LJ Idol week 4, in which Star Wars Episode 3 isn't complete number 2 after all
In the first episode, George Lucas created Jar Jar Binks. And the fans were like, "bro, you trippin, WTF is this crap supposed to be?" and it was not good.
In the second episode, George Lucas created horrifically shitty romantic dialogue. And the fans were like "bro, not only are you trippin, you're getting some hyperactive 12-year-old girl from fanfiction.net to ghostwrite this bullshit for you, and she's trippin' too!" and it was not good.
In the third episode, George Lucas created a ridiculous plot that had Anakin Skywalker going completely off the goddamn rails. And it was not remotely good. Or believable. And the fans were like, dubya tee eff, mate?
And the fans had a point! Because one minute Anakin was all like "OMG OBIWAN U MY BFF, PADME BB U MY BAE <3 <3 <3" and then Chancellor Skeletor showed up all OOGA BOOGA and Anakin was all like "LOL EFF THESE PLAYAZ, U MY HOMEY NOW DARTH SKELETOR" and KABOOM - dead younglings, dead Padme, throwdown with Obi-Wan, "YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!1!111", O HAY VADER WHADDUP, the end. And the fans were like "DAMMIT LUCAS THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS."
And the fans still had a point. Or at least it seemed like they did. Mostly.
Now, I ain't got jack shit to say to try and defend Episodes I and II other than grudgingly admitting there were some pretty badass CGI fight scenes. Oh, and Darth Maul's lightsaber staff was pretty cool too. I want him to bring that shit to the next rave I go to.
But let's take a closer look at Episode III. At first glance, it can just seem like lousy story telling, crappy characterization, ridiculous failed attempts at plot progression, bang, boom, done. However, dismissing Episode III as a pile of nonsensical wannabe-plot shards requires two basic assumptions: 1) The Jedi are a good, trustworthy group of wise, respectable humanoids, and 2) Nothing significant happened to Anakin between Episodes II and III.
#1 is questionable at best.
#2 is flat-out false.
More on #1 in a bit, but Jedi dipshittery or no, this whole Dark Side business escalated a little too quickly to be reasonably believable, right? It's not like the Jedi have a history of being self-important agenda serving dickweeds or anything, right? Nothing's ever happened to make Anakin think the Jedi as a whole can't be trusted any further than a stormtrooper can accurately fire a blaster, and for all their guruing and posturing, can't tell their own asses from a thermal exhaust port in a Death Star, right?
Weeelll.....
Meet Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker's padawan.
Oh, you didn't know he had one of those? Well, he did, and she's a little ball of pure electric spitfire who kicks epic amounts of ass. She was assigned to him by Yoda, who was worried that he formed attachments too easily. So clearly the logical solution was to send him someone to teach, protect, and get attached to, so he'd have to go through the painful process of letting go of her once her training was over. Because having that ordeal intentionally inflicted on him would help Anakin grow up. Or something. Totally awesome, right, Yoda?
Shriveled little muppet prick.
SO PREDICTABLY, Anakin gets majorly attached to Ahsoka because she's awesome, talented as hell, has no fucks to give about "knowing her place" or properly observing Jedi asskiss protocol, and she worships the ground Anakin's big bad maverick self walks on while giving him complete shit at the same time. Match made in heaven. Anakin adores the little squirt.
Plus this is Anakin Skywalker, who gets hella attached to people anyway, because at his core he's a giant fucking marshmallow with a saucy side of "come at me bro." I mean, shit, not only does he put his own ass on the line to save Obi-Wan more times than anyone can count, and put his Jedi career on the line to marry the woman he loves, he also risks his own life to save his fucking DROID. Like, not even a question. Just gives Obi-Wan some BS about how rescuing R2D2 from enemy hands was something he had to do because R2D2 had military secrets in his memory, but did he follow orders and blow up the enemy ship with R2 on board, thus obliterating the enemy ship, confidential plans, and droid all at once? Hell no. He risked his own butt, went and got his little robotic buddy, STILL refused to wipe R2's memory (which resets a droid's personality to factory default), then when Anakin started to get the requisite Jedi lecture on the danger of emotional attachments, he was just like "Little droid dude's my friend, therefore I saved him, discussion over." And he tells this to R2. To reassure the droid that rescuing him was totally worth the risk. Because the droid is his friend, and that's what friends do.
This is the type of person we're dealing with here. This is your Darth Vader, boys and girls, your dark-ass paragon of evil.
So what the hell happened?
The Jedi fucking Order, that's what.
For those of you not familiar with the Clone Wars episodes, they're a series of CGI cartoons that take place between episodes II and III. This is where Padawan Ahsoka shows up. And after she's spent five seasons of the show kicking ass at Anakin's side and becoming one half of a completely inseparable duo, some fuckwit goes and bombs a Jedi temple. And pins it on Ahsoka.
Anakin, naturally, doesn't buy it at all and is ready to start breaking some skulls because somebody's jacking with his Padawan. The Jedi Council, however, is all like "well, we should PROBABLY give her a fair trial because that's the Jedi way and stuff, but we might lose face in the political arena if we do that, so let's just assume she's guilty, kick her out of the order, and hand her over to a military tribunal who wants to sentence her to death."
Anakin, naturally, is like "fuck all this noise", goes off on his own, tracks down the real bomber while the rest of the Jedi are sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, busts in on Ahsoka's trial at the last minute hauling the real culprit behind him, and just as the tribunal is getting ready to find Ahsoka guilty of all this shit she had nothing to do with, she's saved by the real culprit's confession. (Appropriately enough, the real culprit is a Jedi who tells the tribunal "I blasted the temple because the Jedi Order has turned into a bunch of corrupt, war-mongering asshats who might as well be serving the Dark Side in the first place." Okay, slight paraphrase, but that's the gist of it.)
So the Order, self-righteous and posturing as ever, tries to invite Ahsoka back by giving her some bullshit about how this whole false accusation and near death sentence thing was really the Force working in mysterious ways to gift her with an opportunity to demonstrate how well she handles herself under difficult circumstances. Ahsoka, however, has had it with Jedi bullshit, and walks her little former Padawan booty straight outta there. Anakin chases after her, but all this crap has totally shattered her faith in the Jedi and their endless supply of uncouth shenanigans. She tells Anakin it's got nothing to do with him, and he tells her he totally understands wanting to GTF away from the Jedi BS, and they have a rather heartbreaking farewell and she leaves.
So she walks, he stays, but damned if the Jedi didn't just prove to Anakin what a bunch of agenda-serving hypocritical jagoffs they all are. And it's not like this is the first time some pile of Jedi BS has harmed someone he loves either! The reason he wasn't home to protect his mother from the Tuskan raiders in Episode II was because the Jedi told him to ignore his visions about her being in danger, blah blah blah attachment BAD, and mama ended up dead. So now this is the SECOND time this Jedi business has caused him to face the loss of someone he loves, and a bunch of trifling Jedi bullcrap is already the reason he has to keep his marriage to his awesome wife completely secret. So at this point, he's all like - OKAY, my mom is dead because of ideological Jedi fuckery and the Jedi gave me additional BS for being upset about it, my Padawan nearly got executed for a crime she didn't commit because the Jedi wanted to be a bunch of lazy mistrustful chicken shits, and THEN these Jedi clowns had the audacity to say it was the "will of the Force" as opposed to owning up to their own Category 5 fuckup, meanwhile I have to keep my happy marriage to a wonderful woman a secret and sneak around like *I'm* the one doing something wrong because of some wack-ass Jedi code about not having attachments, and...does ANYTHING in this handy dandy Jedi code happen to mention anything about integrity, common sense, and psychology 101? No? Well fuck.
And this is all before Episode III has even started!
So here comes Episode III. And it's more and more of the exact same shit. And this whole entire time, all Anakin has wanted is to protect the people he loves and do the right thing. But every time he tries to do the right thing, here come the damn Jedi and either chastise him for it or flat-out use it against him, all blah blah path to the dark side, completely oblivious that they're the ones pushing him down that path to begin with. Palpatine may have been an opportunistic shark who smelled blood in the water, but that doesn't mean the Jedi aren't the ones who drew the blood in the first place, time and again, and then shoved Anakin into the shark pool.
So here we are. Moment of truth. Showdown in Chancellor Palpatine's sweet-ass penthouse, and Anakin's gotta make a choice. Door Number One, or Door Number Two.
Door Number 1 is Jedi master Windu, a pompous prick with a purple lightsaber. Pompous prick has mistrusted him, dissed him, talked down to him, ordered him around, fucked over his Padawan, tried to get him to spy on and double cross his buddy Palpatine, and is about royally violate the Jedi Code by killing Palpatine without a trial.
Door Number 2 is Chancellor Palpatine, who's become Anakin's mentor and confidante. Palpatine has shown trust and faith in Anakin, encouraged him to trust himself, told him to embrace his emotions rather than shaming him for having them, is his last hope of saving Padme's life, and is currently in mortal peril because Anakin ratted him out in one final attempt to do the right thing.
No shit, Anakin goes for Door Number Two! Because DUH. Not because Anakin is a bad person. Not because he's got a boner for the Dark Side. Hell, he didn't want to kill ANYONE - he told Pompous Purple Prick to give Palpatine a fair trial! It was Pompous Purple Prick who refused! "Jedi way? LOL j\k, I'mma just cut this wrinkled old ho, who needs due process, amirite? Ahsoka sure didn't, and it's not like we learn from our mistakes or anything!" WELL OKAY THEN. So no shit, Anakin thinks the Jedi are evil. By this point - THEY ARE. So Anakin makes his choice, Pompous Purple Prick goes flying out the window, and even THEN, Anakin is all like "holy hell, WTF have I done?!" and freaks out.
His entire reality is quite literally shattering in front of him. His belief system is crumbling, the people he's looked up to as paragons of justice and peace are proving to be hypocritical lying dipshits, the people he's been told to mistrust are trying to help him save his wife, he just offed a Jedi Master because he felt he had no other choice and what the hell is this even.
So yeah. Shit starts to come off the rails and Anakin, after spending the majority of his life being put in the middle of one interstellar pissing contest after another and going through enough ridiculous horseshit to give even the most psychologically stable creature in the galaxy a solid case of PTSD, is finally in a mentally and emotionally vulnerable enough place to completely crack and get fully manipulated by Palpatine.
And shit gets real, and Palpatine uses every shred of Anakin's hope, fear, and wayward emotion completely against him, just winding him up and watching him go. Palpatine's an evil SOB, no question there. But Palpatine wouldn't have gotten past square one trying to pull this Dark Side shit on Anakin if the Jedi hadn't fucked Anakin up to the point where they might as well have slapped a sign on his ass that said "Instant Sith Lord, just add water, free to a hateful home!"
So Episode III isn't an entirely bad story. It isn't even an entire story at all. But it's the second half of a pretty damn interesting one, and taken in context, it makes those holy-ass Jedi seem WAY less moral and pure than everyone likes to think they are. And given what a huge pop culture phenomenon Star Wars has become, and what a cut-and-dry, black-and-white, good-vs-evil deal the whole Jedi vs Dark Side thing has come to represent, Episode III makes for one hell of a combo breaker lurking just under the surface of some cheesy dialogue and seemingly questionable plot pacing.
Darth Maul still needs to bring that wicked cool saber staff to the next rave though.
In the second episode, George Lucas created horrifically shitty romantic dialogue. And the fans were like "bro, not only are you trippin, you're getting some hyperactive 12-year-old girl from fanfiction.net to ghostwrite this bullshit for you, and she's trippin' too!" and it was not good.
In the third episode, George Lucas created a ridiculous plot that had Anakin Skywalker going completely off the goddamn rails. And it was not remotely good. Or believable. And the fans were like, dubya tee eff, mate?
And the fans had a point! Because one minute Anakin was all like "OMG OBIWAN U MY BFF, PADME BB U MY BAE <3 <3 <3" and then Chancellor Skeletor showed up all OOGA BOOGA and Anakin was all like "LOL EFF THESE PLAYAZ, U MY HOMEY NOW DARTH SKELETOR" and KABOOM - dead younglings, dead Padme, throwdown with Obi-Wan, "YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!1!111", O HAY VADER WHADDUP, the end. And the fans were like "DAMMIT LUCAS THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS."
And the fans still had a point. Or at least it seemed like they did. Mostly.
Now, I ain't got jack shit to say to try and defend Episodes I and II other than grudgingly admitting there were some pretty badass CGI fight scenes. Oh, and Darth Maul's lightsaber staff was pretty cool too. I want him to bring that shit to the next rave I go to.
But let's take a closer look at Episode III. At first glance, it can just seem like lousy story telling, crappy characterization, ridiculous failed attempts at plot progression, bang, boom, done. However, dismissing Episode III as a pile of nonsensical wannabe-plot shards requires two basic assumptions: 1) The Jedi are a good, trustworthy group of wise, respectable humanoids, and 2) Nothing significant happened to Anakin between Episodes II and III.
#1 is questionable at best.
#2 is flat-out false.
More on #1 in a bit, but Jedi dipshittery or no, this whole Dark Side business escalated a little too quickly to be reasonably believable, right? It's not like the Jedi have a history of being self-important agenda serving dickweeds or anything, right? Nothing's ever happened to make Anakin think the Jedi as a whole can't be trusted any further than a stormtrooper can accurately fire a blaster, and for all their guruing and posturing, can't tell their own asses from a thermal exhaust port in a Death Star, right?
Weeelll.....
Meet Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker's padawan.
Oh, you didn't know he had one of those? Well, he did, and she's a little ball of pure electric spitfire who kicks epic amounts of ass. She was assigned to him by Yoda, who was worried that he formed attachments too easily. So clearly the logical solution was to send him someone to teach, protect, and get attached to, so he'd have to go through the painful process of letting go of her once her training was over. Because having that ordeal intentionally inflicted on him would help Anakin grow up. Or something. Totally awesome, right, Yoda?
Shriveled little muppet prick.
SO PREDICTABLY, Anakin gets majorly attached to Ahsoka because she's awesome, talented as hell, has no fucks to give about "knowing her place" or properly observing Jedi asskiss protocol, and she worships the ground Anakin's big bad maverick self walks on while giving him complete shit at the same time. Match made in heaven. Anakin adores the little squirt.
Plus this is Anakin Skywalker, who gets hella attached to people anyway, because at his core he's a giant fucking marshmallow with a saucy side of "come at me bro." I mean, shit, not only does he put his own ass on the line to save Obi-Wan more times than anyone can count, and put his Jedi career on the line to marry the woman he loves, he also risks his own life to save his fucking DROID. Like, not even a question. Just gives Obi-Wan some BS about how rescuing R2D2 from enemy hands was something he had to do because R2D2 had military secrets in his memory, but did he follow orders and blow up the enemy ship with R2 on board, thus obliterating the enemy ship, confidential plans, and droid all at once? Hell no. He risked his own butt, went and got his little robotic buddy, STILL refused to wipe R2's memory (which resets a droid's personality to factory default), then when Anakin started to get the requisite Jedi lecture on the danger of emotional attachments, he was just like "Little droid dude's my friend, therefore I saved him, discussion over." And he tells this to R2. To reassure the droid that rescuing him was totally worth the risk. Because the droid is his friend, and that's what friends do.
This is the type of person we're dealing with here. This is your Darth Vader, boys and girls, your dark-ass paragon of evil.
So what the hell happened?
The Jedi fucking Order, that's what.
For those of you not familiar with the Clone Wars episodes, they're a series of CGI cartoons that take place between episodes II and III. This is where Padawan Ahsoka shows up. And after she's spent five seasons of the show kicking ass at Anakin's side and becoming one half of a completely inseparable duo, some fuckwit goes and bombs a Jedi temple. And pins it on Ahsoka.
Anakin, naturally, doesn't buy it at all and is ready to start breaking some skulls because somebody's jacking with his Padawan. The Jedi Council, however, is all like "well, we should PROBABLY give her a fair trial because that's the Jedi way and stuff, but we might lose face in the political arena if we do that, so let's just assume she's guilty, kick her out of the order, and hand her over to a military tribunal who wants to sentence her to death."
Anakin, naturally, is like "fuck all this noise", goes off on his own, tracks down the real bomber while the rest of the Jedi are sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, busts in on Ahsoka's trial at the last minute hauling the real culprit behind him, and just as the tribunal is getting ready to find Ahsoka guilty of all this shit she had nothing to do with, she's saved by the real culprit's confession. (Appropriately enough, the real culprit is a Jedi who tells the tribunal "I blasted the temple because the Jedi Order has turned into a bunch of corrupt, war-mongering asshats who might as well be serving the Dark Side in the first place." Okay, slight paraphrase, but that's the gist of it.)
So the Order, self-righteous and posturing as ever, tries to invite Ahsoka back by giving her some bullshit about how this whole false accusation and near death sentence thing was really the Force working in mysterious ways to gift her with an opportunity to demonstrate how well she handles herself under difficult circumstances. Ahsoka, however, has had it with Jedi bullshit, and walks her little former Padawan booty straight outta there. Anakin chases after her, but all this crap has totally shattered her faith in the Jedi and their endless supply of uncouth shenanigans. She tells Anakin it's got nothing to do with him, and he tells her he totally understands wanting to GTF away from the Jedi BS, and they have a rather heartbreaking farewell and she leaves.
So she walks, he stays, but damned if the Jedi didn't just prove to Anakin what a bunch of agenda-serving hypocritical jagoffs they all are. And it's not like this is the first time some pile of Jedi BS has harmed someone he loves either! The reason he wasn't home to protect his mother from the Tuskan raiders in Episode II was because the Jedi told him to ignore his visions about her being in danger, blah blah blah attachment BAD, and mama ended up dead. So now this is the SECOND time this Jedi business has caused him to face the loss of someone he loves, and a bunch of trifling Jedi bullcrap is already the reason he has to keep his marriage to his awesome wife completely secret. So at this point, he's all like - OKAY, my mom is dead because of ideological Jedi fuckery and the Jedi gave me additional BS for being upset about it, my Padawan nearly got executed for a crime she didn't commit because the Jedi wanted to be a bunch of lazy mistrustful chicken shits, and THEN these Jedi clowns had the audacity to say it was the "will of the Force" as opposed to owning up to their own Category 5 fuckup, meanwhile I have to keep my happy marriage to a wonderful woman a secret and sneak around like *I'm* the one doing something wrong because of some wack-ass Jedi code about not having attachments, and...does ANYTHING in this handy dandy Jedi code happen to mention anything about integrity, common sense, and psychology 101? No? Well fuck.
And this is all before Episode III has even started!
So here comes Episode III. And it's more and more of the exact same shit. And this whole entire time, all Anakin has wanted is to protect the people he loves and do the right thing. But every time he tries to do the right thing, here come the damn Jedi and either chastise him for it or flat-out use it against him, all blah blah path to the dark side, completely oblivious that they're the ones pushing him down that path to begin with. Palpatine may have been an opportunistic shark who smelled blood in the water, but that doesn't mean the Jedi aren't the ones who drew the blood in the first place, time and again, and then shoved Anakin into the shark pool.
So here we are. Moment of truth. Showdown in Chancellor Palpatine's sweet-ass penthouse, and Anakin's gotta make a choice. Door Number One, or Door Number Two.
Door Number 1 is Jedi master Windu, a pompous prick with a purple lightsaber. Pompous prick has mistrusted him, dissed him, talked down to him, ordered him around, fucked over his Padawan, tried to get him to spy on and double cross his buddy Palpatine, and is about royally violate the Jedi Code by killing Palpatine without a trial.
Door Number 2 is Chancellor Palpatine, who's become Anakin's mentor and confidante. Palpatine has shown trust and faith in Anakin, encouraged him to trust himself, told him to embrace his emotions rather than shaming him for having them, is his last hope of saving Padme's life, and is currently in mortal peril because Anakin ratted him out in one final attempt to do the right thing.
No shit, Anakin goes for Door Number Two! Because DUH. Not because Anakin is a bad person. Not because he's got a boner for the Dark Side. Hell, he didn't want to kill ANYONE - he told Pompous Purple Prick to give Palpatine a fair trial! It was Pompous Purple Prick who refused! "Jedi way? LOL j\k, I'mma just cut this wrinkled old ho, who needs due process, amirite? Ahsoka sure didn't, and it's not like we learn from our mistakes or anything!" WELL OKAY THEN. So no shit, Anakin thinks the Jedi are evil. By this point - THEY ARE. So Anakin makes his choice, Pompous Purple Prick goes flying out the window, and even THEN, Anakin is all like "holy hell, WTF have I done?!" and freaks out.
His entire reality is quite literally shattering in front of him. His belief system is crumbling, the people he's looked up to as paragons of justice and peace are proving to be hypocritical lying dipshits, the people he's been told to mistrust are trying to help him save his wife, he just offed a Jedi Master because he felt he had no other choice and what the hell is this even.
So yeah. Shit starts to come off the rails and Anakin, after spending the majority of his life being put in the middle of one interstellar pissing contest after another and going through enough ridiculous horseshit to give even the most psychologically stable creature in the galaxy a solid case of PTSD, is finally in a mentally and emotionally vulnerable enough place to completely crack and get fully manipulated by Palpatine.
And shit gets real, and Palpatine uses every shred of Anakin's hope, fear, and wayward emotion completely against him, just winding him up and watching him go. Palpatine's an evil SOB, no question there. But Palpatine wouldn't have gotten past square one trying to pull this Dark Side shit on Anakin if the Jedi hadn't fucked Anakin up to the point where they might as well have slapped a sign on his ass that said "Instant Sith Lord, just add water, free to a hateful home!"
So Episode III isn't an entirely bad story. It isn't even an entire story at all. But it's the second half of a pretty damn interesting one, and taken in context, it makes those holy-ass Jedi seem WAY less moral and pure than everyone likes to think they are. And given what a huge pop culture phenomenon Star Wars has become, and what a cut-and-dry, black-and-white, good-vs-evil deal the whole Jedi vs Dark Side thing has come to represent, Episode III makes for one hell of a combo breaker lurking just under the surface of some cheesy dialogue and seemingly questionable plot pacing.
Darth Maul still needs to bring that wicked cool saber staff to the next rave though.