SW thoughts
Apr. 7th, 2008 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilIt's been a while since I watched the prequel trilogy straight through. I tend to just watch Episode II over and over and over.... ;) I'd forgotten just how painful it is to watch Anakin change from a sweet little kid to a conflicted but principled young man to a complete slave of the Dark Side. :(
And I really ache for every one of the characters (except Palpatine the slimy snake) as they have to face the collapse of everything they care about. I'm quite aware of the flaws of the Jedi Order in general, and of particular Jedi like Mace and Yoda and Obi-Wan. They make mistakes, some pretty massive ones. But they are trying to do the right thing, as best as they can tell. They pay dearly for their shortsightedness.
I see Obi-Wan on Mustafar, driving the last nails into the coffin of his friendship with Anakin, and it just kills me. The thing is, if Obi-Wan were veering toward the Dark Side, the best thing to pull him back would be to appeal to his rationality and logic. That's why he tries to reason with Anakin. After all these years he just doesn't get that Anakin works on an emotional level. He doesn't know that he's further sabotaging his relationship with Anakin. And when he's defeated Anakin, I can see the vicious conflict in his mind - the Jedi's duty to destroy the Sith versus his love for Anakin. And in the end he can't kill him. I think from the moment he chops off Anakin's limbs, he wants nothing more than to flee so he doesn't have to continue watching his old friend die in agony. He forces himself to stay to ensure that he's done his duty, but he simply can't keep watching. He can't finish the job. True, his Jedi duty wins out enough that he doesn't bring Anakin back to the ship for medical care - but he's not remotely happy about it. I figure he was haunted by the image of Anakin in flames for the rest of his life.
While watching Epsiode II, I got the idea for an AU fan fic. I don't know if I dare start it, seeing how my last attempt at an AU (Dooku kills Palpatine at the start of Episode III) kind of died before I figured out how to finish it. But the idea is in my head now, and it probably won't go away till I write it. ;)
Sure way to get me to cry: Hearing Padmé plead with Anakin to come away with her in Episode III, and then immediately watching Episode VI and hearing Luke say the same thing. Can you imagine how that must have affected Vader? I'm sure at least a part of him had spent all those Sithly years wishing he had heeded Padmé's plea, seeing as how that probably would have prevented her death, which he would have always blamed himself for. :sob: That's why he says "It is too late for me" rather than "No thanks, I'd rather stay with my wrinkly old master." He's not happy in the Dark Side; he's deeply, deeply miserable, but he sees no way out. Then Luke shows him the way. :D I love how Luke and Leia aren't just copies of their father and mother, respectively. They both have aspects of both parents. Luke is a Jedi like is father before him, but he is also very much his mother's son. "There is good in him," the notion passed on to Luke like a birthright.
A image that never fails to give me chills: Anakin's mechanical hand, feebly grasping the earth, trying to pull his mutilated form upwards. :shudder: It was pretty much burned into my memory for months after first seeing Episode III. It just expresses so much, visually, of what Anakin has become emotionally - stripped of everything he valued, but still clutching onto the sad remains of his life as if to spite the universe. And of all the sequences in the saga of cutting back and forth between two events, none is more compelling to me than the birth of Vader/death of Anakin intercut with the birth of the twins/death of Padmé. It's just so perfectly, poetically painful.
I like Star Wars. :D
And I really ache for every one of the characters (except Palpatine the slimy snake) as they have to face the collapse of everything they care about. I'm quite aware of the flaws of the Jedi Order in general, and of particular Jedi like Mace and Yoda and Obi-Wan. They make mistakes, some pretty massive ones. But they are trying to do the right thing, as best as they can tell. They pay dearly for their shortsightedness.
I see Obi-Wan on Mustafar, driving the last nails into the coffin of his friendship with Anakin, and it just kills me. The thing is, if Obi-Wan were veering toward the Dark Side, the best thing to pull him back would be to appeal to his rationality and logic. That's why he tries to reason with Anakin. After all these years he just doesn't get that Anakin works on an emotional level. He doesn't know that he's further sabotaging his relationship with Anakin. And when he's defeated Anakin, I can see the vicious conflict in his mind - the Jedi's duty to destroy the Sith versus his love for Anakin. And in the end he can't kill him. I think from the moment he chops off Anakin's limbs, he wants nothing more than to flee so he doesn't have to continue watching his old friend die in agony. He forces himself to stay to ensure that he's done his duty, but he simply can't keep watching. He can't finish the job. True, his Jedi duty wins out enough that he doesn't bring Anakin back to the ship for medical care - but he's not remotely happy about it. I figure he was haunted by the image of Anakin in flames for the rest of his life.
While watching Epsiode II, I got the idea for an AU fan fic. I don't know if I dare start it, seeing how my last attempt at an AU (Dooku kills Palpatine at the start of Episode III) kind of died before I figured out how to finish it. But the idea is in my head now, and it probably won't go away till I write it. ;)
Sure way to get me to cry: Hearing Padmé plead with Anakin to come away with her in Episode III, and then immediately watching Episode VI and hearing Luke say the same thing. Can you imagine how that must have affected Vader? I'm sure at least a part of him had spent all those Sithly years wishing he had heeded Padmé's plea, seeing as how that probably would have prevented her death, which he would have always blamed himself for. :sob: That's why he says "It is too late for me" rather than "No thanks, I'd rather stay with my wrinkly old master." He's not happy in the Dark Side; he's deeply, deeply miserable, but he sees no way out. Then Luke shows him the way. :D I love how Luke and Leia aren't just copies of their father and mother, respectively. They both have aspects of both parents. Luke is a Jedi like is father before him, but he is also very much his mother's son. "There is good in him," the notion passed on to Luke like a birthright.
A image that never fails to give me chills: Anakin's mechanical hand, feebly grasping the earth, trying to pull his mutilated form upwards. :shudder: It was pretty much burned into my memory for months after first seeing Episode III. It just expresses so much, visually, of what Anakin has become emotionally - stripped of everything he valued, but still clutching onto the sad remains of his life as if to spite the universe. And of all the sequences in the saga of cutting back and forth between two events, none is more compelling to me than the birth of Vader/death of Anakin intercut with the birth of the twins/death of Padmé. It's just so perfectly, poetically painful.
I like Star Wars. :D
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Date: 2008-04-07 09:42 pm (UTC)The image of what's left of Anakin dragging himself back up the slope with his mechanical hand also struck me at the time, although I've perhaps seen it more as "the machine saves him..." Maybe now the thought can be "the machine (almost all that's left to him) saves him."
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Date: 2008-04-08 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:13 am (UTC)