Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens

[TREK_GOD_1]

Anakin did start out as a goor person, his own mother said it best, he gave with no thought of himself.

That was a blip of his time. The selfish, inflated ego, violent, disrespectful Anakin of AOTC was formed over years, and if what you say was true:

But by the time AOTC Palpatine had ten years to work on him and it showed

That means he--despite being under the constant training / watch of Kenobi (and the entire Jedi culture), had a natural leaning toward all of the traits lested above. That is the real Anakin, and that is not what anyone would describe as a good man. Everyone other than Anakin were good, and that was easy to see in AOTC.

but he was able to redeem himself in the end.

...all for selfish reasons. Not once before learning he had a son, did he do anything to stop Palpatine. Palpatine filled his head with near God-like dreams, and Anakin was aware of his place in the Jedi prophecy, so he should have acted on that long before becoming misty-screened about his long-lost son.

Just as he was with his behavior about saving Padme, Vader/Anakin only operated for selfish reasons.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Sad how some are so obsessed / defensive over some piece of entertainment that has nothing to do with them at all, that they will attack strangers for expressing an opinion.

 

[davejames]

Anakin did start out as a goor person, his own mother said it best, he gave with no thought of himself. But by teh time AOTC Palpatine had ten years to work on him and it showed, Aankin wasn't a normal detached Jedi and he was a typical teenager that we've seen in other movies. And he did make a bad choice but he was able to redeem himself in the end.

Yeah but the key is, by the time he starts romancing Padme he's already a dark and disturbed creep, which makes it really hard to buy Padme ever falling for him. And the kid we meet in TPM feels like such a completely different character from the guy in AOTC than I'm not sure how much use that is to the story anyway (not to mention the fact the kid was more annoying than truly likable).

 

[BillJ]

Sad how some are so obsessed / defensive over some piece of entertainment that has nothing to do with them at all, that they will attack strangers for expressing an opinion.

It is sad for someone to be calling something the "greatest disappointment of the decade" before it is ever released.

I'm all for folks having opinions, but one makes one's self look like an uninformed jackass with an axe to grind when criticizing something no one's seen yet.

 

[Mach5]

Sad how some are so obsessed / defensive over some piece of entertainment that has nothing to do with them at all, that they will attack strangers for expressing an opinion.

First of all, it's not an opinion, it's an assumption, and a baseless one too... Written in all caps, which would suggest OP wasn't really being serious.

Second, these types of "attacks" are common on the image board this screencap was taken from (which I got from Reddit's), and they're not really perceived as hostile.

 

[sidious618]

^This.

LOST's ending was amazing. Haters gonna hate.

Definitely. Other than the cabin, the mysteries were all answered. Some of the answers might not be what people wanted, but they were there, either blatantly or with enough information for an informed conclusion to be made.

 

[DWF]

Anakin did start out as a goor person, his own mother said it best, he gave with no thought of himself.

That was a blip of his time. The selfish, inflated ego, violent, disrespectful Anakin of AOTC was formed over years, and if what you say was true:

But by the time AOTC Palpatine had ten years to work on him and it showed

That means he--despite being under the constant training / watch of Kenobi (and the entire Jedi culture), had a natural leaning toward all of the traits lested above. That is the real Anakin, and that is not what anyone would describe as a good man. Everyone other than Anakin were good, and that was easy to see in AOTC.

but he was able to redeem himself in the end.

...all for selfish reasons. Not once before learning he had a son, did he do anything to stop Palpatine. Palpatine filled his head with near God-like dreams, and Anakin was aware of his place in the Jedi prophecy, so he should have acted on that long before becoming misty-screened about his long-lost son.

Just as he was with his behavior about saving Padme, Vader/Anakin only operated for selfish reasons.

There's plenty of evil people in AOTC, Anakin didn't come off as all that bad, his grief at the loss of his mother was understandable. And really in the end saving Luke's life wasn't selfish at all, he knew it might kill him as well and it was Ankin who saved Luke's live not Darth Vader, there still was good in him just as Luke said there was.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Everyone other than Anakin were good, and that was easy to see in AOTC.

Yeah, let's take a closer look at that...

Selfish? Only when it came to Padme. Any task put in front of Anakin, he either pulled off or got hurt trying to pull off. He was never afraid to put himself in harm's way. He wasn't lying when he said he didn't ask to be put on the Jedi Council.

Inflated ego? He started his training at age 10, below the level of Jedi preschoolers. A mere decade later, he's on the cusp of Knighthood (five years ahead of his own Master, who was still an apprentice at 25). Throw in the 'Chosen One' Prophecy and it's little wonder he had an ego. But not an unearned one.

Violent? Only after the Tusken Massacre. Up to then he's acting like a Jedi (if a rather inept one).

Disrespectful? "Don't get me wrong - Obi-Wan is a great mentor... I am truly thankful to be his apprentice." It's his own impatience to get on with being a Jedi Knight that leads to the blowups with Obi-Wan, not any inherent disrespect of the man. Any disrespect of the other Jedi, as we saw, was well-earned.

by the time he starts romancing Padme he's already a dark and disturbed creep, which makes it really hard to buy Padme ever falling for him.

His side of the story was easy to understand, even in the final film. You try being a 20-year-old virgin (expressly forbidden to even look at girls) suddenly being reunited with your first real crush (who's still single and hot), and see how classy you act.

The deleted scenes tell Padme's side of the story. She's totally failing at being a politician, through no fault of her own, and she's the type who takes every failure very personally. She's been working almost all her life, non-stop, she has no life outside of work, her family is begging her to settle down and start a family before it's too late. And she feels sorry for this 'dark and disturbed' guy who's suffering through a life only slightly less shitty than hers (until Tatooine, when it becomes exponentially worse than hers) and is very obviously totally devoted to her.

 

[Tosk]

Disrespectful?

He openly questions Obi-Wan's orders and argues with him in front of others.

You try being a 20-year-old virgin (expressly forbidden to even look at girls) suddenly being reunited with your first real crush (who's still single and hot), and see how classy you act.

When in the movies does it say he is a virgin and not allowed to even look at girls?

 

[cooleddie74]

Anakin treated Obi-Wan like he father he never had and considered him a friend, but like all children with their fathers he showed open disrespect, talked about him in critical tones when he wasn't around and felt Obi-Wan was keeping him from achieving greater powers that he felt he deserved to have.

Yes, Anakin was disrespectful, but no more or less than the average bratty teenager or college-age young adult who grows up without many good role models in their life and is told that they're better, stronger and more powerful than their peers and that they should take advantage of that (Chancellor Palpatine's mentoring and prodding).

 

[fireproof78]

I can understand the point about Anakin, but if he is like a whiny, bratty, teenager that doesn't exactly endear him to me. I mean, I was a teen when AOTC came out, and I found little sympathy with him. As a minor note, I was also still a virgin at the time, for different reasons than being a Jedi though

As I have said in other posts, there are parts of the PT that I like, but Anakin is not one of them. His character feels very rude and impatient, and whiny. And, maybe in AOTC that would have been OK, but that trait continues on in ROTS, and in Clone Wars to some degree.

For me, it's a matter of personality. Anakin is not someone I want to see succeed or become a great Jedi or anything like that. He's someone that I think has a lot to learn and has a lot of growing up to do. That's fine for a teen drama, but not for me.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Disrespectful?

He openly questions Obi-Wan's orders and argues with him in front of others.

The funny thing with that is Anakin was right - he and Obi-Wan were being explicitly set up to go on the hunt after Zam & Jango, which would lead to Kamino, the Clone Army, Geonosis and all that followed. But by-the-book Obi-Wan wouldn't give his apprentice's insight an instant's thought. Quite the reversal from Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's first scene in TPM.

You try being a 20-year-old virgin (expressly forbidden to even look at girls) suddenly being reunited with your first real crush (who's still single and hot), and see how classy you act.

When in the movies does it say he is a virgin and not allowed to even look at girls?

"Are you allowed to love? I thought it was forbidden for a Jedi." Anakin's reply to Padme's line there clearly comes off as him trying to find a loophole in an ironclad rule. And he clearly doesn't come off as someone who has any experience with women.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Attachment is forbidden. There's nothing saying you can't have a Jedi booty call, though. Gotta make sure the lightsaber can still ignite and all that.

 

[Mr Light]

The EU showed that the Jedi Council looked the other way when someone had the occasional booty call, but you weren't allowed to have open relationships or marry. The only exception was Ki-Adi Mundi and that was because his species was going extinct

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Disrespectful?

He openly questions Obi-Wan's orders and argues with him in front of others.

The funny thing with that is Anakin was right - he and Obi-Wan were being explicitly set up to go on the hunt after Zam & Jango, which would lead to Kamino, the Clone Army, Geonosis and all that followed. But by-the-book Obi-Wan wouldn't give his apprentice's insight an instant's thought. Quite the reversal from Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's first scene in TPM.

If Anakin was right that they were being set up, then Obi-Wan was all the more right both to argue against exceeding the Council's mandate and to argue for simply protecting Padme. For, charging recklessly into a set-up is to be led by the nose.

Anakin's interest in investigating was ultimately for selfish reasons, as it was motivated by his intoxicated attraction to Padme. His personal desire being a main reason for exceeding the mandate should have been another indication that it was an unwise choice. His going off mission and using Padme as bait to draw out the Senator's would-be assassin ultimately had dire consequences for the whole Galaxy. Naturally, the dart to kill Zam with its specific symbols had been used on purpose, because it could be traced back only to one source.

I would argue that the Jedi were too dependent on being guided by the Force to cope with a situation such as this when their vision was clouded by the dark side. Instead of implicitly assuming that the would-be assassin's assassin had carelessly left a clue in the dart by underestimating the Jedi's ability to decipher it or even assuming that it had been left simply because it was the custom of certain assassins to sign their work, the leading Jedi including Obi-Wan and Yoda should have wondered why they had been provided such a clue containing highly specific information in the first place. Instead, they all continued to charge recklessly forward into the dark, in the direction given to them by their adversaries.

 

[fireproof78]

Even in TPM there miss out on the fact that the Sith had returned and one had attacked Qui-Gon. Same thing with the Clone Army. It was unauthorized and yet they still embraced it.

Anakin, regardless of being right, to some degree, doesn't excuse his manner or his behavior in treating Obi-Wan, Council leadership and even with Padme. But, Anakin is more symptomatic of the larger characterization problem that I struggle to care about any of them. I don't sympathize with them in a way that makes me want them to succeed other than that they are "the good guys."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Same thing with the Clone Army. It was unauthorized and yet they still embraced it.

This was one of the puzzling things about the Jedi, that they would embrace the Clone Army, even knowing that it had been created under false pretenses.

 

[Mach5]

Same thing with the Clone Army. It was unauthorized and yet they still embraced it.

This was one of the puzzling things about the Jedi, that they would embrace the Clone Army, even knowing that it had been created under false pretenses.

The Jedi embraced and commanded an army of human slaves. Dwell on that for a moment.

 

[cooleddie74]

The EU showed that the Jedi Council looked the other way when someone had the occasional booty call, but you weren't allowed to have open relationships or marry. The only exception was Ki-Adi Mundi and that was because his species was going extinct

And, of course, what's allowed and what you actually get away with when the Jedi Council isn't looking or paying any attention can be two completely different things. As in real life there are many things that aren't "allowed" but happen with great frequency because of human nature.

The Jedi Code can say a lot of things, but after many thousands of years you know the violations in the name of romance or sexual attraction had to be a lot more common than the propaganda from the Order would ever let on.

 

[fireproof78]

Same thing with the Clone Army. It was unauthorized and yet they still embraced it.

This was one of the puzzling things about the Jedi, that they would embrace the Clone Army, even knowing that it had been created under false pretenses.

The Jedi embraced and commanded an army of human slaves. Dwell on that for a moment.

Yeah. I think I saw a discussion about how in other films the Jedi would be the bad guys. Corrupt, inept and struggling to adapt to the needs of protecting the peace.

It's frustrating to try and be on their side when these are the choices they are making.