PT Did Palpatine Even Use/Need The Force To Conquer the Galaxy?

Not according to the man who has the final say. They are 2000 years old. GO to the EU forum if you want to talk about the parellel universe Sith.

The Republic didn't have a standing army - thank you for saying I'm right.

No he doesn't hes said that he killed him and he cut Maul in half so it didn't happen with him too. Fett died. Again, if youw ant to talk about the parellel universe Fett, ther eis a forum for it.

Yes it is a mess because of people like you who MUST include everything even though everything doesn't fit.

There are more recent ones that say the samething - the EU is a parellel universe. Accept it. Move on with life. LFL has said that whatever Lucas says goes, he has the final word. EU is a parellel/alternate universe, and when Lucas weighs in on a topic (ie - Sithare only 2000 years old), thats what goes. I'm happy you accept the lame explinations some people come up with to try make it all fit, I find it sad that so many Star Wars fans can't accept what LFL says about Star Wars (ie - what Lucas says is "the truth"), and if you want to talk about that parellel universe, you have a whole forum for it.

Lucas accepts the fact that Fett has survived. Whether or not he said he was dead in the past is irrelevant. Lucas did not say the EU was a separate universe.

There are zero direct contradictions. Star Wars continuity is not a mess.

Look at the date of that quote. It is severely outdated. The EU is not a parallel universe. It occupies the SAME universe as the movies. There is only one Star Wars universe. Accept it and move on. Fett is alive, there were Sith prior to Darth Ruin. That's how it is according to LFL. They decide what is canon or not, not you.[/quote]

 

I'll go ahead and delete what I wrote before, and show you a quote from Leland Chee in December 2005:

CHEE: "GL is certainly not bound by the EU, though he's certainly open to using things created in it (Aayla Secura and the Coruscant name, for example). On the other hand, the quote you provide makes it sound like the EU is separate from George's vision of the Star Wars universe. It is not. The EU must follow certain tenets set by George through the films and other guidelines that he provides outside of the films."

I hope that helps you put Lucas' quote in perspective. Chee is the man when it comes to overall Star Wars continuity. You'd do well to heed what he writes.

Here is the history of Star Wars canon. See also the page on retcons, which are ways to explain discrepancies between individual works. Also, check out the page for Darth Ruin to see exactly how he fits into the legacy of the Sith.

 

The date doesn't change what he said. And you're right, LFL decides whats what and LFL has said what Lucas says goes. Lucas has said things like, EU is a parellel universe, Fett died, the Sith are 2000 years old etc... If you want to include the other things, fine thats on you. But its not what LFL has said makes up the "offical canon". There is a reason they have different levels of canon and not just "canon" like they used too back in the early and mid 90's. If you want to follow the canon that LFL has set you, you have to go by what Lucas has said first and foremost, if you decide not to do that, you're dealing with the parellel universe.

 

I've seen it, it just supports what I'm saying. Lucas said they are seperate, and other people (who will also say that Lucas is THE authority and what he says goes in the Star Wars universe) then ignore it and/or try to make it all fit. But they've always, since day, maintained that Lucas is the final word, what he says is "it" when it comes to Star Wars. Trying to fit other things in is really going against LFL has said about the canon of Star Wars. If this wasn't the case the there wouldn't be different levels of canon.

 

You don't seem to have posted in a long time. In any case if it was a parallel Universe it would be called PU and not EU.

You read what you want to read, not what is actually quoted.

 

Those two points both make logical sense, but I'm not sure Episode III represents events that way--at the very least, Episode III is not as clear about those two things as I would have liked it to be.

The movie gives the impression that only the old, the children and people too weak to fight were left guarding the Temple. A smart viewer can figure out that such a scenario must not be the case, but the movie would have been both easier to follow and more emotionally powerful if it had directly depicted Anakin/Vader having serious duels with dangerous Jedi at the Temple. Instead, with the possible exception of some grainy holo-images, all the movie's focus is on how Anakin slaughtered basically defenseless people.

Palpatine tells the Senate, "The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated," but is this addressing a serious problem, or is it just political posturing? We see basically all the major Jedi characters (minus Yoda and Obi-Wan of course) killed in the Order 66 montage. We don't get one clip of Jedi getting away or even left with the possibility of getting away. Yoda and Obi-Wan hear from no one among the other Jedi after Order 66 goes down. The movie leaves viewers with the strong impression that Order 66 was a near-complete success, immediately. Again, a thinking viewer can dismiss that impression, but I wish the movie had not created the impression in the first place. I wish it had explicitly left the Emperor and Vader more work ahead of them, in order to purge the Jedi, which would have fit more obviously with old Obi-Wan's statement in Episode IV that a young Jedi named Darth Vader "helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights."

The way Episode III represents events, the Emperor barely seems to need the Force or Vader (assuming you don't interpret the dark side's clouding of Jedi foresight as Palpatine's personal manipulation of the Force, and I think that point is debatable). What the Emperor really didn't need, which surprised me upon first seeing Episode III, was Vader. He did need the Force in at least one important, obvious way. He needed to be able to defend himself from Yoda. Yoda's attack demonstrated the tremendous power of the Jedi leadership, even after they had been dealt a near-fatal blow. Most of the leadership, to say nothing of the rank-and-file Jedi, had already been killed. All the political and military power of the Republic and the Confederacy was being brought to bear against the Jedi. And yet Yoda still managed to infiltrate the location of the most politically important man in the galaxy who was probably the most well-guarded man in the galaxy, in terms of conventional security. At that point, only the dark side of the Force protected Palpatine from complete defeat on the heels of near-total victory.

 

It sounds good in theory, but realistically speaking, there are already quite a few duels in ROTS, and adding even more duels would have meant adding considerably to the running time - and diluted the impact of the duels that are the most important ones.

 

I'm not saying I wanted to see a whole duel, or even a significant portion of one. Just a few shots of Anakin fighting capable Jedi--or maybe just a few mentions that Anakin murdered some capable Jedi.

 

Fair enough. It might have added something to the drama. Then again, I wonder if maybe

 

The guy we see him one-arming whilst choking another Jedi in the security holo was none other than the Jedi Order's lightsabre-combat instructor.

 

which is great for those of us in the know, but since he's never identified as such in the movie, it does little to alter the film's suggestion that Anakin didn't meet with a lot of opposition.

--the holo image of that fight is so small, distorted and short, that we don't get the impression we should that a heated battle is going on. And later, Obi-Wan really emphasizes how he saw Anakin killing younglings in the holo recording, which further dilutes the impression that the holo images also record more serious duels.

I think Lucas thought he was emphasizing how evil Anakin had become by focusing almost exclusively on the murder of defenseless people, but it just makes Anakin look a lot weaker than he should--a lot weaker than he is in the eyes of a careful, informed viewer who looks past Lucas' tonal mistakes.

 

Anakin defeats Dooku (who took Obi-wan out fairly easyly in RotS, and held his own against Yoda in AotC), helps take Mace out, and pushs Obi-wan to the limit in the RotS. There is NOTHING in any of the movies that makes Anakin look weak. You add in TCW series, and Anakin's power level is not in question by anyone.

And you're right, that Jedi is never identified as such in the movie.....which means he might be a lightsaber instructor and he might not be.

 

There was nothing impressive about Anakin's defeat of Mace. He took a cheap shot when Mace wasn't expecting it. Any idiot holding a lightsaber could have done the same. Granted, Mace should have been on his guard, given his own distrust of Anakin, but that just makes Mace look stupid in that situation. It doesn't make Anakin look good.

The duels with Dooku and Obi-Wan, by contrast, were impressive--some of the best Star Wars since Episode V, if you ask me. So we get two awesome moments for Anakin bookending a lot of nothing, and as far as the middle of the movie is concerned, Anakin is either weak or he's a big thug who uses his strength in situations where he doesn't need it.

And many powerful Jedi and Sith Lords engage in impressive one-on-one duels from time to time. Being able to duel Dooku, then Obi-Wan makes Anakin good, but it doesn't make him special. I got the impression from the original movies that this super Force user named Darth Vader brought the entire Jedi Order to its knees--turns out it was Palpatine who did that, and Vader's just a guy who's pretty good with a saber.

 

It could be argued Anakin had not yet achieved his true potential as a Jedi Knight by the time ROTS takes place. Had he not fallen to the Dark Side and had the Republic not been overtaken by Palpatine, it is entirely possible he could have risen to ultimately lead the Jedi Council.

 

Many of the post-ROTS novels show Vader hunting down and personally pwning several Jedi. I agree that ROTS didn't show enough of Evil!Vader, so those novel duels are the best we're gonna get.

 

I quite liked the James Luceno novel Dark Lord. It broadened Vader's role in the downfall of the Jedi. Also, I thought that novel did a good job of dealing with Anakin's lost potential, as depicted in Episode VI, in a way that nevertheless portrayed the evolution of the cool, powerful Vader we know and love from the original movies.

Personally, I think the movies should be able to stand on their own, without viewers taking into account information from novels and other media. As a Star Wars fan, I really enjoy reading the books and paying attention to some of the other tie-ins, and some of this "expanded universe" material helps deepen my love of the franchise as a whole, but it doesn't excuse the flaws (as I see them) in the movies, themselves. Obversely, there are many "expanded universe" stories I don't care for, but I don't think those stories ruin or cheapen the great things about the movies, themselves.

 

Well, there's definitely a place for the novelizations and EU stuff to fill in the blanks for the most devoted fans.

And I have to be honest here, when anyone in the forums suggests there should have been "more" in some way when ROTS is already the longest movie in the saga, and has more dueling by itself than all the other SW movies combined, I can't help but wonder if they're being facetious. I mean, at the end of the day the movie has to work for a relatively wide audience that goes beyond the devoted fans.

It has to work well enough for the younger viewers - and even with ROTS being a PG-13 movie, it is still meant to work primarily for the younger audience and for those who are just as willing as young viewers to suspend their disbelief unquestioningly. (I think it's fairly obvious the movies don't work if you can't do that.)

Funny thing is, now that there is an animated Clone Wars series, some of the fans are starting to say that because there are so many duels between the leads in the TV series, the duels in ROTS seem a little less special. So you can't really please all the people all the time. Maybe the best you can hope for, as a storyteller, is to please some of the people some of the time.

 

I would have liked more demonstration of how Anakin's power turned the tide against the Jedi, balanced by less emphasis on how Anakin killed defenseless people like a big, dopey thug. All in all, I'm not asking for more material in a longer Episode III. I'd have liked different material in a better Episode III.

. . . "better," from my subjective point of view, of course. And bear in mind, I think Episode III is the greatest of the prequels and in some ways a superior movie to Episode VI, so I'm just writing about one specific aspect of the movie that I believe was mishandled.

 

Well, I think I understand a little better what you're saying, though I still disagree that it was something the movie really needed, or that it would have been a better movie in any way had there been such a "demonstration".

Here's why. First of all, I don't think it's safe to assume that Anakin had come even close to reaching his full potential as a Jedi by the time of ROTS. And it's also hard to say (at least from what's in the movies) just how much more powerful Darth Vader would have been had he not been nearly killed in Mustafar and if he'd never needed a protective suit just to stay alive.

As for Anakin's power "turning the tide against the Jedi", I don't know that the tide *necessarily* turned because of Anakin. And by that I mean that, had Anakin never existed at all, never been conceived by the midi-chlorians, it is still perfectly plausible that Palpatine would have nonetheless succeeded in proclaiming the rule of the Sith and proclaimed himself Emperor, even with some other apprentice at his side.

What is clear, however, is that if anyone other than Anakin had become Palpatine's apprentice, it is very likely that you'd never have arrived at the situation that, in the end, brought balance to the Force. Only Anakin could have done that, because the prophecy in the end turned out to be true, just not something that was going to happen only as Palpatine was starting to destroy the Jedi and the old order.

So to recap - Palpatine's plan was so carefully laid out that even with an apprentice other than Anakin, it very probably would have worked. The only thing that would have been different is that the apprentice would very likely never have brought balance to the Force in the end by destroying Palpatine.

Anakin's full potential, either as a Jedi Knight or even a Sith, can never be really known, only imagined, because after his fight with Obi-Wan he was nearly dead, he's only kept alive afterwards by the suit - he's damaged goods. He's still quite powerful, of course, but probably can never really be as powerful as he'd have been had he not lost to Obi-Wan in Mustafar and ended up nearly killed.

So I don't think it's so much that Anakin "turned the tide", necessarily, in ROTS. It's that he was the Chosen One. Even after he was just half-man, half-machine. And in the end, he did what probably no other being could have done: he brought balance to the Force and wiped out the Sith.

 

You don't need Anakin to kill Jedi. Just overwhelming numbers of clones shooing at them.

 

I agree. Anakin lost a lot of his potential after the Mustafar duel, and the Emperor probably could have succeeded in bringing down the Jedi with another apprentice. That's precisely the impression Episode III gives.

My problem is that I don't think the original movies give that same impression. Watching the original movies, Vader looks like he may be the real power behind the Emperor's throne. If that's too extreme an argument, the original movies at least suggest that Vader helped the Emperor a lot more than he actually did, as shown in the prequels. Obi-Wan says that a young Jedi named Darth Vader helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. Sure, that statement could mean, "a young Jedi named Darth Vader went off one night and murdered a couple of kids and old people affiliated with the Jedi, while a super powerful Sith Lord executed a master plot against the rest of us," but that's not the most obvious meaning of old Obi-Wan's words (I'd argue it's not the most dramatically interesting interpretation of those words either. . .).

It's like Obi-Wan's line in Episode VI about Anakin already being a great pilot, when Obi-Wan first "knew" him. It's not that the line can't mean, "When I first met this ten year old kid, he was really good at driving these funny looking go-carts, and he then blundered his way into an awesome victory against a Trade Federation cruiser," but that's not the most obvious interpretation of the original line.

 

That wasn't really the impression that I got. Maybe it was for others. In any event, I didn't try to form a very elaborate idea in my mind of exactly how things had happened in episodes 1-3 when they were just a possibility. I guess I simply figured that if they ever went ahead and made the movies, then it would be more fun to come in without very specific expectations about how things were supposed to happen.

 

If Vader was the real power behind the Emperor's throne, he wouldn't be badly damaged nor would he be in that oxygen suit. There's no way he could've helped the Empire hunt and kill all the Jedi in the condition we see in the OT because any surviving Jedi could've defeated him without making an effort (Obi-wan would have if he didn't allow Vader to kill him). Vader had to be fully human when he first became Darth Sidious's new apprentice in order to battle the Jedi with ease until he gets to Obi-wan.

 

If the video games are any indication, Anakin killed Jedi that were not kids or old people. But unfortunately Lucas didn't show us this in ROTS.

 

The Dark Lord novel shows him fighting and killing several Jedi, and it even shows how Vader had to adapt his combat techniques due to his suit's limitations.