Revenge of the Sith

[emmagrant01]

Okay, I saw it! After a long month, I took off my red ROTS wristband, which I've been wearing since Celebration III. *sigh* Time to read the novelisation.

ETA: I haven't read the book yet, so these are my reflections just from seeing the film. I've been told by several people that reading the book helps a lot, but my criticisms below still stand -- I should have been able to see these things in the film.

So, what did I think?


WHAT I LOVED:

• Ewan McGregor! I just can't say enough about his performance. OMG -- he is Obi-Wan! And so, so sexy, dude. His performance was natural and nuanced, full of humor and spirit. Love, love, love him. Oh, and the hair falling into his eyes when he fights... Fucking GUH.
  
• The Obi/Ani slash potential! It was so slashy even my husband noticed it! Obi hanging on to Ani in the elevator shaft, Ani refusing to leave him when he was injured, the playful banter betwen them, Obi begging Yoda not to send him after Anakin, Obi's heartbroken "I loved you!" *sigh* So angsty!
  
• The camaraderie between Obi-Wan and Anakin at the beginning of the film. They're truly friends and partners in that way you imagine Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon might have been if Qui hadn't died. It helps to set up Anakin's betrayal later in the film, and it really makes it clear that Obi-Wan's words about Anakin to Luke in Ep 4 are absolutely the truth.
  
• R2-D2 absolutely ROCKS! And the fact that his memory wasn't wiped at the end, while C-3PO's was -- wow! That casts the character of R2 in the OT in a whole new light!
  
• Anakin: If you're not with me... [long enough pause for the audience to think "you're against me"] ... you're my enemy.
  Obi-Wan: Only a Sith thinks in such absolutes.
  Mwahahaha! I love you, George Lucas! Darth Bush... Heh.
  
• Tarkin! Chewbacca saving Yoda! Bail! And Bail's ship! And Bail! There's some lovely potential for Obi/Bail H/C fic in there!
  
• Hint at an Obi/Padme/Ani love triangle. Oh, the fic possibilities!!!
  
• That moment of panic on Anakin's face just before the mask goes on... So cool. There's almost a moment when you see him realize what he's done, what he's lost. Very cool.
  
• The destruct code built into the clones -- I didn't see that one coming! Fantastic!
  
• The special effects were absolutely wonderful, particularly in the battle scene at the beginning. There was so much to look at!
  
• Padme's funeral. That was a really nice touch.
  
• A mention of Quinlan Vos!!! *squees*
  
• I got such huge chills when the scroll started!
  
• Anakin's injuries -- limbs severed, burned alive -- wow, so gruesome! I don't know if I was supposed to, but I felt really badly for him there, and I was unhappy that Obi-Wan turned and walked away from him. And the scenes of him going into the suit... Wow. Wrenching. And it showed how utterly heartless Palpatine was, and highlighted the difference between him and Anakin.
  
• My transformation into an Obi/Ani shipper is now complete. Holy fuck, I need some FIC!!!!
  

WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE SO MUCH:

• I have been waiting since 1980 to learn what could have possibly happened to turn Anakin to the Dark Side. I always thought it would be something he'd do because Padme was being threatened, analogous to how Palpatine's threats against his friends nearly turned Luke in ROTJ. But the way it played out... I just didn't buy it, you know? Anakin turned too quickly, and all because he was having dreams about how Padme might die? One moment, he's telling Mace he can't kill Palpatine because it's not the Jedi way, and two minutes later, he's swearing his allegiance to Darth Sidious. Just... no. He comes across as a little loony. I'm sorry, I wanted much, much more of a dramatic turn than that.
  
• Vader asking about Padme at the end and screaming "Noooooo!!!" when he found out she was dead... ack, no. That's just not right! By the time he's completely turned, I thought he would no longer care about such things as love. He'd already pushed Padme away and strangled her, after all. I guess there had to be an acknowledgement of her death, but still... I dunno. I guess I'm contradicting something I said I loved above.
  
• Why did Padme die immediately after giving birth? Doesn't Leia say in ROTJ that she remembers her? There's a bit in the novelisation about Leia remembering her mother was very beautiful, hiding in a trunk, stuff like that. So what's up with that?
  
• And Padme fucking dies of a broken heart? What?!? I wanted her to have a more honorable death than that! For example, I really, really wanted Anakin to kill her in a jealous rage, completing his transition to the Dark Side. I thought I was going to get it for a minute there... When they said, "She's perfectly healthy, but she seems to have lost the will to live," I was like, WTF? She's got two beautiful little babies! How could she have lost the will to live??? What kind of mother is she? Actually, my husband has a theory on this. He thinks that Anakin somehow bound himself to her, so at the moment will Anakin truly died, she also had to die.
  
• A woman who looks six months pregnant cannot suddenly give birth to full-term twins. Nuff said.
  
• Cheesy romance dialogue. *shudders*
  
• I thought Yoda gave up far too easily. Is it just me?
  
• I wanted this movie to be much, much darker than it was.
  
• I really wanted to see some genuine anguish from Yoda and Obi when they returned to the Temple. I mean, they're walking around, and there are dead Jedi everywhere, and... nothing. Jedi are serene, but that's ridiculous!
  
• What happened to Mon Mothma??? I thought she was going to be in the movie!! I saw pictures of her!
  
• I knew it was coming, but the last thing Yoda says to Obi about "teaching him to commune with Qui-Gon" had me groaning. I just knew Q/O OTPers everywhere were cheering at that. So much for getting lots of cool Obi/Ani fic...
  

I'll add more stuff to this list as I think of it. Feel free to add your own thoughts below!



And OMG if you have not yet seen the video clip of Ewan and Hayden kissing, darthmyrrh has a link to it HERE.

Am now off to read some lovely Ewan/Hayden RPS over on ewan_hayden. Shhhh...

Comments

[aloverestrained.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you said. The only thing I'd add is that Hayden is just.....not very good.

I was cringing at the forced lines.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought he was pretty good in this one! :-P

[frenzied.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read Othello? The entire Anakin deal just absolutely smacks of it. From the jealousy to the realization at the end- I thought it was enough that I could reconcile that as a possible reason, even if I didn't like it very much.

I wrote a much longer bit about that in my journal :p

the Noooo! thing was absolute crap, I agree. i hadn't thought about the Bush thing. THAT is great! :p

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Othello since junior high! Maybe I should check out the Cliff Notes...

I swear that was a Bush reference. It just couldn't have been an accident!

[jedi-diplomat.livejournal.com]

I knew it was coming, but the last thing Yoda says to Obi about "teaching him to commune with Qui-Gon" had me groaning. I just knew Q/O OTPers everywhere were cheering at that. So much for getting lots of cool Obi/Ani fic...


That was the one thing I really really didn't like about the movie. It felt to me like a shout out to Liam Neeson. Like "well, he was supposed to be here, but then he got hit by a deer so, well, we'll give him a shout out anyway."

Oh, and what's up with everyone obviously thinking Obi-Wan can't handle loss? Qui-Gon dies and tells Obi-Wan to train Anakin, so he'd have something to do. Obi-Wan kills Anakin and immediately Yoda says "well, I want you to do some trianing out there in the desert. Find out how to be immortal." Perhaps, Anakin and Obi-Wan have the same problem with letting go?

The downfall of Anakin didn't bother me that much. In Ep2 he was already disenchanted with the Republic, telling Padme that a dictatorship would work better. Sidious was planting the seeds of doubt in his head, look at how the Jedi treat you, they don't trust me, everything that happened, could be seen from either point of view. Sidious' or the Jedi's. I think the turning point was when Mace was going to put Palpatine under arrest, then decided that no, he's too dangerous we need to kill him. Anakin, who thinks in absolutes only. Everything is black and white to him, can't reconcile that with the Jedi he was brought up to rever. He seems them as corrupt, everything that Sidious was telling him was true when Mace said that.

Remember, he was a slave for most of his early life. He was brought up around corruption and tough characters where strength was probably valued over diplomacy and talking. He saw first hand how corrupt the world around him was. He also lived with the fear that at anytime he or his mother could be sold away, split up forever. He probably saw that quite a bit with his friends. It's no wonder he would do anything, to keep Padme around with him. I thought the acting was much better this time around. Hayden did a good job of showing the conflict within him using body and facial language. And no erotic nightmares of deaths to come.

I thought it was interesting that the dreams Anakin was having could simply have been Padme giving birth to the twins. Not dying, he infers that himself from the experience of his mother. He obsesses over it, when in reality, it could have been a joyful thing. Him seeing the future where Obi-Wan knows of their marriage and approves. Even helps Padme give birth. I wonder if Anakin had ever seen childbirth before, to know that pain is a natural part of it (unless you get the good drugs) but by obsessing over it so much, he made that reality come true. Focus determines your reality right?

Anyway, just my two cents.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Good points, all. I really need to read the book! I think lots of the things that are bugging me will make more sense if I do. :-P

I thought it was interesting that the dreams Anakin was having could simply have been Padme giving birth to the twins. Not dying, he infers that himself from the experience of his mother.

Oooh, excellent point! Wow! I need to let that one sink in a bit...

[sullacat.livejournal.com]

Doesn't Leia say in ROTJ that she remembers her?
I asked the same question way back last November and a couple of others, namely...

1) Do the aunt and uncle on Tatooine know about Anakin's fate? Or do they just think he died?
2) Obi says to Luke that he hasn't been called that name ('Obi') since before he (Luke) was born - is this melodrama, or is that an accurate statement?
3) Were all the storm troopers Jango Fett clones, or at some point did they use someone else, for nice fresh DNA - otherwise, wouldn't all Storm Troopers be of identical height? Were there different versions?
4) Did Obi settle on Tatooine to watch over Luke? This makes me so sad to think about.
5) At what point did Vader realize who Luke was, cause I don't think he really did in the first movie.


Sadly, no one on my flist at the time was able to help me (or gave a rat's ass).

Going to see the movie tomorrow, so I might have an answer or two, eh? :D

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Guess you're not worried about spoilers, huh? ;-)

[awaywithpixie.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Could not agree more. Although we all agreed that Bail was rather effeminate.

Have you read the novelisation? It makes the whole Yoda giving up thing make a whole not more sense.

Yeah, the Padme death thing stinks... I find it surprising that apparently nobody noticed her pregnancy except for Obi-Wan. I got the impression Bail didn't know either.

And yes Alderaan was peaceful... and beautiful.

And R2D2 is the man!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book yet, though I clearly need to.

It makes the whole Yoda giving up thing make a whole not more sense.

Is that a typo, or are you being sarcastic? I can't tell! :-P

Yes, a glimpse of Alderaan!

[prestonsbarr.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you said.. Lucas made an awesome story, but not so good with the love scenes. I really wanted to cry when Obi was crying to Ani about being the chosen one. Ewan did an amazing job.

I didn't think Ani would drop all caring thoughts once he turned. Sith build upon their hate for strength, and if you didn't care about something, you couldn't hate either, right?

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Interesting thoughts. jedirita posted something on her LJ about Anakin making a conscious choice to turn, which I think is interesting. It wasn't at all obvious to me in the film.

[julia-aka-jj.livejournal.com]

The elevator scene... I nearly drew blood biting my fist while attempting not to shriek in delight. It was just so natural for Obi to whirl around and latch onto Anakin's back. Lots of clutching and full-body touching. Seriously, he was clinging to him like a second skin!

Then the, "I loved you!"... and Anakin replies, "I hate you."

*deep breath*

I think I'm finally ready for my first real dose of Obi/Anakin slash.

I actually liked the reference to Qui-Gon. Now we know why Yoda and Obi-Wan get to be blue-glowy after death and no one else does... It kind of (note: kind of) redeems Qui-Gon's mistake in bringing armageddon!Anakin into the Jedi Order. It's also rather ironic; Anakin turned while seeking a way to cheat death, but the Jedi found their own (better) way. We also don't feel quite so bad for Obi-Wan having to sit in solitude for 20 yrs as Luke grows. We know that Qui-Gon was with him, teaching him.

Padme's costumes are always a great joy for me as I am a costume-buff, but Natalie (always) butchers her scenes. I stand by my opinion that her best acting is when she doesn't speak, because her expressions can be very good.

Order 66 just about killed me. I had the trembling-lip thing going on, the tear-ducts were getting ready to spill... I just about lost it. And the entire last ten minutes of the movie too.

I have more to say, but I'll save that for my own lj once I've gathered my thoughts. They are still pretty skattered.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Re: Obi/Ani slash -- yes!

Re: Natalie's acting -- amberleewriter has a great post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/amberleewriter/81464.html) about the film, and she blames this on the editing. She points out that in the book (and in scenes she knows were filmed), Padme played a much greater role than she does in the final cut.

But I really thought she was wonderful, actually!

Re: blueghost stuff -- I was hoping for more of an explanation of that. It kind of got left as a cliffhanger, which bugged me. But I guess it's setting the stage for the books?

[julia-aka-jj.livejournal.com]

In response to the Padme dying discussion, I'm cross-posting this from theforce.net because it about sums up why it was important to kill Padme then and there regardless of inaccuracies.

My personal opinion is, Lucas preferred to have Padme die at the end of ROTS for three reasons. One, it's more dramatic to have her die than live on. There would be no way to explain her death later on (the movie was ending), so her death would be left unexplained. Two, it makes her death more poignant because it comes as a direct result of Anakin's behavior. Three, it gives Anakin a chance to react to the news on screen (although I suppose it's possible she could have lived and Palpatine could have simply lied to him).

This explanation of seeing/feeling things through the Force strikes me as much more of an afterthought. I'd be willing to put money down that in 1983 Padme's death was not intended as an at-child-birth event.

Also, some have hypothesized about Force-feelings, etc being passed between the two b/c Padme touched Leia after her birth, but not Luke (though I can't remember).

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I'm a bit cynical, though... ;-)

[jexay.livejournal.com]

Yes to ewan_hayden. I blame Ani's RPS fic Going Out With A Bang (http://www.livejournal.com/users/lennongirl/584298.html) because it made me into a full fledged Ewan/Hayden fanboi. Then she starts the comm... I had to be there! XD

Er, sorry I didn't read your post... Haven't seen it yet. Hopefully this weekend! Aiee! XD

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing me to that fic! :-D

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I so agree with you on the slash and Padmé's stupid death. I'd write a lot more, but it's VERY late at night here. Say, you wouldn't cross-post this at echostation, er, would you? Please? pretty please?

*bats eyelashes*

*thinks slashy Obi-Ani thoughts*

[zahavah.livejournal.com]

i agree 100%. although i thought the switch to the dark side was.... well, his decision to kill windu was perfect.. with the "I NEED HIM." i totally believed it. although, er, "I WILL DO ANYTHING YOU ASK OF ME" was a bit much.

i felt like they were feeding into too many established star wars cliches.. yoda's speech, saying "may the force be with you" all the time, etc...

obi wan at the end? yelling at anakin? yeah, okay. i cried. :X

i got horribly depressed about half-way through... i realized that, no matter WHAT i yelled at the screen, anakin was turning into darth vader, god dammit. :((

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, but you knew that walking in, didn't you?

[jane-sehrn-ta.livejournal.com]

I share a lot of your thoughts and commented on them in my journal. I have to say that I was most devastated by the un-Jedi-like way that Obi-Wan turned his back on Anakin and left him to suffer so horribly. For someone you once loved and considered a brother, no matter what, I felt he would have had more compassion, even if it was just to give him a quick and painless end with the 'saber. I thought this was so out of character for Obi-Wan, it's the one thing that will always haunt me about this film. I thought it was totally heartless. It seems that Palpy might have been right about the selfishness of the Jedi... according to Lucas.

[charlotteschaos.livejournal.com]

That really bothered me, too. I realize that killing Ani would've been hard and clearly inconvenient to the plot... but maybe if he hadn't been writing and crying when he walked off? If he'd just looked like he was dead... but he just... left him?

[spacetweenears.livejournal.com]

YES, I loved this movie. I love Ewan McGregor and that slashy kiss is, well, just YUM!!!

And, I'm in agreement with your comments.

I will have to re-watch the original trilogy just for the R2D2 perspective of no memory loss.

Now meditate I must on when see this in the theater again I will.

[vichan.livejournal.com]

Mwahahaha! I love you, George Lucas! Darth Bush... Heh.
BWAHA! Five minutes after me and my sis got out of the movie, we were making the same comparisons, although Palpatine was George Bush and Anakin was the United States.

My transformation into an Obi/Ani shipper is now complete. Holy fuck, I need some FIC!!!!
My sister knows my obsessions, and she could not stop giggling at me in the very beginning of the movie, when I was wriggling around my seat. The part when they were in the elevator? I don't know why, but the sight of Obi hanging onto Ani so tightly... *die*


p.s. You probably already have, but have you seen this? Even if you don't know Spike, it's worth a three minute read. :]
(Gawd, I'm pimping this to everyone and their mother.)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yeah, everyone's pimping that! *grins*

[lil-litworm.livejournal.com]

I <3 the movie! Granted it had things I didn't like *cough*Padme's scenes*cough* but overall I loved it. And I liked the reference to Qui-Gon! But seriously, you all MUST read the novelization. Everything makes soooo much more sense after you read it. I cheated and read it before I saw the movie, lol, so those abrupt transitions didn't bother me as much.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I do plan to read it, but I still think the movie could have made all of that stuff a bit clearer. On the other hand, maybe it was perfectly clear for people who aren't overanalyzers like me! :-P

Gah!

[hdzink.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on everything. After I saw the movie I was at the book store casually looking at the ROTS books and I was like Oh! Mon Mothma, wait where the Fuck was Mon Mothma she wasn't in the movie at all!? Obi is the shit, I could just die. And I can understand why Padme had to die at the end of the movie, but it was really confusing for me because at the funeral they showed a little girl (did anyone see that) was that supposed to be Leia, but then they showed her as a baby on Alderran with Bail; very confusing and frustrating. Overall the movie Rocked, and is begging for all kinds of yummy slash action. Oh! and R2 is freaking hard core setting the droids on fire, OMG I thought I was gonna die.

And that kiss Ewan/Hayden totally hot, although I was hoping for a little more making out, perhaps some groping.

Re: Gah!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I think the little girl they showed was Padme's little sister. She was walking with Padme's parents. She's in the novelization and a deleted scene of AOTC. But I don't know that for sure.

At any rate, Leia wouldn't have been there without Bail, right?

[eristeleute.livejournal.com]

Two (hopefully) quick comments. It's 4:40am and I desperately need to sleep. :)

First, when Leia remembers her "mother" she's remembering her adoptive mother, or so went the consensus tonight when we were discussing the same reference. Leia wasn't even supposed to know she was adopted (although, from looking at Leia and her adoptive parents, it would seem obvious they weren't her *biological* parents, but perhaps that was just the casting). According to the books, her adoptive mother dies while she is quite young.

Second, I actually really appreciated the characterization of Anakin's shift to the dark side. Yes, it was somewhat abrupt. But I loved the way that Palpatine forced the Jedis' hands at every turn, as well as how small comments and occurrences coalesced to prompt the change. For example, Obi's and Yoda's ignorance (HOW???) of his relationship with Padme meant that Yoda said the *wrong thing* with respect to Anakin's fear of losing her. Then, when you consider the complete mind fuck Palpatine orchestrates in order to turn Anakin against his closest friends and allies and into a tool for himself... Gah. I agree that it was somewhat abrupt, but I felt that Palpatine played on that indecisiveness and darkness - the balance of good and light, even - in Anakin to mold him to his own will. I was impressed.

Feel free to respond. I'm interested in your perception of Anakin's demise. :)

PS: Please also excuse any misspellings or grammatical errors. After the movie, we all went out to a bar and geeked ourselves out. :)

Leia's mother

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

This is all I have time to comment on this morning, but I just had to go grab the novelization of ROTJ to make sure I wasn't remembering it incorrectly.

From the book:

He [Luke] looked down at their intertwined fingers. "Leia... dp you remember your mothr? Your real mother?"

The question took her totally by surprise. She'd always felt so close to her adopted parents, it was as if they were her real parents. She almost never thought of her real mother -- thaht was like a dream.

Yet now Luke's question made her start. Flashes from her infancy assaulted her -- distorted visions of running... a beautiful woman... hiding in a trunk. The fragments threatened to flood her with emotion.

"Yes," she said, pausing to regain her composure. "Just a little bit. She died when I was very young."

"What do you remember?" he pressed. "Tell me."

"Just feelings, really... images." She wanted to let it slide, it was so out of the blue, so far from her imediate concerns... but somehow all loud inside, all of a sudden.

"Tell me," Luke repeated.

She felt surprised by his insistence, but decided to follow him it, at least for the time being. She trusted him, even when he frightened her. "She was very beautiful," Leia remembered aloud. "Gentle and kind -- but sad." She looked deeply into his eyes, seeking his intentions. "Why are you asking me this?"

+++

So that could certainly be interpreted in a few different ways, but I don't think the woman she's remembering here is her adoptive mother. Her mind is definitely differentiating between the two. There are other explanations, and as someone else has commented above, people have been talking about this on various SW boards since the book came out.

And there's always the explanation the hard core fans don't like: GL simply decided to contradict something from the OT because he like the way it made his story turn out, and the fact that it's a contradiction doesn't really bother him. There are TONS of contradictions between the two now: for example, Obi-Wan telling Luke that Anakin never knew Padme was pregnant, Owen Lars being Obi-Wan's brother, etc. -- now the only explanation for those is that Obi-Wan was either blindly guessing or lying, either of which seems a little OOC. *shrugs* It's all just part of the GL game, at this point.

[charlotteschaos.livejournal.com]

I started to respond to you here, but it got a bazillion characters too long so I posted it in my LJ :)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

So you did! *grins*

[lennongirl.livejournal.com]

Random hello :D

My transformation into an Obi/Ani shipper is now complete. Holy fuck, I need some FIC!!!!

So... will you write?
*wibbles*

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

*grins* The bunnies are attacking me with lightsabers, at this point. Of course, I am in the middle of a rather *coughs* large project at the moment, so it'll be a while.

But I wrote this (http://www.queerasjedi.com/emma/tpmfic/patience.html) about a year ago... ;-)

[roastchicken.livejournal.com]

Good stuff, I agree with pretty much everything you said. The biggest bother, to me, was Anakin's rapid descent into darkness...I understand what was going through his head, but there just didn't seem to be enough agonizing about it, at least not where we could hear it. But overall, I thought Hayden acted pretty well. And my God, I guess I should have been expecting it, knowing the depth of darkness in Darth Vader, but my hands covered my mouth for a good 15 minutes after Anakin killed the kiddies. That was just...wow. I couldn't believe.
Amen to Darth Bush, Obi's hotness, R2 and Yoda's awesomeness (the crowd I was in burst out laughing and into applause when he disposed of Palpatine's guards so easily), and yay for Padme's one excellent line: "This is how liberty dies...to thunderous applause."
Genius.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wanted to see more of Anakin's descent. I felt a bit cheated there, actually...

Twins

[(Anonymous)]

A woman who looks six months pregnant cannot suddenly give birth to full-term twins. Nuff said.

Actually, twins are born much earlier than normal babies. I think it's... 29 weeks or something? My sister's only 7 months pregnant and they're ready to be born. Still... they were big babies, weren't they?

Cara

Re: Twins

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

This person (http://www.livejournal.com/users/charlotteschaos/202503.html) explains it better than I can. Suffice it to say those two babies were not preemies by any stretch of the imagination! And women carrying twins usually *look* full term at 7 months. Padme just... didn't.

[assassinofjoy.livejournal.com]

EEP! I can't wait! I'm going next weekend with my pal Scott. We're both such utter Lucas-geeks, the last two movies left us so disappointed, and the buzz about "Revenge" has been so good that we've been crossing our fingers for the last month *lip twitches*

In truth, I just wanna see it to hear James Earl Jones' voice through that mask again (<--- 85% of the reason for my crushing on Darth Vader at age 5 *grins*). I'm glad Ewan did a good job -- like I ever thought the man *couldn't* -- he's one of the few reasons I was able to sit through "Phantom Menace" and "Clones," and he plays the role wonderfully. Ewan's made Obi age gracefully throughout the prequels, from headstrong apprentice to weary Jedi master. Plus the man's just tasty.

You know, I envy the children that'll get to watch the movies in the original order. For us, Darth Vader was a sophisticated, emotionless monster that all but popped out of nowhere. For the kids, they're going to be biting their nails, wandering "When is Luke gonna find out?" Too, too cool.

PS: Even the elusive Mr. Grant saw the Obi/Anakin slash potential, eh? Niiiice *rubs hands in glee*

ROTS

[terk0811.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with everything you said, especially about the transition, but take in consideration that he did watch his mother die and that affected him to such a degree that the thought of Padme dying drove him to the edge, the death of his mother took him there but Padme's death sealed it. But I do agree the transition was way to quick but I assumed that the episode was a 9 month span, from conception til the birth, plus the movie was quite long anyway (not to say thats a bad thing, cause i absolutely love Ewan) but people would get impatient.

PS. When Ewans hair falls into his eyes I thought I was going to die, it was so fucking hott!

[shudaizi.livejournal.com]

One moment, he's telling Mace he can't kill Palpatine because it's not the Jedi way, and two minutes later, he's swearing his allegiance to Darth Sidious. Just... no. He comes across as a little loony. I'm sorry, I wanted much, much more of a dramatic turn than that.

I guess we're supposed to get the idea that Palpatine has been cultivating Anakin for much longer. Still, I agree. It was just one minute I'm a good Jedi! The next, I'm the new Big Bad! Hello! How about giving it some thought? Why would you believe the emporor over Obi-Wan whom you've been closer to than family for so long? What had Obi-Wan ever done to make Anakin even consider that he would betray him? The whole thing was rushed. I could go on more, but I am sure Im just repeating things others have said.

[knotty-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thanks for a fab summary - I agree with most of your points. I think the bit that bugged me most was "Tarzan Wookiee" - although Padme's "huge twins from a tiny bump" came a close second. Still absolutely loved the movie, tho'. *cheesy grin*

Leia's mother - I'm assuming she meant her adopted mother, Bail's wife. Even if she knew she was adopted, that woman was still 'her mother' in all but one meaning of the word. Of course, Bail and wife had to adopt 'cos Bail's in love with Obi... :)