PT Did Lucas go to far in Revenge of the Sith?

It wouldn't be justifiable, but he might not be legally accountable for his actions. He very well might have gone temporarily insane in that case. At the very least, his accountability is less than say, a soldier who shoots up civilians after watching a comrade gunned down by the enemy.

I don't think Anakin was a sociopath,

just someone who is very self centred who loses his temper often, commiting manslaugher, murder in the process,

thats nothing to do with the brain

it's the product of "i'm not being treated the way i want to be treated"

Spot on. Manslaughter is the perfect definition for his actions in the Tusken camp. Or at the very least, if I were an attorney, it's the defense I'd use. If you've lost control of your actions, you're less morally responsible than if you're absolutely in control. That's the difference between AOTC and ROTS.

nah. Blackwater shot up civilians, and they aren't held accountable.
I'm pretty sure he'd still be legally accountable. Crazy people still go to jail for murder, or a mental hospital. After Anakin confessed to Padme in AotC, he should have spent RotS in a gas chamber for execution or in a mental asylum.

that's like a definition of a sociopath.

I'd say that when he killed the Tusken children, he was most definitely suffering from temporary insanity.

I don't see how a person could not be disturbed after experiencing such trauma. And he seems shocked by his own actions as well -- such as when he stares down at his hands in shock and then admits to Padmé that he killed them. That reaction, to me, has always suggested that he was far less in control of his faculties when he acted.

In contrast with the Jedi children, he calmly walked into the room and knowingly acted -- he even probed Palpatine further on his orders.

I'll admit, though, it does come down to how you interpret the scenes.

But either way, I hope I was able to clarify that I'm not saying that people don't have the right to judge Anakin harshly for the Tusken slaughter (they do). But I don't think it's fair to say that those of us who judge the attack of the Jedi Temple more harshly do so because we devalue the Tusken children in comparison to the Jedi children. All of their lives are equal, but how one interprets Anakin's frame of mind influences how harshly we judge him in this case. That's really the only thing I was trying to say, and I hope that was clear.

by manslaughter i was refering to Padme..

oh i know i know, lost the will to live yada yada


manslaughter is picking up a brick in the heat of the moment and bashing a persons head in,

not going around a camp until every last person in it is dead, that's murder

that's mass murder

Yes, but were they shooting civilians in a "seeing red" instance of losing control, or were they shooting up civilians in a firefight where they just didn't give a damn about collateral damage? That's a whole other moral argument, granted. Mercenaries like them have much more lenient standards and practices than actual Armed Forces.

Crazy people go to jail, but sometimes the get off. It all depends on a jury.

I would say their moral standards are higher than Anakin's.
example, they don't choke their wives

that's like a definition of a sociopath.
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sociopaths are clever and rather emotionless indivduals who see others around them as tools to be played with, and can pass lie detector tests and fool the most experianced of Psychaitrists

that sounds more like Palpatine than Anakin

nah sounds like anakin too, except for the clever part.
Sociopaths have emotions actually.

I guess we will simply agree to disagree then.

For me, I don't think it would have taken Anakin long to kill them, considering how extraordinarily powerful he was and how the Dark Side has been demonstrated to further fuel one's power. Given that he was in extreme pain and rage at the time, I don't think that he would have been in a rational state when the slaughter occurred.

But I think it also bears consideration that the criteria for manslaughter can be as simple as finding your spouse in bed with someone else. Holding your mother's tortured body in your arms and feeling her die, powerlessly, after a month of intense visions would, in my estimation, be significantly more unhinging.

Regardless, it's a matter of opinion and interpretation.

What really sells this thought for me, though, is how in shock Anakin seems when describing his own actions.

He didn't seem in shock to me, he accepted it pretty quickly. Even after the fact he was still angry at the tuskens, and didn't really show remorse for it in AotC. And then Padme told him nothing was wrong with it, that it was 'human' to murder a bunch of children in anger. Just for that she got what she deserved in the next film. She should have said "ok" and called the cops.

Blackwater, you mean? I can't imagine many moral standards lower than soldiering purely for money.

And when Anakin chokes Padme, let's remember, he's basically Jekyll-and-Hyde. He's lost it.

that's why I don't judge Anakin that harshly:

he ACCEPTED what he did was wrong, and showed remorse, he didn't go to the council or anything but still, he acknowledged it with a bit more ummph than say "oh i shouldn't have done that it's not the Jedi way oh well,"

Sociopaths have emotions actually.
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not sincere ones, unless they have only minor symptoms of the disorder then they might have a few sincere emotions, but not really of empathy,

Anakin did show empathy at times:

if he was a sociopath he'd have left obi-wan after being unconscious on the ship

and not care his mother had died,

rubbish. That's just an excuse to not judge him as harshly as he deserves. Based on the ..."dialogue" in the PT, Anakin seemed like the exact same person in the beginning of AotC as the person choking his wife in RotS

He most definitely seemed in shock to me -- in particular, the fact that his reply to Padmé's question of "what's wrong" wasn't to talk about his mother, but to confess after he had stared down at his hands. Also, I don't exactly see how you can expect him not to be angry at the Tuskens -- what was done to his mother was horrific and given that she had just passed, I don't expect Anakin to have the proper perspective to deal with it.

Plus, Padmé never said there was nothing "wrong" -- she said that to be angry is to be human. Anakin knows what he did was wrong and she is aware that he knows it. But she also needs him to calm down as well. I don't think what she did was wrong namely because Anakin did tell the authorities -- namely Palpatine, someone who Padmé respected and who was most definitely in a position of power.

I think the biggest mistake she made was in thinking she could help Anakin on her own. She should have gotten others involved and she paid for it. But I don't think she "got what she deserved" -- that kind of thinking is destructive. She kept a secret, which doesn't make her worthy of killing.

Otherwise, did the Tusken children deserve to die since they were well aware that a women was being tortured in their camp? Given that Shmi was just in a tent and brutally beaten, it seems highly unlikely that they couldn't have known. Yet, that seems horrific reasoning to me.

Sociopaths all have triggers. Those were Anakin's

It's official. If I ever need to know anything about sociopathy, mass murder, psychiatric intervention, or capital punishment, I must come to the beautifully learned world of TFN.

if people tortured my mother, i would stop seeking retribution after the ones who actually tortured her were dead. I wouldn't kill their kids and their pets, too. That makes him a sociopath.

sociopaths don't show remorse after the trigger has set off,

that is the difference,

if you really want to label any of the star wars characters were an earth based disorder: choose one with consistent symptoms of said disorder

darth sidious

He's still less morally accountable than Palpatine or any of the other leadership villains of the films. At that point he's less of a person, more of a weapon, truly more machine than man even before he puts the suit on. He's not innocent, certainly, but he's not as guilty as others. Likewise, a soldier's less responsible in the grand scheme than an officer or an elected official who hands down the orders, especially if the actions in question are morally hazardous, like collateral damage from an attack or torturing a prisoner. You can't hang everyone at Nuremberg.

yeah he was a sociopath too. That why he chose another sociopath for his apprentice. like minded thinking

why not? Most were, and I am sure the ones who weren't lived miserable existences, since, ya know...they were ******* Nazis, and everyone knew it.