Sunday, February 19, 2006

I can't get it out of my head

As you may know (from earlier posts), I saw Star Wars: Episode III yesterday.

There is something about it that bothers me. The fact that it does bother me bothers me even more.

It's that damn droid general (General Grievious, hence forth GG). Why the hell would the writer's make it cough and wheeze?

Since no one is reading (or at least commenting on) my blog, I have to make up arguments myself. Don't worry, I have no friends here, so I do this a lot anyway. (Maybe you should worry)

Towards the end, when GG is fighting Obi Wan, we see that it (GG) has organic parts (flesh around the eyes, internal organs), so you might believe that is the reason. But its throat is mechanical. Why build a voice box into the air intake when an electronic speech synthesizer seems more efficient? With the voice box you'd need a tongue and lips (or something similar) to produce speech. All the synthesizer needs is a speaker.

Darth Vader's doctors (technicians? mechanics?) apparently went with the synthesizer option (because you can hear him breathing while he talks). This makes sense in light of his burns. His throat and lungs were probably almost destroyed. We have seen that, in the Star Wars universe, mechanical prostheses are used instead of biological replacements. The dramatic change in his voice also supports this.

Later,

4 people have spouted off:

Qalmlea said...

I suspect the answer is "because the director liked it that way." Then again, maybe it was a software malfunction. ;^)

(Oh, and you have little to worry about on the arguing with self front; if anyone ever bugged my car on a long drive, well..., I suspect I would be locked up for a VERY long time)

John said...
Yeah, I bet you're right. Anyone who thought "JarJar Binks" was a good idea...
2/21/06, 6:58 PM
phil said...

Yeah, about the time that episode 1 came out, I figured that Lucas is now totally insane - not the half insane, half genius that he was in the 70's - totally insane

phil said...

If you strip all the Star Wars movies down to the most basic plot, episode I is episode IV, episode II is episode V, episode III is an anomoly because it has to tie into episode IV.

But I agree with your statement in the previous post about ending with the scene where Anakin was lying, burning, dying. In fact, when I saw it, I thought it was the end and I was getting up to leave when there was a scene change and they showed all the other stuff. (Yes - unfortunately, I paid to see this in the theater)

There are some inconsistencies between the original and the new movies. One is that Leia talks about remembering her mother, but if Amidala died just after Luke and Leia were born, Leia couldn't have remembered her - unless Leia is referring to her adopted mother who also happened to die when Leia was very young. I'm sure there are many other inconsistencies. I can't recall any now - probably because I've partially blocked it out or just don't care to remember.

I agree with you about the Droid General - he's not technically a droid, he's a cyborg. The coughing is just stupid. And I'm not totally sure, but he was supposed to have been a Jedi or something? I don't know. I only saw it once, it was quite a while ago, and I've tried to forget most of it.