Thunder Comes

A while ago, I was telling some of my co-workers how I invited MrBrioche to dinner and he rejected me. Not long afterwards, one of them mentioned how he hadn't seen some movie because his girlfriend didn't want to watch it. I told him that I also wanted to see it, and suggested we see it together. His silence said volumes. I quickly backed out of the statement, and changed the topic. To me, seeing movies is just something you do with friends, but maybe to him, it's a date thing.

So when Commissioner Gordon mentioned how he hadn't seen Thor: Ragnarok yet, the words, "Me, neither, let's go and see it together" were coming out of my mouth at the same time my mind was saying, "Noooooooooooooo, don't do it again!" They say light travels faster than sound, but sound travels faster than brainwaves (although that doesn't make sense, since it takes brain power to make the sounds for talking...). I tried to rack my brain for a way to gracefully take back my words, but to my pleasant surprise, CG said, "That would be nice."

We decided to go on cheap-ass Tuesday, as...well, we're cheap-asses. The movie has been out for a while now, but the cinema was still packed.

I had pretty low expectations for this movie. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't enjoy the first Thor movie, didn't bother with the second, and the only reason I went to see this one was because of Taika Waititi. MrMoustache said:

I hope you like it. But it has lots of critical acclaim so if you don't it's cos of you :P

I found the start of the movie a bit cringe-worthy. Some of the humour felt a bit forced, and dumbed down, and I was already starting to compose my message to MrMoustache saying how I tried to like the movie, but here is a long list of reasons why I couldn't like it. But I also wanted to like it because Commissioner Gordon loves comic books, and I felt like he would feel disappointed if I didn't enjoy myself, and maybe he would be less inclined to do this again. I enjoy spending time with him, as I think he's a lovely person, and he's one of the nerdiest people I've ever met. I'm not sure who would win a Star Wars knowledge battle out of him and MrMoustache.

The movie started to turn around for me once Korg entered the picture. I really love the humour that he has - and it turns out he was voiced by the director himself. Also, according to IMDB, 80% of the dialogue in the film was improvised. It really picked up the pace after that, and by the end of the movie, the long list of complaints I had drafted were sitting somewhere on the cinema floor, and nobody wants to touch the cinema floor - who knows what kind of gross stuff you'll find under the seats?!

There was a part of the movie that seemed to be an homage to Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The parodied scene used to completely freak me out as a kid, and Gene Wilder still gives me nightmares to this day. The Stargate SG-1 Asgard theme is also used, probably as a reference to the fact that they share a name with the people from Thor's homeworld of Asgard.

I also really enjoyed the way the movie had what I felt was a good amount of foreshadowing, while still managing to subvert a lot of your typical hero tropes. It was still pretty predictable, but I think that's par for the course for superhero movies these days. The humour is really what made it stand out for me. It was ridiculously funny for an action movie, and if I didn't like Captain America so much, might be in the running for my favourite Marvel movie so far.

PAX Aus 2017 Wrap-Up

I didn't enforce at PAX this year, and only ended up buying a Saturday pass. I feel like three days is far too much for me for one weekend, on top of working full-time. I also feel a bit like there isn't that much for me at PAX that I can't do anywhere else. I had two tasks that I wanted to accomplish: get an FFXIV T-shirt for someone, and find a board game to play with Jal.

First stop was the Make A Strip panel.

Some lovely Enforcer art:

I'm not sure what happened to Mike, but it was Jerry with Kris Straub drawing.

I hadn't been to one of these before, as I'm usually on morning shift as an Enforcer, but it seems to involve Kris (or Mike if he's there), drawing a Penny Arcade strip, while Jerry answers questions that had been submitted earlier from fans. A few of the questions were along the lines of, "Have you heard of ?"

One of the questions Jerry was asked was why he bought a bunch of Nintendo Switches for his staff members before buying one for himself. I really liked his answer: he said he did it because he wanted to work for a place where the boss did things like that, so that's what he decided to do.

Another question I'm surprised he answered was someone asked Mike what Jerry's shatterpoint is, and Jerry answered on his behalf, saying he thought he knew what Mike thought Jerry's shatterpoint would be. Nerd side note: they're referring to Mace Windu's speciality, which is the ability to pinpoint shatterpoints - the point at which a person or event breaks. He said that Mike (who draws the comics) would probably think that Jerry would be sensitive about the idea that he's simply riding on the coattails of Mike's success. Jerry laughed at the idea, because if it were true, it would mean that Mike is the stupid one, since he could be making twice the amount of money for the work that he does, and Jerry would have a pretty sweet life.

He also mentioned how he often gets asked whether PAX Aus would continue. It's question that came up in the Enforcer Q&A with Robert Khoo after the second PAX. He said that people kept coming up to him and asking whether PAX Aus would continue. He responded that when PAX set up somewhere, it was there to stay. I guess in Australia, we're used to having games say they'll set up Australian servers, and then when they're less popular, take them away so we always live with the fear that this awesome thing we have will be taken away someday.

I also filmed Jerry miming his favourite poem: https://youtu.be/DMpVWD_21bk (sorry for the shaky video)

I think he said it was called Feelings First, and the closest thing I could find was this poem by E.E Cummings: Since Feeling is First, which doesn't quite match up with what he mimed.

The final comic looked incredible. Sorry for my potato phone quality photo, but I'm sure the real comic will be up on their site eventually.

We saw some cool Dota 2 cosplayers, including someone cosplaying KotL! :D

(from left: Axe, KotL, Dazzle, Death Prophet)

The line for the FFXIV T-shirt was longer than I expected. To win a T-shirt, you join a raid group of 8 people and have to defeat an event boss. Saturday's boss was Lakshmi. The line was pretty long... I was in queue for 2 hours before I got to play. As I approached the front of the queue, there was someone asking whether people had played before, and which role they would like to play. Finding a tank was hard, so the guy had to keep going down the queue until he found a tank, who was brought to the front.

The boss fight was pretty cool, though our black mage walked off the edge of the platform and died at the start for some reason, so we didn't have the best start. But the rest of the fight was pretty easy - especially as our entire party had experienced players (it was open to new players, too, and they had some people to help you play). I died at the end to meteor, but the boss was on less than 5% HP by then, so it was an easy win.

Once you're done, you get a token which lets you collect a T-shirt.

We checked out the indie showcase, and I noted a few games that I want to try. I also set myself a new task: I was going to practice the moustache compliment skill!

After that, it was time to find a board game for Jal. I needed something that could be played during our lunch break, and his requirements were a game where you can screw other people over, and ideally involves combat. It was tougher than I thought, but in the end, I settled on Small World.

I also tried out a new game to help practice my Dota 2 carry skills.

The last panel the indie showcase panel, and it's amazing how many cool games are being developed right here in Australia (a couple were from NZ). There was this interesting shadow puppet game, where you control a light source and can use it to create platforms to get through the levels. But honestly, who am I kidding? I'm probably just going to go back to Dota 2. Oh, but there is an expansion for Orwell coming out, so that's pretty exciting.

As for the moustache compliments, we saw a guy cosplaying Bob from Bob's Burgers, and he had a cool moustache. I was going to compliment him, but he was walking away, so I started following him. But he had a friend with him, so I didn't get the chance to compliment him on his own, so redbeanpork told me that wasn't the right time to practice. While we were looking at board games, there was another guy with a cool moustache, and a girl walked up to him and complimented it. Just like that. I wanted to try it, too. but it would be too weird doing it immediately after someone else had just done it. We passed Bob again, and I was working up the courage to approach him when another girl showed up. It looked like she was his girlfriend, so it was a good thing that I chickened out. Time was running out, and as we were walking to the last panel, I saw a guy on his own with a moustache. It wasn't as great as all the others, but it was still pretty nice. I walked up to him. I didn't even have time to get worried, because we had a panel to get to, and I was running out of time to achieve my goal.

Me: Hi, I just wanted to say that I think you have a nice moustache.
Him: Thank you very much.
Me: You're welcome.
*runs away*

I did it!

It's weird, even though I didn't have an enforcing shift, the day felt really short. I think one day was enough for me though. That being said, the hoodies sold out really quickly, which redbeanpork was sad about. If we were going to go again, maybe we'll do Friday instead, so we have the weekend to recover.

I'm also losing my voice. Probably from all the shouting in the expo hall.

The Prequel Menace - Clone Wars and Stormtroopers

In A New Hope, we learn about the clone wars, though what that actually means is never specified. It ties together Leia (via her adoptive father Bail), Obi-Wan and Luke (through his father, Anakin).

Which features one of the series' iconic lines.

                                 LEIA
                     General Kenobi, years ago you served 
                     my father in the Clone Wars. Now he 
                     begs you to help him in his struggle 
                     against the Empire. I regret that I 
                     am unable to present my father's 
                     request to you in person, but my 
                     ship has fallen under attack and I'm 
                     afraid my mission to bring you to 
                     Alderaan has failed. I have placed 
                     information vital to the survival of 
                     the Rebellion into the memory systems 
                     of this R2 unit. My father will know 
                     how to retrieve it. You must see 
                     this droid safely delivered to him 
                     on Alderaan. This is our most 
                     desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan 
                     Kenobi, you're my only hope.

Prior to that scene, Obi-Wan tells Luke that he fought in the Clone Wars with Luke's father.

                                 LUKE
                     You fought in the Clone Wars?

                                 BEN
                     Yes, I was once a Jedi Knight the 
                     same as your father.

And that's all we hear mentioned about the Clone Wars in the original trilogy. Given Obi-Wan and Anakin fight together during the Clone Wars, this seems like a good candidate for a mystery that gets solved during the prequels, and it definitely does. The mystery gets solved in Attack of the Clones. Given the title, you may have believed, like I did, that the Clone Wars involved the Jedi Knights fighting against various clones. As Empire Strikes Back had an interesting twist, I thought the twist in AotC was interesting - though IP said that he saw it coming, so maybe I'm the only one who was surprised.

A failed assassination attempt leads Obi-Wan to Kamino, where he discovers that Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas had previously put in an order for an army of warriors cloned from the DNA of bounty Hunter Jango Fett (who is the "father" of Boba Fett, seen in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi).

Fun fact: Sifo-Dyas' name was originally Sido-Dyas (as you can see in the script), but there was a typo calling him Sifo-Dyas and George Lucas preferred that name, so he changed it.

   LAMA SU

  And now to business. You will be
  delighted to hear we are on
  schedule. Two hundred thousand
  units are ready, with another
  million more well on the way.

   OBI-WAN
   (improvising)
  That is... good news.

   LAMA SU
  Please tell your Master Sifo-Dyas
  that his order will be met on time.

   OBI-WAN
  I'm sorry Master - ?

   LAMA SU
  Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas is still
  a leading member of the Jedi
  Council, is he not?

   OBI-WAN
  Master Sifo-Dyas was killed almost ten

  years ago.

   LAMA SU
  Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

  But I'm sure he would have been proud

  of the army we've built for him.

   OBI-WAN
  The army? 

   LAMA SU
  Yes. A clone army, and I must say, one
  of the finest we've ever created.

   OBI-WAN
  Tell me, Prime Minister, when my master
  first contacted you about the army, did
  he say who it was for?

   LAMA SU
  Of course he did. The army is for the 
  Republic.

   (rising)
  But you must be anxious to inspect the
  units for yourself.

   OBI-WAN
  That's why I'm here.

Obi-Wan is lead to a giant lab, filled with tons of clones at various stages of life, from embryos, to young children, to adults. The fully kitted out ones look like this:

Look familiar?

He meets with Jango Fett who says he has never heard of Sifo-Dyas, and was hired by someone called Tyranus. Obi-Wan informs the Jedi Council about the army of clone troopers, and Yoda and Mace Windu confirm that this wasn't something the Jedi Council wanted.

They inform Obi-Wan to bring Jango in for questioning, but Obi-Wan catches him and Boba Fett trying to flee from Kamino. They get away, but not before Obi-Wan attaches a tracking beacon to their ship. Not looking like the clone army is on the side of good. Obi-Wan tracks them to Geonosis, where the Trade Federation is manufacturing a massive droid army for the Seperatists' war against the Republic. The Jedi make their way to the planet to stop the Seperatists, and it looks good at first, but they soon become outnumbered.

Fortunately, Yoda does a Gandalf and arrives with the clone army to save the day!

The battle once again turns in favour of the Jedi and we get to see Yoda in action in what was one of the most exciting parts of the prequels for me (I am starting to take back what I said about AotC being the worst of the three).

So the surprise twist was that the clones were on the side of the Jedi, not the Sith. Or so we think, until... Revenge of the Sith.

It seems all the clone troopers had a secret code programmed into them: order 66. From then, they turn on the Jedi and start murdering them in cold blood. So begins the most heartbreaking scenes in the series, as Jedi get picked off one-by-one. All that's left (that we know of) are Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin (though by this point, Anakin has well and truly turned to the dark side as he goes to murder a bunch of kids).

Attack of the Clones answered the question of what the Clone Wars were, with Anakin fighting alongside Obi-Wan, as was mentioned in the prequels, and Bail Organa being involved on the political side (he wasn't really involved much in this movie, but he was there when the Jedi Council and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine discussed using the clone troopers to fight the Seperatists.

This also happens to be when the wheels start moving for the bid to grant Palpatine emergency powers - powers that we know from the original trilogy that he never really gives up (although that's only with extra knowledge that isn't in the movies, as Palpatine's name isn't actually mentioned - he's just referred to as the Emperor (I think - another thing that Pyro is going to catch me on, I bet)).

Revenge of the Sith answered the question of where all the Jedi disappeared to, and why it was only Obi-Wan and Yoda left (until Luke / Leia).

One thing that I think was a stroke of genius (though whether it was intended is questionable), is that this little niggling fact is covered. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan mentions that the blaster shots are too precise to be sandpeople, so it must be the work of stormtroopers.

A statement that has raised a lot of questions, seeing as in the rest of the series, it's evident that stormtroopers are actually rubbish at shooting anything.

Can't hit these slow-moving droids as they waddle across the battlefield.

Come on, he's practically point blank range.

Luke and Leia can't even run forward, as the bridge hasn't extended, so they're trapped.

It has become a bit of a meme.

But the prequels explain it!

   OBI-WAN
  You mentioned growth
  acceleration...

   LAMA SU
  Oh yes, it's essential.
  Otherwise, a mature clone would
  take a lifetime to grow. Now, we
  can do it in half the time. Those
  items you saw on the parade ground
  were started ten years ago, when
  Sifo-dyas first placed the order,
  and they're already mature...

As we noticed earlier, the clones look awfully a lot like stormtroopers, so I think it's safe to assume that they were the precursor to the stormtrooper army. Now this is purely speculation, but with Jango Fett dead (at the hands of Mace Windu), and Boba Fett nowhere to be found (he fled), the DNA needed for the clones is no longer available.

This was in the original script, but the latter part of Lama Su's last part didn't make it into the movie.

   OBI-WAN

  Who was the original host?

   LAMA SU
  A bounty hunter called Jango Fett.
  We felt a Jedi would be the
  perfect choice, but Sifo-Dyas hand-
  picked Jango Fett himself.

   OBI-WAN
  Where is this bounty hunter now?

   LAMA SU
  Oh, we keep him here. After a few
  hundred thousand clones, the
  genetic pattern starts to fade, so
  we take a fresh supply. He lives
  here, but he's free to come and go
  as he pleases.

His statement about needing half a lifetime to grow also stands, and it's unlikely that the Emperor had them brewing another batch in the background, as they never showed it to Obi-Wan. Since we can assume there's roughly 16 years between RotS and ANH (since Luke and Leia are born in RotS and are roughly sixteen), that isn't enough time to brew up a whole new batch of clones. So even without the Jango Fett theory holding, it seems the clones will slowly die off due to their accelerated ageing, as well as just natural attrition that happens through war. To keep the army alive, they will need new recruits. New recruits who don't have this superior DNA, and who have undergone army training, but not the rigorous clone army training that the clone troopers underwent.

Which explains why some of them are such bad shots! The Empire probably kept the original armour since people would associate that with the feared clone troopers. Obi-Wan, who had been hiding on Tatooine for so long probably didn't know that they suck now, so he still thinks they're the top-notch clones he fought against in the Clone Wars. Plus, a bunch of them did wipe out most of the Jedi Order, which is probably why he holds them in such high regard.

Overall, in relation to the Clone Wars, and stormtroopers in general, the prequels actually tackled this one well.

Code + Breakers: Women in Games

Another exhibit they had at ACMI was one on women in the games industry. There was one booth for each of the women listed on the left, and it had a quote from them about their thoughts on the game industry, and a list of their accomplishments.

I thought it was interesting seeing the different perspectives, and some of the reasons they got into the games industry, but there were two that particularly spoke to me.

Brooke Maggs, who worked on The Gardens Between and Paperbark, said:

Games are a wonderful creative expression. They're the main reason I'm a storyteller. That's why I want to see more women and girls making, playing and sharing games. There are many different types of games but we need more stories, more characters, and more voices to capture our imaginations and inspire us. I invite you to develop and grow your own game making and playing style because we're here, we'll support you and we want to play your games.

I know that I pretty much only play one game (Dota 2), and so I can't really speak much on this topic, but I as I've said so many times, I love hearing about different people's perspectives, and games are one way to do that. I think games are a unique medium in that unlike a lot of books or movies (with maybe the exception of choose-your-own-adventure-style books), a lot of games put you in the drivers seat, and when you make a choice that leads to a certain outcome, it starts to make you think about yourself.

One of the games I really enjoyed playing was Heavy Rain. In the story, your son has been kidnapped, and unless you perform certain challenges set by the kidnapper, your son will die. Some of the things involve you doing things that are dangerous to your own life: driving the wrong way down a freeway, crawling on floor covered with shards of glass, stepping through an electrically charged fence, trying not to get electrocuted, cutting off your own finger. Then came the challenge to murder someone. And that's when I stopped to think. There are a lot of things I'd do to myself to save my son, but what right do I have to kill someone else? Even if that someone else is a drug dealer. Arguably, driving the wrong way down a freeway is also endangering a lot of people, but I think I was too caught up in the game and focusing on not crashing to think about that at the time.

So it's not just about gender diversity, but about inviting as many people as possible to come up with stories and games. People always complain that all the future holds is Call of Duty 99 and NBA 2030, and I don't doubt there will be those "safe" titles that will get pumped out year after year, but there are so many amazingly different games that are being created these days, and it's great. Games like Orwell and Papers, Please sound like really stupid games on paper, but I really enjoyed playing them. I find it difficult to believe that these kind of games would exist if the only people who made games were the stereotypical "brogrammer"-types.

Lisy Kane, who worked on Armello, Hand of Fate and Push Me Pull You said:

The art of game development is unique, bridging creativity and techology into a chaotic bundle of entertainment. Having more diverse people including women making games means that I'll have more games to choose from and explore!

On similar vein to Brooke's comment, but the last part is something I think is worth emphasising: having more people making games means having more games to choose from. I get that some of the games made by women are not everyone's cup of tea, but some of the games made by men aren't their cup of tea either. The great thing about games is that nobody is forcing you to play them. If you think a game sounds cool, by all means, go and play it. If you think a game sounds rubbish, then move along. I honestly don't understand the mentality behind trashing someone's game, and then going on to trash the person who made it. That's time you could be spending playing a game you do enjoy!

That being said, I am grateful for people who have reviewed games I have thought about buying, warning potential buyers about flaws in the game, and I think criticism like: "Mechanic X gets really repetitive after a while" is helpful. But reviews like, "Nobody wants to play a game about depression, Y should stop making games and go back to the kitchen" aren't very helpful. I guess it's hard to be objective and judge which camp you are in.

Anyway, I thought it was a great exhibit, and was cool to check out while we were in the area. They also had game stations set up, where you could try out some of the games that these women made. Unfortunately, yesterday was the last day of the exhibit, so I think it's gone now. But I thought it'd be nice to give a shoutout to these women who I never knew existed:

• Cherie Davidson
• Erin Dupuy
• Rebecca Fernandez
• Elissa Harris
• Lisy Kane
• Brooke Maggs
• Katharine Neil
• Maru Nihoniho
• Siobhan Reddy
• Nicole Star

The Prequel Menace - Jedi Training

This is part of my series of posts looking at whether the Star Wars prequels are as bad as people claim they are. You can read the last post here:

The Princess Diary

One of the things that always bugged me about the original trilogy was this exchange:

   LUKE
 How far away is Yoda? 

 Will it take us long to get there?

   CREATURE
 Not far. Yoda not far. Patience. Soon you will be with him.

 Rootleaf. I cook. Why wish you become Jedi? Hmmm? Hmmm?

   LUKE
 Mostly because of my father, I guess.

   CREATURE
 Ah, father. Powerful Jedi was he. Hee hee. 

 Mmm, powerful Jedi.

   LUKE
 Oh, come on. How could you know my father? 

 You don't even know who I am.

 I don't even know what I'm doing here. 

 We're wasting our time.

   CREATURE

 (sighs) I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.

   OBI-WAN / BEN (off-screen)
 He will learn patience.

   CREATURE
 Hmmm. Much anger in him, like his father.
   OBI-WAN / BEN (off-screen)
 Was I any different when you taught me?
   CREATURE
 No, he is not ready.
   LUKE
 Yoda. I am ready. I.... Ben! I can be a Jedi. 
 Ben, tell him I'm re-.

   YODA
 Ready, are you?  What know you 
 of ready?  For eight hundred years 
 have I trained Jedi.  My own counsel 
 will I keep on who is to be trained!
 A Jedi must have the deepest 
 commitment, hmm? The most serious mind.

 (to the invisible Ben, indicating Luke)

 This one a long time have I watched.
 All his life has he looked away...
 to the future, to the horizon.
 Never his mind on where he was.
 Hmm?  What he was doing.  Hmph.  
 Adventure.  Heh!  Excitement.  Heh!  
 A Jedi craves not these things.

  (turning to Luke)

 You are reckless!

   OBI-WAN / BEN (off-screen)
 So was I, if you remember.
   YODA
 He is too old. Yes, too old to begin the training.

He is too old and reckless because he wasn't trained as a child! Because neither you, nor Obi-Wan trained him!

Hasn't anyone else wondered why Obi-Wan and Yoda, who both seem to be quite old themselves, and as far as they know, the last of the Jedi, left Luke and Leia untrained even though both of them knew where they were? By the end of The Empire Strikes Back, we can assume that they wanted to keep Luke hidden from Darth Vader, in case he came to try and corrupt his son. However, at the end of Return of the Jedi, we find out that Leia is also his daughter, and nobody seems to be doing anything from stopping her getting close to them!

   LEIA
 Governor Tarkin, I should have 
 expected to find you holding Vader's 
 leash. I recognized your foul stench 
 when I was brought on board.

   TARKIN
 Charming to the last. You don't know 
 how hard I found it signing the order 
 to terminate your life!

   LEIA
 I surprised you had the courage to 
 take the responsibility yourself!

It seems like they both know each other, probably through the senate. And it seems the sight of Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader together is not that uncommon, based on Leia's comment. That makes it likely that she and Vader have met before. She recognises him straight away.

And he appears to recognise her - at least enough to use her correct title.

You would think that if Obi-Wan or Yoda was even remotely concerned about either of the twins being corrupted by the dark side, they would have stepped in before Leia rose to enough prominence to draw the attention of high ranking officials. So we have to hope the prequels explains some of this.

In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon and crew encounter young Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine. Qui-Gon realises he's force sensitive (lol, the immaculate conception) and ends up taking him away to be trained at Jedi school. He is interviewed by the Jedi council, and Yoda concludes that he's too old to be trained.

YODA : (Cont'd) Master Qui-Gon more to say have you?
QUI-GON : With your permission, my Master. I have encountered a vergence in
the Force.
YODA : A vergence, you say?
MACE WINDU : Located around a person?
QUI-GON : A boy... his cells have the highest concentration of
midi-chlorians I have seen in a life form. It is possible he was conceived
by the midi-chlorians.
MACE WINDU : You're referring to the prophesy of the one who will bring
balance to the Force...you believe it's this boy??
QUI-GON : I don't pressume...
YODA : But you do! Rrevealed your opinion is.
QUI-GON : I request the boy be tested.

The JEDI all look to one another. They nod and turn back to OBI-WAN and
QUI-GON.

YODA : Trained as a Jedi, you request for him?
QUI-GON : Finding him was the will of the Force...I have no doubt of that.
There is too much happening here...
MACE WINDU : Bring him before us, then.
YODA : Tested he will be.

Later...

INT. PALACE OF THE JEDI - COUNCIL CHAMBERS - SUNSET

ANAKIN stands before the TWELVE JEDI. MACE WINDU holds a small hand-held
viewing screen. In rapid succession, images flash across the screen.

ANAKIN : A ship...a cup...a speeder.

MACE WINDU turns the viewing screen off and nods toward YODA.

YODA : Good, good, young one. How feel you?
ANAKIN : Cold, sir.
YODA : Afraid are you?
ANAKIN : No, sir.
MACE WINDU : Afraid to give up your life?
ANAKIN : I don't think so.

ANAKIN hesitates for a moment.

YODA : See through you, we can.
MACE WINDU : Be mindful of your feelings...
KI-ADI : YOur thoughts dwell on your mother.
ANAKIN : I miss her.
YODA : Afraid to lose her..I think.
ANAKIN : (a little angry) What's that got to do with anything?
YODA : Eveything. Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to
anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering.
ANAKIN : (angrily) I am not afraid!
YODA : A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. I
sense much fear in you.
ANAKIN : (quietly) I am not afraid.
YODA : Then continue, we will.

And later still, they decide on his fate.

INT. TEMPLE OF THE JEDI - COUNCIL CHAMBERS - TWILIGHT

ANAKIN, OBI-WAN, and QUI-GON stand before the TWELVE MEMBERS OF THE JEDI
COUNCIL.

KI-ADI : The Force is strong with him.
QUI-GON : He's to be trained, then.

The COUNCIL MEMBERS look to one another.

MACE WINDU : No. He will not be trained.

ANAKIN is crestfallen; tears begin to form in his eyes.

QUI-GON : No??!!

MACE WINDU : He is too old.
QUI-GON : He is the chosen one...you must see it.
YODA : Clouded, this boy's future is. 
QUI-GON : I will trin him, then. I take Anakin as my Padawan learner.

OBI-WAN reacts with surprise. ANAKIN watches with interest.

YODA : An apprentice, you have, Qui-Gon. Impossible, to take on a second.
MACE WINDU : The Code forbids it.
QUI-GON : Obi-Wan is ready.
OBI-WAN : I am ready to face the trials.
YODA : Our own counsel we will keep on who is ready.

(Notice the parallels between this and The Empire Strikes Back?)

Despite this, Qui-Gon tries to train him anyway, and he helps fly in the fight against the Trade Federation, even though he was told to Wait Here (TV tropes link). He ends up saving the day and is applauded by all of Naboo. However, Qui-Gon dies in the fight, and his dying wish to Obi-Wan is that he trains Anakin.

Obi-Wan is in a bind, on one hand, the Jedi council said not to train him. On the other hand, his master's dying wish was to train the boy. It's a tough choice (no, I'm not being sarcastic. I think the bond between master and apprentice can be quite strong).

However, Obi-Wan may have been a bit emotional when he made that agreement - does that count as forming a binding contract under duress? Either way, being the good guy that he is, he stays true to his word, and by the time Attack of the Clones rolls around, we see that he has taken Anakin on as his padawan, and the Jedi council seems to have just rolled with this...

From quite early on in AotC, we learn that Anakin is an "act now, think later" kind of person. I don't know if this was a nod towards the later movies, but he loses his lightsabre, which Obi-Wan picks up.

And then there's this line from Obi-Wan:

Sorry, tangent again, but it does serve to start to make you wonder whether Anakin was too old to be trained.

Later in the movie, we see some of the younglings being trained.

They are really young and already doing lightsabre training, which hints that they were even younger when they first began their training. Compare this to when Luke first does lightsabre exercises, he's at least in his late teens (I think he was supposed to be sixteen in the movie, but that's never explicitly mentioned. The script lists Leia as "about sixteen").

It's not wonder Yoda thinks he's too old by the time he makes it to Dagobah!

We learn some of the reasoning behind this later. Jedi are meant to be detached (the are the peacekeeprs of the galaxy, after all), and Anakin seems to really struggle with this. Obi-Wan even mentions this to Yoda and Mace Windu.

   OBI-WAN
  I am concerned for my Padawan. He
  is not ready to be given this 
  assignment on his own yet.

   YODA
  The Council is confident in its decision,
  Obi-Wan.

   MACE
  The boy has exceptional skills.

   OBI-WAN
  But he still has much to learn, Master.
  And his abilities have made him...
  well... arrogant.

   YODA
  Yes, yes. A flaw more and more
  common among Jedi. Too sure of
  themselves they are. Even the older,
  more experienced ones.

   MACE WINDU
  Remember Obi-Wan, if the prophecy is
  true, your apprentice is the only one
  who can bring the Force back into
  balance.

Anakin really struggles to keep his emotions in check. Throughout the last two movies, Obi-Wan constantly has to remind him to be patient and think before he acts.

This hints at the main reason the Jedi council is reluctant to train older kids - it's hard to unlearn habits, and if you've already learned things like fear, anger, arrogance, then you'll have a much harder time being detached. Plus, violence isn't always the solution, and if your first instinct is to bash some heads in, because might is right, then you may not be doing the right thing.

OK, so they backed a loser, no big deal, right? Except this guy also happened to.... slaughter the entire next generation of Jedi and end up the apprentice of one of the first Sith Lords to appear in centuries.

I bet Yoda was fighting a pretty strong urge to say, "I told you so" right about then. Except he's a highly disciplined Jedi Master, so he wouldn't.

As horrifying as it was to watch, it gives a pretty damn good reason why Yoda and Obi-Wan were both hesitant to train Luke, given how much like Anakin he seemed to be.

I think the prequels did really well in answering the question of why Yoda and Obi-Wan preferred to watch Luke rather than train him. I guess they still had hope that there were other Jedi who survived.

It seems that at the end of Revenge of the Sith, the plan was to split up the twins and then... what? Hope Palpatine dies of old age? We can't really tell what happened between the end of RotS and ANH, but based on what we see in ESB, the only people actively fighting are the Rebel Alliance. Given how most people in the original trilogy seem to think the Force is some hokey religion, I doubt there are many Force users around.

I've heard it argued that Luke has never heard of it because he lives on a remote planet, but Han Solo is a well-travelled smuggler. If there were active Force users around, he would have heard of them. Especially since lightsabres can deflect laser bolts, so a good blaster is useless against a Force user!

Even in the earlier Darth Vader force choke scene, the person he's choking (and Pyro is going to be on my ass for not remembering his name) doesn't even seem to believe him, hence the line, "I find your lack of faith disturbing".

It also doesn't even answer the question of why Leia wasn't trained - although it could be argued that as the daughter of the Queen of Alderaan, she is too high-profile to be trained in secret. Which just adds another point to the argument of why it was so stupid to leave her there in the first place.

On this point, I think there things that the prequels handled really well, in particular establishing a good reason for why Luke was never trained, and also explaining why Luke and Leia were hidden in the first place and never told about their heritage. But they provide a weak reason for explaining why they did what they did at the end of RotS. I mean, Obi-Wan went into hiding, why didn't he just take Luke with him? Sure, his last apprentice was a disaster, but as it was mentioned many times throughout the movie, he was too old.

Imagine if Luke / Leia / both had been trained from birth. By both Yoda and Obi-Wan! It might be that having too many force-users in one place would attract attention. A wrinkly green dude would probably stand out. And I don't know how the Star Wars society perceives single fathers. Hopefully the same way they perceive single mothers. To be fair, I doubt that either of them was trained to raise two human infants, they probably didn't want to accidentally kill them through negligence. But at least do a Harry Potter and take them to Hogwarts once they're old enough to be trained! Not just watch Luke like a creeper for his whole life.

I do have to cut them some slack, it seems that the dark side of the Force had been clouding their thoughts for a long time, and they weren't really sure who or what they could trust - another thing that the prequels did really well. I think they did an amazing job with Senator / Emperor Palpatine. It was probably safer to wait (which seems to be the Jedi modus operandi - minus Qui-Gon and Anakin) and see what happens than jump in and blindly train these kids.

The Prequel Menace - The Princess Diary

(Other than tomorrow's post, which will undoubtedly be about my run, the next maybe 7 (?) posts are going to be Star Wars related. So if you're not a fan, see you in a week!)

This post will have spoilers for: the Star Wars movies (except The Force Awakens)

I was talking to someone I had great respect for (who I will call Pyro, to keep their identity anonymous), and found out that their favourite movie from the Star Wars franchise is Revenge of the Sith. As is tradition, I had to give them crap for it, as the typical response to any of the prequel movies is:

Even though there are three of them, so technically, only one of them can be the worst (my vote goes to Attack of the Clones). Pyro replied that the prequels seem to get a lot of crap, but not all of it is justified. Is this true? (Mini-plug: If you don't absolutely hate the prequels, the webcomic Darths and Droids makes the whole storyline a lot better. It covers the events in the series from the perspective of a group of people playing Dungeons and Dragons).

Some of the great moments in the original trilogy referred to events that we never get to see, and are left as a mystery. There were a lot of unanswered questions, but just like with many other stories, you're just going to have to accept this and move on.

It really doesn't matter to the story, in the grand scheme of things. Why is Leia a princess, but Luke, her twin brother, left to waste away on Tatooine? How did Leia know Obi-Wan? How did Vader end up being their father? Why does Obi-Wan have his lightsabre? What were the Clone Wars? All interesting questions, and there was much fan speculation, but no official answers. I do remember reading in a book that Vader ended up an asthmatic in a suit because he lost a fight to Obi-Wan and was burned by lava, but that just raised even more questions - who put him in the suit? If he lost, how is it that he's one of the most feared men in the galaxy and Obi-Wan is  in hiding? Why does Obi-Wan have such a crappy ability to come up with a new name?

It doesn't matter, and not having the answer to those questions doesn't really reduce your enjoyment. Does it matter that you don't know how lightsabres work exactly? Nope! As long as the rules for all the Force related stuff remain consistent, then it doesn't. The only time it really does break the story is when it's something deus ex machina-like, and it breaks the sense of immersion as you're left thinking, "That totally came out of nowhere and doesn't make sense at all, but now the good guys win. Hooray?"

Sometimes it's a twist just to have a twist, but sometimes it helps with the story. Vader turn out to be Luke's father helps explain why he's so reluctant to kill him, despite the fact that Luke is incredibly outclassed throughout the entire trilogy. Having Leia turn out to be his sister makes the first movie a bit icky, but gives a convenient "out" to having them find Luke. That being said, the whole series had a convenient "out" with the whole "the Force made me do it" thing, but I'm glad it wasn't as overused as it could have been.

George Lucas, and the film team. had the unenviable position of having to try and tie up all the big loose threads left by the original trilogy, but still leave the prequels as good standalone movies, for people who may be watching them for the first time. Not to mention all the hype that had been generated by the long wait between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace (16 years).

Even harder, they had to turn Anakin from a good guy to a bad guy, but still have the audience engrossed in his story. I think it'd be pretty damn tough to turn this:

into this:

Though he was the reason we had the first one in the first place....

(Did you hear Vader's breathing when you saw the second image? Because I hear it in the back of my mind every time I see it.)

I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at some of these things, and discuss how the series handled it. I'm going to consider the movies only, so I won't include the novelisations (because I don't have time to read them all right now), and none of the supporting material. The copy I am basing it on (just in case they decide to "remaster" them again), is "The complete saga" (lol, not complete anymore) blu ray discs, which were released on 2011. I thought about including Shadows of the Empire, but decided against it. It has been years since I played the game, and even longer since I read the book. My copy is sitting somewhere at my parents' house, and I don't even know if our N64 still works. As a side note: watching the movies at 3.1 times speed is really fun!

The first question I thought I'd explore was Leia's royal heritage. Explaining the fact that she's a princess wouldn't be so difficult if it weren't hindered by the fact that her lineage can't give away the fact that she is the daughter of Anakin Skywalker.

According to the current voted answer on Sci-Fi Stack Exchange site:

Leia was adopted as a baby by Senator Organa and his wife Queen Breha Organa, thus making her a princess. 

Technically, I don't think she could be considered a princess by birth, since her mother Padmé Amidala was no longer Queen of Naboo at the time of Leia's birth, having taken the position of Senator of Naboo. So it's only via adoption that she has royal status.

However, before the prequels were aired, we didn't have that information.

From an out of universe point of view, I have a feeling someone said to George Lucas that everything's better with princesses (warning: TV tropes link) - the page itself even has an entry for her, saying the story would have been the same even if she wasn't a princess (except for the part where Han is motivated to rescue her because she has money). Or it could be that the original story wasn't even set in space to begin with (I mean, you do have Lord Vader, Luke is a farmer, and Han is a pirate). When it was just the original trilogy, it didn't matter why. Leia was a princess (of an asteroid belt?), and that was that.

In The Phantom Menace, we find out that the girl Anakin has a crush on, and shamelessly flirts with, turns out to be Queen Amidala (fun fact: her decoy is played by Keira Knightley, of Bend It Like Beckham and Pirates of the Caribbean fame).

Well, that seems to answer the question quite cleanly. Leia is a princess because her mother is a Queen. Except that ends up raising another question: if Leia is famous enough that people address her as a princess because they know her mother is a queen, and Anakin knows that this woman he loved, and had sex with, gave birth to her, why didn't he put two and two together and realise Leia is his daughter? Presumably, the dates would have added up.

Plus, if Amidala is the Queen of Naboo, she'll have to stay on the planet for the rest of the series, because it doesn't make sense for the Queen to just jet off on adventures with her jedi husband - it's unnecessary danger to the royal family, and it really just makes no sense.

Maybe the film team realised this after they had shot too much footage for TPM, because it seems that the Queen of Naboo is an elected position.

This also helps to explain why she is so young and isn't an orphan or something. I couldn't find her age explicitly mentioned in the movie, the only thing is this line:

The most "official" source might be Weird Al's song The Saga Begins which has the lines:

Did you know this junkyard slave
Isn't even old enough to shave
But he can use the Force, they say 

Ah, do you see him hitting on the queen
Though he's just nine and she's fourteen
Yeah, he's probably gonna marry her someday

Though in Attack of the Clones she does mention becoming politically active at the age of eight:

So when I was eight, I joined the "Apprentice Legislators", then later on became a Senatorial advisor, with such a passion that, before I knew it, I was elected Queen...I wasn't the youngest Queen ever elected, but now that I think back on it, I'm not sure I was old enough. I'm not sure I was ready.

I guess they had to make her young because they decided to make Anakin so young in the first movie, and it'd be creepy if she was a middle-aged woman making googly eyes at a kid. That being said, Natalie Portman does not look fourteen in the first movie, which is another reason why I think it was retconned late into production. Although, Natalie Portman and Jake Lloyd still looks creepy - especially because they keep Natalie for the next two movies, but change his actor to someone else, so it looks like she hasn't aged at all and he has!

So anyway, the Leia inheriting her royalty from Padmé point is now a wash, because there can't be any known link between the two, otherwise Vader would have know when he was with her both on her ship and on the Death Star. He also wouldn't have allowed her to be put up for execution.

It's safe to assume she isn't a princess through her birth mother or through her father. Another side note: Tarkin pronounces her name LEE-A, but I think the accepted pronunciation seems to have become LAY-A, as that's how Natalie Portman says it in RotS.

With the first movie's explanation for her royalty being a wash, that leaves Lucas two more movies to explain how Leia is a princess, why Luke isn't a prince and how she managed to escape the notice of Vader.

Attack of the Clones doesn't really do anything to solve this mystery, except develop the love between Amidala and Anakin, which we already guessed was going to happen based on the events in TPM. Also he murders a bunch of Tuskan raiders, and we meet Owen and Beru for the first time, which will be important later.

There are a couple of things that I'll touch on in later posts, but the important thing here is that Anakin has to turn to the dark side so that he can turn into Darth Vader. They had already decided to paint him as a naïve do-gooder in the first movie, and although he does show some anger and recklessness in AotC, he's still clearly "good".

The other thing is that Padmé has to give birth to twins, but Anakin can't know. How can they accomplish this?

They manage to kill two birds with one stone in Revenge of the Sith: have Anakin thinks she's dead, and have her give birth in secret. However, with Padmé being as famous as she is - in the second movie, she was quite active in the senate, being in opposition of "Military Creation Act" - how could they hope to hide the fact that she was alive, and had twins? So she still had to die, but not until after giving birth.

This means you need the following events to happen: Anakin and Padmé have sex, Padmé becomes pregnant, Anakin has reason to believe Padmé is dead (best if he deals the killing blow himself, so now he has nothing attaching him to the light side), Padmé is taken somewhere else and gives birth, children are hidden away in secret. Padmé dies and the secret of her children's heritage is kept secret by the people who take care of them.

Which is pretty much what happens in Revenge of the Sith minus the having sex part, which it is assumed takes place off-screen. This does come at the expense of one of my most hated parts of the entire series.

Yoda decides the kids must be split, and Bail offers to take Leia, saying he and his wife had always wanted to adopt a child.

YODA: Hidden, safe, the children must be kept.
OBI-WAN: We must take them somewhere the Sith will not sense their presence.
YODA: Split up, they should be.
BAIL ORGANA: My wife and I will take the girl. We've always talked of adopting a baby girl. She will be loved with us. 

One of the final scenes is Bail handing a baby to a woman, who we assume is his wife. NOWHERE IS IT EXPLAINED THAT SHE IS THE QUEEN OF ALDERAAN.

Bail mentions being a senator during the movie, and that's about it. If you've seen the original trilogy by this point, then you can assume she's the Queen, except you pretty much hear nothing about Alderaan in the prequels, especially nothing about their ruling class. So despite three movies having the chance to explain it, if you only watched the movies, you still wouldn't know why Leia is a princess (though there's nothing that contradicts the idea that Bail's wife is a Queen, so that possibility is still open). In fact, the worst part is that due to Padmé's time as the Queen of Naboo, you may be mistakenly led to believe that she's a Princess due to the fact that she's the daughter of Padmé!

In terms of answering the question of Leia's royal heritage, the prequels did a pretty poor job of it. It seemed like they were answering it with Queen Amidala, but that didn't work, so they shoehorned in the adoption and conveniently had her adopted by a Queen. This wasn't in the movie, but in the Return of the Jedi script hosted on IMSDB, Obi-Wan, as a Force ghost, explains:

BEN (continuing his narrative)
When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible.  So I took you to live with my brother Owen on Tatooine... and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan.

Luke turns, and settles near Ben to hear the tale. 

BEN (attempting to give solace with his words)
The Organa household was high-born and politically quite powerful in that system. Leia became a princess by virtue of lineage... no one knew she'd been adopted, of course. But it was a title without real power, since Alderaan had long been a democracy.  Even so, the family continued to be politically powerful, and Leia, following in her foster
father's path, became a senator as well.  That's not all she became, of course... she became the leader of her cell in the Alliance against the corrupt Empire. And because she had diplomatic immunity, she was a vital link for getting information to the Rebel cause.  That's what she was doing when her path crossed yours... for her foster parents had
always told her to contact me on Tatooine, if her troubles became desperate. 

Luke is overwhelmed by the truth, and is suddenly protective of his sister. 

LUKE
But you can't let her get involved now, Ben. Vader will destroy her. 

BEN
She hasn't been trained in the ways of the Jedi the way you have, Luke... but the Force is strong with her, as it is with all of your family. There is no avoiding the battle. You must face and destroy Vader!

It clashes with the prequels, and seems like it was left on the cutting room floor, as isn't even included as a deleted scene on the copy I have.

As another side note: In Star Wars: The Old Republic, Alderaan is one of the planets you can go to. Part of the main questline on the planet involves a war between various noble families, with the Organas being one of those families. At the time the game is set, House Panteer is the ruling family, but the Crown Prince is assassinated, and the Queen also dies, leaving no heir, hence the warring.