Discussion in 'Star Wars Saga In-Depth' started by kotorkayla, Jun 21, 2011.
I would have to say my favorite character is Qui Gon Jinn, He was awesome in that movie "Krull"
Over the years it's changed a lot for me. But it's probably out of Obi-Wan (Both Guinness and McGregor) or Luke.
Luke Skywalker, now and forever.
After him I'll go,
2. Obi-Wan Kenobi
4. Luke Skywalker
5. Han Solo
6. Lando Calrissian
Anakin is actually a far more deep/complex character then Luke or Han. I like Han and Luke, they are fun..... but they are both simply archetypes who are neither deep or complex.
I would argue that while the possibility of depth in Anakin is apparent, that it never truly materializes on screen. P
eople say he has more depth then Luke, but in reality his character plays a bit one note. Luke seems to display more in turmoil then Anakin outside of the black suit ever does.It is not until The Empire Strikes Back that Anakin gets truly interesting and it is in direct relation to his relationship with Luke.
That is strictly your perception. I disagree.
Which is fine. That is also strictly your perception and I disagree.
I don't see much in the prequel Anakin other then the typical troubled hero, except with an extra level of self pity.
I find Anakin's background and personality--the way he grew up, the people in his life who influenced him for better and for worse, and how those dynamics played into traits with which he was born--fascinating. I've spent some time taking different elements and events of his life, such as his slave background, the age and manner in which he left his mother, the Jedi's one-size-fits-all teaching methods and their clash with his background and learning style, and wondered how the universe would be affected if one or more of those elements were changed.
Some elements would have made no difference: example, if the Jedi had refused to train him or booted him from the Order, I think he still would have turned, particularly if the story about Plagueis creating Anakin is true. The Sith would have found him anyway, and probably earlier. However, if Shmi Skywalker had lived and remained in contact with her son, I think the galaxy would be a very different place.
Yes, Anakin was arrogant, and yes, he was the epitome of melodramatic. But I hardly found him to be the "typical troubled hero" or any other archetype. If I did, I could never spend as much time discussing him as I have over the years.
Yes, yes, that is all well and good, but I find how his character is actually written and acted to produce something not all that interesting. Quite a lot of potential. And I am sure I could talk and twist what is on film into something far more meaningful then it actually is.
But what is actually there doesn't do it for me. Maybe if Hayden looked more angry and had some steel in his voice the sub-parmaterial could of been saved, but alas it wasn't meant to be. What is left is not all that compelling from my pov.
But I haven't done that. The characteristics I listed in my last post were not characteristics that I pulled out of my ass--I saw all of them in the films. We saw him as a slave, we saw him leave his mother, we saw the Jedi reject him, etc.
Is there any real reason why it has to be directly stated in the film that "Look! Anakin's slave background led to his fear of loss! The loss of Anakin's mother traumatized him so much that he was then exceedingly afraid of losing Padme!" for us to understand it? I don't want the film director to flat-out tell me these things; I don't like films that do that. I feel that the director of such films is talking to me like I'm stupid, like I can't figure such things out for myself.
As far as Hayden's acting, we'll have to agree to disagree there. I thought he did a great job portraying Anakin's angst.
Yes he is a slave. What exactly is so bad about being the kind of slave Anakin apparently is?
Anakin is the most comfortable slave I have ever seen. He has his own living quarters, is allowed to have friends, lives with his mother, he is seemingly not physically harmed, has enough down time to learn enough to build a droid, is well fed, and is allowed to compete is a sport he loves. Anakin is a slave in name only and any consequences from his situation are contrived at best. Just like his turn to the darkside. We live in a world with a long history of slavery, and the best Lucas could do to portray this horrific status is have Anakin complain about being called a slave?
And you are right, Anakin as portrayed by Hayden is full of angst, just like those sparkly vamps and pretty much every teenager this side of James Dean. It isn't atypical. What is missing is the good man and fine warrior.
A few poorly realized ideas being tossed out in a few badly executed scenes are not the make up of a fully realized character. Oh, see Anakin loves to Padme and is really attached after losing his mother. Granted their scenes together are cold as ice and display little if any true affection, but Anakin said it, so it must be true. Oh, and he angry at the Jedi, more then enough to turn to the darkside and start adding some base to his voice. After all, he is evil now.
The character of Anakin is as convenient as the prequels themselves. All this talk of pain, anger and suffering, and yet all we really get is a few reasonable stances by the Jedi and his mother dying. Now granted his mother death is a big deal, but it has little to any correlation with his turn.
Scorsese and Liotta displayed the temptation of the "darkside" masterfully with Henry Hill in Goodfellas, and all they had was two hours.
Are you serious?
Would you want to be owned by another person? I wouldn't. I don't care how "comfortable" it looks.
I very seriously doubt that anyone on this message board genuinely understands what it is like to be someone else's property. If slavery is perfectly OK as long as the slaves are comfortable, why has slavery been abolished in every First World country?
Again, I disagree.
It doesn't matter how comfortable his life may have been. The end result is still the same as it was in real life slavery, he is still viewed as less then a person and more of property and that is gong to have profound effect on anyone.
I am pretty sure anyone that watches TPM would genuinely have trouble understanding what is so bad about being someone else's property.
Anakin's childhood plays out pretty normally, at least according to the film. Calling someone a slave and portraying them as one are two completely different things. That is so much of the prequels problems.
You want a tortured, haunted kid? Harry Potter has Anakin in spades in that arena.
Your answer here reminds me of the prequels. I understand the intention. You disagree. That is fine. How that adds to the conversation, I am not so sure.
You mean like every child whose behind belongs to his parents until they turn 18?
What effect does it have on Anakin? There seems to be contradicting arguments here. If Anakin's life as a slave had been scarring, then why was taking him from that life also scarring? How many "slaves" have social lives?
Show TPM to anyone who doesn't understand the concept of slavery, and they would wonder what exactly is so reprehensible about.
The lack of "meat" in my answer was intentional. I didn't want you to do more than read it. I could have explained further, but your response would have been "I didn't see that," and what would the point be? Our last several exchanges have been my stating that I saw something and your responding that you didn't see it. Better that we just agree to disagree and move on.
And I have children who are much younger than 18. I certainly do not consider them my property. They are human beings, not possessions.
I have actually given examples and shown what I feel is flaws in your logic. Your use of Anakin's status as a "slave" being one.
And how one sees their kids and how the law sees them are two different things. When one person is allowed to decide pretty much every aspect of another's life is that not a form of possession? A form of "ownership"?
So...what you are saying here is that this is not a discussion on differing, equally valid viewpoints on a work of art, and maybe...this is a long shot, but I can reach...find common ground somewhere.
Rather, this is supposed to be a debate in which one of us has to be "correct."
Are you genuinely interested in what I saw in the prequels and Anakin's character, or do you just want to argue with me and try to prove me "wrong"?
I have responded to your post about Anakin's slave status, as did Game3525, by saying that slavery is repulsive no matter how "comfortable" the slave appears. Your response indicates that you believe that slavery is acceptable as long as the slave is "comfortable." That's not even an argument that I want to have. I'm not going to change my mind.
This also comes back to your prior statements indicating that (correct me if I've misunderstood here) if you didn't see or hear something on screen, it must not have happened, there must not be any underlying implications or meaning. I.e. in this case, if Anakin looked "comfortable" in slavery, then he must have been. That may be how you choose to watch movies. That is not how I watch movies, however, and if I am forced to watch a movie with no underlying meaning, I find the movie very boring.
Who the heck would be watching TPM without prior knowledge of the concept of slavery? Most kindergartners know that slavery is bad.
It's a pretty basic concept. I'm not sure why Lucas should have made TPM under the assumption that viewers would not understand that slavery is a very, very bad thing.
When slavery was legal in the United States, slave owners were allowed to beat and starve their slaves. Thankfully parents are not legally allowed to do that to their children.
Not the same thing at all. I'm shocked that you see a legal and moral charge for parents to take care of and guide their children as the equivalent to a slave master's legal ability to use a slave however he or she chooses.
On this question:
It was not being taken from his life as a slave that was scarring. It was being taken from his mother, leaving her in slavery, and knowing that he would probably never see her again.
That was blatantly obvious to me in TPM, particularly given the fact that in several scenes after Anakin left Tatooine, he mentioned missing his mother (and got scolded for it by the Council ).
The effect does show in Episode II and III.
Anakin's arrogance and need for recognition(which all stem from his upbringing as a slave) is one reason Palpatine was able to sway him. Palpatine praised and encouraged him, which he felt he wasn't getting from Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi. Also it wasn't the taking him from the life that was scarring, but the attachment to his mother. IMO, those are two separate issues.
No offense, but anyone with common sense can figure out why slavery was reprehensible in TPM. I mean you don't need to see Watto cracking a whip to say "You know that isn't right."
No right or wrong, but I find a converstation that boils down to "that isn't how I feel" to be a tad bit pointless.
You just literally put words in my mouth. I at no point said slavery was fine, my point was that slavery as portrayed in TPM doesn't seem all that reprehensible. If you were fighting slavery and needed an example of why it is so terrible, you wouldn't use TPM as an example. It isn't like you see scars on Anakin. You don't see him forced to do anything or "resisting" his status. What you get is a fairly happy child who is allowed to keep money and live a life akin to that of what society would call a "normal childhood". Slavery in TPM feels far more like a job then a lifestyle.
I think you mix up underlying ideas and meaning with creating aspects of the film in your mind that doesn't really have all that much of a basis in the film. In theory one could craft any story in their mind about any character and use that as an example of why any character is the most fascinating ever written. That is fine, but I don't work that way.
Let me use The Empire Strikes Back as an example. Take the character of Vader. There is clearly an underlying motivation to why he is so desperate to find and "capture" Luke Skywalker. What that is, isn't clear until he reveals that he is Luke's father and shows a resistance to killing his son. That is something that cast his conversation with the Emperor in a whole new light. That is subtext.
Anakin is not beaten or starved. There is no indication that such things are even legal in this Star Wars form of slavery.
And honestly, we force kids to go to school. Corporal punishment is legal in all 50 states. A parent is allowed to tell a child what they can and cannot eat or enjoy. You can call it a moral charge, but considering words like "Not while you still live under my roof" and "your behind is mine until you turn 18" are heard in plenty of homes across America, I don't see how you can much such a distinction, especially when it comes to Anakin's situation.
When is this ever indicated or touched upon? There are plenty of arrogant people in need of recognition that were never slaves. It is just a part of their personality. IT is a nature v. nurture argument. Anakin being a self-centered jerk seems to stem more from his abundance of talent then his childhood. If he desire recognition so much, he would not be the slacker Obi-Wan implies that he is.
And offense taken. Give me an example of why it is reprehensible in TPM? What aspects of Anakin or his mother's life show this? You say it is common sense, but honestly, all I have to hang on is what I have learned from other sources.
That's the thing about kids. Jake Lloyd may have been a lot of things, but he was GREAT at acting his age. When Shmi is casually explaining the explosive device inside his son, Anakin chimes in "They BLOW YOU UP! BOOM!" Anakin SEEMS well-adjusted because, well, he's got a roof over his head and food in his belly. Kids would fall apart if they dwelt on the injustices of the world, so they don't. The movie itself is that way, the ugliness of the galaxy is implied and even spelled out for the audience from time to time, but its on to the next moment in this grand adventure.
Maybe so, but conversations on works of art seem to center around one of two purposes: to try to understand others' POVs and find common ground, or to try to insist that the POV of those who disagree with you is "wrong." I'm very interested in the former, and when I know I'll never understand someone else's POV, I'm honest about it.
But I have no interest whatsoever in the latter. We're discussing works of art here, not scientific theory. There is no "right" or "wrong."
Of course not. Why would anyone use a fictional story as an example of such a point?
And it's back to this again--you accusing me of making stuff up, which I don't appreciate.
Why would you assume that underlying ideas and meaning aren't there simply because you, personally, did not see them? Or to put it this way, going back to another point--why are you assuming that your personal take on the film is the only "correct" one?
Several studies of psychology indicate that arrogant people actually suffer from very low self-esteem.
TPM was not filmed as a lesson for people who have been living under rocks all their lives on why slavery sucks. You are supposed to hang onto what you have learned from other sources. I fail to see why this is such a problem.
That aside, in the books we have indication that Watto did beat Anakin, as did Gardulla, the latter to a much greater degree. The ROTS novelization shows that when Anakin killed Dooku, he was remembering, among other things, Watto's fist coming at him. That inner monologue doesn't translate to screen and would be pretty lame if Lucas had tried. I'm thankful we didn't get a film with Anakin slashing with his saber and saying, "This is for Watto's fist!"
1. Palpatine basically comes out and says it in ROTS.
"Ever since I've known you, you've been searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi . . . a life of significance, of conscience."
2. Arrogances stems from insecurity, Skywalker is insecure because of his upbringing of a slave. I mean just look how he lashes out when Padme asks if he was a slave TPM
3. If your going to hang your hat on what you have learned from other sources, then you would realize why slavery is reprehensible in TPM. I mean I seriously hope people aren't that obtuse.