Anakin's turn - this is very weak

I agree, when he hurled the lightsaber at Luke.-stair falling and a great mess. But, that's weak...something about "you will meet your destiny".

 

I respect the dissent over the turn, I can understand how some people
can either relate or not relate. I suppose, being one that enjoyed the
turn sequence, I would like to know what you would have preferred to
have seen? Not exactly a scene-by-scene, blow-by-blow pre-vis treatise,
rather, what elements of the turn would make more sense to you?

 

First GL should have added the parts in the book that talked more about why Anakin was doing what he was doing. But I would have had the jedi so something to warrant Anakin's doing what he did to them. Dang even if they game him a botched hair cut it would have been better than this crap. But turning on innocent people you are suppose to love, and killing then and innocent children warrants more motivation than "my wife might die and you may kinda sorta have the answer maybe ".Ive read stories where people turn on the ones they love and where they sell their souls to the devil but its usually alot more beleivable and for a fairly good reason. GL insisted that after watching this movie you would feel sorry for Anakin, I dont feel sorry for him. I think he is very pathetic and got off too easy at the end of ROTJ.

 

He absolutely did not fall in five minutes. Saying "I pledge myself to you" is not his fall, and to think it is is to miss the story entirely. It would be like saying he's redeemed in only a couple minutes becase one moment he's fighting Luke and the next he's killing Palpatine. It's ignoring every single event that surrounds that, everything that leads up to it and all its consequences. The choice in the office is not the beginning of his decision (that would be in the opera house), and it is not the end (that would be when he hears of Padme's death). It is only one step in a long chain of events. Each plays its own part in the leadup to his fall, and he is not simply Mr. Perfect and Good Servant of the Light one second and Lord of Darkness and Evil the next. It's a gradual transition. He doesn't suddenly change his mind, but that moment in the office is the point that he has to make a definitive choice. And he's already made it, ever since he sat in the Council chamber and thought of his wife dying. He's already made it, ever since he promised to his mother's grave that he wouldn't fail anyone like that again. He's made it ever since he told his mother he didn't want things to change.

What about the scene in AOTC where Palpatine is telling Anakin he can be the most powerful of all Jedi? Or the scene in ROTS where Palpatine tells Anakin that the Council needs him and he is the most important Jedi? Or the many comments by the Jedi about Anakin being close to the Chancellor and being his friend? Or the opera house, where Anakin is hanging on to every word he says? Absolutely Palpatine has been manipulating him. It's easy for the audience to say, "Don't trust him!", because we have hindsight, foresight, and a detached perspective. From Anakin's point of view, it's a friend (and I think it's prety obvious how attached Anakin gets to people who he considers friends) who has done nothing but support him, and even after he admits he's a Sith, which Anakin has been taught means he's selfish and evil, what does he do? Offer to save Padme's life. Anakin doesn't have some definitive guidebook that tells him "all Sith = bad, all Jedi = good", only the opposing words of his hypocritical and untrusting Jedi masters and good loyal Sith friend. It's not hard to guess which one he'd be more inclined to believe.

Because the trademark of Sith is their remarkable truth-telling abilities. He sure says to Palpatine he pledges himself, but he's carrying a very different tune on Mustafar talking to Padme, speaking of overthrowing him and taking his place. Anakin only becomes Palpatine's complete servant after he loses everything else in his life, and the moment his son seems to have survived, he starts plotting to overthrow him again.

 

And yet, in AOTC, after Shmi dies, Anakin vows that he will not let something
like that happen again. The feeling of loss and detachment combined with
the hope of power and ability blend to lead Anakin toward the darkside.
The quick and easy path. I'm glad he didn't just decide to be bad,
he made a series of decisions which led him down that path.
I have a wife and a son, and if I knew, just absolutely knew they were going
to die and I had a means of preventing that from happening, I'd take out Mace,
Yoda, the younglings, the cast of Friends and the entire population of Naboo
to save them.

But then again, I am preaching to the choir. I think it is a sequence
which requires little exposition and dialogue. You can see the conflict
and then torment after he stops Mace. To stop the movie and have a
big old dialogue would have done just that, stopped the movie.
Besides, Palpatine is feeding on and manipulating Anakin's emotions. He can't afford
to stop and be rational. He need Anakin to continue on the path of the darkside
until he was past the point of no return, which is most likely the Jedi temple slaughter.


So, I guess I just don't know what it is that you would prefer.
I get what you don't like, but I would enjoy seeing your vision of
how things could have gone.

 

i have a stick for those who need to be beaten over the friggin head.

 

Awww, we love you too!


Anakin's turn is easy to understand. It all comes down to Padmé. Everything makes sense to him as long as it helps/saves Padmé. At first he doesn't want to do the things he does (i.e., tears after killing the Separatists) but eventually his own greed and lust for power take over and he's fueled with anger and hate.

 

Yeah, it?s all for Padme who he then proceeds to choke.

Lyvia ? Excellent posts. Well-written and clearly thought out. The transition was ridiculously quick. That was the main problem to me with the film by far. As for Palps telling Anakin he could be the best in AOTC, so what??? Obi Wan tells him the same thing. So that negates it. As stated above, Anakin at the beginning of ROTS ?loves? Obi Wan and is still clearly on the side of good. The true persuasion of Palps starts in ROTS because that is the point where he starts mentioning the Dark Side.

I definitely don?t feel sorry for Anakin at all. Did he really get suckered?? Even at the moment of truth when he pledges himself to the Sith, Palps tells him that he doesn?t even know the ?cheat death? trick!!! WTH???? Palps is like ?I, uh?erm, don?t actually know the Darth Plagueis trick, but I am uhhhh, sure, you and I can figure out something if we put our minds to it.? And Anakin still goes along with it? Wow.

 

Ahh yes. But then that's when the "eventually his own greed and lust for power take over and he's fueled with anger and hate" comes in. There are different stages to his turn. It started out as being all for Padmé but then his feelings got the best of him and he felt betrayed by everyone he knew and loved.

 

I was surprised by Anakin's turn. I (and I'm sure many, many others) expected a turn based on evil, not a turn based on a real lack of any other options. Palpatine trapped Anakin and left him no choice but to apprentice himself to the Dark Lord. In a way, it was out of self-preservation. Anakin knew if the Jedi Order found out what transpired in the Chacellor's office, then he would be arrested or killed, and Palpatine would most certainly be killed with no thought of arrest. Anakin was in a situation where his life was at stake. When that is combined with Padme's life "depending" on Palpatine teaching Anakin the power to stop death, and the extreme need for Anakin to make a hard and fast descision for or against the Jedi Order, then why he turned almost seems natural. If would have made less sense for him not to make the descision he made. I don't think Anakin ever embraced the true power of the Dark Side, or, at least, not to the extent Palpatine did. He wanted to save Padme, and to a lesser extent, himself, and only remained as Palpatine's apprentice after the events of ROTS because it gave his, now empty, life a small amount of meaning. He clearly hated every second he was trapped in that suit, and took it out on the whole galaxy. It would be interesting to see if, had Anakin been able to kill Palpatine, not "kill" Padme, and claim Emperorship for himself, would he have ruled with quite such an iron fist. I don't think he would have.

 

the seduction scene was the set-up. manipulated by palps, he was. continually denied by the jedi council (esp mace) he turns to that compassionate father figure, palapatine who tells him what he wants to hear. and the timing is important as the jedi have just asked him to do something dishonest & against the jedi code - so, just as palps suggests, they do have selfish motives & have much in common with the sith. under pressure to prevent the death of padme-there is a clear time limit here since his dreams foretell her death at the birth of his child/ren and let's not forget his visions were proven as valid predictors of the future since shmi did indeed die - his turn IMH was planned even as early as TPM. this was palpatine's objective all along and anakin really had no option once mace could no longer applaud. it's all about the journey...the l-o-n-g journey that began in childhood.

 

I hear all the pros and cons about if Anakins turn are weak... And to a certain point I can agree with both parts. Its always easy to find a reason after you see a movie. People say Anakins turn are great and understandable because Palp. use mind trick, Jedi order didnt trust him, his love for padme... bla bla bla. We could continue this depate for ever... but on earth didn GL show all these things better in the movie that we talk about now.

I like movies to be deep and surprising also, but I think Ep. 3 could be more clear and emphersize more about what really happend.

 

Despite the fact that I have not seen the slightest evidence of Jedi corruption,
despite the fact that I have spent very little time with Palpatine in comparison to the decade I spent by Obi Wan's side
and by the sides of lots of Jedi, some of whom were my friends, I'm going to do what this politician wants me to do and kill them all.^

Hmmm you have to remember Palpatine is probably Anakin's closest friend, right after ObiWan...

Anakin makes his choice before he goes to see what Mace is doing... He won't let Sidious die. But at that point, he doesn't want to join him. He just want to learn the power, and stay a Jedi. So at a point he is forced to choose between 2 options : Stay with the Jedi that he sees as traitors of the Republic, who he doesn't believe in anymore and who blame him, or save a Sith which he already hate but who can give him more power.

Then when Mace is killed, he has no other option. He just can't learn the power and keep his Jedi status, like he wanted. Jedi will now try to kill him and Sidious - and Padme, indirectly.

 

Great post GDS and Lyvia!



Anakin's turn was extremely weak.

Anakin turns on the jedi based on some vague suggestion that Padme can be saved by palps, revealed to be a Sith Lord, the orchestrator of Qui-Gon's death, practitioner of the dark side, and the figure behind the seperatist droid armies - a fact that Anakin seems to avoid considering the implications. Anakin gets asked to deactivate the droid armies by Palps - implication being that Palps has been controlling both sides of the conflict, the death and destruction, Count Dooku, who chopped Anakin's arm off.

Anakin seems extremely stupid and weak-minded, as Palps plan to turn Anakin is so simplistic and niave that even the most dense simpleton in the galaxy would not have fallen for it, if logically following the consequences through to their conclusions - However Anakin basically hands palps his allegiance to the darkside with little effort, reason or consideration. None of it makes much sense. Even Anakin's fear that Padme will die was never certain, and he does not question its validity or origins. He never thinks to question Palps, even after discovering the guy is a sith!

Anakin throws in his lot against the jedi too easily. Either his character is poorly written, or Anakin's character is patently stupid and obviously-written as an absolute push-over, seduced by the most half-baked plan ever concieved by a sith lord - and the hilarious thing is, the plan works - no credit to the plan itself, just a by-product of Anakin's weakly-written motivation for his actions.

 

Anyone who thinks Anakin's turn is "weak" needs to go back and watch the other 2 films. It's a trilogy for a reason. Seriously, go watch TPM, ATOC, and ROTS again. The reason for Anakin's turn is PERFECTLY executed by GL over the course of the 3 films. I used to suffer from the delusion that Darth Vader was evil like Palpatine. If I still thought that after seeing ROTS, I can see how one might perceive the turn as weak. However, ROTS seems to confirm what I'd began to suspect from watching Darth Vader in the OT (especially ROTJ). Darth Vader is NOT evil. He is angry over his whole life being destroyed. The reason he killed Jedi in ROTS was to save his life, Palpatine's life, and Padme's life since, had they found out about what happened to Mace, Anakin and Palpatine be arrested and/or executed. Palpatine would most certainly be executed, thereby ending any hope Anakin thinks he has in saving Padme.

Read my earlier post. I think, given what we see in the films, this is why Anakin turned; therefore, it is not weak. Like I said, it is perfectly executed by George Lucas. I'll admit it was not how I expected it to happen. Instead, it was better. A total mindbender!

 

Anakin is your simple young, arrogant idealist. When things don't go his way, look out.

 

nice post

I kinda felt the same about Dooku. I kinda think h

 

Anakin turns on the jedi based on some vague suggestion that Padme can be saved by palps, revealed to be a Sith Lord, the orchestrator of Qui-Gon's death, practitioner of the dark side, and the figure behind the seperatist droid armies - a fact that Anakin seems to avoid considering the implications. Anakin gets asked to deactivate the droid armies by Palps - implication being that Palps has been controlling both sides of the conflict, the death and destruction, Count Dooku, who chopped Anakin's arm off.

Pretty much.

Anakin seems extremely stupid and weak-minded, as Palps plan to turn Anakin is so simplistic and niave that even the most dense simpleton in the galaxy would not have fallen for it, if logically following the consequences through to their conclusions - However Anakin basically hands palps his allegiance to the darkside with little effort, reason or consideration. None of it makes much sense. Even Anakin's fear that Padme will die was never certain, and he does not question its validity or origins. He never thinks to question Palps, even after discovering the guy is a sith!

He thinks it's real, because what happened to Shmi was real. He's not taking chances anymore. He's so desperate to save her that he will damn everyone to get his way. Just as Yoda said, the Dark Side is made up of fear and jealously and greed.

Anakin throws in his lot against the jedi too easily. Either his character is poorly written, or Anakin's character is patently stupid and obviously-written as an absolute push-over, seduced by the most half-baked plan ever concieved by a sith lord - and the hilarious thing is, the plan works - no credit to the plan itself, just a by-product of Anakin's weakly-written motivation for his actions.

Palpatine has convinced Anakin that the Jedi are no different than the Sith. Only that the Jedi will target not only Palpatine and Anakin now, but the Senate as well. Which includes Padme. It's all simple. Anakin believes a dictatorship works, which is a by-product of the corruption in the Senate and the Clone Wars. Anakin wants power, which is greed and greed is the part of the Dark Side. All Palpatine did was play on Anakin's dark emotions. Fear, anger, hate, aggression, jealously, pride, possessivevness and obsessiveness. The Dark Side are they.

 

:rolls eyes: Ive watched TPM and I just watched AOTC 2days ago, stop acting like we havent seen these movies so we dont know what we are talking about. Oooh Palpatine and Anakin have ONE SCENE where Palps says he sees Anakin becoming the greatest of jedi, umm ok and. I was with Anakin when he killed the Tuskens, it was the wrong thing to do but I understood why he did it. From the begining of his supposed turn when he kills Dooku is where it gets pathetic. Yeah whatever he's terrified of loosing his wife, I accept that its a scary thing loosing someone you love and you tend to do strange things; but it takes you longer to do these things then 5minutes. He kills all the jedi who he was loyal to(though frustrated with) just 5minutes ago. Then when he fights Obi-Wan he all of a sudden goes to "I think the jedi are evil" WHY!!!! *** have they done that is even remotely evil?!?! Ok Im not going into that again cause Ive already answered the question. I'm sorry but killing Mace, feeling guilty, pledging loyalty to Palps, then killing the jedi just happens too fast and wasnt beleivable. No one could really be that dense to fall for such a "trick" as Lucas puts it.
Thank you to jangoisadrunk, Ive often wondered if Anakin was "tricked" why he went on doing Palps bidding and kicking thecrap out of the galaxy; I also wonder if he killed his wife by a force choke why he uses it so often? I would think that it would remind him of his wife. Jangi...I like your explanation of he had no meaning in life and was taking his anger out on the galaxy.

 

There were never any hope to save Padme... maybe a small hope in the start. If Anakin didnt notice this long before, he SHOULD have been aware of that when he watch Mace been killed and Palp. are revealing his attantion. Nothing of Palp. have said to Anakin are there any shred of truth. So why should Ani continue believe and trust Palp after this?

Yeah, right! It reeeeeeeeeeeeeealy blow my mind out. Your right about one thing. It didnt happend as expected.

 

*rolls eyes back*

Anakin helped destroy the Jedi in ROTS because if he didn't, he would have been arrested and probably executed along with Palpatine. He doesn't just decide the Jedi are evil on a whim. He did it out of self-preservation and probably justified it to himeself and Obi-Wan by later by claiming the Jedi were now evil. Furthermore, Anakin did not fight Obi-Wan because he was an "evil" Jedi, it was over Obi-Wan's percieved betrayal (i.e. messing around with Padme behind Anakin's back - which is what he seemed to think was going on). Anakin never embraced that dark side like Palpatine. All his decisions in ROTS are made out of a selfish fear of losing Padme.

edit: To the above poster,

Of course there was a chance to save Padme!! All Anakin had to do was not side with Palpatine. Then Padme's heart would not have been broken and she would not have died. The dream of her death became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

Any idea that Anakin was scared of being arrested is crazy. That would be even worse! Anakin's scared of being arrested so instead of running and hiding he decides to kill all the Jedi??? What??

And who is going to prosecute him? Sidious? I don't think so.

The transition is just too quick. Anakin's desperation about Padme is just not enough. And again, I keep stating that if anakin was soooo concerned about Padme, why on Earth would he work with Sidious once she's dead?? The first thing he would do upon hearing the news is kill Sidious or at least die trying.

I honestly leave ROTS with no idea as to why Darth Vader is working with the Sith. Padme is dead, he doesn't know the death trick. What are his reasons now?

 

unfortunate. I hope you realize your error one day.

 

People have probems accepting Anakin's turn... But then they never question Dooku's turn.

Anakin reasons for turning :

- Hope to save Padme
- Doesn't believe in the Jedi order anymore : see them as corrupt
- Believes in dictatorship and in Palpatine
- Fear to lose his wife the same way he lost his mother
- Jedi don't trust him

Dooku's reasons for turning :

- Doesn't believe in the Jedi order anymore
- For his "ideas" about how the Republic should be managed.
- ??


It doesn't happen in 5 minutes. Its a long processus, but yes, once the decision is made, its like an explosion. Once he cuts off Mace's hand, there is no turning back, if he hopes to survive, and then protect Sidious and his secret, he must act quickly. He's just losing it right there and forever out of control.

 

Precisely. As Yoda said,"If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will"