u/No_Butterscotch2367

I think he laughs more than any character in the series, especially when he’s in his deformed evil guy form.

He delights in evil, smiles cheekily whilst Vader is mourning Padme.

Laughs his ass off whilst in mortal danger fighting the most powerful Jedi of the era (Yoda).

Among other many other times.

He doesn’t seem to be fighting any inner conflict or regret or any type of dark emotion at all yet he’s the most powerful dark side user of them all.

All of his apprentices’ powers are fuelled by dark emotions,
Maul : pure hatred,

Dooku : jaded, disdain

Anakin : fear, hatred

Whilst their master is just laughing his way through life causing havoc - why is he able to use the dark side in this way without it having an emotional source ?

One of the least is when he takes the mask off imo lol, it’s a great piece of acting by Sebastian Shaw but it doesn’t feel like the same person we later saw in the prequels.

For one he’s now British whereas Anakin has an American (or Canadian) accent.

Vader is also very emotionless a lot of the time whereas Anakin is more volatile.

This can be put down to character development and his subdued inner rage, but are there any moments that stick out in the OT where you think - that felt like Anakin in there.

This is the book Cormac McCarthy found dusty in an old library sometime in the early ‘60s that inspired Blood Meridian. Few know how many of the depictions in that book weren’t invented by McCarthy.

The book is a war diary by Samuel Chamberlain, a young man from Boston who rode in the real John Joel Glanton’s gang of scalpers in 1849, as is depicted in Mccarthy’s Blood Meridian.

If you thought Judge Holden wasn’t scary enough wait till you hear that he was a real person mentioned in this book, this excerpt is from Sam’s description of him (not Mccarthy’s) and is claimed by him to be true:

The second in command, now left in charge of the camp, was a man of gigantic size who rejoiced in the name of Holden, called "Judge" Holden of Texas. Who or what he was no one knew but a cooler blooded villain never went unhung; he stood six feet six in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression. But when a quarrel took place and blood shed, his hog-like eyes would gleam with a sullen ferocity worthy of the countenance of a fiend. His desires was blood and women, and terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him when bearing another name, in the Cherokee nation and Texas; and before we left Fronteras a little girl of ten years was found in the chapperal, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on her little throat pointed him out as the ravisher as no other man had such a hand, but though all suspected, no one charged him with the crime.

Holden was by far the best educated man in northern Mexico; he conversed with all in their own language, spoke in several Indian lingos, at a fandango would take the Harp or the Guitar from the hands of the musicians and charm all with his wonderful performance and out-waltz any poblana of the ball. He was "plum center" with a rifle or revolver, a daring horseman, acquainted with the nature of all the strange plants and their botanical names, great in geology and mineralogy, in short another Admirable Crichton [sc., the 16th-century Scottish prodigy and polymath], and
with all an arrant coward.

Not but that he possessed enough courage
to fight Indians and Mexicans or anyone else where he had the advantage in strength, skill, and weapons. But where the combat would be equal, he would avoid it if possible. I hated him at first sight and he knew it, yet nothing could be more gentle and kind than his deportment towards me; he would often seek conversation with me and speak of Massachusetts and to my astonishment I found he knew more about Boston than I did.

I’ve read the book, it’s an extremely interesting insight into the time.

It follows the style of adventure memoirs of the era with quite an exaggerated flamboyance to it.

However this description of a potential real life Holden sent a shiver down my spine, finding out the most evil character in fiction is in fact based on a real person, down to the finer details, was a harrowing moment.

Comanche Moon is a book I greatly enjoyed, but the parts with Captain Schull getting captured and losing his eyelids and the black Vaquero stuff were all really corny to me, I really enjoyed the bits about Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Famous Shoes - the Comanche POV stuff was actually really awesome.

Dead Man’s Walk is quite fun but again, there’s just a lot of ridiculous elements that make it feel more like a pulpy romp,

Streets of Laredo… is just a terrible book in so many ways even though I couldn’t not slightly enjoy it as I knew all the characters so well by now.

But Lonesome Dove is a true masterpiece, even won a Pulitzer Prize, and probably the best Western novel ever written (after Blood Meridian for me).

It’s just crazy to me that Larry seemed to cast all his subtlety and deftness aside when writing the other novels, it makes me question him as a writer - but then I reread Lonesome Dove and I’m blown away again.

Anyone else feel like this?

High honour ending makes me feel better inside.

But there’s something about the low honour ending that is just so damn badass and gritty, “Damn us both!” Before getting shot in the face is just metal as hell.

I feel like Arthur even when he’s high honour would say this was the death he deserved, regardless, I like it because it’s realistic.

High honour (which I also love) has that heroic epic western feel, but if you like stories that are not only sad but also DARK, this ending just hits so hard.

Micah sand Arthur slugging it out as two damned souls for no other reason than they want to kill each other is just COOLER than the other ending (not saying it’s better).

I’ve often wondered this, but I was too young when it came out to remember. Ofc we knew Anakin was Darth Vader - but curious if Palpatine had the same effect until he started revealing his clearly evil tendencies in ROTS.

Until then there aren’t really any obvious hints at his evil, unless you really know to look for them.

Was it surprise when he started trying to turn Anakin to the dark side in EP3, or was it already clear to you who he was?

Replica

Screenplay

5 pages

Sci-fi, psychological drama

Opening scene where family dynamics / world building is established.

Would love to know if the world / characters felt authentic and if the scene left you wanting to know more.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GjYzesiDbeEpI6XvrXUr50nrvHB52ujQcSHChoh-ieE/edit?usp=drivesdk

Anakin has all the traits of a genius savant autistic person.

First up, whatever you say he’s straight up weird in almost every social interaction, and though many have ascribed to bad acting can also be attributed to the character of Anakin being poor at mirroring social cues, which also explains his emotional outbursts.

Secondly, he’s a genius in niche categories like droid building / podracing from an early age, much like an autistic child who builds his own computer / becomes unbelievably adept at a video game way ahead of his years.

Yet none of this genius translates into social intelligence (in which he is well below average). He is incredibly easily manipulated, highly obsessive over the things that interest him, and downright blunderingly inept at hiding his inner feelings even when he tries to (Jedi council meetings).

He is also insanely cringe when trying to be romantic, though luckily for him strikingly handsome - so luckily Padme was able to overlook this.