CT ROTJ Throne room scene is nonsensical...

...because:

1. The Emperor tries to lure Luke to the Dark Side by making Luke angry at...himself (Emperor).
Which i see as completely nonsensical if you want a person to join you in anything...The logical thing to do would be to try to make Luke angry at anyone but himself(Emperor) in order to turn to the Dark Side & join him. So, what gives?

2. When Luke attacks the Emperor, Vader defends him...Why?
Didn't Vader want to overthrow the Emperor and rule with Luke at his side?
If the Emperor was mind-controlling Vader, then why didn't he sense Vader's conflict concerning his son and just mind-control Vader before he grabed him & throw him in the ''pit''?
Does using Force Lightning make him momentarily weak minded?

3. Vader fails to realize that ''...and take your father's place at my side'' means that the Emperor wanted him dead and doesn't immediately turn on the Emperor, but just stands there for a couple of minutes...why?

4. Assuming Luke had killed Vader, what was the Emperor's plan to make Luke willingly serve him?
I mean, Luke killing Vader & turning to the Dark Side doesn't mean that he is automatically going to serve the Emperor. Luke could very well continue his rampage and fight the Emperor and maybe even succeed.
Is ''join me or die'' his genius plan?

5. The Emperor behaves like the villains of James Bond and sends away his guards.
Wouldn't it be wiser to keep them in the room, just in case something went wrong with his ''plan'' (look 3.)?

6. This happens in TESB but fits in the whole nonsensical thing...
Why does Vader cut-off Luke's hand if he wants Luke to join him?
Would't it be wiser to play the victim by merely defend himself while accusing Obi of lying about him (which is true...from a certain point of view...the obvious one...) making Luke feel empathy for his father & at the same time anger towards Obi for lying to him? ...ergo hitting two birds with one stone (aka Luke turns to the Dark Side by being angry at Obi & joins his father who after all tells him the truth)?

 

Because Vader will defend him.

Vader still wants to overthrow Palpatine, but he won't discuss it here. Not in front of Palpatine. He knows what happened to the last person who openly defied Palpatine. He still has to make Luke angry enough to turn, because the last time that Anakin got angry, he didn't turn. He just killed in cold blood, but didn't embrace the dark side.

He does know. The Rule of Two states that there can only be two Sith Lords at a time. A Master and an Apprentice. He himself had killed his predecessor, Count Dooku, aka Darth Tyranus. He is struggling because part of him wants to save Luke, but part of him is still looking to Palpatine as his Master.

It worked before.


"After Darth Sidious' first apprentice is killed, he has to come up with a new apprentice, and rather than coming up with some baby that he trains from birth, which is what he should have done--well, he shouldn't have gotten himself in a position of getting his apprentice killed anyways--he's decided to make his move, so he needs somebody that was already trained. The point is to set up that he turned this one Jedi, so that he could turn another Jedi. It has to be set up that way."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful, but he ended up losing his arms and a leg and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there’s not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now he’s maybe 20 percent less than the Emperor. So that isn’t what the Emperor had in mind. He wanted this really super guy, but that got derailed by Obi-Wan. So he finds that, with Luke, he can get a more primo version if he can turn Luke to the Dark Side. You’ll see, as this goes on, Luke is faced with the same issues and practically the same scenes that Anakin is faced with. Anakin says yes and Luke says no."

--George Lucas, quoted in J. Windolf, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

"At this point, Vader’s plan really, now that he knows he’s his son, is to convince him to come with him. Join the Dark Side and together they’re going to overthrow the Emperor, which is the thematic devices used through the whole movies in terms of the Sith, which is Sith Lords are usually no more than two because if there are three, then two of them will gang up on one to try to become the dominate Sith. Anakin would have been able to do it if he hadn’t been debilitated and now he’s half machine and half man, so he’s lost a lot of the power of the Force, and he’s lost a lot of his ability to be more powerful then the Emperor. But Luke hasn’t. Luke is Vader’s hope. His motives at this point are purely evil. He simply wants to continue on what he was doing before which is get rid of the Emperor and make himself Emperor. He only sees his son as a mechanism for the ambition. His mad lust of power."

--George Lucas, TESB DVD Commentary.

"And when he finds out Luke is his son, his first impulse is to figure out a way of getting him to join him to kill the Emperor. That's what Siths do! He tries it with anybody he thinks might be more powerful, which is what the Emperor was looking for in the first place: somebody who would be more powerful than he was and could help him rule the universe. But Obi-Wan screwed that up by cutting off his arms and legs and burning him up. From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor -- he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku. He wasn't what he was supposed to become. But the son could become that."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stones Interview, 2005.

"The Emperor wants Luke to kill Vader so that he will have a new young Jedi. Lets face it Vader is half mechanical and he is not half as good as he could be. He is not nearly as good as he was hoping Anakin would become because Anakin ends up in the suit. He is hoping he gets a new better apprentice in Luke. If he kills his father then he would take his place as an apprentice; which actually there is something that in the next film is how Anakin becomes his apprentice. There are a lot of things repeated in these movies. Fathers vs Sons."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary.

"Most of this sequence with Luke really had to do with making him angry and to try to tempt him to become angry and Luke fighting that temptation. Which obviously eventually he does and eventually again he doesn’t. But that’s the real tension in this whole scene is “Will he become angry enough to try to attack the Emperor?” I mean what the Emperor wants basically is from him to kill his father so he can take his place, which is the same thing his father is trying to get him to do is kill the Emperor so Vader can take the Emperor’s place."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004

"The key issue in these movies is for a Jedi not to use anger when he’s fighting. So the final confrontation here is primarily about trying to make Luke become angry, so that when he fights his father he’s fighting in anger, therefore begins to use the dark side of the Force, and therefore sort of succumbs to the dark side of the Force. In The Empire Strikes Back we had them confront each other and fight together. But in this film Luke has become more mature so that now he knows he shouldn’t be fighting him—that is the path to the dark side. So it’s basically a confrontation between two people and one of them doesn’t want to fight, and the other one keeps trying to push him into it. And then in the end when he gives up and they really do fight, what’s happening there is that ultimately Luke is turning to the dark side, and all is going to be lost."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004

"In The Empire Strikes Back it’s the first time that the antagonist and protagonist actually fight each other. So that it is a very big fight and Luke now has become proficient enough to be able to face Darth Vader. So it’s a slightly one-sided sword fight where Vader has the advantage over him. Luke didn’t know that Vader was his father for the fight part, so that what was happening was he though he was fighting his bitter enemy. So he was fighting as hard as he could; he was fighting the man who killed his father; fighting the man who killed Obi-Wan Kenobi; fighting the man who would personify evil in the universe. And then as we go on into the next fight, it becomes more of an equal confrontation. In the next one, the Return of the Jedi, he knew he was fighting his father. He knew that the Emperor was behind all this. And he knew the issues he was dealing with were much larger than just the sword fight. And so that sword fight really centered on the more emotional context the sword fight takes place in than the actual fight itself. That was the climax of the film rather than having it be a technological warfare, blow up the Death Star kind of thing, it was really more of a personal fight between a father and son."

--George Lucas, “The Birth of the Lightsaber,” Star Wars: Bonus Material DVD, 2004


"In the end I had a problem in the fight between Luke and his father of why he makes the final turn--Luke makes the final turn to the bad side of the force and tries to kill his father. Richard [Marquand] was trying to block out the fight between Luke and Vader and we got down to that point underneath the throne room there and he said, 'You know the script sort of says that Vader says something that upsets Luke,' or something vague like that. I can't remember exactly what the script said but it was a very vague...spark. And we didn't have that actual moment that we needed where you got the sense that Luke is hiding. He's not going to fight him. He refuses to fight. He'd rather die first and then something turns him around and makes him fight. And I never really came up with a satisfactory answer to that of what he could possibly say to set Luke off. And in the process of evolving the script and evolving the importance of Leia as the sister, it was sitting right there in front of my face and it became obvious that turning her to the dark side would be the thing that would set Luke off again."

--George Lucas, ROTJ Annotated Screenplay; 1999

How'd that work out?

He cut off Luke's hand because Luke smacked him in the shoulder, which caused him to lose his cool. Vader disarmed him as it stopped the fight. If he kept going, he would have killed him. He uses Obi-wan against Luke when he senses that Luke doesn't know the truth. Hence bringing up the subject.

 

Congratulations on becoming what you hate.

I've seen it happen before, but over many years.

Didn't even take you a month.

 

Nope. I still like them all 6.
My least favorite of the 6 is still light years ahead of what i would call a mediocre movie.

I just want to see the thinking processes of those who don't see ''trouble'' where it is, but only where they want to see it...

These are troubles i see in there, but i go along with them because i realize it's a movie and no movie character or action is ''perfect''...just like real life...
If one can provide answers i actually didn't think of for some of these (because some really don't have answers and you just have to go-along), so much the better for me, i'll just enjoy the movies even more!

 

The Emperor needed Luke to unleash his anger in order that he would turn to the dark side. It's the Sith way. Once he turns he's Sidious' prisoner effectively as he craves the power that the Sith Lord can provide. He would demonstrate this power before the day was done. Sidious antagonises him into attacking him. He's confident that Vader will defend him, but feels that he has Luke well and truly covered if need be.

The Emperor plans to walk out of the throne room with one or other or both of Luke and Vader dead and because of his arrogance and over-confidence he feels that he controls that situation. Vader dead, Luke turned to the dark side and the new apprentice. Luke dead, Vader remaining his apprentice. Vader dead, Luke doesn't turn, Luke dead at Sidious' hand, get another apprentice. These are all options open to The Emperor. The one thing he can't allow to happen in the Skywalker father and son to develop a bond over time as that could lead to his demise. At least one of them had to go. The option he didn't have covered was the one that actually unfolded.

The guards? They're not a lot of use for what was about to go down in there. Keeping them there is a waste of guards.

I look forward to a good discussion of the issues raised...

 

That's how i go along with the movie, yes...

But, once you think about it, (nitpick i know full well):

1. Luke turning to the Dark Side doesn't mean he automatically serves the Emperor nor his prisoner!
I see the ''join me or die'' as ''bit'' of a cop-out.
Vader for example didn't just turn because he was threatened by the Emperor!
He basically had been offered the chance of saving Padme and unlimited power (both pretty effective for a character with obvious weaknesses such as too much fear about losing the ones his loves & at the same time quite arrogant about himself being limited etc.)

Besides... ''join me or die?'' I can see that working perfectly for all the ''grunts'' serving in the Empire, but who in their right mind would have the 2nd in command of the entire Empire and all the power that would give Luke to overthrow the Emperor, only serve him because...''join me or die?''
You want some sympathy towards yourself mr.Emperor!

2. Again...in TESB Vader clearly wants Luke to join him and overthrow the Emperor.
All he had to do was just not defend the Emperor or better yet strike the Emperor too...and things would be completely different!
What Vader did completely contradicts what he said in TESB (which also makes no sense to me what he did there-look previous posts)!
( I can go along with some of the other stuff that happen in the throne room scene, but Vader defending the Emperor really has no answer...it's just completely&utterly illogical!)

3. One could say the Emperor's arrogance and over-confidence make it seem like his IQ suddenly dropped from 200 to 60 though...
He could forsee things into the distant future, defeat the entire Jedi-order, play an entire galaxy on his will etc. and yet the mighty Emperor couldn't sense Vader's inner conflict right behind him, even though seconds before he said ''...kill your father...'' ?
Woudln't that make him think ''OOPS, i just made Vader realize(?????) he is expendable...i better cover my rectum...~!GUARDS!!! Get your *** back in here!...Vader, keep back, this lightining is quite dangerous for you!''

3.5. As for the guards...its really down to script. If the script demanded it, they would intervene when Vader grabbed the Emperor and save him.
Easy to do to someone barely breathing.

 

Say what you want, the throne room is the best part of the movie emotionally and thematically, and just fun in general. ( Gold Bikini and Lando/Wedge space battle aside.) Endor forest segments are rather bland.

 

he had to get him angry to turn him to the Dark Side. He wasn't afraid of Luke being able to hurt him though. It's the same game that was played 23 years earlier with Count Dooku. He didn't expect Anakin to be told to kill him. They were just going to bring him over to the dark side. Same thing, different result.

 

Nit pick all you like. Isn't that why we're here?

1. Vader turned because he felt that Sidious offered him power to achieve what he wanted. In my interpretation of ROTJ, Sidious wanted Luke to kill Vader and in doing so turn to the dark side by giving in to his anger. At that point, Luke, like his father before him, would have effectively becomes another person. A person craving power to quell all consuming angst and rage at learning that despite his now considerable Jedi skills, he would likely be unable to save his sister, his friends, the Rebellion, from destruction.

When the dark side takes old, all a person can see is an opportunity for more power. Prior reasoning pretty much flies out the window. In my view, had Luke killed Vader, Sidious would've put on a demonstration of power (involving force lightning) to Luke which would've been hard to resist. Luke would've conceded and joined Sidious, or died. Is that logical on planet Earth? Maybe not. Is it logical in SW, particularly when the dark side is at play? Absolutely. If you recall, when Palpatine revealed to Anakin that he was a Sith Lord in ROTS Anakin's first response was to want to cut him down. A short while later, Anakin's on his knees calling Sidious master. The dark side does strange things to a person in the SW galaxy. Strange things indeed.

2. The Vader of ROTJ isn't he Vader of TESB though. As has been discussed in another thread recently, he'd become a relatively broken and conflicted man. He defends his master, the result of years of subservience. He doesn't want to kill his son though, which is the result of the feelings he's had growing inside him since the events of TESB. Vader knows full well that if he doesn't kills Sidious or Luke, he may well be about to be replaced by his son. But he can't find it in himself to take action to prevent it, such is his internal conflict. Strange as it sounds, for Vader to act illogically at this point is pretty logical. Such is the behaviour of the deeply conflicted and bereft at times. It's almost an unconscious death wish at play.

3. Intelligence is a multi-faceted and complex thing. Very intelligent people do very stupid things at times. They are certainly not beyond complacency. They are, after all, not perfect. Look at the Jedi of the PT, for example. Sidious' over-confidence is fairly plausible I'd say and not necessarily indicative of a lack of smarts. He believes that he owns Vader pretty much and up until the very last minutes of Vader's life, he pretty much does. He also knows, as we see, that Luke is no match for him in terms of power yet either. Sidious doesn't want Vader killed because he's conflicted. He wants him killed because at that point he's concluded that Luke is the better choice of apprentice and because he wants Luke to give in to his anger and turn. Once again, it makes a fair bit of sense to me.

3.5. The guards? Yeah, maybe. Can't say it bothers me much either way.

So I guess to answer your original point, I'd say no, the scene isn't nonsensical, it's actually pretty logical. Perhaps not in terms of the way things play out on planet Earth, but in terms of the precedents of the SW films, both trilogies, I'd say definitely so.

 

I agree! It is my favorite part too of ROTJ!

 

Yes he had to make him angry...but he made him angry at himself(Emperor) which just doesn't make sense to me to do that to the one you want to join you!
In ROTS the Emperor made Anakin/Vader angry towards everyone but himself(Emperor).

 

Once Luke gave into his anger, towards anyone, he would taking a step forward to the dark side. I don't see how you don't understand this. Keep in mind that Vader also hated the Emperor, but remained his faithful servant for 2 decades. That was Palpatine's intention for Luke as well.

 

This is not what i don't understand! Please re-read my comments.

Vader hated the Emperor? His mentor of many decades?
Ok...he wanted to overthrow him...but then why did Vader defend him when Luke attacked the Emperor?

 

2. Because otherwise The Emperor would have used lightning on Luke. Vader wanted keep Luke as safe as possible.

3. Vader wasn't willing to sacrifice himself until the end. The Emperor's downfall was his belief that Vader wouldn't ever sacrifice himself.

5. I guess the guards don't know that Palpatine is Sidious.

 

Remember, the Vader of Return of the Jedi is not the Vader of The Empire Strikes Back. In this movie, he's an old, conflicted man who is starting to realize for the first time in 23 years that maybe, just maybe, he had made the wrong decision. And maybe, just maybe, there's a way out of this.

As to why he doesn't just lightsaber Palpatine, or let Luke do the honors? The Emperor is the most powerful and most dangerous man in the galaxy. I sincerely doubt he was just going to let Luke cut his head off without a fight. He may be old and weak physically, but make no mistakes, he still has power as demonstrated when he shoots out the lightning. He probably has backup plans for what to do if Vader didn't intervene, or actually attempted to assist Luke in murdering the Emperor.

Another poster summed it up nicely. One way or another, Palpatine wants to make damned sure he's the only one who makes it out of the throne room. If it means killing both Luke and Vader, then so be it. Vader, on the other hand, wants to protect Luke and simultaneously, wants to survive for as long as possible so he can (and this is where he's getting the conflict within himself) either be Luke's new master or join Luke and become a Jedi again.

 

The Emperor's goal is to get to this point:

"Your hate has made you powerful."

He wants Luke to understand, to feel the power of the dark side. Once he has "fulfilled his destiny", Luke will join him willingly, because he'll want the Emperor to teach him more about the dark side. Just like his father before him, he will need the Emperor to gain more power.

Being a Sith Lord is a dangerous game, but Palpatine excels at it. He knows that whatever hatred Luke carries is directed towards him and Vader. That's what he has to play with.
In the end, it makes no difference if Luke hates him, because as long as Luke feels that he needs him, he won't try to kill him.

As is the case with Vader. The Emperor said it: "Only together can we turn him to the dark side of the Force". They both want to backstab eachother, but they also need eachother to get Luke to commit to the dark side. Already in TESB, Vader made a sincere effort ("Only your hatred can destroy me" etc.), to no avail. This time, it's made even harder by the fact that Luke is trying to get him to turn. Even after striking at the Emperor, Luke is nowhere close to turning. In fact, he keeps pushing Vader's buttons ("I feel the good in you. The conflict").
That's why Vader needs to keep working with his master until they manage to seal the deal.

 

I think I'm just gonna let you chew on this and maybe we'll get back to it in a while. That usually works for me

 

@Darth Schlotkin

After I first saw RotJ back in 83 I came up with a sort of theory on how this worked. And this is just my speculation and working with what the OT films said, nothing more. So take it for just that.

A Sith Master like Palpatine has a kind of "Command Power" that he can use against someone that is tapping into the dark side and uses it to fuel their actions. If someone comes at him and is filled with hate and anger and is letting the dark side flow through him/her then Palpatine can seize on that and use it to break their will and make them submit to him.

Yoda warned Luke, "Don't underestimate the powers of the Emperor or suffers your father fate you will." What power was this? Luke tells Palpatine that he wouldn't turn him like he turned his father. Again suggesting a power Palpatine has. Luke also says "There is good in you, the Emperor hasn't driven it from you completely." And Vader was not as dominating and forceful as he was in ESB and he even said "I MUST obey my Master."
So what I thought happened is that Anakin came after Palpatine, filled with anger and hate and Palpatine used that and bent him to his will. Anakin turned to the dark side but Palpatine made him his servant because of that.
So in RotJ Vader is told to do things and he can't resist. The only way to beat this is to either become stronger in the dark side than your master and thus you can beat his commands. OR and no one though this possible until Anakin showed that it was possible, let go of your anger and hatred and then your master have no hold over you.
So I think Vader figured that this would end with either him dead or Luke dead. And he didn't want either but he felt powerless to do otherwise. He seems broken down when Luke meets him on Endor and I think he did something he didn't really want, but couldn't disobey. He defended Palpatine because he had been ordered to do that. He could not resist Palpatine's commands unless he let go of his hate.

What about ESB then? Well I figured that this power is dependent on distance, when Palpatine is far away, he can't dominate Vader like when they are close. So Vader did want Luke to turn and join him and together they could deal with Palpatine. Why did Vader cut of Luke's hand? As others have said, Luke got in a hit and Vader had enough and wanted to end the fight quickly. His offer to Luke was more on the line of making things seem hopeless to Luke. He was beaten and defeated, there was nowhere to go. He also tried to make Luke doubt Obi-Wan and told him the truth about who he really was. So he offered life, power, an end to this war and be with his father. But Luke choose death instead.

So what I think would have happened to Luke if he had killed Vader in hate. He would surely have turned on Palpatine and come at him filled with hate. But by crossing that line, Palpatine could use his anger and hate and bend him to his will. And the angrier Luke got, the quicker he would loose.

In closing, the first draft of ESB actually has something sort of like this in the Luke Vader fight. Vader lets Luke use the power of the dark side in their fight. Knowing that as long as Luke keeps doing this, he will eventually loose. Once he has gone far enough, Vader can simply use the dark side in Luke and beat him.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

http://www.starwars.com/news/lukes-death-blow