So, as I was in the shower pondering how Livejournal is the Dark Side of the Internet Force and Blogging is the Light Side (now THERE is a controversal statement) it struck me why Episode 3 was so dissapointing.

It wasn’t the hokiness of “Nnnnnnooooooooooo”, nor the plot holes (obviously, Obi-Wan Kenobi just hates women, since Amidala was obviously to blame for Anakin going to the dark side, hence why he said Luke was their last hope. Yoda being a 900 year old green midget is more into equal opportunity), nor even the dialogue that started the phrase “Lucas-grade dialogue”, no, it was none of those.

You never get to see Liam Neeson as a ghost.

I’ll let you think about that for a second.

At the end, Yoda just sort of comes up with this, “Hey, Qui-Gon didn’t die really, lemme teach you how to become a ghost so one day you can rob Vader of his victory!” And that’s supposed to explain that. No real thought into how this works: like how Vader/Anakin was able to do it at the end of RotJ, or the sweet irony that Anakin was lusting for a way to have eternal life which is why he turned to the Dark Side, and here the Jedi actually have it (which, uhh, I guess is invalidated due to the previous point.) Instead of having an uplifting, hope-filled scene where Qui-Gon Jinn shows up all luminescent and wise… we get Yoda Exposition. And to me, the choice to do it that way sums up EVERYTHING about Episode 3.

–Dave