“I killed them. I killed them all. And not just the men, but the women and the children, too. They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals. I hate them!"
He just like me fr
There was a meme that got away from me. It was a bisexual meme where the caption was “who are you attracted to?” it starts at “and not just the men” and stops the frame before he says children. The commen underneath it were wild.
In the hands of a good writer, a sensitive person who is constantly emotionally invalidated (the whole Jedi fear -> anger -> hate -> dark side BS) being groomed into a fascist pawn by a powerful figure (one of the only people who does emotionally validate him) and uses that dynamic to manipulate him into committing inhuman acts could make for a very compelling tragic character. George Lucas is not that writer.
Now that I’ve written this out, I’m now seeing Anakin’s character arc as a microcosm of the way the prequels handled liberal democracy’s slide into fascism.
Imagine if Samuel L Jackson was allowed to be Samuel L Jackson, constantly berating Anakin by calling him a stupid mud a’faka, some sentiment dwelling scavenger native to Planet Whatever. That way, Anakin cutting off Windu’s hand would come off as cathartic instead of completely unconvincing.
GALACTIC BASIC MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
WHAT AIN’T NO PLANET I EVER HEARD OF, THEY SPEAK GALACTIC BASIC ON WHAT?
Was the Fear is the path to the dark side. stuff supposed to be profound? Just seems kinda cruel to discard a child over some trauma.
And it’s supposed to be a kids movie, did they really mean to teach children that being afraid or angry makes you evil?
Sometimes I feel like the Jedi are supposed to be flawed but they also have color-coded lightsabers and are always presented narratively as unequivocally “the good guys.” I suspect some of that is because it’s more marketable, like, in terms of the larger narrative the big battle at the end of Episode II involves the Jedi playing directly into Palpatine’s hands and the separatists (and even Dooku) were not the real enemy. But it leans too heavily into the cool lasers and wants the audience to cheer when the “bad guys” get blown up. It’s dumbed down to work better as a blockbuster.
If you make your heroes flawed to try to make the story less black and white, but then you make the conflict black and white, then it winds up looking like the flaws you gave the heroes are meant to be good things. Imo the concepts behind the prequels were better and more consistent than what made it to the screen, and you can see them explored in more depth in other Star Wars media, but cramming it into a movie format and trying to appeal to a very wide audience messed up the overall message.
It’s been forever since I’ve watched any of the movies, but I recall the Jedi follow some pseudo Buddhist philosophy where remaining emotionally detached from everything is considered good.
Was the Fear is the path to the dark side stuff supposed to be profound?
Based on the comments on the move clip, people sure treat it that way.
Lol the scene is worse than I remember. Took a child to another planet and basically bully him with “are you afraid because you mommy isn’t here?”
People in the comments act way too impressed by Yoda foreseeing the future by the power of mid writing.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I wonder how many just consume edits on social media versus actually engaging with the prequels. He did this and that in the movies before aligning with fascism, correct. What they see, however, is probably a guy looking anguished going “what have I done?!” then the music goes LOVE MEEE. Then Padme goes from loving to horrified before he shouts LIAR and then another LOVE MEEEEEeee. Then it’s I HATE YOU AHHHHHHHH to Obi Wan.
You don’t even get much of the lightsabers, the objectively best part of Star Wars.
That pre-digestion takes away a lot of cinematic nutrients and replaces it with the sugar of a familiar short form video format. It makes Anakin much easier to relate to as a type of guy who is sad (WHILE PEOPLE ARE DISAPPOINTED IN HIM) versus someone descending into becoming space Hitler and creating the conditions for the original trilogy.
i’ve hung outside and in with strangers and have maybe had one single conversation in the last 20 years that’s involved “discussing” the prequel movies…maybe the odd reference to some stupid part of them like hating sand. i assumed memory of them being films instead of drawn out jokes existed purely on the internet.
Me and a pal at work joke about the prequels a lot. Neither of us are big star wars fans but we find the star wars Fandom and the prequels as films to be really fascinating. Not good, but fascinating. But it’s usually stuff like “Do you think Greg Proops’s character gets along with his other head?”
I enjoyed the Clone Wars, but if we’re talking about just the movies, then yeah, they weren’t exactly peak cinema…
the gen z fash aesthetic is the millenial hipster aesthetic
So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.
First Shapipo and now Doyle are consumed by the beard virus, I can’t take this anymore
The tusken raiders eating takis feels like some wierd dog whistle
It’s 1000% a dog whistle there’s nothing else it could be
All sand people know is eat hot chip & ride single file to hide their numbers
he also turned into a fascist over the stupidest shit imaginable
That’s probably the most relatable part for the average brain-in-development chud
I’ve never seen a single person ever relate to Anakin.
The only thing I can think of that is relatable about him is how awkward he is in the second movie lmao
He made good points about sand
Every chud who thought they were the one but got friendzoned instead.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
“Yo, I love killing younglings and to massacre ‘sand people’”
I do actually think Zionists can fully identify with Anakin. But I am not so sure about other people.
I mean iirc his wife died in Childbirth but aside from that yeah he did all that. Also I’ve never really heard of people “relating” to Anakin beyond dressing up as Darth Vader for halloween.
It’s written so poorly. Lucas was going for “he destroyed it trying to save it” but it comes off like Padme dies for no reason.
Prequel curse. Vader and the origins of Empire were mysterious and nebulous and thus interesting, but no writing ever could fulfil that hype and thus we get to know entire tragedy was just group of deluded billionaires unsatisfied that their dictatorships of the bourgeoisie is not fast enough in lining their pockets and who took imperialism in their own hands plus the failed warrior monk going fash which didn’t really changed anything but nicely filled the Great Man theory to distract people from the material reasons of the conflict.
Tbf prequels were out before I was alive so I have been spared the disappointment of seeing them live but yeah uh, the idea of Star Wars tackling a political descent into fascism is a really cool concept, but George Lucas isn’t the kind of writer for that so we got Anakin Skywalker instead
Everyone knew prequels will be about Anakin, though Lucas clearly lied about having thought it over before since the only mentions about timeline and past events he allowed Timothy Zahn to write were clearly contradicting the prequels timeline. Hell even the original SW movies were contradicting the timeline, like Obi Wan is old and nobody even remember the galactic scale war that took place merely 20 years ago (it would be like asking people in 1965 about WW2, while even in 2026 it’s still incredibly popular cultural topic).
I always assumed Luke and Leia were explicitly Vader’s children long post his betrayal and Obi Wan kidnapped them to deny Empire even more force users. And they were also concived by Vader, with possibly horrible things involved.
