fox | revenge of the sith

oh. my. GOD.

well, that was superlative. i'm not quite prepared to say all is forgiven, but certainly this film is Worthy. i am swoony and light-headed, and it's not because of the slasher-shout-out at the end there.

assorted thoughts: yea, verily, and mightily i did go "eeeeeeeee!" at multiple other points during the movie as well. ewan mcgregor is a good-looking man, inn'e? i was glad they allowed him to smile for once. sadly, i am not able to think of senator organa by that name; every time i saw him, i thought, "victor sifuentes is fomenting rebellion" or "victor sifuentes is doomed". oh, the music, the music, LOVE. oh! the babies, in the council chamber, i'm glad we didn't see him killing the wee ones, and i'll tell you what, i wish they'd gone ahead and used the word "children" instead of "younglings" at least once; i feel like "younglings" should be a pet name. the shot of the mask coming down on vader's face was really quite brilliant.

two quibbles:

1. but, see, whatever you think about the extended (or expanded? i can never remember) universe (what i think: not canon), or the novelisations (whose brother was owen lars, again?), it is existing film canon, both Correct and Special Edition, that leia has memories of her real mother, who died when she was very small, and that luke never knew her. an explanation, please, and a plausible one?

2. "only a sith deals in absolutes." oh my god, y'all, i'm afraid i laughed out loud. i wasn't able to control myself. i laughed for about fifteen seconds. i mean, seriously. the irony was coming fast over the plate in this movie, but mainly in a foreshadow-y kind of way, and less in a but-he-just-said-that-with-a-straight-face kind of way. only a sith deals in absolutes. i need an icon, stat.

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( a truly spoiler-free entry does not give any reactions outside the cut (though there may be, and are, spoilers behind it). )

*blows you a kiss without reading the entry*

it is existing film canon, both Correct and Special Edition, that leia has memories of her real mother, who died when she was very small, and that luke never knew her. an explanation, please, and a plausible one?

well, i've got two theories, but neither one seems to have any point, which is frustrating. one, wee!leia, on learning that she was adopted, made up (as small children do) stories about her real mother, which as she grew up mixed in thoroughly with her actual experiences of being mothered until she thought that she was remembering padme when she was in fact remembering queen organa. or, two, leia has some crazy perfect memory (that's never been mentioned ever before or since) and can in fact remember back to her newborn moments. maybe it's a new jedi skill? i still lean more towards door number one, myself....

see, and i kept thinking "gah! it's jimmy smits!" :D his wife is the mother leia remembers, who died in her childhood. isn't she?

re "gah! it's jimmy smits" -- similar. :-) victor sifuentes was his character on LA Law, of course, and i knew him so comprehensively as that character that i even had a hard time watching him on NYPD Blue, never mind here.

and, no -- luke's line in RotJ is "Do you remember your mother -- your real mother?"

Well, I like to think that one's "real" mother is the one who raised you...

i do, too, but do you really think that's what luke meant to ask? :-)

My only explanation is that Leia didn't know that mrs. Senator Organa was not her mother. I know I'm stretching since she was princess Leia, but I've resigned myself to mean that while she kept the title, she considere Organa her mother and she was not talking about Padme.

I still want to know why Obi Wan didn't recognize C3P0 and R2D2.

i could get behind that explanation almost -- i mean, padme was queen, sure, but that's obviously not an inherited title, so i don't think that's where the "princess" bit comes from; i always thought she was called princess because her father was the big hot-shot on alderaan who also happened to be senator. in short she got the title "princess" from the organas. but, see, luke asks her "Do you remember your mother -- your real mother?" i mean -- are we to believe that mrs. senator died when leia was very small and ~~victor sifuentes~~ the senator married again? bah. hand-wavy.

but: i think ben kenobi did recognize 3PO and R2. he was a crafty old coot by the time luke ran into him in ANH; no way to take anything he said at face value. ("So what I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.")

I know, I'm trying to forget that question because otherwise nothing makes sense, but I like your theory that Victor remarried (and he's Victor to me as well).

but even if he did, that still doesn't line up -- because the whole reason luke was asking was because he was trying to hunt up memories of his own mother. ("I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.") and if he knew that leia's not-real mother was victor's second wife, and her "real" mother was the woman we just saw on the balcony, he'd have to know neither of those women was his mother ... bah. BAH, i say. george! you were so close!

i mean. he could have weakened her and sent her to alderaan to die in a peaceful idyllic warm-springs-like setting. and then baby!leia might have had some memories of her, like canon says. but no, axing secondary non-canon isn't enough, he has to rub out whole swathes of existing film canon as well ...

;-)

(perhaps in addition to my "only sith deal in absolutes" icon i need something about being a slave to canon, like the pope only not. [g] or about whether or not "anal retentive" has a hyphen.)

Does Leia even know who her real mother is? Or at least did she know until Luke brought it up? Learn to accept grey areas in canon, we must or to the Dark Force we will succumb.

i always thought she was called princess because her father was the big hot-shot on alderaan who also happened to be senator.

In the end credits, one role is given as "Queen of Alderaan" - must be Mrs. Organa, as we don't see any other Alderaanians IIRC. So Leia got the Princess bit from her adoptive parents.

Unless of course Mrs. Organa is also credited and I have just overlooked her.

fair enough -- so you're agreeing with what i always thought, then. :-) (absent having seen that role in the credits, i'd have assumed her name was something like "lady organa", but whatev. my point is still there.)

Look what I found:

First, when Leia remembers her "mother" she's remembering her adoptive mother, or so went the consensus tonight when we were discussing the same reference. Leia wasn't even supposed to know she was adopted (although, from looking at Leia and her adoptive parents, it would seem obvious they weren't her *biological* parents, but perhaps that was just the casting). According to the books, her adoptive mother dies while she is quite young.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/emmagrant01/139243.html?thread=3446507#t3446507

I haven't read the books, but I though you might enjoy the link.

i dig (i haven't read those particular books either, but i've read all the penguin ones); but the books aren't canon. :-) the canon is still inconsistent on the point. (though RotS did make me feel a little better about ghost!ben's description of yoda as "the Jedi master who instructed me", as though he'd been the only one -- a quibble that has, i kid you not, lost me friends before. heh.)

LOL, I know how you feel, but I'm a little more lenient when it comes to Lucas.

Yeah, and I was all "Congressman Santos will start the Rebellion! He must have lost the Democratic primaries after all!"

I finally wrote you a birthday story, (http://trickster.org/res/four.html) such as it is. Sorry it's short, late, and smutless.

revenge of the sith

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