PT "Anakin became evil too quickly"

That would also be very trite and shallow.

 

Indeed. For all the complaints about "emo Anakin", Vader isn't just Vader because he blames people for his misfortune. He's the product of a Faustian pact: a deal with the devil to hold back death.

Proposals like the one above divest the story of any real weight or complexity. Did some people just want revenge porn?

 

I can't think of a way that scenario could occur in the plot without it seeming horribly cheap and contrived.

The other problem with that is that the Jedi would be pretty inarguably in the right in that situation. I know you'd disagree with this, but I think it's rather important to Anakin's fall that his loss of faith in the Jedi be somewhat justifiable.

 

I don't think we are meant to justify it, just understand.

Yeah, Anakin is totally evil by the end of ROTS, there is nothing about what he does from here on until at least the end of ESB that can be considered motivated by anything other than evil.

 

I don't think you fully heard The_Phantom_Calamari. Anakin's personal sense of faith in the Jedi is shaken in ROTS. Lucas himself has spoken as faith -- not necessarily religious faith -- as the glue that holds society together. It's dangerous for people to lose it.

Yet this is precisely what we see happening with Anakin. He starts to question where his allegiances lie. The Jedi force him to compromise himself and appear to be compromising their own ethics in the bargain.

Some part of Anakin comes to look upon the Jedi (thanks to Palpatine's twisting) as power-chasing hypocrites. That is why he believes he is justified in using violence to achieve his goals. He may be wrong from a wider ethical vantage point, but Anakin can't really see outside of himself, and his mind is being further twisted by the Dark Side.

Only when he's calmer and had a chance to reflect on his life as Darth Vader does the hold of the Dark Side slacken a little: enough for Anakin to return to the light and finally see the error of his ways. Before then, some part of him believes he is in the right, and that his destiny was to build an Empire, not to live in chains. Of course, he is still in chains, but servitude to the Dark Side makes more sense since the Jedi failed to prove the superiority of their path to him.

It takes Luke stepping right up to the edge of the abyss and almost losing his own life for Anakin to realize that destinies can be re-forged -- and enslaving ideals abandoned.

That's why the story works -- for me.

 

anakinfansince1983

Not even partially?
IMO the Jedi philosophy is clearly represented as morally superior to the Sith's, even superior to most other beings in the galaxy. Their main motivation and goal is entirely good, there isn't anything selfish about it, and I indeed kind of have to question the Republic for turning on them so readily after centuries of loyal service. I think only a fairly extreme viewer will leave with the impression that all Jedi needed to go. The way the movies are structured, it appears (for me) you are supposed to look to Qui-Gon and the OT-incarnation Jedi (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Luke) to get a good idea of what a real Jedi is supposed to be.
But I do think you are supposed to question some of the choices they make to achieve a positive outcome.

I don't think they handled Anakin too well, not because they didn't want to, rather they didn't have a clue how to. He isn't like other Jedi, and tbh maybe you can put this more on Qui-Gon for taking Anakin away from Tattooine in the first place, rather than the Jedi as a whole. But I don't think Anakin is at all to blame for how things went regarding his wishes to become a Jedi, he wasn't discovered until too late, and he clearly at that stage wants to learn the ways of the force just to help people and lead a fulfilling life. It is just circumstance that brings him to be a Padawan later than others, and the pressure the Jedi seem to put on him for being "chosen" is there from early on. We never really hear from Anakin what he thinks about being the chosen one, but to me it seems the Jedi both expect more from him as a Jedi while at the same time keeping him at an arms length, and being cautious and apprehensive. In TPM this is clearly not anything to do with Anakin as an actual person, rather their idea of who he is or might be. I wouldn't say they provoked him, but Palpatine's goal with Anakin was easier to achieve when Qui-Gon's death, and Anakins' rivalry with the Jedi (both Obi-Wan and the Jedi as a whole couldn't be the father-figure Anakin sorely needed) created a clear void that could be capitalised on.

I agree that there is nothing "right" about Anakin's decision to turn, and the events that follow. He sells his soul, and pays the consequences. But I think the Jedi aren't completely right either, at least that is clearly something the movies are trying to get across, whether you want to buy into it or not. The Jedi's fear of change and inability to adapt, unlike the Sith, is of course mentioned by Yoda towards the end of the ROTS novel. I think they were doing everything they could, but would have to drastically rethink some aspects of the Order to avoid what happened to them. Whether they should have is more subjective, as their way had worked for centuries and it would be a delicate balance in knowing what was and wasn't ultimately best for the galaxy.


Besides my personal opinion that the Jedi shouldn't have participated in the war in the first place (it seems to contradict what they know or perhaps have learned by the OT), there is a fair bit (in the PT at least) to show the Jedi were overconfident in their approach.
Some moments;

- In TPM, the speaking part of the Jedi Council, besides Yoda (and Qui-Gon), seem to find it hard to believe the Sith have returned at all.
QUI-GON: "My only conclusion can be... is that it was a Sith Lord."
KI-ADI: "Impossible! The Sith have been extinct for a millenium."
MACE: "I do not believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing."
YODA: "Ah... hard to see the dark side is!"

- MACE: "You know, m'lady, Count Dooku was once a Jedi. He couldn't assassinate anyone, it's not in his character."
This seems to be quite a lack of foresight on Mace's part, they don't want to believe anyone who was once a Jedi could be evil. Plus, coincidentally or not, Mace is ironically standing meters from the spot where he will attempt to "assassinate" Palpatine in the next film.

- The Jedi see no problem in assigning Anakin to protect Padme (suspiciously suggested by Palpatine...), and give him several orders over the course of the film to protect her above all else. Not the Jedi's fault the pair gave in to their feelings, but this still couldn't have helped Anakin see the evil of his own actions in the next film. Edit - I agree with the notion that Anakin should have just left the order, but I think he saw it as his duty to serve them despite his conflict. Palpatine appears to offer him a way to have both.

- Yoda points out to Mace and Obi-Wan (on arrogance): "Yes, a flaw more and more common among Jedi. Even the older, more experienced ones."
All three characters will of course suffer a blow to their ego in the next film, Obi-Wan losing his apprentice to the dark side, and Mace and Yoda both being separately defeated by Sidious after being confident in their ability to defeat him.
MACE: "The oppression of the Sith will never return! You have lost."
SIDIOUS: "No, no, no... you will die!"
...
YODA: "At an end, your rule is. And not short enough it was."
SIDIOUS: "Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda. Now you will experience the full power of the dark side!"


- PADME: "We're gonna need some help!"
OBI-WAN: "There's no time! Anakin and I can handle this!"
Shortly before both being pwned by Dooku, and Yoda has to bail them out.


- Some intentional cockiness on the Jedi's part in ROTS:
ANAKIN: "I sense Count Dooku."
OBI-WAN: "I sense a trap."
ANAKIN: "Next move?"
OBI-WAN: "Spring the trap!"
Despite this eagerness, Obi-Wan gets easily taken out of the fight once more, and although Anakin defeats Dooku, he kills him in cold-blood and slips further towards the dark side. Obi-Wan later obliviously congratulates Anakin on his victory, unaware of the nature of what happened while Obi-Wan was out.
Plus Palpatine's seemingly friendly dialogue to mace is pretty telling:
MACE: "Chancellor Palpatine. Are you alright?"
PALPATINE: "Yes, thanks to your two Jedi Knights. They killed Count Dooku. But General Grievous has escaped once again."
MACE: "General Grievous will run and hide as he always does, he is a coward."
PALPATINE: "But with Count Dooku dead, he is the leader of the droid army. And I can assure you, the Senate will vote to continue the war as long as Grievous is alive."
MACE: "Then the Jedi Council will make finding Grievous our highest priority."
mikeximus made a great observation that Palpatine uses mentions of Grievous to gradually move along his plan (or emphasise it is progressing) over the course of the movie's first half. But this is off-topic.

- Finally, in the much debated "turn" scene, Mace seems both pretty oblivious to what Anakin is going through (he is understandably too focused on Palpatine), and also perhaps has given up on his once firmly held belief in the prophecy - he tries to end the Sith knowing that Anakin was supposedly prophecised to do it. This final irony is enough to tip Anakin's already damaged view of the Jedi Order as a whole and give him the self-justification to act on his selfish impulses, by stopping Mace. Because of Palpatine sealing his fate at this moment, nothing he does from this point on can be read as sympathetic.


I have already posted on some of the many small or major parallels between the Sith and the Jedi in earlier pages of this thread, so I won't repeat them. But I think it at least paints a picture that Anakin could see some equivalency between the two Orders, even if the viewer completely doesn't.

 

Fair enough.

Fwiw I don't think he is right from the moment he turns until ROTJ's climax either. Just varying shades of how far gone "Anakin" is I suppose.

 

I still fully agree with anakinfansince1983.

Maybe I should just skip Anakin threads altogether? I just can't reconcile his backwards and forwards, or at least the film's portrayal of his see-saw back and forth. It's just clumsy. Perhaps there's not a way to do it and do it well? Lucas took a risk. He took his main character in at least two of the three prequel films and made him flat out turn to the bad guys side. Lucas took a big risk and, IMHO, didn't quite stick the landing. Then again, how do you land it under the circumstances? This is not like MacBeth or one of Shakepeare's tragedies where the end is really The.End. The end here is the end until or unless the fan sticks Episode 4 in the player.

Lucas deserves credit for the risk but I still have major issues with the depiction of his downfall and some of his own reactions to it.

 

Anakin before falling into a molten pit has absolute faith in Obi-Wan and the Jedi as the guardians of justice in the galaxy. If he falls into a molten pit and believes his master was unable or unwilling to save him, this entire idea is crushed under the weight of being physically scarred from head to toe and unable to survive on his own without the suit. His perceptions change from the Jedi being from brave and daring heroes to misguided and reckless wielders with supernatural powers who have worsened not only his situation, but the galaxy as well because of their conduct during the Clone Wars. There is a need to cleanse this chaos from the galaxy with order. Part of his motivation for killing the Jedi off is revenge, but the other is balance and order. He feels it necessary to eliminate the Jedi to protect the galaxy from disorder, especially if he doesn't know the Emperor is actually behind the war.

To me it also parallels the Vietnam War which inspired Star Wars so much by the returning of demoralized and extremely injured or disenchanted soldiers bitter from the experience of being sent into a war they concluded was based on lies or being mislead through optimistic initial perceptions of the situation. It can also be compared to the generation of German soldiers which were confused as to why Germany suddenly lost World War I when they were on the brink of victory.

 

That might not be a bad idea, actually. I've found that the times I appreciate Star Wars the most is those times when I've watched it after an extended hiatus from all things Star Wars. If you let your mind drift away from the GFFA for a while, you're more likely to discover new things and see the movies from new perspectives than if you constantly keep revisiting the same areas and discussing the same topics with the same people.
That's what I believe.

 

I get sick and tired of people saying that Anakin turns to save Padme.
This is false false false.

He never really liked the Jedi Order to begin with. They don't want to train him. They hold him back. He can't be with his mom. He can't marry Padme or even love her. They won't let him to be a Master.
It goes all the way back to TPM. People don't like Episode II Anakin but we really get to see his frustrations at the Order in it.

He didn't turn to the Dark Side to save Padme.
This is why he turned:
His friend Palpatine can show him how to save Padme from dying with his Sith powers. Palpatine has also built trust and friendship in Anakin. Anakin, being a good Jedi, knows he must report this to the Council as his Jedi duty. They want to kill Palpatine. Mace assembles a team to do it. This contradicts things Anakin has heard and the Council has been contradictory and hasn't listened to him since day 1.

Anakin turns to the Dark Side because he doesn't really like the Jedi Order and he actually wants to save Palpatine.

 

And later, in the same film, he wants to kill Palpatine to...save him...from...himself?

 

I said in an earlier post that Anakin likely does feel some sense of duty or obligation toward Palpatine, given the fact that, as Anakin earlier tells Obi-Wan, "He's watched out for me ever since I arrived here." Anakin may have wanted to kill him in anger when he discovers Palpatine's other identity, but he's also contending with the Jedi's coldness toward him, so Palpatine suddenly seems to look like a better prospect, and Anakin's sense of guilt -- that he has turned on a friend and handed him over to the wolves -- probably begins to eat away at him. The boy doesn't sever his attachments easily.

Moreover, yes: Anakin and the Jedi never quite gelled. They got off on the wrong foot and it was all lava planets and life-changing injuries from there. TPM really established this quite well, in my opinion, with Anakin telling the Jedi he feels "cold", the Jedi interrogating him over his mother, Mace's smug look, as well as the follow-up scene where Qui-Gon is roundly informed that Anakin will not be trained in Anakin's presence, and the scene on the landing platform, where tension erupts between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and Anakin both hears the slight -- "The boy is dangerous" -- and feels the rift: "Qui-Gon, sir, I don't want to be a problem" (ironic dialogue is ironic).

 

No, wanting to save Padme is the reason. Palpatine as a person was irrelevant. He was only the means to save Padme, as he suggested he could teach Anakin the ways to save her. Palpatine may have been somewhat a father-figure to Anakin, but Anakin's loyalty lay with one person and one person only, to the point that he would do everything - regardless of how little sense it made - to save her. Palpatine's knowledge is the only reason why Anakin doesn't kill him after revealing himself. He was most definately very angry with him, but needed him to be alive to gain the secret of immortality. If killing Palpatine would have saved Padme, he would have done that at a whim.

Anakin thought he failed his mother and himself when he couldn't save her, and he swore he would never let that happen again. That's why he couldn't let go of Padme, he simply couldn't fail again, he promised that wouldn't happen.

The whole story would make little sense if he went to the dark side to save Palpatine. First, there is the promise from AOTC, then you get basically beaten over the head with his dreams and fears of losing Padme. Palpatine introduces the idea of saving her through the dark side, thus making it necessary to keep him alive for the moment, leading to Anakin throwing himself between Mace and Palpatine. He agrees to become Palpatine's apprentice provided Palpatine would save Padme. Afterwards he tells Padme that they could rule the galaxy together, shape it in the way they want it to be, followed by telling Obi Wan that he will overthrow Palpatine and rule 'his Empire' himself. Does that sound like he wanted to save Palpatine instead of Padme to you?

Palpatine was nothing more than the means to an end. There was a bit of loyalty while Palpatine was nice to Anakin, then there was the need to keep him alive until Anakin had found out how to save Padme, but at no point would Anakin have joined the dark side just because of Palpatine. It was always about finding a way to save Padme.

 

Lucas disagrees with you.



"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"When you get down to where we are right now in the story, you basically get somebody who’s going to make a pact with the Devil, and it’s going to be a pact with the Devil that says, 'I want the power to save somebody from death. I want to be able to stop them from going to the river Styx, and I need to go to a god for that, but the gods won’t do it, so I’m going to go down to Hades and get the Dark Lord to allow me to have this power that will allow me to save the very person I want to hang on to.' You know, it’s Faust. So Anakin wants that power, and that is basically a bad thing. If you’re going to sell your soul to save somebody you love, that’s not a good thing. That’s as we say in the film, unnatural. You have to accept that natural course of life. Of all things. Death is obviously the biggest of them all. Not only death for yourself but death for the things you care about."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

"I have what I call two sharp "right turns" in the movie and they are very hard to deal with. For the audience, it's a real jerk, because you're going along and then somebody yanks you in a different direction. Anakin turning to the dark side and killing Mace is a very hard right, because we're dealing with things that aren't so obvious. The audience knows Anakin is going to turn to the dark side, but the things that he's struggling with are so subtle that it may be hard for people to understand why his obsession to hold onto Padme is so strong.

Showing how much Anakin and Padme care for each other is one of my weak points. Expressing that is hard to do. It's really hard in the end to express the idea, I'm so in love with you that I would do anything to save you; I'd give up everything -friends, my whole life- for you, and make that real-make that stick-and say it in two minutes. When I created it I knew I wanted two hard right turns-it's designed to be that way-and I knew I was taking a real chance that it wasn't going to work. But you have to see if you can make it work. If it doesn't work, well then I'm going to get skewered for it. But if I can make it work, it'll be neat. It'll be good."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

"You almost come a second too late. You're rushing over to make sure that nothing happens-but your anticipation is that they're going to hurt each other. When the lightning starts things are going from bad to worse from your point of view. And when Mace is going to kill him, you have to act.

Try and increase how uncomfortable you feel as the shot goes on. Try to think back on the Darth Plagueis story-run that through your head. Take it one step further: you realize that by telling the Jedi about Palpatine being a Sith that Padme is going to die. Basically, you just killed her."

--George Lucas To Hayden Christensen, The Making Of ROTS.

Besides, Anakin later talks about killing Palpatine.

"The thing that breaks Padme's heart in the end is the fact that Anakin says to her, 'Come and join me. I have all the power now. I can rule the universe and you can do it with me.' So the idea of saving her life has become a minor issue. And that's when she says, 'Wait a minute. This is not what I want and you're not the guy I fell in love with!'"

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 52

 

Don't get me wrong.
Saving Padme was a main reason, but it certainly wasn't the only reason.

You also both mention Anakin talking about overthrowing Palpatine. That's after the Separtist Council slaughter, I believe, after Padme has come to talk to him.
My interpretation of that dialogue is that Anakin regrets killing his Jedi Order and now wants Palpatine dead. He also, of course, thinks he now has the power to save Padme.
Just to clarify, too, by saving Palpatine, I mean when the Jedi come to kill Palpatine. That's why it's the 'turn scene', unless I'm getting the 'turn scene' mixed up with something else?

I was thinking too that Anakin knows if he joins the Dark Side and joins the all-powerful Emperor, he will be all-powerful too. Then he'll be able to keep Padme safe and end those that don't want to see that. (like the Jedi, for example, or Separtists, or anyone) I think this was the point Lucas was driving for actually but it wasn't conveyed that well. It was 'Palpatine will be able to show me how to keep Padme from dying' but I would think it'd be more 'Palpatine will give me the power to keep her safe.'

Finally, one point that needs to be clear is that when you make a decision as big as this, there are many things going through your head. Things aren't as black and white. You think weird. Your thoughts become strange and twisted. That's Anakin Skywalker.

 

Except in AOTC and ROTS, Anakin reiterates that he wants to stop people from dying.

ANAKIN: "I promise you, I will even learn how to stop people from dying."

ANAKIN: "I am becoming so powerful with my new knowledge of the Force, I will be able to keep you from dying."

Eliminating threats was an even easier way of ensuring that she doesn't die, but he still wants the power to keep her alive. As I've said, Anakin is afraid of being alone and more deeply, he's afraid of death.

 

Sure, but stopping people from dying is a) very foolish and b) classic Sith thinking besides. If people in general stopped dying... hey presto, population overload. And if he gets to pick and choose who lives and who dies, well that's recipe for disaster no matter who gets to make the decision. In no religion does even an omnipotent all powerful deity prevent a mortal from dying eventually. You can delay death, and resist it, but you WILL die in the end. Death is natural and to be accepted as such (though Anakin never really did). The Sith with their constant struggle for immortality are in direct opposition to the Jedi who maintain that yes, seeing people you care about die hurts a lot... BUT all must die eventually.

 

That's the point. Anakin cannot accept that because he has trouble accepting change. When he was a slave, he had no control over his life and that left scars inside of him, which is why he fights to control life and death. That's why Lucas says that Anakin must accept that people come and go in his life, which he has trouble with. That first quote from the AOTC commentary sums up why Anakin becomes Vader. The more he fights to keep his loved ones, the more he causes them to go away from him until he has nothing left except anger and hate.

 

That last line of yours I like.
But we also hear Anakin blaming Obi-Wan in AotC, the same scene he's talking about saving people from dying.

 

He blames Obi-wan because he thinks that he's being held back. Palpatine has been telling him for years that he is greater than any and all Jedi, because of his unique connection to the Force. Anakin starts to believe that which is why he starts slacking off on his skills. Obi-wan calls him out on this twice in the film. First when Anakin says that his ability to sense danger was greater than Obi-wan and the latter points out the dangers in that kind of thinking.

ANAKIN: "Don't worry. No harm will come to her. I can sense everything going on in that room. Trust me."

OBI-WAN: "It's too risky. Besides, your senses aren't that attuned, my young apprentice."

ANAKIN: "And yours are?"

OBI-WAN: "Possibly."

And then again during the chase.

OBI-WAN: "If you spent as much time practicing your saber techniques as you do your wit... you would rival Master Yoda as a swordsman."

ANAKIN: "I thought I already did."

OBI-WAN: "Only in your mind, my very young apprentice."

As Obi-wan would later say, "his abilities have made him arrogant."

So when he fails to save Shmi, he finds that his powers are not what they should be. In his mind, he blames Obi-wan because he thinks that he should be a Knight already. He is impatient like Luke is and filled with anger as well.