Revenge of the Sith Easter Eggs 569
Ant writes "Via TheForce.Net, a StarWars.com article with a great list of Easter Eggs from the third prequel movie, Revenge of the Sith. There were many cameos and hidden images." From the article: "
It's tiny, but visible enough to send a warm fuzzy through the hearts of original trilogy fans. In the establishing shot of the expansive Senate docking bays, there's a tiny Millennium Falcon easing into frame. And it's not just a non-descript Corellian freighter; it's on good authority -- namely George Lucas -- that this is the infamous hunk-of-junk before it came into the ownership of either Lando Calrissian or Han Solo."
More Money! (Score:2, Insightful)
Phase2: Profit
Phase3: Release Easter Egg List
Phase4: More Profit!!
Too late (Score:2, Insightful)
What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:5, Insightful)
He went straight into "evil mode" right after Palpatine gives him the Darth Vader title. It's like there's a "good/evil" toggle switch he pushed (maybe that's what the buttons on Darth Vader's suit is) to turn him evil. No conflicted feelings. Nothing. He could have at least said "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do" to the younglings. Anakin wasn't evil enough yet to slaughter children. He should have been obeying his new master's orders but hating them, and hating himself too... it would have been much much more tragic that way.
In the end, Obi-Wan should have tried to bring him back to the good side much the way Luke did ("Obi-Wan once thought as you do"). The fight would have been much more personal then. They should be not wanting to fight each other, but both are compelled to... that would have made awesome drama. But no....
Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not seen yet (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:5, Insightful)
>> hating them, and hating himself too
> Did you notice the tear running down his check after he killed
> the separatist leaders? I think he was hating himself.
That's exactly what I saw. He had tears running down his face after he killed the younglings and after he killed the Separatist leaders. Note that before he decided to interfere with Mace Windu confronting Sideous, he brooded in the Jedi Temple for what looked like hours.
He was doing what he had to do to become powerful enough to learn how to keep Padme from dying. He probably thought he would then kill Darth Sideous, and make himself Emperor (since eliminating the Senate would make things more efficient to ensure stability for the galaxy)
On the bright side (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On the bright side (Score:5, Insightful)
I watch Sci Fi channel, for god's sake, so I'm not a movie snob by any means. The acting in those movies is bad, but they are also filmed on $10. In a $200m major blockbuster with well-known actors, I expect the acting and dialog to at least keep up with something like Stargate, a series filmed for a fraction of a fraction of that cost.
Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon (Score:3, Insightful)
Just a coincidence (Score:5, Insightful)
> dialog.
The dialog is superficial. Calls for dramatic absolutes are common when dictators are trying to gain power, as well as anyone with extreme viewpoints. It helps them manage the cognitive dissonance [wikipedia.org].
Actually all the Star Wars movies are describing, among other things, how Democracy can fall to fascism.
In summary, Palpatine starts a fake war[1] (where he controlled both sides[2]) in order to get elected and stay in office[3] by appealing to people's fear and rallying nationalism [4]. He convinces the Senate to vote Emergency Powers to him [5] in order to consolidate more power under himself. He finally declares the end of the Republic [6] in order to bring "peace" to the galaxy.
The movies are not intended to directly catalog Bush or his policies. The original plot was written in the 1970s, and it was inspired by a number of events in history, including Hitler's rise to power and the Vietnam War. The way we humans move from democracy to fascism happens in roughly the same way each time.
It just so happens that it can be argued that Bush has been following the same pattern as any drive towards fascism. Thus, any parallels to the current state of the U.S. is purely coincidental.
-----
[1] Whoops! No weapons of mass destruction found [cnn.com]. Our bad.
[2] Didn't we used to fund and support Saddam Hussein [whatreallyhappened.com]?
[3] Tom Ridge finally admits that the Department of Homeland Security twice questionably raised the terror alert [usatoday.com] status in order to prop up Bush's poll ratings during the election.
[4] Freedom fries [cnn.com], anyone?
[5] Secret sneak and peek searches via the PATRIOT Act [aclu.org], anyone?
[6] "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier," Bush said, pausing and then joking, "just so long as I'm the dictator [cjonline.com]."
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:5, Insightful)
lightsaber accessories (Score:2, Insightful)
Easter Eggs?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:5, Insightful)
> still tried to bring him to the good side of the force. Obi-Wan
> trained Anakin from the start, created a strong bond between
> both and he just gives up on him.
It's not a flaw. That's the whole point of the movie. Lucas talks about the duality of nature and the circular nature of violence. In each character, there is good and evil. More specifically, evil exists in good and good exists in evil. At the same time, violence begets violence, so the only way to end the cycle of violence is to refuse to fight. The only character who knows this as true is Luke Skywalker.
Obi-Wan tells Yoda he can't kill Anakin even after what Anakin had done (killed Younglings and aligned himself with Darth Sideous). Yoda tells him that Anakin is dead ("consumed by Darth Vader"). Obi-Wan accepts that reluctantly, and he confronts him. Obi-Wan tries to bring Anakin back, but he is too quick to use violence as his solution.
Luke on the other hand, throws away his lightsaber, and refuses to kill his father, which brings Anakin back (the spark of Anakin that was left in Vader). Anakin then kills Sideous (sacrificing himself) instead of allowing Sideous to kill Luke, and completes the fulfillment of the prophesy.
What people see as inconsistencies are often illustrations of the greater themes in the movies. Yoda was wise in Episode V, but he acted foolishly in Episodes II and III. Of course that makes sense, because how does one gain wisdom except by learning from one's mistakes? Yoda figures out that by Episode V that wars do not make one great. The events of Episode II and III taught him that. Except, Yoda did not learn one lesson between Episodes II and III: that he should not have given up on Anakin.
Luke for all his poor formal Jedi training understood that and that's why he prevailed in the end.
Re:Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:lame costume (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, you're not supposed to forgive Vader. You're supposed to realize that Vader and Anakin aren't the same person.
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:2, Insightful)
As for Order 66 that's fairly easy - we know that Sidious was behind the commissioning of the Clones so it's a reasonable assumption that he had some programming input.
I agree that the film was fantastic. Up until I saw ROTS I never believed Lucas when I heard him claim that Vader is the central character of all of the films. For me the whole focus of all of the films changed after watching ROTS.
Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
The author who wrote that bit into his book was trying to cover for George's mistake.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
So we have two scenarios... George Lucas, who isn't an astrophysicist, writes a script with what he thinks are correct terms but they turn out to be incorrect and everybody agrees that not all movies are perfect. Or, Star Wars is *never* wrong, man... must... find... alternate explanation! Han, uh... *knew* that the info was wrong and did it to test them or something. Or maybe when talking about fast ships, you give an example about maneuverability, something which a space barge going in a straight line and plowing the asteroids out of the way could have bested.
Cognitive dissonance at its finest.
Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
What bothered me most about the whole thing wasn't that aspect of it. It was that they bothered to explain any aspect of the force at all.
I really enjoyed the SW movies much more when the Force was some mysterious, unexplainable power that certain people learned to tap into. But the moment they start talking about blood tests and midichlorians then suddenly it becomes techno-bable BS.
It's like any other force of nature or technology. The more unrealistic it is, the more I would prefer them not try to explain it with stupid crap to further drive it home to me that what I'm seeing isn't possible.
I have many other serious gripes with Star Wars. RotJ, TPM, and AotC all did me in for even liking Star Wars at all.
Even if III is really that good, I probably won't enjoy it because it's still built on those other piles of crap.
Re:Just a coincidence (Score:4, Insightful)
We really can't tell how much anyone wants power in and of itself, and how much they have goals that "justify" their quest for power. I'm sure Hitler thought there were good things comeing that made a few sacrefices necessary. We can't really tell by racial doctrines either, unless you include racial superiority arguements without always requiring megadeaths to accompany them. It's worth remembering that the Italians under Mussolini were practically the epitomy of fascism, but they didn't round up their local Jews and other ethnic types nearly as much as the Germans did (near the very end of the war, the Italians did turn over about 4,500 Jews to Gestapo representitives, under strong pressure from Germany. That's a lot of individual tragedies, but when you look at it against the background of WW2, it almost disappears.).
Fascism seems to require telling your chosen audience they are special, and in some poorly defined way, superior to everyone else, and in blameing every complex problem on scapegoats that are well defined enough to make the problems look simple and solvable. Trotting out the Scapegoats whenver there's a reversal of fortune is one of the clearest signs of it.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:5, Insightful)
This just in! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Millennium Falcon Cameo (Score:3, Insightful)
I would imagine that he was given to Leia not because she needed an astromech, but rather that Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted someone who knew exactly what her father was capable of watching her. C3PO was given to her because someone needed to talk for artoo.
Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowhere is said that Darth Vader/Anakin gets weaker losing limbs. What is the midichlorian just jumped from the limbs to his head? He would be strong anyway. But I would be jumping into conclusions, don't I?
Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now it sounds like you're drawing your own conclusions without any real store.
In "real-life", my cholesterol count has nothing to do with the volume of blood in my body. If I have my legs cut off, I lose a lot of blood, but once I stabilize, my cholesterol count will be the same - as it's a ratio.
Now, I'm not going to even pretend that I know if "midichlorian count" is a ratio (like cholestrol, red/white cell count, etc), or a summation of the total number - I don't think it was ever mentioned.
So, without knowing that basic fact of the "science of the force", you can't really make any assumptions about that being why Vader lost his power.
Maybe he was just getting old. Even Yoda died of old age.
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahh, you had me until that last sentence.
Luke received very good training. Yoda knew exactly how to train him for the reasons you mentioned.
Remember the jedi training and the "cave" scene? That was to teach Luke not to kill Vader because if he did he would kill himself.
Re:Just a coincidence (Score:2, Insightful)
Crossovers are fun : ) (Score:4, Insightful)
You are not alone.
Remember, in ET, it's halloween and ET sees a kid in a Yoda mask and gets all excited, saying "Home! Hoooome!"... and the reciprocal ETs in one of ep1's Galactic Senate scenes.
Re:Just a coincidence (Score:3, Insightful)
> they seem to have a problem with absolutes of their own.
I think that's an interesting point. Perhaps the line is more telling that we think. The original lines are:
Obi-Wan should have tried harder to bring Anakin back to the good side, the way Luke did in Episode VI. But Obi-Wan did not, and I believe that Lucas is trying to say that Obi-Wan's subsequent actions were wrong.
Maybe dealing in absolutes is a Sith tendency, and Obi-Wan was falling for the same thing. He believed that Anakin was now evil, and no longer worth saving. In other words, Obi-Wan was considering that either Anakin was his friend or was a Sith. Perhaps Obi-Wan should have avoided the absolutes himself, and he should have tried to save Anakin. This was Lucas's way of indicating that while Obi-Wan's thinking was correct, his actions were wrong.
It seems that Obi-Wan learned his lesson after 20 years of solitude on Tatooine. In Episode IV he tells Han Solo, "There are alternatives to fighting."
This would not be the first time that Lucas has made a character say dialog incongruent to their actions to indicate when their actions are wrong. For example, in Episode II, Mace Windu tells Padme, "We're keepers of the peace. Not soldiers." However, at the end of the movie, Mace is leading clone troops into battle like
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:3, Insightful)
>> order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a
>> slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct
>> about his dream where he freed all the slaves.
> Except the Wookiees. Please, will somebody think of the
> Wookiees?
Aaah, no one cares about the Wookiees anyway. Why do you think Chewbacca didn't get a medal?
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:3, Insightful)
what is the distinction? What is a womb other than a technology for turning embroys into babies? There is no reasonable way to distinguish "natural" from "unnatural". What is natural? Something that arises in nature? Well, people arise in nature, and people build houses, so aren't houses natural? Are anthills natural? You can only distinguish the two if you believe that people are somehow fundementally different from any other creature on earth, not in terms of capabilities, but intrinsicly different. You can say, "what God created is natural, but what humans create is not natural". But you can't prove that, so again, we're back to having no provable distinction.
This doesn't follow, since the unaided kidney cell isn't an embryo.
You mean an unaided kidney cell cannot grow into a human? Well, sorry to break it to you, but an unaided embryo cannot grow into a human either.
If this future technology was used to transform a kidney cell into an embyro, then that embryo should be protected.
There is nothing special about an embryo, intrinscally. The reason people want to protect them is because they have the potential to grow into a human being. If they didn't, they'd be just like every other cell in the body. However, the only reason an embryo can turn into baby and a kidney cell cannot is because the technology we use to create babies (wombs), operate on the former and not the latter. If the technology existed to create babies from kidney cells (after all, they are as genetically complete as an embryo), then should kidney cells be protected?
I would not do it and I do not agree that it should be done. The end does not justify the means.
You believe that, but that doesn't make it true. I don't believe either that the ends justifies the means. But like Machiavelli said, certain ends to justify certain means. Any rational analysis suggests that saving 1000 lives is worth taking one. Only if you leave our world and postulate the existence of some higher truth that prevents such a thing, only then can you claim that those children should not be saved.
Then I assume you won't mind if those of us who think you're wrong drag you to the disintegration chamber?
That does not logically follow what I said. I'd protest not because I believe human life is invioble, but I believe in self-preservation. But let me play along with your scenario. If you were dragging me to the disintigration chamber, and I killed you to protect myself, then very few people would fault me for it. Thus, human life is obviously not invioble. As soon as you justify taking life in one way, you cannot claim its inviobility. It becomes just one more priority to be balanced with all the other priorities people have.
Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall (Score:3, Insightful)
Our differences are a matter of degree, not quality. That makes us quantitatively different, not fundementally different.
Not any more than sperm or eggs.
You're missing the point entirely. It's not as if fertilized eggs are any more genetically complete than eggs or sperm or kidney cells. They have a different genetic makeup, but all three have an equally complete set. All three contain all the knowledge to create a human being. The only difference is that right now only fertilized eggs can be turned into people. But that's just a factor of what we use to turn embryos into people (wombs) at this point in time. In a situation where that is no longer true, this distinction will no longer hold.
Let me approach the point this way. Scientists are not killing babies. Embryos are not yet babies, but they could be. So what you're really complaining about is the fact that scientists are not putting the embryos into a place (ie: a womb), where they could turn into babies. If there existed a technology to turn a kidney cell into a baby, using your logic someone could fault scientists for not putting the kidney cell into that machine. That's the sort of innane conclusions you reach when you try to protect something based on what it could become, rather than based on what it actually is.
As written, these are self-refuting statements.
Not self-refuting, rather mutually contridictory, but the point is well taken. I intended to add a "in general" in there. I don't believe that in general the ends justify the means, but rather that particular ends to justify particular means.
Rational? Using what basis of morality? And does this only apply to those who cannot defend themselves, or will you apply it to everyone?
Rationality requires no morality. Morality is a construction of man, that differs from person to person. Rationality is universal.
So would the embroys, if they but had the chance to live.
So would my steak, if it had been given the chance to live. So would the bacteria that you so callously wash off in the sink. Self-preservation is not unique to man. But we kill cows and bacteria all the time, because life is not sacrosenct. We avoid killing people, because that would have negative social ramifications, but we do not consider even human life to be invioble. The fact that human life is vioble is written into our very laws.
But if you can justify destroying those who cannot defend themselves, I'm sure we can come up with a justification for ignoring your protestations.
There is no "themselves" there. The word "self" refers to sentient creatures. Embryos are not sentient. They have no "self".
As for my protestations, you miss the point. You said that I shouldn't mind if you decide to kill me. My point was that I have a good reason to mind (self-preservation), one that has nothing to do with my believing that life is inviolate. The fact that you could come up with justifications really has no bearing on either mine or your original point.
But I'll play along again. Depending on your justifications, you could very well be right. If, after all, I was about to shoot your child, well, most people would consider you quite justified in killing me. We see yet again that human life is not inviolate at all, but rather that its taking is justifiable for a number of reasons.
And who are the elite who decide?
You're dodging my point, which is that life is just a priority among many. Not that it "should be" (I have no interest in "should be"), but that it is whether we like it or not. Who decides where it stands on the list of priorities is really irrelevent to my point.