The Qui-Gon Factor My two cents on that crazy Qui-Gon
#1
Posted 22 November 2004 - 10:18 AM
I may be the only person who feels this way, but I've always felt that one of the biggest flaws with these prequels, well specifically Episode 1 - aside from too much Jar Jar Binks - is that there wasn't enough Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode 1. Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader are the only ones (aside from the droids) to appear in both this trilogy and the original trilogy; I was 15 when TPM came out, and I assumed that Obi-Wan would more or less be the lead character, with little Anakin right beside him. I foolishly believed that the movie would revolve around Obi-Wan meeting & befriending Anakin, and the beginning of their friendship (I imagined they'd have a big brother/little brother dynamic), which is crucial to the plot and to Anakin's downfall. Instead, Obi-Wan Kenobi was reduced to a secondary character/2nd banana lurking in the background while Qui-Gon Jinn, played by Liam Neeson, stepped up to the plate to get Anakin into the Jedi Order, and upon his death, he gets Obi-Wan to promise him he'll train the boy since "He... is the Chosen One."
Now before I go any further, let me just say this is not an anti-Liam Neeson thread/rant. I like Liam Neeson; he's a damn fine actor and he was very good in films like "Darkman", "Rob Roy", and "Michael Collins" and, despite the overall wooden feeling of "Menace", I thought Neeson brought a quiet dignity to Qui-Gon Jinn (that sounds like the name of a beer; imagine going into the cantina and saying "I'd like a qui-gon jinn please, with an obi-wan to go."). On his own, Qui-Gon probably could have been a very interesting character, but there's just one problem - he's a continuity error.
Look back to the original "Star Wars" and to "Return of the Jedi" for a moment, long considered the weakest of the old trilogy but still lightyears ahead of the prequels (they may be silly, but I dig those crazy Ewoks). In the first movie, Obi-Wan seems to emphasize this idea of Anakin as "a good friend", a line he repeats in ROTJ. In ROTJ, the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Luke "When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot, but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong."
In Episode 1, we see none of this. Obi-Wan & Anakin have like 2 to 3 exchanges of dialogue while Anakin follows Qui-Gon around. As Chefelf pointed out on the 78 reasons to hate episode 1 page, Qui-Gon was basically a carbon copy of the old version of Obi-Wan from the first movie; albeit Qui-Gon couldn't make up his mind over being a maverick and being the wise, mysterious, aloof old master. Having said that, the idea of Qui-Gon was to serve as the grandfatherly "wizard" archetype that you see in so many mythological hero quests and, at the same time, to be the "liberal" Jedi Knight (as a friend of mine once put it) and for Obi-Wan and all the other Jedi we see in #1 to be "conservative" Jedi Knights. This all greatly contradicts Obi-Wan's speech from ROTJ about his first impression of Anakin; throughout the film, Obi-Wan & Anakin barely interact, which hurts Episode 2 where their relationship is supposed to be strained and in turmoil because we never saw them having much of a friendship to begin with. This is due to the mis-use of Qui-Gon.
I'm not saying Qui-Gon couldn't have a role in the prequels; I'm just saying that I feel that Qui-Gon Jinn should have been used differently. Qui-Gon should have been one of the more "conservative" Jedi who think it a bad idea to take in the devil child that is Anakin, and Obi-Wan should have been the "liberal" Jedi putting his ass on the line for Anakin; and upon his death, Qui-Gon relents and encourages Obi-Wan to follow his heart, even though he disagrees with the Anakin thing. I know the "conservative older man VS the liberal younger man" is cliche, but for the sake of continuity and keeping in step with Obi-Wan's ROTJ speech, this is how it should have been. Of course, I have other ideas on how the prequels should have been handled, but I'll save those for another thread.
Then the fact that Qui-Gon, as the apparent mentor of Obi-Wan, clashes with "The Empire Strikes Back" where the ghost of Obi-Wan says that Yoda instructed him. I keep waiting for a line explaining that Obi-Wan was initially trained by Yoda and later given to Qui-Gon but it never materializes.
I'd like a qui-gon jinn please with an obi-wan to go.
#2
Posted 22 November 2004 - 06:16 PM
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#3
Posted 23 November 2004 - 04:32 AM
#5
Posted 24 November 2004 - 07:24 AM
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#6
Posted 24 November 2004 - 09:26 AM
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#7
Posted 24 November 2004 - 10:38 AM
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#8
Posted 24 November 2004 - 01:54 PM
~ Voltaire (1694-1778)
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#10
Posted 24 November 2004 - 05:52 PM
~ Voltaire (1694-1778)
Enjoy this Tribute to Nazism...(Mp3)
#11
Posted 24 November 2004 - 07:00 PM
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#12
Posted 24 November 2004 - 07:20 PM
#13
Posted 24 November 2004 - 07:42 PM
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