>
> The problem I have with this is that it's -already- inconsistent with what occurred in episodes IV through VI... unless C-3PO gets his memory wiped at some point, which is a cheesy dodge at best.

why? In fact, that would be consistant with both common sense and with episode 4. . . remember Uncle Owen saying he wanted Luke to have the droid's memory erased? No one acted all surprised at that, so it's clearly a common occurrance. . .as for the common sense aspect, a droid can have only so much memory. . .you'd have to purge stuff eventually, especially given the logical lifespan of a droid, in order to assimilate new information.



How come he didn't recognize Obi-Wan Kenobi's name (neither he nor R2 apparently had ever met or heard of him)?

R2 had heard of him. R2 said Obi-Wan was his OWNER! 3PO, if you'll recall, had trouble remembering who was on the ship he had just escaped from. why should it then be surprising that 3PO wouldn't remember someone he'd last seen in the clone wars?


> Why is it that he didn't know Darth Vader was Luke's father?

perhaps at one point he did, or perhaps he never knew. . . for all we know, in episode 2 or 3, Anakin's death will be faked so Palpatine can create Vader. We know Anakin gets rather severely injured because he has to wear the life-support suit, so it's logical to speculate that perhaps everyone but Palpatine *thought* he died. That's totally in keeping with the story.


>
> It's just too obvious that Lucas didn't intend for this relationship to exist until he started writing Episode I.

That's not true at all. Lucas knew the ENTIRE story, episodes 1 through 9, before he started writing 4. He only made 4 first because he realized that 1 was a little too intellectual, and less action-oriented, than 4, 5, and 6, and he knew he had to ensnare the public with a shoot-em-up first. It would appear to have worked.


>>As comic relief, he's mediocre at best, and he certainly isn't a dramatic character.

that's a matter of opinion. I personally had no problem with Jar Jar. I didn't see where anyone had any trouble understanding him, and most of what he did was funny.



>
> The explody-device taking out the tank didn't bother me that much, for the reason you mention here. The particular scene I'm referring to is one where Jar-Jar gets his foot caught in the wreckage of one of the robots, and then starts flailing around trying to get it off. Every time he does this, the droid's weapon fires, taking out a killer droid that was about to wax him. This goes on for a couple of minute, and it was just dumb.

boomy things and explody things. Love the descriptions ;) well, if you have a wall of androids marching at you, you could fire blindfolded and still hit something. It would have been much more lame if there had only been 3 or 4 androids.



(the jar jar speech stuff)
> If it were just me, I'd agree with you. But I'm not the only person that's said this. It's not a fatal flaw all by itself, but it's certainly another straw for the ailing camel.

I find it utterly fascinating that people are such expert linguists that they can pick up a chinese accent in the trade federation guys, and a jamaican accent in Jar Jar (an allegation which continues to baffle me) yet they cannot understand what Jar Jar is saying. You can't have it both ways. Either you're good enough to process accents or you're not.

>
> > I had no problem with it, and frankly I prefer such deviations in
> > speech -- after all, doesn't it make sense that different alien races
> > would speak differently?
>
> Absolutely. What about Yoda, Greedo, and Chewbacca (I'm going to bring these three up again later)? They all had speech patterns different from ours; in fact, two of them spoke different languages entirely.

according to the logic the "racism in TPM" camp displays, Yoda is a chinese parody. . . he's basically an alien Master Miogi from Karate Kid.



>
>
> > Try to figure out what the movie's saying, and THEN evaluate
> > whether those messages are racist or not. If everybody did that,
> > there would be a lot fewer frivolous accusations of it, and
> > the cases of genuine racism might get the attention they deserve.
>
> I don't think the overall message is all that racist. Rather the reverse, in fact. However, there does seem to be an undercurrent to the effect that it's alright to hate -some- races. Just the evil money-grubbing cowardly ones.


I once again find this fascinating. Let's look at the big "jar jar is jamaican" controversy. Look at some of the shows/movies that have black people in them. Martin. Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Boyz in the Hood. Saturday Night Live. Anything starring Chris Rock. EVERY ONE of those shows are INCREDIBLY racist. They portray blacks as sleazy, slutty, ignorant, uneducated slobs, yet not only does no one complain, but the very same black community that hates Jar Jar EMBRACES such shows! Why in the world would they pick on an alien from Star Wars before picking on Martin, a show about a sleazeball black man who's only interest is scoring with the slutty black women? Why wouldn't they pick on SNL's Nat X skits. . .or the "angry black security guard" skits? There are SO many shows that could legitimately be accused of racism LONG before you get to Star Wars. The real answer is that Martin wasn't in the headlines for months on end, and neither was SNL. Star Wars was very popular, and anything anyone said about it would probably be on CNN that night, so frankly, I believe people with a racism agenda went into the movie desperately trying to find anything they could brand as racist, whether it was plausible or not, simply so they could get publicity. Got news for those people. Publicity stunts don't impress me one bit.



>
> I don't. We have no other information about the race than what is shown in the movie, and when -every single character from a race- in the movie is presented in one way, we have to draw certain conclusions.

No we don't. Palpatine, Vader, and the Skywalkers are the same race, but they're obviously very different. Why should the same logic not hold true for the other races? Branding an alien race based on the behavior of 3 characters is stereotyping. . .


> As far as we're concerned, the members of the race presented in the work of fiction -are- the only members of that race.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Look at Star Trek. The only Klingons we see are the ones who are busy fighting someone. Therefore ALL klingons MUST be warriors, right? Actually thinking about it for 3 minutes should tell you this is an incorrect conclusion. They'd have to have cooks, bankers, janitors, support staff, etc. . .Limiting yourself to only what someone directly tells you is absurd. You are meant to draw your own conclusions from a work of fiction.




>
All the Hutts are supposed to be gangsters (I must admit that this implication is stronger the script notes and the book than the movie, but still).

we only see Jabba. How can you possibly infer this?

> > (4) *somebody* has to be the badguy -- how ludicrous (and even
> > racist) is it to assert arbitrarily that all movie badguys have
> > to be white males -- or how petty is it to say that for every non
> > white male badguy, a member of the same race must appear as a
> > counter-balancing goodguy?
>
> Alright. Here's where it's time to bring Greedo back. He was a badguy (albeit a minor one), and if he was white I -will- eat my hat. But he wasn't obviously a member of some other earth race, either.

I see. So you would insult the Chinese by saying they all have really big mouths, grey skin, and bugeyes? Who's making the racist statements now?
To see a bad guy in the movie and immediately shout "AHA! THAT is a CHINESE guy!" is, in my opinion, every bit as racist as you accuse Lucas of being.


> > On the other hand, these points are moot with me in the case of TPM,
> > because I do not believe there is a substantial enough correlation
> > between the alien race and the Asian race anyway.
>
> Um. Ok. I guess I can't disagree about what you do and don't see. But I'm not alone in perceiving things this way, so it's obviously not something that just popped into my head because I'm deranged.

hundreds of years ago, the pope was not alone in believing the earth was the center of the universe. That doesn't mean he was right.

>
> > Sure, they have a stronger resemblance to the Asian race than
> > to any other human race, but as I mentioned earlier, you can't
> > have an alien race that *doesn't* resemble one human race more
> > than another, particularly when actual humans are doing the voices.
>
> Yoda,
(Master Miogi)
Greedo,
(Italian mafia)
and Chewbacca
(any primitive culture that doesn't wear clothes).
And Jabba the Hutt
(Buddha. He's fat, bald, and has slanted eyes. Must be racist against Buddhists)



And whatever the hell the pair of folks in the bar were
(twisty-nose man
(must've been targeting anyone with down's syndrome)
and his furry friend
(making fun of the english and their werewolves.)). And the
Ewoks
(anyone who's short).
And Admiral Ackbar
(the Ubangi. Look at his lip.).
And the bounty hunters.
Which bounty hunter? We can't say boba fett because we never actually SEE him. . just his helmet. the others were just a passing camera glimpse, and showed no real characteristics of their races.
>

The whole problem with your argument is that Sam is right. If someone's got a big enough chip on their shoulder, they can say ANY element of ANY movie is racist somehow, no matter how absurd it is. . and in today's era of political correctness, they're bound to find someone to hop on the bandwagon to avoid appearing to be racist. I have been accused of being a white supremicist merely because i don't see any jamaican traits in Jar Jar.