Something illogical about AOTS - plot hole *SPOILERS*
 

Anakin had dreams of Padme dying at childbirth. Because of those dreams he converted to the dark side. Padme died at childbirth because of his conversion.

This is totally wrong and makes no sense. It is a paradox and a totally lame way to tell the story.

It is the irony of his choice...he turned to save her...but in turning he killed her...

It makes plenty of sense. I didn't have a problem with it. Anakin let his emotions control him, and in the end the world he was striving to protect was the world he destroyed with his own hands. All the while he was suspecting everybody else being against him and his worst enemy, he was his worst enemy. It's a theme intergral to many great dramas, so why not here?

Actually that was the whole point.

Yes it is ironic, but it is also impossible - makes no sense.

How do I change thread title? I meant ROTS, not ATOS...

Exactly! It makes perfect sense. I'm not seeing the problem here. Anakin's downfall is in the choices he makes. That's the difference between he and Luke. Their journey mirrored one another, except Lucas made the right choice when it matter most. Anakin made a series of mistakes along the way, until he makes the wrong choice in the moment of truth, a choice that he thinks is for the right reason.

The thing that makes it so powerful for me is that his mistake is what cost him the one thing he was trying to protect.

i dont see a problem here
he was able to see the future
and it happened
yes, his choice made it happened.. but thats how the future works.

if you *really* thought you could see the future.. you would also have to *believe* that its destined to happen, and nothing you can do can control that
obviously palpatine did a better job of seeing the future.. since he planned all of it out

First of all we are talking about a universe where a little green dude who walks with a cane can lift enitire ships with a magical "force" so I don't see how it is impossible.

What is so confusing about this...Anakin saw the future...a future he caused. He thought that his choice would avoid that future, but instead he caused it. Just like Luke in ESB...he saw visions of his friends in pain, and instead of rescuing them, his friends had to rescue him.

From ESB:

Luke: I saw a city in the clouds. They were in pain.
Yoda: It is the future you see.
Luke: Will they die?
Yoda: Difficult to see. Always in motion is future.
Luke: I've gotta go to them.
Yoda: Decide you must what to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could but you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered.

What I don't get is that if Yoda can share visions of others through the force, then why doesn't he know that Anakin is having these visions? and if he does know...why doesn't he do something more about it than say: "fear of loss is the path to the dark side". I don't think that Anakin really cared about the dark side taking over him. I think he was just afraid of losing Padme, and was willing to do anything possible to stop it from happening.

There are no plotholes!!!

http://www.yankeesupply.com/images/18wheeler.gif

But he was seeing this future at the time he hadn't yet made those choices. It was his visions of THAT future that caused him to make those choices that lead to that future. It is a paradox. A form of the chicken-egg problem. It's common in stories with time-travel and constitutes weak story telling. The only possible explanation is that Palpatine had caused him to have those visions in the first place to manipulate him towards the dark side (that's if he had been able to actually see the future and it's possible forms...) That is not implied in any episode. We are led to understand that he is simply very cunning and is able to manupulate the events (present) in such a way that all outcomes assure his victory.

This doesn't mean Yoda saw anything. He was going on what Luke told him and tried to see, but couldn't.

I would guess he doesn't know because, as explained in AOTC the Jedi's ability to use the force has diminished...and that the dark side is clouding everything. By ROTS Mace seems to have sensed that the dark side surrounds Palpatine...but by then it is too late...he has his hooks in the Senate and Anakin. I also agree that Anakin didn't really care about the dark side...he just cared about the powers it could give him...he has been trapped by Palpatine.

I view this in one of two ways.

It could be a future that was fated to happen no matter what. Much like Oedipus, who is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. No matter what Oedipus tries to do to avoid this fate, he simply can't, and it comes true. So perhaps Anakin was also screwed no matter what, and Palpatine just used Anakin's dream to his advantage.

Or, it's a POSSIBLE future, much like the one Luke sees in Empire when he experiences Han and Leia in pain. In this example, Anakin makes decisions that cause this future to happen. Perhaps if he hadn't chosen the dark side, this possible future ("always in motion, is the future") wouldn't have come true.

-HM

Ok...it really isn't a paradox...it is more like irony. Anakin saw the visions...thought he could prevent him...but in the end...he was seeing the future he would cause. He didn't understand the visions. Also consider the fact that the prophecy said he would destroy the Sith, while Obi Wan and the others think that the phophecy is wrong...in the end it is correct, cause he does indeed destroy the Sith. All of this is "from a certain point of view".

Attack of the Sloanes? I see the OP is an Alias fan.

I agree that there is no problem. Of course you could always say that since time travel/seeing the future is not reality, it make no sense to hold it to the standards of time and space as we know it now. Maybe if time travel/seeing the future ever does happen, it will be b/c we find out everything we thought was true in fact was wrong.

Who is to say that Palpatine wasn't the one to plant those thoughts in his head? Palp saw a future path that would turn Anakin to the dark side and went with it. Anakin then started down a slippery slope that ended in all that he cared for being lost and he then had nothing left but the dark side.

ORACLE: I'd ask you to sit down, but you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.

NEO: What vase?
[turns to look around and his elbow knocks a vase from the table. It breaks against the linoleum floor.]

ORACLE: The vase.

NEO: I'm sorry.

ORACLE: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.

NEO: How did you know...?

ORACLE: What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything.

Blah, blah... Stop trying to read too much into it. He saw the vision before (mother dying) and it happened. He saw the Padme vision and it happened. Nothing changed. That's pretty much it.

Yummy.

Maybe, Palp "encouraged" her death at childbirth. This would make a better reason for her death than a broken heart.

Wow, have you ever read any myths? Fairy tales?

This sort of storytelling device is pretty common -- it's called FATE. By trying to stop an event you cause it to happen. There's nothing illogical or pardoxical about it.

And it's hardly weak storytelling.

In both of the first two movies Padme was at the heart of epic battles, and escaped unharmed, but she does nothing for the entire EpIII and dies because it's convenient.

The "lost the will to live" explanation was horribly weak. If that were possible I wouldn't have made it past the Padme-Anakin "love" scene.

"Wizard..."
http://xenavideo.wz.cz/video_soubory/simpsons%20(4).jpg

You know, you could go around and post that pic in every single thread in the subforum, and it would make perfect sense

I'm sorry for not being clear enough. This is not simple "fate", as Anakin's decision to take that path was caused by the consequences of taking that path. This is the paradox and it has nothing to do with destiny.

The response quoting Matrix had a similar example, but in that case the logic is straightforward. Oracle knew that Morpheus would break the vase when she warned him about it.

To respond to your response, consider this: Why would anyone feel compelled to try to prevent an event from happening if the event wouldn't normally happen anyway? Where is the compulsion coming from?

because he didn't know that his turn to the darkside would end up killing her, the vision was of her screaming in childbirth, not in a force death grip.
what's happening then is then; for us the movie watcher, what we see now is then. i've gone cross eyed..

Frightening, yet comforting, isn't it?

There is no paradox. He had a vision and it happened. No more, no less.

It's pretty easy.

His point is that it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't had the vision.

Yummyyummy is correct, it is a paradox. The whole idea of time travel and seeing the future does present a paradox. Where yummyyummy is mistaken is in the conclusion that it is bad story telling. It's a major theme frequently explored in the best science fiction. It's one of the theme's explored in The Matrix, it's been repeatedly examined by Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Dick, and all the other greats of the sci-fi genre.

No the paradox is that it may have been his fate and it didn't matter what he did, or it may not have been his fate but by making choices based on a vision he changed destiny.

Padme was the least of Palpatine's concern. He had wanted her dead from the get-go, going back TPM, but had great difficulty in killing her. He probably knew that Anakin's bad temper would turn on her and thus would be the easiest way to get rid of her.

I thought the "twist" where Anakin's decision to join the dark side to save Padme, only to have the opposite happen, was a very good plot point. Anakin was so vulnerable at this point, that he risked everything...and lost it all.

Maybe this is just me, but watching it, I had the sense that the emperor put that dream into Skywalker's head so he could use it to turn him. Notice he doesn't have the dream until he's at the capitol, close to the emperor. The entire rescue scene was staged by the emperor for the purpose of bring Skywalker to him (presumably so he can plant this idea in his mind).

The emperor knows Skywalker's history and their friendship makes it reasonable to believe Skywalker has told him about his dreams of his mother and his failure to act. Why wouldn't a Sith lord use this information to get what he wanted?

Anyway, I may be way off, but that's how it played out in my mind as I watched the movie.

[QUOTE=KnightLerxst]I also agree that Anakin didn't really care about the dark side...he just cared about the powers it could give himQUOTE]

This is the definition of the dark side, no?

It's not a plothole. Believe me, I've piled on ROTS for having plenty of plot inconsistencies, but this isn't one of them. Besides, if something like this bothers you, then forget about ever watching The Terminator, Minority Report, 12 Monkeys, etc. Paradoxes are dealt with in sci-fi all the time.

Plus, it's not like something like this is unprecedented in a Star Wars film. Empire had a similar plotline with Luke having the vision of Han and Leia in pain.

In Terminator, the only paradox that remains (after T3) is that the leader of the resistance is the son of the guy who came back in time to protect his mother. There is a logical explanation for this, however, if you conclude that her original son was the son of someone else and he too would have been the leader of the resistance. It was her son's fate to be the leader, no matter who the father is.

In Minority Report, the paradox at the end (he was supposed to kill him but didn't) just illustrates that there is no fate and that people's choices and thus the future can never be predicted with certainty.

In 12 monkeys there was nothing that could be seen as a paradox. Bruce Willis simply could not change the past. In fact, the future's government also realized that it is impossible and didn't try to alter the past. Thet just tried to gather information.

Also, don't assume that just because of this plot hole (the paradox) I didn't enjoy SW3. I enjoyed it very much and will be seeing it again.

Finally, in SW6, Luke's vision of Hahn and Leia had no paradox. They really were in pain, and would have been no matter what Luke did. They weren't in pain BECAUSE Luke went there.

This is a completely retarded thread discussion. The irony of the situation WAS the whole point of it. It is done intentionally, it isn't a plot hole. Anakin had a vision of the future, but its only a partial vision. What he doesn't see is that he is the cause of her death.

You think predicting the future is an exact science? There is no paradox here, only and oxymoron. And that oxymoron is you my friend.

It's funny that you would be insulting me. Either way, I've reported this personal attack to the moderators.

Is being called an oxymoron a bad thing? Not even sure what that means. I do think it is a little silly to say Lucas screwed up when we are talking about something that isn't even reality and as a result, there is no right or wrong answer. So in this case, Lucas intended for him to have a vision (with Palps help or not) that lead him to fulfill this vision in the end. I don't have a problem with it. Hopefully it wasn't such a big issue for you to make you dislike the film. Sucks for you if it did.

John Connor was raised to be a survivalist and to be the leader of the resistance because his mother was told of his future.

Second, SkyNet was built after they reverse engineered technology based on the parts of the Terminator that were recovered after the first one came back in time. Had the Terminator not come back to kill Sarah Connor, they wouldn't have developed the technology in the same time frame that allowed John Connor to be the leader of the resistance...

The paradox in Minority Report is that Anderton began searching for Leo Crow because of the pre-crime prediction. Anderton would not have been looking for Crow without the prediction. Had he not been looking for him he wouldn't have killed him... He wouldn't have been looking for him if not for the prediction...

The paradox in 12 Monkeys is that Cole's psychological problems stem from him as a child, witnessing his own death in the airport.

An oxymoron is a "contradiction in terms". Calling me that makes no sense, so it was just a "clever" way of calling me a moron. I never suggested that "time-travel" and seeing the future is "hard science". I do, however, expect plot twists so significant as that to make sense. That was the ultimate question that's been plaguing Star Wars fans for decades (ok, so I exaggerate). "How did Anakin turn to the dark side?" The answer we're given makes no sense.

But don't think I disliked the film. I liked it very much. I know it's just a story and don't really care so much about the details. I've learned a long time ago to just shut off my brain during the movies and anjoy the show.