Chefelf.com Night Life: parcelbombsmurf - Viewing Profile

Star Wars may have ended up being a "kid's movie." But that wasn't the intention. If you look at the OT trailers, which you can find on YouTube sometimes, it doesn't mention anything about kids or even have a kid-like atmosphere. And the PT movies weren't kid movies either. The villain in TPM looks like a devil and was chopped in half at the end. For midichlorian's sake, the RoS had a PG-13 rating. "It's a kid's movie" is Lucas's excuse for being incapable of satisfying adult minds in an adult movie.
I've said it before: in actual kid's movies i.e. Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, or one of the Disney live actors movies, etc., the director doesn't say "it's a kid's movie." It's obvious. It goes without saying. And many of those movies are good. They have an internal consistency lacking in the PT.
The kid's that love PT today will be offended at it tomorrow.

1) Thanks for explaining the retcon. It's interesting. But it's also garbage. What's the point of starting a calendar over again? Are they trying to avoid Y2K? If anything, a ruler would want his calendar to be amazingly high numerically so he could say things like "I'm the ruler of a million year old kingdom." The US always gets the international shaft for its relative youth. Why would you impose the shaft on yourself? Having a convention of starting a calendar over is ridiculous. A better explanation would be: there was some kind of coup 1,000 years ago, and the current regime started the calendar over to quash the predecessor from history--some people who believed in the old regime still refer to the republic as being 25,000 years old, the people who supported the old regime refer to a younger age--in other words, there could have been a more plausible political explanation.

2) Having said that, I have no faith in Lucas. So in reality, there is almost certainly no plausible explanation. In a New Hope, the republic is 25,000 years old. In the prequels, it's 1,000 years old. Why? Because the Star Wars galaxy is not real. And Lucas inadvertently and constantly reminds me of this. Suspension of disbelief is obviously not a high priority for the man.

3) KOTOR completely OWNS the prequels. But the guys that do those games have an AMAZING ability at storytelling. They also did the D&D Baldur's Gate games, which were also fantastic. Lucas could learn something from them. I was infinitely more moved by Bastila's story than Anakin's story when all is said and done.

I agree that there is precedent in Episodes IV-VI that Jedis occasionally mince words. The best example would be Obi-Wan telling Luke that Darth Vader killed his father. Obi-Wan must have known that saying "Darth Vader BECAME his father" would have been much more honest. So he misleads Luke about his father's nature. He does so because he believes that Luke isn't ready to hear the truth. It should also be noted that honesty is not in the Jedi code per se (like, say, in the code of the Aes Sedai from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series).

In fact, Jedis sometimes go beyond lying and straight out manipulate weak minds to advance their cause (the ol' Jedi mind trick). Qui-Gon tried to defraud Watto in Mos Espa using the Force. This, at the foundation of it, is also an attempted lie.

At any rate, I also PERSONALLY believe that honesty is not always the best policy. I believe honesty and candor should often be eschewed for greater causes. The laws of most countries fathom this principle that the truth should not always be known. One example from our legal system: most codes of evidence provide that evidence of a defendant's reputation is not admissible to show conduct in conformity therewith. In other words, a jury will rarely (because there are exceptions) hear that the criminal defendant has an enormous rap sheet. Whether you agree with this or not (one side arguing truth above all--the other side arguing that the system should ensure that defendant's are not convicted presently for past crimes), we make judgments about other people every day based on that person's track record. And it's usually a damn good indicator of future behavior. But many laws prevent this exact evidence from being used in any fashion against criminal defendants. And there are other examples of this "lack of candor" in our laws. I also believe in general that children of certain age should not be burdened with certain hard truths. There are several areas where honesty is not the best policy.

HOWEVER, while I believe Jedis should lie in some instances, I'm not sure what was gained from Qui-Gon misleading Anakin about the midichlorians. Midichlorians could be considered an infection. However, an infection has an unavoidable negative connotation, and the Force is a positive thing. In fact, we learn that the relationship between midichlorians and the Jedi is symbiotic, which is good. So Qui-Gon does in fact mislead Anakin. I don't think the dishonesty is bad per se, but what was the purpose of it? How does this protect Anakin or expedite his training?

As a possible explanation, I throw out there, without any particular support, that Jedi may learn the Force better when its application is abstract rather than scientific, when it's approached as religion rather than a science. But really, there probably is no good explanation for Qui-Gon's ruse. I don't have enough faith in Lucas to assume that any plausible answer exists. So many other aspects of the prequels can't possible have a plausible explanation. Why should this one?

To tell you the truth, I wish Qui-Gon had hidden that particular morsel from Anakin AND me, the spectator.

At last we will reveal ourselves to the critics, at last we will have our revenge ...

the whole romance was false.

but even false romance, like those of pretty much every single romantic comedy ever written, can be done with some style.