New Redletter Media video about Lucas

[Knife]

You know, when someone with education in any certain scientific field here gets confronted with really stupid claims from some random idiot who doesn't even know the basics, it's totally cool for them to say, "No I'm not going to teach this concept to you, you're just an idiot, please go die now."

Is it cool for people who can grasp the basic concepts of decent storytelling to do the same? Because for fuck's sake, Batman and co. have managed to positively demonstrate a negative amount of knowledge in the field.

LOL, cause, you know, taking a 'introduction to fiction' class and bitching about characterization while ignoring themes, symbolism, and other implied information that storytellers use is totally showing how ultra awesome and knowledgeable you are in story telling. Bwhahahahahahahahahha. You're silly.

It really breaks down to subjective preference. Some people are OK with getting vague information through vague sources in a story, or catching on to themes and symbolism to fill in the gaps, other people want it spelled out to them in dialogue or on screen visual actions. Is there a 'right way' and 'wrong way'? No. You sound like a douche, though, if you want to compare subjective preferences in story telling to actual objective analysis of scientific data.

The actual Tax problem doesn't mean anything to me because I view the whole thing as the plan Sidious cooked up and conned the Trade Fed to go along with for Palpy's Ultimate Power Plan. The taxes don't matter, nor does the actual deal the Trade Fed made, because in the context of the story, it's all about the evil genius' plan to take over the universe and frame the CIS and the Jedi for the whole damn thing. So for me, who cares what the actual bullet points of the con Palpy laid on the Trade Fed were, I just assume it was enough because they went for the plan unknowing the end game was them getting ass raped.

But that's me. Totally subjective. Others can see what they want in a story. Totally subjective. Which is what makes this thread hilarious and cries of 'you don't know what good story telling is' hilarious.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

You know, when someone with education in any certain scientific field here gets confronted with really stupid claims from some random idiot who doesn't even know the basics, it's totally cool for them to say, "No I'm not going to teach this concept to you, you're just an idiot, please go die now."

Is it cool for people who can grasp the basic concepts of decent storytelling to do the same? Because for fuck's sake, Batman and co. have managed to positively demonstrate a negative amount of knowledge in the field.

LOL, cause, you know, taking a 'introduction to fiction' class and bitching about characterization while ignoring themes, symbolism, and other implied information that storytellers use is totally showing how ultra awesome and knowledgeable you are in story telling. Bwhahahahahahahahahha. You're silly.

I piss flaming napalm on your strawman of my position. Feel free to show where I did any of the above.

It really breaks down to subjective preference. Some people are OK with getting vague information through vague sources in a story, or catching on to themes and symbolism to fill in the gaps, other people want it spelled out to them in dialogue or on screen visual actions. Is there a 'right way' and 'wrong way'? No. You sound like a douche, though, if you want to compare subjective preferences in story telling to actual objective analysis of scientific data.

Except that in TPM there isn't 'vague information through vague sources'. There's NO information given by NO sources. No one tells us who specifically is getting taxed, if the taxes are too high or too low, if Naboo's on the giving or receiving end of the taxes, if the Trade Feds chose Naboo because they had a problem with that planet specifically or if it was a random 'hostage' in their nonsensical and unexplained plan, what Darth Palpable did to get the Trade Feds eating out of his hand, what Darth Timefiller's deal is... the list goes on.

I don't have a complete education regarding this. All I have are a couple semesters' worth as an English-Writing major and about five written novels under my belt. Yet I can still see some of the fundamental reasons why TPM is just such a crap story.

I'll echo D13: Feel free to point out the powerful 'symbolism' and 'themes' in TPM. Fuck, me, D13 and others have actually been going out of our way to show how to give the movies some really well done themes and symbolism. Just go back a few pages to see the ideas being tossed back and forth on how to make Darth Timefiller, General Emphysema and Count Dracula come across as potent symbolism for different aspects of Anakin's fall, in ways the movies never did. D13 is worse at literary theory than I am, and even he came up with better ideas than the movie.

The actual Tax problem doesn't mean anything to me because I view the whole thing as the plan Sidious cooked up and conned the Trade Fed to go along with for Palpy's Ultimate Power Plan. The taxes don't matter, nor does the actual deal the Trade Fed made, because in the context of the story, it's all about the evil genius' plan to take over the universe and frame the CIS and the Jedi for the whole damn thing. So for me, who cares what the actual bullet points of the con Palpy laid on the Trade Fed were, I just assume it was enough because they went for the plan unknowing the end game was them getting ass raped.

So... you're interested in the evil genius' 'Ultimate Power Plan'... but you're not interested in the various parts that show it to be a work of evil genius?

I'm serious: Exactly what part of Emperor Palpable's rise to plan show him to be an evil genius, and how? All I saw was either him asking people to do really stupid shit and them complying... or people just doing stupid shit for his benefit without his manipulation. It would be a hell of a lot easier to believe he was an evil mastermind if we knew exactly what he did to get the Jedi, the Trade Feds, the Senate, etc to act like complete morons around him. But we don't. They just do. Here, I'll do your homework for you and list the various parts of Palpable's plan:

- Get control of the Trade Feds: Okay... we see that he's got them eating out of his hand, how the hell did he pull that off?

- Get elected chancellor: Okay, he asked one single person to cast a single vote and she complied after the most token of protests with seemingly no compelling reason to do so (Really, what did Palpable getting elected Chancellor do to help with the re-taking of Naboo? Nothing, so why the hell did Oobadooba even bother with the no-confidence vote since her sole purpose on Coruscant was to help Naboo?). What acts of evil genius did he do to cause this? Umm... he asked her to?

- Create a civil war in the Republic: So the secessionists do so because... umm... he asked them to? We're still never told what they stand to gain from seceding. They say they have 'demands', but there is never any hint given as to what those demands are, or why they felt they had to go to war to have them met.

- Get himself 'emergency powers': This one's just hilarious. Alright, so the Senate would never agree to authorizing a clone army, right? So what he does is gets them to authorize him 'emergency powers' so that he can authorize the clone army himself. In other words since the Senate was against this, he got them to pass a measure to circumvent themselves. And how did he do that? He asked them to.

- Get himself an army to take out the Jedi: So he goes and uses a fallen Jedi to put in an order for a clone army without authorization, they comply because... he asked them to. The Jedi find out that not only was there an army created with their powers of authority, but without their permission, not only did they find out said army is created by someone working for the secessionists and based off the DNA template of someone else working for the secessionists, but they are explicitly told by Count Dracula that it was done by a fallen Jedi who wants to see them destroyed and is somewhere in the Senate. And they... allow this army of known sleeper agents right into their power structure with no further attempts to examine them or follow up on why they were created. He didn't even ask them to do that, they just did of their own accord.

So let's apply Occam's Razor here: Either Palpable's a genius beyond compare who's putting in 72 hour workdays behind the scenes to set everything up so that otherwise intelligent people merely look like complete fucking idiots on screen, and we never see any of this intricate plotting, hard work, or evil genius displayed... or everyone's a complete fucking idiot and Palpable's just a smarter-than-average asshole putting forward the minimum effort to take advantage of that. Which one requires less unexplained variables?

The prequals have less in common with the OT than they do with Spaceballs: Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb.

Fucking prequationists.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

So for me, who cares what the actual bullet points of the con Palpy laid on the Trade Fed were, I just assume it was enough because they went for the plan unknowing the end game was them getting ass raped.

Are taxes just symbolism for getting ass raped? Was that the gap you filled in? Get it? Gap... filled in. Rape.

But that's me. Totally subjective. Others can see what they want in a story. Totally subjective. Which is what makes this thread hilarious and cries of 'you don't know what good story telling is' hilarious.

So true. Everything is subjective. Like your use of the word symbolism in regards to TPM.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

4) He personally was ok with it, but the people under him were not. They probably weren't really happy with this Sidious thing in the first place, so they wouldn't follow through if Nute crossed the line into mass murder.

Did anyone really work for these guys? As far as I could tell there were like four dudes in charge of 10 million robots and one chick with a cyborg face. I mean a federation is a unified collection of different groups, yet the only species that belongs to the TF were these Asian accented puppets. Who did they form this federation with, a bunch of robots? Because the robots sure got the shit end of that deal.

The weird accents always bothered me in PT. Not because I think Lucas is racist, but because in the OT most of the aliens spoke their own fake language with subtitled. This helped suspend disbelief and made you feel more a part of this fantasy world. Lucas didn't want to make people read for PT so he gave everyone fucking stupid regional earth accents. Really the only alien that did any English speaking in OT was Yoda and it wasn't like Frank Oz said, "I'mma gonna do him with a brooklyn accent."

Oh and "It's a trap" from Ackbar and which is hilarious.

[Galvatron]

The weird accents always bothered me in PT. Not because I think Lucas is racist, but because in the OT most of the aliens spoke their own fake language with subtitled. This helped suspend disbelief and made you feel more a part of this fantasy world. Lucas didn't want to make people read for PT so he gave everyone fucking stupid regional earth accents. Really the only alien that did any English speaking in OT was Yoda and it wasn't like Frank Oz said, "I'mma gonna do him with a brooklyn accent."

I had extreme difficulty even understanding what they said because of those accents. Of course, that only made the nebulous plot even harder to follow.

[Jim Raynor]

Yeah, after reading the last couple of pages, I'm REALLY glad I decided not to waste too much time on this thread over most of the past week...

I'm amazed that I'm finding myself sticking up for a movie I don't like at all because the criticisms are so asinine:-

"The Trade Federation takes issue with the taxation of trade routes! Makes no sense to me! I need everything spelled out to me in exacting detail! Even when it plainly doesn't matter and serves only to set up the actual crisis which drives the plot of the film!"

I've said the same thing myself. In my rebuttal to the RLM review, I even said that I wasn't trying to convince people that TPM was good, only that the review was full of it. I've even said myself that despite liking the film, I consider TPM to be the weakest SW movie. If I were so inclined, I could write about what I didn't like about the movie as well. It wouldn't be anywhere near as nitpicky and tryhard as the people in this thread though, because some of the stuff here is just over the top:

"A blockade means nothing to me unless a specific product is explained as being denied, since you can just hunt wild animals for food!"
"The movie would've been totally better if it actually wasted time explaining the taxes that mean absolutely jack to the actual story!
"Why would you ever jam communications during a military operation?"
"I demand a detailed biography of BAIL ORGANA in a movie he doesn't even appear in!"

Do the people making these comments actually BELIEVE them? As this thread drags on, the unintentional comedy keeps getting more outrageous. The nature of these criticisms has reached self-parody levels. I'm left with two general ideas about the kind of people who make such inane comments about the movie:

1) They're trying WAY too hard to find fault in a movie they didn't like, or to appear knowledgable or analytical about films.
2) Or they're actually being genuine, which indicates an extreme preoccupation with minor details and a desire for every last trivial thing to be spelled out for them. Which means that they're unable or unwilling to think things through, even as they try to think things through far too much.

So you don't like the movie. OK, whatever. As someone said earlier in this thread, welcome to 1999. But please take a good look at yourself, and what you're saying.

[Knife]

I piss flaming napalm on your strawman of my position. Feel free to show where I did any of the above.

LoL, nerd rage.

You have a problem with taxes and rage about other peoples analysis of fiction as if it's objective science.

Except that in TPM there isn't 'vague information through vague sources'. There's NO information given by NO sources. No one tells us who specifically is getting taxed, if the taxes are too high or too low, if Naboo's on the giving or receiving end of the taxes,

Yes there is, it's the fucking crawl at the beginning of the fucking movie. I swear to Christ we're watching different movies sometimes.

if the Trade Feds chose Naboo because they had a problem with that planet specifically or if it was a random 'hostage' in their nonsensical and unexplained plan,

See, subjective again. I thought it was pretty plain that Sidious picked the planet because, after all, he was the Senator of the fucking place and was using the invasion to gain sympathy votes in the Senate for a run at the big job.

what Darth Palpable did to get the Trade Feds eating out of his hand, what Darth Timefiller's deal is... the list goes on.

Most people don't care anymore than they care the back story of knuckles the thug, or McIrish the beat cop, random Bond henchmen #14, or cute chick in the apartment down the hall. If you can't buy that greedy corrupt businessmen probably did it for money, vain assholes did it for glory, and psycho's did it just for the fun of it, I can't help you. However, I do know that in story telling, it is OK to let the readers imagination, or in this case the watcher, fill in some gaps. Now, you can say in your opinion those gaps were not filled, but if it isn't it doesn't automatically equate to bad story telling. It's a personal preference thing.

I don't have a complete education regarding this. All I have are a couple semesters' worth as an English-Writing major and about five written novels under my belt. Yet I can still see some of the fundamental reasons why TPM is just such a crap story.

If you just want to say that, I would agree with you. This silliness about taxes though, is asinine.

I'll echo D13: Feel free to point out the powerful 'symbolism' and 'themes' in TPM. Fuck, me, D13 and others have actually been going out of our way to show how to give the movies some really well done themes and symbolism. Just go back a few pages to see the ideas being tossed back and forth on how to make Darth Timefiller, General Emphysema and Count Dracula come across as potent symbolism for different aspects of Anakin's fall, in ways the movies never did. D13 is worse at literary theory than I am, and even he came up with better ideas than the movie.

Actually, if you noticed, I agreed with a couple of them. I'm not defending TPM as some perfect example of story telling. It's the rage and stupidity of the 'cause' of that hate that prompts my posting. Out of all the problems in the movie the little bit about Taxes, as if that is the reason it was good/bad is asinine.

So... you're interested in the evil genius' 'Ultimate Power Plan'... but you're not interested in the various parts that show it to be a work of evil genius?

Meh, not any more than I was worried about how Ming the Merciless got his power. Palpy struck a deal with patsies to invade a planet and garner sympathy for him to seize power. I don't care how many diner meetings and how many hookers he burned through to get the deal. You obviously are.

I'm serious: Exactly what part of Emperor Palpable's rise to plan show him to be an evil genius, and how? All I saw was either him asking people to do really stupid shit and them complying... or people just doing stupid shit for his benefit without his manipulation. It would be a hell of a lot easier to believe he was an evil mastermind if we knew exactly what he did to get the Jedi, the Trade Feds, the Senate, etc to act like complete morons around him. But we don't. They just do. Here, I'll do your homework for you and list the various parts of Palpable's plan:

Oh for Christs sake, all the Bond Villans who plotted stupid shit over the years, all the mobsters who had to take down the bank with the super vault over the years and you're hung up on the guy who can mind rape and jedi mind trick people, making them do shit to get him elected President of the Galaxy?

- Get control of the Trade Feds: Okay... we see that he's got them eating out of his hand, how the hell did he pull that off?

Greedy corrupt businessmen after he's shown he has major pull in the Senate and can make the Senate do what he wants? Yeah, no real world equivalence there: PS don't go into News and Politics, there are often threads about greedy businessmen getting control over government functions through even bigger greedier but darker and shadier political powers.

- Get elected chancellor: Okay, he asked one single person to cast a single vote and she complied after the most token of protests with seemingly no compelling reason to do so (Really, what did Palpable getting elected Chancellor do to help with the re-taking of Naboo? Nothing, so why the hell did Oobadooba even bother with the no-confidence vote since her sole purpose on Coruscant was to help Naboo?). What acts of evil genius did he do to cause this? Umm... he asked her to?

Actually it shows more complexity than simplicity. Palpatine is able to roll with the punches and adapt situations to his needs. All he wanted was the Trade Fed to invade and make a big brew ha in the Senate for sympathy votes. What he got was way better. Good for him, story wise.

- Create a civil war in the Republic: So the secessionists do so because... umm... he asked them to? We're still never told what they stand to gain from seceding. They say they have 'demands', but there is never any hint given as to what those demands are, or why they felt they had to go to war to have them met.

Really? Sidious is shown to control the Trade Fed, his new apprentice becomes the leader of the CIS, all the while Sidious is the leader of the Republic. Really? You're having problems with this? It isn't made clear to you? Evil genius indeed, played everyone against the other.

- Get himself 'emergency powers': This one's just hilarious. Alright, so the Senate would never agree to authorizing a clone army, right? So what he does is gets them to authorize him 'emergency powers' so that he can authorize the clone army himself. In other words since the Senate was against this, he got them to pass a measure to circumvent themselves. And how did he do that? He asked them to.

Yeah, and without September 11th and doing it piecemeal, the Patriot act would have been laughed out of congress. I at least hope so. Perhaps I'm an idealist.

- Get himself an army to take out the Jedi: So he goes and uses a fallen Jedi to put in an order for a clone army without authorization, they comply because... he asked them to. The Jedi find out that not only was there an army created with their powers of authority, but without their permission, not only did they find out said army is created by someone working for the secessionists and based off the DNA template of someone else working for the secessionists, but they are explicitly told by Count Dracula that it was done by a fallen Jedi who wants to see them destroyed and is somewhere in the Senate. And they... allow this army of known sleeper agents right into their power structure with no further attempts to examine them or follow up on why they were created. He didn't even ask them to do that, they just did of their own accord.

I can't argue against that one, it is stupid.

So let's apply Occam's Razor here: Either Palpable's a genius beyond compare who's putting in 72 hour workdays behind the scenes to set everything up so that otherwise intelligent people merely look like complete fucking idiots on screen, and we never see any of this intricate plotting, hard work, or evil genius displayed... or everyone's a complete fucking idiot and Palpable's just a smarter-than-average asshole putting forward the minimum effort to take advantage of that. Which one requires less unexplained variables?

Meh.

The prequals have less in common with the OT than they do with Spaceballs: Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb.

Fucking prequationists.

Lol, I actually think TPM is the weakest of the 6 films but what ever.

[Bakustra]

Yeah, after reading the last couple of pages, I'm REALLY glad I decided not to waste too much time on this thread over most of the past week...

I'm amazed that I'm finding myself sticking up for a movie I don't like at all because the criticisms are so asinine:-

"The Trade Federation takes issue with the taxation of trade routes! Makes no sense to me! I need everything spelled out to me in exacting detail! Even when it plainly doesn't matter and serves only to set up the actual crisis which drives the plot of the film!"

I've said the same thing myself. In my rebuttal to the RLM review, I even said that I wasn't trying to convince people that TPM was good, only that the review was full of it. I've even said myself that despite liking the film, I consider TPM to be the weakest SW movie. If I were so inclined, I could write about what I didn't like about the movie as well. It wouldn't be anywhere near as nitpicky and tryhard as the people in this thread though, because some of the stuff here is just over the top:

"A blockade means nothing to me unless a specific product is explained as being denied, since you can just hunt wild animals for food!"
"The movie would've been totally better if it actually wasted time explaining the taxes that mean absolutely jack to the actual story!
"Why would you ever jam communications during a military operation?"
"I demand a detailed biography of BAIL ORGANA in a movie he doesn't even appear in!"

Do the people making these comments actually BELIEVE them? As this thread drags on, the unintentional comedy keeps getting more outrageous. The nature of these criticisms has reached self-parody levels. I'm left with two general ideas about the kind of people who make such inane comments about the movie:

1) They're trying WAY too hard to find fault in a movie they didn't like, or to appear knowledgable or analytical about films.
2) Or they're actually being genuine, which indicates an extreme preoccupation with minor details and a desire for every last trivial thing to be spelled out for them. Which means that they're unable or unwilling to think things through, even as they try to think things through far too much.

So you don't like the movie. OK, whatever. As someone said earlier in this thread, welcome to 1999. But please take a good look at yourself, and what you're saying.

Let me lay this out for you again. The taxes are supposed to serve as a macguffin- a device to move the story forward. However, they fail to do that effectively because TPM never makes it understood how they're supposed to do that. They just do, for some reason. Therefore, in order to make the movie better, you could either explain the taxes, or you could rewrite it so that the motivation of the Trade Federation makes more sense. But overall they hurt the film, because they render the foremost antagonists as motiveless. This would be like if you deleted the Death Star plans from ANH- we would have no context as to why they boarded the ship at the beginning, why Artoo's so important, and in general ANH would be a weaker movie.

This is not to say that they are the only problem, or the foremost problem, but they are a problem. I guess I should give a condensed summary: If the taxes mean jack to the actual story, then they should not have been in the film, because they are meaningless fat choking the film's life away. If they don't, then they are poorly explained and thus the film's story makes no sense.

[Knife]

lol, yeah. I should quote the crawl to prove 'taxes' are in there. Jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick.

[Bakustra]

The point is that it never gives us enough information to tell us whether the taxes are on the Federation or on Naboo or both, whether they are thought to be too high or too low, or why the occupation of a planet is thought to be a rational response to the disharmonious state of taxes. All that has to be made up, which is bad for something that's supposed to be pushing the plot into motion.

[Stark]

I think he's asking where in there it answers the questions in your quote.

[Galvatron]

Here's some examples of unnecessary exposition in ANH that George should probably just shitcan in the next revision. After all, it can all be inferred if you're smart enough...

General Tagge: What of the Rebellion? If the Rebels have obtained a complete technical reading of this station, it is possible, however unlikely, they might find a weakness and exploit it.
Darth Vader: The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands.
Admiral Motti: Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they have obtained. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe! I suggest we use it!

Princess Leia: [sighs] At least the information in R2 is still intact.
Han Solo: What's so important? What's he carrying?
Princess Leia: The technical readouts of that battle station. I only hope that when the data's analyzed a weakness can be found. It's not over yet.

Only a moron needs that shit spelled out for them in such detail. And it just bogs the movie down anyway.

[Batman]

Apparently that isn't enough. Despite the fact that millions of viewers the world over didn't give a flying fuck about it and enjoyed (or didn't) the movie as it was presented, the details of the tax dispute were apparently critically important to it because of-um-something.

[Bakustra]

Apparently that isn't enough. Despite the fact that millions of viewers the world over didn't give a flying fuck about it and enjoyed (or didn't) the movie as it was presented, the details of the tax dispute were apparently critically important to it because of-um-something.

It's important because it gives the villains a clear motivation for doing what they do. Every major villain has a reason for what they do in the OT. Tarkin wants to crush the rebellion. Vader wants to find and confront his son. The Emperor wishes to corrupt Luke Skywalker. The Trade Federation has no clear reason for what they do in the movie- we don't ever see what they get out of it- do they get lower taxes on themselves, or higher ones on Naboo? Both interpretations work as well, which you cannot say for the other movies before this one.

By the way, millions of people love Twilight, millions of people read Harlequin novels, and thousands of people think that John Ringo produces quality fiction. Disqualifying any metric that's not popularity leads you down a dark road.

[Galvatron]

Hell, we know more about Boba Fett's motivations than we do about the Trade Federation's: capture Solo, get paid.

[Knife]

I think he's asking where in there it answers the questions in your quote.

OK, if that is true, it's the original reason for the blockade, at least the original reason you/we as the viewer are given. It then spend the rest of the time explaining it isn't and the evil genius is up to some serious shit. The crawl gives vague motivation to second or third tier characters to do something and spends the next two hours fleshing it out that the 'original' reason isn't really the reason at all.

[Metahive]

The taxes are not a McGuffin, they're a Red Herring, they lead nowhere and do nothing but muddle what would otherwise be a straightforward plot. You could excise the parts that mention them and nobody would notice their absence since everyone viewing TPM like that and seeing what the TF is up to would quite easily come to the conclusion that the TF wants to loot the planet. That's why they're called greedy, blockade Naboo, invade it and then try to legalize their occupation.

Here:

Turmoil has engulfed the
Galactic Republic. The greedy Trade
Federation has stopped all
shipping to the small planet
of Naboo.

While the congress of the
Republic endlessly debates
this alarming chain of events,
the Supreme Chancellor has
secretly dispatched two Jedi
Knights, the guardians of
peace and justice in the
galaxy, to settle the conflict.

So the TF are greedy and have greatly pushed the envelope of what was once acceptable behaviour in the Republic by openly bullying a small planet for selfish gain, a move so outrageous the Republic had to involve the Jedi to resolve the matter.

So much clearer a picture of the galactic situation just by removing a particularly ill-thought out subplot.

[Anguirus]

^ What subplot? All you did was take out one line from the crawl (and presumably, one line from Palpatine's speech later).

Christ. Is ANH better-written than TPM? Of course it is. The former changed movies forever and the latter was a bit of fun. That doesn't mean arguing over whether "taxation" is a "MacGuffin" or not is anything but the worst kind of irrelevant Internet bullshit.

How come Tarkin's "crush the Rebellion" is considered a good motivation, but Nute Gunray's "I want more money" is somehow unclear? Whether he gets taxed less, or he gets to tax more, is trivia. Nute Gunray is blockading Naboo because he wants money! HOLY SHIT SECONDARY CHARACTER MOTIVATION ESTABLISHED.

I also find it somewhat staggering that it hasn't occurred to any of you that the prequel sub-villains are deliberately less interesting and complex than Darth Fucking Vader. Oh, and that the motivations and actions of villains prior to the Empire/Rebel dichotomy were not as brutally straightforward as "crush Rebellion, find Rebel, etc."

Now can we talk about something that matters? Someone brought up that the occupation of Naboo was almost all told, not shown. That is a pretty big flaw! So is the fact that the ostensible main character Anakin Skywalker takes forever to show up and slams the main plot to a halt when he does so. Or how about the fact that they follow the dreary Tatooine sequence with the interminable Coruscant sequence, leaving the only watchable parts of the movie the beginning and end on Naboo? How about the fact that the climax, while miraculously turning out all right in the end, was conceived as an impossibly ambitious series of cuts between FOUR battles? And, oh yeah, Anakin is way too young and Jar Jar Binks is unfunny and annoying.

But for fuck's sake shut up about how the addition of the word "taxation," unexplained and without context though it is, somehow changes Nute Gunray's motivations from the childlike "I want money and I don't care who I step on to get it" to labyrinthine and incomprehensible.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Christ. Is ANH better-written than TPM? Of course it is. The former changed movies forever and the latter was a bit of fun. That doesn't mean arguing over whether "taxation" is a "MacGuffin" or not is anything but the worst kind of irrelevant Internet bullshit.

So true. There are serious things to discuss on this board. Like "fan makes Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet out of Adidas shoes" or "Did palpatine genuinely lose to Windu?" How dare people debate what the fuck the motivations of the main villains are! It's clear as day!

How come Tarkin's "crush the Rebellion" is considered a good motivation, but Nute Gunray's "I want more money" is somehow unclear? Whether he gets taxed less, or he gets to tax more, is trivia. Nute Gunray is blockading Naboo because he wants money! HOLY SHIT SECONDARY CHARACTER MOTIVATION ESTABLISHED.

Sure you might say that Nute never once mentions money or how the occupation gets him the money he never mentions or how the blockade at the beginning of the film gets him the money he supposedly wants. Who cares if he's being taxed or doing the taxing those are pretty much the same thing anyway. It's as clear as Tarkin, who literally says "crush the Rebellion". Why are we comparing this movie to ANH anyway? They're completely different films, in fact why are we comparing movies at ALL? Movies are meant to be enjoyed you guys. Battlefield Earth isn't as well written as ANH but who cares its just meant to be fun and introduce you to Scientology. STOP NITPICKING!

I also find it somewhat staggering that it hasn't occurred to any of you that the prequel sub-villains are deliberately less interesting and complex than Darth Fucking Vader. Oh, and that the motivations and actions of villains prior to the Empire/Rebel dichotomy were not as brutally straightforward as "crush Rebellion, find Rebel, etc."

For Realz. Lucas did it on purpose yo. He was like, "I want to keep the OT villains the best, so these PT fuckers need to be real dumb. Fuck motivation, I'll write some shit about them being greedy at the beginning of the movie. Maybe throw some taxes in there so people know these villains are BORING too."

Now can we talk about something that matters? Someone brought up that the occupation of Naboo was almost all told, not shown. That is a pretty big flaw!

Shit yeah, I'll talk about this stuff all day too. But I thought you said the movie was just a bit of fun? Who cares if they SHOW Naboo being occupied? We get it. Occupation is bad. They are EVIL and want money and taxes or less taxes for more money, maybe. One thing I know is that they are greedy so it has something to do with money, but its not important because we get it. Just like we get the occupation. it's bad and maybe people are dying, it doesn't matter to the story because we get it. Shits evil.

But for fuck's sake shut up about how the addition of the word "taxation," unexplained and without context though it is, somehow changes Nute Gunray's motivations from the childlike "I want money and I don't care who I step on to get it" to labyrinthine and incomprehensible.

Serious guys. Nute Badger doesn't give a fuck. He'll take those taxes or not want taxes. As long as there's money he never discusses wanting or getting. He will step on anyone for it, unless that person is a hologram or the Queen he was ordered to kill or the Jedi he won't go in the room with or the senate he controls. Nothing will get in his way of the greed mentioned once in the opening crawl. Now can we PLEASE talk about this Stormtrooper helmet made out of Adidas shoes!

[Elfdart]

Except that in TPM there isn't 'vague information through vague sources'. There's NO information given by NO sources. No one tells us who specifically is getting taxed, if the taxes are too high or too low, if Naboo's on the giving or receiving end of the taxes,

Yes there is, it's the fucking crawl at the beginning of the fucking movie. I swear to Christ we're watching different movies sometimes.

Could you guys please start providing citations for your claims? Search the web for "the phantom menace" and there's transcripts of the crawl, plot summaries, and script drafts all available. There's no reason to make factual errors about something so easy to check.

Since you're too retarded to understand plain English, I'll break it down for you:

Turmoil has engulfed the
Galactic Republic. The taxation
of trade routes to outlying star
systems is in dispute.

So who is being taxed? Anyone plying the...

... (wait for it)...

trade routes to outlying star systems.

Hoping to resolve the matter
with a blockade of deadly
battleships, the greedy Trade
Federation has stopped all
shipping to the small planet
of Naboo.

What could that possibly mean? Well, the TRADE Federation (being greedy and all) apparently didn't like the taxes on TRADE routes. Meaning that (watch how the non-retarded among us are able to put 2+2 together!) the taxes were affecting the Trade Federation in a way that they didn't like. So much so that they've decided to use force against a small and presumably weak planet. Such obscure complexity -it makes no sense whatsoever! I mean, a TRADE Federation being inconvenienced by a tax on TRADE routes? Why, it would be like a greedy OIL company being pissed about a tax on OIL shipments! What bullshit!

[Galvatron]

What could that possibly mean? Well, the TRADE Federation (being greedy and all) apparently didn't like the taxes on TRADE routes. Meaning that (watch how the non-retarded among us are able to put 2+2 together!) the taxes were affecting the Trade Federation in a way that they didn't like. So much so that they've decided to use force against a small and presumably weak planet.

Or the Naboo are refusing to pay the new taxes, thus the Trade Federation is blockading all trade to their world until they pony up the cash. That would explain why Palpatine said:

"...a tragedy has occurred which started right here with the taxation of trade routes and has now engulfed our entire planet in the oppression of the Trade Federation."

Alas, the movie doesn't make it clear either way.

[Elfdart]

What could that possibly mean? Well, the TRADE Federation (being greedy and all) apparently didn't like the taxes on TRADE routes. Meaning that (watch how the non-retarded among us are able to put 2+2 together!) the taxes were affecting the Trade Federation in a way that they didn't like. So much so that they've decided to use force against a small and presumably weak planet.

Or the Naboo are refusing to pay the new taxes, thus the Trade Federation is blockading all trade to their world until they pony up the cash. That would explain why Palpatine said:

"...a tragedy has occurred which started right here with the taxation of trade routes and has now engulfed our entire planet in the oppression of the Trade Federation."

Alas, the movie doesn't make it clear either way.

That line makes it perfectly clear: He's laying a guilt trip on his fellow senators for passing a tax that has antagonized the Federation to the point where they've invaded and occupied his planet.

Which makes more sense based on what is actually shown in the movie (leave all the fan fiction, preconceived notions and other horseshit aside)?

A) The Federation doesn't like the taxes and makes a Faustian bargain with Sidious, thinking they'll get what they want out of it, or

B) Some bullshit about Naboo cheating the treasury and the Federation turning into vigilante tax collectors.

Palpatine's shtick is to stir up trouble and play the blameless victim for sympathy. That would be much harder to pull off if Naboo is NOT blameless and they're cheating on taxes, now wouldn't it?

[Galvatron]

The blockade was legal, not an act of vigilantism.

What makes more sense to me is that there was an actual reason for the Trade Federation to single out Naboo.

What makes more sense to me is that Naboo opposed the taxation and then refused to pay, resulting in the legal blockade around their planet.

It wasn't until the TF actually invaded that they stepped on their dicks.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Turmoil has engulfed the
Galactic Republic. The taxation
of trade routes to outlying star
systems is in dispute.

So who is being taxed? Anyone plying the...

... (wait for it)...

trade routes to outlying star systems.

The bigger words make all the difference. All that we know is that Trade routes to outlying systems are being taxed. Routes not companies, implying the taxes apply to everyone in the outer system. SO, We know the where (outlying systems) but we don't know the who/what is doing/being taxing. The TF? Maybe they saw these outer systems and were all upset those mother fuckers weren't paying their share. Put up a legal blockade and said "Galactic senate make this shitty monotone oligarchy pay use for the trade routes they use in this shit hole of an outer-system!" Who knows what Naboo is upset about regarding taxes, maybe they were like "our rich ass planet doesn't want to pay the trade fed every time we export our dope digital waterfalls. We need that money for more empty cities and giant statues." Mean while the senate is fucked because they gave permission to start taxing outlying systems but Naboo has a point. They live in the disputed outer system and if the tea party taught me anything its that as soon as you start taxing people they take jobs to even further outlying system. Suddenly you need tech support for your hologram machine and you end of talking to a Tusken Raider named "Bob" on tattoonie.

The Galactic Republic taxing the fed? Seems unlikely since the TF has the senate in its pocket and holding a planet hostage with a blockage seems like an illegal reaction to not wanting to fill out an intergalactic w9. But the blockade is legal or so we are told in the first scene of the movie. So since when is refusing to pay taxes and holding a planet hostage "perfectly legal"?

Hoping to resolve the matter
with a blockade of deadly
battleships, the greedy Trade
Federation has stopped all
shipping to the small planet
of Naboo.

What could that possibly mean? Well, the TRADE Federation (being greedy and all) apparently didn't like the taxes on TRADE routes. Meaning that (watch how the non-retarded among us are able to put 2+2 together!) the taxes were affecting the Trade Federation in a way that they didn't like. So much so that they've decided to use force against a small and presumably weak planet. Such obscure complexity -it makes no sense whatsoever! I mean, a TRADE Federation being inconvenienced by a tax on TRADE routes?

You know there's a difference between what a TRADE Federation is and what a TRADE route is, right? Just because you use caps on TRADE doesn't change that. Could you use examples from the movies that explain what the TF does, do you know or are you going to guess? I added up your math 2+2 = You are retarded Sorry, but math don't lie bro. Again if the trade fed didn't like Galactic demanded taxes then their blockade would NOT be legal.

Still doesn't answer what they want. The crawl says they are greedy, maybe if they intended to get taxes from naboo from the blockade. I don't see what the invasion gets them other than in deep shit with the senate. Which they ended up being in and had to pretend they didn't take over a planet. Good luck with that one idiots. Hurry put everything back were you found it. Shit they're coming hide it under camp 4!

Why, it would be like a greedy OIL company being pissed about a tax on OIL shipments! What bullshit!

Fucks, you know it! Remember that time BP was all pissed about the taxes on offshore drilling so they surrounded Hawaii with a blockade in protest? Everyone was like, it's their legal right to block an outlying system. It was weird that they didn't go the lobbyist route but we all know the annexing of an island is the wiser choice.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

A) The Federation doesn't like the taxes and makes a Faustian bargain with Sidious, thinking they'll get what they want out of it, or

What is it they want out of it again? Unknown quantities of unobtainium? Voice lessons? Oh we don't know. Which is makes everything so very clear.

B) Some bullshit about Naboo cheating the treasury and the Federation turning into vigilante tax collectors.

Palpatine's shtick is to stir up trouble and play the blameless victim for sympathy. That would be much harder to pull off if Naboo is NOT blameless and they're cheating on taxes, now wouldn't it?

What was the dispute over? Trade routes? What side did Naboo fall on? Oh we don't know again. So it could be a dispute about is they qualifiy as an outer system planet or if they make over 250k a year and thus in a higher tax bracket. Palps can still plan blameless super evil dude, by saying the taxes are unfair (you know how like amurica felt ours were unfair from britian?) What I'm saying is you're all a bunch of self righteous idiots who refuse to make the simple claim "yeah like most of the writing the tax stuff is pretty shitty and doesn't make that much sense. George lucas fucked up a great opportunity to make something fun."