I think a lot of the critiques of the prequels aren't fair.
In particular, I am baffled by the view expressed in this thread that the films didn't show enough of the Clone Wars. The films showed four large battles in detail (Geonosis, Coruscant, Kashyk, and Utapah), and a little of some others in the Order 66 sequence.
Scardoll: Knightsof The Old Republic. If you listen to the Sand People historian.
You know, I'd really like to see discussions from pre-Phantom Menace era regarding what Anakin Skywalker was like. The speculation, what his life was, the theories on what happened to him to make turn to the dark side, etc. Whatever they were, I'm sure they were more interesting than what we got.
I think to me it would have been more interesting to see the personalities of Obi-Wan and Anakin flipped somewhat. Make Kenobi the one who's too sure of himself, too confident, too convinced that he's the best possible teacher for Skywalker.
Really build up that the dynamic that much of Kenobi's actions in the original trilogy are to make up for the arrogance he had and resulting failure in him being a mentor and teacher to his student.
Anakin would have been better served with him as a genuinely tragic figure. Someone who starts out much like his son does; an eager and optimistic young man out to take on the world. But that while conflict and problems allowed Luke to grow into a mature, but still idealistic member of the Rebel Alliance, his father grows into an increasingly shell shocked and bitter man.
The sense of patience and discipline that defines him early on start to disappear (with him slowly getting less and less forgiving of mistakes and failures of those under his command) as the battles take a toll on him. Eventually he's someone who's become tired of the death and destruction of the Clone Wars, and is eventually just looking for peace in the galaxy at any cost.
Enter Palpatine who's able to offer him just that. The dark side (being quicker and easier) naturally becomes far more appealing and turns into what ultimately drives him to trust Palpatine's judgement. Skywalker seeing the Emperor's rule as a fair price to pay to potentially save millions of lives from the war becomes the major moral compromise that ultimately dooms Anakin, and later allows him to gradually start justifying everything for the name of peace.
Anakin's gradual fall is the real key to all of it.
edited 25th Mar '11 5:23:45 AM by BorneAgain
I still think it was just the acting that needed to be changed. I mean, love makes you do stupid shit and all that. I will agree that him going from lamenting him helping kill Mace Windu to outright killing children was a bit of a quick jump. There should have been more of Palpatine manipulating Anakin so that Anakin gradually accepts that he has to kill them all.
Palpatine can still be someone who preys on Anakin's emotions and manipulates various events in the republic to his advantage. Plus Anakin can either never find out about Palpatine's machinations regarding the Clone Wars, or by the time he does, the Emperor has already gotten in his head, and convinced him that the Jedi are lying to him. Palpatine is still a chief villain here largely because had he not come along, someone likely would have eventually realized how troubled Anakin was before he jumped off the slippery slope.
But I do think on some level, the tragedy of Kenobi's fatal flaw would be just as important and fascinating to watch as Anakin's. Indeed if done well, you could even help explain Obi-Wan's statement about a "certain point of view" and his lie to Luke is a reflection of his own guilt regarding what happened. While most would see Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader, maybe Kenobi believes that Vader in some ways was emerging even before the worst aspects of Palpatine's seduction, and that he simply failed to see that there were almost two students in one individual both fighting for control.
Thus he really did think of it as Vader killing Anakin, and that Obi-Wan's mistake led to Anakin's destruction and Vader's emergence. By the time the two fight at the end of the prequels, it becomes sadly clear to Kenobi that Skywalker was dead before the fight ever started. Its Vader that he's facing, and its Vader who took control the moment Skywalker compromised himself to Palpatine.
edited 25th Mar '11 4:00:33 PM by BorneAgain
Admittedly Anakin's official turn was rather sudden. But I liked the idea that Anakin had been gradually pushing the boundaries of morality and once he hit the point of no return he fully realized there was no going back on it. He couldn't leave it behind on Tatooine like he did with the Sand People massacre, he couldn't go on with his life as he knew it, he had to go on with the reasons he participated in Windu's death. His eventual redemption aside, it's basically the Moral Event Horizon in trilogy form.
Ani and Mace never saw eye-to-eye. Then again, Anakin wasn't that close to Palpatine, either; the prequels waited until the absolute last moment to pair those two up.
The stand-off in Palpatine's office lacked subtext. It was mostly blackmail. Hence, Anakin is not a Tragic Villain but an uncomplicated victim.
I'm a skeptical squirrelAs much as Anakin's fall to the dark side could have been written better, I think the fact that his concern for Padme was his undoing was one of the better parts. Vader has always cared more about his family than than about the Empire or the Sith dogma. Back in The Empire Strikes Back, he tried to tempt Luke to the dark side by offering to overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy as father and son. And in Return of the Jedi, when it became clear that he would have to choose between the dark side and his son, Vader chose his son.
So if love for his family made him turn then, I think it makes sense (and a nice parallel) that love for his family was twisted into making him fall in the first place.
While I agree that it's an interesting parallel, I don't really like the Love Makes You Evil trope, and I think it would have made more sense that Padme and the twins would be the last thing keeping him from falling off the edge rather than what pushed him off it. Of course, this may be my frustration that it was done using a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy instead a more believable way.
I'm fine with the Love Makes You Evil trope provided that there is some conflict between the "love" and the "evil", as well as some reason instead of just a haphazard correlation with no apparent causation.
At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...The Padme motivation always bothered me a bit, simply because yes its understandable that he's doing what he does to save his wife. However he's still effectively screwing over the entire galaxy to do so, and doesn't seem to express anything to suggest that Palpatine's actions are even slightly defensible. Your mileage may vary regarding that, but that line of thinking really doesn't gel with him suddenly murdering children and not giving a moment's thought to the Jedi being slaughtered.
I guess I always figured that the dark side's danger lied in how subtlety and seductiveness, that it wasn't an instant change from virtuous to villainous; more that it managed to slowly convince a person that their actions were correct and that it was so gradual that you didn't have a moment of heel realization. (God I spend I too much time at this site).
Luke & Leia's mother in general is a tricky character with the prequels, simply due to the fact that's she's not talked about in the original movies. (Hell, even the novelization of ROTJ only states that she died a few years after the twins birth and that Anakin didn't know she was pregnant when he turned.)
So while Skywalker, Kenobi, Yoda, and Palpatine can all have stories that help explain their characters come 4-6, by her very nature, the story of Anakin's wife is entirely self contained, and have to bring her story to a good conclusion that still doesn't have the audience wondering why she's not brought up in the original films.
- And then there's the major failure with nobody, not even Padme and Anakin knowing that she was pregnant with twins until the medical droid reveals it to Obi-Wan on the day of their birth. Wait, what? What happened to having regular ultrasounds?
edited 28th Mar '11 5:52:41 AM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

There were others. We had Coruscant. Mostufar. Whatever planet Grevious died on.