I currently blog politically/policywise at Obsidian Wings.
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I've a long record in editorial work in book and magazine publishing, starting 1974, a variety of other work experience, but have been, since 2001, recurringly housebound with insanely painful sporadic and unpredictably variable gout and edema, and in the past, other ailments; the future? The Great Unknown: isn't it for all of us?
I'm currently house/cat-sitting, not on any government aid yet (or mostly ever), often in major chronic pain from gout and edema, which variably can leave me unable to walk, including just standing, but sometimes is better, and is freaking unpredictable at present; I also have major chronic depression and anxiety disorders; I'm currently supported mostly by your blog donations/subscriptions; you can help me. I prefer to spread out the load, and lessen it from the few who have been doing more than their fair share for too long.
Thanks for any understanding and support. I know it's difficult to understand. And things will change. They always change.
I'm sometimes available to some degree as a paid writer, editor, researcher, or proofreader. I'm sometimes available as a fill-in Guest Blogger at mid-to-high-traffic blogs that fit my knowledge set.
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"The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include With ease, and you beside"
-- Emily Dickinson
"We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport."
-- Barbara Jordan
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule --
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
"The only completely consistent people are the dead."
-- Aldous Huxley
"I have had my solutions for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
-- Karl F. Gauss
"Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire,
the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind;
and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise
the improvements of social life."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."
-- Edward Gibbon
"There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify
the evils, of the present times."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority.
They show disrespect for elders and they
love to chatter instead of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize
their teachers."
-- Socrates
"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments."
-- Sidney Hook
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect
disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest
and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
"Faced with the choice of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the
land, we chose a Jewish state without all the land."
-- David Ben-Gurion
"...the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him
an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing,
with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess
and conform to it;[...] that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty....
-- Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson
"We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices,
intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to
improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation;
a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most
tiresome arguments against ideas is that their 'tendency' is to some dire condition --
to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all."
-- Louis Menand
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
-- Dante Alighieri
"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
-- Henry B. Adams
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
-- Anatole France
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke
"Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business or mining or botany or journalism or epistemology;
it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual, and esthetic inheritance of the race we have come to
understand and control ourselves as well as the external world; that we have chosen the best as our associates both in spirit
and the flesh; that we have learned to add courtesy to culture, wisdom to knowledge, and forgiveness to understanding."
-- Will Durant
"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is
but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest
winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
-- Herman Melville
"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon,
but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without
being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept."
-- Will Durant
"When you write, you’re trying to transpose what you’re thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music."
-- Louis Menand
"Sex is a continuum."
-- Gore Vidal
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802.
"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible,
and in many things leave one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity in many matters, and
man suffers from this almost congenital disease that he will not give in when once a controversy is started, and
after he is heated he regards as absolutely true that which he began to sponsor quite casually...."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
"Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve?"
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814
"We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort,
are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true,
the 'objectively' line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore 'Trotskyism is Fascism'. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated.
This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions."
-- George Orwell, "As I Please," Tribune, 8 December 1944
"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?"
-- "Aaron Altman," Broadcast News
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
-- Lewis Thomas
"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?"
-- Cicero
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
-- Samuel Johnson, Life Of Johnson
"Very well, what did my critics say in attacking my character? I must read out their affidavit, so to speak, as though they were my legal accusers: Socrates is guilty of criminal meddling, in that he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example."
-- Socrates, via Plato, The Republic
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The term, then, is obviously a relative one; my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, & someone else's ignorance."
-- H. W. Fowler
"Rules exist for good reasons, and in any art form the beginner must learn them and understand what they are for, then follow them for quite a while. A visual artist, pianist, dancer, fiction writer, all beginning artists are in the same boat here: learn the rules, understand them, follow them. It's called an apprenticeship. A mediocre artist never stops following the rules, slavishly follows guidelines, and seldom rises above mediocrity. An accomplished artist internalizes the rules to the point where they don't have to be consciously considered. After you've put in the time it takes to learn to swim, you never stop to think: now I move my arm, kick, raise my head, breathe. You just do it. The accomplished artist knows what the rules mean, how to use them, dodge them, ignore them altogether, or break them. This may be a wholly unconscious process of assimilation, one never articulated, but it has taken place."
-- Kate Wilhelm
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed."
-- Albert Einstein
"The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual."
-- Franz Kafka, Aphorisms
"All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
-- Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you."
-- Nicholas Klein, May, 1919, to the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (misattributed to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1914 & variants).
"Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it."
-- Lecture IX, John Henry Cardinal Newman
“Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for.”
-- John Henry Cardinal Newman
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
-- James Madison
"Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency."
-- Napoleon I of France.
"The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only."
-- Napoleon I of France.
"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."
-- On the subject of torture, in a letter to Louis Alexandre Berthier (11 November 1798), published in Correspondance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol. V, No. 3606, p. 128
"All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible."
-- George Santayana, Dialogues in Limbo (1926)
"American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism."
-- George Santayana, Character and Opinion in the United States, (1920)
"If you should put even a little on a little, and should do this often, soon this too would become big."
-- Hesiod, Work And Days
"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
-- Eugene V. Debs
"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written "al-Qaida," in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."
-- Osama bin Laden
"Remember, Robin: evil is a pretty bad thing."
-- Batman
Gary Farber is now a licensed Quintuple Super-Sekrit Multi-dimensional Master Pundit.
He does not always refer to himself in the third person.
He is presently single.
The gefilte fish is dead. Donate via the donation button on the top left or I'll shoot this cutepanda. Don't you lovepandas?
Current Total # of Donations Since 2002: 1181
Subscribers to date at $5/month: 100 sign-ups; 91 cancellations; Total= 9
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...writer[s] I find myself checking out repeatedly when I'm in the mood to play follow-the-links. They're not all people I agree with all the time, or even most of the time, but I've found them all to be thoughtful writers, and that's the important thing, or should be.
-- Tom Tomorrow
"Gary Farber is a gentleman, a scholar and one of the gems of the blogosphere."
-- Steve Hynd, Newshoggers.com
"Well argued, Gary. I hadn't seen anything that went into as much detail as I found in your blog."
-- Gareth Porter
Gary Farber is your one-man internet as always, with posts on every article there is.
-- Fafnir
Guessing that Gary is ignorant of anything that has ever been written down is, in my experience, unwise.
Just saying.
-- Hilzoy
I read Amygdala...with regularity, as do all sensible websurfers.
-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Okay, he is annoying, but he still posts a lot of good stuff.
-- Avedon Carol, The Sideshow
Amygdala - So much stuff it reminds Unqualified Offerings that UO sometimes thinks of Gary Farber as "the liberal Instapundit." -- Jim Henley
...the thoughtful and highly intelligent Gary Farber... My first reaction was that I definitely need to appease Gary Farber of Amygdala, one of the geniuses of our age.
-- Brad deLong
Gary is a perceptive, intelligent, nice guy. Some of the stuff he comes up with is insightful, witty, and stimulating. And sometimes he manages to make me groan.
-- Charlie Stross
I bow before the shrillitudinousness of Gary Farber, who has been blogging like a fiend.
-- Ted Barlow, Crooked Timber
Favorite.... [...] ...all great stuff. [...] Gary Farber should never be without readers.
-- Ogged
I usually read you and Patrick several times a day, and I always get something from them. You've got great links, intellectually honest commentary, and a sense of humor. What's not to like?
-- Ted Barlow
One of my issues with many poli-blogs is the dickhead tone so many bloggers affect to express their sense of righteous indignation. Gary Farber's thoughtful leftie takes on the world stand in sharp contrast with the usual rhetorical bullying. Plus, he likes "Pogo," which clearly attests to his unassaultable good taste.
-- oakhaus.com
The only trouble with reading Amygdala is that it makes me feel like such a slacker. That Man Farber's a linking, posting, commenting machine, I tell you!
-- John Robinson, Sore Eyes
Jaysus. I saw him do something like this before, on a thread about Israel. It was pretty brutal. It's like watching one of those old WWF wrestlers grab an opponent's
face and grind away until the guy starts crying. I mean that in a nice & admiring way, you know.
-- Fontana Labs, Unfogged
We read you Gary Farber! We read you all the time! Its just that we are lazy with our blogroll. We are so very very lazy. We are always the last ones to the party but we always have snazzy bow ties.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber you are a genius of mad scientist proportions. I will bet there are like huge brains growin in jars all over your house.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber is the hardest working man in show blog business. He's like a young Gene Hackman blogging with his hair on fire, or something.
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Gary Farber only has two blogging modes: not at all, and 20 billion interesting posts a day [...] someone on the interweb whose opinions I can trust....
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Isn't Gary a cracking blogger, apropos of nothing in particular?
-- Alison Scott
Gary Farber takes me to task, in a way befitting the gentleman he is.
-- Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
My friend Gary Farber at Amygdala is the sort of liberal for whom I happily give three cheers. [...] Damned incisive blogging....
-- Midwest Conservative Journal
If I ever start a paper, Clueless writes the foreign affairs column, Layne handles the city beat, Welch has the roving-reporter job, Tom Tomorrow runs the comic section (which carries Treacher, of course). MediaMinded runs the slots - that's the type of editor I want as the last line of defense. InstantMan runs the edit page - and you can forget about your Ivins and Wills and Friedmans and Teepens on the edit page - it's all Blair, VodkaP, C. Johnson, Aspara, Farber, Galt, and a dozen other worthies, with Justin 'I am smoking in such a provocative fashion' Raimondo tossed in for balance and comic relief.
Who wouldn't buy that paper? Who wouldn't want to read it? Who wouldn't climb over their mother to be in it?
-- James Lileks
I do appreciate your role and the role of Amygdala as a pioneering effort in the integration of fanwriters with social conscience into the larger blogosphere of social conscience.
-- Lenny Bailes
Every single post in that part of Amygdala visible on my screen is either funny or bracing or important. Is it always like this? -- Natalie Solent
People I've known and still miss include Isaac Asimov, rich brown, Charles Burbee, F. M. "Buzz" Busby, Terry Carr, A. Vincent Clarke, Bob Doyle, George Alec Effinger, Abi Frost,
Bill & Sherry Fesselmeyer, George Flynn, John Milo "Mike" Ford. John Foyster, Mike Glicksohn, Jay Haldeman, Neith Hammond (Asenath Katrina Hammond)/DominEditrix , Chuch Harris, Mike Hinge, Lee Hoffman, Terry Hughes, Damon Knight, Ross Pavlac, Bruce Pelz, Elmer Perdue, Tom Perry,
Larry Propp, Bill Rotsler, Art Saha, Bob Shaw, Martin Smith, Harry Stubbs, Bob Tucker, Harry Warner, Jr., Jack Williamson, Walter A. Willis, Susan Wood, Kate Worley, and Roger Zelazny.
It's just a start, it only gets longer, many are unintentionally left out.
And She of whom I must write someday.
THE END. This is the only remaining significant scene dropped, and I'm greatly sorry it was. I was looking foward to seeing/hearing Liam Neeson again (supposedly he was cast in a small Force Ghost role in Attack of The Clones, but couldn't do it, and was pushed forward to this film; why he was dropped in the end, I don't know); showing is always far better than telling.
222 INT. POLIS MASSA-OBSERVATION DOME-NIGHT
On the isolated asteroid of Polis Massa, YODA meditates.
YODA: Failed to stop the Sith Lord, I have. Still much to learn, there is ...
QUI -GON: (V.O.) Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith.
YODA: Eternal consciousness.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed.
YODA: . . . to become one with the Force, and influence still have . . . A power greater than all, it is.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) You will learn to let go of everything. No attachment, no thought of self. No physical self.
YODA: A great Jedi Master, you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. Your apprentice I gratefully become.
YODA thinks about this for a minute, then BAIL ORGANA enters the room and breaks his meditation.
Oh, well.
This foreshadowing line was also dropped:
OBI-WAN: I will take the child and watch over him. Master Yoda, do you think Anakin's twins will be able to defeat Darth Sidious?
YODA: Strong the Force runs, in the Skywalker line. Hope, we can . . . Done, it is. Until the time is right, disappear we will.
Now, what the explanation is for why Leia, in Return of the Jedi, can remember Mom ("she was sad"), but Luke can't, I have no idea. Ditto a few other lingering questions, some of which I've brought up before. What was with the closeup of dead Padme clutching her necklace, which the script calls "the japor snippet"? (ADDENDUM: I bothered to look for the answer, and found it, and it make sense; it's the little necklace boy Ani gave Padme in The Phantom Menace; so it was another sign of her retaining her love for the one who "still has some good left in him," who finally, twenty years later, brings "balance to the force." [Kind of an early starter, but late finisher, our Ani/Vader.])
Some of the timeframes in the film seem off. Apparently you can get to Mustaphar, the volcano planet, in approximately five minutes via hyperdrive from Coruscant; this is convenient, if not downright necessary to the plot's timing, but seems implausible. (ADDENDUM: Some have suggested that the time is simply very abbreviated, and during cuts, days or weeks have taken place. It seems like perhaps the best explanation, but it entails accepting that Lucas failed to make this clear to his audience (me, anyway); I can believe that, particularly given how much else takes place "between" scenes, in the larger sense. END ADDENDUM.)
What's the in-story explanation for why the Force ghost of Qui-gon Jinn doesn't join the party at the end of Return of the Jedi?; obviously, in reality, Lucas hadn't created him yet, but in the story, what, he was out running errands? Had something better to do? Had finally divested himself of the ability to take ghostly form?
I didn't notice Governor Tarkin in the closing shots of the Death Star, myself. I think I've found the answer to why Leia is a "Princess," though:
The QUEEN OF ALDERAAN sits on a balcony looking out over the awesome mountains of Alderaan. BAIL ORGANA brings a small baby to her.
# Clone Commander Bacara's number is 1138, in reference to Lucas' THX-1138.
[...]
# The role of Captain Antilles was originally offered to Denis Lawson, who played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy.
[...]
# Francis Ford Coppola suggested 'Christopher Neil' to George Lucas to be the dialogue coach. Lucas said that given the emotional intensity of Revenge of the Sith, and the fact that he rarely has time to converse with the actors, it would be ideal for someone else to be there to get the strongest performances possible.
People are, understandably, so used to dissing Lucas on dialogue that we've seen endless amounts of it regarding this film, but I think the difference shows, up to a point, myself.
Seeing Denis Lawson would have been nice, but one can certainly excuse him for not bothering, even if he is Ewan MacGregor's uncle (really).
If you've ever wondered what it would be like if Steven Spielberg directed an SW film, and for some info on his input into this one, check out this.
You can find zips of early drafts of the earlier films here, by the way. Note how extremely different the first draft of the original is, but I'm not planning on blogging an analysis. Check it out yourself, if you wish, young padawan. (ADDENDUM: Here is another link to more versions of early scripts of all the movies; there are yet others out there. [via Stryker.])
ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention a significant visual cut. Here it's clear what Obi-Wan did to Anakin:
ANAKIN follows, and OBI-WAN cuts his young apprentice at the knees, then cuts off his left arm in the blink of an eye. ANAKIN tumbles down the embankment and rolls to a stop near the edge of the lava.
Again, I may have blinked and missed it, but I only saw Obi-wan cut off Anakin's remaining real arm, and not his legs; we do momentarily see that Darth Vader's refit includes mechanical legs, but it appeared to me that showing Obi-wan's cutting off Anakin's legs and hand was, um, cut back to just the arm-slice, presumably so as to limit the "intenseness." And possibly comparisons to the Knight in Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
ADDENDUM: I would have linked originally to this earlier scene-by-scene plot summary, which gives yet another look at a yet slightly earlier version of the script version I've analyzed, if I'd known I was going to get so many readers of all this. It has yet more slight differences and variations, and further insights into Lucas's slightly earlier, changing, intentions for this movie. This includes bits such as these:
NT. BOWELS OF THE SHIP - DAY
The lower decks are flooding with liquid fuel. Anakin and Obi-Wan enter and are attacked by more battle droids as the fight in the murky liquid without the use of their light sabers. The Jedi must hurry to get out of the room before the level of the fuel reaches electrodes near the ceiling.
INT. VENTILATION SHAFT - DAY
Barely escaping, they enter a ventilation shaft, and climb a ladder to safety. The droids still hot on their heels, Anakin seals the hatch with his light saber.
INT. BOWELS OF THE SHIP - DAY
The fuel hits the electrodes and the ship is rocked by a massive explosion which tears the ship in two, and causes it to spiral out of control back towards the city planet.
[...]
EXT. CRASH SITE - DAY
Once free of the vessel the two friends recover for a moment. As Anakin, and Obi-wan exit onto a landing platform, it is a sunny day, debris is scattered and smoke billows from the nearby crash. R2 must move around the debris. The Coruscant fire department arrives to put out the blaze.
INT. FIRE SHIP COCKPIT - DAY
The fire ship captain informs them that they will put out what fires they can.
[...]
NT. SENATE OFFICE BUILDING - DAY
Once inside, Padme’s costume conceals her pregnancy, and the group discusses the death of Dooku and nearing end to the clone wars, with only a few key systems remaining to be liberated. Anakin and Padme share fleeting glances across the crowded room, unable to reveal their forbidden love. Obi-wan notices, but says nothing. Palpatine makes subtle but definite allusions that the Jedi’s involvement in the ordering of the clone army, coupled with Dooku’s turn to evil as troubling and suspicious. Palpatine further pushes the Jedi's buttons by using his authority to gain Anakin a seat on the Jedi council as a reward for his exploits aboard the Invisible Hand. The declaration is met with much controversy.
[...]
INT. PALPTINE’S OFFICE – DAY
Many senators including Padme meet with Palpatine, asking him to relinquish his emergency powers now that the crisis is close to resolution, they also ask him when the clone army is to be decommissioned. The Chancellor says that he does not feel the “true” threat is quelled yet.
INT. STORMTROOPER BARRACKS - NIGHT
In a hanger, Obi-wan acquires his new Jedi star fighter, and his new astromech droid, who is replacing R4 after the little droid was lost in the recent space battle. He gathers his clone battalion for their Utapau mission, including a clone who goes by the name Commander Cody, whom Obi-wan has fought with before, and have become buddies.
INT. PADME’S CORUSCANT APARTMENT - NIGHT
Anakin says a sad but heartfelt goodbye to Padme before he must begin his new duties, in another quiet scene in Padme‘s apartment. There is tension between them as Padme has begun to doubt the Chancellor, while Anakin remains very loyal to him.
[...]
NT. PADME’S CORUSCANT APARTMENT - DAY
The expecting Senator has called a meeting of her liberal colleagues including Senators Bail Organa and Mon Mothma. C3P0 serves drinks to the guests. The group discusses the current situation with Palpatine, and discuss their options for removing him from power.
[...]
INT. UTAPAU CAVE - DAY
Obi-wan enters a cave. In typical Obi-wan fashion he lurks about in the shadows infiltrating the enemy structure (see also Attack of the Clones and A New Hope) eventually entering a command chamber where from above he overhears General Grievous conversing with Darth Sidious, who appears as a hologram. Grievous has a secret contract with Sidious to kill as many Jedi as possible during the war. It is at this point that Obi-wan learns that Darth Sidious and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine are one and the same.
[...]
EXT. OTHER PLANETARY BATTLEFIELDS - DAY
Likewise some of the other Jedi generals on the other various worlds all find victory in battle while others are defeated.
EXT. UTAPAU - DAY
[...]
EXT. UTAPAU - DAY
Back on Utapau, Obi-wan manages to crash Grievous’ wheel thing somehow. The two foes battle once again, Grievous’ arms split in two, and he fights with four light sabers, the ones he has taken from the Jedi he has slain. Just when Obi-wan appears to be defeated, he uses the force to summon Grievous’ blaster from his holster and shoots the droid general dead. Obi-Wan contacts Mace Windu at the Jedi Temple, to inform Mace of what he has just learned about the true nature of the Supreme Chancellor.
INT. JEDI TEMPLE TACTICAL CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT
Given the weight of this revelation, Mace decides to go have a chat with Palpatine.
[...]
INT. PALPATINE'S OFFICE - NIGHT
The Jedi enter the office of the galactic ruler and accuses him. Palpatine revealing his true nature at last, blasts Mace and the other Jedi with his evil powers, and activates his own dreaded lightsaber, utilizing a frightening technique never seen before, killing all but Windu who is left vulnerable but still able. The courageous Jedi fights vehemently against the evil sith master, blocking every blow, but steadily losing ground. He calls out to Anakin for help, telling him that he must destroy the Sith. Palpatine tells Anakin that the Jedi are corrupt, and must be stopped. Now Anakin must make a fateful choice between Mace and Palpatine.
Anakin stands with Windu, apparently taking his side, then without mercy, Anakin attacks Windu. Though he has fought bravely to the end, Mace Windu is dead. Palpatine must now come clean to Anakin about his other identity as a Sith Master, and reveal his intentions to form an empire. He plays on Anakin’s fear and other weaknesses, exploiting the young Jedi’s ego and arrogance, painting the Jedi as corrupt and ineffective, and the cause of all of Anakin’s suffering.
Palpatine discusses history of the Sith and an ancient Sith lord named DARTH PLAGUEIS. Anakin declares his loyalty to Palpatine, who then sends him to the Jedi temple, with a host of storm troopers and a terrible mission to fulfill.
[...]
On Utapau, Commander Cody is handing Obi-wan his saber, which he had dropped while fighting Grievous, just then Cody goes rigid and tries to kill Obi-wan, who acting quickly ignites his saber, and is forced to take his friends life, along with the rest of his squad. Obi-wan runs to warn his fellow Jedi, but there is no time.
Meanwhile on Kashyyyk Yoda displays his incredible abilities in battle once again, taking on over one hundred storm troopers, summoning the force in incredible displays, and deflecting more laser blasts then seems physically possible. He also makes use coy behavior to lull the clones into thinking he is a silly little creature that can do them no harm. But even he cannot fight an entire army, and is forced to retreat. At one point Yoda rides a giant dragonfly creature. Yoda is saved by Chewbacca, who is the only Wookiee to survive the battle. They escape in one of the new Republic speeders.
[...]
EXT. LANDING PAD – DAY
Posing as a hunchbacked beggar (with Yoda as the hunch) and Obi-wan as another vagrant, the trio gains entrance to the Jedi temple undetected. Or maybe its through a secret passageway.
[...]
Yoda also wants to recover an old book, the Journal of the Whills from his room, which he believes will provide important answers. The book may include important and relevant info about the Sith and also describes in detail an ancient technique, which allows one who is strong with the force to retain their identity after death.
[...]
Padme does not want to believe what he tells her, but in the end she reveals to Obi-wan her secret marriage to Anakin, her pregnancy, Anakin’s family on Tatooine, and his slaughter of the Tusken raiders who killed his mother three years previous.
[...]
NT. JEDI TEMPLE – NIGHT
Yoda is searching through his old books and tapestries when Palpatine enters. The two aging masters have it out, first verbally then physically. They manifest the force, both light and dark in a dazzling display. Palpatine is wounded which gives him the horrific appearance he carries into the original trilogy but ultimately Yoda is bested, having underestimated the powers of the emperor and is forced to retreat falling out of a window.
[...]
Anakin zooms towards Mustafar, ready to seal the fates of Nute and his cohorts. R2 tries to reason with him, but Anakin deactivates the comlink, the little droid is helpless.
[...]
EXT. MUSTAFAR FACILITY - NIGHT
Anakin grabs a cable and swings across, Obi-wan follows, they clash while suspended, then arrive at the other side and continue to duel.
Obi-wan attacks Anakin who backs up a ramp over the lava, his height making him vulnerable on a slope, using this advantage Obi-wan slices one of Anakin’s legs out from under him
Anakin does not give up. He swipes at Obi-wan, who blocks the attack and severs Anakin’s other arm.
Obi-wan makes one final plea for Anakin to abandon the dark side and to come back to the light side, but he is too far gone and lashes out at Obi-wan, drawing his second light saber, his red-bladed Sith light saber, and tries with one last effort to destroy Obi-wan. But Obi-wan again evades the blow, and Anakin is knocked off balance and falls into the molten pit below, where he is horribly scarred and burned to a crisp.
EXT. MUSTAFAR LANDING PAD - NIGHT
Obi-wan recovers Anakin’s blue saber, then runs from storm troopers who have landed in an imperial star destroyer. The desperate group of heroes escapes the planet.
[...]
INT. BLOCKADE RUNNER - DAY
Unable to make it back to Alderaan in time, Obi-wan and the others land on yet another new planet Polis Massa where short grey aliens with big eyes tend to the injured Padme who needs to give birth before it is too late.
INT. POLIS MASSA HOSPITAL - DAY
These aliens are masters of an advanced medical technology.
Leia is born, Padme holds her for a moment, looking into her eyes, mother and daughter share a momentary connection that will linger in Leia’s mind the rest of her life. Suddenly Padme convulses, it seems Leia has a twin brother, Luke.
Obi-wan, Yoda and Bail discuss where each of them will go from here and what the next stage of their plan should be. It is agreed that C3P0 must have his memory erased, but it is reasoned that R2 can keep a secret and his memories are spared.
A number of further rearrangements and changes, eh?
Possibly, but I'd think that, since they're the only three Force Ghosts around, so far as we know, Obi-wan and Yoda would perform a nice little introduction of Qui-Gon to Luke. "And here's the other member of our little club, Luke, my old master, Qui-Gon Gin. He was the very first teacher of your father. You'll be partying a lot in the future with us."
Yeah, but unless I miss something, what's Anakin doing there at the end of Episode VI? He hasn't learned the power, unless he's suddenly learned it in the very, very short time since his death. He didn't even know about it, hence his surprise at Obi-Wan's disappearance in IV.
Uh, he, uh, er, ah, uh, got really curious as to why Obi-Wan disappeared! That's the ticket! Remember his (understandably) puzzled "look" and grunts when Obi-Wan's body vanished? And he spent much time since then researching the possibilities, and found out how to do it! (Darth Plageuis left related clues!)
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it until I find a better one.
I understand that in the Expanded Universe (books, etc.), incidentally, several years after the events of ROT Jedi, that the Emperor's spirit returns for a while to inhabit a clone of his body, before again being disposed of by the good guys, not that I really care much.
Darth save us from the EU. Do you know how many great online discussions of Star Wars have been derailed because some punk kid goes, "But in Shadows of the Empire..."
Ugh. Crap. Pure, unadulturated crap. It's barely above the level of Fan Fiction. Why yes, Kevin J. Anderson did write a lot of EU books...
(Obviously, this does not include the great Han Solo Adventure books, as well as the radio dramas, by Brian Daley. He's the only author to ever "get" Star Wars)
It seems that, as the script says, Qui-Gon never completely 'became one' with the Force like the others eventually do. He can probably only stick around for a short time, or something.
I still want to know why Uncle Owen seems to dislike Obi-Wan in a NEW HOPE. Just a crazy old wizard.
If the dumped line about Yoda and Obi-Wan considering Luke as an option to remove Palpitine it would seem that perhaps Obi-Wan and Yoda should have trained the kid and got him ready.
How can you look at the chosen one and decide not to train him because he's 9 instead of 7 and thus too old to begin the training? How can you watch that mistake turn into darkness for the entire Galaxy and then go into hiding instead of (a) ganging up on the Emperor or (b) raising Luke to be a fighting stud.
I can't help but think Jedi are lazy and got what was coming to them.
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