Obviously he didnt deserve the harassment he got regardless. Like even if he was dogshit he wouldnt have deserved that. But I just rewatched Phantom Menace for the first time in awhile. Young friend of mine are going through the star wars movies because she was a sheltered homeschooled kid and hadnt seen them. Already did the OT, starting on the prequels.
Other than the obvious "oh wow, the racial stereotypes of literally three different alien species in this movie is insane", the main takeaway my rewatch gave me is "wow ok, Jake LLoyd is average at worst". He was just like, a regular kid actor? Nothing to write home about like say, young Maise Williams or something. But absolutely fine?
Yeah the kid was fine and of course didn't deserve the hate.
The whole movie would have worked better if it just started Anakin closer to the age he is in attack of the clones though. The Jedi are already calling him too old anyway, and it would have made the hotshot piloting fit better and also the start of the Anakin/Padme thing less weird.
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I feel like so much of the story of the prequels just works better as allusions in the OT.
You get the gist of it.
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that would also match the Roman method of dictatorship from Julius Caesar, who took power after coming back as a embittered war veteran with tons of gripes against the senate
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Actually, having the Jedi be child abductors fits perfectly with their mind controlling magic cop bullshit. Both the Dark and Light sides of the Force are evil and fascist and the false dichotomy of the Force should be problematized more.
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Yes, obviously the liberal centrist thing of going "both sides bad therefore the middle is good" is braindead and Star Wars Fans tend to have poor media literacy and political consciousness, but making the Jedi into Actually Good mind controlling space cops is very much not the solution.
Also, it's always seemed strange to me that the trademark Light side Force power is self evidently categorically evil (mind control) but the trademark Dark side Force power isn't (lightning)
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Haven't seen the acolyte, probably won't bother to because although anti-woke grifter tears are usually a decent heuristic for good media even non-deranged reviews I've seen of it are universally bad.
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That's kinda where The Last Jedi was going and I liked it a lot, until the movie abruptly switched course just like everything else in that cursed film.
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I think it's telling that the best Star Wars thing of all time (Andor) had absolutely no Force users or lightsabers whatsoever.
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This was me as a kid.
And now
The Jedis are so sus. I'm glad they got destroyed. Fucking weirdos