Star Wars:The Clone Wars S3......so far

[exodus]

If you know your neighbor or family member is holding someone hostage, torturing them with the intent to murder and you do nothing. Are you innocent or are you just as guilty as they are?

This probably varies from state to state, country to country, but over here the law says you're not obligated to help the victim if your own safety is jeopardized.

I'm not taking about the law, I'm talking moral obligation.
To someone seeking revenge for murdered innocent, to them your inability to act makes you just as guilty in their eyes.

This is ludicrous. It makes about as much sense as executing everyone who's ever seen Death Wish.

Again, not in the eyes of someone seeking revenge for an innocent murder, specially one that you share an emotional bond with.
You're asking someone who's in a grief stricken rage to be rational.
The murder of his mother is an irrational act to Anakin, so in that mindset so was his vengence.
In his mind those women & children were just as guilty.
What I explained was how someone of that mindset might rationalize it.

 

[Mach5]

When a member of a certain group (ethnic, tribal, gang etc.) commits a violent crime, it isn't uncommon for the victim's family members (or members of the group victim belonged to) to automatically direct their anger at the whole group, nut just individuals.

 

[exodus]

When a member of a certain group (ethnic, tribal, gang etc.) commits a violent crime, it isn't uncommon for the victim's family members (or members of the group victim belonged to) to automatically direct their anger at the whole group, nut just individuals.

Yes, true

 

[CorporalCaptain]

You're asking someone who's in a grief stricken rage to be rational.
The murder of his mother is an irrational act to Anakin, so in that mindset so was his vengence.
In his mind those women & children were just as guilty.
What I explained was how someone of that mindset might rationalize it.

Just because an act can be rationalized, that does not make the act either justified, forgivable, or good. All kinds of evil acts in history have been rationalized.

Yoda apparently had a vision about what Anakin did, so I doubt Anakin could deny he did it, even if Padme kept his secret. One of the weak links in the PT is why Anakin did not get disciplined and possibly even expelled from the Jedi for his violent overreaction with the sandpeople.

 

[exodus]

Just because an act can be rationalized, that does not make the act either justified, forgivable, or good. All kinds of evil acts in history have been rationalized.

If your mother was murdered in cold blood, I don't think you'd give a damn about if it's good or forgivable.

Yoda apparently had a vision about what Anakin did, so I doubt Anakin could deny he did it, even if Padme kept his secret. One of the weak links in the PT is why Anakin did not get disciplined and possibly even expelled from the Jedi for his violent overreaction with the sandpeople.

So?
Anakin was like a living holy grail to them.
They weren't going to get rid of someone of proficy.
He meant more to them than a few thugs.

 

[JarodRussell]

Just because an act can be rationalized, that does not make the act either justified, forgivable, or good. All kinds of evil acts in history have been rationalized.

If your mother was murdered in cold blood, I don't think you'd give a damn about if it's good or forgivable.

Doesn't matter what he thinks. The point is that he should have gotten punished for doing it.

 

[exodus]

Just because an act can be rationalized, that does not make the act either justified, forgivable, or good. All kinds of evil acts in history have been rationalized.

If your mother was murdered in cold blood, I don't think you'd give a damn about if it's good or forgivable.

Doesn't matter what he thinks. The point is that he should have gotten punished for doing it.

No, the point that started this debate was: Is Anakin psycho?
The reasoning was because they felt Anakin killing the sand people wasn't justified.
It wasn't about if he should be punished for it or not.

 

[JarodRussell]

If your mother was murdered in cold blood, I don't think you'd give a damn about if it's good or forgivable.

Doesn't matter what he thinks. The point is that he should have gotten punished for doing it.

No, the point that started this debate was: Is Anakin psycho?
The reasoning was because they felt Anakin killing the sand people wasn't justified.
It wasn't about if he should be punished for it or not.

He is psycho because he moves on like nothing happened afterwards. And Padme is a mix of being stupid and being a psycho because she allows him to move on like nothing happened. Killing the sand people wasn't justified. How does one justify killing a dozen because they killed one? I believe that a Jedi would have gotten kicked out of the order for that.

 

[Christopher]

Lucas realized when seeing the cut there wasn't much to suggest the two were friends.

Dumb motherf*** actually needed to see the cut to realize that!

That's not really fair. When you're immersed in the day-to-day business of making a film and have to focus on thousands of individual details, not to mention shooting the thing out of order, it can be hard to get a sense of the big picture, the overall flow of the story you're telling. When your attention is fixated on the planting and trimming and watering of each individual tree one by one, you don't have the luxury of stepping back to see the forest until it's all done. This is why there is an editing process. Filmmakers quite often discover things when they see the film cut together for the first time that they didn't realize or anticipate earlier in the process. Heck, I've had the same experience when writing novels. The up-close, detailed perspective that has to preoccupy you on a daily basis is different from the overall perspective you can only get when you finish and look back over the whole thing, or when you get a fresh set of eyes on the project and can hear a fresh perspective.

So this isn't a failing of George Lucas. It's just part of how the creative process often works. Filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan has said that there are three movies: the one that's scripted, the one that's shot, and the one that's edited. Putting the film together in editing essentially creates a new work by putting the ingredients together into a whole for the first time, and so there are always new things to be discovered -- including errors and oversights that would've been hard to catch before -- once the cut is put together.

 

[Mach5]

Yeah, but this isn't just about lacking scenes, this is about the entire story being structured in a way that left no room for Anakin and Obi Wan to have an on-screen relationship everyone wanted to see.

"He was the best starpilot in the galaxy and a cunning warrior. I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself. And he was a good friend."

Showing us this friendship should have been one of Lucas' main priorities from the get go, if you ask me.

 

[DarKush]

When a member of a certain group (ethnic, tribal, gang etc.) commits a violent crime, it isn't uncommon for the victim's family members (or members of the group victim belonged to) to automatically direct their anger at the whole group, nut just individuals.

Even though I don't fully agree with this statement-sometimes this happens and sometimes it doesn't, I can see how some people might immediately blame an entire group (usually considered different in some way, race, gender, religion, ethnicitiy, sexual orientation, region, nationality) for the actions of an individual or a small group of individuals, but that's a whole lot different than acting on that impulse, than actually going out and slaughtering an entire group of people.

Anakin was angry,he had a right to be, he was grieving, he was irrational, but on some level he knew what he had done was wrong, he allowed his anger to take control of him. He's a Jedi, who seem to do a lot more than the average human in the SW universe to actually reign in their emotions, to control their actions, because they know how harmful they could become with the power they wield. He murdered an entire village. Was his anger so great that he couldn't stop at any time? Even to let the kids go?

How could kids be guilty of the crimes of their elders? How could they be complicit in that? And is complicity worthy of being murdered? Perhaps some of those people were brutalized by the same monsters than killed Shmi and were powerless to prevent her capture?

Another aspect to look at is we don't know how the humans or others on Tatoonine had treated the Sandpeople. Perhaps there was a whole history here of attacks and reprisals that put both groups at fault?

But Anakin chucked any of that aside and went on a rampage. And what did he do afterward? He didn't go to the local authorities, he didn't tell the Jedi, he simply told Padme (who in a very bad bit of writing pretty much forgave him), and he went on about his business. Of course, we've seen in the EU and on TCW how that mass murder impacted him, but the movies largely pushed it to the side except for one mention in ROTS because there were so many things GL was trying to shove into the movies that he didn't have time to explore how Anakin's rage, how his giving into his anger, had warped him. Also, GL was too busy trying to show how Anakin was a hero during the Clone Wars, which his actions on Tatoonine should've precluded him from being for the audience. If anything, GL should've never tried to make Anakin a hero from jump. An anti-hero that slides into villainy would've been better.

 

[exodus]

He is psycho because he moves on like nothing happened afterwards.How does one justify killing a dozen because they killed one?

Once again, you've never heard of grief stricken rage?
You're acting like murdering someones mother is something easy to deal with and that he should just brush it off and walk away. That's fiction, Anakin's reaction is real.

Never seen a Charles Broson movie?

How about "Commando" with Arnold?

Any Stephen Segal movie.

The last film featuring "The Rock"?

Brad Pitt at the end of "Se7en"?

All examples of films where the "hero" killed folks over the loss of one and we cheered for them and called it justified.

Was his anger so great that he couldn't stop at any time?

If it was your mother, wouldn't yours?

Have we grown so detached as a people that the murder of the one that gave us life & nurtured us, wouldn't cause cause such an emotion?

He didn't go to the local authorities

Tatooine is run by gangsters, there are no local authorities.
If there were, don't you think the Lars family would have gotten them involved instead of going after her themselves? Anakin alread was starting to mistrust the Jedi because they didn't want him saving his mother either. They told him not to go to Tatooine.

 

[DarKush]

^
Exodus, there are myriad real world examples of people who don't strike back in vengeance if something horrific happens to loved ones. Some do, but rarely do they take it out indiscriminately on people who look like the ones who are alleged or actually did the crime. Nor do a majority take it out personally on the alleged, or actual perpetrators. Despite the fact that I'm sure many want to do that. They generally rely on our legal system for recourse. As I said before, it is understandable to want to do something about it, but if you do, you're taking the law into your own hands, you're taking the path of vengeance. As a Jedi, someone who is supposed to practice detachment, Anakin would be a person who one would expect to try to remove the emotion from his response.

Just because the Hutts are gangsters don't mean there isn't some form of law, whether its corrupt or not, on Tatoonine. If not them, you take your greivance to the Jedi Council, or heck, you even speak to the Sandpeople's leaders. Perhaps being a Jedi Anakin might have more weight than an average Tatoonine citizen. Just striking back in cold blooded vengeance is not a proper response. I don't remember where the Jedi said anything about Anakin not saving his mother. He went to Tatoonine on his own, without consulting the Council I recall correctly.

I don't condone the idea of mob justice. There are a lot of horrific examples of vigilantism and lynch mobs in this country to show how wrong that kind of reaction is, and how oppression can be masked as seeking justice.

 

[Mach5]

As a Jedi, someone who is supposed to practice detachment, Anakin would be a person who one would expect to try to remove the emotion from his response.

Isn't Anakin's inability to detach himself the KEY to his fall? Lucas often emphasized this himself. Anakin wasn't able to let go of his mother, he wasn't strong enough, nor willing to deny himself romance (love, sex, marriage)... He just couldn't let go of things a Jedi is expected to. That's why he was the perfect Sith lord candidate.

Buddhists believe that the main reason for suffering is desire. Kill your inner desires (become content with what you got, but ready to let it go and never want more), and achieve inner peace. Anakin's unwillingness to "let go" caused his inner turmoil and eventually his demise.

Sith, on the other hand, were all about wanting more. Always wanting more.

Another aspect to look at is we don't know how the humans or others on Tatoonine had treated the Sandpeople. Perhaps there was a whole history here of attacks and reprisals that put both groups at fault?

I was under the impression that the Tuskens were "savages" who often raided human settlements.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, but this isn't just about lacking scenes, this is about the entire story being structured in a way that left no room for Anakin and Obi Wan to have an on-screen relationship everyone wanted to see.

Like I said, when you have to juggle a lot of different elements, things can fall between the cracks. Even in the initial story-structure phase. There is a lot of stuff that goes into a story -- plot threads, character threads, worldbuilding, theme and message, and in film all sorts of other stuff like design and casting and music and so forth. You have to try to weave all those threads together into a coherent tapestry, and sometimes you look back and realize that you lost track of one of your early intentions along the way because you got distracted by all the other stuff you had to deal with.

This is why the process of revision is a basic part of the process of creation. It is naive to expect a storyteller to get everything right on the first pass. That's just not the way it works. A large part of creation is revising, editing, reworking, fixing the flaws in your initial, rough draft. A filmmaker who misses something on the first runthrough and catches it in revisions is not an incompetent or an idiot. He's a creator doing the process the way it's supposed to be done: reviewing the rough form of his creation, catching the mistakes that will inevitably be present, and fixing them before the project reaches its final form. We all do it. It's normal. It's not wrong to make a mistake, unless you fail to correct it. And the filmmaking process is so complicated that mistakes and oversights are bound to happen, which is why there is an extensive editing and review process whose purpose is to fix them.

It's always easy to condemn how others do a job when you've never actually done it yourself. But that doesn't make it justified.

 

[Mach5]

I still believe Lucas should have noticed that the script itself was lacking.

A part from that added scene, there was absolutely nothing in that movie that gave us even the slightest hint that Anakin and Obi-Wan were anything other than two guys who couldn't stand each other.

And they were supposed to be best friends.

 

[exodus]

^
Exodus, there are myriad real world examples of people who don't strike back in vengeance if something horrific happens to loved ones. Some do, but rarely do they take it out indiscriminately on people who look like the ones who are alleged or actually did the crime. Nor do a majority take it out personally on the alleged, or actual perpetrators. Despite the fact that I'm sure many want to do that. They generally rely on our legal system for recourse. As I said before, it is understandable to want to do something about it, but if you do, you're taking the law into your own hands, you're taking the path of vengeance. As a Jedi, someone who is supposed to practice detachment, Anakin would be a person who one would expect to try to remove the emotion from his response.

Just because the Hutts are gangsters don't mean there isn't some form of law, whether its corrupt or not, on Tatoonine. If not them, you take your greivance to the Jedi Council, or heck, you even speak to the Sandpeople's leaders. Perhaps being a Jedi Anakin might have more weight than an average Tatoonine citizen. Just striking back in cold blooded vengeance is not a proper response. I don't remember where the Jedi said anything about Anakin not saving his mother. He went to Tatoonine on his own, without consulting the Council I recall correctly.

Me personally, I think I've seen enough of the Star Wars Universe to know that folks there don't rely on a true legal system and that much of what goes on does involve taking matters into your own hands.

I thought it was understood that Tatooine is a place folks go to escape the law, that's why it's full of criminals.
Speak to the Sand Peoples leaders?
Are you serious?
Did you not hear what Lars said about them?
They aren't a diplomatic people, even Obi-Wan in "New Hope" knew you shouldn't mess with them.
Have you read the bio about Tuskin Raiders?
Too them, other creatures even humans are food.
They are more animal than human.

As a Jedi, someone who is supposed to practice detachment, Anakin would be a person who one would expect to try to remove the emotion from his response.

So how would be become Darth Vader?

I don't condone the idea of mob justice. There are a lot of horrific examples of vigilantism and lynch mobs in this country to show how wrong that kind of reaction is, and how oppression can be masked as seeking justice.

Forgive me I mean no disrespect but your personal views and what happens in this country or on this Earth doesn't relate to Star Wars and what happens in that universe. As I said, we've seen vigilantism & street justice is a common thing in that universe. Same with the example of folks here not going to avenge a murder, that is not how it is in Star Wars. It's one of the reasons why the Seperatists don't believe the Republic works. Not to mention we're talking about the man who is to become Darth Vader. You expect him to have mercy slaughtering people?

 

[Set Harth]

I'll give him credit for being just as respectful of canon as it deserves. Keep the stuff that works, jettison the stuff that doesn't.

He hasn't jettisoned anything that didn't work. Ryloth worked fine the way it was.

but now I'm wondering if ROTS is on the chopping block too. The TCW writers are setting up foreshadowing to nowhere unless they intend for things like Anakin's annoyance over the constraints of democracy and his burgeoning alliance with Tarkin and maybe other disgruntled officers to go somewhere.

Not going to happen. His annoyance with democracy was already covered in AOTC.

The bigger issue is the foreshadowing of the Mortis Arc, which gave Anakin all "new" information about his proper role in the galaxy.

Of course, "new" in quotes apparently just means old. The Mortis arc reinforced the idea that the Force is brought back into balance by eliminating the instrument of the dark side. But we already knew that, and so did the characters in-universe.

That's far too big of an element to simply never factor into the story - it should be the main factor in the story, really - yet it never impacts either ROTS (where his motive was being stupid enough to fall for Palps' bs, and/or maybe just insane) or ROTJ (where his motive was love for Luke).

That probably has something to do with the fact that you made it up.

I could see all these elements being introduced into a TCW version of ROTS that shows us all the important things that were "left on the cutting room floor." Nothing needs to be deleted from the story, per se, but perhaps it will be demoted. If Anakin's motives are complex, then maybe the visions about Padme were not the sole factor, as ROTS made it seem, but just the final straw pushing him over the edge.

Or maybe ROTS is going to remain unchanged, which was the intent all along.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, but this isn't just about lacking scenes, this is about the entire story being structured in a way that left no room for Anakin and Obi Wan to have an on-screen relationship everyone wanted to see.

Like I said, when you have to juggle a lot of different elements, things can fall between the cracks. Even in the initial story-structure phase. There is a lot of stuff that goes into a story -- plot threads, character threads, worldbuilding, theme and message, and in film all sorts of other stuff like design and casting and music and so forth. You have to try to weave all those threads together into a coherent tapestry, and sometimes you look back and realize that you lost track of one of your early intentions along the way because you got distracted by all the other stuff you had to deal with.

This is why the process of revision is a basic part of the process of creation. It is naive to expect a storyteller to get everything right on the first pass. That's just not the way it works. A large part of creation is revising, editing, reworking, fixing the flaws in your initial, rough draft. A filmmaker who misses something on the first runthrough and catches it in revisions is not an incompetent or an idiot. He's a creator doing the process the way it's supposed to be done: reviewing the rough form of his creation, catching the mistakes that will inevitably be present, and fixing them before the project reaches its final form. We all do it. It's normal. It's not wrong to make a mistake, unless you fail to correct it. And the filmmaking process is so complicated that mistakes and oversights are bound to happen, which is why there is an extensive editing and review process whose purpose is to fix them.

It's always easy to condemn how others do a job when you've never actually done it yourself. But that doesn't make it justified.

Well, then some directors are simply much better at juggling than Lucas.

 

[DarthPipes]

There should have been a lot more with Anakin and Obi-Wan's friendship in AOTC, especially considering they barely, barely have any lines together in TPM. ROTS had to play catch-up on the friendship. This is definitely a failing.

Isn't Anakin's inability to detach himself the KEY to his fall? Lucas often emphasized this himself. Anakin wasn't able to let go of his mother, he wasn't strong enough, nor willing to deny himself romance (love, sex, marriage)... He just couldn't let go of things a Jedi is expected to. That's why he was the perfect Sith lord candidate.

Yoda might want to take some lessons on that too. He gave up a chance to take down Dooku to save Anakin and Obi-Wan's life. Anakin was supposed to be the Chosen One true but I have a feeling Yoda was thinking more of Obi-Wan and Anakin than the whole Chosen One business when he saved them. I'm not knocking him, it was the human thing to do. But Yoda put their lives ahead of possibly taking down Dooku and ending the war before it expanded.

About the whole Tusken business, I understand why Anakin reacted the way he did. He found his mother, whom he hadn't seen in a decade, brutally tortured and murdered. He wasn't thinking and and when the Jedi give in to their anger, things get very ugly. He managed to sneak in without being detected but to get Shmi's body out, he likely would have had to deal with the Tuskens. Especially if they found Shmi was gone.

We can understand and sympathize with what Anakin did but that doesn't mean we condone what he did. Killing the women and children was wrong and Anakin KNOWS this. It's made very clear when he mentions it to Padme and breaks down. Added dialogue further drives home the point when he tells Padme "I'm a Jedi. I KNOW I'm better than this." When Palpatine brings it up in ROTS, we can see it still bothers Anakin and the distant cry of a Tusken can be heard. You can criticize the way Anakin was portrayed in the films but the whole Tusken business was something I think played out very well.