I don't buy that for a second. And neither did Lucas. I know this technically doesn't count, but in an earlier draft of the Jedi script, Obi-wan actually says that Leia is taken away and hidden with her mother. Yes it was cut, but it shows that was the intent, and the "she communicated in the womb" crap is nothing more than a lame justification for poorly thought out plot points. Besides, Leia doesn't know about her powers, so wouldn't she be just a BIT weirded out about having memories of someone she never knew? And yet she tells Luke about her mother completely matter-of-factly. Bah.

The way I see it, it's too ambiguous, and completely avoidable by simply removing one throw-away line from the movie. But he couldn't resist the urge to pander (and the fans who eat up that kind of pandering with a spoon share some responsibility). Totally unnecessary and just another in a long list of pointless feel-good tie ins that raise too many cointinuity questions.

Yeah, no more spoiler tags. You have been warned!






I liked watching it. I know that the more I think about it the less I'll like it. There were some GREAT moments in there though. The "You were supposed to be the chosen one!" scene went way better than I thought it would. Anakin saying "I HATE YOU!" to Obi-Wan was incredible, right up there with Luke's "I'll never join you" moment in ESB. I admit it, I cried a bunch.

There were some very bothersome moments....the stuff that GD mentioned....Yoda saying "Not if anything to say about it, I have"??? Ugh. Padme naming the kids really hit me wrong - they should have had her mention it to Anakin before - "If it's a girl, Leia, if it's a boy, Luke" or something would have been way better than the way they did it.

Sorry Claire - I was annoyed that there was all this hype about Chewbacca being in the movie, and when he shows up, it's like hey, here's Chewbacca. He stands there and makes noise, not integral to the plot at all. Lucas put Mayhew back in costume, wow, what an achievement. :rolleyes:

I disagree with GD on Christensen's acting - I think he was way better this time and I found him believable. Palpatine/Emperor was awesome all the way though. I thought Portman was better but definitely the weakest in the movie.

More later....

I wasn't all that hyped up about it, but for some reason I played hookie yesterday and saw it yesterday morning at 9:30.

My thoughts -

The Anakin/Padme thing just doesn't do it for me. Every scene between them - except maybe the last - was really, really bad. Bad dialogue, bad acting. I think Portman was worse then Christensen.

Lots of plot holes and stupid things, like GD mentioned. Actually, the one that bugged me the most was when Yoda told Obi-Wan that he had learned to commune with Qui-gon. Well, if that's the case, why doesn't qui-gon ever appear with Yoda and Obi-wan later in Jedi? If it has to be learned, how does Anakin do it right after his death in Jedi? Anyway.....

I liked the special effects. I liked the slide of Anakin to the dark side - I thought that was done reasonable well, mostly because of the Chancellor.

General Grievous just didn't do it for me. Wasn't impressed.

Liked Obi-Wan vs. Anakin, liked Yoda vs. Sidious.

The movie didn't grab my attention until about an hour through. Unlike GD, who thought the first two hours were a waste, I only felt that way about the first hour. The last half hour was the only part of the movie I would call "great", though.

But it did what it had to do - showed how Anakin went to the dark side, how he became Vader (referring to the suit), how Yoda and Obi-Wan became the last two Jedi and were in hiding (although I did think many of the Jedi got their butts kicked too easily, specifically the three so easily dispatched by the Chancellor when it was 4 on 1, for goodness sake), how Luke and Leia got separated. Some of the things, like Chewbacca and Yoda being buddies but that not being apparent in the other episodes, or Leia having a remembrance of her mom, I could look past.

Worth seeing, because you have to see it. But nothing to see over and over.

Oh, that's an easy one. You only get the ghost thing if you die in front of Luke. That's actully the ultimate goal of Jedi training, to die in front of Luke. Just look at Obi-wan. Happily trading blows with Vader until, "Oh good, Luke's here, I get to die in front of him and get the cool ghost body!" and he puts away his saber. :D

Agreed about the Padme/Annie scenes. Nothing good about them.

And agreed about Jedi dying too easily. Why was Yoda the only one who sensed the ambush? The ones they showed getting ambushed were all masters and all on the council, there were powerful Jedi. And a couple freaking Storm Troopers got them from behind? Storm Troopers!!!! Lame.

Chewbacca sees Obi-Wan training Luke on the Falcon, he KNOWS he's a Jedi, and Chewie didn't even give a, "Hey, do you know what happened to that Yoda dude?" Lame.

Oh, and freaking midichlorians! I thought we were done with those. Grrr.

So your issue is really with having Chewie in the movie at all, or for that matter any of the wookies given the totally non-involved way it was done.

I'm with you on that. All the wookie scenes just seemed out of place and forced. They should have been pivotal to the plot or Chewie should have had a cameo as a senator or some such.

Christensen does "angry eyes" well. That's about all that what was called for in this movie so he came off well :)

That's brought up in Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, and as much as I love them, I'm one of those who believes in strict canon - if it's not in the movies, it doesn't count. And even if you want to include those in the story, Leia is force sensitive, so you get the impression that she can communicate with her twins because of her tapping into the force, not because of the babies. Padme is not force sensitive, so she wouldn't be able to reach out to her babies in the same way. I forgot to look for the eyes open/eyes closed thing when I saw it again last night - I'll have to try to remember next time. (But I did see the Falcon this time!) But, Leia doesn't show any Jedi abilities at all until very much later, so it's not believable to think that as a newborn or younger, she could communicate with her mother.

I think it works much better for the story for Padme to die. It's the line from Jedi that needed not to exist.


ETA: re: Anakin's "angry eyes" thing:

I noticed that they used the technique of making him mostly looking up at people, even if it meant tilting his head down. That way, you see lots more of the whites of his eyes, making him look scarier.

Obi-Won was in no shape to face Vader and he knew it. As soon as he felt Vaders presence he admitted defeat to himself. His goal was to get Luke off the Death Star. All he had to do was keep Vadar talking long enough to distract everyone and let Luke get on the ship. But dumbass farm boy decides to take on the entire imperial army in an attempt to save Ben. Ben then gives up the fight so that Luke will run away. After all if you give an entire room full of stormtroops enough time eventually even they will be able to hit something the size of a person.

In Sith, we learn that Obi-Won has spent the last 20 years or so studying how to be a ghost. That's why he is able to go from corporal to ghost on the spot and talk to Luke seconds later. All the rest of the Jedi at least left a body behind.

Was it just GD and I, or was did it feel weird to have them talk about pregnancy and babies in Star Wars? I think it's just because they've never faced that kind of stuff before. Padme being visibly pregnant without a visible husband - was that taboo in Naboo? (Heh.) Did Obi-Wan always realize that Ani was the father? If he did, how come he didn't kick Ani's ass for falling in love etc? If he didn't figure it out, he's a sucky Jedi.

I LOVED that Anakin kills children. LOVED IT! No sarcasm here. That was wonderfully heavy, awesome stuff. Claire, was Cassidy ok with that? That part where a young Jedi goes out fighting is awesome.

The cutting down of the Jedi was rather moving but I really wish that they had shown them fighting for their lives. Or at least, had like 50 guys ambush each of them instead of just 3. They made the Jedi look too vulnerable for my taste. I would have dug it if they cut the opening battle in half and spent that time showing individual Jedi battles.

I loved the idea that Anakin thinks he's fighting for freedom and justice. That he's the one that causes Padme's death. And then he's stuck with the darkside. That moment when he's roboticized and first thing he says "how is Padme"....freaked me out. I could have done with some masked Vader stuff - I was hoping we'd see more of him in that state.

In the end I'm annoyed that these movies exist, as they undermine the originals no matter what you do. Even though they did a great job of blending the technologies - I am a SW vehicle fan, so seeing them develop was cool - at the end when you see Vader's Star Destroyer bridge with red and white lights and black buttons, it just doesn't make sense (think of the controls of all the ships we've seen)....although I admit it was awesome to see anyway. ;)