PT An Analysis of the Final Battle in TPM... Mirroring or Rehash?

With the release of The Force Awakens a debate has arisen about the difference between rehashing and mirroring. While reading various opinions on the matter, one of the more prominent comparisons that comes up is the similarities between the final battles of ANH, TPM, and TFA. What has struck me as odd is how many people, lover or hater alike, seem to not understand what is going on in the final battle in TPM. There seems to be an assumption by many that Anakin helps save the day just as his Son saves the day all those years later during the battle of Yavin, however, if we pay attention to the movie we see that this is not true!

The first thing that needs to be understood is the function of each step of the plan Padme had come up with. Once this is understood we see that, in fact, the mission to blow up the droid control ship was an utter failure, and in fact Anakin's heroic moment was a hollow and empty victory that meant nothing in saving the day!

At the meeting where Padme reveals her plan we see what the purpose of each phase was.We find out that the plan is to capture the Viceroy in order to force him to negotiate a new treaty. We see the Gungan army was just a diversion to pull the droid army out of the city so that Padme's group could infiltrate Theed easier. Then it is revealed that the purpose of the space mission had nothing to do with the overall plan succeeding or failing. The purpose of the space mission was to knock out the droid control ship so as to spare as many gungan lives as possible!

All of this is established in dialogue in the movie!

So as we see from the movie itself, the success of Padme's plan all hinged on whether or not they could capture the Viceroy. We see that it is a fact that the mission to knock out the droid control ship actually has nothing to do with whether or not the overall plan succeeds. The purpose of that mission was to knock out the droid army so as to spare as many gungan lives as possible.

Why was the mission a failure?

If one pays attention to the movie, we clearly see that the space mission was a failure. The purpose of the mission was to knock out the droids before the gungan lines were broken. We see that this doesn't happen! The Gungans are in fact overrun resulting in many of them dying, being captured, or being chased off into the swamps. The whole purpose of the space mission was to prevent exactly this from happening! So as we can see, the mission failed.

Why is Anakin's heroic moment an empty or hollow victory?

Anakin's heroic moment, IMHO, is a hollow and empty victory. As I pointed out above, the Gungan Army had already been routed resulting in many Gungans being killed. So by the time Anakin blows up the control ship, his heroic deed means nothing. It doesn't save any of the Gungans as the battle was well over, and the droid army was in the process of moving prisoners. Furthermore, even if Anakin had not destroyed the ship, Padme succeeds in her part of the plan, meaning that the droid army would have been deactivated anyway.

So with the Gungan’s routed, and being rounded up as prisoners, and the Queen mere moments away from capturing the Viceroy and ending the occupation/war anyway, Anakin’s moment didn’t mean anything.

Why is that? I know some would say it’s bad writing, but, I beg to differ. The reason being is because again at the meeting where the plan is talked about, Lucas (through dialogue) tells us that the space mission ultimately doesn’t mean anything to the overall victory of the plan. He then goes on to show that the thing the space mission was supposed to prevent, actually happens…

Rehash or Mirroring?

So many want to tag the final battle of TPM as a rehash of ANH, especially lately in defense of TFA. However, I think this is a brilliant piece of mirroring.

Obviously the TPM final battle shares themes, and concepts that are in the ANH final battle, there is no denying that. However, as with many of Lucas’s use of mirroring, those similarities are often cues for us to look deeper into what we are seeing.

We have a Skywalker, flying a single man fighter, against a tyrannical group. There are more similarities, but, I think most get the idea. However, lets look at the differences.

Luke volunteers of his own free will, Anakin stumbles into the battle. Luke’s deed prevents a planet from being destroyed, a Rebellion from being eliminated, and prevents a huge loss of life. As I detailed above, Anakin’s deed doesn’t do anything in the grand scheme of things. It’s an empty victory, especially when compared to what his Son will do all those years later.

The mirroring is between Father and Son, and the path’s they will take. Luke will go on to make choices that are opposite of his Father as we see play out throughout the OT. The final battles are a reflection of this. Luke will of course have a hiccup here or there, but, ultimately his deeds at the battle of Yavin are a reflection of the man he will become.

Anakins deed is a sign of things to come with him. Because of the path Anakin will ultimately choose, most everything that he does as a Jedi, as a good person, is meaningless, much like his destruction of the Droid Control Ship is meaningless. His career as a Jedi is empty much like his destroying that ship is. Personal victories that don’t mean anything.


I think it’s a great piece of mirroring, just like the scene in ROTS aboard General Grievous’s ship when Anakin kills Dooku, and the mirroring between Father and Son when Luke refuses to take that step when pushed by an on looking Palpatine…

 

What a brilliant and insightful post. You have completely changed my outlook on that scene!

Thank you!

 

Good observations, but whether mirroring or rehashing the whole sequence is brought down (IMO) by the silliness of JarJar accidentally destroying TF droids, then cutting to Anakin accidentally destroying TF ships ("oops"), then back to more zany accidental JarJar shenanigans. The whole thing should've been accompanied by Benny Hill music.

It also suffered from Lucas' increasing attitude of "more is better". In ANH the climactic sequence was the Death Star attack with some reaction shots from Yavin & the Death Star. It was tight & focused with only one major action set piece. In ESB there were two, Luke vs Vader & Leia & Chewie's escape. I worked brilliantly with both stories converging in the end. In RotJ Lucas pushed it to three: the space battle, the fight on Endor & the Emperor's throne room. It's debatable how well this meshed together. Alot of fans like to fast fwd through the Endor stuff to get to the other two. Fact is the more of these concurrent threads you introduce the greater the chances of one of them not working so well. But, Lucas decided to double down for TPM & intercut between no less than four action sequences (space battle, Gungan battle, the Queen's mission, lightsaber fight!). It's just too much. No wonder there's that footage of GL after his test screening saying "...I may've gone too far in a few places!".
Fortunately he reigned it in for the next two prequels & they had far better & more focused end sequences, IMO.

 

Not a rehash for me. Of course there's some callbacks to ANH going on, but the end of Menace felt fresh to me thanks to the wonderfully colorful ground battle and the fact that Anakin is a bit of an accidental hero, which I think adds nicely to the ambiguity of whether or not accepting him as a Jedi at the end of the film was the proper course of action. Plus there's no trench run or super weapon. Just the destruction of the droid ship, which in turn shuts off the droid army. I actually see it as a slant rhyme with ROTS given that Anakin's actions in that film likewise instigate the immediate shutdown of the Jedi.

 

Nice analysis. I had noticed that the destruction of the droid ship didn't accomplish much, but hadn't thought of it in terms of how it illuminates the differences between Anakin and Luke and their destinies. Not only that Anakin's victory is hollow, but how he's impetuously winging it and isn't really in control of what he's doing, a tendency that continues through the rest of his life.

 

IMO destroying the DCS achieved alot. Not only did it save the surviving Gungans from being captured (possibly killed), it removed the key piece of leverage from the hands of the TF. If Anakin fails the TF have thousands of active droids on the planet. A Gungan army held hostage, countless Naboo citizens at gunpoint & who knows how many other droids ready to be dispatched to the planet at a moments notice. In that case the TF still had massive negotiating power. All the Naboo have is Gunray. That's significant but not necessarily a trump hand compared to the TF still controlling the entire planet. Padme says to Gunray "Now we will discuss a new treaty". Compare the negotiating position of the TF with the droids all still active & reinforcements ready to go, to their position with their armies completely gone. It's chalk & cheese. If Anakin hadn't knocked out the ship there would've been a stand off. Perhaps the other TF leaders in their greed would've been prepared to sacrifice Gunray & destroy the Palace. End of negotiations. That's the more profitable business move rather than caving in. Or they could simply threaten to kill every Naboo & Gungan if Gunray isn't immediately released. If they had Padme would've had to agree rather than see her people slaughtered. One thing's for sure, the TF went from having many options & enormous leverage to being entirely at the mercy of the Naboo. Thanks to Anakin.

 

Great point, hadn't thought of it that way. The Trade Fed still had the Naboo in a checkmate situation if it werent for Annie. Hooray for lil Annie

 

Everyone knows you never disagree with Weird Al: "Little hotshot flew his plane & saved the day"

 

Interesting thoughts, unfortunately it is not backed up by the reality that is in the movie, only how you think things should work.

It is clear that the story that is being conveyed to us the audience through dialogue and visual information is that the Viceroy is the man, and that there isn't anyone else. Everything flows through him, including military orders. We see other neimodians, but it is clear they are more handlers/pilots than order givers.

The droids report directly to the Viceroy. The dialogue from Padme is that once they capture the Viceroy they will be "lost and confused", again this is to convey very direct and specific information for us the audience to understand, that being, that the Viceroy is the leader and the way that the Trade Federation hierarchy is setup, there is no one under him that can take control.

Coupled that with what Qui Gon says about the Trade Federation type, they are cowards, and once the Vice Roy is cut off from the droids, and from Sidious, he would do anything if he felt it would save his skin! In fact that's pretty much what got the Trade Federation into the position they were in, being greedy cowards.

The final battle in TPM is setup like a game of Chess.

Use various pieces on the board to try and draw the queens protection away, and once the queen is exposed, and cutoff, it doesn't matter how many pieces are on the board, it's still checkmate. The case being here the Viceroy is the queen.

So again, the reality of the movie, not what you want the reality to be, is that the Viceroy is the one in charge, and there isn't anyone else in the Trade Federation that is in a position to make decisions if the Viceroy is captured and cutoff.

 

Just another example of dodgy writing. It works...as long as you don't think about it too much. Perhaps when Qui-Gon ended his comments by saying "there is great risk" he meant that almost every inhabitant on the planet can be killed by the TF armies if the DCS isn't knocked out, even if Gunray is captured. No getting around the fact that the Naboo have 1 hostage while the TF would have millions. Also that the Queen is a far more compassionate person than the TF leadership. She's more likely to bend to a threat of her people being killed.
Just bcs Padme says they'll be "lost & confused" doesn't mean we have to buy it as fact. Why would they be confused? Are they like the Borg - you take out the leader & they're like a bunch of zombies cut off from the collective? What's the line that gets repeated alot in the movie..."you assume too much". Someone should've said that to Padme. But...with Anakin taking out every droid soldier all over the planet it all worked out.

Still it's fine that you're willing to accept whatever a movie tells us Mike. To be consistent I'm sure you do the same with TFA

 

The Battle of Naboo actually mirrors the Battle of Endor, with a dash of the Battle of Yavin thrown in for good measure.
The Battle of Starkiller Base mirrors all three.

 

Agreed but I think TFA's last act easily mirrors RotJ more than the others. Unlike in ANH they had to fly inside the station to destroy it, & it was intercut with a lightsaber battle & with Han needing to destroy/weaken the "shield" for the fighters to be able to land the killer blow. It had RotJ written all over it. Alot of the rehash crowd seemed to miss that. Guess "ANH 2.0" just sounds like a catchier headline

 

So you disagree with it and it becomes dodgy writing? Quite convenient, but, that's your prerogative to feel that way. Cutting off the leader from their army or straight out killing them in order to win a war, or the old idiom of cutting off the head of the snake is a common motif in movies, mythology, storytelling:

Gangs of New York, the Priest is killed and the Dead Rabbits stop fighting.

Wizard of Oz, the witch is killed and everything is great and beautiful and the wicked witches own army declares loyalty to Dorothy

Mad Max: Fury Road, once Immortan Joe is dead and it is made clear to those at the Citadel, his war boys allow the survivors up the elevator.

Lord of the Rings, the final battle has the armies of man at the edge of peril, until the One Ring falls into Mount Doom, killing Sauron and scattering any surviving Orcs into the wilds.

Game Of Thrones does this with leaders over and over...

Or Maybe, just maybe, you should look to a real life battle, the Battle of Issus, where Alexander the Great rode straight through the Persian lines straight for the opposing King, causing the King to flee the field. Once his men saw that the King had fled the field, they knew the battle was lost, gave up, and declared loyalty to Alexander the Great.

I guess there is dodgy writing all over the place when it comes to cutting off the leader from his armies, apparently even in real Life history ...


As far as Qui Gon... Qui Gon doesn't end any of his comments with "there is great risk"

Qui Gon's line about there is great risk is pointing to the obvious danger of the situation overall, in which he goes on to give one such example of the risk involved, that being that the possibility that the naboo fighters might not be able to penetrate the shields of the Droid Control Ship, thus meaning the Gungan Army would than be forced into a prolonged battle with the Droids, which is exactly what happens. Obi Wan than builds off what Qui Gon says with another example of a risk in that if the Viceroy escapes, he will return with another droid army.

Once again, that is the reality of the movie and the story that is being told, not the reality that you want it to be.

 

That's exactly my view as well!

 

mikeximus the thing is you're flip-flopping between in-universe analysis & out of universe whenever it suits you. Your explanation in your first post was a good take looking from within the story. That's how I responded & my explanations made sense. Padme guessed/hoped/assumed that the TF would be a jibbering mess without Gunray. Can we agree that there was no guarantee of this? Also can we agree that if Anakin didn't succeed the TF would still control the whole planet & have millions of innocent hostages of their own? In universe the Naboo would still be in serious trouble. Maybe Padme's guess would be proven correct, maybe it wouldn't. Anakin's achievement made it a moot point. It was hugely significant. He shut down the whole army at once.

Now you're stepping out of universe & citing movie tropes & historical parallels. How about all of the history examples where taking out the leader didn't work? There are no guarantees & frankly I think it's far more likely that she was wrong. Either way your comment: "So with the Gungan’s routed, and being rounded up as prisoners, and the Queen mere moments away from capturing the Viceroy and ending the occupation/war anyway, Anakin’s moment didn’t mean anything. " is presumptuous & naive from an in-universe pov. With the droid armies still active Padme's plan might have worked. Without them it was guaranteed to work.

 

Once again, trivializing and purposely oversimplifying things in order to make a point. There is no doubt that there are elements taken from ROTJ in TFA as well, but, to completely ignore what else is going on as if it was all trivial and the things you are pointing out have some greater weight really just makes it hard to have any kind of a conversation with TFA defenders on the movie.

TFA and ANH

Trench Run, No Capital Ships only starfighters, Dramatic tension of the weapon powering up, the target of the super weapon being a hidden base, weapon destroyed just as it's about to fire on a planet, bad guy with mask gets away, Emperor/Supreme leader still out there somewhere... etc etc etc

but yeah, TFA's last act was more like ROTJ...ok...

I am going to stop here with this, I am derailing my own thread with this and this was not the intention of my thread.

 

Well I think it's important bcs most people agree that the last act was where the most blatant & noticeable mirroring occurred. Anyway, yes let's leave this one to another thread.

 

No,I was replying to your superb analytical breakdown of the writing of which you called "dodgy"... That is why I brought up "movie tropes and historical parallels". So your entire point here is moot and irrelevant because I was merely responding to your stepping out of the in-universe to take a shot at the writing as if this motif has never been used before and is thus silly and unbelievable..

 

I said the writing was dodgy & I explained in-universe why.
The motif is fine, in some circumstances. In this case given all of the facts & specifics it's highly dubious. Try to play out the scenario in-universe if the DCS wasn't destroyed. Gunray would be captured but would know that his army still has the planet at gunpoint. What can they do to him? He knows they're not the type to kill him. Best they can do is lock him up or drag him back to Coruscant to the courts. Meanwhile the TF still has the planet in its grip. Mind you they wouldn't even be able to get out of the palace since it'd be surrounded. Would actually be an interesting story to see play out. I think Gunray would still hold all of the cards.

 

@mikeximus

One thing that you overlook and that is mentioned in dialogue, Nute escaping.
That was crucial. So destroying the TF ship would be very important here.
With it gone, Nute has likely no way to leave the system, he is trapped.
Also, if the ship is destroyed and all droids deactivate, even if Nute slips out from the palace, he has no support, no soldiers and could get captured again.
Had the ship remained intact and Nute got away from Padme, he could rally many droids around him and they could never get to him.

So I think your analyses is a bit incorrect, the destruction of the TF ship was important and it had a bigger goal than just keep some Gungans from dying.

As for mirroring etc.
I think TPM borrows both from ANH and RotJ. You have small fighters vs a big space ship/station from ANH.
But you also have ground battle intercut with lightsaber battle intercut with space battle from RotJ.

If we look at AotC and the Geonosis battle. Then it has similarities with ESB. There the rebels had get ships into space and leave. Same with the seps in AotC. Walkers are used in both battles.

But the problem I have with the TPM battle isn't one of reusing stuff, that I don't mind.
It is the contrived writing that lead up to it.
The TF remove all ships but one for no reason, Anakin tags along for no reason and no one is worried that he might get killed since they are going into a war zone. The Naboo fighters are fueled and armed and already have an auto pilot to take them up to the TF ship. Very convenient. Plus all the silly Jar Jar antics sort of removed the tension from that battle.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

It's fair to say Padme is no military genius. Her plan was questionable. Anakin made it work by eliminating the droid armies. If not for him they would've been screwed. I don't think Gunray would get rattled when he knows thousands of his troops are surrounding the palace. He could just say to Padme "I'm happy to wait in here while your people die & suffer. Are you?"
So credit to Lucas. Anakin saved the day just as Luke did in ANH. Good mirroring.

 

I think Amidala's position was pretty strong. The trade federation has a hierarchical command structure and she had just captured the two top ranking executives. If Nute Gunray threatened to have her people killed, she could have him killed first and still have another hostage with the authority to call off the occupation, who would now have plenty of incentive to do so.

Compared to Luke's victory in ANH, Anakin's victory here is comparatively hollow - it may have saved some Gungan lives and strengthened Amidala's position, but the majority of Gungans who were going to die had already been killed, and Amidala had achieved the main objective already. Compare that to Luke in ANH, where the state of the entire galaxy and untold numbers of lives depend solely on whether he makes the shot or not.

 

I always saw the four-thread battle of TPM as mirroring the three-thread battle of ROTJ. But I agree, Mikeximus. You made some good points.

 

Cool thread.

TPM connects in many ways to the other SW films (it is one of the ripest films in the series for symbolism Imo), but like has been mentioned, the strongest parallels drawn by Anakin destroying the control-ship are in ANH and ROTJ.
Anakin's victory here is kind of an illusion - Naboo is free and the people happily celebrate in the parade that concludes the film, but the victory is arguably superficial. The dark side is only growing in strength, afterall, and any victory made by the Republic is essentially a win for the future Empire. Luke's victory in ANH, however, symbolises true freedom beginning to be won back. Perhaps this adds a tinge of tragic unavoidable circumstance in Anakin's arc when compared to his son - Anakin isn't aware that the "good guys" he is eager to join are (for the most part unintentionally) the ones leading the galaxy towards enslavement. Whereas in ANH it is objectively obvious that Luke is joining the "good guys" by hooking up with the Rebellion.



Just wanted to add that don't forget Anakin again "shuts down" the droids in ROTS. It seems to reinforce the idea that defeating Separatists (in TPM, AOTC and ROTS) is a hollow victory - Palpatine is really the only party benefiting from all this in the PT.
My favourite aspect of Anakin's efforts to bring "peace" in TPM and ROTS is a perhaps intentional analogy on how the Jedi and Sith inversely view the force. Think about Qui-Gon teaching Anakin about selfless symbiosis with the force ("life forms working together for mutual advantage"), relative to Sidious teaching Anakin about selfishly manipulating the force to create or sustain life ("A pathway to many abilities, some consider to be unnatural."). It really sums up the contrast between Anakin's actions as a good person and an evil one.

Going further with that train of thought - Anakin is arguably led into the droid-control ship by the force ("Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit, so that's what I'm gonna do!") and destroys it by accident. It is like he is submitting to the force and it rewards him by leading him to save the day. This is the first time Anakin shuts down a droid army - and he helps free Naboo.
The ironic parallel to this is in ROTS - Anakin, as Vader, kills the entire Separatist Council in cold-blood, and - again - shuts down the CIS droids. This time because he personally killed all who oppose the Empire and ordered the droids switched off himself. This is about as much as you can impose your will on the force, fitting for a Sith. Arguably, the Republic and Jedi had taught him to demonise the Separatists, but it is only after Vader pledges to Sidious and sells his soul that Vader delivers Gunray's (and the other Sep leaders') "reward" on a planet symbolising hell. I just think this contrast yet eery similarity to TPM was very much on Lucas's mind when he wrote ROTS, it seems to tie in a lot with what he says on the Jedi and Sith in interviews.
Anakin even gets congratulated by Palpatine on both occasions - "And you, young Skywalker. We will watch your career with great interest!" ... "You have restored peace, freedom and justice to the galaxy. Send a message to the ships of the Trade Federation. All droid units must shut down immediately!"

 

Technically, they're both "hollow" victories -- father and son attack grey (monochrome) spheres via mindlessness and are then rewarded via mindless matriculation and the tentative (but ultimately transgressive/forbidden) promise of sexual union with a "mother"/"sister" archetype (totalistic masculine destruction leads to the Sacred Feminine?).

This is the essential boldness and weirdness of both films/narratives/myth-verses.

The new trilogy is unusual in giving the all-male killing sphere a patina (parody?) of nature, linking it to the cosmic seeing consciousness of a star (that ever-present motif of vision/seeing in Star Wars) by literally having the grotesque machine devour its living rival (Death Star/Starkiller: naming with willful intent), but also giving the star the last word (it is reborn by devouring the devourer).

Moreover, the hero is female and doesn't involve herself in the destruction of the sphere, but is instead saved by the Millennium Falcon (the Death Star/Starkiller antithesis) a la Luke in TESB, suggesting she has skipped a stage in her initiation. And she meets up with a hyper-chaste mentor/father at the end after taking direct control of the Falcon and rebirthing herself through the uterine enclave of hyperspace, meeting up with an aged Luke in anti-killing-sphere mode in something of an abstract "coda" (he removed himself from the violent cosmological drama -- despite being the instigator and agitator of it -- and ran to the edge of the known world: revelation, or things being disclosed in due course, being another prime component of Star Wars and myth generally). In a final gesture freighted with Freudian symbolism, she hands the spiritually-castrated Luke his father's lightsaber (resonating with the gift-giving closures of the other trilogies' opening installments, but also marking another departure, since the young hero is here both the gift-giver and the willing supplicant). Remarkably, she even wounds the Vader-inspired villain in a direct nod to Luke triumphing over Vader in ROTJ ---> has Rey "awoken" to a much larger world than her predecessors could even dream of?

Anyway, yes, I suppose there is an essential emptiness to Anakin's "victory" over the Trade Federation, not really so apparent in Luke's more classically triumphal besting of the droid-like (versus droid-controlling) Death Star in ANH. Crucially, Luke is also assisted by other pilots who essentially sacrifice themselves, including his best friend Biggs Darklighter, and Han Solo who gives up on worldly wealth to snatch Luke from the jaws of death, allowing him that final moment that clinches victory, and egging him on as that moment incarnates itself ("You're all clear, kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!"). Anakin, by contrast, simply mashes buttons: a point made plain with his childish exclamations and awkward fumbling in the hangar bay against those (both actual and symbolic) Destroyer Droids pinning Padme and her team (his Sacred Feminine) down; a dilemma which only Anakin's actions, childish as they are, seem able to rescue them from. There's some very impressive enfolding of microscopic plot threads here.

Is Anakin's victory against the TF ship effectively meaningless? It might be (aside from, of course, all the meta meanings we impute onto it: including meaningless!). The construction of TPM's elaborate action climax certainly gives one scope to argue about it. In ANH, the threat, and the resolution, seem much more monolithic: Yavin is about to be destroyed (its fate is quite literally tied to a ticking clock), so it's wipe out or be wiped out (making everyone a mini-Emperor). In TPM's climax, there seems to be plausible in-universe space for a more peaceable resolution to take shape, but then Anakin blows up the enemy ship and puts pay to that.

I think the basic sensation or impulse that emerges is that Anakin's success feels perfunctory (which is slightly different from calling it meaningless; but both descriptors are a way of indicating that it doesn't positively "sum" to anything). And that's not all. We have Anakin flying out of the ship, riding a wave of Dionysiac pleasure, despite the fact that he has just initiated a chain reaction that is incinerating living beings in his wake; and, in a broader allegorical sense, is soon to incinerate him and much of the galaxy he brings under tyranny (*cough* Episode III *cough*). His callous joy also contrasts improbably with his stoic, machine-like calm in the podrace: in a much more technical machine he had to exert himself to remain in control of (quite the opposite is true in the starfighter sequence). In fact, he even remarks here, "Now, this is podracing!" -- even though it quite plainly isn't (even to the point of the camera being reversed). Lucas' dark humour at full tilt.

The really disturbing thing is that the Jedi unconsciously teach Anakin that violence is a good thing by approving his induction after this event, while they had earlier rejected him on the basis that he was "cold", "too old" (notice the rhyme), and, in Yoda's estimation, full of fear. The very idea that Anakin may resort to destructive violence because of existential maladies gives the Jedi the willies; but when he actually does deal violence, and rather blindly, at that (note the one-eyed security chief on the landing platform at the start of AOTC), they're seemingly all for his training (though Yoda, at least, remains spooked).

This is very interesting. While perhaps more of a token rejection, Yoda didn't want to train Luke because he was "too old" (or so Yoda peevishly gave as his reason). However, he also said that Luke was "reckless", which is a criticism neither he nor any of the other Jedi level at Anakin; despite Anakin's actions against the TF ship being very reckless, indeed (again: study his reactions in the starfighter throughout). Lastly, Yoda assents to training Luke, but cautions him that he will be fearful, despite Luke protesting the contrary, which is a total inversion of Yoda initially seeming to speak for the whole Jedi Council when he has the last word at the end of Anakin's testing scene. What is the militating factor for both father and son finding (grudging) acceptance by Yoda/the Jedi? It seems to be raw pragmatism. In the time-frame of the OT, things are too desperate for Yoda to flatly refuse to train Luke. In the PT, the Jedi are facing the return of the Sith, and again seem to give into a perceived necessity to absorb Anakin into their ranks, no matter how dire Yoda thinks training Anakin might prove to be.

This is all to say that, really, perhaps all TPM does is to give the viewer another lens to view the Jedi, and heroism more generally, through. Is life just a series of accidents (that may, or may not, be the surface artifacts of a deeper reality)? Can people act in any other way than they do? Are we just play things of fate? Are all chance cubes weighted or counter-weighted in advance and no further intervention is possible? Can we step outside of ourselves and "catch" ourselves in the act? And if so, are we willing to be "ground down" and "blasted into oblivion"? Do we obey one master or several? Can we truly escape circular outcomes? Can we master the sphere; and ourselves?

Best, I think, not to see anything in Star Wars as a total rehash, but as mutually reinforcing.

Though...

Four legs, good; two legs, better, perhaps.

Maybe, above all, we're being enjoined to wake up to a wider world.

A world of shifting scales, elegant truths, and exquisite interconnections.

But one that can only be perceived in anything like its full beauty by moving beyond the merely pragmatic; or what feels like the best decision at the time.

Otherwise, we are just as blind and unfeeling as Anakin, or the Jedi that matter-of-factly settle Anakin's fate based on violent outcomes.

Our vision has to be wider, our gaze deeper, and our understanding more generous, guided by charity, reason, and bigger-picture thinking.