Anakin Skywalker Explained

[Hobbit]

So, last night, I watched the History Channel on Star Wars and its connections to both ancient and modern myth.  It was pretty cool, and discussed character archetypes, plot types (journey of the hero, redemption, Greek tragedy), and lots of the deeper aspects of the myth of Star Wars.  Well, enough of that.  On to the point.

One of the guests they interviewed was Kevin Smith (Silent Bob), and he touched on the subject of Anakin's whineyness.  He said something to the effect of, "People keep complaining that this huge, evil villian, the scourge of the galaxy, started out as some whiney little teenager, but you know what, the scourge of the galaxy WOULD start out as a whiney little teenager.  The greatest villian of all time would probably start as some emo kid."

So, I got to thinking, he's right.  Just imagine the whiniest, most self-pitying, dumbest emo kid you know.  Now imagine that he gets Jedi powers and can just kill anybody he wants with little effort and no consequences.  Yeah, he'd start with a Columbine and before you know it, he's walking around in a big, black, shiny costume and blowing up planets.

It doesn't make Anakin any more likeable, and it definitely doesn't address the issue of the HORRIBLE 'romance' scenes, but it definitely give a little perspective.

[Cibernético II]

Columbine = emo kids ?



uhh, I don't like this thread

[RobtheBarbarian]

I saw that too, and I thought it gave Star Wars way too much credit. Linking the light sabers to Excalibur, Luke and Darth to Homer's stories.... it seemed like a pretty big stretch and the resemblances were all very subjective. I doubt Lucas had Homer in mind when he thought up Luke and Vader's relationship.

I think this has spawned a new field: Star Wars Apologetics.

[Nunyerbiz]

Ok... now I dislike Anakin even more than I used to...

Instead of just attributing it to Lucas shitting the bed with the Anakin character like he did with every other element of the prequel scripts.... now I am to believe that he purposely based two movies around a whiny, unlikable character?!?  I liked it better when I thought Lucas was just lost without a map. Sorry Kevin Smith, I know you are a huge SW fan, but stop trying to help. For the Anakin character to work, the audience needed to sympathize with him at some level... and "emo kid" doesn't exactly cut it.

[RobtheBarbarian]

Yeah, it did kind of backfire. Now we have something good and concrete to despise the whole debacle for: Anakin was fully intended to be a whiny, gutless emo kid. Whether it makes sense is debatable, but whether it's appealing is definitely not.

[J-Proof]

Also -- how could Kevin Smith /really/ know that an emo kid would "realistically" blow up planets? lol.... to my knowledge, emo kids have never gotten that high on the political scale for us to know "realistically" speaking.....

Let's look at some of the world's greatest military/political threats/presences to just this planet in modern history: George Patton, Black Jack Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, Erwin Rommel, Manfred von Richthofen, Raoul Lufbery.... those are just the names that immediately pop into my noggin from the two World Wars.... All fierce fighters - none of which fit the "emo kid" description.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

I just have one question:

Why is the History Channel airing this crap?

I mean "How Star Trek Changed The World" or whatever was bad enough, but now they're actually focusing on the history of a fictional universe rather than using a fictional universe's technological advances to compare to actual technological advances in reality?!? It's the goddamn History channel, the history of the REAL WORLD, not the history of worlds found in goddamn MOVIES! Is our actual future going to turn into the future seen in Mike Judge's Idiocracy? Is the next big comedy hit going to be Ow, My Balls!? What the fuck?

[Nunyerbiz]

Everytime I think of "Ow, My Balls!"... I laugh. So... yea, things do not bode well for the future.

Also, in the History Channel's defence...

now they're actually focusing on the history of a fictional universe rather than using a fictional universe's technological advances to compare to actual technological advances in reality?!?

They did a show that is exactly what you are describing... I think it aired immediately before the one with the Kevin Smith interview snippet quoted by the original topic starter.

[Junkyard]

I like this whole "retroactively attach a lot of meaning to something" thing people do. Star Wars was a sci-fi movie. It was made after some people got together and wrote a script. They weren't scouring history and legend to construct some ultimate story, they were trying to entertain. Jar Jar Binks wasn't some call back to the Brittish's dealings with the Polynesians, (or however they explained away that CGI monstrosity,) he was just a failed attempt to entertain.

I actually think people do this a lot with art, too.

[RobtheBarbarian]

They had a Modern Marvels episode on the subject of Star Wars technology, which predictably turned out to be utterly insubstantial and impossible. In the episodes where they give Star Trek a similar treatment they can at least draw a thin line between real technology and Trekkian technology, but in this one it was basically:

Narrator: Star Wars has light sabers, weapons which can cut through anything and make cool "phchewwww zap" noises.
-cut to scientist-
Scientist: Sorry, completely impossible. ... no, really. Completely impossible.
Narrator: Star Wars also has speeders and such that fly without wings or conventional thrust-lift methods.
-cut to other scientist-
Other Scientist: Impossible short of antigravity. Star Wars would have to be in an alternate universe where this kind of thing is possible to begin with for it to work like it does.

I like this whole "retroactively attach a lot of meaning to something" thing people do. Star Wars was a sci-fi movie. It was made after some people got together and wrote a script. They weren't scouring history and legend to construct some ultimate story, they were trying to entertain. Jar Jar Binks wasn't some call back to the Brittish's dealings with the Polynesians, (or however they explained away that CGI monstrosity,) he was just a failed attempt to entertain.

I actually think people do this a lot with art, too.

I'm with you there. Most of the time I assume it's my fault for not picking up on the plethory of hidden messages in movies that other people seem to pick out of thin air (I'm absolutely dead in that regard), but this time I can say for almost total certainty that they were making most of it up.
This is in line with Star Wars' being better classified as a "space fantasy" with no "science" in the title anywhere, but it seems that some people need to be informed of this.

The How Star Trek Changed the World actually was was Isaac was talking about - it went into how certain scientists were inspired to innovate technology by Star Trek and how our level of science was approaching the Star Trek level. It was pretty interesting, and of course it was hosted by The Shat.

[Junkyard]

Trek, yes. Trek was never truly hard Scifi, but it tried it's best. And it inspired people. Wars was always undeniably romantic Scifi; a fairy tale in space.

[Sharktopus]

I saw that too, and I thought it gave Star Wars way too much credit. Linking the light sabers to Excalibur, Luke and Darth to Homer's stories.... it seemed like a pretty big stretch and the resemblances were all very subjective. I doubt Lucas had Homer in mind when he thought up Luke and Vader's relationship.

I've always found it pretty obvious that Lucas mined the original trilogy from classic myth and legend. He pretty much just used Joseph Campbell's work as an outline, and tossed in some science fiction hallmarks to make it fresh. Pretty ingenious, really. It's the prequels where Lucas tried to come up with ideas right out of his own head, and we all know how that turned out...

[RobtheBarbarian]

Myth and legend of course, but not necessarily the ones that were mentioned in the special. I see Star Wars as more of a contrivance of oriental mysticism and folklore combined with "classic" plot structure. I don't see much King Arthur or The Iliad in it anywhere.

[Hobbit]

Myth and legend of course, but not necessarily the ones that were mentioned in the special. I see Star Wars as more of a contrivance of oriental mysticism and folklore combined with "classic" plot structure. I don't see much King Arthur or The Iliad in it anywhere.

Actually, King Arthur is one of the things Lucas specifically mentioned as an inspiration for the Jedi, most notably the Jedi Round Table-er-Council.

And yeah, like I said, this doesn't make Anakin any more likable, it just ads a bit of method to the madness and makes a little more sense than him being that whiney completely by accident.

As far as the History Channel focussing so much on 'just a story,' let's remember 2 things:

1)  The History Channel is a private company looking for money, and money means ratings.  This is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, so Star Wars stuff gets ratings.  That means that they air Star Wars stuff.

2)  There are entire college majors, graduate schools, and research institutions devoted entirely to 'just stories' and focussing about how these 'just stories' changed the world.  It's called literature, and just because Star Wars was is a bunch of movies instead of books or plays doesn't mean it can't have the same impact on society as, say, 'The Illiad,' Shakespeare, or '1984.'

As far as Star Wars apologetics, the only clear example I saw of that was discussion of Jar-Jar.  I mean, I expected them to discuss that guy in historical and mythological context, but if they'd just given at least a nod, like quoting some guy saying how horribly unlikable he was, it would have made me loads happier.  Here's a hint, somebody can be innocent and naive without hogging that much screen while acting like a moron.

[Variety of Cells]

Myth and legend of course, but not necessarily the ones that were mentioned in the special. I see Star Wars as more of a contrivance of oriental mysticism and folklore combined with "classic" plot structure. I don't see much King Arthur or The Iliad in it anywhere.

Joseph Campbell's work focuses on how these mythical characters are universal, so it makes perfect sense to compare it to different mythologies.  Also, Lucas and Joseph Campbell were good friends toward the end of Campbell's life.  Lucas let him stay in one of his houses to study and work.  I saw an interview with Campbell where they talk about Star Wars and mythology briefly.  Interesting stuff.