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The scene where Anakin kills the Sand People how bad is it? and why?

#1 User is offline   ernesttomlinson Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 05:00 PM

I raised this point in an earlier topic about the Guardian review of Episode III but didn't raise it in a good way. So I'm posting it again, hoping to get a more specifc discussion going.

We all know that in Episode II Anakin takes a major leap toward the Dark Side by slaughtering a whole encampment of Sand People. I think this scene was bloodless and unconvincing. (Perhaps there are fans here who think better of it?) Why is it unconvincing? How could it have been improved?

In the past I've blamed Hayden Christensen's acting. That's not all of it though.

Is it that there's something too posed about the shot? If I remember correctly, the scene ends with Anakin facing us, holding his lightsabre up vertically in front of him, and glowering at the camera. From what I can remember it looked almost like Anakin was posing for a publicity photo (you can imagine its being printed up in TIME with a caption, "A darker, more menacing Anakin," or something like that.)

Is it the context? The scene where Anakin tracks down his mother only in time for her to cark it two minutes later is pretty bad - but salvageable, perhaps.

I make too much of this matter, perhaps. But it is a troubling one for me. Episode II overflows with bad scenes but this one is, in a way, the worst. The romantic interludes are dreadful but I never expected them to be good and they're easy to ignore anyway. The confused and occasionally laughable action scenes at the end of the movie I can also let slide largely; and, when I watched the film in the theatre, I was pretty forgiving (but horrified when Yoda began to fight Dooku, if you can call that fighting.)

The Sand People scene, though, is supposed to be crucial. You can't give the scene too much leeway. In one sense it's not a terrible scene; the dialogue isn't as bad, the action not as illogical, as with other scenes. But the scene is empty. Why?
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#2 User is offline   JW Wells Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 05:04 PM

Natalie Portman's total lack of outrage, horror, or even apparent interest in the scene where Annakin goes on about what he did is at least as bad for diluting whatever impact the scene might have had.
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#3 User is offline   StarWarsIsUs Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 05:15 PM

It would have been better if it showed more of Anakin killing the Tuskan Raiders. This was a minorly interesting point in the movie, but it was ruined.
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#4 User is offline   CowboyCurtis Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 06:04 PM

Here's how it played out in my rewrite: Anakin and Amidala arrive at the homestead (in my EPI Anakin was born and raised there, so this is his home, and Owen was there, too, and Owen objected to Anakin leaving with Obi-Wan), and Beru is the only one there. She reluctantly tells Anakin that the Sandpeople had killed Cliegg (Anakin's supposed father) and taken Shmi as prisoner. Owen was out tracking down the Tuskens to try and save their mother. Anakin rashly leaves Amidala with Beru and takes off (no chance for a good luck hug/kiss from Amidala).

Anakin finds Owen and a couple other guys helping him, on the ridge, over-looking the Tusken encampment. Owen talks about going in quietly to rescue her. Anakin simply says, "Stay here," and jumps down despite Owen's objections. Anakin uses the Force to locate her, cuts it open and she's tied up but fine. They escape out the hole, but Shmi knocks over something, or a Tusken just sees them and opens fire, accidently killing Shmi. Anakin goes into a rage, and we see more of the slaughter.

Owen watches in horror from the ridge as the stark light of the lightsaber cuts through the encampment.......

As the sun dawns, Anakin and Owen bring back Shmi's body. Owen goes off on Anakin---tells him he's reckless and he shouldn't have left. In rage, Anakin flings Owen away from himself. Owen pretty much calls him a monster. Anakin and Amidala leave.

(No crying scene, no confession. Anakin just holds it all in---which is the way I always thought Anakin/Vader to be).
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#5 User is offline   Private Zod Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 06:54 PM

The thing was Amidala semed indifferent towards him until after he slaughters the sand people...maybe she does have a thing for bad boys?
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#6 User is offline   StarWarsIsUs Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 07:18 PM

""Anakin goes into a rage, and we see more of the slaughter.""

Sweet. That's what I like to hear.

""As the sun dawns, Anakin and Owen bring back Shmi's body. Owen goes off on Anakin---tells him he's reckless and he shouldn't have left. In rage, Anakin flings Owen away from himself. Owen pretty much calls him a monster. Anakin and Amidala leave""

This is better than GL's version. Holding your feelings of hate, anger, and sadness in for many years, can start to warp your mind. I like how you did this.
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#7 User is offline   ernesttomlinson Icon

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Posted 13 May 2005 - 07:46 PM

Very well thought out, CowboyCurtis. And you're right too, I think, in conjecturing that Anakin grew up with Owen. Otherwise Owen's worries about Anakin in Star Wars make no sense.

The only other solution I thought up, more congruent with Lucas's Episode I but less satisfactory otherwise, was that perhaps Anakin goes on sabbatical back to Tatooine - I'd rather leave Amidala out of it but I don't suppose it would hurt too much - to see his mother again. He sees her again and she's OK, living with her husband, Owen, and Beru. Anakin gets along fine with his mother's new family, at least partly, but with certain tensions under the surface. Some weeks later there's a raid and his mother is taken. Then Owen and Anakin go after her, just as you have suggested.

But it occurs to me that my alternate scenario is a little too much like The Searchers, a John Ford Western.
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Posted 13 May 2005 - 08:22 PM

Shmi's token dying speech to Anakin, and Anakin's confession speech along with the fact that Padme responded to it with the same flip she did to Yoda's "warm feelings to my heart" - it was kind of the tree-falling-in-the-forest-making-no-sound.. sure Anakin killed them, but with no one around and the only person he told it to not responding to what he told her let alone telling anyone else about it it makes it seem as though the scene never happened.
Also the fact that Anakin shelves his descent into darkness to put on his happy hero cap and attempt a bungled rescue for Obi-Wan kicks the scene while its down.
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#9 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 01:33 AM

Yeah, that was really pathetic. Shmi, despite surviving for days, weeks or months (or however long it was) and looking like she wasn't in too bad shape suddenly dies for no apparent reason.

I mean, I know it must be a bit of a shock to find that your adorable little boy grew up to be Hayden Christensen but it wouldn't be THAT much of a shock, would it?


And also, and Mnsymone mentioned this too, Anakin just suddenly puts his descent into darkness on hold. He's descending into evil, he's manically depressed and then suddenly...

WHOOSH!

Off he goes, with a beaming smile on his face, to rescue Obi Wan, with his happy girlfriend and his shiny friendly droids... with all the formality of going for a family vacation.... without even bothering to tell the Lars family that they were going (and stealing their Threepio unit while they were at it)... but I digress.

The descent into darkness suddenly put aside for a happy, emotional baggage-free flight to Geonosis was highly unconvincing.
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Posted 14 May 2005 - 01:41 AM

And why would Shmi die only a couple of moments after Anakin got there? I fail to understand this. She could have died at any time! But NOOOO- She died right when Anakin got here. Ironic, huh? Major flaw.
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#11 User is offline   Failureboy2 Icon

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 01:48 AM

Lucas should have showed Anakin killing the Raiders, and Anakin should never have told Padme about it. Not the other way around.

(And all the other reasons you guys have mentioned make it suck, too.)
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#12 User is offline   HK 47 Icon

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 02:41 AM

I agree that Padmés reaction is remarkably indifferent, if not to the deaths of the sandpeople then at least to Anakins uncontrollable rage. I also think that the personality mix of "Anakin the Sith" and "Anakin the Whiny Brat" feels totally wrong. It's like the important emotional experiences that drives him to the Dark Side are brushed aside as teenage issues. Slaughter a tribe of Tuskens, then whine about Obi-Wan in a way reminiscent of the drama in a bad OC episode.

One more point. Yoda, apparently, felt Anakins pain clear cross the galaxy. If Yoda is that attuned to the Force wouldn't he have felt a massive surge in the Dark Side as Anakin slaughters the Tuskens? The spirit of Qui-Gon witnessed it as well, shouting "Anakin, NOOOOO!" during the incident. Why does the fool of a Jedi wait until episode III to talk to Yoda about "love conquers the Dark Side" instead of directly warning him and the other Jedi about Anakins very real Dark Side potential? The Force is indeed strategically clouded when it suits Lucas.

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This post has been edited by HK 47: 14 May 2005 - 02:49 AM

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#13 User is offline   ernesttomlinson Icon

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 03:22 AM

I'm pretty sure that if, in a rage, I murdered thirty or forty persons out of hand and then tried to cover it up, that even without some sort of extrasensory perception of the Force my best friends would immediately know that something was the matter with me. There'd be no way that I could keep my behaviour utterly unchanged and keep the lie entirely out of my voice, not with something that big. Yet we're suppose to believe that Obi-Wan, who has known Anakin for ten years and who is also strong with the Force, can't immediately sense something horribly amiss about Anakin?

There is one sort of person who can murder without the slightest apparent change in behaviour and demeanour: the sociopath. (Here I always think of Jeffrey Dahmer, remorseful and contrite in his court appearances.) Is Anakin a sociopath?

There's a famous scene from David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia where Lawrence, who earlier in the film had expressed a horror of needless bloodshed, assails a column of Turkish soldiers and completely loses his rag, firing his pistol madly and leaping into the fray with his dagger. When the battle is over Lawrence stands amid the dead, staring vacantly, dripping blood, while his best friend looks on in horror. There's a turn to the Dark Side for you. Lucas should have kept it in mind, being a film school student and all.
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#14 User is offline   Jordan Icon

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 04:11 AM

What blew me away is how little I actually cared.


1. I was not upset to see his mom die
2. I was not excited to see him hack at one sand person
3. I did not believe that Padme really cared about the incident nor did I believe that Anakin was all that upset.

AOTC was the most boring movie so far.
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#15 User is offline   CowboyCurtis Icon

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 12:22 PM

There's a famous scene from David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia where Lawrence, who earlier in the film had expressed a horror of needless bloodshed, assails a column of Turkish soldiers and completely loses his rag, firing his pistol madly and leaping into the fray with his dagger. When the battle is over Lawrence stands amid the dead, staring vacantly, dripping blood, while his best friend looks on in horror. There's a turn to the Dark Side for you. Lucas should have kept it in mind, being a film school student and all.

I was just thinking of that scene, too, recently!!!! Yes!! That's what Anakin should've been like. We should see this release of power and also the thrill that may come with it, too. Look at Luke's face in ROTJ when he's filled with that power---do we see ANY of that in the PT's? Even a hint? No. Undoubtedly, we'll probably see something "like it" in ROTS, but that would seem so last minute, so shoe-horned...

And of course, we don't care anymore if he does.

One more point. Yoda, apparently, felt Anakins pain clear cross the galaxy. If Yoda is that attuned to the Force wouldn't he have felt a massive surge in the Dark Side as Anakin slaughters the Tuskens? The spirit of Qui-Gon witnessed it as well, shouting "Anakin, NOOOOO!" during the incident. Why does the fool of a Jedi wait until episode III to talk to Yoda about "love conquers the Dark Side" instead of directly warning him and the other Jedi about Anakins very real Dark Side potential? The Force is indeed strategically clouded when it suits Lucas.

An excellent point, HK47! Lucas... sloppy writer.

This post has been edited by CowboyCurtis: 14 May 2005 - 12:24 PM

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All I know is I haven't seen the real prequels yet.
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