New Testingstan

Literally nobody forced George to make Anakin that young for fuck's sake.

Yeah and?

If it had been a 'real' explanation you'd still be complaining it took the mystery out. The film literally cannot win.

Crazedwraith wrote:Yeah and?

You're the one defending it on the basis that he's talking down to an 8 year old.

If it had been a 'real' explanation you'd still be complaining it took the mystery out. The film literally cannot win.

Stofsk wrote:

Crazedwraith wrote:Yeah and?

You're the one defending it on the basis that he's talking down to an 8 year old.

...and he is? Anakin being eight is a separate complaint all together.

If it had been a 'real' explanation you'd still be complaining it took the mystery out. The film literally cannot win.

[/quote]
Care to offer a counter argument?

People having been saying the worst thing about the line was that it was an explanation that didn't explain anything. And also that it took the mystery out. But it wasn't actually supposed to explain anything it's just there to establish 'Anakin is really strong in the force'. I mean they could have side stepped the issue and had Qui-Gon just look pensive and go 'i sense you're strong in the force' and then no whinging.

Stofsk wrote:It was a titanic misstep in a film that was filled with them.

The funny thing is, for all of its faults, I feel that TPM could have been a great Star Wars movie with a few relatively minor changes (as opposed to AOTC, which would need some major overhauls).

The big parts of my list, in no particular order:
1. Tone down Jar Jar's antics, mostly by making him less slapsticky.
2. Make Anakin a few years older, so he and Amidala closer in age, partly to make their relationship seem less oedipal, partly because Jake Lloyd didn't deserve the shit he got.
3. Give Anakin a more headstrong and aggressive personality, to make his future transformation to Vader more believable. As an example: in the final battle, instead of hiding in a fighter and accidentally telling it to take off, he steals the fighter because he refuses to cower in the shadows while his friends die.
4. Have Anakin accomplish what he does because he's good instead of lucky. The big culprit for this is the final battle, where he bumbles his way to destroying the mothership. Have him blow it up by being a naturally talented pilot, as opposed to failing his way to success.

Crazedwraith wrote:...and he is? Anakin being eight is a separate complaint all together.

Then why bring it up? I don't think the scene works no matter how old Anakin is. Anakin is essentially the audience standing in for us - we don't know what the fuck midichlorians are either. At the end of the scene Anakin even sheepishly says he doesn't understand, and I don't blame him.

But it wasn't actually supposed to explain anything it's just there to establish 'Anakin is really strong in the force'. I mean they could have side stepped the issue and had Qui-Gon just look pensive and go 'i sense you're strong in the force' and then no whinging.

No, that's not the scene. The scene was Anakin asking Qui-gon about midichlorians and the latter takes around 45 seconds to give an explanation about them. The problem is the scene adds detail of the wrong sort, because it then leads to further questions that remain unanswered.

-How do midichlorians exist *everywhere* in the galaxy?
-For that matter, how are midichlorians vital for ALL life to exist?
-How do they and the Force interact in a tangible sense?
-Qui-gon says that midichlorians 'tell us the will of the Force' - does that mean they're sentient?
-Does it mean that the Force is sentient?
-If the Force is sentient, what does that mean philosophically? What does 'the will of the Force' even mean? Because that's a huge can of worms.
-If midichlorians are in every cell of every lifeform, how come force sensitivity is extremely rare? The implication should be the exact opposite, almost *everyone* and everything should have some degree of force sensitivity.
-If this is so important to determine who can be a jedi or not, why did no one mention it to Luke? Like both Obi-wan and Yoda gives a similar sounding explanation for how the Force works ('Life creates it, helps it grow' is pretty similar to Qui-gon talking about how midichlorians live in every living being and help jedi communicate with the force) but do so without the weirdly quasi technical details. Also, Luke is much older than Anakin was, and Anakin's the one who gets the pseudo science lesson? (Also, it doesn't help that Jake Lloyd can't act very well, which circles back to my previous reply that absolutely nothing forced George to cast Anakin that young. A better actor might have injected more curiosity into the question than Lloyd managed to)

These questions don't all need to be answered all at once. They can be answered bit by bit as the story progresses. They can be explicit answers or implied answers as well. The only payoff I can think off for even introducing midichlorians into the setting was the opera scene in ROTS. And that had less to do with midichlorians and more to do with telling us Palpatine's backstory.

The earlier scene on Tatooine was comparatively better, since it was a plot development. It has a cool character moment where Qui-gon gives Anakin a half-truth when he takes the blood sample ('I'm just checking you for infections') but shows he has ulterior intentions. Note also that while there's some kind of quantification going on (Obi-wan says his levels are 'off the chart' and over 20k, and not even Yoda has a count that high) that scene and those lines actually build mystery. The implication is that Anakin is unusually strong with the Force and this is a significant plot development. The latter scene on Coruscant doesn't do anything other than last for almost a minute and doesn't advance the plot or really increase our understanding of the characters, it's supposed to be exposition for the setting, but as previously mentioned it leads to more questions than it answers and none of those questions really get resolved.

And I think Civil War Man's point here is apt: if midichlorians had been presented as a physical indicator for force sensitivity (as the first scene on Tatooine kind of implied) then I doubt anyone would give a shit about it or hate it as much. But it wasn't. We were given a bunch of exposition that fucking goes nowhere.

Civil War Man wrote:

Stofsk wrote:It was a titanic misstep in a film that was filled with them.

The funny thing is, for all of its faults, I feel that TPM could have been a great Star Wars movie with a few relatively minor changes (as opposed to AOTC, which would need some major overhauls).

The big parts of my list, in no particular order:
1. Tone down Jar Jar's antics, mostly by making him less slapsticky.

I think this is true but probably is more of an overhaul change than you think it is. Jar Jar is just a bad character that is executed poorly. It's almost 'go back to the drawing board' in terms of trying to fix him. Incidentally, I think the first... 15-20 mins of TPM are actually fairly solid. Then we get introduced to Jar Jar and that is almost always when my interest in rewatching the film crashes into a brick wall.

2. Make Anakin a few years older, so he and Amidala closer in age, partly to make their relationship seem less oedipal, partly because Jake Lloyd didn't deserve the shit he got.

Agreed on all counts.

3. Give Anakin a more headstrong and aggressive personality, to make his future transformation to Vader more believable. As an example: in the final battle, instead of hiding in a fighter and accidentally telling it to take off, he steals the fighter because he refuses to cower in the shadows while his friends die.

Agreed.

4. Have Anakin accomplish what he does because he's good instead of lucky. The big culprit for this is the final battle, where he bumbles his way to destroying the mothership. Have him blow it up by being a naturally talented pilot, as opposed to failing his way to success.

Again, agreed.

I'd probably add a few things. The plot needed more work. I know some people don't seem to think it matters but one of the questions I had after watching TPM for the first time was... what the hell was the initial conflict all about? What did the taxation of trade routes mean? Why did that lead to the events that transpired in the film? I'd also not keep Obi-wan on the ship. Obi-wan does a few awesome things early on and at the end, but for that huge middle stretch he's just sitting on his arse in the ship. Which reminds me I'd probably rework that whole middle stretch on Tatooine thing too, but at this point I'm afraid I'm writing a fanfic so maybe I'll just shut up.

Stofsk wrote: No, that's not the scene. The scene was Anakin asking Qui-gon about midichlorians and the latter takes around 45 seconds to give an explanation about them. The problem is the scene adds detail of the wrong sort, because it then leads to further questions that remain unanswered.

I'd forgotten to extant of the exposition related to midichlorians. My bad.

But seriously. Force = Midichlorians, midicholorians = force. If you can accept Yoda's and Obi-Wan's talking about it without going 'but why does life generate an energy field? How do people manipulate it? Why does this give them powers?' then basically you can accept midichlorians at face value and in writing this out I've realised you're right to the extent it's trying to answer questions that don't need answering anyway and failing it.

It's still just what a minute by your count of pointless exposition. Hardly the most terrible of crimes.

Crazedwraith wrote:It's still just what a minute by your count of pointless exposition. Hardly the most terrible of crimes.

No the most terrible of TPM's crimes is failing to explain what the taxation of trade routes was all about

ummm it is TAXATION (a bad thing, obviously) of TRADE ROUTES (a good thing, obviously)

if you can't understand that just go back to star trek you communist scum

Stofsk wrote: No the most terrible of TPM's crimes is failing to explain what the taxation of trade routes was all about

I'd say that's pretty self-explanatory.

I think this is true but probably is more of an overhaul change than you think it is. Jar Jar is just a bad character that is executed poorly. It's almost 'go back to the drawing board' in terms of trying to fix him. Incidentally, I think the first... 15-20 mins of TPM are actually fairly solid. Then we get introduced to Jar Jar and that is almost always when my interest in rewatching the film crashes into a brick wall.

Are you high?! Senator Jar Jar was awesome. Every moment he was on scene I was all like "AHAHAHAHA JAR JAR THAT IS SO FUNNY!"

I'm still pissed he wasn't in Episode VII.

The Best Thing (yes, with caps) about TPM was when Darth Maul appeared for the climatic lightsaber battle with the brass playing the chords from "Duel of the Fates". That alone is enough to tolerate Jar Jar for the duration of film. Until the second film, the only redeeming quality of which is seeing Yoda duel. If you can get through the rest of the film...

When I saw him (edit: By which I mean Jar Jar, not Yoda) in the third film, in a midnight showing, before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE!"

There were chuckles.

adr wrote:ummm it is TAXATION (a bad thing, obviously) of TRADE ROUTES (a good thing, obviously)

yes but whhhhyyyyyyyyyy

if you can't understand that just go back to star trek you communist scum

Stofsk wrote:I think this is true but probably is more of an overhaul change than you think it is. Jar Jar is just a bad character that is executed poorly. It's almost 'go back to the drawing board' in terms of trying to fix him. Incidentally, I think the first... 15-20 mins of TPM are actually fairly solid. Then we get introduced to Jar Jar and that is almost always when my interest in rewatching the film crashes into a brick wall.

I actually think it would be a less daunting task than it appears. Thinking back on the movie, he has surprisingly little impact on the plot for the amount of screen time he has. That allows for a lot of leeway for altering the character, since it means that you can even make major changes without having to rewrite large sections of the script.

For the most part, the change Jar Jar needs most is the same as one of the changes I'd make for Anakin. Namely, he should accomplish stuff by being good at something instead of just bumbling his way to success. One of the easiest changes to make in this regard is to change his backstory so he was exiled for being a criminal, say a thief or a deserter from the Gungan army, as opposed to being exiled for being clumsy. Then, while the main plot is happening, his time with the Jedi sends him through a small redemption arc, allowing him to step in when he's needed to secure the Gungans as allies for the final battle (like what happened in the movie). Then, just have him fight normally in the final battle instead of slapsticking his way through the droid army.

Showing him to actually be competent in TPM would also make his position in the Senate in later movies make more sense, and be a nice continuation of his arc.

You wouldn't even necessarily have to change his manner of speaking. Yoda managed to be cool despite the fact that he talks like Yoda, because he did cool things.