Phantom Menace and bad writing

[Darth Hoth]

"Conscripted" is the term used in-universe to describe the children taken into the Jedi Order's custody for Jedi education; I refer you to Jedi vs Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force for verification.

[Galvatron]

The Jedi do not have the ability to magick away the pressure on Valorum.

He could have just showed us that. Having Neeson sitting there, standing to deliver one simple line: "It is true, Senator" and show Valorum get whispered to again, andthen still ignore it would have shown the audience that he was completely worthless. Now, Amidala has played all her obvious cards, and resorts to Palpatine's plan - which she was against earlier - out of frustration. This way, we in the audience, also get to see Valorum's wimpiness first hand, instead of relying on Palpatine's words and a single, not unreasonable, event.

Sounds a lot like my (unreasonable?) suggestion for one or two lines about the Sith.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

As for why no-one freed Shmi: Yoda and the Jedi Order are clearly very into the "no attachments" idea and surely felt the best course of action would be to train Anakin to let go of his mother, which obviously backfired. And again when they advised him to let go of Padmé. One of the points of the prequels seems to be that the Jedi Order has become so inflexible and buried in formalities, they forgot about the whole "compassion" thing. It's my understanding that Obi-Wan was trained by Yoda as a child, and the things he was taught would by then come so natural to him that he might not have a good idea of how to properly pass such information on to an adolescent. Anakin's trust issues with Obi-Wan and the Order could also probably be traced back to them telling him to let go of his mother whenever he missed her.

This is my belief also, and the best explanation I can find for their inaction with regards to her. For those to whom it matters, this is also what the EU suggests; the Jedi phobia for attachment is even more clearly spelled out there, where it is explicitly stated that the Jedi forbid any contact whatever between parent and conscripted child.

But that's a problem in and of itself, because it doesn't give me much reason to root for any of the Jedi at all, including Obi-Wan. Whatever happen to the whole 'defenders of peace and justice' thing? "Sure Shmi, we'd love to free you from the unjust slavery you're under, but we think you'd be a lovely training experience for lil' Anakin here... even though we could still free you and simply set you up with cheap but adequate housing somewhere else and a decent job and still fulfill our tradition of keeping Anakin isolated from you, we just don't feel like it, we're too busy upholding peace and justice somewhere else with... umm... tax and border disputes."

And fuck, they'd have to be completely retarded to not see how it would backfire. What would be the best way to get Anakin to let go of his mother? Show him that she'll be okay without him. What's the worst way to do that? Let her get abducted and abused to near-death by Tusken raiders because none of them gave enough of a shit to keep an eye out on one of the most important figures in their prophecy-fulfilling wonder-boy's life.

This ties right back into the main theme of this thread: The only way to get plausible motivations out of the entire Jedi order, Obi-Wan included, is to make them blind and retarded at best, outright malicious at worst. And we're supposed to believe these are the good guys?

[Galvatron]

To hell with the Jedi, why didn't the Naboo just buy Shmi and set her up with a nice house in Theed? I'd think that's the least they could do for Anakin after he singlehandedly destroyed the Trade Federation's droid control ship and saved the day (not mention the fact that he won the pod race, thereby enabling the queen to escape Tatooine).

[Simon_Jester]

Re: the Jedi
I think they're very blind, not so much retarded.

Their job is very much a "good guy" job; if the Jedi do things right, the galaxy is a much better place than if they don't. But good guys aren't invariably competent. I think Lucas probably intended to convey the message that the old Jedi order wasn't doing everything right, though, and he seems to have succeeded, since people are complaining about how retarded the Jedi acted.

In-story, I'd blame the screwup with their failure to take care of Shmi on the same thing Dooey and Darth Hoth do: the Jedi have gone so monastic that the only thing that keeps them from cloistering themselves permanently is the Republic's self-evident need for them as peacekeepers. They barely want to admit that things like families even exist, because of the institutional phobia about it, and because of Yoda's doctrine* that making even one tiny slip away from that perfect detachment is a reliable path to the Dark Side. They can't admit that personal attachments matter and that it's smart to make some allowances for that, because that would lead to occasional niggling doubts, which lead to worrying, which leads to fear, which leads to... you get the idea.

(And it's easy for Yoda to say that a Jedi should give up all attachments; he's a withered old guy from a planet so remote that no one even knows its name, and as far as I know hasn't gone back home since shortly after the Ruusan Reformation...)

Anyway. I'd be stunned if the old Jedi actually were competent at dealing with things like the families of their recruits. And yes, that's a reason not to root for them. Individually they're trying their best to preserve peace and civilization in the galaxy, but collectively they've gotten so messed up in the head that it cripples their ability to do their own jobs.
_______

*Probably not Yoda's alone, but since he's its most vocal supporter and the leading light of the Order, it becomes his in effect and probably has been for the past few centuries by the time of the movies.

[Darth Hoth]

But that's a problem in and of itself, because it doesn't give me much reason to root for any of the Jedi at all, including Obi-Wan. Whatever happen to the whole 'defenders of peace and justice' thing? "Sure Shmi, we'd love to free you from the unjust slavery you're under, but we think you'd be a lovely training experience for lil' Anakin here... even though we could still free you and simply set you up with cheap but adequate housing somewhere else and a decent job and still fulfill our tradition of keeping Anakin isolated from you, we just don't feel like it, we're too busy upholding peace and justice somewhere else with... umm... tax and border disputes."

And fuck, they'd have to be completely retarded to not see how it would backfire. What would be the best way to get Anakin to let go of his mother? Show him that she'll be okay without him. What's the worst way to do that? Let her get abducted and abused to near-death by Tusken raiders because none of them gave enough of a shit to keep an eye out on one of the most important figures in their prophecy-fulfilling wonder-boy's life.

This ties right back into the main theme of this thread: The only way to get plausible motivations out of the entire Jedi order, Obi-Wan included, is to make them blind and retarded at best, outright malicious at worst. And we're supposed to believe these are the good guys?

Don't look at me; I resolve the apparent conflict by viewing the prequel-era Jedi as evil

Seriously, that is all I can make out of it. Lucas, in making the prequels, made the Republic a corrupt UN analogue and the Jedi a callously evil fundamentalist sect, and Ben's talk about the good, old Republic and the Jedi was made into lies and propaganda. The same impression is then reinforced even more strongly in the EU (and not only through Miss Traviss's retarded strawman arguments).

And yes, I feel that this is wrong and awful and pisses over the original trilogy, but that is what we are left with.

The best we can say for it is that Lucas wanted to show the corruption of the supposedly "good" forces, as Dooey Jo suggests, and make the story into some form of Greek tragedy, perhaps with Ben and Yoda learning some lessons and thus not pushing all the celibate and emotionless-robot crock on Luke since they saw where it lead. Which I have my doubts about, but that cannot be proven either way.

[Darth Hoth]

To clarify, I meant to say that taken in the context of the other films (as well as the original novelisation), Lucas's intention might well be that the Republic and the Jedi were probably good originally, but degenerated over time (as the Journal of the Whills painted it) and were past redemption by the time of the prequels. This still does not fit with Ben's reminiscences from the original film, but then we knew already that Jedi can lie depict the truth from a certain point of view when it serves their purposes.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

To hell with the Jedi, why didn't the Naboo just buy Shmi and set her up with a nice house in Theed? I'd think that's the least they could do for Anakin after he singlehandedly destroyed the Trade Federation's droid control ship and saved the day (not mention the fact that he won the pod race, thereby enabling the queen to escape Tatooine).

Well, Padme was shown to be kind of psychotic as the PT went on. Case in point:

AotC...
Anakin: I just ruthlessly slaughtered a bunch of Tuskens, including innocent women and children.
Padme: That's okay, to be angry is to be human. *hugs*

RotS...
Anakin: I just ruthlessly slaughtered a bunch of innocent younglings and padawans.
Padme: I DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE!!!

This still does not fit with Ben's reminiscences from the original film, but then we knew already that Jedi can lie depict the truth from a certain point of view when it serves their purposes.

For the moment I'm refusing to believe that. It's one thing to point out the bad writing and shitty characters of the PT, but now the implication is that Ben is truly a delusional old kook in the OT if those events are actually true. And people wonder why some say the PT shits all over the OT.

[Channel72]

What in the fuck is your obsession with this? You state, in the section that I've just quoted, right above you, that if the Jedi testimony that you claim to be absent was in fact present would have resulted in the same fucking thing happening!

There is NOTHING that indicates that a few seconds of Liam Neeson blathering to the audience would have convinced the TRADE FEDERATION SENATOR not to do the same exact fucking thing that he did. Then Mas Amedda, Palpatine's personal pet, would have told Valorum the same thing, and Amidala, who has been counseled by Palpatine, does the same exact fucking thing.

Jesus Christ man, the point is that if the movie at least showed that even the Jedi failed to convince Valorum, and thus failed to make any headway in the Senate, the whole affair would have been more compelling. Then we would really see how corrupt the whole system was. That's what everyone has been saying. As it is, the whole Senatorial conflict is just bland and somewhat vague. The fact that the movie doesn't show the Jedi testifying, or even acknowledge that they did, gives the impression that Lucas just forgot about them.

Your interest in Valorum's political fortunes is frankly tiresome. He's about as important to the movie as everyone's favorite punching bag, Darth Maul.

Yeah...Darth Maul isn't important. Lucas only invested all the emotional weight that comes with the death of a hero in this character, not to mention the fact that Maul was basically the face of the entire marketing campaign behind the movie. But yeah...not important. That shadowy Hologram is the real villain, right?

The story that's actually being told is of Palpatine's rise to power, in the context of the saga, so I hope you understand how ridiculous the bolded part is.

Now, this statement reveals the primary source of our disagreement. Palpatine's stupid promotion from Senator to Chancellor isn't an interesting story. It simply can't carry the weight of an entire act of a movie. There has to be more going on to capture the audience's interest. Depicting Chancellor Valorum as a corrupt politician, bought-and-sold by the Trade Federation, would have gone a long way towards making the audience sympathize with the Queen, and care about the outcome of her trip to the Senate. But we don't see anything like that, except of course, in the secret BluRay "extended edition" of Phantom Menace that only exists in your head.

Look up "Xanatos Gambit" on TVTropes and get back to me. Oh, and consider who would fucking watch Star Wars if, as the masses in this thread demad, all "gratuitous" visually interesting elements and battle scenes are excised.

Yes, yes, that's been mentioned. That doesn't change the fact that the entire final act is ultimately inconsequential. Secondly, do you honestly think anyone here wants to remove all the visually interesting elements and battle scenes? Stop creating these preposterous strawman arguments. Obviously nobody is saying that. Rather, the battle scenes should remain, but they need to be imbued with an actual fucking purpose. You know, like the Battle of Endor. That battle was visually stunning, and almost every up and down that occurred throughout the battle had a consequence in terms of the development of the characters or the outcome of the overall saga. Contrast this with the final act of Phantom Menance. There's literally no purpose to anything. Suppose the Gungans were all slaughtered. Who cares? Nothing happens. In fact, when Padme and company arrived on Naboo, they could have just waited around in the forest, doing nothing, until Palpatine arrived with the cavalry.

Again, the only consequential thing that happened was Qui Gon's death; but as Destructionator XIII mentioned, he may as well have just had a heart attack for all the difference it made.

[Anguirus]

Though, I was thinking more about it last night, and I'm thinking perhaps the most satisfying change to this would have to had Maul kill him on Tatooine.

That's a neat idea. I dig it. Only thing is, it might call for a bit of reshuffling as some of Qui-Gon's best stuff comes later on. Also, the Jedi Council stuff would have to be rethought. We actually learn a lot of what we learn about Qui-Gon after Tatooine.

Also, having Maul come out of nowhere and pull a Psycho on the lead character runs the risk of seeming even more like a shaggy-dog story than what others in this thread have been complaining about.

Yes. If they are powerful enough to prevent military action, why didn't that same power just have him slip a tax cut into this year's budget?

Strawman.

"If the fundamentalists are powerful enough to prevent gay marriage, why don't they nuke San Francisco?"

The use of troops and WMDs to quell internal disputes is not an endeavor that is traditionally embarked upon casually.

The Senate didn't do a god damn thing! She took the same people she escaped Naboo with and went back with just them and fixed it themselves.

Yes they did, they replaced the leader of the galaxy.

I shall break it down into entirely arbitrary and made-up units of time to illustrate:
Valorum tells Amidala: "Wait a month and maybe you'll get help."
Palpatine tells Amidala: "As soon as I'm elected in a week I'll help you, and a bunch of other people too."
Amidala needs to fix the situation today, so she goes and does so.

He could have just showed us that. Having Neeson sitting there, standing to deliver one simple line: "It is true, Senator" and show Valorum get whispered to again, andthen still ignore it would have shown the audience that he was completely worthless. Now, Amidala has played all her obvious cards, and resorts to Palpatine's plan - which she was against earlier - out of frustration. This way, we in the audience, also get to see Valorum's wimpiness first hand, instead of relying on Palpatine's words and a single, not unreasonable, event.

In the course of one minute, his actions would have been dictated, twice, by that weirdo standing next to him.

This might well have been a better use of time than Jar Jar Binks and the Farting Tapir/Camel, but it's not necessary for the audience to be spoon-fed in this way. In fact, the way Lucas plays it, with all the info coming from Palpatine, it introduces a layer of ambiguity into the mix.

So it's possible/probable that Palpatine misrepresents the situation. However, he does spell it out for Amidala, so all the navel-gazing in this thread is just pointlessly second-guessing the actions of a desperate 14 year old. And all the bitching about it being confusing and hard is utterly specious, since there is a character who tells you what the situation is.

It would be if the movie was well written, but it wasn't, leaving these questions open.

This is a pet peeve of mine. Nitpickery disguised as serious criticism. It's like the people on Transformers boards who think that Revenge of the Fallen would have been a better movie if the robots' visual design was different.

I get nitpickery, I like nitpickery, I engage in nitpickery. Qui-Gon should have been there in the Senate chamber in your ideal version of the movie? Sure. I even like your little scene there. But the suggestion that its a serious flaw in the film is ludicrous, as any relatively reasonable person can put two and two together. The Jedi landed on the platform and IMMEDIATELY received an audience with Chancellor Valorum. Their testimony can be safely assumed to be a matter of in-universe public record by the non-witless.

And now, off to class.

[Darth Yan]

i'd hesitate at calling the prequal jedi evil. they genuinelly do want to help people, but are horribly misguided and have really lost their way.

[Jim Raynor]

The Jedi are clearly do-gooders. It's just that, like old institutions in real life, they got complacent and settled into their doctrines, some of which are flawed. Qui-Gon Jinn is clearly the maverick, but the movie was on his side. It said a lot to me when Obi-Wan told Qui-Gon that he would have made the Council already if he had just conformed. Or that the Jedi Masters respected Qui-Gon despite all their differences, and ROTS even had Yoda himself learning from him.

The Jedi were supposed to be impersonal, detached, somewhat close-minded, and flawed. That played a part in Anakin's turn to the Dark Side and their eventual fall.

[Knife]

i'd hesitate at calling the prequal jedi evil. they genuinelly do want to help people, but are horribly misguided and have really lost their way.

That is the underlying theme isn't it. A good government, good knights, corrupted by arrogance and decay that it takes true evil to wipe the slate clean and reset the balance. Beowulf was corrupted and all the great deeds were tainted until he realized it and sacrificed himself to right his wrongs. Arthur's kingdom similarly decayed from within until he received the grail and eventually sacrificed himself for the greater good. As such, balance to the Force in SW isn't equal parts evil and good; rather resetting the scale since what was good (Republic and the Jedi) had fallen into decay and evil. Not an active evil, but an evil of omission, of arrogance. When that happens, real evil can emerge like Morgan le Fey, Dragons, spirit creatures, or Sith.

The Jedi, like the Republic, were still doing good things but were no longer actively advancing the banner of Good. Slavery was being tolerated (Shmi Skywalker) if only being explained away by not being in the Republic or not their mission at the time. The Senate was corrupt, even if millions of small good things were being done by the government as a whole. However, the bureaucracy was so old and held in place, slow to react and easy to blind that the agenda of good was forgotten and just given lip service to.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

The Jedi are clearly do-gooders. It's just that, like old institutions in real life, they got complacent and settled into their doctrines, some of which are flawed.

The Jedi were supposed to be impersonal, detached, somewhat close-minded, and flawed. That played a part in Anakin's turn to the Dark Side and their eventual fall.

Well of course, every believable villain is firmly convinced they're doing the right thing. Palpatine was convinced he was doing the right thing by bringing order to an ailing galaxy and deposing the corrupt powers behind the throne that the Jedi represented. The Jedi firmly believed they were really bringing peace and justice to the universe and were so set in it they didn't realize how far they had fallen from that ideal.

My contention is that the way the movie portrays them, they've crossed the line from tragic, fallen hero to outright villain by their actions. For instance, what actual good do the Jedi do? Rescue Anakin from slavery? From what it looks like, Qui Gon did that because he thought Anakin was the prophesied one, not because he gave a shit about the slaves' plight. If he did, why didn't the Jedi do anything about any of the rest of the slaves on Tattoine? Obviously it was a thriving business there, and I seriously doubt anyone with a functioning moral fibre would consider slavery anything but vastly unjust. Were they too busy with tax disputes and border issues? During the height of the Clone Wars, Yoda was able to take an army to Kashykk, a planet of highly questionable strategic or economic importance in the war, possibly diverting them from areas they might be needed, because he has a few wookies there he cares about... so it's incredibly doubtful no one had the time or resources to go back to Tattoine to free a few slaves, either through purchasing them or taking out the slavers.

[Srelex]

The Jedi are clearly do-gooders. It's just that, like old institutions in real life, they got complacent and settled into their doctrines, some of which are flawed.

The Jedi were supposed to be impersonal, detached, somewhat close-minded, and flawed. That played a part in Anakin's turn to the Dark Side and their eventual fall.

Well of course, every believable villain is firmly convinced they're doing the right thing. Palpatine was convinced he was doing the right thing by bringing order to an ailing galaxy and deposing the corrupt powers behind the throne that the Jedi represented. The Jedi firmly believed they were really bringing peace and justice to the universe and were so set in it they didn't realize how far they had fallen from that ideal.

My contention is that the way the movie portrays them, they've crossed the line from tragic, fallen hero to outright villain by their actions. For instance, what actual good do the Jedi do? Rescue Anakin from slavery? From what it looks like, Qui Gon did that because he thought Anakin was the prophesied one, not because he gave a shit about the slaves' plight. If he did, why didn't the Jedi do anything about any of the rest of the slaves on Tattoine? Obviously it was a thriving business there, and I seriously doubt anyone with a functioning moral fibre would consider slavery anything but vastly unjust. Were they too busy with tax disputes and border issues? During the height of the Clone Wars, Yoda was able to take an army to Kashykk, a planet of highly questionable strategic or economic importance in the war, possibly diverting them from areas they might be needed, because he has a few wookies there he cares about... so it's incredibly doubtful no one had the time or resources to go back to Tattoine to free a few slaves, either through purchasing them or taking out the slavers.

Bear in mind that the film also mentions that it's 'controlled by the Hutts', who wouldn't take kindly to this. And I'm sure the Jedi wouldn't want to declare war on bodies that are at this time quite powerful.

[Anguirus]

Jesus Christ man, the point is that if the movie at least showed that even the Jedi failed to convince Valorum, and thus failed to make any headway in the Senate, the whole affair would have been more compelling. Then we would really see how corrupt the whole system was. That's what everyone has been saying. As it is, the whole Senatorial conflict is just bland and somewhat vague. The fact that the movie doesn't show the Jedi testifying, or even acknowledge that they did, gives the impression that Lucas just forgot about them.

I'm not sure your proposed fix would actually address the problem. It would undoubtedly lead to a longer scene, which is very Not Good. Some hypothetical longer scene that involved Jedi in some way might have been a better scene than the one we got (as long as it wasn't MUCH longer). Simply sticking a scene of Jinn or Kenobi saying "Yep, there was a droid army all right" does nothing but pad running time.

The scene is book-ended by scenes in the Jedi Temple, so no, Lucas didn't forget about the Jedi. They already reported to the Chancellor and the corruption in the Senate chamber is foreshadowed and then elegantly shown anyway. The Jedi aren't necessary to establish any of that, you just think it should have been hammered into the viewers' heads even harder.

Yeah...Darth Maul isn't important.

Take it up with Destructionator XIII, man.

Valorum and Maul are important to the plot and the metaplot, but not important as characters. (Which isn't to say that they don't receive characterization.)

Now, this statement reveals the primary source of our disagreement. Palpatine's stupid promotion from Senator to Chancellor isn't an interesting story. It simply can't carry the weight of an entire act of a movie. There has to be more going on to capture the audience's interest. Depicting Chancellor Valorum as a corrupt politician, bought-and-sold by the Trade Federation, would have gone a long way towards making the audience sympathize with the Queen, and care about the outcome of her trip to the Senate. But we don't see anything like that, except of course, in the secret BluRay "extended edition" of Phantom Menace that only exists in your head.

Dude, you are projecting. I don't want to see any more fucking politics in Episode I. YOU apparently do.

Palpatine's "stupid promotion" isn't particularly important to the plot of Episode I, which is why it's blown by so fast without interminable scenes of Jedi testimony, Valorum cashing a check from the Feddies, etc. But, it is the most important incident that occurs in Episode I in the context of the series metaplot. Hence the film's title. I suspect that many people in this thread are not carefully distinguishing these two plots.

Ordinary audience members had little difficulty sympathizing with the Queen that I am aware of. This is another example of a complaint about the film that is being presented as fairly serious that I have never heard from anybody except for a small handful of dedicated Star Wars fans in the past week. And this is after eleven years of everybody under the sun bashing the film for many reasons, many of which of which actually matter.

By the way, Hollywood-style scripts are divided into three acts. Palpatine's "promotion" was a single subplot of a single sequence in the second act. Its importance is only apparent when you consider the film as a prequel. This is why those scenes are so concise.

Secondly, do you honestly think anyone here wants to remove all the visually interesting elements and battle scenes? Stop creating these preposterous strawman arguments.

I do apologize for tossing off the end of that post. It was not meant to be a strawman (though it came off as such and you were right to call me on it). It was meant to be a Jon Stewart-ish lampooning of the utter ridiculousness of this thread.

You have guys saying that Darth Maul should be cut out of the movie.
You have guys saying that Darth Maul is an important character, and perhaps he should be given more screen time and a backstory.
You have guys saying that the final battle is pointless and devoid of drama.
You have guys saying that Qui-Gon might as well be killed by a firing squad of mooks as by a Dark Lord of the Sith.
You have guys who can't figure out who the Sith ARE from the childishly simple context clues the movie provide us.

If I can distill a general theme out of all this, it's that Episode I would have benefited from MORE world-building (which it is already very heavy on) and there is a general dismissal of action for action's sake, which is arguably the entire point of the saga. (Seriously, the Force? He could have just SAID "the plot" or "the will of God.")

Rather, the battle scenes should remain, but they need to be imbued with an actual fucking purpose. You know, like the Battle of Endor. That battle was visually stunning, and almost every up and down that occurred throughout the battle had a consequence in terms of the development of the characters or the outcome of the overall saga. Contrast this with the final act of Phantom Menance. There's literally no purpose to anything. Suppose the Gungans were all slaughtered. Who cares? Nothing happens. In fact, when Padme and company arrived on Naboo, they could have just waited around in the forest, doing nothing, until Palpatine arrived with the cavalry.

1) This presumes, rather wrongly, that the Battle of Naboo is meant to be imbued with the same gravitas as the Battle of Endor.
2) The characters didn't know when or in what force that cavalry would arrive, nor did they know (because it's in the next movie) that Nute Gunray would avoid personal consequences for surrendering to Padme Amidala. They also killed a Dark Lord of the Sith.
3) The Gungans would care if they got slaughtered. The actions of the Queen probably saved many of their lives and created peace between the two cultures.
4) The dismissal of Qui-Gon's death, or the suggestion that it should have been made less relevant to the overall Jedi-Sith conflict, is totally asinine. His death is the dark spot upon the heroes' victory and a reminder of the power of the Sith. It is the reason why Obi-Wan trains Anakin and the reason why Palpatine seeks a new apprentice. (Mind you, AotC failed to properly capitalize on this latter point but that's a whole other thing.)

Episode I is a shallow film to begin with, adding more exposition and excising impactful scenes that actually work are not what you want to do. Killing Qui-Gon like Janet Leigh could at least work, but excising Darth Maul? That's fucktarded. The Sith and the Jedi draw first blood from each other on Naboo, don't pretend that that doesn't mean anything whatsoever.

Now if you want to argue that Episode I is too much of a stand-alone, I actually agree. (I also agree that it's got a crappy structure, crappy pacing, crappy humor, etc., etc., said it all.) But many of the specific criticisms here are either vapid, or actually counter-productive as far as improving the film.

[Anguirus]

Also real quick, I want to say that I agree with most of what Oni is saying re: the absolute clumsiness of the Jedi Code shit in AotC leading to morally criminal outcomes like Anakin's mother staying a slave. Really, Anakin should have been introduced to us in vastly different circumstances IMO.

[Channel72]

This is a pet peeve of mine. Nitpickery disguised as serious criticism. It's like the people on Transformers boards who think that Revenge of the Fallen would have been a better movie if the robots' visual design was different.

Ironically, you complain about nitpicking but you're missing the forest for the trees here. The overall theme of this thread has revolved around broad, structural flaws which amount to very serious criticisms of the film. These have included a poorly constructed story, uncompelling characters, and especially an overall failure to impart a sense of urgency due to poorly communicated stakes. All the specific examples, which you dismiss as nitpicks, have tied into that overall criticism and helped to illustrate the problem: from the ambiguity over the Sith, to the lack of any urgency surrounding the whole invasion, to Sidious's relatively opaque motivations, to Maul's undeveloped character, to the overall inconsequentiality of the final battle, all of these things tie into the overall criticism.

Sure, individually some of these criticisms aren't that important, but taken together they demonstrate a serious problem. The fact that at any given time one issue or another has become the focus of conversation doesn't make it a nitpick, since each issue individually is part of the overall criticism.

Of course, I'll easily concede that the "planet core" thing was totally trivial, and doesn't tie into the larger criticism in any way, but again, nobody ever claimed it did. The debate over the "planet core" was over whether or not the line was intentionally inaccurate.

[Vympel]

Really, Anakin should have been introduced to us in vastly different circumstances IMO.

The entire set-up of Anakin being a little kid who has absolutely no clue what is going on was a mistake. You'd think you'd want to draw a parallel between Luke on the one hand and Anakin on the other by having them both be the same age when they started their training, but unfortunately you're left with a casting / writing choice that was just horrible for the plot. The creepy-ness factor of the Anakin / Padme romance alone ...

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Bear in mind that the film also mentions that it's 'controlled by the Hutts', who wouldn't take kindly to this. And I'm sure the Jedi wouldn't want to declare war on bodies that are at this time quite powerful.

1) Several Jedi started an armed rebellion against the Trade Federation, also a powerful body, with no approval from the Senate. Not only is this magnitudes more likely to cause a war than simply freeing slaves, but it also demonstrates they're more than willing to take that risk if it's in their interests.

2) Declaring war isn't the only option on the table. Like I said, they could have simply bought Shmi, and maybe a few other slaves in the process. Obviously slaves are not prohibitively expensive, judging by what it took to get Anakin.

Speaking of which, there's another rather large plothole in TPM:

- Qui-Gon, Padme and Obi-wan are unable to get off Tattoine because they need a specific part for their ship and whatsisname won't accept credits.
- Anakin, a slave of whatsisname, has secretly built not only an entire pod racer, but also a protocol droid out of parts he's filched from whatsisname.
- Yet despite being able to filch what looks like at least several hundred pounds worth of parts, at least some of which have to be advanced electronics, computer parts and engine components, Anakin is somehow unable to filch the single part required to fix Padme's ship.

Once more, characters are selectively idiots/incompetent because the plot dictates that something happens.

[Channel72]

My contention is that the way the movie portrays them, they've crossed the line from tragic, fallen hero to outright villain by their actions. For instance, what actual good do the Jedi do? Rescue Anakin from slavery? From what it looks like, Qui Gon did that because he thought Anakin was the prophesied one, not because he gave a shit about the slaves' plight. If he did, why didn't the Jedi do anything about any of the rest of the slaves on Tattoine?

I agree with what you're saying for the most part, but the degree to which this is really bothersome depends on how much like Camelot the Old Republic is really supposed to be. Obviously, in the real world, first-world nations don't go around spreading peace and justice. Slavery exists right now in Africa and Southeast Asia, and it's not like the UN is going out of it's way to do anything about it. So, in that sense, it's not particularly unrealistic; but again, it depends on how much of a mythologized, idealized Kingdom you imagined the Republic to be. Even if the Republic and the Jedi order is supposed to be like a mythological "Camelot in Space!", it's understandable that in a galaxy with millions of inhabited planets that they would be unable to right all injustices, especially when the injustices are occurring in remote areas.

It's also ironic that the Prequels, which are generally inferior to the original films, seem to depict circumstances with a lot of shades of grey, unlike the black/white, good-versus-evil we got in the OT.

Anyway, your point about Anakin's mother specifically is obviously valid. The failure to go back and free her is especially bizarre given that Qui Gon specifically tried to free her in Phantom Menace.

[stormthebeaches]

I'm not sure your proposed fix would actually address the problem. It would undoubtedly lead to a longer scene, which is very Not Good. Some hypothetical longer scene that involved Jedi in some way might have been a better scene than the one we got (as long as it wasn't MUCH longer). Simply sticking a scene of Jinn or Kenobi saying "Yep, there was a droid army all right" does nothing but pad running time.

It's still a plot hole that the Queen didn't call in the Jedi to testify to her cause. The Chancellor even asked her if she had any evidence and she didn't say a word.

[Aaron]

Wait, didn't Valorum send the Jedi to find out what was going on? Why the fuck didn't he have them before the Senate, nevermind the Queen.

[Galvatron]

Nevermind the invasion. Why no consequences for the attempted murder of two Jedi knights?!

[Simon_Jester]

Don't look at me; I resolve the apparent conflict by viewing the prequel-era Jedi as evil

Seriously, that is all I can make out of it. Lucas, in making the prequels, made the Republic a corrupt UN analogue and the Jedi a callously evil fundamentalist sect, and Ben's talk about the good, old Republic and the Jedi was made into lies and propaganda. The same impression is then reinforced even more strongly in the EU (and not only through Miss Traviss's retarded strawman arguments).

Hmm... I'd say that overstates the case. I'd call the Jedi something more like "nobly ineffective." Remember, what ultimately made them so messed up was the effects of their own intense anti-Dark Side conditioning. But that conditioning was imposed precisely because the alternative was to have the Order raining a steady stream of Dark Jedi to cause chaos on the rest of the galaxy.

They were benevolent, but so withdrawn into their own doctrines that their ability to practice that benevolence on the galaxy at large was crippled. Very ivory-tower, but not evil.