[Jordan]

http://www.suite101....cfm/16739/93304

Love and Starwars, and in-depth break down on the romance in AOTC. 4 pages worth of tripe!

[Lord Aquaman]

It's a big, sprawling article of crap and propaganda.

The difference between Anakin and all those guys who went through "courtly love" back in the Middle Ages is that most of those guys were pretty stable BEFORE they fell in love (or the Middle Ages idea of love) - they weren't whiny, effeminate, emotionally stilted backstreet boys. And I'm pretty sure that mass murder - slaughtering a bunch of Sand People - ranks pretty low on "the great feats" scale while ranking pretty high on the "budding fascist psychopath" scale.

Kind of makes me wonder what happened to that other article that was here a few months back with the examination of fan fiction writing, love and sex in relation to the old Star Wars.

This post has been edited by Lord Aquaman: 14 February 2005 - 09:10 AM

[HK 47]

No matter how intricate and well researched (which I don't believe for a second it was), the love story in AotC fails to deliver what is really important: emotional values. We feel nothing for Anakin nor Padmé, and no amount of research on medieval love and courtship is gonna change that. The author fails to address the fact that the love story sucked, plain and simple. Even if our "courtship" in todays modern western society is very different, doesn't mean that a Jedi/Senator relationship in a galaxy far, far away should be bereft of passion and leave us unaffected. Quite the contrary.

Apologist bull if you ask me.

This post has been edited by HK 47: 14 February 2005 - 09:46 AM

[Michel Orla]

I will give him credit. If I'd never seen AOTC I'd say he did a good job of making the romance sound interesting.....Which it isn't in the least (Even alot of the prequel gushers can admit the romance between Anakin and Padme was horrible and contribed)

[Helena]

It's typical gusher tactics: come up with a highly complex, intellectual-sounding analysis of the film that sounds wonderful on paper, but bears virtually no relationship to what we actually see on screen. (All the crap about Anakin's brilliant 'character development' is another example.) Funny, I don't remember many stories of medieval knights who went around shouting things like "It's not fair, they're all holding me back!" and "I should be all-powerful!" Or maybe I just missed the story of Sir Anakin the Obnoxious, Knight of the Round Table.

[Private Zod]

I always laugh out loud when Lucas refers to AotC as a "love story." this might be the biggest failure of teh whole trilogy after not convincingly showing Anakin as a good person (amazing how every single Clone Wars tie in whether it be novels or teh Dark horse series shows this, et teh most important medium, teh movie itself, fails to capture this...gee maybe b/c this was written by Lucas and everything else was not). There is absolutely no convincing way that Padme could fall for this creep...or he want to fall for a wooden corpse that she portrays. When she said how much she loved him before they are led out to teh arena, I about spit out my junior mints. WTF?!!?

These Lucas fans sound like hard core religious folk who say to never question God, b/c you do not understand.

[Paladin]

Funny, I don't remember many stories of medieval knights who went around shouting things like "It's not fair, they're all holding me back!" and "I should be all-powerful!" Or maybe I just missed the story of Sir Anakin the Obnoxious, Knight of the Round Table.

I have read (and seen) some well-written fantasy stories with similiar villains who made statements and behavior like that. But the major difference between them is that they don't act like little shitty punks and brats but they have a REAL power base. Also, the great thing is, in one certain story, one of them turns good because they learn the folly of their ways after a long time of thinking over it.

Take Arcanum, for example. It may be a 'steampunk' RPG (actually, it was a combination Traditional RPG with a steampunk theme), I believe that the story was very well written and it did have a good deal of suspence, surprises and subtlity. The presumed villain of the game (he isn't, but you're supposed to think he is in the beginning), was once an Anakin-like individual... young, hot-headed, violent, impatient, and brilliant in whatever he did. He wanted more and more power for himself and this freaked out everyone around him. A group of people tried to build a weapon to defend themselves against him but he destroyed their entire city in order to stop it (along with everyone living in it), but surprisingly, he didn't destroy the actual device!

It sounds a lot like Anakin, he even made a statement similar to his 'I'll be all-powerful' sort of thing, but the MAIN DIFFERENCE between him and Anakin is that he actually had motivation for that and he really was planning on becoming all powerful and ruling the world. Also, his destruction of the city was a calculated movement on his part, and not some fit of unchecked anger, even though they did refer to it along the lines of 'immature rage' or something of that sort.

This makes me want to play Arcanum again... I think I'll go dig up the CD from my shelf.

[jariten]

Although the ideas in the essay were well thought through, most people will dismiss it as honestly, I cant think of a film with worse dialogue than AotCs `love scenes`.

This post has been edited by jariten: 15 February 2005 - 12:20 AM

[Helena]

I have read (and seen) some well-written fantasy stories with similiar villains who made statements and behavior like that. But the major difference between them is that they don't act like little shitty punks and brats but they have a REAL power base. Also, the great thing is, in one certain story, one of them turns good because they learn the folly of their ways after a long time of thinking over it.

Yes, I think the operative word here is 'villain'. Anakin in AotC is supposed to be a hero, not a villain - a flawed hero perhaps, but still a hero. We're supposed to be seeing all the good qualities that made Obi-Wan speak so highly of him in the OT - but so far they appear to be entirely absent, and going by the RotS spoilers I've read, it doesn't sound like they'll be much in evidence in that film either. Anakin is just a horrible, selfish, arrogant little punk, and while these might be reasonable traits for a villain, they certainly don't make for a good romatic hero.

[Paladin]

I guess you're right about that. Besides, Arronax, the supposed villain in Arcanum, claimes that after 2000 years (now, I'm not sure) of being banished in the void and doing nothing but think over his actions made him realize what a fool he was and decides to right the wrongs he did. He offers to help you in the game (but you can kill him if you feel evil!) and during an end slidshow they tell how he brought back the city he destroyed back to life and made it the glorious place it once was.

I think I was wrong comparing Anakin to Arronax... Arronax is a case of an evil villain turned good, whilst Anakin is supposed to be a case of a hero turned evil and then turns good again in the end.

In fact, I could more or less say that the real purpose behind Star Wars is not the rise and fall of the Empire, but rather the fall and recovery of Anakin, which Lucas didn't exactly pull off well.

[Just another wretched fan]

You're right I just don't understand how GL could be so completely oblivious to everyone around him. Didn't ANYONE have the guts to tell him certain things weren't working out right?

In fact, I could more or less say that the real purpose behind Star Wars is not the rise and fall of the Empire, but rather the fall and recovery of Anakin, which Lucas didn't exactly pull off well.

I would like to say that the real purpose behind star wars is the rise and fall of Star Wars itself. The transition from something great to total crap. The triumph of greed and stupidity over skill and art.

i suppose there is still hope for Lucas. There has been plenty of talk of him pulling a "ROTJ Vader" on his deathbed.

This post has been edited by Just another wretched fan: 19 February 2005 - 01:29 AM

[Lord Aquaman]

Anyone feel like going through the threads and finding Chefelf's old post examining love and lust in the old trilogy and doing a side-by-side comparison?

[Paladin]

Even as a rouge, Han Solo was a great, loveable guy. Anakin is just a freak and nothing more. Nuff said.

[jariten]

Although i'd never defend any aspect of the fireplace scene in AotC, it was not worse than "you stuck up, scruffy looking nerf herder!" etc. 5 matches 2 blow for cringing blow.

[Helena]

Although i'd never defend any aspect of the fireplace scene in AotC, it was not worse than "you stuck up, scruffy looking nerf herder!" etc. 5 matches 2 blow for cringing blow.

I beg to differ. That wasn't the best line in the movie, certainly, but it doesn't come anywhere close to 'I'm haunted by the kiss you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me.'