Sordid Dreams

No he wasn't. He was only able to gain the upper hand once he managed to separate them. Up until that point he was constantly on the defensive.

Well sure Palps was going to win in the end, but it just irks me that he won because Yoda and Kenobi are literally too stupid to grasp that 2 > 1. I guess the fault lies ultimately with Lucas, who wrote it that way so that he could cut back and forth between two action packed lightsaber duels. Making sense was apparently secondary.

Yeah, I think the existence of the OT is pretty much the most important reason for all of this, including the incredibly stupid decision by Kenobi and Yoda to split up at the end of Ep3. "Oh gee, two of us there are, and one of him. Incredibly powerful Sith Lord he is. Now that we know his new apprentice is away and interfere he cannot, we should split up and only one of us should fight him." "Wait, master Yoda, don't you mean we should gang up on him and then once he's mincemeat hunt down his apprentice at our leisure?" "Up, shut! I here the Jedi master am. Far lousier than yours my grammar is, which wisdom mine shows. Now as you are told go do, and perfectly fine this all will turn out."

The previes also promised an awesome game and we got a buggy and insultingly short piece of crap. Where's the awesomeness?

I'd guess his connection had been re-established at the end of TFU1, when he took the blindfold off and joined the Rebellion. Or maybe he was just being deliberately obtuse, which would IMO be perfectly in character for him.

According to Wookieepedia, gold is a 'strategic metal' in the SW universe and apparently valuable enough to serve as the basis of at least one currency. Eh, I wouldn't call them entirely ascetic. Not extremely so, anyway. I just can't get over this habit of both real and fictional religions of celebrating their humility and ascetism by building extravagant, palatial edifices. What's that all about.

So what? I seriously doubt the producers of a 350 million dollar film trilogy give out roles just because an actor asks, even if he's a famous one. And I don't even know if he did ask. Where are you getting that from? A few posts above. I'm sorry, I've tried to explain this about three times already. If you haven't picked it up by now, I doubt you would if I kept trying. Oh, right. You think a movie about a bunch of white Americans fighting a bunch of white Brits in which the only black guy is a backstabbing con man is equally interesting and appealing to black people as it is to white people? I commend you on your deep understanding of the human psyche, sir. Among which there isn't a ridiculous and offensive racist accent. See, I would buy that excuse in case of, say, Star Trek, which is a low-budget TV show. Or the original trilogy. But the prequels, with their heavy use of CGI? Nah-uh. Lucas could've totally had fully CGI aliens that actually looked like aliens, not weird deformed people with green skin and a racist accent. I chalk it up to lack of creativity. I don't see why you'd defend yourself by pointing out that you're insensitive and don't see it, but oh well. Who cares. Well we could've talked about that. Except you quit that conversation too, and instead of resuming it now that it's been split into its own topic you decided to derail the thread by starting a conversation about racism. Which I'm perfectly fine with, but you don't get to whine about it being off-topic now that it hasn't gone your way. You picked the off-topic topic, mister, not me.

No it's not. See? I can make an assertion too. Again with the straw men. I wasn't talking about why an actor should or shouldn't accept roles at all, let alone about a specific reason. What I was talking about was why the filmmakers wanted to have him in that role, and I think you damn well know it. Actually in my case it's inference based on indirect evidence. In yours it's just a contrarian speculation with nothing holding it up. I do think Jackson's casting was an attempt to broaden the appeal of the films in that direction, yes. Really? So the Empire's xenophobia and pro-human bias escaped you? Even in the Original Trilogy there's a very subtle subtext of all the Rebels having American accents and all the Imperials being Brits. I guess you didn't notice that. So I guess you had no idea what Poggle the Lesser was on about until you watched a version with subtitles, huh? On a deeper level, it may not have occurred to you that maybe we shouldn't be able to understand those things about alien characters because they're alien. If you have aliens who think, feel, and act like humans, then why not just have humans? Admittedly this problem isn't limited to SW, the vast majority of science fiction suffers from it. So on the one hand you argue that they have human traits for a reason, and on the other hand you can't see those traits? It seems to me you're just arguing this way or that depending on what suits you, ie. whichever position allows you to say something contrary to what I'm saying. You seem to have no problem arguing both ways within the same post, which to me indicates you're being disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. Which in turn makes me not want to waste time talking to you anymore. So I'll give you one more chance, either you straighten up in your next post or this conversation is over.

Because Jackson isn't so good with sitting around and being wise. Just try to remember what films he's been in, and I guarantee you the ones that come to mind are the ones where he points guns and shouts a lot. Maybe. Maybe he didn't. Because that's the target audience in question? I really don't see what your point is here. Yeah, that's kinda the problem, isn't it? No they don't. Exactly my point. So why did Lucas do it? Why did he make them caricatures of foreigners?

Actually there is some indirect evidence for that, which Plinkett presents. There's no denying that Jackson has a lot more mainstream appeal than other black actors, like Morgan Freeman and others he mentions. There has to be a reason why he was cast into this completely inappropriate role instead of one of the other, more suitable candidates. Now I grant you, it is entirely possible the reason was just somebody's incompetence. But given how unfocused the movies are and how many different target groups they attempt to appeal to, it seems more likely to me that his presence was another one of those attempts. The fact that he has a gold-plated, bling lightsaber seems to support that interpretation. If it was just incompetence, there would be no reason for him to have that. Maybe it's coincidence, but to me it seems calculated and intentional. I see nothing racist about thinking that an actor was cast in a role that doesn't suit him in order to appeal to a minority with which he is popular and that probably wouldn't go see the film if he wasn't in it. Whether or not that actor and minority are black is just incidental. Now what really is racist are some of the aliens in the movies. Like the slimey, amoral space-Jew Watto, or the incompetent Neimoidians with the ridiculously overblown Asian accents. Or this thing, which of course is a rather shocking caricature of these. But that's a topic for a whole another discussion, and I know how much you dislike going off-topic.

Gawd. C-canon? T-canon? G-canon? And I get told off for taking this stuff too seriously? Considering how little we've seen of him, I wouldn't make such a bold statement. If Vader was telling the truth and imperfect clones eventually go insane, he may well turn out to be unstable. Maybe his insanity just manifests later. Indeed, being able to suppress memories and convince himself that he's somebody else than he remembers would make him pretty damn crazy in my book. Alternately, of course, he may actually be the real Starkiller, whom Vader managed to convince that he's a clone. The protagonist would then be just another clone, and indeed towards the end he does seem to become more unstable and obsessed, and experiences hallucinations complete with hearing voices.

Even assuming such a problem exists (for which there is zero evidence anywhere), there are other ways to address it besides making the thing out of solid gold. Like, for example, painting the offending metal with a non-irritant paint or wrapping the hilt in leather. Or making it out of plastic. Or ceramics. We make brake discs out of ceramic compounds and guns out of plastics, so they're plenty strong. Carbon fiber? Kevlar? Quite a few very strong materials to choose from even in our primitive planet-bound civilization, so I don't buy the medical necessity justification. Hell, he could've made it out of wood if he wanted to. But he chose gold. I think that says something. And I have no idea if Jackson requested it or not. If, as Plinkett thinks, he was cast in the role in order to make the films appeal to black people (which seems entirely plausible to me), then he may well have had nothing to do with it. But regardless of the meta-reason for why Windu's lightsaber is made of gold, the fact is it is in the movie, and as such it does say something about the character who made it and uses it.

What? Seriously?

Well yeah, but who pays any attention to what George says anymore?

I lol'd a bit at that. You gotta love SW's total disregard for health and safety.