Who do you feel you see through the eyes of in the PT?
For example, the OT was Luke, Dune was Paul, Lord of the Rings has Frodo (Sam arguably) etc etc etc.
Personally, I feel a universal character is lacking. That's my opinion though. I don't think Anakin fits the role of the naive farm boy, and I don't look at the PT through his eyes. Obi-Wan could also fit the bill, but from watching the OT, I still think of him as the aged Wizard.
So I return to the question again; who do you think you see the Clone Wars through the eyes of?
nobody....and imho thats where the PT failed. we see the story of anakin, yet there seems to be an impregnable wall of obscurity between him and the audience. you could feel for luke and empathise as well as sympathise, where as you cant for anakin.
even when luke almost turned in RotJ you could experience his rage and understand what set him off. now someone try to tell me how they could sympathise with anakin killing toddlers? or even begin to understand his pain or what motivates him?
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Just like how in the OT we saw through Luke, Han, and Leia.
But the OT was mainly luke, where the PT neglects a main protagonist. Why? People don't easily identify with children and Anakin doesn't even enter the story until midway thought TPM. Later, in ROTS, he falls and we are supposed to disagree with his viewpoint. "Sympathize time" is cut off both ends
The PT's story is not conducive to a "root for the hero plot."
However, ther are some things that could have fixed that. (my PT fixes them and creates a root for the hero plot)
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Re: Re: The PT's central character
i agree with you. at first when i saw this thread i thought, i saw it through the eyes of Obi-Wan, then i realized there are some parts of the story that does not relate to him or something like that. The 'point of view' the audience saw is too scattered.
come to think of it, when i first saw Episode three, i didn't actually understand what the heck was happening to anakin. i was so focused on Ewan McGregor and that's what got me hooked on Star Wars, that or the pretty whirling lightsabers and the flying ships... i just understood it when i watched the whole prequel trilogy and the OT, and found out the OT was so much better when it comes to the story.
Anakin wasnt there to be identified with teens and twentysomethings or 30somethings in TPM
he was there for the kids to identify with and thats what Lucas target audience was and from the kids of my family and freinds in the summer of 99 he pulled it off
AOTC nipped the bud with that but i dunno..i guess youd have to ask the kids who were of age when TPM was released if he pulled it off in AOTC
this is when im starting to think again that these films are for "the kids" and debating them at my age is a bit like going over to the CBBC forum and critisizing Tracey Beaker
an unpopular view for sw fans
Sure the OT is the gangs flick with Luke at the forefront but the PT is as much Kenobis story as Anakins
and thats what we get
with way too much going on elsewhere
In many ways, Anakin is obvious meant to be a tragic hero, akin to Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet and dozens of other Shakespeare inventions. He is flawed, but whereas we do sympathise we Hamlet, with Othello etc., I don't follow Anakin's story.
I simply do not sympathise with Jake Lloyd's Anakin, but not because I can't sympathise with a child (As cringeworthy as some of the Harry Potter films were, you sympathise with him, and root for him), but because the story didn't revolve around him; he was more excess baggage, a souvenir from the trip, than anything.
In Episode 2, we should have really been able to sympathise with him. Yet I didn't. I'm not sure what part let the character down; the performance, the script, Lucas bad direction of actors, or all of them, but I didn't admire Anakin. Instead I felt he was an arrogant kid who I hoped would get his just cause. I tended to follow the story through Obi-Wan in the second prequel.
Here, well, I'm not sure. RotS was Anakins story, and I couldn't get into the story following Obi-Wan; he already had defeatist attitude in his 50s news reader voice from the first action sequence. In comparison, Anakin killings kids is hardly something that will inspire an audience, so I just watched indifferently while all these nice looking CGI sequences played out. It looked nice, but I felt detached from alot of the characters.
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Last edited by exanda kane on Apr 13th, 2007 at 02:05 PM
That's true. Of course, we all know he was to become Darth Vader, so perhaps it just wasn't possible to get us on his side. And not just on his side, not just the Jedi, or the Republic, but us rooting for Anakin.
But then again, it may have been easy; Lucas just lost the plot.
I do like the way Star Wars was like a day in the life of two droids, but I felt with Empire and Jedi that it did become Lukes story. The droids are the focus of the first half of Star Wars, and maintain a certain importance to us throughout the OT, even though the Death Stars plans become irrelevant.
But I just don't see it in the PT. They aren't necessary for the story, but seem to just be thrown into the story in obscure places, and brought along as a souvenir of a small political crisis, in a small, damp planet. You can see why Lucas wantd to include them, they are fun, iconic characters, but it all feels so, so contrived.
Yes, but I felt the transition from Star Wars to Empire ended the way we saw the story through their eyes. Maybe it's just a personal opinion, but I like the fact that the original and first Star Wars film is like a little documentary, its like A Hard Days Nigh!t, but with two droids, and no scousers...if you can spot the resembelance.
But Empire takes the franchise (well technically it made the franchise) and just expands it up to mythic proportions, and I just didn't feel as though I was following the droids anymore.
Taking something George Lucas has written to heart isn't a particuarly clever thing to do.
Anakin's fall should have been emotionally involving, and I assure, I am not emotionally devoid, so something's obviously missing from the film. Anakin's fall grave no sympathy for me, I didn't feel he fell to the dark side for any noble goal, anything justifiable. It simply showed him as a bad egg. And he finally cracked.
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Apr 13th, 2007 11:44 AM
