Okay, Okay, I'll Just Snark Once!
Anikan, generic megalomaniacal ranting!
Obi-Wan, "What'cha talking about Willis?"
Anikan, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy!"
Obi-Wan, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" Obi-Wan attacks!
Er, what? Sorry, wooden dialogue I expected, but this one makes no sense.
"Only", at the beginning of Obi-Wan's quote means that the rest of it is an absolutist statement.
For example, "Only bad guys wear black hats," means that absolutely no good guy will ever be found wearing a black hat. Some bad guys might also be wearing colors other than black, but if you have a black hat, you are absolutely guaranteed to be a bad guy.
Another example, "Only people who are with me, are not my enemies." In other words, absolutely everyone who is not with you, is your enemy. Strangely enough, some people who are with you, might also be your enemy!
So, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" means absolutely everybody who deals in absolutes, is a Sith. Not all Sith deal in absolutes, personally I suspect Darth Maul of being somewhat of a sophisticated moral relativist, but everyone who does deals in absolutes is definitely a Sith, including of course the person making that statement.
Obviously this isn't just about bad dialouge. When Anikan says, "From my point of view the Jedi are evil," Obi-Wan laments "You truly have lost your way my friend." It's a poignant expression of sorrow as Obi-Wan finally comprehends the depths of his friend's corruption. It's punchy, its logically consistent, and it evokes the spectere of Alec Guiness. Thank you Tom Stoppard!
However in the earlier instance Obi-Wan meant to express something along the lines of, "OMG, you're wearing all black, you must be one of the bad guys!" only, more poetical like. Something like "You sound like a Sith!" would have fit the bill.
After all, why does Obi-Wan really suspect Anikan is a Sith? It's not really the absolutist statement, it's the implications of the statement based on his past behaviour. There's no room for civil dissagreement. If you don't agree to my policy of Galactic domination, you are my enemy and I'm going to try and kill you like I've killed all other threats.
Meh. Whatever. I don't care anymore. The dialouge is bad enough, I'm sorry that modern political statements and sloppy philosophical positions make it worse and confuse the already shaky metaphysical themes of the saga, but it's no more damage than has already been done by carelessness or marketing ambition. I can't even summon proper energy for snarkiness.
Star Wars is over. It was an experience of our lives, part of popular culture, but grows increasingly irrelavent as revisions make it increasingly specific. Continuity to the fantasy world takes precedence over continuity of theme and character. The Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas of today aren't making film sagas, but writting cable TV shows.
posted by thorn @ 9:18 AM
3 Comments:
. . .
Man, we're really spending a lot of time writing about Star Wars.
Yeah, your breakdown of the logic of Obi-Wan's despairing little barb is spot-on. For my own part, I would've prefered something on the order of . . .
ANAKIN: If you're not with me, you're my enemy!
OBI-WAN: You murderous little [expletive].
. . . but I suspect you're attaching too much importance to a line to which Mr. Lucas (almost certainly not Mr. Stoppard) probably didn't give three thoughts.
I don't know to what extent RotS was meant as "modern political statements" - my suspicion, though, is that that isn't as big a factor as partisans on either side of the current fence would have us believe. The "If you're not with us, you're against us!" principle long predates President Bush's 2001 "with us or with the terrorists" line, after all - and Mr. Lucas has made very clear since 1977 that the recent political history of his imaginary universe is all about the systematic dissolution of a pre-existing structure of checks and restraints on executive power; the ideas were based in the failed republics of Rome and France as much as anything. Yeah, the dialogue is often so clunky as to seem somehow propagandistic, but that doesn't mean that that was its intent.
Actually, Mr. Lucas himself says it wasn't. For whatever that's worth.
In a larger sense, you may be right about the bogus specificity of the politics of the prequels (The Trade Federation is blockading Naboo! Noooooo!) undermining the pop-mythic breadth of the original movies. If it had been handled better, that might not have been the case - that "Alexandre Dumas" to whom you refer was not above setting his stories in a France that had issues with an England, after all, and it all worked out okay - but it wasn't handled better, and who knows?
Anyway, I get the sense that I liked this movie more than you did - which is cool. It's long been known that my tastes are worse than yours.
One of these days you're going to have to step in and do this stuff right, tho'!
;->
You fixed "Dickens."
. . .
I'm almost disappointed.
;-P
Well I really meant modern political influence as in the whole post Second World War period... meh, whatever.
I liked Revenge of the Sith. It should have been better. 'Nuff said.
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