OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD: where we complain about popular things in media we don't like to feel better about ourselves

[Booyakasha]

So I'll tell you one of the big reasons I don't like Anakin, aside from all the evil and child-murdering and him being a galaxy-class butthole in general.

Like, if I were Anakin, immediately after the dumb celebration at the end of TPM, I'd have been hectoring Obi-Wan relentlessly to help me redeem my mom from literal slavery. Anakin's a pretty likeable, relatable kid (if slightly annoying). He's just won the eternal gratitude of an entire planet, and also (presumably) the Jedi Council. Did it never occur to him to ask Obes or Pads or Yodes or Palps or Jars or some friggin person to use their newfound clout and/or money to save his mother? It couldn't have been hard. Shmi was evidently worth less than the asking price of the racing pod that Anakin built out of trash and scrap and old radiators and paint can lids and busted VCRs and sh*t. (That's logic. Watto is fine with wagering Anakin for his pod in Qui-Gon's bet, but refuses to wager Anakin and his mom both.) Presumably Anakin could have bought her out of slavery himself, just by...you know, making a slightly-less-pretty lightsabre, or getting a less stupid-ass haircut. Less flashy robes. Whatever.

This is important.

One of Luke's earliest scenes is him coming back home to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru dead. They're a part of him, for all that he resents them a little because he's a dumb kid. Finding them murdered by the baddies is a nightmare in Technicolour----------we relate to Luke. It's a horrible moment, formative to his character. He cares.

What the hell are we supposed to feel in Episode II when Anakin suddenly remembers that he once had a lady-person in his life called a mother? Should we feel bad for him when the woman who bore and raised him, and whom he evidently forgot existed for about a decade, gets killed by sand-people? Should we not be saying to ourselves, "This could all very easily have been prevented by Anakin the jerk. Evidently Coruscant-to-Tatooine via rocket-ship is a less inconvenient trip than Milwaukee-to-Minot via train, and I'd make either trip in a heartbeat if it meant redeeming a loved one from slavery"?

Anakin cried when he left his mom, man. Did he just forget her in the interim? That's either so stupid, so horrible or so blisteringly insane that I don't even want to think about it. I think it would hurt me, or change me.

Why. Why is he such a gross creep.

Character: ruined. Please, somebody, unruin him. I want to like Anakin, and yet the prequels just won't let me!

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

The Jedi counsel was obtuse in everything they did, and Anakin had to disobey them when he sensed her suffering just to go save her. I wouldn't blame him.

[Booyakasha]

If the Jedi Council wouldn't try to redeem a Jedi kid's mom from slavery as a matter of course, then the Jedi Council can kiss my ass.

Oh, and seriously---------who the hell builds a racing pod out of garbage? 'Let's see, this is going to be cruising along at a cool six-hundred MPH or so----------should I save up my money and buy a new alternator, or simply fashion one out of old Mr. Pibb cans and Gorilla Glue?' I mean, I respect his engineering prowess (heck, I needed my mom's help to build the Black Seas Barracuda when I was eight, and the Black Seas Barracuda's top speed is 'however fast Boo can walk whilst carrying it'); I just wonder a little about his judgment.

Wait, is Anakin secretly one of the Cosby Kids? They made stuff out of trash all the time. Why weren't Fat Albert and Dumb Donald cheering Anakin on at the track? I wanna know.

[CaptHayfever]

I gotta admit, a nice rousing "HEY HEY HEY" would have immensely improved Episode I.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

'HEY ANI!!! YOU GOTTA WIN!!!'

...waitaminute. Jar Jar sounds a bit like Dumb Donald. And their names are both alliterative. I mean, think of when Jar Jar screams 'WEESA GOIN HOME!' in TPM, and then picture him with a big dumb pink knit cap on. What does Dumb Donald look like without his hat?

Have we finally discovered the truth? Because if this is the truth, the truth is dumb. Dumber than Donald. Weirder than Harold.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Something to legitimately improve TPM would be another lightsaber battle. As good as the fight we got was, another would help the film not drag as hard.

[X-3]

I am legitimately annoyed by the name 'Skywalker Saga' and how commonly it's used nowadays. It'd be like if Hasbro bought Zelda and started calling the games 'the Link Saga' and everyone started going, "Ah yes, Ocarina of Time is my favorite in the Link Saga."

[Booyakasha]

^I can't even fathom that.

Far as I'm concerned, it's "the real ones", "the prequels (*scoff*)", and "the new garbage". If you need to lump them together, why not just call them 'the Star Wars movies'. That's pretty all-encompassing. Fewer syllables, plus people have been calling them that for decades.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

I call them "the muppet ones", "the good ones," and "the woke ones".

[CaptHayfever]

^So...the prequels are the woke ones? 'Cause there's more muppets in Last Jedi alone than in the entire prequel trilogy.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Well, some people do think Jar Jar is gay.

[Booyakasha]

Well, I think Jar Jar is actually Luke's real dad. Like, Padme was real bored and lonely one night while Anakin was out doing dumb Jedi crap, and she started in on the wine, and then the sherry, and then the cooking sherry, and then she called Jar Jar, needy and thirsty at three AM, under the pretense of some political horsesh*t. So he shows up, a little sleepy-eyed and worse for wear himself, and he sees Pads (early 00s Natalie Portman, I'll remind you), silly drunk in her underoos, clearly looking for the D, and Jar Jar tries to turn her down once, twicet, and then he just goes 'to hellsa with it' and takes her down to bonetown.

He regrets it after he sobers up. I mean, he was trying to be kind to one friend (Pad), and yet betrayed another (Ani). He's a good person deep down, so he wants to come clean, but Padme doesn't remember it at all, and he knows he can never try to make it right with Anakin the crazy murdering psycho, so he just swallows his pride and lets Anakin think he got Padders pregnant, in spite of it all. 'They're my tadpoles,' he says to himself in his stupid annoying voice, and yet he can't do anything about it. That's the real tragedy of the prequels, man.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

What a shame you don't write fan fics, Boo. That was really good...as if you've had practice. You don't write them, do you?

[Booyakasha]

I will if you will.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Oh, I will. I'll do a DBZ one and you can do Blast Corps, then we'll co-author an erotic crossover. Goku riding the runaway nuke is gonna be steamy.

[Booyakasha]

Not as steamy as when we learn about Thunderfist's torrid love affair with Majin Buu (spoiler alert------------there's a reason Thunderfist is missing a hand).

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Steam aplenty but we gotta tug at the heart strings as well as the gens. Brief glimpse at a draft of my forthcoming work:

One day Wesley is balling his eyes out over his lame disabled body so loud that Dende can hear him with his super Namekian hearing, all the way from the Lookout and peers down upon his sad soul. Watching over him for weeks, as Earth's guardian only of course--totally professional, rends Dende's heart, and he's moved deeply to tears. One day he just can't take it anymore and descends upon Wesley in his sleep. Dende uses his magic to restore his body to its optimal, fully functional state and Wesley wearily opens his eyes, locking sight with Dende.

Cue Shrek is Love video clip but with Dende and Wesley instead.

[Booyakasha]

I made a really funny post, and then deleted it because of its prurient nature. Suffice it to say you all would have cackled yourselves literally insane, clapping each other on the backs amidst howls of demoniacal laughter. And yet, because the site is PG, I knew I had to do the right thing and delete it. Even I can behave myself sometimes.

...

...

...sometimes.

[EDIT:The post was about Amber and Spike having rough coitus. It was hilarious.]

[Booyakasha]

You know...

I relate to Luke. I wanna be like him one day.

People make fun of him, call him a weenie and a crybabbie and all. 'Wahhh! I wanted to go to Tosche Station and drink sodie pops with my idiot friends! Then I wanted to play with my stupid T-16 model a whole bunch.' Fine, fine, he's a kid, call him dumb and whiney, huck a beer-can at him if you like.

He grows up so much in that one horrible scene, when he gets back to the homestead, to find Owen and Beru dead.

Not just dead-----smouldering skeletons. Is that just a setting on the stormtroopers' ray-guns? They go from 'stun' to 'skeletonise'? What the hell is that? More importantly, how is skeletonising people a justifiable response to "these innocent randos happened to find evidence in an ongoing police investigation"?

The Empire is jerks, man, and Luke is a rough tough little sumbitch. I mean, if I came home to find my family all dead, burnt to crumbs and carrots by the ratzis, I'd probably scream myself stupid in pure horror, then begin crying myself all hollow in inconsolable grief, and then hit the liquor cabinet six ways from sunday. Good on Luke---------he keeps it together. He's one of the real ones, man.

[EDIT: The fam and I watched 'A New Hope' together last summer. Me, Ma and my sister's family. Emmy was sat on my lap. It was her first time watching.

When that scene hit, she hugged me hard and cried, and I hugged her right back. That's tough biz, I don't care how old you are.)

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Among the three main Star Wars protagonists I'm familiar with (Anakin, Luke, and Galen) Luke is the most "real" kinda guy. His "good guy stays good" story is a bit dry compared to Anakin's good-to-bad and Galen's bad-to-good tales but it makes him a more relatable character, which helps the story.