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

He uses the dark side, anger and hate, but he doesn't specifically hate the Jedi. He just uses those emotions to kill without conscience and remorse. Essentially in cold blood. When he goes after the Separatists, they are the ones that he truly hates. The Jedi only represent a threat to him, Palpatine and Padme as well as maintaining the Republic.

What do you want him to do, yell and scream, "I hate you!"? He hates them because they started the war and they were the reason Padme's life was threatened in the first place. We know that he hates them because of the change in eye color. It was done on purpose to show us that he was losing himself to his anger and hate.

"Star Wars" isn't religion, but the Force is a religion. No, he wasn't testing the audience's faith. But what he was doing was using one of the common religious beliefs that even those who would be considered absolute evil, can find redemption and forgiveness for their actions. The tear wasn't just about the Younglings, but about himself. Because he knows that he is evil now. It is a tear shed for his lost innocence. Not for the Younglings and the Separatist Council, but for himself because he did all of these horrible things and he knows that he is evil now. He hates himself for what he has done. He is using the dark side in the Temple, but he fully embraces the ideology on Mustafar.

George Lucas wasn't making a three hour film that drags on like Michael Bay is known for. Remember that it is Lucas who cut down the opening of the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders Of The Lost Ark", because it needed to be tighter and faster than what Spielberg's original edit contained. The other reason is that Lucas was going to have kids killed in a film which is a big no-no in cinema. So he wasn't going to focus on the Temple as much and instead chose to spread out the attack to different worlds so that we got the emotional resonance without bludgeoning the audience with it.

The third major difference is that "Pearl Harbor" is based on real events, where kids weren't killed and was about showing how the war affected people. How a small group of soldiers tried to fight back, while others tried to survive. They're very different films tonally.

 

We've already been through this. Hate and anger are extreme negative emotions. Cold Blooded means without feeling or emotion. So you cannot mix the two. You can use existing hatred for people to justify cold bloodedly exterminating them. That's because, deep-down, hatred for whole races of people is never rational. It's an excuse that people use to adopt a certain position which can lead to a cold blooded lack of empathy in the right conditions.

But you do not cold bloodedly exterminate a whole group of people if you didn't hate them already and were using that as an excuse.

The youngling slaughter is clearly a callback to the Tusken slaughter. Anakin hated those guys (I could tell by the way he angrily attacked them and screamed his hatred for them). So either he hates the Jedi the same way, or he's expeditiously transposing his hatred of Tuskens to the Jedi children, just to get the job done that he's agreed to. Either is just not conveyed.

Where are you getting that from?

No. Palpatine started the war. And Anakin knows this already, but he has sold his soul to the guy who started to war and now he's his gofer, "ending the war" even though it was clearly stated, by all sides, that the war was essentially over as soon as Obi Wan defeated Grievous.

Right there, you are treating the text as if it's a religious text and ignoring the actual form in favour of what you'd like to believe.

It matters not that Anakin's first real display of any emotion regarding a killing (after he exclaimed "What have I done!!!??" when Mace bought it) was given to the audience immediately after he wiped out the separatists. Not when he left Padme. Not while Sidious was congratulating him (in the security holo). Since it is desirable to BELIEVE that Lucas intended to convey some emotional credibility in Anakin's actions, we must ignore the actual storytelling choices that Lucas made and BELIEVE that the emotion is connected to past events, in spite of all the missed opportunities to respond emotionally to the youngling's deaths, and not to the event that immediately precedes the display of emotions.

If George wanted us to believe, unambiguously, that Anakin suddenly hates himself because of what he did quite some time earlier on Coruscant, then he should not have depicted his sorrow immediately after wiping out the Separatists on Mustafar. There's no logical reason that the aftermath of the Seperatists massacre should be the trigger for Anakin's conscious. Particularly if , as you say, this is Anakin in full funny-eyed hate and anger mode just moments before. That makes it even more nonsensical.

Invoking the idea that the force is a religion....(I could have swore that you already argued with me before that it was not a religion....maybe it was Alexrd) .. changes nothing. Have I to accept that followers of that religions display their emotions at different times.

Killing the younglings and the separatists was about tying up loose ends. It was simply housekeeping. In spite of instantly feeling his conscience at the death of Mace Windu, Anakin turns around an agrees to murder innocent younglings with no hint of a conscience at all. If it had been at all conveyed that Anakin had some reason to hate Jedi younglings, or even just Jedi at all, his abdication of conscience might have made a bit of sense. Storytelling sense, at least.

 

Does it matter? The point is that he is letting his hate consume him and he uses it to kill without showing compassion or mercy, without hesitation, but he truly hates the Separatists.

The fact that he has yellow eyes with them, which he has again as he's burning up. And that they are the ones behind the war and the threats to Padme.

He wouldn't have had a war without them. Palpatine didn't do it all on his own. He exploited their greed and it was Nute Gunray who wanted Padme dead in the first place. So he has every reason to hate them. And he does hate Palpatine, which is why he tells Padme that he'll kill him because he's becoming stronger and stronger and soon believes that he will surpass him.

He hates himself for everything he's done since he sliced off Mace's hand and pledged himself to Palpatine. There's no reason to believe that his actions on Courscant doesn't count. As Lucas said, it is the first time that he's allowed himself to stop and think about what he's done. He doesn't shed a tear in the Temple because he's not alone. And he is focused on killing the Separatist Council, so he does not shed a tear in hyperspace. He does so here because he is alone as Artoo is back on the landing pad and Palpatine is light years away. He starts thinking about everything and it all comes crashing in on him. It isn't nonsensical to have that tear, because the good hasn't been driving from him fully. It is the struggle between good and evil that sets the tone of that scene.

The difference with the Sith religion is to not show emotions such as sadness, as it is perceived as a weakness. This is why Anakin is not fully turned yet. That he can still be saved whereas Palpatine and Dooku couldn't.

Lucas does admit it was about eliminating his enemies. But Anakin does it without conscience in the moment because it is about freeing himself of the delusions of morality, as the Sith see it. He is freeing himself from the Jedi training and his mother's upbringing in order to become powerful with the dark side. He must not feel anything other than anger and hate. Which he does, but he doesn't hate them the same way.

 

I really don't think those scenes are fitting comparables. The attack on Pearl Harbour is THE defining moment of the story, the whole thing everything revolves around. Sure, there is the romance side-plot that was put into the movie as well, but the whole reason why people were interested was the attack itself. Everything else is just fluff to fill out the movie in an attempt to give it some more depth. The attack on the Jedi Temple is not the equal of that. It's a side point, a part of Anakin's fall, but not on one level with him interfering in the duel between Mace Windu and Palpatine, much less the formation of the Empire and the huge duels. The comparable scene to the attack on Pearl Harbour, was the duel between Anakin and Obi Wan. That bit is the scene that defines the movie, the one thing people always associated with the back-story: Anakin and Obi Wan battling on a lava planet, with Anakin getting burned, leading to him needing the suit. And that part got plenty of time.

*removed the pictures for the sake of loading times*

 

Well, the topic is more about the time spent showing the Jedi temple attack and not a rehashing of Anakin's fall to the darkside in totality, so I'll address the OP topic.

I'm ok with what we got, but I agree an extra minute or two would have been appreciated. They gave more time to the Separatist slaughter, which is essentially a finely tuned *soldier* killing non-soldiers. I would have rather had the Separatist scene cut down and shown more at the Jedi temple where he fights his equals in large numbers as he also commands the clones. Throw in his confrontations of Jedi he has been shown to have deep relationships on screen getting cut down and the scene is now far more valuable.

 

I liked it. This is supposed to be an emotional scene, not an action-pack one with rock music playing in the background while Anakin slaughtered the very people he once called family. What’s with contemporary fiction wanting stuff like, “Spend 15 minutes showing Anakin murdering everyone, then cry about it!”

 

Read better the novelization of Episode III
There they explain better every moment of the movie and even the novelization is better than the movie

 

Lucas has gone on record pretty specifically noting that he didn't want Vader's fall to be perceived as awesome. The quote goes something like, people wanted to have someone kill Vader's friend, so he flies into a rage and kills everyone - I'm sure someone has it saved, I'm falling asleep at my keyboard.

Anyway, this sort of thing would probably fall into the same category of Lucas not wanting the films to frame Vader's fall and atrocities in this framework of the way we'd structure an action/revenge movie where maybe we give weak lip service to this being bad/wrong but the audience still spends the whole film going "YEAH! sick, dude! Badass! Carnage!" and getting a thrill out of what they're watching as the character rampages unstoppably against the people who dared wrong them.*

Anakin's slaughter of the Order very specifically isn't that. It's not "awesome." It's just an ugly atrocity, and we see just enough to establish that (the kids) before fading to black instead of glorifying it with the camera. Given what Lucas said about why he didn't give Vader the origin story other people were asking for, this seems likely to be intentional. You're not supposed to feel satisfied.

(*And yes, as much as I enjoy Rogue One, I think Vader's rampage at the end does exactly what Lucas seems to have preferred to avoid. But OT-era Vader is basically a fun cartoon villain anyway, so that's just the style of things. Still, not the style that should be applied to the Order 66 part of ROTS, in my opinion. The context and significance of the two moments are very different.)

 

100% agree with OP. This was my main gripe with ROTS. It was like Lucas could have honestly stretched the ENTIRE story of the prequels into three films had he only started with ROTS and spread the story over a 6 hour trilogy. We would have gotten a much better temple attack scene. Anakin confronting his old Jedi masters and actually saw him defeat Jedi. It would have made the confrontation against Obi-Wan actually HAVE stakes if we had seen Anakin take down multiple Jedi Masters with ease.

 

Agreed, just a short few shots of Anakin actually cutting down a few Jedi would've been great. Oh well.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. At no point in the film is there a moment that invites you to get up and cheer for Darth Vader or revel in his evil. If there were, the entire movie would fall apart in a single instant. Even the death of Nute Gunray is more piteous than it is satisfying.

It's actually a remarkable exhibit of restraint and good sense on Lucas's part. I'm not sure there are many other filmmakers out there who, given the chance to depict Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader, would be able to resist the temptation to portray him as a badass. I'm not sure the idea not to do so would even occur to anybody else.

George Lucas is one of the few people out there whose relationship to Star Wars is objective enough not to be influenced by fanboyism and icon worship, which is what allows him to make decisions which serve the story first of all, regardless of what other people think Star Wars is or should be.

 

I feel that what we got was sufficient for the movie, putting the focus on the tragedy of Anakins downfall and not the 'awesomeness of Jedi killing'

That said I would very much like a comic or a novel which elaborates on the details of Operation Knightfall.
A three hour movie could never have done the full Jedi purge justice while also focusing on the lead up to Anakins fall.
As far as what it contributes narrative of the Saga as a whole, I am satisfied with how it put its focus. It hits the right notes for what it was trying to convey.

 

I kinda skimmed the other responses here, but figured I'll just answer the OP directly instead of digging through a bunch of other topics.

I actually really regret not seeing more, too. It's my biggest gripe with ROTS. I understand the climatic battle at the end was left to shine on it's own, and maybe they didn't want to diminish that with any previous battle. But I really wanted, and still do, to see Anakin engage and duel at least a couple other Jedi. I feel like it would justify his power to me, as I've never really felt like it was portrayed as much as I wanted it to be (maybe I have him built up more than realistic in my head?)

 

I don't think we needed more of Anakin dicing jedi left and right.

I would however would have liked more clone on jedi action. That epic overhead shot of the temple showing various clones vs jedi was great, but unfortunately only lasted a few seconds.

 

One of the trademarks of the prequels: or at least Episodes II and III = just explain major moments offscreen with expositive dialogue; the Tusken camp massacre and the raid on the Temple being the worst offenders
heck, I'm surprised Lucas decided to actually show scarred DS Anakin's being attached to Vader's exosuit...

 

What is this, Game of Thrones? With the Tusken massacre, we see the start of it and together with Anakin's confession you can have a pretty good idea of what happened there. Arguably Anakin's reaction is more important than seeing the whole thing. As for the Temple raid it reminds me of some fans wanting the whole movie about Vader killing the Jedi and rebels. Vader was effective in ANH precisely because he didn't choke everyone every minute. Less is more.

 

Exactly. We don't need to see every detail. We didn't see where Vader and the snow troopers came from during the Battle of Hoth, the death of Beru and Owen, Luke's pre-Battle of Yavin piloting skills, Luke going from slightly competent in ESB to skilled Jedi Knight in ROTJ, etc.
We got enough of what the implication would be. It would be repetitive to see a drawn out sequence of Anakin killing things in 3 different moments. (Tuskens, Jedi, Separatists) We see 3 Tuskens slain onscreen. Drawing it out more would just be a badass scene, taking away the impact it's supposed to have. Plus we get Anakin's lightsaber skills shown during the Droid Factory scene.

With the Temple, we see 2 Jedi killed by clones, we have a deleted scene of Anakin stabbing Shaak Ti, and we get a hologram of Anakin killing one Jedi, in the process of killing another, and dueling a Jedi. If the sequence was drawn out, it would destroy the drama.

A good example of that was in Rogue One, where the sacrifice of the main characters is undermined by the fan service moment (even though it was fun to see) of Vader cutting down rebels.

 

I think it's OK either way but there probably should have been more. I think the key story point is that Anakin outright turns against and betrays the Jedi (as a whole, not just one in a situation like Mace) and yet still thinks of himself as a good guy, at least justified. Implying that he will kill the children conveys the betrayal happened, in a more shocking way, but not so much that he turned against them (that he really thinks, as he later said, the Jedi are evil), rather than just followed orders, or how he can still think of himself as not that bad, justified.

 

Yes, I agree- More scenes of him killing the Jedi(not the Younglings however) were needed, but less was certainly more and the execution of Order 66 across the Galaxy was more unexpected and more effective then taking the predictable route of showing a large battle between Anakin/The Clones and the Jedi in the Temple.

One good thing about this movie is that there isn't a long drawn out battle scene at the end- The action is limited to duels/skirmishes for the most part which is refreshing.