Hayden Blackman on Lucas, Vader vs Anakin

Azronger wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?

Strikes me as questionable to assume (falsely) my motives then attribute unethical practices to them (i.e. trolling).

Lol, honestly that was lost to me based on your original post. Fair enough.

@Darthant66 The thing about ROTS Kenobi is that, sure he is supposed to be stronger than his TPM self, but how Lucas portrays this this "growth" is a little questionable. He basically portrays him as fodder to Count Dooku (someone we know is significantly below Sidious) in AOTC and ROTS. And Filoni continues that same tradition in TCW S6, where he gets clowned by Dooku at every turn. We then see him struggle against a broken  half dead cyborg with no force powers in the form of General Grievous. Couldn't Kenobi just have easily ended him with his force powers if he was supposed to be a grade A jedi in his prime?
So this then leaves me to question how much did Kenobi actually grow?

DarthAnt66 wrote:

Azronger wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?

Strikes me as questionable to assume (falsely) my motives then attribute unethical practices to them (i.e. trolling).

Lol, honestly that was lost to me based on your original post. Fair enough.

Not what I meant. Your statement "I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?" insinuates I am trolling; ergo, you are implicitly accusing me of trolling - that is how I interpreted it. So I responded by saying it is questionable to falsely assume my motives and attribute trolling to them; ergo; I am saying I am not trolling.

Azronger wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:

Azronger wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?

Strikes me as questionable to assume (falsely) my motives then attribute unethical practices to them (i.e. trolling).

Lol, honestly that was lost to me based on your original post. Fair enough.

Not what I meant. Your statement "I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?" insinuates I am trolling; ergo, you are implicitly accusing me of trolling - that is how I interpreted it. So I responded by saying it is questionable to falsely assume my motives and attribute trolling to them; ergo; I am saying I am not trolling.

If you're not trolling, why did you respond to what I said via basically line-by-line restating points that are contingent on takes that I explicitly addressed?

DarthAnt66 wrote:

Azronger wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:

Azronger wrote:

DarthAnt66 wrote:I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?

Strikes me as questionable to assume (falsely) my motives then attribute unethical practices to them (i.e. trolling).

Lol, honestly that was lost to me based on your original post. Fair enough.

Not what I meant. Your statement "I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?" insinuates I am trolling; ergo, you are implicitly accusing me of trolling - that is how I interpreted it. So I responded by saying it is questionable to falsely assume my motives and attribute trolling to them; ergo; I am saying I am not trolling.

If you're not trolling, why did you respond to what I said via basically line-by-line restating points that are contingent on takes that I explicitly addressed?

Because you did a poor job addressing them.

Then they should have been easy to address. You just ... didn't address them at all.

SUPER FIGHT 5.

DarthAnt66 wrote:Then they should have been easy to address. You just ... didn't address them at all.

Have u seen my reply, just wondering what's your take on this?

DarthAnt66 wrote:Then they should have been easy to address. You just ... didn't address them at all.

Actually, I did. You can see it on the previous page.

@Azronger The statement "Ben Kenobi is weak because he is old" is not contradicted by "Qui-Gon Jinn is not weak". The former statement doesn't imply that every single Jedi ages at the same rate or enters their prime at the same period. Obi-Wan in ANH certainly looks much older than Qui-Gon does in TPM, and they did not necessarily stay in the same level of shape. If I say so-and-so athlete "is old, so he's not as good anymore", that is not contradicted by another athlete being older and still doing well.

Lucas's intent in that category is pretty obvious here; we can talk about whether he's referring to overall Force powers or just dueling skill, but this attempt to insert new meanings into his words isn't very convincing. I happen to think that taking Lucas's personal commentary on film choreography doesn't create the best alignment with the Legends continuity as a whole, but that's separate from thinking that the quote by itself doesn't suggest that it's suggesting.

The Ellimist wrote:

@Azronger The statement "Ben Kenobi is weak because he is old" is not contradicted by "Qui-Gon Jinn is not weak". The former statement doesn't imply that every single Jedi ages at the same rate or enters their prime at the same period. Obi-Wan in ANH certainly looks much older than Qui-Gon does in TPM, and they did not necessarily stay in the same level of shape. If I say so-and-so athlete "is old, so he's not as good anymore", that is not contradicted by another athlete being older and still doing well.

Lucas's intent in that category is pretty obvious here; we can talk about whether he's referring to overall Force powers or just dueling skill, but this attempt to insert new meanings into his words isn't very convincing. I happen to think that taking Lucas's personal commentary on film choreography doesn't create the best alignment with the Legends continuity as a whole, but that's separate from thinking that the quote by itself doesn't suggest that it's suggesting.

The statement implies that Ben is not a real Jedi because he is an old man. Qui-Gon is a man and even older than Ben, so he is also an old man and therefore not a real Jedi. That is not a "new meaning"; it is the dictionary definition of an old man: a man who is old. Your idle speculation about Lucas' intent, however, I have no interest in, as I don't care about authorial intent. What he meant to say doesn't matter; only what he did say.

[size=38]@DarthAnt66 Strikes me as questionable to assume (falsely) my motives[/size]

 Sorry, saw you say that in another thread so assumed it still applied.

[size=39]then attribute unethical practices to them (i.e. cherry-picking). [/size]

It's not exactly wrong, though. It's like taking Stan Lee's view on Galactus for example being the most powerful being in Marvel as being a clear indicator that he's stronger than EU characters like The One Above All. Like Lucas, Lee wasn't completely aware of the nature of Marvel comics and apparently treated it as a somewhat different continuity. You can't just universally apply everything the original creator said regarding their creations when said creations have grown beyond their original conceptual intent.

Azronger wrote:The statement implies that Ben is not a real Jedi because he is an old man. Qui-Gon is a man and even older than Ben, so he is also an old man and therefore not a real Jedi. That is not a "new meaning"; it is the dictionary definition of an old man: a man who is old.

My argument doesn't involve disputing the definition of "old man". Let's look at the quote again:

"We've actually never seen real Jedi at work, we've only seen crippled half-droid half-men and young boys that have learned from these old people. So to see a Jedi in his prime fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I want it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing"

George Lucas
Star Wars Episode I: Fights Featurette

Obi Wan in ANH is an old person. Luke learned from him. This does not mean that all old people are not "real Jedi". In fact, it wasn't even directly attributing "old people" to "not real Jedi", but rather learning from "these" specific old people. It just means that Obi Wan in ANH is an old person (and Yoda). Example:

"I haven't had a real break this year, I've only gotten some social events on lousy Thursdays."

This does not imply that if there were some unexpected holiday on a Thursday, that this would not count as a break.

Now to say:

Your idle speculation about Lucas' intent, however,

You are the one trying to speculate that "these old people" implies that 100% of old people can't be "real Jedi". That's not necessitated by the grammar at all. You could reasonably infer that Lucas thinks being old can impede combat abilities, but that doesn't mean that everyone ages at the same rate or that it outweighs other factors; in this case, it's pretty obvious from TPM that Qui Gon isn't some sort of fodder next to padawan Obi Wan, not that I have to demonstrate that for my point to hold. If there's ambiguity, we can then look to other sources to resolve the question, which make it clear that TPM Obi Wan isn't stronger than Qui Gon or RotS Obi Wan.

I have no interest in, as I don't care about authorial intent. What he meant to say doesn't matter; only what he did say.

But this is literally an OOU, 4th wall breaking statement, and Chee frequently interprets Lucas's statements in the lens of his intent. If authorial intent doesn't matter, what does in the context of an OOU Lucas giving an informal commentary? The unscripted wording of his thoughts?