Thoughts of LoWriter

I would like to point out that while it pretends to tie into the original three movies, it does a pretty poor job of it. Remember when Leia claimed that she had a memory of her mother? I doubt coming out of her womb counts. Or the fact that Vader doesn't seem to remember that she even exists? He seems pretty keen on getting to know Luke, but barely acknowledges her existence at all in the later films. I'm pretty sure that Lucas dreamed up them being siblings for Empire and that the only backstory he worked out before episode 4 was something like: "There was this guy who's name is anakin skywalker and this one guy ruined a republic and became emperor and made anakin his bitch." I bet he didn't even work out why Vader had to wear his helmet contraption thing until he had to write Jedi.

If only he would have let People Who Can Write and Someone Who Can Direct do these films, maybe we wouldn't have had such wonderful lines as "My powers have doubled since we last met" performed by what may be the biggest dumb jock to ever grace the silver screen.

I totally remembered Leia saying that she was very young when her mother died, and I totally thought that I was just crazy. I thought maybe she meant her adoptive mother?

As far as Vader's interest in Leia, I watched part of The Return of the Jedi and Vader didn't actually know about Leia. Nobody knew that Padme was carrying twins until she was delivering them, even in this movie.

At any rate, boo. I add boo to their total score.

So you're saying (or rather Lucas is saying) that Anakin is in tune with the force to the point where he can predict when Padme is going to die, but he can't figure out that she gave birth to twins? Isn't that whole force thing supposed to allow you to sense life?

At this point I'm fairly convinced that Lucas would rather women didn't exist. Padme dying in child birth would reflect this: she'd done her job.

On a somewhat related note: was I the only one who thought that pretty much every building in the movie was adorned with a giant phallus?

(I should note that I stole most of my first comment from Kevin Hendricks' blog on the same topic).

somebody's a bit sexually repressed... ahemmmm....

It could be that Vader is so self-absorbed he doesn't see that she is having twins. Obi-Wan didn't know. Additionally, the only reason Padme dies in childbirth is because Anakin became Vader, and Padme "lost the will to live." Yoda says something about Anakin's vision being clouded by the Dark Side. I'll be the first to say that the plot has major flaws in it. And yes, judging by the singular speaking female, Lucas probably does prefer that women didn't exist.

Here's an interesting twist, or reminder, about the whole "lame female characters" thing...

I don't know if all of you are aware of this, but Lucas' whole story line for at least the 1st (that is, episodes 4, 5, and 6) Star Wars movies, was based very closely on Joseph Campell's theories of myth. Lucas' aim was essentially to take Campbell's "theory" or framework of the single myth and see if it would work, as Campbell said it would, to generate interest and appeal in people all over the planet. Apparently, it did.

The point being that often in these myths, prominent, powerful women often play an important, but passing role in the greater story of the male "hero," in this case,
Anakin Sywalker. If you think about Circe and Calliope of the Odyssey, it sort of makes sense...

Just my two cents on that issue. Who knows how much Lucas actually stuck to this initial concept for the last (1,2, 3) three episodes. Tough to glean his motivations now that he's insanely wealthy, has an unlimited budget, and frankly, could have aired 2.5 hours of basket weaving and people would have still stood in line to see it.

He's certainly no idiot. I'll give him that. Anyone who'd take a look at the earliest stories and literature, and try to use them as cleverly as he did to make money in the current day and age... knows how to play to the people.

Hayden Christiansen isn't SO bad... he was in "Life as a House" which was a good show... played another angry teenager... and really, he can't be totally blamed for cheesy writing, though you'd think a good actor would be good at downplaying the sap.

Dumb jock, perhaps... but easy on the eyes... oh... so easy... *grrrowr*

In response to the cheese factor, I have to note that as Obi-Wan swaggers through most of the scenes, I have a vision of him prancing through space and breaking into "I am the very model of a modern major general."

For the record.

tee heeeeeee......

HA! I couldn't remember where I'd heard that song before... one of the vegetables in my neice's "veggie tales" tapes sings it... ha... ha ha... hahahahaha...

It's my new favorite.

It is a fine song. I have it on CD.

Sweet. Anyone else ever see "the pirate movie". based on priates of penzance, but with a much hotter protagonist.

As far as star wars and the joseph campbell connection, I think it's a loose one at best. I seem to remember Bill Moyers doing a special on Jospeph Campbell which Lucas paid for and there being a completely inconsistant post script about how jungian star wars was. To some degree I could see it (the shadow being faceless, for example) but many important aspects of the hero myth were neglected in star wars (most notably the hero is one who is expelled or voluntarily leaves a community, undergoes some radical change or some form of learning, and then returns to that community to attempt to intigrate that knowledge. Think of Ishamel in "Moby Dick", Marlow in "Heart of Darkness" or Odysseus telling his story in the Odyssey.)

I did notice that when anakin was speaking to palpatine they were almost always facing away from the light source or windows and when he spoke with obi-wan they were facing twoards light sources. Additionally much of the architecture had very obvious light and shadows which streaked across scenery. I enjoyed these details.