The TIE Fighter Pilot who Helped the Rebellion.

[Myasishchev]

Your sarcasm is cute, but given the slavery, torture, spousal abuse, dismemberment, burning alive, being eaten alive, kidnapping, murder, child murder, assassinations, and genocide that are rampant throughout the films you choose a strange line in the sand to draw here.

Because using rape as a plot device is gross?

Anyway, it's not entirely your notion that bugs me--it's more that I realized in the middle of posting that that of the female characters in Star Wars--who are few in number already--have something like a 60% chance of being sexually assaulted on screen in some form (Leia), or being strongly implied to have been sexually assaulted or flat-out raped (Leia, Padme, Shmi). At this rate, maybe we should just assume that Mon Mothma probably got bent over by Ackbar during a blowfish-bender-driven blackout. But on the plus side, the Stormtroopers are pros, and probably didn't rape Beru before they torched her.

And, yeah, in Return of the Jedi's defense, they didn't use Leia's squicky situation to incite the male heroes to action, as is so regrettably often the case. Instead, it played out as more of a bog standard hero(ine)-versus-monster grudge match, not fundamentally unlike Luke's battle with the Rancor, that just happened to have a really nasty sexual dimension.

On the other hand, you do have to wonder why Slave Leia is considered more of an appropriate costume, than, say, Ambulance-Ride Alex from Irreversible. Monica Belluci is hot, after all, right?

But the Prequels were probably a little more misogynistic. And actually I don't "draw a line" at implied rape. While the OT has its faults, the PT is just unremittingly morally retarded--the subjects of slavery, genocide spousal abuse, and child murder are employed just as terribly, and just as offensively, as the subject of rape.

However, those subjects, and the PT's mishandling of them, are often discussed, especially here. For example, no one who's seen the films and has a mental age above eight has failed to notice the horrible implications of Padme's complete, bizarre nonreaction to Anakin's confession of "Sand People" genocide, or the contrast between that nonreaction and her actual reaction to the slaying of the Jedi kids; opinions only vary on whether she's merely an inconsistently written character, if she's a consistently written racist character, or if Anakin is her Force-wielding puppermaster. This has to be opinion because the films aren't sure--the two instances of child-murder are just kind of there. Likewise, the rapes are just kind of there.

So I bring it up partly because Star Wars', and especially the Prequels', rape-happiness are not as well-covered ground; and also because the PT certainly did not need another rape to add to the pile.

And let's not forget the borderline incest!

Hey, they're all consenting adults here. Well, not so much informed consent, but you can blame that on Old Ben Kenobi, since you think he ought to have mentioned it.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Some of us are excited by (or at least appreciative of) creative analogies between science and spirituality, and it doesn't make much sense to assume that being engaged with scientific and philosophical concepts is isomorphic with being "dumb."

I don't think Lucas engages with much other than the merchandising meetings

The original idea of the force being something ethereal was more fun. But again in the prequels Lucas feels he has to explain and tell us how his universe works, instead of allowing us to make our own assumptions.

 

[FluffyUnbound]

Some of us are excited by (or at least appreciative of) creative analogies between science and spirituality, and it doesn't make much sense to assume that being engaged with scientific and philosophical concepts is isomorphic with being "dumb."

I don't think Lucas engages with much other than the merchandising meetings

The original idea of the force being something ethereal was more fun. But again in the prequels Lucas feels he has to explain and tell us how his universe works, instead of allowing us to make our own assumptions.

My own problem with midichlorians [and I say this as an unremittingly Western, technical, pro-science person] is that when the Jedi are quasi-Buddhist monks who employ a mental discipline of surrender to transcend and gain power over normal reality, that's just cooler for this fictional universe.

As soon as there's a physical or scientific component to it at all, the universe no longer makes sense because the exclusivity of Force power no longer makes sense. One reason? Because if controlling the Force was about genetics I'd be doing genetic engineering and/or eugenic breeding to assemble an army of Force supermen to bring the Jedi down. "Midichlorians" fits the Dune universe better than the SW universe.

Another reason? If people are accessing the Force because of a physical process, it should be possible to duplicate that physical process mechanically, at the level of technology we see in this universe. If the Force isn't a metaphysical mystery, it's just the internal combustion engine.

 

[Mr Light]

In defense of Padme in AOTC, they do say in that movie that the Sand People are like animals and not humans, so for all she knew they were beast creatures and not sentient humanoids. We know they can shoot a gun but what else do we know? I'm not talking EU knowledge here just what's in the movies. We've only seen them killing and raping and pillaging in ANH and AOTC, and murdering passing by podracers and laughing about it in TPM.

 

[Christopher]

The original idea of the force being something ethereal was more fun. But again in the prequels Lucas feels he has to explain and tell us how his universe works, instead of allowing us to make our own assumptions.

The Force still is something ethereal. Again, it's a mistake to assume that the midichlorians create the Force. The basic concept is still exactly the same: the Force is a mystical energy field that unifies all life and that certain life forms are capable of tapping into directly. All Lucas has done is to elaborate on that by establishing midichlorians as the specific life forms that tap into the Force. And that's a lovely analogy to a truly remarkable fact of biology, the fact that our very existence is dependent on a profound symbiosis with the mitochondria that generate energy for our cells. We literally would not exist without the energy our mitochondria create for us, and that's a mind-boggling, wondrous thing if you think about it, that everything we are is dependent on something so tiny, something that's essentially a separate life form with its own independent DNA but is nonetheless an inseparable part of ourselves. It's a humbling, awesome truth, and I'm surprised more people haven't explored spiritual analogies to it.

So I think the idea of midichlorians is an elegant analogy between the biological and the spiritual, and I for one find that to be extremely fun. It's nicely Eastern, the idea that the material and the spiritual are merely facets of the same thing, and refreshingly different from the drab Western notion of a strict, dualistic divide between "base" physicality and higher spirituality. Given that the Force is supposed to unite all things, to be endemic to all life, it makes sense that it's of a piece with biology Eastern-style rather than being some entirely separate, inchoate thing Western-style. There's always been a lot of Eastern influence behind Lucas's depictions of the Force.

 

[Beagleman]

Well said! I never got the hate for midichlorians, I think it's a fascinating elegant idea...

 

[AJBryant]

In defense of Padme in AOTC, they do say in that movie that the Sand People are like animals and not humans, so for all she knew they were beast creatures and not sentient humanoids. We know they can shoot a gun but what else do we know? I'm not talking EU knowledge here just what's in the movies. We've only seen them killing and raping and pillaging in ANH and AOTC, and murdering passing by podracers and laughing about it in TPM.

THat's generic racist-type hyperbole. "Animals" do not create and wear clothing, use metal technology, build individual houses, cook food, domesticate *other* animals, etc.

Everyone knew they were primitive, but they were still "people" -- just like Indians in the Old West, Zulus, the "fuzzy-wuzzies," etc.

 

[Myasishchev]

You can totally see Padme visiting the Congo before the Great War and going "well, sometimes these things happen," then as soon as the reports of dismembered white orphans come in from across the Channel, she's all "THE HUN IS KILLING YOUNGLINGS!"

I mean, is Padme deliberately written as a upper-class bitch from 1914? Because a lot of the other elements are there, and this is not an endearing character type.

So I think the idea of midichlorians is an elegant analogy between the biological and the spiritual, and I for one find that to be extremely fun. It's nicely Eastern, the idea that the material and the spiritual are merely facets of the same thing, and refreshingly different from the drab Western notion of a strict, dualistic divide between "base" physicality and higher spirituality. Given that the Force is supposed to unite all things, to be endemic to all life, it makes sense that it's of a piece with biology Eastern-style rather than being some entirely separate, inchoate thing Western-style. There's always been a lot of Eastern influence behind Lucas's depictions of the Force.

What, precisely, is so very mystical about a blood test and a white cell count? It's empiricism par excellence.

And Eastern? It's pure Cartesian--it's a physical interface between the spiritual world and gross matter. If they'd said the Force was attached to Anakin by the pineal gland, it would be fundamentally same idea.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Your sarcasm is cute, but given the slavery, torture, spousal abuse, dismemberment, burning alive, being eaten alive, kidnapping, murder, child murder, assassinations, and genocide that are rampant throughout the films you choose a strange line in the sand to draw here.

Because using rape as a plot device is gross?

Anyway, it's not entirely your notion that bugs me--it's more that I realized in the middle of posting that that of the female characters in Star Wars--who are few in number already--have something like a 60% chance of being sexually assaulted on screen in some form (Leia), or being strongly implied to have been sexually assaulted or flat-out raped (Leia, Padme, Shmi).

OK, I get that lots of untoward things probably happened to Shmi, between getting kidnapped by the Sand People and possibly drugged & impregnated by Darth Sidious.

In the case of Leia, I assume we're talking about potentially hinky stuff that happened while she was captured by Jabba. (However, I always assumed that Jabba never got any further than just dressing her up provocatively. For the sake of treasured childhood memories, let's presume that he didn't have time for anything else.)

But when was Padme raped? When was she sexually assaulted? All of her relations with Anakin seemed to be totally consensual. (The only time things get violent between them is at the very end when he Force chokes her because he thinks that she's turned against him and is possibly having an affair with Obi-Wan.)

But on the plus side, the Stormtroopers are pros, and probably didn't rape Beru before they torched her.

You have no idea... [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bocmVZXXY8w[/yt]

Well said! I never got the hate for midichlorians, I think it's a fascinating elegant idea...

...Which was stated in a very inelegant way. But then, that's pretty much par for the course in The Phantom Menace.

Yes, of course. But I guess this means the Rebels had more X-Wings than they had pilots. (And yes, I read the comic that explains that.) However, at the medal ceremony, there are a butt-load of dudes in orange pilot uniforms. Where'd they come from?

Evac pilots, unqualified for X-wings but fine for freighters and the like. They probably started breaking camp five minutes after the ceremony.

And Luke is lucky he wasn't stuck doing that instead!

It probably helped that he got strong recommendations from Biggs & Leia.

As far as Vader not hitting Luke, if the Force can guide Luke's shot into the thermal exhaust port, what's to say that it can't guide Vader's shots away from killing his son, or that Vader himself subconsciously sensed their connection and avoided killing him, just as he consciously did in the subsequent films.

It's possible that, sensing the strongest Force user he's seen in 20 years, he was already formulating his plan to kill Emperor Palpatine and take over the Empire, with this mysterious new pilot as his apprentice.

 

[The Wormhole]

maybe we should just assume that Mon Mothma probably got bent over by Ackbar during a blowfish-bender-driven blackout.

For some reason that sentence put an image in my head of Ackbar getting it on with a prostitute in a shady motel, until the cops bust in to arrest him. "It's a trap!"

 

[Christopher]

In the case of Leia, I assume we're talking about potentially hinky stuff that happened while she was captured by Jabba. (However, I always assumed that Jabba never got any further than just dressing her up provocatively. For the sake of treasured childhood memories, let's presume that he didn't have time for anything else.)

I find it hard to believe he'd have the capability for anything else. No way the anatomies could be anything like compatible.

It's possible that, sensing the strongest Force user he's seen in 20 years, he was already formulating his plan to kill Emperor Palpatine and take over the Empire, with this mysterious new pilot as his apprentice.

I don't think it needs an elaborate explanation. What we see onscreen is that those blaster bolts don't travel very fast, and they travel in straight lines. So if they're fired at a moving target travelling at high speed and engaged in evasive maneuvers, the odds of any single blaster bolt hitting its target, no matter how well it's aimed, would be relatively low due to the fundamental limitations of the technology. Same as with firing bullets at a moving target. The vast majority of the bullets fired in a real battle are wasted; only a small percentage actually hit their targets. Since Star Wars space battles are merely WWII battles dressed up to look like they're in space, the same principles apply. Throughout the movies, we see that destroying an enemy ship in space combat generally requires firing an extended volley or strafing run, a lot of wasted shots in order to get one hit. So Vader's first volley failing to destroy Luke's X-Wing is completely consistent with that, even if he was trying in earnest.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

In defense of Padme in AOTC, they do say in that movie that the Sand People are like animals and not humans, so for all she knew they were beast creatures and not sentient humanoids. We know they can shoot a gun but what else do we know? I'm not talking EU knowledge here just what's in the movies. We've only seen them killing and raping and pillaging in ANH and AOTC, and murdering passing by podracers and laughing about it in TPM.

From 'The Phantom Menace' podrace she knew that they owned and could use firearms, wore clothing, and organized sniper ambushes on podracers (probably to scavenge materials from the crashes). What non-sentient animal could do that? Furthermore, Anakin described his victims as being "not only the men, but the women and children," which is a rather unusual choice of wording to describe non-sentient animals.

Padme knew what he did, but as written she either didn't consider Tusken Raider lives as important as humans or was willing to forgive Anakin's murderous rampage due to rage over the death of his mother (or more likely both). Neither of which look very good.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Isn't there a similar bit in Spaced where Pegg or Frost goes on about the gunner chief bloke at the beginning and his deciding not to fire on the escape pod?

I like the Family Guy version:

"Hold your fire
Why, are we paying by the laser or something."

BTW, I wonder if Han could have just shot the thing right afterwards if Luke had missed. After all, he managed to get to exactly where he needed to be without any issue whatsoever.

 

[Trekker4747]

In defense of Padme in AOTC, they do say in that movie that the Sand People are like animals and not humans, so for all she knew they were beast creatures and not sentient humanoids. We know they can shoot a gun but what else do we know? I'm not talking EU knowledge here just what's in the movies. We've only seen them killing and raping and pillaging in ANH and AOTC, and murdering passing by podracers and laughing about it in TPM.

THat's generic racist-type hyperbole. "Animals" do not create and wear clothing, use metal technology, build individual houses, cook food, domesticate *other* animals, etc.

Everyone knew they were primitive, but they were still "people" -- just like Indians in the Old West, Zulus, the "fuzzy-wuzzies," etc.

This. There's no reasonable rationale on why Padme would say, "Oh, that's okay. Don't worry about it!" When Anikan says he just slaughtered an entire encampment of people including women and children! Then in the third movie she's completely offended at the idea that Anikan could've killed the Jedi "younglings."

This was my biggest problem with the PT. Anikan should've perfect, righteous and without fault. He should've been practically Jesus in his act, his motivations and the way he behaved. But, no. He's a whiny little bitch the entire time. The great, heroic, things he does off-screen.

It should've been tragic and shocking to someone watching these movies for the first time "in order" that Anikan falls and becomes Vader. Is that going to happen? Is Anikan's "fall from grace" to become a Sith Lord any surprise at all considering the way he acts the entire time? Does his "redemption", then, at the end of Jedi then serve to bring him back to grace? No.

First movie should've had Anikan as an adult (going along with the whole "kids don't dream about being a kid in these universes, they dream about being the adult heroes) or teenager and, as I said, he should've been just shy of walking on water, and he should've really fallen and fallen hard.

Not be a whiny punk for three movies where it's no surprise that he turned to the Dark Side. So when you now see Vader int he OT you don't see this once great man corrupted by evil you see a bitch-ass punk complaining about sand.

 

[Myasishchev]

maybe we should just assume that Mon Mothma probably got bent over by Ackbar during a blowfish-bender-driven blackout.

For some reason that sentence put an image in my head of Ackbar getting it on with a prostitute in a shady motel, until the cops bust in to arrest him. "It's a trap!"

And then DC elected him mayor again!

Trekker4747: In Padme's case, it's only implied, and then maybe by accident (although it explains a lot about her character), that Anakin is using the Force to influence her actions. It's a much more interesting set of films with that reading (not actually interesting, mind), but I'll concede that there are others (most of which, however, fail to explain Padme acts like a robot). True: the Force-choke thing is not in the same category, and potentially not misogynistic in scope.

As for Leia, the imprisonment, the stripping, the reclothing and the chaining together likely constitute a pretty serious sexual assault in themselves, even without the implications of offscreen nastiness.

I find it hard to believe he'd have the capability for anything else. No way the anatomies could be anything like compatible.

Dude, in what universe was it necessary to prime my brain to attempt to visualize Jabba's anatomy, analogize him to an earthworm, and conceptualize Hutt sperm grooves?

Now that's a word picture. Share my pain!

Btw, does anyone else think that "sperm groove" would be an excellent name for the kind of house music they sometimes use in contemporary porno?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Hey what happened to this thread? It started out as a joke about an extremely minor SW character and now it's gotten interesting!!!

My personal hope before the other two prequels played out was that Anakin was not conceived by the midichlorians at all, but at some point in her life as a slave on Tatooine Schmi was rendered unconscious and artificially inseminated with Palpatine's Sith-Sperm to give birth to a child that would fool the Jedi into believing the prophecy had been fulfilled so Palpatine could use that to his advantage in destroying them (because he had foreseen Anakin's eventual discovery by the Jedi) and to give him more time to find the true Chosen One himself.

Hmm, not sure about all that. I have no issue at all with SW delving into adult issues like rape - far preferable to Lucas' tendency to keep everything boring and sanitized for the kiddies (insisting that the bad guys in the Clone Wars must be disposable robots so the noble Jedi won't have to slaughter humanoids, I guess Luke blowing up a bunch of hapless Empire draftees in the Death Star doesn't count) - but I prefer SW to hang onto as much mystery as possible. For Anakin to literally have no father is weird and I like it. Some things should be left unexplained.

I like the idea that the Force has its own agenda in all this. It wanted Anakin to be a Sith, and that was the intent all along. It's not the Force's fault that the Jedi are pigheaded and insist on interpreting "balance in the Force" in an utterly self-serving way, meaning all Jedi and no Sith. Interesting definition of "balance" there. If the Jedi hadn't been such power-hungry, self-deluded fools, they would have killed Anakin on sight and saved everyone a lot of trouble (not that that would have been anything more than a minor speedbump for the Force).

While the OT has its faults, the PT is just unremittingly morally retarded--the subjects of slavery, genocide spousal abuse, and child murder are employed just as terribly, and just as offensively, as the subject of rape.

The PT was just retarded in every way, but you're right that it demonstrated the morality of a womp-rat. For instance, it still gets me that the high and mighty Jedi saw nothing wrong with taking a bunch of poor clones and turning them into cannon fodder just because it was convenient. Blergh. When the clones were ordered to slaughter the Jedi, I cheered. Take that, you priggish elitist hypocrites! Maybe not the reaction Lucas was going for...

This was my biggest problem with the PT. Anikan should've perfect, righteous and without fault. He should've been practically Jesus in his act, his motivations and the way he behaved. But, no. He's a whiny little bitch the entire time. The great, heroic, things he does off-screen.

It should've been tragic and shocking to someone watching these movies for the first time "in order" that Anikan falls and becomes Vader. Is that going to happen? Is Anikan's "fall from grace" to become a Sith Lord any surprise at all considering the way he acts the entire time? Does his "redemption", then, at the end of Jedi then serve to bring him back to grace? No.

First movie should've had Anikan as an adult (going along with the whole "kids don't dream about being a kid in these universes, they dream about being the adult heroes) or teenager and, as I said, he should've been just shy of walking on water, and he should've really fallen and fallen hard.

I agree with most of this (Anakin should have been at least 16 or 17 in the first movie, he should have been a smart, charming, funny guy, and a widely admired war hero) but you've set up a situation that I think is beyond the powers of any writer to pull off (unless you have something in mind that you can describe?)

A perfect guy just isn't going to turn into a monster who blows up planets. Anakin has got to have one fatal flaw that will set up his fall. He can be perfect in all other ways, and we can love him for it, but the flaw has to be there from the first or the fall is implausible.

I think it should be very simple - lust for power, maybe because he's impatient with the inefficiency of democracy (I can't reconcile the idea that Anakin cares about the Republic politically with his destruction of it) and thinks everyone would be better off if they just gave all the power to him and Palps, combined with the fact that the dark side is just flat-out more fun, probably a lot like a drug, and the Jedi are a bunch of boring old nannies that he's thoroughly sick of, plus it wouldn't have hurt if Lucas would have acknowledged the hypocrisy of the Jedi more directly. Why not overthrow and slaughter them, since they don't live up to their own so-called ideals? Easy to rationalize.

Not be a whiny punk for three movies where it's no surprise that he turned to the Dark Side.

The problem wasn't that it wasn't a surprise (that horse left the barn decades ago ) but that the tragic story of a whiny punk isn't worth bothering with. The tragic story of a great guy, a real golden boy who had just that one fatal flaw, that's something else entirely.

So when you now see Vader int he OT you don't see this once great man corrupted by evil you see a bitch-ass punk complaining about sand.

I've got the perfect solution: watch Clone Wars, which is busy rewriting Anakin to be the golden boy/war hero that we wanted all along. The trouble with him (and I've only watched the first disk of S1 so far, so maybe this gets handled) is that I'm not seeing any fatal flaw that can lead to planet-blowing-up in his future. A bit cocky and risk-taking, sure, but nothing too untoward, more like charming. Dunno how Tarakovsky plans to pull off the transition...

In Padme's case, it's only implied, and then maybe by accident (although it explains a lot about her character), that Anakin is using the Force to influence her actions.

That's just bad, careless writing. Sure, it's impossible to understand how a smart, beautiful woman with tons of options could fall for an off-putting stalkery weirdo (the Anakin of Clone Wars is much more believable in that regard) but you could say the same thing about a cool guy like Obi-Wan being pals with said stalkery weirdo. Or did Obi-Wan just not want to admit his mistake?

 

[Silvercrest]

If the Jedi hadn't been such power-hungry, self-deluded fools, they would have killed Anakin on sight and saved everyone a lot of trouble

When they decided not to train him as a Jedi, what were they planning to do instead? For someone as provably powerful in the Force as he was, seems like training him or killing him are the only two options. They sure wouldn't let him run around loose.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

If the Jedi hadn't been such power-hungry, self-deluded fools, they would have killed Anakin on sight and saved everyone a lot of trouble

When they decided not to train him as a Jedi, what were they planning to do instead? For someone as provably powerful in the Force as he was, seems like training him or killing him are the only two options. They sure wouldn't let him run around loose.

Of course they would have let him run around loose.

Lucas painted the jedi as the unambiguously good guys and killing children would spoil the image.

Of course, Lucas' image only holds when you don't really analyse the jedi's actions, but inconsistency in execution doesn't change the writer's intent.

 

[Trekker4747]

Since the force is controlled by midichlorians (or whatever) you'd think a (some) drugs would've reduced his levels to make Anakin no longer force sensitive.

 

[Christopher]

Since the force is controlled by midichlorians (or whatever) you'd think a (some) drugs would've reduced his levels to make Anakin no longer force sensitive.

Not sure it would work that way. People think of midichlorians as some kind of infectious microbe, but that's overlooking the mitochondria analogy. Mitochondria are genetically distinct, and it's believed they were originally independent life forms that developed a symbiotic relationship with single-celled life forms, but they aren't separate anymore; they're an integral part of every cell in the body. You can't kill them off without killing the cells they occupy. And Obi-Wan did say that life itself wouldn't exist without midichlorians, suggesting they play a metabolic role similar to mitochondria as well as providing a Force interface. After all, again, Lucas was building on an Eastern philosophical approach in which the biological and the spiritual are facets of the same thing, rather than a Western approach where base biology is entirely separate from the intangible spirit.

(Which is why it's not a question of "controlling" the Force. You don't control it, you connect with it, connect to other things through it.)