This guy may have the best sci-fi/ fantasy column on the web:
“Maybe Jango Fett Paid Them With Amex: Speaking of “Episode Two,” why couldn’t Yoda, the supreme Jedi, sense that Senator Palpatine is the awful agent of the Dark Side when Yoda is standing right next to him? When Anakin and Padme Amidala get married, how come she has no guests, even though she is a prominent politician? At the wedding, R2D2 and C3P0 are the only witnesses, so in “Episode Four” (now the cool thing to call the original “Stars Wars” movie), how come when Darth Vader bumps into R2 and 3P0, he doesn’t recognize the 'droids even though they were the sole witnesses at his own wedding? And the skinny aliens on the clone-manufacturing planet, why were they dedicating their entire society to making clones for the Jedi Council when they have, apparently, never been paid anything?”
Yoda couldn’t sense Palpatine because the Light side was repressed by the Dark. How? Why? What caused this to occur? Is this something that Palpatine could bring about, or is it a natural occurence that he took advantage of? Nobody explains.
Of course, that Yoda and the rest of the Jedi, not to mention thousands of Senators, presidents, teenage queens (elected ones, at that!) … that none of them ever saw through Palpatine’s blatant manipulations is even more worrisome.
There isn’t a single frame of Episode 1 or 2 that hasn’t been analyzed and ripped apart for having a blatant plot hole :D
Don’t you realize? It was all explained by the GLIMIUAHG theory some time ago. He’s like the anti-Tolkien, regardless of your personal feelings towards either body of work. Tolkien created an entire world from which a story happened to emerge, Lucas created a story from which an entire world happened to emerge.
Those questions might make sense if it was reality you were dealing with. The easy answer is that the integration of 1980 movie with 2000 movie is far from complete, and that there is no POINT to such an integration other than to please fanboys. The other statements are valid, although I’m not sure logical consistency was ever a selling point of the Star Wars series.
Aliens (along with robots!) look like humans in suits?
The Force which emits from all living things? What… which Star Wars scientist has verified this? Is there any such thing as a Star Wars scientist or are they all mystics?
And this guy is complaining about the number of guests at a WEDDING? Wake the fuck up.
I’m no big Star Wars fan, but it doesn’t even sound like that guy bothered watching Episode II. Good for him, but the answer to the “Amidala and Anakin” getting married question is that it was a secret marriage, because Jedis aren’t supposed to get married. Why Anakin bothered marrying her to begin with is the bigger question. Why didn’t he just premaritally fuck Natalie, like I did at a Harvard kegger back in 99?
Given the chance, you’d get hitched to Natalie Portman too. 1, she’s hot. 2, if you do divorce her, you can take half her money! Ka-ching. (same applies with her character)
Again, TMQ is becoming more about being a lazy stupid pop culture blog and less about being a football column. Curse you Gregg Easterbrook and your extraneous ‘G’!
I don’t know who Glimhiuahg is (ai - Cthulhu - ftagn?) but this is terrific.
C3PO wasn’t just Anakin’s best man–Anakin built C3PO. And still fails to recognize him. These movies have massive “X-Files Syndrome”: the writer is making it up as he goes along, but doesn’t bother to make sure that all the plot twists make sense with one another.
There are lots of protocol droids that look exactly like threepio. And it’s not like Vader had lots of face time with him in the original trilogy. You’re stretching.
I don’t disagree–he obviously IS making it up as he goes along (like Chris Carter was). The C3PO thing at least makes some sense, however, since the only scene in the Star Wars trilogy in which Vader and C3PO are in the same room is the dinner scene in Bespin (and even then, C3PO is in pieces on Chewbacca’s back). So even if Vader never recognizes C3PO, at least he never has any opportunity to do so on screen.
It’s still a pretty obvious contrivance that Lucas should have avoided altogether. Is it really that important to have Anakin create C3PO? That seems like an awfully big (and pointless) coincidence.
Is he really making it up as he goes? Other weird coincidences to ponder:
How come C3PO doesn’t recognize his home planet?
C3PO: As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure which planet I’m on
Luke: Well, if there is a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it is farthest from.
Odd that Luke didn’t just tell him, “you’re on Tatooine.”
Why doesn’t C3PO recognize Luke as being Anakin’s son?
Luke never tells C3PO his last name. He just says, “you can call me ‘Luke’ … no, just ‘Luke’”.
Right before Obi-Wan tells Luke the whole story about his father’s untimely demise at the hands of his ex-pupil, C3PO switches himself off to “rest” after having his arm reattached.
Hmmn.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing him tie all these loose plot threads together in Ep III. Maybe David Brin is right and Darth Vader is really a deep cover agent sent by Obi-Wan to kill the emperor with the help of his Jedi son…
Speaking of which, what kind of stroke of genius was it when Kenobi decides to hide the existence of Vader’s two kids, so–with all the galaxy to choose from–he places one of them in the home of one of the most prominent politicians in the whole universe, and puts the other one in Anakin’s childhood house with his closest blood relatives. That Obi-Wan, he’s crazy…like a FOX!
Yeah, yeah–but he knows from 1/3 of the way through “Star Wars” that C3PO was one of the people who escaped from the Death Star (I presume, since he and Tarkin were secretly monitoring the whole group and let them escape, that they knew who was there). I guess we’re supposed to assume that he realizes and thinks about this offscreen, and then dismisses it without doing any further investigation that would have turned up his connection to Luke (although maybe he already knew it–that’s another thing that’s never explained…when exactly Vader realizes Luke is his son, and why he knows he has a son but not the son’s twin sister. Maybe it’s one of those “I could tell by the Force” things with Luke, but why not Leia?).
Or maybe we just assume Lucas is flying by the seat of his pants and mistakenly thinks it’s cool to have everything relate back to everything else, whether it makes sense or not.
That’s my biggest gripe for now. Threepio, the Fetts, ugh, little Anakin beating up little Greedo in the deleted scene? Come on, that’s nuts Lucas! Wake up! At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to have some plot “twist” in Episode III revealing Han Solo as Mace Windu’s adopted son.
Presumably he knew the group included droids, but since Astromechs and Protol droids are practically ubiquitous he probably didn’t care whether he “knew” them or not. And if he did recognize them, wtf cares? What difference would it have made? R2 and 3PO have apparently had their memories wiped since the last time he saw them, so just what importance would have have to him? None, that’s right so who cares? The droids are just supposed to be our serendipidous window into the world. They get swept up by the action, lend a hand occasionally but are mostly just there. They aren’t significant outside of that. Vader obviously didn’t give them a seoond thought, so why the Fuck Star Wars contigent would obsess about this is beyond me.
(although maybe he already knew it–that’s another thing that’s never explained…when exactly Vader realizes Luke is his son, and why he knows he has a son but not the son’s twin sister. Maybe it’s one of those “I could tell by the Force” things with Luke, but why not Leia?)
When we don’t know, but Vader never knew he had fathered any children. Once he divines that Luke is his son, he still doesn’t know they was a twin sister to go along with it. Luke didn’t know either. Vader doesn’t learn about Leia until Jedi when Luke has learned and can’t keep Vader from plucking that morsel from his mind.
