[Black Dog]

Hello Jariten, was that wikipedia reference a pro argument or an anti argument to Luke and X wings? Rossi had a famous driver father, raced bikes himself later, and then jumped into formula one succesfully. He even beat out those nascar drivers who were professional drivers in the states and tried to make the crossover and failed. Luke had a famous flier father, flew t16's when he was a kid, and also had the magical force to help him out.

Plus Luke was given only a secondary job at the death star, which was engaging the main forces of the empire, while while the better guys snuck off and went went down the trench. It was only after most of them were dead that he tried it himself, was saved from certain death by Solo's intervention, and then used the force (which none of the other pilots seemed to have), and blew up the station. It seems believable.

That little girl in Aliens? Also believable. That little boy in Phantom Menace? Not as believable.

[Storm]

I find it amusing how people instantly assume that since I am attacking ANH, this implies that I am a PT defender. I think I have stated here several times that AOTC isn't just a bad movie, it's one of the worst movies ever created. In my opinion, TPM is a good children's movie and ROTS is, despite its inconsistencies, a very entertaining movie.

On the other hand, I've never really enjoyed ANH. It's boring and full of more flaws than any of the films. Even George Lucas himself expected ANH to bomb and couldn't believe its success. From what I've read, Lucas didn't even intend to have the Death Star in ANH but did so only because his belief that Star Wars was a one time shot. I'm sure if the Death Star was introduced in ROTJ then we would have seen Luke learn how to pilot an X-wing throughout the span of 3 movies. But since the Death Star was created in ANH we are instead expected to believe Luke is a great pilot based on a few lines on dialogue (most of them from Luke himself).

[Sailor Abbey]

On the other hand, I've never really enjoyed ANH. It's boring and full of more flaws than any of the films.

That’s quite the claim, much like Dr. Evil’s Belgian father claiming to have invented the question mark.

But since the Death Star was created in ANH we are instead expected to believe Luke is a great pilot based on a few lines on dialogue (most of them from Luke himself).

By what standards are you judging your “the dialogue doesn’t back it up” theory. In countless films since the dawn of cinema, critical elements which happen off screen are introduced subtly through clever dialogue. What makes you a better judge of what’s believable than the next guy, I wonder?

[jariten]

Maybe he got some simulator time beforehand. Or maybe a t-16 is EXACTLY like an x-wing. Or maybe he used the force. Or maybe its actually really easy to fly an x-wing. How do you know either way?

Let me add again, that I really have no problems suspending my disbelief during that sequence, which I still love.

The trouble here, is that people are trying to defend the scene in terms of realism, which is madness.
SA, you're right, those things you listed are all "maybes", the problem is that none of them actually appear in the film.

Unless i'm mistaken, I think that Lucas did originally include a scene where Luke was in an X Wing simulator or something. I'm guessing it was edited for time, and also because it would've made the ending more immediatly and obviously ridiculous than it already is, as it would've given something concrete for people to compare what Luke does to ("what, he managed all that after just a few minutes in a simulator?!").

Hello Jariten, was that wikipedia reference a pro argument or an anti argument to Luke and X wings?

Hi Black Dog (and welcome to Chefelf). It's obviously an argument against. You posted the reference to suggest that its possible to just leap in an unfamilar vechile and do great things. Not counting the fact that it wouldn't have been an entirely unfamilar vechile to Rossi anyway, the first thing he did after getting in the car was to drive it into a ditch. The first thing Luke did was destroy the Death Star.

We can give the actual proton torpedos bit a pat on the back, because we saw Luke train with Ben, even if it was just a little bit, we also heard his voice at the end, showing him by Lukes side, helping him out etc.
There are special indicators Lucas uses to show when someone is using the Force, and Luke obviously wasn't using it until the end.

This calls for a book reference... let's see...

Show me where that dialogue is in the film. We shouldn't need material outside the film to be able to understand it.

[azerty]

You can't compare Rossi and the Ferrari with Luke and the X wing cause the car is a step down, not a step up in terms of performance. And Rossi didn't "drive into a ditch" for christ sake. There are no ditches around a circuit, it's just the dirt track off tarmac for slowing cars down. The bike accelerates faster and corners better, the car has a better top speed. Rossi went off on the bend on the first run because he expected more from the Ferrari not less. Luke had his problem when he flew through that fireball on his first sortie. he "got a little cooked" but he was Ok. Then he went for the trench cause everyone else was dead. That bit of info is only to help connect those two completely irrelelvant comparisons.

The attack in the trench is just a fantasy recreation of the low level attacks on the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in world war 2. And if the rumors are true, then you will all be experts on that subject in a couple of years if Peter Jackson is in fact making a new Dambusters movie...

I'm almost intersted to hear why storm thinks Star Wars is boring, and yet not Revenge of the sith. Because Sith is a complete droner. Even the good parts where shit blows up is boring, not to mention the 20 minute part in the middle where NOTHING happens at all.

[Gobbler]

Show me where that dialogue is in the film. We shouldn't need material outside the film to be able to understand it.

I know, I know, I was just trying to say that X-Wings are modified T-65s in order to explain why Luke was so familiar with them...

[Despondent]

Gobbler, that's right they were T-65s. I called them T-16s. Which doesn't really matter because don't they have a different mathematical system? They would have had another name.

So we lose the entire suspense building ending of Ep 4 "The DS will be within range in 5 minutes" because the numeral five has no actual meaning anymore? Just a minute.

Azerty, nice parallel. I also hope you're right and maybe PJ can redo the PT next.
I'll admit, as a 13-year old, I was a little bored with parts of the film. (Especially at back-to-back showings of it when it came out the next summer.) You know, all the part with the sand? And, they kept returning there even in the prequel trilogy. (Now when I watch Ep IV I'm not so bored with the sand; rather, irritated by Rondos and buzz-bots. Hey Boba.
SW wasn't created for a child (Spielberg would master that), but the Brand's flagship Kenner toys were.

Unless i'm mistaken, I think that Lucas did originally include a scene where Luke was in an X Wing simulator or something. I'm guessing it was edited for time, and also because it would've made the ending more immediatly and obviously ridiculous than it already is, as it would've given something concrete for people to compare what Luke does to ("what, he managed all that after just a few minutes in a simulator?!").

Jariten, you're joking, right? Suppose it did happen that way. You would be arguing the ridiculous nature of his managing all that after only a few minutes in a simulator. The same as if he beat off Vader (well, not literally) in a lightsaber duel after only the few moments we'd seen, spent with the training device on the 8 minute Millenium Falcon ride to the battle-station.

[jariten]

And Rossi didn't "drive into a ditch" for christ sake. There are no ditches around a circuit, it's just the dirt track off tarmac for slowing cars down

Whatever. He did as badly as you might expect him too fort his first attempt was the point.

[barend]

*Barand’s patroniz-o-meter now at 88% capacity*

first of all it's called a 'patrometer' and it's only at 47%

I can believe Anakin can pilot a pod because the film clearly shows that he has been piloting pods for a while. Yes, it shows it. Even if it was just dialogue, I could believe it if they talked about Anakin and pods (how good he was etc.) and then we saw him being skilled in pod racing, because that’s the same type of vehicle he was connected with earlier. I could even believe that he was a good podracer if we saw him flying around in something that wasn’t a pod racer but had a similar design, feel etc.

he was like a 7 year old... it was a go-cart race. they hovered and had serious motors, that made him a rider. stepping off a pod racer into a cock pit is like jumping off a dirt bike into an f-15.

the worse thing about TPM is it underminds the achievments of luke. and yet here you are arguing as if it makes things worse. if nothing more the PT makes the OT more believable.

anikan was a rider not a pilot. luke was a pilot with directions to an unguarded weakness. there's a difference. you're argument is so full of holes that there is insufficent substance to take hold of to actually hold up to the light.

please... stop now and re-read everything on this thread. i think you've lost where you were going.

The trouble with Luke’s miraculous victory at the end of ANH is that Lucas doesn’t even give us that, he gives us a miracle (which it was) with nothing to hang it off.

He does it in the equally stupid ending to TPM too, where Anakin should clearly have been killed, or at the very least have crashed and died as soon as he had control of the ship.
So I’m guessing you found the ending of TPM realistic too, right? Going by your logic, you should find even more to love in TPM than in ANH. In ANH we only get about 3 lines of suspect dialogue (and one of them was from Luke!), at least in TPM we see that Anakin is proficient in some kind of extremely high speed maneuvering in life or death circumstances.

But of course you’ll say no.

going by my logic? there is no 'my logic' there is only logic.

logic dictates that a pilot experienced in a course hostile environment, bullseyeing moving targets, flying in gravity, against wind resistance, inertia, etc. is someone who (Accepting the physics defying dynamics of x-wing flight) would find the ease of flight with most of those factors removed as it would be in space more than sufficient to deal with newer contolls. the guy spent his whole life on a farm, dreaming of the stars... a 19 year old pilot playing with a model suggests he was really into flight and piloting. you're being given an stereotype here. and for whatever reason it's not registering with you. you're rather given the impression that he no doubt had a stack of subsciption magazines on all these aircraft. he hung out with people into these things, running off and leaving him behind to join the academy.

piloting was probably 90% of all they talked about... and before you say, it wasn't in the film, it was.
a picture was painted of character based on familiar types. there are milions of people like luke who love to race nascar, but live out on some farm, but if you stuck an 74 AMX javelin in their garage they could dissassemble it and reassemble it by themselves, because they're obseessed.

a 19 year old playing with a model space/air-craft, gives that impression, and everyone making mention of his piloting skills, was rather clear.

if you think a todler destroying the droid ship was comparable, than you have no argument.
because the senario painted in ANH, is far more realistic than an imaculatley concieved baby born with a degree in cyber-robotic engineering, AI-programming, multi-lingual software intergration, a diploma in advanced auto-engineering and mechanics, auto-mechanical repairs and modifications, hover-tech engineering and mechanics, high speed racing, etc. YOU'RE MAD!

how can you even seriously make such a comparison.

You say “God, people need everything explained to them, you’re such an idiot!”. Which is funny, since you always come out with “If it’s not in the movies, it doesn’t count!”, yet there’s barely enough justifiable evidence in ANH to prove that Luke was anywhere near the level of skills he magically learned only minutes after first sitting in the X Wings cockpit. It’s also funny because I’ve come out with the “You don’t need everything explained to you, some stuff is obvious” line when defending the PT in places, to which you’ve always replied again “If it’s not in the movies…you’re just making excuses”

luke's piloting ability was in the movies. i think you're over literalizing my words.

'if it's not in the movie it doesn't count'

you KNOW that statement refers to the over abundance reliance on additional media to justify gaping bleeding holes in the story...

starting the third movie with pursuit of a character we've never hear of who shows up choking and coughting without explanation and to say, "oh you need to watch a cartoon" is unnacceptable.
you have a movie to TELL a story, if you don't have time to show it at least least say it, but don't have someone stand up in the middle of the film and say it like morgan freeman's "oh by the way the aliens died because of germs" in War of the Worlds, or "you're breaking my heart"

ANH hope tells us quite literally and without corn that luke is a pilot. i'm sorry that luke didn't drag ben out to his garage in the middle of their conversation to do some fuckin gloops in the air for your benifite but it was handled more adequatley than you seem to be capable of assimilating.

but this is all a smokescreen anyway, as you're only carrying on with this rediculous garbage in attempt to undermine a rather adequate argument against the diguestability of the PT.

but it is not comparable. not because one movie is revered for nostalgic value, but because more hands with more care worked on one than the other.

I know you’ll come back with, “but it was in the movies! Look at these three lines of dialogue I quoted!”

Like I said before though, those three lines of dialogue don’t even begin to explain Luke’s miracle that is, for me, the second biggest Switch Your Brain Off moment in the OT, after the Ewoks beating the Stormtroopers farce in RotJ.

who do you think you're talking to? no one hassles the outcome of stormtroopers vs ewokes more than I! i put that shit up there with surfing on lava. i bitched about that when i first saw it in 84 at the age of 8.

thos three bits of dialogue DO. it's as simple as that. are you a pilot? yes i am! alright, lets get on with the godmaned sorty then.

the first rule of film making; say or show it, but don't say it and show it.

they said it, they didn't need to show it.

unfortunatley in the PT they say it then show the opposite. in and on everal occasions.

If there was an equivilant moment to this in the PT you'd be all over it in a second, complaining how dumbed down the movies of today are, how stupid people are to enjoy this crap! (wait there is, its Anakin vs. the Trade Feds. Your thoughts on that if you will. "Its stupid! How can I believe that a kid with no training can step into a ship he's never piloted before and destroy a space station!")

I wish you'd actually step back and take a look at what Star Wars is.

was.

it was once a dignified piece of entertainment. and the person who claimed most responsibility for its creation forgot how to make films, the second he had children in his life. why this happens to some people i wont know, but i i'll probably never know becuase now more than ever i am convinced that me having children is a bad idea if for no other reason that to subbit one so young to world full of peopl e unable to grasp reason and even less able to allow a diffenerenc of opinion to the norm which these days is generally in all possible respects, wrong.

on one hand you have people acting over protective of children and partonizing them with a toning down of theme, and then tone down the intelligence and think they can put any old crap in there. unfortuanatley as this crap i sall that's available to all but nurture young minds it's actually cememnting their intellectual laziness, which in it's on corrupt way justifies doing it in the first place becuase to many people are applying a false and weak logic-substitute much like the one you're throwing at me on this one.

Hi, normally I am a reader, not a writer, but this is just my 2 cents worth thrown in. Barend was talking about motorcycles a few posts ago, discussing Luke ability to jump in an X-Wing, so I will do the same thing. Valentino Rossi just jumped into Ferrari's formula one car a couple of weeks ago and was posting lap times pretty close to Schumacher's right off the bat. I think Ferrari signed him up for next year. Maybe Barend is the only guy here who knows about Rossi, but he is a mortorcycle rider, and not a car driver. If a guy can go straight from MotoGP to F1 and get a contract, I don't see why Luke can't go from his t16 to an X Wing and fly it.

thankyou... he didn't do to bad in rally cars either.

but jumping from motor GP to formula 1 is such a difference that lukes jump from a t-16 to an x-wing is actually MORE believable. Valantino's a freak!

(also, it was nice to see Edwards back on the podium )

http://en.wikipedia....Valentino_Rossi

Rossi tested the Ferrari in 2006 on January 31, February 1, and February 2 at Valencia. The first day saw Rossi spin out on the damp track into the gravel trap ending his day.

Luke leapt into the X Wing and was a master (outstripping highly trained pilots on both sides, btw) in minutes.

This can't be rationalised. All we can do is shrug our shoulders and get caught up in the moment.

there's no gravel in space.

besides which, valantino rossi has the force. ask gibanau (sp)

[barend]

You can't compare Rossi and the Ferrari with Luke and the X wing cause the car is a step down, not a step up in terms of performance. And Rossi didn't "drive into a ditch" for christ sake. There are no ditches around a circuit, it's just the dirt track off tarmac for slowing cars down. The bike accelerates faster and corners better, the car has a better top speed. Rossi went off on the bend on the first run because he expected more from the Ferrari not less. Luke had his problem when he flew through that fireball on his first sortie. he "got a little cooked" but he was Ok. Then he went for the trench cause everyone else was dead. That bit of info is only to help connect those two completely irrelelvant comparisons.

i found it apt, becuase stepping up and stepping down are irrelivant, unless you're operating on the principal that a majority of people drive cars more in their spare time.

ultimatley bikes and formular 1 cars handle differently to each other, and niether like a regular car.
bikes and formular one cars have completely different handling regardless of power. It's still a huge deal... and like i said before, flying in an atmophere with wind, sand, inertia, and gravity to fight would be harder than cruising through space where all directions are a constant in handling.

in the same way it's easier to do a summersault under water than on land.

[Storm]

Unbelievable.....

a 19 year old playing with a model space/air-craft, gives that impression, and everyone making mention of his piloting skills, was rather clear.

I don't understand your point. 5 year old children play with fire trucks and airplanes. Does this make it "rather clear" that 5 year old children are firemen and pilots?

How can you possibily respect Luke playing with a model at his age? It's absurd! If anything, the fact that he plays with the model makes me believe Luke just "pretended" to be a pilot in his imagination and eventually convinced himself that he is a great pilot since it is easy to move the model around with his hand. Evidentally playing with models and flying an actual spaceship are the exact same thing.

I also don't understand why Owen Lars would ever own this "T-16". Did he train Luke how to fly it? I find this unlikely because Owen Lars seemed to want to do anything necessary to prevent Luke from following in his Anakin's footsteps. The man seemed like a cheap asshole, as if he would ever invest in a ship just so Luke could fly around and blow up moving targets. Did he buy it for Luke for Christmas one year?

This post has been edited by Storm: 14 May 2006 - 09:19 PM

[barend]

*moan*

it wasn't like he was making noises and prettening to shoot shit down, he was just 'flying it' looking at it.

escapism for someone who's whole life was about piloting. prefereable away from a a goddamned desert farm.

it's a bit whatever... if he's that into it. sure. that's cool.
i have more respect for a grown up playing with model craft while board than someone who react like this at a party:

person: so what do you do
pilot: I'm a pilot. and you?
person: BULLSHIT BULLSHIT WHERE'S THE PROOF!!!! I WANT PROOF!!!"

[jariten]

he was like a 7 year old... it was a go-cart race. they hovered and had serious motors, that made him a rider. stepping off a pod racer into a cock pit is like jumping off a dirt bike into an f-15.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that people judge the PT with a set of criteria that they’d never dare apply to the OT.

I don’t know how to describe the idea that playing with toys can somehow be used as evidence to bolster the realism of the end of ANH, but lo! If little Ani isn’t playing with a similar toy in TPM.
He piloted pods at the age of 9, it’s well established in the film that he has an amazing aptitude with mechanics and vehicles, so doesn’t this (using how you approach ANH) allow us to make the suggestion that Watto had him flying around in things that weren't pods too?
There’s no direct evidence of it, (but plenty of indirect evidence, which you seem to like) but there’s no evidence that Luke can fly an X Wing either, but you don’t seem to have any trouble accepting that. At least (at least) in TPM we get to see how skilled Anakin is in a high speed, high stress life or death situation.
The ending is still stupid of course, but no less stupid than (again) an untrained kid jumping into a ship he’s never flown before (no evidence he has) and succeeding in lethal aerial combat (no evidence he’s done that before either, and I don’t suppose he’s been in many battles like that on Tatooine, an off the script page fact you don’t seem to be taking into account when saying “but it’s obvious!”).

You mention that a fair bit actually, as in “there’s some things that don’t need to be explained”.

But not in this case. This is the end scene, the big payoff, the culmination of the entire film and if Lucas wanted it to play realistically he wouldve played it that way.

The thing that’s obvious to me, is that Lucas just didn’t give a shit about realism, instead just concentrating on how to make that ending as enjoyable as possible. It’s family fluff, a dumb space fantasy, why bog it down with mechanical, boring things like exposition?

Which is fine, SW is what SW is. What it is not, in this case esp., is realistic.

logic dictates that a pilot experienced in a course hostile environment, bullseyeing moving targets, flying in gravity, against wind resistance, inertia, etc. is someone who (Accepting the physics defying dynamics of x-wing flight) would find the ease of flight with most of those factors removed as it would be in space more than sufficient to deal with newer contolls

You’re reaching again. Hostile environment? The only evidence of this in the film are his “womp rats”, which my only be an impressively small 3 meters, but I doubt they fly at 900 mph and shoot lazer beams (and he was in space when he shot them too, of course). You don’t explain how you come to your conclusions. If anything, isn’t the opposite true? You reel off the change in environment with ease but in reality there would be a massive, disorientating difference between flying on a planet and in space. A difference which Luke spends about 10 seconds adjusting too (while under heavy fire and taking out the bad guys too, the guys a regular Jesus in space).

a 19 year old pilot playing with a model suggests he was really into flight and piloting

More evidence. “Really into”. You’re grabbing at straws again.

So Luke was “really into” piloting. I’m sure he was.
If there was a film out now where the set up for the main character doing something miraculous at the end was him playing with toys and 3 lines of dialogue (one from his own mouth) you’d be straight in there with “movies are so dumbed down nowadays! People are idiots to buy this shit!”

but this is all a smokescreen anyway, as you're only carrying on with this rediculous garbage in attempt to undermine a rather adequate argument against the diguestability of the PT.

Eh?

but it is not comparable. not because one movie is revered for nostalgic value, but because more hands with more care worked on one than the other.

Three lines of dialogue (and I’m honestly against counting Ben’s and obviously Luke’s. Ben’s line sounded like the kind of thing you’d say to a kid when he gets 3rd prize in an art contest. The fact that he was purposefully watching Luke’s development ruins your “but even this hobo knew about his skills” angle too) and a kid (who Lucas obviously wanted to be seem as a clueless, inexperienced teenager) playing with toys is enough for people to think “this is realistic!”?!

if you think a todler destroying the droid ship was comparable, than you have no argument.
because the senario painted in ANH, is far more realistic than an imaculatley concieved baby born with a degree in cyber-robotic engineering, AI-programming, multi-lingual software intergration, a diploma in advanced auto-engineering and mechanics, auto-mechanical repairs and modifications, hover-tech engineering and mechanics, high speed racing, etc. YOU'RE MAD!

I can believe that Ani is Ani the Wonder Boy because its on the page that he is, and i'm aware that its a fantasy movie where fantastical things happen. Lucas spends a fair bit of time letting us know this kid is special before showing us that he is.
If he was an ordinary kid who suddenly leaped into a ship that he'd never had 1 second of training in then flew off and killed all the bad guys then i'd say "this is stupid".

The ending of TPM is stupid because Anakin had no experience in a Naboo fighter yet didn't immediatly crash into the Fed ship/get shot down and die.

The ending of ANH is stupid because Luke had no experience in an X Wing yet didnt immediatly crash into the Death Star/get shot down and die.

Buy I can sit back, suspend my disbelief and get through both scenes fine (I hate that TPM scene, but I feel like a hypocrit calling SW out for being unrealistic)

oh and p.s

If you're talking about the type of character Lucas was trying to say Luke was, try the following words-
young, inexperienced, untrained, wet behind the ears...(had he even been in hyperspace before? He looked clueless inside the falcon)

NOT the Dan Dare he miraculously becomes at the end, in other words.

This post has been edited by jariten: 15 May 2006 - 01:21 AM

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Hi, everyone. First time long time here...

jariten, on May 15 2006, 02:01 AM, said:

This is exactly what I mean when I say that people judge the PT with a set of criteria that they’d never dare apply to the OT.

Well, there's a huge problem in how you're approaching this right here...the PT must be judged with a different set of criteria than the OT. The PT is based on what we saw and heard in the OT. The OT was hinged on nothing...it was carte blanche for Lucas and co. at the time. With the PT, audiences expected, and rightly so, that the creator of the OT would adhere to the plot points he himself set down. And this means jumping from point A to point B....that's just good screenwriting. Making up convoluted half excuses that require the audience to do detective work in this type of film is bad screenwriting. So, in short, the PT, by its very nature of being a "PREQUEL trilogy," is pretty much required to fall in line with what we've seen play out.

Quote

I don’t know how to describe the idea that playing with toys can somehow be used as evidence to bolster the realism of the end of ANH, but lo! If little Ani isn’t playing with a similar toy in TPM.

NOW we're onto something. First of all, arguing that EITHER character playing with a toy "proves" they can fly is absurd, no matter which side you fall on. Neither act is supposed to be the end-all, be-all point in showing both characters wish to be pilots. It's simply a minor gesture that emphasizes the point to the audience, and actually having both characters do the same thing, being father and son, it is one of the few moments Lucas seemed to have remembered that the PT is actually a "PREQUEL trilogy" to some pre-existing films a few people saw.

Quote

He piloted pods at the age of 9, it’s well established in the film that he has an amazing aptitude with mechanics and vehicles, so doesn’t this (using how you approach ANH) allow us to make the suggestion that Watto had him flying around in things that weren't pods too?

Why? In ANH you have characters explicitly saying about Luke, "this guy is a good PILOT." Not a "good speeder pilot" or "a good speller" or "a good guy to have your back in a bar fight." A GOOD PILOT. Again, Lucas is keeping it simple...people in the audience hear "pilot," they think "planes," or in this case, "the impossible spaceships that sometimes look like planes, or at least fly like them." Lucas went out of his way to screw this up, and I have no idea why...Obi-Wan very clearly said Luke's father was a great pilot. How hard would it have been to introduce Anakin FLYING something? Hell, they could have waited until the end of the movie...they did in ANH. We are told Luke is a good pilot...we see Luke is a good pilot. We're told Anakin is a good pilot...we don't actually see him flying a la Luke (being lead around by a ship essentially on autopilot like in TPM does not count, not even close) until the 3rd movie. Why? What was so hard about fitting this in? The pod race is essentially a flashier, louder, more annoying and useless version of the scenes we saw in ANH where Luke is tooling around in his speeder. The pod race would have been much more impressive if we then ultimately saw Anakin also owning in an x-wing type fighter later in the film...and even then only if he was around Luke's age or older. The bottom line, for me, is that this little child doing ANYTHING as advanced as he was doing in TPM is just absurd. It's not impressive, because Lucas went out of his way to present Anakin as a "normal" little kid who happens to randomly do these impressive things. This would have only worked if Anakin was presented as a driven, sullen, focused little child obsessed with these adult things like flying and pod racing and making droids...alienating him from the other children and even adults because he's just so odd. Boom, you've laid the seeds for his anger down the line and it's more believable (on the character development 101 scale) that the little freak has the skills to pay the bills. Don't make it accidental that he ends up saving the day in a fighter at the end of TPM. He knows what to do and uses the Force to do it. Make people react with surprise and even a little fear at what he's capable of. Don't give him cheesy "li'l kid" lines and have him scream "YIPPEE!!!" doing all of this adult shit. That basically turns this whole thing into Baby's Day Out.

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There’s no direct evidence of it, (but plenty of indirect evidence, which you seem to like) but there’s no evidence that Luke can fly an X Wing either, but you don’t seem to have any trouble accepting that. At least (at least) in TPM we get to see how skilled Anakin is in a high speed, high stress life or death situation.

Which is fine, but there's zero reasoning for us to care or accept that this kid has any motivation except for, "hey, this is kind of cool!" We that Luke is a good pilot...he's driven by the murder of his foster parents...he wants to be like his father...and we see him act upon this information given to us, the audience. A to B to C to D etc. Of course there are going to be stretches. Of course we're not going to see very minutia to argue 100% that these people can do (in their world) the things we see them do. The larger point is that it's good basic filmmaking to frame this with enough plot and character development to make us suspend the forensic analysis and just roll with it. In a movie, that is accomplished by saying something like, "this kid's the best pilot I've ever seen" and then we see him doing some great piloting! "This guy is the best detective in all of the city"...and then we see him being a great detective! "This guy is the best fastball pitcher I have ever seen"...and then we see him pitching incredible fastballs! It's ground level screenwriting! We're told Anakin is a better pilot, honestly, I took at it as even better than Luke...yet when do we evr see him doing anything better than Luke as a pilot? The OT throws down the gauntlet by having Luke blow up the Death Star...and the PT matches or exceeds that by...by...by...oh, right. It doesn't. I'm not arguing whether or not one is more believable...I'm arguing that one is logical in the sense of just telling a goddamn story and fun to watch and the other is tedious and is never really clear once all is said and done.

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The ending is still stupid of course, but no less stupid than (again) an untrained kid jumping into a ship he’s never flown before (no evidence he has) and succeeding in lethal aerial combat (no evidence he’s done that before either, and I don’t suppose he’s been in many battles like that on Tatooine, an off the script page fact you don’t seem to be taking into account when saying “but it’s obvious!”).

It IS less stupid, in the sense it's just badly done. I presented above how I think Lucas could have made "baby genius" Anakin work. I think how the TPM played that scenario out failed on a multitude of levels. First of all, it makes zero sense the Jedi take him away from his mother. So he's massively powerful...so what? All we see in TPM is that he's a happy kid...almost obliviously happy. Shit, I was never that happy and I was a happy goddamn. Maybe that bomb in his head tweeked the bliss centers in his brain. He's perfectly content to race pods and build annoying droids and be a slave and live with his randomly teutonic mother. The way it's shown to us, leaving him there would have avoided the whole problem of having a Darth Vader murdering countless people pretty easily. There's no pressing urgency given as to why they need to bring him along. It makes Qui-Gon look rash and foolish...what was his plan? Oh, right...the random and previously unheard of "prophecy." Again, the PT must hinge itself on what came before...the OT.

And never once was there any mention of a prophecy or "the One" or "balance to the Force." Introducing these notions when there's been zero mention of them in the first 3 films is horrible filmmaking...there's really no way around it. It's one thing to have a twist or even a deux ex machina come out of nowhere to wake the audience up and inject some excitement...but establishing this important running back story out of nowhere just smacks of terrible screenwriting. Add on the midi-whatevers and it's all dumped in the garbage.

Why not make Anakin Luke's age, or close to it? Then you set up the parallel between father and son much better, and it's easier to accept Anakin as this uber-genius. In fact, then you answer anyone who scoffs at Luke doing what he did...set up his dad to do something similar when he was the same age! Boom, killing a ton of birds with one huge, well-written stone! And whether he's a kid or a teenager, Anakin cannot be Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky at any point. Sure, make him less "dark" than he'll become, but taking him from shiny happy people to master of genocide in a couple of hours of film is laughable. Anakin also must be aware of how different he is because of his abilities. Having him toss off being a pod racer and building his pod and robots and God knows what else while seemingly more interested in acting like a normal kid makes him come across as some kind of idiot savant. In short, Anakin cannot be retarded.
You mention that a fair bit actually, as in “there’s some things that don’t need to be explained”.

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But not in this case. This is the end scene, the big payoff, the culmination of the entire film and if Lucas wanted it to play realistically he wouldve played it that way.

The thing that’s obvious to me, is that Lucas just didn’t give a shit about realism, instead just concentrating on how to make that ending as enjoyable as possible. It’s family fluff, a dumb space fantasy, why bog it down with mechanical, boring things like exposition?

Which is fine, SW is what SW is. What it is not, in this case esp., is realistic.

Right. But it still needs to adhere to the basic components of watchable filmmaking. For the reasons listed above, I don't feel TPM does. I think ANH, on a VERY basic level, does.

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You’re reaching again. Hostile environment? The only evidence of this in the film are his “womp rats”, which my only be an impressively small 3 meters, but I doubt they fly at 900 mph and shoot lazer beams (and he was in space when he shot them too, of course). You don’t explain how you come to your conclusions. If anything, isn’t the opposite true? You reel off the change in environment with ease but in reality there would be a massive, disorientating difference between flying on a planet and in space. A difference which Luke spends about 10 seconds adjusting too (while under heavy fire and taking out the bad guys too, the guys a regular Jesus in space).
More evidence. “Really into”. You’re grabbing at straws again.

This is all irrelevant to either side. It's fodder for nerds, quite frankly. Examine them as to how they drive the plot. We are told that Luke is a good pilot...he can shoot small targets often while flying...and he has experience flying in a narrow, treacherous environment. The movie is basically asking you to take those factors and then roll with it when you see him be a good pilot...shoot a small target while flying...and flying in a narrow, treacherous environment. THAT'S IT. That's what is presented to us, and that's what we see. Basic screenwriting. Overly simplistic, yeah, definitely, but it works. You're grabbing at straws trying to insist anything even remotely similar is present in the PT. I don't expect either set of films to give me a tutorial as to how or why these people can do what they do...over-explaining in films like this is far, FAR worse than under-explaining. Case in point? The midi-whatever things in the bodies of Jedis. Present the basic framework of what we need to know and then show what we've been told. That's it.

Continued next post...

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So Luke was “really into” piloting. I’m sure he was.
If there was a film out now where the set up for the main character doing something miraculous at the end was him playing with toys and 3 lines of dialogue (one from his own mouth) you’d be straight in there with “movies are so dumbed down nowadays! People are idiots to buy this shit!”
Eh?

ALL of these movies, even the OT, ARE "dumbed down." The PT is just even dumber than anyone should have to tolerate. These are consciously simple films and they must be seen as such.

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Three lines of dialogue (and I’m honestly against counting Ben’s and obviously Luke’s. Ben’s line sounded like the kind of thing you’d say to a kid when he gets 3rd prize in an art contest. The fact that he was purposefully watching Luke’s development ruins your “but even this hobo knew about his skills” angle too) and a kid (who Lucas obviously wanted to be seem as a clueless, inexperienced teenager) playing with toys is enough for people to think “this is realistic!”?!
I can believe that Ani is Ani the Wonder Boy because its on the page that he is, and i'm aware that its a fantasy movie where fantastical things happen. Lucas spends a fair bit of time letting us know this kid is special before showing us that he is.
If he was an ordinary kid who suddenly leaped into a ship that he'd never had 1 second of training in then flew off and killed all the bad guys then i'd say "this is stupid".

Then you're expecting too much. We are given the basic facts I explained above and then see them put into practice. It works as a fantasy film and as a coherrent film, period.

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The ending of TPM is stupid because Anakin had no experience in a Naboo fighter yet didn't immediatly crash into the Fed ship/get shot down and die.

No. It's stupid because it's a kid who clearly has no idea what he's doing and the whole thing is presented as a wacky adventure. We go into these movies expecting to suspend belief. We don't go into them expecting to be treated like morons.

The ending of ANH is stupid because Luke had no experience in an X Wing yet didnt immediatly crash into the Death Star/get shot down and die.

You're trying to present both scenes as exact parallels when they're not and that is specifically why the climax space battle in TPM fails so completely and utterly.

Buy I can sit back, suspend my disbelief and get through both scenes fine (I hate that TPM scene, but I feel like a hypocrit calling SW out for being unrealistic)

Apparently you're willing to suspend ALL belief, fantasy or otherwise, with TPM and are then applying the same insanely low standard to ANH. It doesn't work that way. ANH came first and set the standard, simplistic as it was. Lucas responded by lowering the bar to so far below "simplistic" in TPM you can't even see the damn thing anymore. Claiming to be a prequel film, TPM is essentially obligated, by the standards of competent filmmaking, to match or better what we have seen in the films prior. The only way it "betters" what we saw is if you think taking what is in the grand scheme of things a very ridiculous scenario and then making it hopelessly moronic.

This post has been edited by MyPantsAreOnFire: 15 May 2006 - 05:59 PM

[Otal Nimrodi]

No. It's stupid because it's a kid who clearly has no idea what he's doing and the whole thing is presented as a wacky adventure. We go into these movies expecting to suspend belief. We don't go into them expecting to be treated like morons.

I don't like the things where a character is able to bumble into saving the world. I want to watch TPM to watch a Star Wars movie, not a Scooby Doo episode.