Princess
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After 28 long years, we have the complete Star Wars Saga in front of us. While there is, of course, much rejoicing to be done, there is also some amount of nit-picking that must be attended to. For this, we turn to our Intrepid Princess, who apparently has had a Little Episode with Multiple Personalities.
Point - This statement is clearly true. Not only did Anakin not express that he wanted his kid to have his lightsaber when he was old enough (although in his defense all three of his remaining limbs had just been amputated in fairly dramatic fashion and he may not have been thinking particularly clearly at that moment), but obviously Anakin knew that Padme was pregnant when he left. I mean, just look at her. Plus, her pregnancy is kind of what turned Anakin to the Dark Side.
CounterPoint - Okay, sure, Obi-Wan may have fudged some details. He knew Anakin pretty well, so he probably assumed that had he not been Evil, he would have wanted to pass down his lightsaber. The big question is whether Obi-Wan was actually manipulating Luke the whole time. By omitting the fact that Anakin knew Damn Well Padme was pregnant and that Luke's very existence turned Dear Old Dad into Darth Vader, he was relieving Luke of existential guilt while simultaneously distancing him from the Dark Side Progression, otherwise he may have had empathy for Dad and it would be harder for Luke to kill him, thus finishing the task Obi-Wan was incapable of completing himself. Obi-Wan was clearly using Luke as a tool to rid the universe of Darth Vader, a noble goal to be sure, but you'd think Jedi would be above promoting patricide. He kept the information that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader from Luke until it could no longer be denied. Certain Point of View Aside, Obi-Wan is clearly a manipulating bastard.
Point - I think you're being too hard on Obi-Wan. He would probably have used other Jedi in the Vader assault, but he was pretty much out of options. He even tried to take on Darth himself, maybe in a last ditch effort to prevent Luke from having to kill his own father, although ultimately it was not successful. He was trying to do the right thing with the weapons he had available.
CounterPoint - You don't think he went up against Darth Vader knowing that he would be killed and would become more powerful? Truly, you are an eternal optimist. It was a pretty obvious bid for power without succumbing to the Dark Side. A fascinating loophole, indeed.
Point - Well, he did become more powerful. Just also less, you know, physical. He still got to oversee Luke's training on some level, and to assist him in destroying the Death Star, and who knows how many other metaphysical things of which we may never become fully aware? Even if he did kill Vader, he could easily have been killed himself during the ensuing battle. And he stopped Luke from rushing into the fray unprepared.
Point - On the Forest Moon of Endor, Luke asks her flat out if she has any memory of her mother. She says she was very beautiful, kind, but sad (and Padme certainly watched Ghost a few times to get that constant weeping down). Leia was born about three seconds before Padme died. Long enough to make a judgment call on what kind of person her mother was? I think not.
CounterPoint - Maybe on some levels Princess Leia has stronger Force ability that Luke. Maybe she was reading minds in utero and got an outside impression of what Padme was like and assumed they were her own thoughts and feelings.
Point - You raise an interesting point, CP, but I don't know if I'm buying it.
CounterPoint - Okay, here's another thought: who the heck knows what was happening on Alderaan? It could have been a planet full of long haired hippies, the Woodstock of the galaxy, if you will, full of free love and drugs. Bail Organa's first wife could have been any in a long line of women, all of whom were introduced as Leia's mother. When Luke asked about her "real mother," she could have been thinking of Bail's first wife, who passed away when she was very young. No one brought up the issue of Mom's name in the Original Trilogy. She could have thought that Mrs. Organa got it on with Darth, then later married Bail. Or Leia could also have been totally stoned. Who knows what was going on at that Ewok Party after Luke went outside to mope? She already let them braid her hair. Would she have turned down "this lovely mushroom dish"? Maybe not.
Point - Maybe there will be another DVD version of Return of the Jedi with CGI Luke and Leia on that walkway and the plot hole will be filled. I mean, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher probably have time to do new voice tracks, right?
CounterPoint - Bite your tongue, Mr. Point.
Point - Clearly, George Lucas had a plan all along. Was this alleged Sith Lord Palpatine's mentor? Was Palpatine the one who manipulated the midichlorians to create life in, say, a random slave from Tattooine? Was Anakin not just the Chosen One of the Jedi (who totally misread that prophecy, BTW), but the Chosen One of the Sith? Did Palpatine try to bring about the Chosen One (Anakin) intentionally to get this whole Empire Thing going? We may never know.
CounterPoint - Yeah. It's totally not about George trying to cover his ass after millions of nasty notes from fans about pulling the midichlorian bit out of nowhere.
Point - Um, yeah. It is, but I thought this was Star Wars.
Topic Creator - Sorry. I have a lot of stuff on my mind.
Point - Absolutely. They're called color contacts, George. Aunt Beru from the Original had blue eyes. Young Beru has brown eyes. WTF? You could CGI Jake Lloyd's eyes to be looking in the right direction for Episode I, but you couldn't change Beru's eye color? Even the Nazis were experimenting in that vein. Seriously. Fix it in the bloody DVD.
CounterPoint - Maybe after years on a desert planet, people's eyes and hair bleach out.
Point - Shmi Skywalker's didn't.
CounterPoint - Okay, how much do we know about Uncle Owen, really? Maybe the original Aunt Beru died in some tragic mushroom-picking accident. Happens all the time, right? Owen, in a fit of grief, kidnaps a young woman, keeps her tied in a shed, and tortures and brainwashes her until she believes that she's actually Aunt Beru. It's only after all his hard work is done that he realizes he grabbed a woman with the wrong eye color and by that point, he figures what the hell.
Point - You're a sick person, Mr. CounterPoint.
Point - If Obi-Wan really wanted Luke to be a Jedi, why didn't he come pick him up after he was potty trained, like it seems things were done in the Jedi Temple? Wouldn't that have helped with the No Attachments Party Line he was so involved with and the ignoring of which ultimately led to his last apprentice's downfall? Wouldn't it also have circumvented Yoda's opinion that Luke (at 23) was Too Old to begin the training? If Obi-Wan didn't want the responsibility of training Luke (esp. considering how well the last training attempt ended up), why didn't he take Young Luke to Dagobah in the first freaking place? The Jedi Order held strong for a thousand years due to the rigorous training, now he thinks he can change it during the most difficult period in Jedi history? Sorry. Don't think so.
CounterPoint - Maybe it was his intention all along to train Luke from a really young age, but at some point he didn't want to be distracted from his "communing" with Qui-Gon. You know, "communing." Wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?
Point - You mean, he was learning about how to train Jedi Knights from Qui-Gon and wanted to wait until he was more prepared to take on a new apprentice? Okay, I can see that.
CounterPoint - Um, yeah. That's exactly what I meant.
Point - Well, Naboo is a pretty central planet. Obi-Wan and Yoda probably wanted him as far out as was practicable to keep him out of the way. (Of course, changing his last name may have helped here, but I quibble.) And who knows if Mr. and Mrs. Amidala even knew their daughter was pregnant? How would they feel if they found out after the fact that Padme gave birth to the Sith Spawn?
CounterPoint - Okay, so Tattooine appeared in what, five out of six movies? Why do I suspect it is not as far from the bright spot of the universe as some disaffected Tattooine youth would have us believe? And grandparents are weird. They probably would have gotten over the whole son of evil thing.
Point - Um, yeah. Maybe Obi-Wan wanted to toughen him up. Because that worked so well with Anakin... Yeah, I got nothing.
Point - Clearly, it was Palpatine. Either it was actually him and he was pretending to be the Jedi Councilman, or he was possessing the Councilman, or the Councilman was a prior apprentice and placed the order per Palpatine's request.
CounterPoint - Or he ordered them on-line with a stolen credit card. Either way, it clearly shows that Palpatine is insanely good at long-term planning. How long before the clone order was placed was he planning to take over the galaxy? While he was a senator from Naboo? Did he decide to become a senator in order to plan a take-over? I mean, he's comparatively much older than Padme and she was also a senator. Could this whole thing have been a mid-life crisis? He got tired of working in a cubicle and decided that galactic dictatorship was the life for him?
Point - Mr. CounterPoint, I think you're starting to crack up.
CounterPoint - I am at that.
Point - Maybe he just never came up in conversation?
CounterPoint - So Obi-Wan and Luke traveled from the Lars' moisture farm to Mos Eisley and never talked? Next thing, you're going to be telling me that they didn't have time to name that horse even though they crossed whole bloody the desert on it. Sure. Admit it, George is flaking in his old age.
Point - I'm sure Luke was being sulky and morbid on the trip. Owen and Beru (or Beru Two) were the only family he'd ever known and they were just brutally killed. I'm sure he had other things on his mind.
Point - Yes. Yes, you do.
CounterPoint - At last, I agree. Care for a cup of tea?
Point - Indeed.
Princess
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