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mandolinSo, decent weekend. Saw Episode III on Friday, and while everyone else has discussed it better than me, I will just LJ-cut my likes and my rant about the ONE THING I could not brush off. I did like it. I had some minor issues otherwise, but those I could explain to myself (and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
honorh came up with a lovely fanfic explanation that satisfied my other major question).
Cut becausemtgat begged the friends list to:
Spoiler space, la la la...
Okay, the rant goes first.
Anakin goes to the dark side because he's afraid Padme's going to die. Okay. Fine.
Is there any real-time threat to her life that spurs this on? No. No threat of sickness - not even some complications, hell, we don't even see her deal with morning sickness, for crying out loud!
He has a recurring dream that she's going to die in childbirth. That's it.
Now, I get that it was a CONSTANT nightmare. I get that he had the same kind of premonition of his mother's death. But the movie failed to convince me that his fear was genuine and not just paranoia. All they had to do was have her in danger (or seemingly in danger) once in the movie, give us SOMETHING to base Anakin's fears upon aside from the damn Force-visions. Those, in fact, were not done well enough to convince me that they were that fear-inspiring.
Considering that this was one of the major reasons Anakin turned to the dark side, I just did not buy it. Betraying Mace Windu at the last second, I could believe. Going up against the rest of the Jedi Council, yes. But for him to have gone into the Jedi Temple and start cutting down "younglings" without a second thought, he would have had to be truly, utterly positive that Padme was going to die otherwise and the Force-dreams just did not resonate with enough certainty to make me believe that.
Anyway, before I get accused of dissing the movie, STUFF I LIKED:
1) Ewan McGregor. If anyone's appropriately tragic in this movie, it's Obi-Wan - the character I felt for more than any other. You could tell by the opening sequence that he had a fairly easy-going, trusting camaraderie with Anakin at that point, that he really did trust and care about his former padawan, which made Anakin's shift all the more painful. His dialogue with Anakin, telling him how proud he was of him before he went after Grievous, hurt so much because we knew what was coming. It did explain why he told Luke so little after telling Anakin too much, and his anguish upon realizing what Anakin had done was genuine.
2) The action sequences. I will issue a "Dramamine warning" for the opening sequence because parts of it will make you dizzy if you're prone to motion sickness. Having said that, the action sequences were awesome.
3) Jimmy Smits. He had maybe a dozen lines of dialogue as Bail Organa, and he used every second of his screen time to give his character more personality than a LOT of the myriad side characters in the movie. Wish he'd had more screen time to work with. And I appreciated the glimpse we got of Alderaan.
4) The way the Jedi purge went down. Palpatine programming the clones to eliminate the Jedi worked on two levels: first, it was a clever and ultimately plausible way to catch the Jedi off guard, and second, it was also plausible that the clones could have missed some. But it pretty much drove the point home that any stragglers would have to stay hidden. (Which makes all the undiscovered Jedi who occasionally popped up in the EU novels a bit easier to swallow.)
5) The mention of Qui-Gon at the very end. It was brief, and I'm not entirely sure how it was meant to tie into the original trilogy, but after sitting through most of the movie wondering if anyone was considering how Anakin's downfall would have broken Qui-Gon's heart it was nice to see a mention of him.
6) Yoda rules. Period. His battle with Palpatine was far better than the fight with Dooku in the last film, and it came to a draw convincingly. To be honest, with backup and without all the clone troopers gunning for Jedi, I suspect that Yoda could have taken Palpatine down. But the circumstances were not in his favor to begin with.
7) The final half hour of the film. I've raved about the fight sequences already, but the montages were excellent: the Jedi being cut down by their supposed allies, the cross-cutting of the twins' birth with Anakin's reconstruction into the Darth Vader we know (I forgave the "Nooooo!" although I thought a violent act would be more appropriate with so many expendable droids), and the final scenes that set up the original trilogy.
And I'm putting lots of space in here to block out spoilers...
Okay, that'll work.
The report was placed under Dr. Z's door by 4 pm Friday, so that chapter is now over. Yay.
Of course, recent events have made me re-think my decision to take a two-class semester in the fall in the interest of not self-destructing. If I have to go see a psychiatrist to confirm that I do have an anxiety disorder in order to get an extension on the five-year limit for getting a Master's, well, I suppose I'll have to do that.
Seriously. I need to re-evaluate my lifestyle. Not my life, my lifestyle, my inability to get all the little things done that I need to do when there's so much to get done. How long did it take to negate the Great Clean-Out of January? Not very long. I need to train myself to be able to manage my day-to-day life before I can take on that sort of courseload. I was lucky to have a group who all pulled their weight this semester. I can't guarantee that'll be the case for every class. Not to mention that if I do go for the house after the home inspection (unless they find something major), I'm going to have to seriously readjust my lifestyle. I've been getting better, but... well, it'll help to have some second opinio
Sawvioletbloom on Saturday; couldn't stick around for the tattoo interrogation, but I am pleased to hear that it went down so well.
Saturday night was spent at D&D. I have quotes, but not the time or wherewithal to post them. That is where the title quote came from. Maybe later, after the inspection and when I'm feeling a bit more sane.
honorh came up with a lovely fanfic explanation that satisfied my other major question).Cut because
mtgat begged the friends list to:Spoiler space, la la la...
Okay, the rant goes first.
Anakin goes to the dark side because he's afraid Padme's going to die. Okay. Fine.
Is there any real-time threat to her life that spurs this on? No. No threat of sickness - not even some complications, hell, we don't even see her deal with morning sickness, for crying out loud!
He has a recurring dream that she's going to die in childbirth. That's it.
Now, I get that it was a CONSTANT nightmare. I get that he had the same kind of premonition of his mother's death. But the movie failed to convince me that his fear was genuine and not just paranoia. All they had to do was have her in danger (or seemingly in danger) once in the movie, give us SOMETHING to base Anakin's fears upon aside from the damn Force-visions. Those, in fact, were not done well enough to convince me that they were that fear-inspiring.
Considering that this was one of the major reasons Anakin turned to the dark side, I just did not buy it. Betraying Mace Windu at the last second, I could believe. Going up against the rest of the Jedi Council, yes. But for him to have gone into the Jedi Temple and start cutting down "younglings" without a second thought, he would have had to be truly, utterly positive that Padme was going to die otherwise and the Force-dreams just did not resonate with enough certainty to make me believe that.
Anyway, before I get accused of dissing the movie, STUFF I LIKED:
1) Ewan McGregor. If anyone's appropriately tragic in this movie, it's Obi-Wan - the character I felt for more than any other. You could tell by the opening sequence that he had a fairly easy-going, trusting camaraderie with Anakin at that point, that he really did trust and care about his former padawan, which made Anakin's shift all the more painful. His dialogue with Anakin, telling him how proud he was of him before he went after Grievous, hurt so much because we knew what was coming. It did explain why he told Luke so little after telling Anakin too much, and his anguish upon realizing what Anakin had done was genuine.
2) The action sequences. I will issue a "Dramamine warning" for the opening sequence because parts of it will make you dizzy if you're prone to motion sickness. Having said that, the action sequences were awesome.
3) Jimmy Smits. He had maybe a dozen lines of dialogue as Bail Organa, and he used every second of his screen time to give his character more personality than a LOT of the myriad side characters in the movie. Wish he'd had more screen time to work with. And I appreciated the glimpse we got of Alderaan.
4) The way the Jedi purge went down. Palpatine programming the clones to eliminate the Jedi worked on two levels: first, it was a clever and ultimately plausible way to catch the Jedi off guard, and second, it was also plausible that the clones could have missed some. But it pretty much drove the point home that any stragglers would have to stay hidden. (Which makes all the undiscovered Jedi who occasionally popped up in the EU novels a bit easier to swallow.)
5) The mention of Qui-Gon at the very end. It was brief, and I'm not entirely sure how it was meant to tie into the original trilogy, but after sitting through most of the movie wondering if anyone was considering how Anakin's downfall would have broken Qui-Gon's heart it was nice to see a mention of him.
6) Yoda rules. Period. His battle with Palpatine was far better than the fight with Dooku in the last film, and it came to a draw convincingly. To be honest, with backup and without all the clone troopers gunning for Jedi, I suspect that Yoda could have taken Palpatine down. But the circumstances were not in his favor to begin with.
7) The final half hour of the film. I've raved about the fight sequences already, but the montages were excellent: the Jedi being cut down by their supposed allies, the cross-cutting of the twins' birth with Anakin's reconstruction into the Darth Vader we know (I forgave the "Nooooo!" although I thought a violent act would be more appropriate with so many expendable droids), and the final scenes that set up the original trilogy.
And I'm putting lots of space in here to block out spoilers...
Okay, that'll work.
The report was placed under Dr. Z's door by 4 pm Friday, so that chapter is now over. Yay.
Of course, recent events have made me re-think my decision to take a two-class semester in the fall in the interest of not self-destructing. If I have to go see a psychiatrist to confirm that I do have an anxiety disorder in order to get an extension on the five-year limit for getting a Master's, well, I suppose I'll have to do that.
Seriously. I need to re-evaluate my lifestyle. Not my life, my lifestyle, my inability to get all the little things done that I need to do when there's so much to get done. How long did it take to negate the Great Clean-Out of January? Not very long. I need to train myself to be able to manage my day-to-day life before I can take on that sort of courseload. I was lucky to have a group who all pulled their weight this semester. I can't guarantee that'll be the case for every class. Not to mention that if I do go for the house after the home inspection (unless they find something major), I'm going to have to seriously readjust my lifestyle. I've been getting better, but... well, it'll help to have some second opinio
Saw
violetbloom on Saturday; couldn't stick around for the tattoo interrogation, but I am pleased to hear that it went down so well.Saturday night was spent at D&D. I have quotes, but not the time or wherewithal to post them. That is where the title quote came from. Maybe later, after the inspection and when I'm feeling a bit more sane.
