PT I feel the Jedi Temple Raid didn't get enough screen time.

I love the prequels, and I feel that ROTS is the movie that has benefited the most from the passage of time. I liked it when it came out, but I appreciate it more today than I did then. I think it's underrated. I underrated it myself when it came out, but now I've revised my view of it. It is brilliant, with a masterpiece of a score.

My only gripe, the only glaring flaw of the entire trilogy, in my eyes, is not showing more scenes of Anakin inside the temple during Order 66. And every time I watch the movie I think about this. A few more scenes showing what happened inside the temple in more detail would have gone a long way. We know what happened, but actually showing him inside the temple, confronting the Jedi, how they react, him dueling and the overall fight throughout the temple would of been so great. Showing the scene of him marching at the entrance with the clones, then only showing the brief 10 second hologram of him dueling Cin Drallig leaves me unsatisfied. Feels like a big missed opportunity. They should have slowed down the pace of the film around that time and fleshed things out a bit more. Overall it was well executed as it stands, but I can't help but think of what they could have done differently. It could be the SW fan in me wanting more than is practical. Anyone else feel the same?

 

The problem is that it did not illustrate how Anakin had come to actually hate the younglings. It was shown more as if Anakin just wasn't at home. Zero passion. Just head down - get it done.

Same with the separatist leaders. Although he does, bizarrely, shed a tear for the seps.

 

I don't think Anakin was shown to necessarily hate the younglings.
I think you actually have a point with the "zero passion, get the job done" description. He sold his soul.

To me it reflected a combination of; cementing his loyalty to Palpatine and severing ties to the Jedi ("I will do whatever you ask"), gaining greater power ("Do not hesitate, show no mercy"), and some fear of the Jedi younglings becoming Jedi in the future threatening stability and posing a risk to he and Palpatine. It's cold, but I think that is the point.

And the tear was for everything Anakin/Vader had done up to that point, not just the Separatist leaders. It was just the first time since he turned that he had a moment alone to really reflect.

 

Its good they didn't show a lot of it.Probably would have made it Rated R. The aftermath was gruesome.

 

Did...did you think Anakin shed a tear on mustafar because he felt bad about slaughtering the separatists? And before we continue, this is the scene you´re thinking about, right?

 

Anakin isn't crying because he's mourning the Separatists. He's crying because he's sold his soul, he's betrayed his friends, he's slaughtered his family, and now, even after finally being granted the opportunity to give complete free rein to his righteous hatred of the Separatist war criminals, he's left with nothing but silent and gloomy rooms full of dead bodies which provide him no comfort and no satisfaction as he stands alone on the balcony of an industrial nightmare in the depths of Hell, buffeted by oppressive heat waves convecting upward from a burning river of lava, pelted by volcanic ash and embers, staring out at an apocalyptic eclipse representing the bleak future of his soul. He's crying because of the totality of everything he's done, and the fact that it leaves him feeling hollow and anxious instead of fulfilled and at peace.

 

You don't seriously believe that for a second do you?

Can't say I thought about it much. The younglings scene encapsulates it all so anything much else is superfluous.

 

I think it's more effective that we don't see the raid firsthand. Order 66 followed by the youngling insinuation is more than enough for me as far as action or implied action serving as an emotional dagger to the heart. I think it works that a feeling of helplessness is maintained until Obi-Wan finally confronts Anakin. A larger, drawn out set piece where Anakin encounters some resistance before ultimately finishing off the temple would risk diluting the main confrontation to come between master and apprentice. Perhaps something more like the R1 hallway scene, which for me personally was pure cheese.

 

But that's the key, isn't it? Pace is everything in a film, and that means that you can't flesh out every sequence as much as you would like.

It is true that it's somewhat odd that we don't see more of the Temple assault. That being said, the whole sequence is a wonderfully edited piece of filmmaking (with the truly touching score on top of it), and it has to feel like what it is: a montage, a collection of small scenes that are all part of a bigger thing - the fall of the Jedi. It can't be too long, and none of the sequences can be disproportionately longer than the others. I don't think stopping the montage and developing a full-blown sequence of the Jedi Temple assault would benefit the movie. It should keep the mourning tone of the sequence, not become an action piece on its own.

Also, this sequence is "the beginning of the end" of the movie. The beginning of the "apocalipsis", the beginning of the third act of the movie. From this moment until the end of the film it is a continuous fall, an uninterrupted tragedy. You can't overplay the drama too early. It is wise NOT to see too much of Anakin's reaction at this point (we will see him crying later), nor it is for the movie to become too painful to watch (it will be painful at the end of the duel). As I said at the beginning, the pacing of a movie is extremely important. And I do believe Lucas is a master of pacing and editing.

 

Exactly, its such a small, yet powerful scene. Never heard anyone think he was crying because of the separatists before.

 

Exactly. I'd love the 45 minute version of the opening over Coruscant but it wouldn't be good for the movie.

 

While there may be some resentment that Vader's slaughter of the Jedi was left unseen, I think it's barely an issue. We see plenty of Republic soldiers execute Jedi, and we see BRIEF of Anakin killing a Jedi and battling Cin Drallig, but it shouldn't be an action piece like, say, the RO scene where Vader mows down several rebels.

It would take away from that drama and helplessness imo. Plus, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Jedi Temple assault was never meant to be an onscreen moment. The closest scene we get to that is on the 2011 Blu Ray where Vader stabs Shaak Ti.

I think the lack of evil Anakin in that moment is redeemed by his brutal systematic attack of the Separatists on Mustafar. I feel like a full on scene with Vader doing the same thing except with Jedi, would be emotionally draining and a bit too edgy for edge's sake.

Now, I would love if an Episode III Special Edition came out where the "Vader kills Shaak Ti" scene is polished up and is used as Vader's first cold blooded Jedi kill, but I still feel that would ruin the pace of the montage.

 

He doesn't hate the Jedi in the Temple. The Separatist Council, on the other hand, is filled with nothing but hate. That's why his eyes turn yellow there.

"This is the first time he actually has a chance to think about what it is that’s happened by himself and the tear here shows that he knows what he’s done, but he’s now committed himself a path that he may not agree with, but he is going to go along anyway.

It’s the one moment that says he’s self-aware. He rationalizing all his behavior. He’s doing terrible things. But in the end he really knows the truth. He knows that he’s evil now and there’s nothing he can do about it and that’s the moment where the pathos of him being stuck in that suit is real because if he had to do it over he probably wouldn’t do it but he can't stop it now.

You know where it's going to lead. He knows it will end with a fight with Obi-Wan. He knows that Padme not buy into this new reality. He made a pact with the devil and now he’s become the devil.

The sad thing is Padme says there is still good in him and Luke says in ROTJ there is good in you. Its recurring. There is good in him. And that will bring balance to the force. He needs to get rid of the Sith and bring balance to the Force."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

 

To reiterate what others have said, simply put, less is more. A contemporary filmmaker would have done just that—indulge in the massacre scene and thereby reduce it to the usual shock-value drama. But Lucas often works in a more elliptical manner, and in this case favored juxtaposition over literalism:

​

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Boom. Right there. That's all we need to know. Or, more to the point, it's all we need to feel. The language of cinema expresses more deeply, more powerfully, than the mere explication of the violent act itself. Rather than just lead, Lucas was further engaging his audience here by trusting us to meet the scene half way; trusting our natural cognitive understanding of that which links together the two moments above. We intuit the slaughter in our minds, Padme reacts on screen. A simple yet elegant gesture.​

 

So he's turned to the darkside but hate and anger plays no part in his killing the younglings.

He doesn't really display hate or anger with the Separatists either..

 

He hated Dooku however, and his anger gave him the edge to defeat the older duelist. So with killing Dooku there was some personal satisfaction in doing what only Palpatine ever gave him permission to do.

I see the Jedi Temple raid as more an expression of his fear. Things are spiraling with the events around Mace's death and he is taking the coward's way out.


Again, there is some hate with the Separatists, to Anakin they are kind of a faceless scapegoat, he sees them as partially the cause of a lot of what he and the galaxy are experiencing. I think he buys into Palpatine's claims of this bringing peace, at least somewhat.


Finally, there is Obi-Wan. At first when he turns he seems to not want to face the inevitable - to Padme; "We can only hope he has remained loyal to the Chancellor."
But when he sees Obi-Wan has seemingly influenced Padme he explodes, and in the duel that ensues I think he truly wants Obi-Wan dead.
When Obi-Wan cuts his aspirations of galactic domination short we see how far things have devolved with Anakin's "I HATE you!"

I think this flows into ANH well, with Vader's dialogue to Obi-Wan "When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master." seemingly to directly reference his defeat at Obi-Wan's hand.
Vader states "You should not have come back" and later revels in finally killing Obi-Wan to Tarkin.

 

Except that it has been Lucas's mantra for how you turn to the dark side. "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate." Not - fear leads to mass murder, skipping the anger and hate part.

It's not a matter of belief. There is no passion or significant emotion from Anakin until immediately after the separatists are massacred (which was actually performed with fluid detachment, not with much passion either). There is a significant period in between the much larger temple massacre and Mustafar when Anakin is no more emotional than he has already been at a any point in the previous two films. In fact he's relatively collected. As an editor, Lucas should have been aware of the power of juxtaposition. But he only indicates any sort of significant ambivalence from Anakin in the control room on Mustafar among the dead leaders of the seps.

Star Wars is not a religion. It does not require the viewer to shape their beliefs of what is going in spite of the actual story is telling us and how it is told. It wasn't Lucas testing our faith by not showing any emotion until immediately after the separatists were dead and expecting us to relate that to a scene that took place a good ten minutes earlier. "I think what George meant to do by showing him in a mood following the attack in Mustafar, was to show us how bad he feels about the younglings he slaughtered back on Coruscant."

You can "correct" the mistakes and omissions made by films and their makers by assuming what you believe them to have meant and meant to do, in spite of what actually appears in the movie.

 

Personally I still think they should of shown more. The entire movie is based around Anakins turn to the Dark Side and the fall of the Republic, and the Jedi Temple Raid is a pivotal moment that should of been given more focus.

It would be like the movie "Pearl Harbor" (2001) showing the planes approaching the island but not showing the actual attack.

As a comparison:

This Scene



Is equivalent to this Scene:



Then we get only this 5 second scene showing the actual attack (literally 5 seconds, I counted)




Then in ROTS they skip ahead to an aftermath of the attack scene:



Which is equivalent to this scene:




In Pearl Harbor they showed the full attack which took 45 minutes of the movie, I'm not saying it should have been that long but only 5 seconds? even 2 more minutes would of been significant. In Pearl Harbor the actual pearl harbor attack wasn't the only thing that happened in the movie, there were other sub-plots focusing on the characters personal lives (just like in ROTS) but they still gave the attack screen time, and it worked and was satisfying. I watch ROTS and think every time "if only they should more".

I think it was a mistake to not include more scenes of the actual attack.

All my own opinion.

 

Anakin does not hate the younglings. He has no reason to. What he hates is the thought of losing Padmé. He hates and fears that thought so much that he's willing to do the unthinkable to prevent her death. The pain of doing it is visible in his face as he steels himself and activates his lightsaber in front of the younglings.
Like his grandson decades later, he forces himself to do what he has to in order to become strong with the dark side. Unlike his grandson, he actually has the strength to go through with it on his own. I personally think that Anakin's fear of the alternative is greater than Ben's.

 

Have you tried reading any of the comments since then?

Defining Anakin's slaughter of younglings as ticking the "hate" box because he hates an unconnected idea is asking too much and giving very little of any worth back. The younglings should be the embodiment of what Anakin has come to hate, because of what he fears to lose and why.

I'd have love HC to have conveyed the pain Anakin believes he may be avoiding by killing people he knows to be innocent. Or for him to have gone through some sort of soul searching about whether it was worth it beforehand. But it's just not there for me. It's a brief nod to the fact that bad things are going to happen.

Ben Skywalker's dilemma ( including the inherent falseness of it) is depicted in an infinitely more convincing manner than Anakin's gullibility and detachment.

 

Well, I disagree.

 

I always thought he saw killing the younglings as a requirement for him to get more powerful to save Padme from death, I didn't see anger in that moment. I think what we see on screen on the fall of the Jedi Order and Anakin igniting his lightsaber is enough information for me. The tears on Mustafar is not really about the separatist leaders, I think, it's about him knowing deep down that his actions are wrong but he feels like he went past the point of no return because of his involvement in Windu's death, there"s no coming back now.

 

So killing the younglings had nothing to do with using the darkside. When did Anakin begin using the darkside?

Why does Anakin only realise that killing younglings is wrong after killing the separatist leaders?

The dilemma that faces a Jedi is the temptation to take the easy path to power - which means using the darkside.

 

It's the only time we see him taking the time to reflect on his actions after he fell to the darkside. It's to show the conflict that still exists within him, that he's not completely evil. When Padme tried to reason with him, he came back to rationalize that everything he did, he did it for her.

"There's always this good in you. And the good part is saying 'what am I doing?'. Then the bad part kicks in and says 'I'm doing this for Padme, I'm doing this for the galaxy and so we can have a better life'. But the good part is always saying 'WHAT AM I DOING?!"
--George Lucas