I never found Hayden Christensen's acting to be that bad personally, I just thought Anakin was supposed to be that obnoxious. (I say that with a great deal of love for the trainwreck himself)
I realize I never talked about the time I cosplayed Anakin to a con in July when it was over 100 degrees out. It was not the best decision I ever made, but the photos looked p cool...
i am so, so late to the party but I FINALLY SAW EP 7 over the weekend and HELL YEAH, a lot of things had been spoiled but NOT EVERYTHING!!! Spoiler: TFA spoilers and general reviewness in particular, Han's death took me COMPLETELY by surprise! of all the potential things to have spoiled for me, i'm really happy that wasn't one of them. i did know that Kylo Ren was Han & Leia's kid, and i also """knew"""" that Rey was Luke's kid... so i was actually surprised when they didn't address that directly. i mean, it totally makes sense, there was hella foreshadowing and all. and actually, about Rey's past and the flashbacks/forewards when she touches the lightsaber-- when she's being abandoned as a kid, you can hear what sounds like Kylo's maskvoice saying "stop crying, child!" SO MY THEORY: when Li'l Ben went rogue and destroyed the Luke's Jedi School or whatever, he told Luke that he had killed his daughter. but he couldn't actually do it, so instead he gave her (sold her?) to someone on Jakku. because exile to some backwater wasteland is how we handle conflicts in this family amirite. #skywalkerstyle i really liked the First Order, too-- they were more fascist than old-school imperial, which makes a lot of sense when you look at our own world. the general progression of Old Republic --> Galactic Empire --> New Republic --> First Order echoes both ancient Rome (Caesar dissolving the senate and declaring himself emperor) and recent-ish european history (the big empires fall apart, new democratic governments come together, a few years later fascists trading on the previous empire's ideals start rising.) i like that, compared to the Empire whose leadership was all older men by the time of ANH, the government of the First Order is young. the actors who play both Hux and Ren are both like 32! and it's kind of cool that we're seeing the start of a new galactic war, rather than being dropped in the middle of an existing one. i would have liked to see more about the political state of the galaxy, it seemed like the Republic controls some planets and the First Order controls others. and the First Order's main beef with the Republic (or least, main pretext for beef) seems to be that the Republic was covertly supporting the Resistance, which i assume is based in FO controlled planets. i'd like to know more about that-- does the Republic deny all involvement? do they stay neutral, do they say supportive things about General Organa? did Leia work with the Republic initially before joining the Resistance? I WANT TO KNOW! ... but that's the Star Trek nerd in me, and J.J. Abrams hates that aspect of Star Trek, there's no way he's going to get into negotiations and trade disputes in his Star Wars movies. i can absolutely see the appeal of Rey/Kylo btw, kismesitude and power struggles are MY JAM. which is also why i walked out of the theatre shipping Hux/Ren like the burning. these two assholes, the same age, both vying for influence and power and trying to impress Big Daddy Snoke, are just. perfect kismeses. (although i do also agree that Hux trying to auspiticize Ren/everyone else is. also perfect.) so i was very, very pleased to discover that pretty much the entire Hux/Kylo Ren tag on ao3 is full of awesome blackrom, hatesex and power struggles and d/s dynamics. also the tag "inappropriate use of the Force." bless the Star Wars fandom.
On another topic, here's an article about the marketing for TFA. http://sweatpantsandcoffee.com/what-we-love/sweatpants-pop-culture/rey/ I'm never sure how to take articles that say "our anonymous source told us" because how do you tell if it's true...but with the state of gendered marketing as it is I'm not surprised. Also in the store I work in, our TFA display was also nearly entirely Kylo with no Rey in sight. I just hope they learn from this one because I want my Rey figures. *pounds table w fist* (and Phasma and General Leia, that would be nice)
Also I am reminded how much I had to pay for a resold Ahsoka figure because they were so rare. *sighs*
Right? I was noticing around stores that star wars merch was either characters not really in the new movie (i notice themed food in the grocery store is like, 90% yoda and darth vader and i'm seriously confused, like, they're both dead?????), or like... just kylo ren. and much as i love him, i sorta want stuff around with the main characters, you know? I was disappointed in joann that the fleece blanket just had kylo ren on the packaging and was not in fact, a blanket with kylo ren on it, because if it was i would've flung that onto my bed in a heartbeat
Oh my god my sibling just linked me a whole ton of recs mostly centered on prequel-era Anakin and co., I haven't read any of them yet but they all look AMAZING, shall I pass them on here?
someone i follow on tumblr does a lot of shippy prequel and original trilogy fanart! http://pinoqino.tumblr.com/tagged/my doodles also i'm currently blasting my way through the hux/kylo tag on ao3, so if anyone is in that particular trash can with me i'll post my faves later.
I don't remember what my initial reaction to RotS was, but when I watched it again recently, I felt that the script was more the problem than the acting - in fact, I thought the actors did a damn good job considering what they had to work with. I liked the story, too. I'd say the things that bother me about RotS (and prequel trilogy in general) are: 1) they gave too much time to flashy battles and not enough time to the political shenanigans and character development that made up the actual plot and 2) George Lucas really needs a beta-reader. I did have one complaint that I take back - originally I couldn't figure out how whiny, emotional Anakin and forceful, stoic Darth Vader were the same person, and thought it was just really bad writing. But after re-watching all the movies, Darth Vader has a flair for the dramatic that is 100% Skywalker, and it makes even more sense after watching TFA Spoiler: Spoiler-ish? because you get to see, with Kylo Ren, how a mask and a voice changer can make posturing and childish tantrums look alarming and kind of impressive.
Now that I think back on it, that's definitely what I feel like is the problem, too. That script was ... boy oh boy. And also I'm just almost never much for movie romances, so the focus on anakin and padme was p much always boring to me, even as a kid >>; but boy. now that i'm looking around and seeing more fanwork for the prequels, i'm just reminded how much I loved them, flaws aside <3 I think part of my reason for not liking RotS as much nowadays is because the script can't hold up to how I felt it as a kid- I was emotionally devastated by the ending time and time again watching it, and being used to what's going to happen from overwatching as well as being more able to analyze the script now.. it doesn't hold up to what it is in my head. nostalgia goggles firmly on
I like Anakin and Padme as a trainwreck, especially because you've got this very smart woman and then a guy with a little too much power and serious anger/control issues. It's a bit frightening but also rather on the nose about a lot of actual abusive relationships. It's a lot like...hm. I can't remember if I've said this before, but I remember watching the original movies when I was very young, and I didn't really get the hype about Darth Vader, I liked Luke more but I couldn't understand why he kept insisting his dad "still has good in him" even though he'd never met the guy until he killed his mentor so like...I dunno. I couldn't get emotionally invested in Vader as a character at all until the prequels came out. (I also didn't quite understand Luke himself back then, I guess.) I could swear there was an interview with Lucas confirming this, if I ever find it again I will link it, but basically--I think part of the reason people flipped out about Anakin being a whiny manbaby (yes his life was pretty horrible but it did not really excuse murdering children etc) is that people saw Vader as the ultimate Male Power Fantasy, but what he actually is is the Male Power Fantasy Gone Horribly Wrong. As badass as he looks on the outside he is a lost, pathetic, twisted person on the inside. And plenty of people didn't like being faced with the REAL ugly side of humanity like that. (and I mean, the script, but yeah.) It's also about hubris, because Palpatine was a good manipulator but he still probably wouldn't have succeeded if the Jedi didn't SUCK SO BAD AT TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS. I dunno if it was intentional but it really turned out like a big lesson about how bad Toxic Masculinity is, which Anakin is kind of the epitome of. EDIT: I will say the 3D Clone Wars show does a really good job of showing the transition between Ep II Anakin and Ep III Anakin with better dialogue. (I still love the Mortis Arc so muchhh)
Aah I've been meaning to look into the clone wars show owo heard from a few people now that it's p good and i'm always down for more anakin trash, so i'll probly start watching it sometime soon! I heard it was on netflix i think?
My roommate and I are gonna watch it! And I'm pretty sure it is on netflix, we found it there while looking for the movies. Basically all I know about it is that there's cool character design and people seem to like it a lot, so, optimism! Spoiler: suicide mentions Anakin's transition from desperate internal conflict about doing what was right to Literal Child Massacre Guy was a bit jarring, but I saw it less as a discrete moment and more as the culmination of a project that Palpatine had been working on for years. It was the point when Palpatine finally convinced Anakin once and for all that he was in fact a bad person, and had been all along. The sort of person who will kill dozens and hundreds of innocents to save the life of someone who is more important to him than they are. And Anakin just kind of clung to it, because Palpatine was the only source of direction he had anymore. I don't think he was really thinking much at all from the point Palpatine named him Vader onwards. And the way he reassured Padme reminded me a lot of someone planning suicide? That sudden calm because now there is a plan, sort of thing. I don't think he was planning to kill himself or anything - or, more like he already had killed himself. Which is certainly the metaphor the rest of the series pushes about his arc. But yeah, that veneer of calm and running-on-autopilot didn't really crack until Padme confronted him on the volcano planet. And then he kinda did the glacier-collapsing thing. Which is the sort of thing that I love to see characters do :D
I really think the turning point was Spoiler when Anakin thought he'd killed Windu. Nevermind that it was Palpatine that killed Windu (though there's some material that says he actually survived?? idk) but Anakin is the type to blame himself and that was the perfect place to go "well I just killed a guy that trusted me, no hope left for me, time to be a monster!!" I mean, as much as Windu was suspicious of Anakin it was honestly because he saw himself in him, imho. Windu's whole Thing is that he channels his anger and flirts w the Dark Side but controls it perfectly so he could tell Anakin didn't have that kind of control. But he let Anakin go with him anyway to confront Palpatine, which to me says he believed that ultimately Anakin would do the right thing. whoops. As much as I hate Sidious he's a damn good villain.
