By the way, I was too lazy to do any Physics research.
11. Count Dooku
From my understanding, you have two problems with this scene:
a. Having a lightsaber duel at the beginning of a movie.
b. The remarks exchanged between Anakin and Dooku were "weak".
Evidentally, Chef would have prefered extra love scenes between Padme and Anakin as opposed to a light saber duel. I just don't see what the problem is. They needed to show that Anakin was much more powerful than in AOTC, and I think the most effective way to do this was for him to kill the man who cut off his arm. You should also notice the similarity with ROTJ. In ROTJ, Luke uses his anger/hatred to put Vader at his mercy. Anakin did the same thing with Count Dooku. The difference is that Anakin killed an unarmed prisoner and Luke did not. It was a test from Palpatine to see if Anakin would be a worthy apprentice. Anakin's willingness to kill Dooku showed that he was.
As for the remarks exchanged during the duel, I'm uncertain as to what you were expecting. I don't recall "Good. Double the pride, twice the fall." to be a cliche. Let's look at the Obi-Wan/Vader duel from ANH. I've taken the liberty of hilighting lines which were most likely said in other movies involving a "duel".
VADER: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The
circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.
BEN: Only a master of evil, Darth.
VADER: Your powers are weak, old man.
BEN: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more
powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Just accept the fact that Star Wars has never really had good dialogue.
12. Obi-Wan's Lack of Injury
In TPM, Obi-Wan falls off several platforms while dueling Darth Maul and lands on his back. Luke falls down a bottomless pit in ESB, and at the speed he entered the tube at he would be smacking the walls at an uncontrollable rate. In both cases Obi-Wan and Luke seemed unharmed.
Obi-Wan getting flung across the room would hurt, and if he hit his head it would probably knock him unconscious. If the platform had crushed Obi-Wan's legs, we probably would have heard some "bone snapping sound". The platform was lowered onto him quite slowly, and the intention of doing so seemed to be to prevent Obi-Wan from moving, rather than crushing him.
The fall Luke experienced in ESB should have busted his neck, legs, arms, etc. The speed he entered the tube from the pit at would have made his ride from the tube far more vicious than the seemingly enjoyable "waterslide ride" he took down to the weather vane.
ESB set a standard for a pain tolerance. Obi-Wan's situation was far less severe, therefore you must accept it unless you don't accept Luke's fall in ESB. If that's the case, Chef has an extra nitpick to add to ESB.
Oh, and even if the platform cut the circulation off to Obi-Wan's legs, he would have regained it by the time he became conscious again.
13. "I shouldn't have done that..."
I'm baffled as to the point you are trying to make. Are you trying to say that he should have said something more dramatic for killing someone? It seems to make sense to me. Anakin wanted revenge since Dooku cut off his arm. I think he says "I shouldn't have done that..." because he knows that a Jedi should never kill an unarmed prisoner, yet he is disturbed because he actually wanted to kill him.
14. Gravity? Which Way Is Down In Space?
When I saw the movie, I had assumed that The Invisible Hand had entered the atmosphere of Coruscant and the force of gravity from Coruscant, along with the loss of the "stablizers", was making everything fly downwards. I have no idea what the "stablizers" are, but I assumed that it was a system partially responsible for the artificial gravity on the ship.
I'll say Chef is right of this one, but it's not something that bothered me. The voice of the Neimoidian Captain on the other hand....
15. Vacuum of Space?
I don't think it is fair to examine this because it has never happened before in human experience. As Chef admitted, some scientists hypothesize you could survive for about 10-15 seconds. This is the approximate time the bridge is open to space. Palpatine, Anakin, and Obi-Wan are all well trained in the force. I don't see why they would be incapable of holding on for 10 seconds. The other people in the bridge were either strapped in or flew out into space.
Also, the electrostaff Grievous throws is capable of deflecting a lightsaber strike. That is an indication to me that it is quite strong. And if you didn't notice, Grievous can throw Obi-Wan more than 20 meters across a floor. I can imagine he threw that staff at the window pretty fucking hard.
But anyhow, Chef has two more nitpicks to add to ESB.
1. When the Falcon lands in the Space Slug, it is unrealistic that Han, Chewie, and Leia could survive since they are being exposed to that coldness of space at 2.725 Kelvin (454.77° Fahrenheit, -270.42° Celsius). I highly doubt the Space Slug generates exactly the necessary heat (ie.room temperature conditions) for the trio to survive.
2. In the second room of the Carbon Freeze Chamber, Vader starts launching projectiles at Luke until he breaks the glass and Luke is instantly blown out. Given the force he was blown out at, I find it impossible to believe Luke could climb back up into the room. And if you look carefully, he is seemingly climbing up an invisible ladder.
16. "Another Happy Landing"
I had assumed that the people who were present in the control tower were clone troopers. Earlier on in the movie, a clone pilot is in trouble and Anakin wants to help him, however Obi-Wan insists "He is doing his job". The clone troopers did their job in ensuring that the remainder of The Invisible Hand landed. Yes, a control tower did get taken out, but their job was to make sure Palpatine landed safely. The landing is "happy" for Obi-Wan because Anakin, Palpatine, and himself survived a seemingly impossible situation. The clones were just doing their job, so to Obi-Wan they were of no concern.
And speaking of which, Chef has a Nitpick to correct from ANH.
"He was the best starpilot in the galaxy..."
Obi-Wan's line about Anakin still remains in the 2004 edition. I thought that this line would surely be removed, but it is still there. What I want to know is how Obi-Wan could back this up? Is he referring to Anakin's glorified go-kart race on Tatooine in The Phantom Menace or the Wacky-Doodle Yukfest when Anakin crashed the Nabooian fighter into the droid control ship? This line has very little basis in what has happened in the Prequel Trilogy so far. Anakin's going to have to do some pretty fancy flying in Episode III to back up this quote.
Anakin did do some fancy flying. The way he got the buzz droids off of Obi-Wan's ship required expert piloting. Furthermore, he landed half of a space craft! Name one other person in the galaxy capable of pulling something like that off.
17. The Millennium Falcon
In the OT, the Falcon is refered to as a "piece of junk" and a "bucket of bolts". This gives me the impression that it was an older ship. It's not unreasonable for it to have existed then.
Personally, I never saw it in the four times I viewed the movie, so how can I get mad at something nearly impossible to notice? It was probably just added for people who are obsessed with paying attention to every little detail, like Chef.
18. Anakin and Obi-Wan's Chummy Antics
Anakin saved Obi-Wan's life. Would you not expect him to be at least a little bit thankful? And the polite thing on Anakin's part would be to compliment his master for the training he provided. Undoubtedly Chef would have prefered a response from Anakin such as "Yep, I'm the best Jedi ever."
Anakin is older and more mature, so why is it difficult to believe throughout the Clone Wars their friendship improved? You need to accept the fact that things do actually occur inbetween films. I should remind you that between ANH and ESB, the viewer is forced to believe that "something" occured between Han and Leia which has made the two magically in love. In ANH, Leia could have cared less about Han.
19. Anakin and Padme in the Shadows
Then she explains to the audience, once again, why it's bad that they are married so that you can be reminded of all that Jedi nonsense about not falling in love that they made up in Attack of the Clones.
I should remind you that George Lucas is the story teller and not you. What is so nonsensical about a Jedi not being allowed to fall in love? Did you watch ROTS at all? Anakin's love for Padme was the reason why the Jedi practically became extinct!
Padme then tells Anakin that she is pregnant. Anakin does a half-assed job of pretending that he's happy about this and then, after realizing he's done such a poor job, tries to make himself sound better by lying and saying, "This is the happiest moment of my life."
I'm pretty sure that was the point of the scene. Anakin is visibly disturbed by the news of the pregnancy, and struggled to hide his feelings.
This was a good scene between the two. The scene on the balcony, however, is totally unecessary.
20. PAD-UH-MAY
This is another thing I never really noticed and is really insignificant. Maybe Anakin thought it was cute to mispronounce her name. Investing any effort into this nitpick is absurd.
But since Chef brought up the mispronounciation of Han and Leia in ESB and ANH respectively, Chef now has another nitpick to add to both ANH and ESB. Yeeee haaa!
Until next week folks.
This post has been edited by Storm: 15 June 2005 - 12:01 AM