How could Old Ben be so wrong?

[DinoLast]

The problem comes from Luke's age. Luke's story in the first film (see what I did there?) is a coming of age story. Luke is meant to be 20 or 21. Ben's age would mean Luke is mid to late twenties. If Luke is 26 or 27 begging to go to school and leave the farm he suddenly becomes a pathetic and weak follower, eh.... what was I saying?

Luke is 19 in ANH and Ben is 57, all they did was have Alec Guinness play a role that was 5 years younger than himself, and Mark Hamill play a role 5 or 6 years younger than what he was in real life. It hardly pushing the believability factor.

Sean Connery is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford, yet we can use our imaginations to believe he's Indiana Jones' dad

 

[Kamandi]

Luke is 19 in ANH and Ben is 57, all they did was have Alec Guinness play a role that was 5 years younger than himself, and Mark Hamill play a role 5 or 6 years younger than what he was in real life. It hardly pushing the believability factor.

I'm less hung up on Ben's age than Vader's.

Also Beru and Owen should have been older in the PT, although I get a chuckle out of that last shot of them looking at the twin suns. "There they are. Before they were crushed by the realities of life. They still have dreams! Suckers."

If character age was the only thing I had to complain about in the PT I'd be happy. But there were other **coughJarJarcough** problems as well.

 

[The Mike]

Sean Connery is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford, yet we can use our imaginations to believe he's Indiana Jones' dad

I have no problems believing that Sean Connery could have sired a child as awesome as Indy at 12.

 

[Kamandi]

Sean Connery could impregnate a room of women breathing the same air as him.

But he'd prefer the old ways.

 

[Thorne]

I think there's a great deal Lucas had not yet decided while making "Star Wars". (NOT ANH or Ep. IV. That stuff was added later)

"Splinter of the Mind's Eye" was written as a lower budget sequel to Star Wars. It was a contingency plan if they couldn't get Harrison Ford to return for a sequel. The book makes it pretty clear there is an attraction between Luke and Leia, so the brother/sister thing clearly was decided much later.

I've always found it amazing it was printed since it's full of ideas that were later discarded. It really tips George's hand that there was any long term plan.

I was 15 back when ROTJ came out in '83 and when the Luke/Leia brother/sister thing came about, I just shook my head.

"So, you're saying that when Vader was bearing down on Luke in the trench and he said 'The Force is strong in this one', he could feel it in Luke from that far away but couldn't feel it in Leia while he had physical contact with her as they destroyed Alderaan??! Riiiiiiight."

Geek cred: +1

 

[Kamandi]

I was 15 back when ROTJ came out in '83 and when the Luke/Leia brother/sister thing came about, I just shook my head.

So that makes us the same age. I remember I ordered a book "The Story of ROTJ" that arrived a full two weeks before the movie opened. I read it and so did my friends. We all thought what was in the book couldn't possibly be the story in the film. We all found different things that upset us. A girl in my class got really sad they were killing off Yoda. But one thing EVERYONE agreed on was the brother/sister thing was the biggest cop out ever.

I was stunned when the movie actually turned out to be that story. I was mad. There's really only two Star Wars films I love, and Jedi isn't one of them.

"So, you're saying that when Vader was bearing down on Luke in the trench and he said 'The Force is strong in this one', he could feel it in Luke from that far away but couldn't feel it in Leia while he had physical contact with her as they destroyed Alderaan??! Riiiiiiight."

Geek cred: +1

Exactly. Thank you. He had all that time with Leia and he never felt the force. She would had had all sorts of unintentional force energy when Alderan was blown up with Vader standing RIGHT THERE. Ben was simply on the Death Star and it tripped Vader's spidey-sense.

There was no 'outline'.

 

[cr`]

I was 15 back when ROTJ came out in '83 and when the Luke/Leia brother/sister thing came about, I just shook my head.

"So, you're saying that when Vader was bearing down on Luke in the trench and he said 'The Force is strong in this one', he could feel it in Luke from that far away but couldn't feel it in Leia while he had physical contact with her as they destroyed Alderaan??! Riiiiiiight."

Geek cred: +1

leia was captured twice by vader. once in new hope and once in empire. both times leia and vader were in the same room, and both times vader failed to pick up on her force signature. the only explanation for this is that at both times of capture leia was having her period, and a woman's menstruation can cloud force signature.

Agreed. PT turns Vader into a weak, lovesick, misguided follower with mommy issues.

I wanted to watch Vader's rise to power. The PT is a missed opportunity to see Vader lead the conquest of the early Empire. I would have been happier to watch a movie where Anakin was simply defined as a good man and a Jedi and speed through that story to get to the good stuff. Get to the "Star Wars" parts! The first PT movie should have had the betrayal and epic saber fight. The next two films should have been Vader beginning to plot the overthrow of the emperor.

BTW - regarding TPM - it was a mistake and unfair to hang such an anticipated film on the shoulders of an inexperienced child actor. On top of him being a novice actor he was given a poorly written role. Jake Lloyd walked away from acting when he was a teen. Who could blame him? He was never going to get a fair shake.

the boy is a bad actor and lucas is a bad director of actors, so that combination is lethal, but yeah.. i'd sooner put the blame on the experienced director than an inexperienced child actor. working with child actors is hard, so all the more reason for a director to cast well and not just pick the cutest face he could find.

i dont mind if lucas want to start with vader as a child, but very quickly he should have moved on to him in his teens, all in the span of one film. maybe a childhood trauma occured, skip to him in his teens being found by qui gon and podracing(would make it more believable for a teen, and not a boy, to podrace, let alone for a mother to allow it) and falling for padme. you could cover more ground that way, and so leave more rooms in the next 2 films for the actual clone wars and vader asskickery. everything that deviates from that two main points should be extracted. as it is, ep1 is just a waste of screentime to me. you could watch the entire saga beginning from ep2 and it wouldnt make much of a difference.

 

[Kamandi]

Episode 1 just makes Padme/Anakin into a creepy relationship later.

leia was captured twice by vader. once in new hope and once in empire. both times leia and vader were in the same room, and both times vader failed to pick up on her force signature. the only explanation for this is that at both times of capture leia was having her period, and a woman's menstruation can cloud force signature.

 

[Khev]

"So, you're saying that when Vader was bearing down on Luke in the trench and he said 'The Force is strong in this one', he could feel it in Luke from that far away but couldn't feel it in Leia while he had physical contact with her as they destroyed Alderaan??! Riiiiiiight."

I'm not a huge fan of the brother/sister thing either but I think the films made it pretty clear that to detect someone they need to have a certain level of sensitivity to the Force.

Vader said "the Force is strong with this one" not when he first started tailing Luke in the trench but only after Luke actively engaged a Force ghost. Even in ROTJ, when it had already been decided that Leia was Vader's daughter he only picked up on Luke in the shuttle Tydirium (and not Leia who was sitting right next to him) because they had an active "Force connection" or whatever from a previous film.

 

[Anzik]

I think Lucas had so many friggin' ideas he lost track of them all. As I recall the name Darth Vader was chosen because in German Dunk Vater was 'dark father. So he had at least considered Vader to be someone's old man.
I think its pretty clear he had to scramble after the success of STAR WARS (not a new hope) and make a one shot into a sequel then a trilogy. If I could change one thing, I would have convinced him to give his ideas to someone who could plot it, then would hire a writer, a good director and let Lucas play with his digital camera and the prequels could have been epic.
Oh well I have fun with all of them and Qui Gon is still my favorite character and the only one who was right about everything.

 

[Thorne]

leia was captured twice by vader. once in new hope and once in empire. both times leia and vader were in the same room, and both times vader failed to pick up on her force signature. the only explanation for this is that at both times of capture leia was having her period, and a woman's menstruation can cloud force signature.

And here I thought it just attracted bears.

 

[Darth Mitchell]

I think Lucas had so many friggin' ideas he lost track of them all. As I recall the name Darth Vader was chosen because in German Dunk Vater was 'dark father. So he had at least considered Vader to be someone's old man.
I think its pretty clear he had to scramble after the success of STAR WARS (not a new hope) and make a one shot into a sequel then a trilogy. If I could change one thing, I would have convinced him to give his ideas to someone who could plot it, then would hire a writer, a good director and let Lucas play with his digital camera and the prequels could have been epic.
Oh well I have fun with all of them and Qui Gon is still my favorite character and the only one who was right about everything.

Didn't Darth Vader came from Darth Invader because he invades ships with his breathing mask on.

 

[Darth Mitchell]

And here I thought it just attracted bears.

 

[DinoLast]

Didn't Darth Vader came from Darth Invader because he invades ships with his breathing mask on.

That's what I thought too

Darth Vader
Invader
Darth Maul
He Mauls his victims
Darth Tyranus
Tyrannical leader of the separatists
Darth Sidious
Insidious
Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner
Intended to entrap; treacherous, Beguiling but harmful; alluring
Darth Plagueis
Plague
Able to manipulate the essence of life

 

[Darth Mitchell]

That's what I thought too

Darth Vader
Invader
Darth Maul
He Mauls his victims
Darth Tyranus
Tyrannical leader of the separatists
Darth Sidious
Insidious
Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner
Intended to entrap; treacherous, Beguiling but harmful; alluring
Darth Plagueis
Plague
Able to manipulate the essence of life

Wow didn't know most of the siths have a name with such a story behind them

 

[Wor-Gar]

Didn't Darth Vader came from Darth Invader because he invades ships with his breathing mask on.

I always thought Darth Vader came from: Death+Dark Invader

And I know I'm right. Because I was there when this name was created. I was sitting right next to George. Yeeeeeah, that's it.

 

[The Mike]

Fans have dissected the names for years. Here is the official line:

In a 2005 interview, George Lucas was asked the origins of the name "Darth Vader", and replied: "Darth is a variation of dark. And Vader is a variation of father. So it's basically Dark Father." (Rolling Stone, June 2, 2005). "Vader" is the Dutch word for "father" (the Dutch word is instead pronounced "vah-der"), and the German word for "father" (Vater) is similar. However, in the earliest scripts for Star Wars, the name "Darth Vader" was given to a human Imperial general with no apparent relationships.

Rolling Stone used to have the interview accessible on their site but the page no longer generates this interview...

 

[DinoLast]

Fans have dissected the names for years. Here is the official line:



Rolling Stone used to have the interview accessible on their site but the page no longer generates this interview...

I call BS on what Lucas said there, as we all know that he had no clue he was going to make Vader Luke's father in A New Hope. I even remember him being interviewed in the eighties for a making of the saga, were he admitted he was not sure if he was going to make Vader Luke's father while making TESB. Sounds like George pulled that answer out of his backside after Empire.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Serious BS there. It's obvious where the name came from... as easy as Han Solo or Leia Organa. Real tricky names, huh?

 

[The Mike]

Most likely BS but like I said that is the "official" line that LFL is towing.