that were undoubtedly on the way. Once Yoda made his presence known, he had a very slim window of opportunity to take Palpatine out before he was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And two versus a planet is not much better than one versus a planet. They had no choice but to wait for an opportunity.

Over the last couple of movies, I've been wondering something. (And I know this is going to show just how much of a geek I am) Has anybody else noticed that Lucas just can't seem to pass up an opportunity to piss all over expanded universe continuity? "Jedi can't get married." Since when? "There's never been a non-master on the council." What about Ki Adi Mundi over there? And he's married, too. To, like, three women. *shrug* Just a minor gripe, I guess, from someone who likes a lot of the EU literature more than eps I & II...

-Rex Hondo-

Most unintentionally funny line of the film:
Obi-Wan: "Only a Sith would speak in absolutes!"

Yep, only a Sith. No one else ever speaks in absolutes.

So, by virtue of saying that line, isn't Obi-Wan a Sith?

Most clunkily phrased line of the film:
Anakin: "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

After Anakin said that, I felt like he and Obi-Wan would say "Let's agree... to disagree!" and step out to tea together. Even "From where I'm standing" would have been less clunky than the awkward "From my point of view".

Most amazing use of a light saber:

Obi-Wan cutting off three of Anakin's limbs in a single blow. (Which, at least, minimized the aforementioned "Black Knight" quality of the scene, by reducing the time that Anakin spent fighting limbless.)

Most confusing billing:

Ahmed Best gets around eighth billing for playing the stand-in for CGI Jar Jar in three scenes. He gets higher billing than Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker.

Seriously, though, nitpicks aside, it was a great film, and I even prefer it over some of the original trilogy. I think "Sith" was better plotted than most of the original, but it does lack a bit in acting and dialogue.

I also like the amibiguity left. For example:

Was Palpatine the student who killed Plagueis?

Did Plagueis create Anakin? If not, did Palpatine?

Could the Sith really lengthen people's lives? Is that how Anakin lasted so long on the planet: by intervention from Palpatine? If they can do this, just how old is Palpatine?

Did the battle with Mace really disfigure Palpatine, or did he simply allow his true form to be revealed to gain sympathy from Anakin and the Senate? (It seemed like he may have had the makeup on under the hood as Sidious beforehand.)

Some of these are already answered by the expanded universe (yes, Plagueis trained Sidious), but I love the fact that not everything was spelled out. It treats the audience as smart enough to put things together, and it leaves some of the film open for interpretation.

There are a few questions that do bug me though:

Why did they wipe Threepio's memory? (Other than the obvious plot reasons involving Episode IV.)

How did Qui-Gon figure out the secret of immortality after he died? And who told Anakin how to do it? If it's simply the being pure of heart thing (as deleted scenes state), why aren't there hundreds of undead Jedi floating around? And why does Anakin get to go back to his 20's in ghost form, whereas everyone else is old and wrinkled? (Okay, that's really more of a RotJ DVD edition question.)

Setting these aside, still a great film.

Why did they wipe Threepio's memory?

Because Threepio can't shut up to save his golden skin and they want Leia's true parentage to actually remain a secret.

-Rex Hondo-

"LUKE: Leia... do you remember your mother? Your
real mother?

LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very
young.

Sooooo...no. That one isn't flying.

Although it should be noted that Luke has no memory of his mother. So maybe Leia specializes in remembering the past, whereas Luke--who foresees the danger in the Cloud City--specializes in the future.

PAD"

So it's a bit cagey, but this is Lucas we're talking about here: it's entirely possible she DOES remember, thanks to Force-plot-device-induced memories.

Interesting thought as well that actually supports this: At NO point is Luke Skywalker ever given any reason to think that Darth Vader can turn from evil. They've only "met" three times: when he infiltrated Vader's giant death machine where Vader was torturing the heroine, and Luke got a glimpse of Vader cutting down the old man he'd come to love (and oh yes, earlier in the day he'd ORDERED THE DEATH OF HIS ADOPTED PARENTS); the Death Star Trench, where there's no evidence Darth is any good; and the Bespin battle, where Vader tortured the hell out of Luke's friends just to get Luke's ATTENTION, then maimed him and mentally scarred him so badly that Luke chose to die rather than go on living alongside him.

Yet he utterly, completely believes he can be brought back. "There's still good in him." A fairly ridiculous thing for Luke to say ...

... unless you consider that just maybe, he can remember the very first words that were spoken in his presence.

Paul F. P. Pogue

"There was one scene, a fight scene early in the movie, where I was surprised that there was no music. Other than that, I really enjoyed how John Williams used so many of the themes throughout."

Interestingly enough, if you go back through the original trilogy, there's almost no music at all during the lightsaber battles. Just the saber sound effect. It's one of the reasons the choir music when Luke calls on the Dark Side while fighting Vader in Jedi is so powerful: we're really not accustomed to Lightsaber Music.

All that went out the window with "Duel of the Fates," but still.

It makes you wonder when Lucas says there are going to be no more Star Wars films. I don't believe it for a minute. If you have a cash cow, Lucasfilm will keep milking it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: in defense of Lucas, he doesn't just horde his bucketloads of money and lord it over everyone else. Instead, he actively invests his money back into the cinema, raising the moviemaking arts for everybody.

People love to gripe about the hordes of Star Wars toys and kids' meal tie-ins, but nobody ever says they wished Skywalker Sound, THX Audio, Industrial Light & Magic, computer animation in general (and Pixar Animation Studios in particular), digital movie projection, the National Film Preservation Board, or the various other companies and groups George Lucas threw his clout behind would all go away and/or never existed.

Yeah, Jar-Jar Binks was an annoying character, but if that's the price we pay for all the other benefits George Lucas helped give to the entire field of cinema, I for one will gladly cut the guy some slack.

--R.J.

1And why does Anakin get to go back to his 20's in ghost form, whereas everyone else is old and wrinkled? (Okay, that's really more of a RotJ DVD edition question.)
Setting these aside, still a great film.

Ah-ha! That was explained in an interview by Lucas (on AOL). Anakin reverted back to his twenties because it was just before he was “TAINTED” by the dark side of the force. He was pure and on the light side.

Yet he utterly, completely believes he can be brought back. "There's still good in him." A fairly ridiculous thing for Luke to say ...
... unless you consider that just maybe, he can remember the very first words that were spoken in his presence.>>>

That didn’t bother me too much. Luke was a Jedi and he simply sensed the Good and Evil within Darth battling each other. “Your thoughts betray you father.” He said this in episode 5 or 6, I don’t remember.
Episode three was an excellent movie. I’m still bummed out about Mace’s fate. I personally think Mace scarred Palp when he was deflecting the electricity. How did he know Anakin would return? The man can’t see the future. Remember, Anakin walked in the middle of the battle, Mace was already on the verge of killing the man. Palp is using that much power and it’s being deflected back at him with Mace’s light saber... of course it’s going to scar him! And he had to be using a lot of power because Mace was exerting a lot of effort deflecting the emp’s lightning

R.J.,

Good points. Sure there is a ton of Star Wars marketing out there, but a lot of it is fun. All the money they he's making here should be going to help make the tv series possible and let him produce the full first season before airing the first episode.

Neil

..."The Lava scene - OH COME ON! OWK is now officially responsible for everything that goes wrong. Plus we know that light sabres are pissweak weapons because they cauterise everything so cutting off 2 legs and an arm leaves the victim alive and well for a significant period of time and able to think and
comprehend"...

If you recall, anakin was burning when OWK left him, so he assumed the lava would just finish him off.

..."The Anakin/Darth metamorphosis. Let me get this right - for the love of a woman Anakin throws everything away to save her. Fair enough, not really plausible from the chosen one but still, a fair concept. So why, when she dies
anyway (and apparently it's his fault), does he continue going Darth anyway?
Such strong love and no penitance or grovelling for forgiveness after killing the emperor/Sith Lord who told him everything would be fine only for it not to be?"...

Vader crossed the point of no return. the jedi were destroyed & Padme was dead. he really had nothing left except his anger & hate. he had nowhere to go. it actually makes perfect sense for him to remain w/ the emperor.

Like the original Star Trek TV show the Star Wars prequels were badly written. One day in the future SW is gonna be public domain- I hope someone with creative talent re-write the whole Saga and have Jar-Jar killed within the first ten minutes of Episode I. Hmmm...after 28 years I'm still bitter about the whole damn thing. Only if Lucas left it alone fan I would be.

Gee, even after six years, people pissing and moaning about Jar Jar just don't get old...

But I digress...

The more I think about it, the more I realize that General Grievous was every inch the serial villain, precisely in the vein of the types of movies Lucas has been paying homage to all along. Heck, with the cloak, armor, walk and accent, he's like a cross between Dracula and Dr. Doom. The daring escapes every time he realizes he's outmatched, pure crunchy serial goodness.

Of course, I know it's a minor thing, but I also noticed that the death of Grievous pretty much exactly marks the end of the "fun" part of the movie. Most everything from that point is fairly damn depressing.

-Rex Hondo-

Regarding the question as to why Leia held the title of princess: Bail was a prince-consort. His wife was Queen of Alderaan.

And I think Bail wasn't in Alderaan when Moff Tarkin blew up the planet. Wasn't he one of the rebels who welcomed Leia and company in the secret base in Yavin's moon after their escape from the Death Star? I'm not sure about it, but I think she called him Father. I hope someone clarifies this as a friend of mine borrowed my DVDs and I have know way of confirming it till I get them back.

I like the way the movie focused on Padme's still-pregnant-looking belly during her funeral. Kind of explains why the Sith never knew that she actually gave birth.

But the movie still doesn't explain why they let Luke use his father's surname. I mean, the Jedi and the Lars were supposed to hide him from Vader, weren't they? Why didn't just call him Luke Lars or something?

Actually, the old man that greets Leia on Yavin Base was General Dodonna. I'm fairly sure that it's been established (at least in EU lit) that Bail Organa was at home when Alderaan got vaped.

As to why they let Luke use the Skywalker name... um... Nope, I got nothing...

-Rex Hondo, Font of Useless Knowledge-

There was one thing that I thought was wierd. In Ep. IV, when Darth and OWK are mixing it up Darth says "when I left you, I was but the learner, now I am the Master." In ep. VI, though, he is supposedly Obi's equal, and Obi wan calls him "Brother" several times. Is this all because Anakin wasn't made a master? I mean, does he even remember all this twenty years and innumerable victories later? oooooor am I missing the point and this is a continuity error?

I assume you mean episode III instead of VI. Well, being brothers doesn't necessarily equate to being equal. However many victories Vader had over the years, there was one Jedi he had not been able to beat, and so long as that one Jedi remained, he could never truly believe in himself as the STRONGEST (dark) Jedi. Also, there had to be a certain element of hate at the man who had, in dooming him to a life of cybernetic monstrosity, curtailed his growth in Force power.

-Rex Hondo-

>I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers "Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen"!

Only ... for some bizarre reason no one ever explained, the [guy with the rocket pack] character's name is Commando Cody. Not 'Commander'. Just finished rewatching RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON "introducing a new character: Commando Cody", so ...

>I thought Anakin accepted his Vaderization a little too readily. Only seconds after his horrified “what have I done?” following the death of Mace Windu, Anakin basically shrugs and says “O.K.” to becoming a Sith lord.

That was the weak point in the film for me as well. Which, since it is a major turning point (no pun intended), is rather unfortunate. Seeing Sidious trying to kill a disarmed [again, no pun intended] Mace, Annakin could have chopped the former's hands off to remove his lightning threat and then taken him in - prisoner, but still alive.

> Since the radio dramas are considered to be canon..

And, in the first one, Obi-Wan specifically states that there ARE other Jedi still alive in the galaxy - just that they can't be counted on for support in the coming battle. Which gives one hope that Mace Windu is indeed still alive but, as with Yoda, in seclusion somewhere. After all, if Obi-Wan can survive that thousand-foot fall into the water, why couldn't Windu similarly fall into a swimming pool or use the Force to grab a passing flyer?

> 3. Jedi Knights. For an elite force these guys are , well, crap. Unless you are Obi Wan Kenobi (OWK), Anakin, Luke or Yoda forget it, 2 guys with laser pistols getting told to implement order 66 will overcome you. Sorry George, slight consistency problem there.

Not necessarily. They were expecting the threats to come from out in front and were concentrating their senses there, not on their allies behind them. And even if they had, you don't survive long when you're surrounded and have no one to watch your back.

> Of course, I know it's a minor thing, but I also noticed that the death of Grievous pretty much exactly marks the end of the "fun" part of the movie.

Yup. Wonderful line on Obi-Wan's part as he tosses the blaster: "How uncivilized..."

Wow, this thread's still alive, if on life support...

Just thought I'd jump in on the other side of the "Anakin turned too quickly" issue. I think people are forgetting that he'd been leaning toward the dark side for years, and occasionally stepping pretty far over the line. Sand People massacre anyone? Also, Palpatine had been subtly working on him for years. Anakin chose his side when he chopped off Mace's hand. If anything, the "What've I done!?" was the abberation, not how "quickly" he turned. At that point, he figured there was no going back. Plus, I'd be willing to bet that there was more than a little Force manipulation going on as well.

-Rex Hondo-

episode 4 came out in 1977...
episode 5 in 1980, and episode 6 in 1983...

I have one problem... Only two sith allowed ever? Personally I don't like the logic behind that. Are we to believe that of all the Jedi, younglings, and any others with the "Force" yet discovered can't go to the dark side on thier own? Sorry Jedi Anakin, you can't turn evil today Count Dooku is still alive, and so is Sideous. Please leave a message after the beep.

I can understand the chaotic nature of the dark side making it near impossible to be organized beyond a Master-student level... every one would be killing each other to gain power, but why can't there be numerous "cells" of Sith? Is there some universal law that stops those with the force from "expressing" evil tendancies until their is a "job posting" for a new Darth? : ) Maybe yearning to learn the dark side draws you to the current memebers, and then the nature of the evil takes its course and someone dies.. who knows. But it is a BIG galaxy and two is a small number.

I thought the movie was ok... the best of the prequels, and it did cause me to watch Ep iv - vi as well as attack of the clones again when I got home.

other than above some problems I had...
1. The original death star constuction started when Luke was born, but it is not really operational(or at least used/know about) until ep iv, about 20 years later.. Then when it is destroyed they build a massive replacement (granted only about 60% complete) in the next 5 years or so.. Maybe they learned how to build them better... or didn't have to build it in secrecy.. but I thought that was a bit of a timing flaw.

2. Didn't like the fact that the whole clone army order by master Siphadeous, and planet missing from the archive etc, is not really ever questioned by the Jedi council.... they somewhat raise an eyebrow and then decide it is ok to fight right beside these guys. Also Siphadeous's death, disappearance is never explained. Things like this and what others have said make it easy to understand why the Jedi were taken out.. they kind of suck.

3. As everyone has said Obi-wan delivers the twins but seems to forget this in the future films. Also, Obi-wan comes across as somewhat of a moron in these early films. He's supposed to be a top gun, but I am not impressed.

4. Yoda is still very capable in the first three movies and is several hundred years old... he certainly ages a lot in the next 20 - 30 years on dagoba when he "dies" of natural causes.(which is a extremly small percentage of his life) Granted he does his "turn into a jedi ghost trick", but suprised he became old so fast. Or did he leave on purpose to pass the torch to Luke? When 900 years old you become, will to live subsides it does.

5. All the villans in the prequels suck. They are basically guys with a light saber. Other than the emperor you really don't give a crap about any of them, and the characters aren't developed at all. Darth Maul could have been a cool character... but all he did was show up and fight.

6. Lastly the dialog was bad, and Anakin's ultimate turn to the darkside too easy. (or maybe the dialog just lacking) It should have been more of a trap that left Anakin no option but to turn. I think that was the attempt, but for me it failed.

Re: Death Star II: construction could have begun at some point it was apparant that the design was viable...say, 10 years into constructing DS1...which probably took 10 years because of some minor attempt to unionize by the workers, which had to be "put down," and replacements trained...or cloned...

RE: Death Star: I'm actually expecting some industrious EU author to explain this, since the origin of the Death Star as explained in the EU has been fairly well torpedoed by the prequels. If it were me writing in the EU, I'd probably go the direction that the one we see at the end of Ep III actually ends up being a failure, but Tarkin gathers his think tank and runs with the idea at the Maw installation.

RE:The "Two Sith at a Time Rule": This is actually a logical fallacy that a surprising number of people seem to fall into because they don't see the distinction between a Sith and a Dark Jedi. Anybody force sensitive can fall to the Dark Side and become a Dark Jedi. The Sith way is one very specific Dark Side tradition which adopted the two-at-a-time rule as a means of self-preservation after they were nearly wiped out.

-Rex Hondo-

This is undoubtedly a post that no one's likely to see, but since I'm finally digging out from under a mountain of various tasks I figure I need to make at least a FEW comments on the film.

In general: liked it. I certainly don't agree with the NYT review that it's the best of the four Lucas-directed films, but it's easily the best of the prequel trilogy and possibly up there with Jedi. (Bits of it are, to be sure.)

Likes: Ewan McGregor is several different kinds of marvelous here. PAD mentioned his aging convincingly into Guinness, which I agree with, but he also seemed to be one of the more convincingly emotional actors here. His "you were the Chosen One!" speech really hit home, I thought, and other scenes worked as well.

McDiarmid was great until Palpatine visually became a Dick Tracy villain -- a bit over the top after that, but still MOSTLY okay.

The big "cheer for Yoda" moment, unlike Ep 2, worked well here. In Ep 2, his saber battle was pretty goofy -- this time, I liked his walking into Palpatine's office and casually taking down the two guards with a gesture. Hell yeah.

Unlike its two immediate predecessors, this film actually felt convincingly epic to me. There are still moments here and there where dialogue had me cringing, but they were isolated moments as opposed to most of the film.

Dislikes: Apart from the FrankenVader bit that everyone's hopped on ... a hearty "ehh" to Padme. Utterly passive and useless; she's not only well below the quality set by her daughter, but she's really wimpy compared to her own character in the first two films. "Lost the will to live." Right. [I like tyg's suggestion that Anakin was dominating her; it would've been really nice had that point been made, or even deliberate.]

Apart from that ... it's been a lotta weeks and probably nobody's reading this, so I'll stop here. The gist: I think the film works as a whole IF you buy Anakin's fall, and I did. (I mostly bought it because of the reactions of other characters, not Anakin himself ... but I bought it nonetheless.)

TWL

There were extremely excellent and the best scenes in the movie "Revenge of the Sith".
Good originality and great imagination, great story in this movie!
Here's Photo gallery for Hayden Christensen(Anakin) of "Revenge of the Sith". http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0159789/photogallery-ss-0
I love Star Wars series the most!

"Was Bail Organa alive at the destruction of Alderan? In Leia's original message to Ben she said "General Kenobi, years ago you fought with my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire." So that at least implies that he was alive, unless Leai was speaking figuratively, but he may not have been on Alderan when it was destroyed by the Death Star."

That message was recorded one shoot out and several days of imprisonment and torture before the destruction of Alderaan, in which it is to be supposed Bail was vapourised along with everyone
else.

>Has anyone else mentioned that Obi-Wan acts as
>if he's never seen R2 before when Luke first
>finds him in ep IV? We can probably chalk this
>up to his whole deception (saing Vader killed
>Luke's father...saying Anakin wanted Luke to
>have the lightsaber...etc), and it could be
>argued that he only says "I've never owned a
>droid." But it's the one piece of ROTS to ANH
>continuity that seems too stick out there for me

Except that when Luke is unconscious Kenobi seems to recognise R2. So yes, most of what Kenobi says to Luke is bullshit, he's a manipulative old bastard and the whole Jedi Order has issues with a high-handed (NPI) 'master knows best' attitude which causes every single problem in the whole series, which they then rely on pawns to fix. Just as Kenobi says, only the Sith deal in absolutes, the Jedi are spectaculartly relativist... from a certain point of view.