PT Arrest of Palpatine...Legal?

And I repeat, nothing is known about episode 7, so you cannot definitively say which characters will or won't be in it. It all depends on the script, which is still being rewritten. So you cannot truthfully say that the post ROTJ EU will be thrown out. As of right now it is all still valid.

 

we know it because they said it. And to be blunt, if you have to use qualifiers like "right now", it was never all that valid to begin with.

If it held such a place of honor, why the qualifier?

Lucas doesn't care about the EU. Here he is talking about it as "their world, not mine"

It's also just a matter of business. Disney did not shell out 4 billion in currency and stock to be handcuffed to the Thrawn books.

 

Canon is a fluid thing, not rigid like Beezer seems to think. When things don't quite mesh, they are changed. It's an ongoing process.

 

Yeaaah, because a thread with the OP "was arresting Palpatine legal?" posted in the prequels forum is clearly actually about whether or not the EU will remain canon in Episode VII. Get back to the topic-all of you or its getting locked.

 

We are on topic, because the EU was brought into the conversation regarding the legality of being a Sith. So, the validity of the EU and it's impact on the films is fair game. The question becomes, does the EU inform the films. Clearly according to Lucas, it does not. It is as they say "their story", and not "his story". So when discussing plot points in the prequels, such as the arrest of Palpatine, the story as told in the films must stand on it's own.

We are talking about the sequels only in relation to that aspect of the conversation. The sequels won't follow the EU, and that example is being discussed in relation to whether or not the prequels did.

If Lucas has an opinion on one, it informs us of his opinion on the other.

On the basis of the film series, the question of the legality of being a Sith is an open one. It could be that they are seen as a cult, or a terrorist organization. It could be that they are seen from a legal standpoint to be a religious order. The Jedi clearly have an opinion about the Sith, but does that in and of itself make them an illegal organization?

Is practicing the dark side in and of itself illegal?

These are open questions in the film.

 

Exactly. People who take the EU as gospel are in for a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig surprise - and I'm stockpiling "I told you so's." There will be no post-Yuuzhan Vong invasion and there will be no dead Chewbacca. It's all gonna disappear in a cloud of smoke that even the most idiotic retcon won't be able to fix (and that's saying a lot considering how idiotic some of the retcons we've already seen are).

It's like the old saying goes: All of the EU is canon! Except for the parts which aren't.

 

The main problem is that the time-limitations inherent to films prevent a complete story from being told. I have a facsimile annotated script (from a different film, different genre) and it's peppered with "Deleted for Pacing" comments - large chunks of it!

 

@Beezer and timmoishere - take your little feud elsewhere.

 

Regardless if PalpSidious is a Sith lord or not, he's the one commiting treason against the Republic. He has committed war crimes against the senate and the galaxy just for personal gain and has gotten billions of people killed in the process of his pursuit of power. No one is above the law, not even the chancellor himself which is why Mace had every right to arrest him or kill him should he resist arrest (which he has done twice). Mace didn't actually plan on killing PalpSidious until after he tried to blast him out the window with his force lightning. Mace then realized that PalpSidious is too dangerous to be left alive because he has both the senate and the courts influenced by him but Anakin made the foolish mistake of betraying Mace. He thinks he's following the Jedi code of not killing an unarmed prisoner but he's not because not only is he aiding and abetting with a man who is both a war criminal and a Sith lord, but PalpSidious has demonstrated numerous times that he's never unarmed or defenseless. Whatever legal ramifications would've befallen the Jedi Order if Mace had succeeded in killing PalpSidious, at least the events of the 2nd half of ROTS and the OT would've never happened.

 

But no one was able to prove it. So, in the eyes of the law, he's as innocent as a little girl.

 

No one was able to prove it right away, because the ones who could stop the Sith were taken out. The founding fathers of the Alliance had to work hard to get to where they're at when ANH has begun. The actions of Palpatine began to open people's eyes, especially after Alderaan was destroyed.

 

Every time I see this thread I imagine Nute Gunray asking if arresting Palpatine is legal in his funny voice.

 

Tension n lack of patience. Mace totaly screwed that up. First he needed more witnesses, second they should have gotten the Senate involved. Mace was out of line. With Dooku gone there was really no reason rush Palpatine like that. So yea it basically did look like an assassination attempt.

 

If only Mace had had a Snickers bar before he did the deed.

 

No matter how long Mace and company waited or what they did when they tried to make their arrest, Palpatine would always find a way to spin what happened in his favor.

 

Yeah, I'm sure Palpatine was prepared for all eventualities. If they'd brought more witnesses, he probably wouldn't have put up a fight...but without solid evidence he'd been collaborating with the Separatists, and given how popular Palpatine was at the time, all the ensuing trial would have done (and keeping in mind that Palpatine controlled the courts) would have been to put the Jedi in a negative light as conspiracy theorists who were probably traitors themselves. And once the Jedi realized they couldn't get him out through legal means, then things would have gone exactly as they did in canon.

 

They will MAKE it legal.

 

The arrest was Jedi v. Sith. They'd deal with the Republic later.

 

I think the Jedi always had a say is most things. Im pretty sure a Jedi was always elected to be chancellor but then one decided that it would be best that someone else take the role and allow the Jedi to give advice and help. Remember reading it some where. Not sure but i guess this could be a reason mace came to arrest him. Im pretty sure Mace was just going to kill either way.

 

They probably didn't care either way. Even if the senate exiles the jedi from Coruscant for it, it's better than the sith ruling the galaxy with an iron fist.

 

It was one of those situtations where the winner tells the tale. It was illegal since Palpatine was the winner, but had things turned out differently, it would have been legal because I guarantee that the Jedi would have found some sort of incriminating evidence in his office. Besides, he had a lightsaber, and he didn't have time to edit or delete the footage if he was killed. The crime is not that Palpatine was a Sith, but that he had Naboo invaded and manipulated the Clone Wars.

 

I think they would have had the authority if they had evidence that he'd committed a crime, which they didn't (e.g. they didn't have solid proof of him collaborating with the Separatists).

On the other hand, it's possible that Jedi automatically have jurisdiction over all Force-users, in which case what they did was in fact legal.

 

As I've said before, I believe their intention was to arrest Palpatine and then gather the evidence from his office, his residence and any other place that Palpatine would keep these materials.

 

I think the question being asked isn't if there was evidence to support them, as clearly there was, but as to whether jedi have the legal authority to arrest the Chancellor. In the EU, in addition to order 66 exists another contingency order, specifically having to deal with forceful removal of the chancellor from office. Order 65, as it is known, can only be issued by the senate and/or its security council. The jedi have no legal authority in this instance.