No. What I'm saying is the character was meant to be a jerk most of the time. I was completely ok with that. I abhorred the acting though. Christensen's line delivery and emoting was unbelievable. I was expecting there to be some hints of Vader's personality in Anakin when he got older. You don't just make a complete 180 in character in the moment it takes to decide to be a Sith. I have no issue making sense of that. I never asked the question. It was never a question that arose in my mind. I didn't care how or why Padme became queen. It seems to me you spent way too much time over analyzing the movie. The questions you were posing were never anything I cared to know. I never care to know why people depict governmental or military choices the way they do. Hereditary or not, Instead of thrusting the 13 year old into the seat of power, let the uncle or another male relative that was old enough rule until he reaches a suitable age of maturity. Child monarchs make no sense in general. As stated above, I never asked that question. I wasn't analyzing the decisions behind landing areas. I was paying attention to the story unfolding. I don't care to ruin a movie by over analyzing it. If these are the things you are talking about trying to make sense of, then you're right. Nobody can make sense of them. They don't make any logical sense. They are not meant to. This is a fictional world with its own rules and logic. If it makes sense to the author then it makes sense in the world it is meant to. Fear, when wielded by the correct hand, is a very powerful weapon. At this point in the Star Wars timeline, Sith were only ghost stories you told misbehaving children. The Neimoidians knew enough to fear Jedi, it only stands to reason they would know enough to fear Sith even more. Besides, we are talking about the Sith that in the EU kept an entire planet subservient to his power by means of the Force. What makes you think he couldn't do that to the ruling class of the Trade Federation? When the medium through which you tell your story is one of visuals, sometimes you go with the visual choice as opposed to the one that would make more sense to someone who is over analyzing the movie. Anakin may not be the main focal point, there were these events going on during the time that had he participated, he probably would have gotten killed. He got lucky in the space battle as you so eloquently put it. I doubt he would have been able to handle himself in a lightsaber duel against a youngling let alone Darth Maul. They are legitimate to you because they mesh with your opinion. For someone who does not hold your opinion, they are far from legitimate concerns. Hence the fact I keep saying your point of view is all subjective. Having seen the Original Trilogy some thirty years ago, you know the Prequels are about Anakin. For someone who has not seen the Original Trilogy and starts with the Prequels, sure it wouldn't be apparent at first. It makes sense once you see the rest of them though. You are basing your opinion about the movie as a stand alone movie. It is not. You can't watch The Godfather without watching the second and third and expect to understand the story. They are all part of each other. It took all six films to tell the full story that Lucas wanted to tell. If that were the decision Obi-Wan had made, that goes back to the hubris point I made. It would have been hubris on his part to think he was ready to train Anakin. The way it was told, he was fulfilling a promise he made to his Master. Lucas said the movie is supposed to be about how Anakin became a Jedi. One of the first things a lot of writers is taught is that if you don't like your work, nobody will. If you don't like it, how can you expect others to like it? If you do like the story, as I said, that is a start. Given time you can either convince others to give it another chance or there may be a new generation that eats it up later on. My statement about you not liking the story was not limited to Episode I. I meant the story of Star Wars as a whole. They are, as I stated earlier in this post, not individual stories but, chapters of one bigger story. On their face, they can be taken as good or bad individually but, they are all smaller parts of the greater whole. My opinion is of the entire story, not just individual episodes.

I guess we'll never know. Will we?

The unlikable part, for me, was Hayden Christensen. It wasn't how he was written, it was how he was delivered. I have yet to like any role Hayden Christensen has been in. Your dislike of the Prequels is subjective. There was bad acting and a lot of the lines were corny but, the story was solid. It's just the fact that story driven films are a dying breed thanks to CGI. Qui-Gon was an essential character. Without him, Anakin would not have become a Jedi. Obi-Wan would not have stood up for Anakin, he wouldn't even have tried to free him. Qui-Gon is the reason Anakin became a Jedi. His attachment issues are why he fell. Without the story told in Episode I, we would not have seen this. We would know Anakin became a Jedi, we would not know how. We would know that he fell to the Dark Side for the promise of saving Padme from dying, we wouldn't know why that was such a driving factor for him. The reason why it is so easy to say these characters we never met in the Original Trilogy are not necessary is because the movies were given to us out of sequence. It's hard to care about a character if you already know they will not be there later on. We don't get to know Qui-Gon long enough to even become attached to him as a character. if the Prequels had been released first, this conversation would be completely different. We would actually have tried to establish a connection with the characters in the hopes they would survive. Since we already knew they didn't survive, they were throw away characters for us.

From this post, I gather you are more upset with the fact there was a lack of subtlety more so than anything else. I never said it was subtle. I also never said the stories had to show the hero in their childhood however, I could name quite a few in which they do. Most of which Lucas admittedly drew inspiration from. The story of King Arthur, depending on which rendition you read starts from his conception and continues on to his adulthood. The stories of Perseus and even Heracles starts at their respective childhoods. Point being, he used a method of storytelling that has long since been on the back burners in American pop culture for a very long time. There are many elements that I dislike about the Prequels, the story is not one of them. The presentation of some of the characters definitely could have used some more development. Each character proved to serve a purpose though. Including Jar Jar. Qui-Gon's only shortcoming was that he was under-utilized and killed off way too quickly. He did serve the purpose of giving the hero purpose and direction. As for the subtlety point, it was lacking but, it was not so blunt as you put it. The massacre of the Sand People was more extreme than Luke's journey through the Dark Side Cave because Anakin actually ended up falling to the Dark Side in the end. Anakin was a more extreme version of Luke in every way. He had to be otherwise the story never would have made it full circle. It wouldn't have made sense if Anakin showed as much restraint, however little it may have been, as Luke. It wouldn't have made sense that he fell to the Dark Side if that were the case.

This is befitting some individual attention. You don't care about Han's past because you're not meant to. He's neither the protagonist or the antagonist of the story. He is a main character but not THE main character. The story is in no way about Han Solo. The Story is about Anakin Skywalker's rise, fall, and redemption. We just so happen to have gotten the redemption story first. As I said in my post prior to this is what origin story does not show where the protagonist originates? A New Hope is the origin story of Luke Skywalker. The Phantom Menace is the origin story of Anakin Skywalker. Where they came from is essential to the story. Showing Anakin's attachment issues is essential to understanding WHY he fell to the Dark Side. They skipped the ten years of Palpatine endearing himself to Anakin, being a second mentor and a constant voice of "encouragement." How else were we to see why he fell? You say there are questions best left unanswered, the questions you are saying that should have been so would have left us not understanding anything about the story. Star Wars is far more than just one big action sequence. That is all that would have been left if you take out the parts you are suggesting. If all you want is an action adventure in space, go watch The Ice Pirates.

We got to see where Luke came from. It's only fitting that we see where his father came from as well. What origin story do you know of that does not show where the protagonist ORIGINATED? Letting us see his emotional attachment to his mother in Episode I gives us the means by which to understand his reaction to the Sand People in Episode II, which further allows us to understand why he was so willing to become Palpatine's slave. Introducing Qui-Gon lets us see why Obi-Wan was not the best choice to train Anakin but was still tasked with doing so. Should it have been omitted completely? Absolutely not. Should that have been condensed into a prologue sequence at the beginning of Episode I? Absolutely. Don't think that just because you whine and complain about how horrible the Prequel Trilogy was makes your love for Star Wars any greater than mine. I'm willing to bet I saw the Original Trilogy before you were even born. Star Wars is the foundation for all of my geek interests. That does not mean that I can't find the reasoning behind the decisions made.

Actually, Qui-Gon WAS a Master. He was just not a member of the Jedi Council. What part of Darth Tyranus or Darth Vader makes it seem like Darth equates to Sith Master? As soon as the Rule of Two was initiated, both were considered Sith Lords and both carried the title of Darth. It was no longer an honorific bestowed upon those that have risen in the ranks but instead, it became the challenge which it represented. Darth was a challenge to all comers. If someone could defeat you, they got your title. It's part of the reason the Brotherhood of the Sith decided to no longer use the title and tried so hard to dissuade Bane from taking the title himself.

We have Episode I because without it, we don't see where Anakin was found, what his situation was, or what the root cause was of his fall to the Dark Side. Could it have been a Prologue? Sure. Is that what we got? No. Instead of railing on and on about what we were given thirteen years ago, maybe you should think about the novels that were written that fill in the gaps. There is virtually nothing known of the three years between Episode IV and Episode V. Sure, there are some comic books but, nothing substantial. The only bit of the six months between Episode V and Episode Vi we see is what was described in the novel Shadows of the Empire. Do you see people railing on and on about those missed parts? No. The addition of Qui-Gon gives us the explanation of how Anakin was found and why he ended up with Obi-Wan as his Master. If we didn't get that, there would be different unanswered questions than what you perceive as such currently.

He was painting the picture of how Vader came into being while trying to still use as many facts as possible. He couldn't just create an entire story to explain how he knew Vader so, he just used the facts surrounding Anakin's turn to Vader to illustrate what happened to turn Vader to the Dark Side. He was one, trying to preserve Luke's opinion of his father and two, illustrate how big a threat Vader was. As I said, he thought he might be able to curb any desire Luke might have had to go after Vader strictly for vengeance better than he could mitigate any doubts Luke might have had about facing his own father. In American Pop Culture, it is far easier to let go of the desire to kill for revenge than it is to harbor the desire to kill one's own father. Those that wish to kill their own father have come to this desire by living a life of constant abuse or neglect by said father. The hero of these stories is always depicted as either regretting having followed through with their revenge or letting go of those desires.

Forgive me for not being able to decipher such an esoteric thought but, could you please explain what you mean. I don't even know what you are trying to say here.

If you recall, Luke's trial to become a Jedi was to defeat Vader. It was always known that Luke would have to be the one to do that. Obi-Wan made a judgment call, the wrong one maybe, to spare Luke the conflict of having to deal with rushing off to confront his own father. Obi-Wan figured he could curb any thoughts of vengeance in Luke and make it just something that had to be done. He figured if he knew Vader was actually his father Luke wouldn't be able to face him. Nobody is saying Obi-Wan made the correct choice, he just made the choice that made the most sense to him at the time.

Never said always, I said it was one logical conclusion, meaning there are other conclusions to which one could come.

Well, considering Contraband means smuggled goods...

Spice was contraband. It had not been established what it was. It was just called Spice and it was illegal to transport. It is one natural conclusion to draw that it is a narcotic.

You also have to take into consideration Obi-Wan's words when Luke confronted him about lying about Vader's identity. What he said was true from a certain point of view. Obi-Wan and Anakin were like Brothers, or in Japanese terms, Sempai and Kohai. Obi-Wan loved Anakin as if they actually were brothers. When Anakin turned on him, the Anakin that he knew ceased to exist, in his eyes, murdered by this new Darth Vader persona.

I agree with you points about Obi-Wan from the Original Trilogy. However, your opinions regarding Qui-Gon don't take into consideration that he was the catalyst for accepting Anakin. Both for the Jedi Order and for Obi-Wan. Had Qui-Gon not advocated for Anakin's acceptance so vehemently, he could have been found by Sidious without the benefit of Jedi Training, he would have been turned into a much more fearsome opponent, especially considering that may have afforded him the opportunity to avoid being dismembered and being trapped in his life support suit for the rest of his life. Point is, there are so many possibilities that may have been avoided by the mere addition of Qui-Gon's character. Granted, there would have been someone or something that provided the same result as Qui-Gon but, to say that he is useless is the same as saying Jar-Jar was useless in the formation of the Galactic Empire. We all now know that he was the catalyst for that but, before the Prequels, he did not exist.

If you recall, the Council ruled that Anakin was too old. They only agreed to let Obi-Wan train him as he was basically going to take him on as his Padawan whether they agreed or not. Qui-Gon had basically told them he would have done as much and they knew that Obi-Wan would too. In all fairness to Obi-Wan, Anakin missed out on his Apprenticeship which denied him the opportunity to learn the basics as all of the younglings did. Just so it is clear, the Jedi do have Apprentices, that is what you are called before you are chosen as someone's Padawan. Missing out on that very important part of his training would have in all likelihood ended exactly the same way even if Qui-Gon had lived to train Anakin. If you recall from Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan laments about his training of Anakin and states that he thought he could have trained him as well as Yoda, no mention of Qui-Gon at all. That to me says that he feels Anakin missed out on some vital training by not being trained with the other younglings. As far as Qui-Gon losing to Maul, that was due mostly to the fact that Jedi hadn't seen a Sith in over 1,000 years. Not a single one of them was ready to face a Sith at that point. Maul sensed this and once he defeated the Master, he got cocky while facing the Padawan.

Technically, Spice only ripped the name. Star Wars Spice is a drug. Dune Spice is the most valuable element in the Dune universe. Not to mention, there are far more IPs than just Dune. Flash Gordon, King Arthur, Akira Kurosawa's Samurai movies...etc.

One, the story behind the Original Trilogy was entirely about the redemption of Anakin Skywalker. It's why there were climactic lightsaber duels between Luke and Vader at the end of both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It was the struggle of an aspiring Jedi to redeem his Fallen Jedi father. There were also strong romantic overtones with the love triangle between Luke, Leia, and Han which ended with Lucas deciding when he came up with the story for Episode VI that Luke and Leia were actually siblings. Two, the story behind the Prequel Trilogy was entirely about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. The climaxes of all three were epic lightsaber duels. Oh yeah, there was also the romance between Anakin and Padme throughout the entire trilogy. Stories didn't start centering around non-Force Users and being devoid of romances in the Star Wars Universe until the EU. At that point it depended on the personal biases of the authors of the stories as to who was going to be the protagonist of the story. Bioware stated from the start they are trying to capture the feel of the films with the stories told in TOR. In my opinion they did a great job. I never find myself getting bored while playing the characters I like, nor with the characters I haven't started liking yet, I just haven't found a way in which to connect to them yet. I have the utmost faith that Bioware will continue to make additions to the game that will keep me spending my $15 a month for some time to come. Also, I am nobody's parent but, I was a live to have seen parts of the Original Trilogy in its original theatrical release. I remember purple Force Lightning, when Han shot first, and when Sebastian Shaw was the Force Ghost for Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Marka Ragnos was a Force Ghost that was able to wield as much power after his death as he wielded during his life. He was able to assert his authority over the Sith Empire after his death. He was neither restless nor bound to any one place. Freedon Nadd was powerful enough in death to stop a huge boulder from crushing Exar Kun. He was also powerful enough to declare Exar Kun the Dark Lord of the Sith without Ulic Qel Droma objecting even though his duel with Kun ended in a draw. The point is, Sith Force Ghosts were only bound to their tomb if they wanted to be or were actually bound by the power of another. The point you are missing about Vitiate not being a combatant is that he did not have any formal training with a lightsaber. He is never actually shown wielding one except when he picks up Revan's when he goes in to kill him. The person wielding the lightsaber in the Jedi Knight Class Story is the Emperor's Voice, a host body for the spirit of the Emperor. So again, if someone is equal in power to him but has greater lightsaber skill, the advantage goes to the one with the lightsaber skill. Your example of Yoda and Palpatine falls on its face due to the fact both were extremely well trained lightsaber duelists as well as being extremely powerful Force Users. The point I am making is that the Emperor never needed to use a lightsaber, he was always able to overpower his enemies with the Force. If he were to fight someone that he was not able to overpower with the Force, it would come down to who was more skilled with the lightsaber. He defeated Revan without a lightsaber, he only picked it up to finish the job.

My answers are again in blue.

The entire thread is a discussion on whether Revan, Meetra, and Scourge would have been sufficient to defeat the Emperor or not. It has devolved into a debate as to how powerful Revan is. Which, should have been established in the beginning if we are to have any kind of resolution as to whether the three of them could defeat the Emperor or not. In the course of the last nine or so chapters of the novel, it was firmly established that Revan was more powerful than both Meetra and Scourge, as some would debate should not be the case. During the course of the fight scene with the Emperor, it was firmly established that the Emperor was more powerful than Revan. This leaves us with the quandary; would Revan, Meetra, and Scourge be able to defeat the Emperor had Scourge chosen to fight instead of betray Revan and kill Meetra? I would say probably not. If the circumstances surrounding the beginning of the fight had been different, maybe. If the three of them had attacked as one from the beginning, they may have been able to overpower the Emperor through teamwork. If the only difference had been Scourge choosing to fight instead of stab Meetra in the back, I think Revan was far too spent at that point for them to mount an effective attack.

I'm not sure, but I think he may be referring to the Blood of the Empire web comics.

Your heretical Jedi views are for the weak. If you have power, you do not hide it, you brandish it as the weapon it is. True advancement can only be found through conflict. Peace is a lie. There is only passion. In conflict we either adapt or die. You can only survive conflict by becoming stronger. Weakness is stripped away to leave strength. Through passion I gain strength. The stronger you become, the more power you gain over your own destiny. The stronger you become, the more you show yourself to be the true leader you are. Through strength I gain power. With this power, you master yourself and move on to the next challenge. Through power I gain victory. Mastering yourself opens the door to mastering others. Through victory, my chains are broken. You will never be a slave again. The Force shall free me.

The phrase "Opening a can of worms" is an old saying that means that you have just opened the door for more trouble than I think you were expecting. It's kind of like opening Pandora's Box. You don't know exactly what you will find inside.