PT Plot Holes and Inconsistencies in the Prequel Trilogy

Anakin has his reasons for distrusting the Jedi in the final film, as well.





Dishonesty is disconcerting
/LM

 

Don't...bring...the Holocaust...into...this...

Not anywhere near the same. I'll just leave it at that.

Yes, people have been known to kill their coworkers and little kids. They tend to be known as psychopaths.

Anakin in the movies stoops to the level of Adam Lanza and Jared Loughner.

 

Yes, but once he found out that Palpatine actually was a Sith Master, even if his feelings were hurt by the Jedi asking him to keep an eye on the Chancellor, don't you think he might have eased up a little on the bad blood?

Do lines like "from my point of view, the Jedi are evil" really match with an Anakin who reported Palpatine to the Jedi, and who only saved Palpatine because he had a specific power needed for Anakin's own personal purposes?

 

They match with an Anakin whose mind has been twisted by the dark side.





Do the twist!
/LM

 

Let's think about this for a short while shall we? In a scene like this I am supposed to be able to see things from Anakin's point of view. If I put myself in Anakin's place (and I know nothing, really, that he doesn't) then i can't comprehend how he comes to make the decisions he makes. would suggest that, realistically, most people would not make the choices Anakin makes. Yes there are people who do go on rampages but..there is always something that underlies that - sociopathic, psycopathic tendencies - often associated with mental illness or a deeply ingrained belief system that is itself sociopathic.

I don't think it would be possible to draw an average modern viewer into the world-view that would lead to the actions required by people during the holocaust. You might try reading some pretty standard text books (history or philosophy are good places to start) accepted in this time frame to understand the kind of sociopathic cultural milieu that existed in much of the Western world at this time. Race was a consistent theme, and the kinds of beliefs that lead to the holocaust were ingrained within many. The Holocaust, also, says a great deal about the invasive and corrosive power, the fear that is brought to bear upon individuals by the unimpeded power of the State.

As Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn has pointed out; there is no sense in which Anakin can be seen to believe that the people he is setting out to kill are lesser persons (or not persons at all).

So..to be straight, its not that I don't believe it can't happen, it is that what I see before me, the choices I see Anakin as having...it makes no sense to me why a person with a reasonable human level of intelligence - without any pre-existing mental illness or feelings of superiority - would make the choices that he does. His choices seem, to me, to be stupid.

Mace's actions here also make little sense. Where did everyone's brains go? But, even putting that aside...you say that all that Palpatine has lied to Anakin about is being a Sith. That's actually a pretty big lie and it goes far further than a little white lie about him being a member of an order (as your argument suggests). It means that Palpatine has actually been behind the whole war and so is responsible for all the death and destruction that has rained down upon the galaxy, for the deaths of Anakin's friends and allies; has been involved in plots to kill his wife; was in league with the man who cut his arm off. All that time he pretended to be a benign mentor to Anakin he was manipulating him.

And, as he saves Palpatine from Mace's strike Palpatine unveils that, here again, he has been dishonest - because he wasn't weak. He feigned weakness to get Anakin to do something he didn't want to do. Every word he says can be seen as false, every action a fraud. What possible reason would Anakin have to believe a word he says?

And Palpatine is the Sith Lord, so the Jedi were right to be wary of him - the jedi haven't lied to him about who they are or what is going on.

So...he's stupid. If he thinks about it for a few minutes then..Padmé is a Senator on Coruscant, with the best medical attention available to her. There was something that caused his mother to die (the brutality of the Tusken raiders) and..likewise there must be something that would cause Padmé's death (or so one would think....) and, he's not even considred that? He's not considered cause and effect? What level of unthinking is he at?

The thing is, I can understand Anakin's urge to save Padmé's life but..if it is based upon his grief and guilt at not saving his mother's life then...something has gone astray in the story. It doesn't strike me that Anakin is thinking of saving his mother with magical powers. What he says is that he knows he could have saved her - meaning that if he had acted earlier then he could have stopped what occurred. That is perfectly logical thinking (cause and effect, see?). But here...surely he should be trying to understand what might be putting Padmé's life in danger? But no...instead he buys into the idea of a magical power to save someone from dying that he has heard of from a man who has shown himself to be an habitual liar and fraud - and he agrees to go and kill the people he has grown up with in order to maybe be able to figure out how to learn this power from the same man who doesn't actually know this ...legendary magical power...but yet somehow knows that you have to do all these really bad things in order to be able to...possibly, be in a position to help each other discover it. I mean...does that even make sense?

 

Which really works with showing how a 'good man' turns to doing evil things, right? One minute a bit mixed up, the next a yellow eyed mass murderer spouting politico-philosophical babble.

 

Look, if you don't like it, just don't watch it.
I for one happen to enjoy this riveting story of how a good man driven by fear tries to trick the dark side but ends up being tricked by it instead. It shows how dangerous it is to underestimate one's dark side. Give in to it and it will overshadow everything else.
Trust me, I know the truth of it.





The truth will set you free
/LM

 

How can you *not* bring the Holocaust into this? The point was made that it is inconceivable that someone could turn on the very people he works with day in and day out. There was an entire nation that did that very thing and there were ordinary, intelligent folks who bought into it with every fiber of their being. The original point, then, is disproven with a real-world example. The Holocaust wasn't just the persecution and extermination of Jews, it was of all the "undesirables": Jews, gypsies, the disabled, homosexuals, political enemies, and anyone else they could think to round up. These were the people that the ordinary citizenry rubbed elbows with every day of their lives and the next day they were turning them in and/or participating in the barbarity. If someone makes the point that something like that can't happen, I am well within my rights to demonstrate that it can and does happen.

You're right, though. It's not anywhere near the same. The difference, however, is a matter of scale. The political side of it is exactly the same though.

 

Palpatine never lied about being a Sith. Not volunteering information is not the same as lying. And yes, he was involved and now he's not. It was Nute Gunray's show, after all. As to the war, Anakin actually supports the war because he believes that the Republic is right and that Palpatine can do no wrong.

The thing is that it is the Jedi's fault that the galaxy went to hell. They didn't do a good job of eliminating the Sith, a long time ago and in their arrogance, their ability to use the Force has diminished and allowed Palpatine to take control. Their arrogance blinded them to the truth that they were going to fall and there was nothing they could do to stop it. They didn't change and didn't adapt, which is why they were nearly wiped out. And it's not that Anakin is dumb, he knows what he is doing is wrong.

"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 to Hayden Christensen, Hyperspace webdoc.

"Anakin on the balcony contemplating what he’s done. 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 on 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."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

"Anakin/Darth does what he does because he believes he's doing it for the good of the universe."

--Hayden Christensen, GQ Magazine.

I haven't gone beyond the movies. The fact is that Anakin knows that he has no father and that he was conceived by the Midichlorians. Palpatine tells him that a Sith Lord had the ability to manipulate them into creating life and into stopping death. Palpatine tells him outright that this happened and Anakin doesn't question it because he knows about his birthright. Taking a look in the mirror is all the proof Anakin needs.

He doesn't care about that. Palpatine may have used them, but he wouldn't have if they hadn't been there. It's the chicken and the egg. And more, it wasn't Palpatine's fault that Nute had a big chip on his shoulder wanting to kill Padme. That is why it is a Faustian bargain. He knows that it is wrong, but he doesn't care. He only cares about what he gets out of it. If the Jedi had given him what he wanted, then in his mind, there is no reason for this to happen.

"You almost come a second too late. You're rushing over to make sure that nothing happens-but your anticipation is that they're going to hurt each other. When the lightning starts things are going from bad to worse from your point of view. And when Mace is going to kill him, you have to act.

Try and increase how uncomfortable you feel as the shot goes on. Try to think back on the Darth Plagueis story-run that through your head. Take it one step further: you realize that by telling the Jedi about Palpatine being a Sith that Padme is going to die. Basically, you just killed her."

--George Lucas To Hayden Christensen, The Making Of ROTS.

"He did realize Palpatine was going to kill him (Mace). So up to that point he was trying to do the right thing, but now he's realizing that with Mace dead he’s crossed over the line and he sorta succumbs and says yes, I’ll do anything you ask so you can allow me to keep my wife alive. Then he (Sidious) says ok I’ll do that but now you have to go and kill all the Jedi. Leave none alive or they will come back and get us - even the kids."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

By that point, he's turned evil and no longer sees what he's done as evil. He has convinced himself that this is the truth of the matter, because as Obi-wan said, "Many of the truths that we cling to, depend greatly on our own point of view."

But Anakin doesn't see it that way. He sees it as someone who is willing to get rid of the cancer in the galaxy and to bring order out of chaos.

"So we have this little picnic where Anakin brings out the uncomfortable subject of previous boyfriends which boys have a tendency to do, and then we get into this political discussion which allows us to get a little insight into Anakin and Palpatine's influence over Anakin and some of his thought process."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

But they mistrusted him. They haven't told him all there is to know about the Force. They asked him to betray a friend because they refused to see that Palpatine had everyone's best interests at heart.

He isn't thinking other than, "I failed once, I will not fail again".

"The key part of this scene ultimately is Anakin saying "I'm not going to let this happen again." We're cementing his determination to become the most powerful Jedi. The only way you can really do that is to go to the Dark Side because the Dark Side is more powerful. If you want the ultimate power you really have to go to the stronger side which is the Dark Side, but ultimately it would be your undoing. But it's that need for power and the need for power in order to satisfy your greed to keep things and to not let go of things and to allow the natural course of life to go on, which is that things come and go, and to be able to accept the changes that happen around you and not want to keep moments forever frozen in time."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the Dark Side. And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

PALPATINE: "I see you becoming the greatest of all Jedi, Anakin. Even more powerful than Master Yoda."

ANAKIN: "I'm good at fixing things...always was. But I couldn't...Why did she have to die? Why couldn't I save her? I know I could have!"


PADME: "Sometimes there are things on one can fix. You're not all-powerful, Ani."

ANAKIN: "I should be! Someday I will be...I will be the most powerful Jedi ever! I promise you, I will even learn to stop people from dying."



ANAKIN: "I wasn't strong enough to save you, Mom. I wasn't strong enough. But I promise I won't fail again...I miss you so much."

This is why Anakin does what he does. For ten years, he's been told that he's the strongest and most powerful of all Jedi. He's believed his own hype and to have his mother die, because he wasn't strong enough to save her, makes him feel impotent. He feels like a failure and has driven himself into a frenzy of self doubt until he vows to become strong enough to save her. It's a god complex. So when Palpatine says that through me, you can become stronger than any Jedi and can save your wife, he goes for it because he wants power. He's greedy and the greed has overcome him.

 

Anakin *did* ease up on the bad blood. He took the information to Mace and offered to help. Then Mace beat him back down. I believe the conversation went something like this:

=========================================
ANAKIN: Master Windu, I must talk to you.

MACE WINDU: What is it, Skywalker? We are in a hurry. We have just received word that Obi-Wan has destroyed General Grievous. We are on our way to make sure the Chancellor returns emergency powers back to the Senate.

ANAKIN: He won't give up his power. I've just learned a terrible truth. I think Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith Lord.

MACE WINDU: A Sith Lord?

ANAKIN: Yes. The one we have been looking for.

MACE WINDU: How do you know this?

ANAKIN: He knows the ways of the Force. He has been trained to use the dark side.

MACE WINDU: Are you sure?

ANAKIN: Absolutely.

MACE WINDU: Then our worst fears have been realized. We must move quickly if the Jedi Order is to survive.

ANAKIN: Master, the Chancellor is very powerful. You will need my help if you are going to arrest him.

MACE WINDU: For your own good, stay out of this affair. I sense a great deal of confusion in you, young Skywalker. There is much fear that clouds your judgment.

ANAKIN: I must go, Master.

MACE WINDU: No. If what you told me is true, you will have gained my trust, but for now remain here.

=========================

Yes, it does really match up with what Anakin saw in Palpatine's office. Anakin and Mace have a prolonged argument about what should be done with Palpatine: Anakin believes he should be arrested (staying true to the Jedi way) and Mace has every intent of murdering Palpatine because arresting him would probe inconvenient. Yeah, Anakin saw the evil side of the Jedi in that moment. It moved him to action.

=======================

PALPATINE: I can't ... I give up. Help me. I am weak ... I am too weak. Don't kill me. I give up. I'm dying. I can't hold on any longer.

MACE WlNDU: You Sith disease. I am going to end this once and for all.

ANAKIN: You can't kill him, Master. He must stand trial.

MACE WlNDU: He has too much control of the Senate and the Courts. He is too dangerous to be kept alive.

PALPATINE: I'm too weak. Don't kill me. Please.

ANAKIN: It is not the Jedi way . . .

MACE raises his sword to kill the CHANCELLOR.

ANAKIN: (continuing) He must live . . .

PALPATINE: Please don't, please don't . . .

ANAKIN: I need him . . .

PALPATINE: Please don't . . .

ANAKIN: NO!!!
Just as MACE is about to slash PALPATINE, ANAKIN steps in and cuts off the Jedi's hand holding the lightsaber.

=============================

 

The novelization of the movie has its own version of the conversation:

Palpatine: "I ... can't. I give up. I ... I am too weak, in the end. Too old, and too weak. Don't kill me, Master Jedi. Please. I surrender."
Mace: (raising his blade) "You Sith disease-"
Anakin: "Wait-" (grabbing Mace's arm)
Anakin: "Don't kill him - you can't just kill him, Master."
Mace: "Yes I can. I have to."
Anakin: "You came to arrest him. He has to stand trial-"
Mace: "A trial would be a joke. He controls the courts. He controls the Senate-"
Anakin: "So are you going to kill all them too? Like he said you would?"
Mace: (shaking Anakin off) "He's too dangerous to be kept alive, If you could have taken Dooku alive, would you?"
Anakin: "That was different."
Mace: "You can explain the difference after he's dead." (raises lightsaber)
Anakin: "I need him alive! I need him to save Padme!"

(Mace thinks "Why?" and attempts to strike Palpatine down, only to have Anakin cut off his hand, and Palpatine blast him)

 

I see your point. I don't think it's perfectly comparable, though.

Most people didn't directly kill others during the Holocaust, most people "just" didn't interfere and looked the other way. This is different from Anakin, who actually killed people with his own hands (lightsaber) and looked into their eyes in the moment of death.

What indeed is comparable, though, is the motive: which is fear.
Anakin was afraid to lose his wife, many people who looked away were afraid to lose their own life and their family by becoming an "enemy of the state" as well. Much like Tarkin said: "Fear will keep the local systems in line."
________________________________________________
Personally, I thought that Anakin consciously "crossing the line" was very necessary. There's a line we shouldn't cross and Anakin had to cross that line, imo. If Anakin had just fallen out of bad circumstances and "not being aware until it was too late" (which is a common wish), it would have dimished Anakin's own responsibilty for his fall and the concept of choices as a whole.

Speaking of "human level of intelligence": Let's say a person is determined to stay on the good side and not turn to the dark side. He confronts the bad guy who presses that person to attack him because that would lead him to the dark side. An intelligent person would never attack because that would lead to the opposite of his intentions. The person, let's call him Luke , however, does attack him which is absolutely idiotic. He succeeds in the end because someone else (Vader) saved him. That obviously saves him from "critism" as well. Which is arbitrary.

People have to make decisions. Sometimes, they are wrong. It makes, for me, no sense to question (in the line of argumenting that one wouldn't do the same) the decisions of someone who turns dark because that's the point of his turn! The idea that "a good man" (misunderstood as "perfect man") would turn "by accident" is fan-made.

You're supposed to relate to Anakin's situation emotionally (fear of loss, wanting to keep the people you love etc.) but, simultaneously, you're supposed to say rationally: "This is wrong and would never go that far.".

 

The best analogy for the Jedi purge would be like when Stalin killed a bunch of people in his army for political reasons.

Given the sheer illogical steps that Anakin takes, it's more like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Minneapolis_workplace_shooting

than anything else. Because Lucas allows *no* legitimacy at all to Palpatine, then Anakin's steps are not honorable at all.

 

A number of falsities within the argument, however. The German people, those who 'rubbed shoulders' with their neighbours did not instantly turn against them. There were undercurrents of the very same hatreds that were expressed by means of the all-powerful and invasive state of Nazi Germany throughout Europe. There were many people who believed in 'race' as an actual attribute (and there remain such people today). Certain,,parties played on such underlying beliefs and preyed upon the instigation of fear and hatred on the back of them - to the extent that they gained the power to subsume personal liberty. You assume that the whole German people instantly turned on their neighbours - no such event occurred. There is a reason that some people don't go along with the idea that 'if you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to fear' in terms of an ever more paranoid intelligence community/government.

there wasn't some mass turn in Germany, Nazi Germany tells us far more about the de-humanising effects of totalitarian state power than it does about how 'good people' turn bad. The people who did the turning had been made bad way before their grab for power, or were inculcated with evil concepts and propganda and the rest were thencast adrift from their individual choice. The same effect that slavery has - you toe the line or you suffer. There were Jews that worked with the Nazis in the concentration camps, and in the ghettos; do you think they had turned against the Jews?

Whatever you think you have said about Anakin's turn by means of the Holocaust could not be more wrong - they are not the same. If you think you can understand or contemplate the Holocaust through Anakin's turn then you are very much mistaken.

Sorry if this seems a little harsh but - to paraphrase Wolfgang Pauli - this is so far wide of the mark its not even wrong.

 

Phew...where to even start with this...mish mash. By some manner you have managed to mix up tenses, mess around with concepts and disguise a deeply self-contradictory argument so that it appears almost to be arguing for you.

Let me break it down. You say that Palpatine never lied about being a Sith. That not volunteering information is not the same as lying. But ...then you go on to say that Anakin supports the war because ...he believes Palpatine can do no wrong. Errm..yes. he believes that Palpatine is not a Sith Lord and is actually in a struggle to save the Republic from an attack by the Separatists. And he supports the war..in what way? You think he supports the idea that Palpatine played everyone off against each other to start the war? No, he supports the war because he believes that the republic, headed by Palpatine, has come under attack by a hostile group, and he believes that Palpatine can do no wrong. It's not "Gunrays' show, after all" is it? That is cobblers. It's Palpatine's show, as a Sith Lord - who it turns out could, and was doing wrong.

Really? It wasn't Palaptine's fault that he deliberately started a war it was the Jedi's fault for not knowing he was a Sith? So..in what way is Anakin's siding with the Sith a reasonable conclusion to this rather odd paradox. The Jedi were so stupid they diodn't realise Palpatine was a Sith who should have been destroyed so...I'll destroy the Jedi and side with the Sith because..what? the there won't be anybody to be so blind as to allow the Sith to exist? Oh..hang on..let me think about this....

So, from now on should all fraudsters go free and the conned be imprisoned in their place? It's the conned's fault for not realising they were being conned, not the fraudster's? That is, essentially, your argument here.

Hmmm...this is very iffy ground. Since when did being murdered become the fault of the murdered?

You say this as if it's an either/or. Both can be true, and knowing that what he is doing is wrong, and he disagress with it - on top of all the reasons why what he is doing is stupid just makes him....even more foolish.

 

You're not seeing things as Anakin does. He sees the Republic as corrupt and ineffective, which it was before he came onto the scene. All he did in TPM was expose it and then take advantage. He couldn't have done it if the system wasn't broken in the first place. He still sees the Separatists as the problem because they fought against the laws and rules of the government, out of pure selfishness and greed. And yes, it is ironic because of what he does later on. He supports a strong and wise leader who can cut out the bureaucratic nonsense and force people to do what needs to be done. As to Nute, it was his idea to kill Padme because she embarrassed him ten years earlier. All Palpatine did was exploit that.

It's like in "The Dark Knight" when the Joker tells Harvey that while he did his part, it was everyone else who was responsible for his actions. It was Maroni and the Russian who hired the Joker to go after Harvey, the GCPD and Batman. It was Jim Gordon's fault for not listening to him about his corrupt officers, which lead to his disfigurement and Rachel's death. All the Joker did was act according to his nature, but it was everyone else who was at fault.

No, he goes after the Jedi because they will kill him and Palpatine for what they did, and then they'll take over the Senate and kill anyone that doesn't agree with them. And since Padme is a senator, this could be why she dies.

When they failed to adapt and change. As Lucas said, if you do not adapt to new circumstances and situations, then you'll die.

Welcome to the complex world of humanity. We all do things that we know are wrong and/or stupid, yet we do them anyway.

 

Actually, you know a LOT more than Anakin knows at this point. There's also no urgency to your making a decision. You're not under the gun. The person you love isn't in imminent danger. You aren't becoming distrustful of everyone you've known for the last 10+ years.

Your basic premise here seems to be: if I approach this situation logically, I am unable to comprehend his actions. That's the problem. You're coming at it logically, Anakin is not. You're coming at it with a bag full of facts, Anakin isn't.

Tendencies like what? Like slaughtering an entire village of people because some of them hurt your mother? Like killing a helpless prisoner of war?

Why is the final psychopathic tendency so surprising when Anakin has a trail of bodies lying behind him? We've seen this building up for a while. And we've seen it building up because of his incredibly strong emotional attachment to people who are in danger: Shmi, Palpatine, and Padme.

I don't think it's necessary to be drawn into a character's world-view to accept the traits they've been shown to have on a consistent basis. I don't need to be drawn into Hannibal Lector's world-view to understand his character and to accept when he kills. I didn't need to be drawn into Peter Parker's world-view to understand his character and accept when he lets a dangerous criminal go, nor to question later when his attitude takes a 180-degree shift after his Uncle dies, nor Doctor Octopus after his wife perishes tragically. I don't need to share in Conan the Barbarian's world-view, nor that of James Bond, nor Voldemort's. It's willing suspension of disbelief.

And if *you* read those pretty standard text books, you may understand that it was a process that led people down the dark path that led to the Holocaust. It wasn't like flicking a light switch. It was a manipulation of the general citizenry that morphed what were primarily religious differences in Germany into racial politics. Before the Nazis took over, German Jews worked alongside Germans. Regular people went to Jewish doctors. Jews went to the same schools. They gathered in the same places. The Nazis isolated them, expelling them from schools and firing them from their jobs. The Nuremberg laws forbade them from holding certain professions and regulated their interaction with "normal" people. And then, after a number of years, after the attitudes of the general populace were cultivated, the final blow was struck ... when the people were finally ready to accept it.

The same was true of how Palpatine groomed Anakin.

Nor does Anakin need to be seen to believe that the people he is setting out to kill are lesser persons. What he needs to be seen believing is that they are an impediment to his goal. The analogy of the Holocaust was not made to demonstrate motive, but rather that the capability exists to sway the minds of otherwise rational people to betray the people they work with every day of their lives.

There are plenty of people here who have been discussing his motives at length.

I am shocked that you haven't seen any examples of pre-existing mental illness or feelings of superiority. The prequels are spattered with them. There are also countless examples of his emotional attachments, the Jedi's fear of those attachments, the reckless abandon with which he pursues his goals, and his complete inability to stop and think rationally. His choices seem, to me, to be the most logical progressions of his development as a character.

Mace's actions made perfect sense. He even states his position in no uncertain terms: Palpatine has stacked the deck in his favor. There's no way the Senate or the courts would ever convict him: they're both filled with his cronies.

It's not a pretty big lie. It's a case of misrepresenting one's political affiliation. At least, he spins it to sound that way. Anakin eventually buys into that perception.

*You* know that, from watching the movies as a spectator, but I don't think even the Jedi put all those pieces together at the time. I don't recall Mace turning to Anakin and saying, "Geez, man, this guy tried to kill your wife! If nothing else, let me off him for that!" I don't think they even had the luxury of taking the time to untangle the web and all the subtle implications of what was going on.

Obi Wan and Yoda only manage to put the pieces together after they return to the Jedi Temple to find it destroyed. When things have calmed down a bit and they have a chance to actively think of how to move forward.

He was weak. Mace had fought him to a standstill. Palpatine needed Anakin to win. He couldn't win on his own.

And the Jedi tried to overthrow Palpatine, so he was right to alert Anakin to be on the lookout for it. The Jedi abandoned many of their values and ideals in the end. None of which is particularly relevant. What's relevant is how Anakin was led to the point of confusion and desperation. Who lied to who only becomes important if his weaknesses aren't being exploited and he's make a decision in a rational, calm way. He's not.

He's not stupid, he's human. A rather young, naive human at that.

If he thinks about it for a few minutes then he sees that his failure to act doomed his mother to a tragic death. A similar failure to act will, in his mind, lead to the same end for Padme. The thing that will lead to Padme's death is childbirth. Anakin tells Padme and she repeats it later. He's not going to terminate the pregnancy. He doesn't know what happens to the child. The best medical attention isn't going to convince him that his dream is false. His force skills aren't oriented toward healing and there's no physical opponent for him to defeat in her defense. He *needs* to explore areas of the force he hasn't dealt with before to save her. He knows and understands this.

What has gone astray in the story? The parallel is about as clear as it can be:

Anakin dreams of his mother and fails to act. She dies because of his inaction.
Anakin dreams of Padme ... do we really think he is going to fail to act this time?

He didn't trust in his powers the first time ... which is why she died. Everyone convinced him that it was just a dream. That it would fade in time. But it wasn't just a dream. It was a warning from the force. Had he trusted in himself and his power, she could have been saved.

He knew what might be putting Padme's life in danger. He just didn't have the knowledge to overcome the danger. Which is why he's turning over every stone to find a solution.

He buys into the idea of a magical power based on the same universal truth that he has studied at length and gained a certain level of mastery over. Yoda trained Luke that doing something with the force is only impossible if you believe it's impossible. Anakin chooses to believe that it's not impossible.

The best place to learn about evolution may not be with a group of Creationists. It may be with the agnostics. The Jedi haven't offered him any solutions, so maybe the other path holds something that can help him. It's worth the risk.

 

Perhaps we just, ultimately, see things very differently then. You see...I think, firmly believe, that while the position you find yourself in may not be of your own making, the decisions you make within whatever situation you find yourself in are your own responsibility. You accept them as your own and deal with them as your own. You take ownership of your decisions. The argument that all you have done is act to your "nature" is no argument at all.

Well...I don't understand how Anakin has reached that conclusion on the evidence he has. besides which, your response here has nothing to do with what I had written ( or what you were originally arguing)

Except they didn't "die" (which is a blameless event), they were "murdered" (which requires an act, volition). So..the argument that Lucas is using here (which is to do with the seemingly mindless process of evolution) is distinct from what actually occurs - which is that the Jedi were murdered, very deliberately. Arguments are made this way (substituting the real actions with words that appear to say the same thing, but actually alter the substantive nature of an event) as justifications - a bit like, in fact, the argument you offered from the Dark Knight - where the actions become not his but rather his nature's.

I think you'll find that a substantial part of what you have just retorted with was my argument (ie that stupid and wrong things can be done without a contradiction) in response to your argument which, as far as I could read it, was that Anakin can't have been stupid because he knew that what he was doing was wrong.

 

Point conceded. My phrasing was poor and created confusion. For that, I apologize. The intent by "the next day" was not intended to convey that the change was immediate. But the fault for the confusion is mine and I apologize for it. The remainder of my argument, however, stands.

I do not think you can understand or contemplate the Holocaust through Anakin's turn. As I have said a number of times, the analogy was made to demonstrate the fact that people can be manipulated and preyed upon to turn on their fellows. There is nothing about what you have said which disproves this point.

It's not harsh to offer a counterpoint. That's part of the process in debate. I respect your argument.

But I'm not wide of the mark. You *can* make normal people do horrific things by playing to their weaknesses. Any argument that states otherwise is incorrect and clearly disproven in this case.

 

Who said anything about Anakin's steps being honorable?

 

I didn't say Anakin wasn't responsible for his actions. But his actions come from the actions and inactions of everyone around them. Its a commentary on how corruption can take hold if efforts aren't made to prevent it. Nothing happens in a void. Hitler didn't come into power just because. He came into power because of what happened before he had. All he did was take advantage of that and used it to get what he wanted.

My point is that Anakin's point of view is based on the larger problems of the galaxy.

It is about evolution.

"I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based. I'd like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a larger understanding—a “bigger picture” understanding—of how we fit into the world, and how we fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.

Whether we're going to accomplish this, I'm not sure. Obviously, people have a lot of different dreams of where America should be, and where it should fit into things. Obviously, very few of them are compatible, and very few of them are very compatible with the laws of nature. Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that it's a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing dies, and everybody dies with it. That's a law of nature, and it's existed forever. We're one of the very few creatures that has a choice, and can intellectualize the process.

Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don't use it, and we don't adapt fast enough, we won't survive."

--George Lucas, Academy of Achievement Interview, 1999

We call it stupid because we're on the outside looking in. But you have to look at it from his point of view and based on his reasons for his actions. Anakin didn't want this. He didn't want to kill the Jedi. He didn't want Mace to die. He didn't want Palpatine to die. He just wanted to save Padme. He did what he did because of his own selfish greed and his lust for power. Just like Dooku turned on the Jedi, knowing full well that Palpatine was to blame for Maul killing Qui-gon. He blamed the Jedi for their weaknesses and he blamed the Senate for being ineffective. Just like Luke kept saying that he won't kill his father, and then he nearly does so twice.

It's much more complicated than that. He knows that he is wrong, but he knows that he cannot go back. He has to justify his actions in his mind, because it is the only way he can deal with what he has done and what he will do. The more he believes in his lies, the more he accepts them as truth.

 

Except that the German people did not turn against and agree to the mass killing of minorities. As I said, there were Jews who worked within the system, for the Nazis in the ghettos and the concentration camps; you aren't, I presume, arguing that they had turned against the Jews? In the same way the German people did not turn against their neighbours. There is a distinction between the debilitating fear instilled in a population by the over-arching power of a state and it's officials who can act with impunity against individuals; a fear that persuades you to turn away and not interfere with what is going on around you (and even within that environment there were those who tried to help in whatever small way they could - and some in very significant ways, often at great cost to themselves) - and the idea that they were inculcated with a hatred of and willingness to murder them.

 

Most people didn't directly kill others. But a large number of them did. More importantly, when the situation began, very few of those people would ever have thought themselves capable of even looking the other way. After time, it became the natural thing to do. A mass extermination went from unthinkable to acceptable. That's my point.

I think it is somewhat naive to say that intelligence will naturally win out over emotion in every instance and, therefore, it is inconceivable and unbelievable that a character in a story would choose emotion over reason. The world just doesn't work that way.

 

Are you saying that none of the German people turned against and agreed to the mass killings of minorities? History begs to differ. The program couldn't have gotten off the ground without some level of buy-in from some percentage of the population. It wasn't just a psychopath here and there.

One of the primary lessons of the Holocaust, some would say, is that people -- ordinary people, rational people, intelligent people -- can do monstrous things. They can do it without being psychopaths.

 

Honestly I don't know why you guys continue to try and engage only one kenobi and Ezekial. They want to see flaws in the PT. They'll go out of their way to claim they're there. Even when they aren't. The vast majority of their complaints are devoid of any logic. They completely ignore what we're shown in the movies. There's no arguing against that.