star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

*it's still NOT clear he's a Sith, rather

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i had a star wars encyclopedia as a kid that called the emperor "emperor palpatine," so from the moment i saw the phantom menace i knew palpatine was sidious

you could see an alternative path where Palpatine is "dark master of the whills" and all the people wielding the dark side just get progressively more ridiculous titles

Lucas pulled in and revised from a myriad of stories related to the Star Wars properties in crafting a new canon for the prequels while discarding much more. The fans who insist this is something that happened post-Disney have short memories, or weren't around for the first run of extended property-mining

I think the parts of fandom that were super-literal missed the point -- the jedi were an established order of force users who declared that their way was the right way, took very young children into their care, and raised them to align with a specific set of beliefs and a jedi code.

The non-movie canon (and finally, the movies) establishes that a bunch of people have at least some ability to use the force, if not many more who can perceive it, and that the Sith are a group somewhat analogous to the jedi in that they've banded together and created rules, structure, and a different type of training program

the nightsisters of dathomir are still canon lol

i'm sure i got this from posts on this board, but it'd be soooo much more interesting if more of that horror and transition were spread over the preceding films

i feel you but i sort of like that each movie ends up having its own identity (pm: political intrigue/inconsequential adventure romp; aotc: star noir; rots: feels like ugly crying for 2.5 hours)

as an inveterate prequel-defender it is hard for me to agree that the story would be more powerful if anakin were likable. talented, arrogant, fascistic tendencies, chip on his shoulder the size of a planet: this seems like darth vader to me

after which it's just like "hey go kill these people" ---- "okay boss."

really it's "ok boss, as long as i can save padmé, who i am actually inadvertently killing by trying to save her, wow that's *darth sidious voice* ironic"

i love the shots in rots of anakin with tears streaming down his face every time he does something horrible, and i like to think vader is also just crying constantly behind the mask

Isn't that the primary motivation in the novels -- his self-loathing? That's what makes him uniquely powerful: the well of self-loathing is bottomless, and the Emperor's expert at coaxing him to draw from it.

There's a sense that Lucas decided Anakin's arc that leads to him becoming Vader happens during his extended adolescence and his redemption is the culmination of an adult life that took the wrong path. I get that as a narrative choice, but it meant we get hotshot emo terror for three movies

https://img.cinemablend.com/filter:scale/quill/0/7/7/d/4/e/077d4ede6e8beb1eeaf575d728119483b0164154.png?mw=600

Much of the curiosity that spurred me to start The Clone Wars is to see exactly how they handle the slow degradation of Anakin over those few years. A couple of dark-ish moments a season in but still nothing on par with Tusken genocide.

it is hard for me to agree that the story would be more powerful if anakin were likable. talented, arrogant, fascistic tendencies, chip on his shoulder the size of a planet: this seems like darth vader to me

hrmmm maybe sub in "charismatic" for "likable"? obviously this is super subjective but i really think it would help if he had some kind of magnetism, in script and performance, something that would carry from obi-wan's reminisce about a heroic jedi and "good friend" along the way to the terrifying space fascist convinced the ends justify the means. christensen, who tbf was evidently very badly directed, just comes off as a whiner in 2 and a seething emo dude in 3. like... okay, tom cruise would have been too old --- but someone like that, someone who kind of creeps me out at the same time as i can't look away. christian bale would have worked, if we shift the character up from "teenager" to "young man" (which i think would help, and which sith does anyway).

see also my old rewrite idea (probably on "crimes of george lucas"): obi-wan in his younger years should be a little bit loose and irreverent, effectively the "han solo" of the series, while anakin should be written as the truest of true believers in the jedi way, so rigid that when his emotions lead him to crack, he can't find any meaning in his old passion for the cause. idk. the arc as written just doesn't do a lot for me, it doesn't feel like a human story at all, just a series of events, all puppeteered by palpatine so that nobody makes independent choices.

hrmmm maybe sub in "charismatic" for "likable"? obviously this is super subjective but i really think it would help if he had some kind of magnetism, in script and performance, something that would carry from obi-wan's reminisce about a heroic jedi and "good friend" along the way to the terrifying space fascist convinced the ends justify the means

yeah, i feel like i wanted him to be what i assumed he was when i watched the original trilogy as a kid.

just a series of events, all puppeteered by palpatine so that nobody makes independent choices.

This is, afaict, pretty much exactly what it is. As you note, ymmv as to whether you feel this makes for a compelling narrative.

hell, don't a couple of the novels how Palpatine was controlling the battle from the Death Star in ROTJ?

that's of course a Lord of the Rings homage

I guess you can look at the entire ep. 1-6 arc as climaxing with Anakin finally breaking free of the control exerted over him since the moment he was force-magicked into his mother's womb.

I pretty much agree with all of Doctor Casino’s criticisms of ROTS. None of the leads have much personality, and there’s enough blame to go around to the writing, direction and acting though Lucas should get the lions share. So too much of ROTS is taken up with some character-driven business that we never care about. Although it is abstractly interesting to see such a huge franchise film which is such a colossal bummer I much prefer AOTC because it seems content to be good pulpy (and Palpy) fun.

only a sith deals in absolutes

that's of course a Lord of the Rings homage

Speaking of -- something about TROS that clicked with me was just how high fantasy everything about Exegol is, even more than usual when it comes to SW. The throne room sequence in particular, while I'm sure there wasn't an intended connection, made me think of how Morgoth's throne room is pictured in my mind when it comes to Silmarillion material. As such it suited the utterly over-the-top feeling of the whole thing.

The plot of the prequels in a nutshell: Pulpy Palpy pecked a prick with poopy pampers

that's a good point Ned. the floating monolith thing, the zombie choir. it was a lot more métal hurlant than star wars usually is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hoXNXSpmng

i'm glad someone isolated my favorite scene from rots (and from any of the prequels). i think this is just fucking amazing

the character-driven nature of rots works for me bc the visual storytelling that's conveying that characterization is on this kind of level throughout

lol sorry it just occurred to me how revenge of the sith reads as an acronym. fuckin metal

i do wanna walk back my vague griping about lucas's politics in the prequels - - - he definitely seems to have it in for ineffectual bureaucracy, but on reflection this is probably an intentional but undeveloped allegory: a weak democratic state is unable to stop a motivated, ambitious politician who foments militarism against an alliance between commercial and manufacturing interests. the only thing that garbles this is that in real life you'd expect the militaristic politician to be aligned with those interests, as in historical fascism. but whatever it's something, and in a movie where those interests were sketched out a little more (like, showing the trade federation's regular operations on the ground, not just as four racist stereotypes in conference calls with other bad guys), it could be super compelling.

trying to remember which 90s superhero comic tried to use "this rots!" as their kewl non-swear swear. maybe one of the 2099 books, those were all in on made-up slang. or maybe it was some fanfic i was reading at the time.

Q: would II & III be better with, say, Rami Malek as Anakin, or it important that he be a) a pretty boy and/or b) terrible

Leo DiCaprio as Anakin

Say Brad...given your love of of ROTS, have you by chance read the novelization? Because I'm poking around in various EU discussions this evening (as any party animal might on a swingin' Friday night) and noticing that a lot of people stump for said novelization as a) better than the movie and b) among the best SW books and even occasionally c) the BEST of all SW books. My curiosity is piqued. Probably because there's something wrong with me, but still.

i’ve never read it! but omg

Like entire articles/listicles written about it: https://www.slashfilm.com/revenge-of-the-sith-novelization/

https://www.tor.com/2015/11/19/real-talk-you-should-just-ignore-the-star-wars-prequels-and-read-the-episode-iii-novelization/
https://www.astarwarscomic.com/brothers-revenge-sith-novelization-best-star-wars-book-ever-written/

i'm glad someone isolated my favorite scene from rots (and from any of the prequels). i think this is just fucking amazing

Yeah, that one's a keeper. It's like the tech at the time finally fully came together with what was in his head.

i read the tor article and idk, the things he describes that are supposedly so much better in the bible are... all in the movie. still very curious i’m gonna figure out a way to read it though

lol, so much better in the novel*

These Ten Star Wars Expanded Universe Novels are Better Than the Bible, and That's Okay, and Here's Why

lmao

More popular than Jesus!

Okay so here's the pony I'm feverishly riding this evening: if for no other reason, the prequels needed to happen for the sake of establishing a frame and a context for the textually-rich Clone Wars. I'm a season into the eponymous show now, and it remains to be seen whether the Cartoon Network et al took full advantage of the gift they were handed, but it's become increasingly clear to me that this is, if not the heart, at least the most interesting and fertile segment of the SW universe. Like, the scenario is one that the Trek folks would've had a field day with and spun gold from over the course of many television seasons. The fertile elements in question:

- Anakin's transition from headstrong (and occasionally genocidal) Jedi Padawan to Palpatine puppet
- Palpatine's machinations over the course of several years as he moves the separatists and the Jedi around his galactic chessboard (and, notably, his active + vocal presence on both sides of the conflict in contrast to the reclusive, behind-the-scenes Machiavellianisms you might expect from him given such unstable circumstances)
- the philosophical implications of clones bred for warfare and the various ways they might strain against their reins over time
- a galaxy in disarray amidst the breakdown of a long-established and comfortable Republic
- the ongoing occlusion of Anakin and Padme's secret marriage
- the discordant iconography of Stormtroopers and Star Destroyers deployed in service of the protagonists and the underlying sense of doom for an audience who knows what's coming down the pike
- a general excuse to explore the various species of the SW universe as the different sides vie for their support
- etc.

I don't know how (or even if) these things will be dealt with in the show but I've been fairly impressed with the intelligence and nuance they've employed thus far.

something that occurred to me during this rewatch: it's kinda established over and over again how the jedi are like... non-interventionist when it comes to death. (which, of course, means that all of the ways in which the jedi are interventionist, say in policing a three-year war between clones and droids, make them p hypocritical, which is of course canon at this point.) obi-wan is always trying to guide anakin away from being the hero and trying to save everyone, cf. the opening scene of rots where obi-wan says "they're doing their jobs, let's do ours." to a degree obi-wan has a point; there's a profound mixture of fear + vanity in anakin's attitude toward death that's pretty much a waterslide straight into the dark side, but also throughout his betrayal he's aware of how much the jedi will not help him save padme, to the exact the degree that they never helped or encouraged him to save his mother. ofc palpatine manipulates this exquisitely

More of an overall thing- but is there any other franchise, series or movie in existence that is so popular with children and simultaneously so blunt about death and the horrors of war?

People die so horribly and so often in Star Wars, which never made any sense in the context of battles (there's absolutely no reason for any non-droid to be fighting battles in this universe), I find myself so distracted by it. The technology is there. They've basically achieved consciousness in droids but they've never considered relying on them to stand in for actual life in military scenarios anywhere along the trajectory of their technological advancements except for in the earliest moments of the entire series? I don't remember why droids were phased out as soldiers/pilots if it was explained and I can't imagine a good one.

And the series is popular among younger demographics! I'm not opposing it, I'm just mystified given that any other series with this awareness much less targeting of these demos do not come anywhere near the unapologetic relentless killing and dying of soldiers/civilians on screen. With a Marvel movie or something you see cities literally crumble but generally they never ever draw attention to the kind of death that would be proportionate to that destruction. If you see civilians at all it is to show them scrambling or escaping or being saved. Henchman might die but many many times you can assume they're simply knocked out.

So ultimately for me it's that in-universe discrepancy between technology and expendable life (frustrating), and on the outside the bold presentation of this for a pretty large percentage of younger viewers (fascinating).

popular with children and simultaneously so blunt about death and the horrors of war?

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, tons of others I'm sure

I feel, otoh, that SW is pretty adroit at sidestepping the horrors of war. At the least, the horror always takes a backseat to the thrills and excitement.

Except when Mr. Binks is onscreen, of course.

or when an ewok dies

or when luke's aunt and uncle are reduced to charbroiled skeletons

this isn't like a death in battle but there's even grief when the fuckin rancor dies

I think I'd put as much weight on the response to the horror as I would the depictions themselves. I can't really recall seeing any SW characters in shock because of the psychic weight of the war they're waging.

Harry Potter the deaths are big moments, and aren't as gruesome imo. Star Wars you get plenty of cock pit views of a pilot that you just saw cracking wise a few scenes ago helplessly burning to death at the beginning of being exploded.

Lord of the Rings was certainly popular with a lot of kids but Star Wars has so much more kid focused content and targeting and merchandise... it's just on another level. You might imagine this would encourage even more scrutiny from executives worried about parents opinions about exposing this violence, but the cockpit view of pilot screaming and dying in an explosion or a light saber slices someone in half are all just as much borrowed from the original trilogy as the rest of the fan service, so it gets a pass! People just accept it because it's a familiar Star Wars element.

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