Recently I watched a showing of the three Star Wars prequels on TV. Aside from reminding me how much they sucked, they reminded me that I have a few questions about the Star Wars movies...
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
First of all, why does this bootleg copy I'm watching that I stole online have the scrolling words in the sky translated into German when the rest of it is still in English?
Couldn't they have gotten anyone better than Liam Neeson to play Qui-Gon Jinn? He delivers every single line exactly the same, no matter what movie he is in, what part he is playing, or what the situation is. He has the exact same over-dramatic super-serious tone whether he's instructing Obi-Wan Kenobi on proper use of The Force, fighting Batman in a train above Gotham City, or informing his daughter that she is in the process of being kidnapped by human traffickers who are likely going to rape her, then sell her to the highest bidder in some Arab country.
If these droids are able to put up bubble shields that make it impossible for attacks to break through them, how is it they are themselves able to shoot at people through those same shields?
Why must Jedis-in-training have the sideways rat tails? They look like they should be wearing wife-beaters and fighting with rusty shotguns on their trailer porches.
Who was the one sitting around in the writers room during script writing who said "You know what would really bring this movie together? A gay dinosaur."
And how is it the gay dinosaurs use words like "doo-doo", yet they can build an entire underwater city?
And how does one go about building a city underwater anyway? Doesn't all that water get in the way?
When someone is using the Jedi mind trick on someone, does it work on everybody present? If not, why does nobody else say anything when someone says something a Jedi doesn't want to hear, the Jedi waves their hand and says what they do want to hear, then the person they're talking to suddenly changes their mind and agrees with them for no apparent reason?
And how does using mind-control not constitute using the "dark side"? I'm pretty sure every other sci-fi and fantasy writer in the history of time has listed mind-control as a "dark" art.
Why would the invading army capture all the planet's pilots, then keep them captive in the hangar five feet away the planes they are obviously able to fly away?
How obvious was it that the Queen had switched places with someone else? If we didn't notice that her voice had suddenly changed then it was apparent every time the "Queen" looked at one of her servants every time someone asked her a question. And if we still missed that, it should've been painfully obvious every time the "handmaiden" said how the Queen was feeling when she hadn't talked to her.
And if she was hiding her identity by switching places with someone else, why did she still go by her first name? Did nobody know her first name to know who it was?
Didn't Anakin's mom ever teach him not to talk to strangers, much less bring them home with you? Or is it okay because one of them was a hot chick?
How is it these people are so technologically advanced that even the slaves are able to afford droids and flying cars, yet everyone walks around in bathrobes and they live in huts made of sand and rocks?
And if their housing technology is so primitive how is it they have the futuristic sliding doors?
So Anakin Skywalker had no father? And here I thought Jesus had a monopoly on the whole virgin birth gimmick.
Shouldn't they have asked Anakin if he'd ever won or finished any races BEFORE they bet their ship on him?
In an arena with thousands in attendance, how did nobody see the purple guy sabotage Anakin's pod?
These people were awful excited to get in the race considering how many people die from crashes, sabotage, and random sand people shooting at you from the hills.
Did they have to call him "Ani" for short?
How pathetic were all those racers that a 9-year-old boy beat them all?
If the Queen was elected, why is she called a Queen?
Jar-Jar seemed awful eager to show outsiders the way to the Gungan sacred place where they go when in trouble.
That was awful easy for a 9-year-old to fly his plane into the control ship and blow it up.
Were they trying to use as many different PowerPoint slide transitions between scenes as possible?
So is the gay dinosaur army the least intimidating army ever assembled on film or what?
Which character were they trying to make more annoying? The kid or the gay dinosaur?
And whose brilliant idea was it to make Yoda talk like a dipshit? It's just distracting and makes you work more to figure out what he's saying at times.
Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
Okay. Darth Vader is almost universally regarded as one of the greatest villains in the history of film, and arguably one of the greatest in the history of story-telling of any kind. So why oh why did they have to make teenage Darth Vader such a moody, whiny prima donna who does nothing but throw temper tantrums and talk about his feelings?
When Anakin jumped out of his own flying car and fell several hundred feet to land on the car of the assassin he was chasing, how exactly did that fall not kill him?
Funny how in face shots of Anakin and Obi-Wan they're almost the same height, but when you see their entire bodies Anakin is quite a bit taller. Almost like they hired a shorter actor to play Anakin than what they wanted Darth Vader to be, so they were using platforms and tricky camera angles to make him look taller...
Why is it in movies that when the guy gets turned down by the girl, he keeps trying and eventually she gives up and sees what a swell guy he is? Whenever chicks tell me no and I keep pursuing them, they always call the police.
And really, how the hell did she fall for him when every ten seconds his tampon got ruffled and he slipped into whiny-bitch-mode?
And why exactly is it that Jedi are not permitted to marry? Jedi power is hereditary, so you'd think they would be encouraged to raise as many kids as possible to have a lot of future Jedi. But they can't, and instead they.......bring all the young boys to a remote temple away from their parents to "show them the Jedi arts." Seems kinda Catholic-priesty to me.
And exactly how creepy is it that Anakin first met Padme when he was nine and she was old enough to be ruling an entire planet, and now a few years later they're fucking?
Of course, if I'd met Natalie Portman when I was nine, I'd have wanted to fuck her, too.
Hell I've never met her and I still want to fuck her.
Although she would definitely need to shut the fuck up, because all this over-dramatic, rehearsed dialogue is about the hokiest thing in any of the six movies.
So since Anakin's friends shortened his name to Ani, and he doesn't have a father, and his mother is dead, does that make him Little Orphan Ani?
And how disappointing is it that Darth Vader came from Little Orphan Ani?
I get that every time Anakin gets angry, it's laying the foundation for his conversion to the Dark Side, but why must they lessen the effectiveness of the Darth Vader music by playing it every time he whines like a little girl?
If Anakin considers Obi-Wan Kenobi the closest thing he has ever had to a father, why is he always bitching and moaning about him?
Was it really necesary for Anakin to say "I've got a bad feeling about this?" as he was chained to a pole with the gigantic, vicious animals coming straight at him?
Was the Looney-Toon splitting up of C3PO's head and body in the droid factory and going into the battle seperately really needed?
Why exactly were the Separatists surprised that the Jedi had a clone army, considering that the guy the clones were based on was working for them? This especially doesn't make sense with things you learn later on, specifically that Dooku was the apprentice to Darth Sidious/Senator Palpatine who ordered that the army be dispatched anyway.
When Dooku cut off Anakin's arm with the light sabre, why wasn't it bleeding at all? And how was he not screaming in agony? I mean he whined like a little girl every time his shoelaces come untied, but he loses his arm and doesn't even so much as say "Ouch."
If Yoda was able to use The Force to stop all the crap Dooku sent at him, why wouldn't he just send it back at him instead of dropping it all harmlessly to the side?
And if Yoda is so old and frail that he needs a cane to walk, how is it he jumps around like a monkey the second a light sabre hits his hand? And since the light sabre is apparently his version of Popeye's spinach, why doesn't he carry it all the time?
Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
How is it Count Dooku was able to overcome both Anakin and Obi-Wan and escape Yoda at the end of the second movie, yet he was a complete pushover by the beginning of the third?
So let me get this straight. Anakin no sooner gets finished whining to Padme about how it feels like a lifetime since they've seen each other, and now she tells him she's pregnant? So either her pregnancy took a hell of a long time to be detected or someone will end up on Maury Povich.
How is it that through the first three movies everyone has aged except Padme? Obi-Wan, for example looked like a teenager in the first one and looks middle-aged by the third one, yet Padme looks exactly the same still.
Oh I forgot about Samuel L. He looks exactly the same too.
So when they're apart and Anakin isn't getting any, does he masturbate with that metal right arm? That would feel weird.
So why would Padme be kicked out of the Senate for having a baby? Don't they realize if you fire a pregnant woman she can sue the pants off you?
So Obi-Wan Kenobi finds General Grievous, who is surrounded by thousands of battle-droids, yet he wants to fight Obi-Wan one-on-one?
Why all the talk about how Anakin was the hero of the Clone Wars? Since Obi-Wan Kenobi was the one who killed General Grievous, which effectively ended the war, doesn't that kind of make him the hero?
So how did Anakin go from turning Palpatine in to the Jedi for being a Sith to joining him and becoming a Sith and declaring the Jedi the enemies in a matter of minutes?
And how did he go from insisting that Palpatine be taken alive to stand trial to MURDERING CHILDREN in those same few minutes? What the hell happened to him wanting to do the right thing and be a good guy? I mean did he not realize that when you MURDER CHILDREN you kind of go down a path you can't go back from? Shouldn't something like that require a little more thought?
I mean seriously, he just MURDERED a bunch of CHILDREN for no reason other than the guy told him to who had been his enemy ten minutes ago?
No seriously, they just let Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi walk away, but they insisted he MURDER all the CHILDREN in the Jedi temple because it's too dangerous to let them live?
And then he went back home to check on his wife and unborn baby after a hard day's work of MURDERING CHILDREN? How does one do that with a straight face?
Why did the clone armies that turned on the Jedi also turn on Senator Jimmy Smits? He's not a Jedi so how was he the enemy all of a sudden?
And if they were hunting him, why was he able to walk into the Senate session totally unmolested?
Anakin is even pissed off at R2D2 now? What the hell did he do?
So how is it everyone's okay with Palpatine just declaring the Republic an empire and naming himself Emporor? They didn't vote or deliberate or have any dissenting opinions at all out of the thousands of senators?
Except for Padme, of course, who had her normal overly-dramatic lines about how democracy was dying to thunderous applause, yet she didn't speak up about it?
I mean, it isn't like Palpatine would do anything to her, what with her being married to his new apprentice and all.
And why is everyone so accepting of someone who is "out" as a Sith being the Emporor's right-hand man? I mean the whole "Darth" name kind of gives it away.
Instead of splitting up and finding Darth Sidious and Anakin Vader to fight them separately, why the hell wouldn't Obi-Wan and Yoda just team up so they have a much better chance?
Why exactly would people want to live on a planet that is essentially one big volcano? Sounds a little dangeous.
And how would you build things on such a planet?
So how is it Padme was able to tell Anakin that he was "a good person" after she knew about his spree of MURDERING CHILDREN? Because that's something most "good people" tend not to do.
So Obi-Wan tells Anakin he thought of him as a brother, and Anakin thought of Obi-Wan as a father. So they're from Kentucky?
I know it was a prequel, but weren't the final fight scenes between Obi-Wan/Anakin and Yoda/Darth Sidious kind of anti-climatic when you know all four of them survive?
And wasn't it extremely hokey how Yoda ran away from Sidious and Obi-Wan left Anakin to die instead of finishing him off?
Padme went from not even looking pregnant to having twins awful fast.
And she's medically fine, but she dies because she lost the will to live because her husband became a Sith? Not to be a dick, but, um, what about those two kids she lived just long enough to squirt out? Shouldn't they be something of a reason to live?
Is it just me, or is it really difficult to believe that Darth Vader in his new suit and mask is the same whiny teenager they just showed for two movies?
But I do have to give him props. He moves pretty well for a guy with all four limbs and his entire respiratory system replaced with metal.
Okay why exactly do they have to split up the twins?
And why is it that Senator Jimmy Smits is allowed to be married and adopt a kid, but when Senator Padme got pregnant, she was worried she was going to be removed from office?
So they're trying to send the babies where the Sith won't find them, so they send one to be adopted by a public figure, and the other to live with Darth Vader's step-family on his home planet, where he decides to keep the Skywalker name? Yep, he'll never find them.
And how sad is it that he, in fact, WASN'T able to find them?
And why did Leia's new adopted family get both R2D2 and C3PO? Shouldn't Luke have gotten one or both of them, considering Leia was getting to be a Princess and Luke was getting sent to live in a sand hut with poor people on a primitive planet?
So if Darth Vader is more powerful than Palpatine and can overthrow him like he told Padme, why doesn't he do it? Does he enjoy being a lapdog? Maybe Darth Vader has low self-esteem.
For more Star Wars foolishness, check out Star Wars: Questions part 2