johnnygoging: but the thing is that he's portrayed as this incredibly powerful character. with power comes conflict and responsibility, and with that comes character. it's like for example, jaquin phoenix's character in gladiator was a good example of weakness, petulance and self-centred nature but you could take him seriously as the villain. this guy don't have that. in some ways he's too dumb to be his character, and in other ways he's too weak to be his character. the character he is right now just doesn't work as a major villain for me. he's like the guy that tries to imitate the hero and gets killed off.
You'd be surprised by how realistic that is. Forest Whitaker's Idi Amin Dada (or check Barbet Schroeder's doc for the real one) is an exemple of this. Mafiosi tend to be little jerks pathetically mimicking hollywoodian gangsters, which doesn't make them much less dangerous. Fascisms were basically collections of petty cretins with disproportionate power. And I won't even go into current US politics. Thing is, evil is a matter of banal stupidity in dangerous contexts more often than a matter of genius planning and twisted brainpower.
I was disappointed by that new Star Wars movie being an over-the-top remake of the original ("this time, our death star can destroy THE WHOLE GALAXY IN ONE SHOT - oooooh"), but I appreciated the points where it dared to be different. And one point is the lack of such cliché evil genius baddy, and its replacement with the more infuriatingly lame, less glamourous, less predicted, little-twat-in-charge. Nice subversion of hollywoodian standards. I first felt like a missing stair step, but that's precisely because we're so used to expect some conventions that we almost feel cheated when we're deprived of them.
It may be the one element that will keep me mildly curious.
MadalinStroe: And let's not forget the token merchandise next to Chewie. What the heck is that... thing... pet?
It's called a Midichlorian.
