[ROTS] *Official* ROTS In-Depth Discussion Thread

If the Sith helped create Anakin, we'll never know if they had knowledge of where he was concieved, etc.

Again, Sidious isn't all-knowing. But let's name his major losses throughout the prequels:

-Death of Darth Maul
-Defeat of Vader by Kenobi on Mustafar

Not bad.

 

He may have lost some battles, but he won the war. Palpatine owns the PT.

 

He may have lost some battles, but he won the war. Palpatine owns the PT.

Actually I would argue that Luke and the Jedi Order won the war

 

1st, let me say, Sidious is the man. Obviously.
He fights like an animal, he's more manipulative than my ex-wife, and he took over the galaxy.
Most impressive.

But everybody has faults, and if we're doing this on a score card, I'll go with anyone who's story doesnt end in a horrible screaming death.
Palpatine obviously comes out on top in the prequels.
Thats one of the points of doing the prequels.
But his plan ultimately failed. The short term worked out great for him, but he was so anxious to enlist apprentices to further his own plans that he ended up recruiting the guy who not only destroys him (because thats the sith way. lame club. ), but dies in the process, ending the sith. No master, no apprentice.
Bad choice. Really bad.

Some say he was patient, steady, and had a brilliant plan that worked almost to perfection.
A genius without flaw. (Or maybe only one or two small ones.)

I say he was impatient, greedy, and barely pulled his plan together at the very last possible moment, with the worst possible partner.
A human being who makes mistakes.

IMO, we can learn as much from his path as we do from Anakins.

 

Almost everything went according to his plan.
And he is a changeling.



You know I'm right
/LM

 

I don't think Palpatine could have been Anakin's 'father.' There's just too many variables even for him. I mean, there's no way he could have engineered the breakdown of the Queen's ship over Tatooine leading to Qui-Gon finding him in the first place, and otherwise it would have to have been a pretty slim coincidence that they just happened to stumble across the Sith Lord's evil creation.

I think Palpatine is just an incredible opportunist with decent skills in forsight. Not even Anakin bought his little insinuation. Again, it was just one possible way - one opportunity - to seal the deal. If Anakin bought it, well even more leverage in is recruitment tactics.

Further, I think it's entirely possible he was making up the whole thing about Plagueis and the secret of eternal life. At the very least, he had no idea how it was done and certainly had no intention of figuring it out. He knew Anakin's weakness and completely played him. Once Anakin made his choice to disarm Mace, the game was over.

 

So the question is now, what does he do all sorts of stuff (in the OT) for? Power? Or to bring peace and justice? I think he deceives himself when he says it is for "peace and justice."

The Dark Side corrupts him over the years. Honest ambition, even good, eventually fueling hatred and rage, becomes uncontrollable.

After padme's death, IMO he doesn't have anything left to live for. And while before he may have turned to the darkside for a specific reason, now he doesn't prevent it from consuming him.

A point was also raised about why would palpatine tell him padme's dead if that's the way he's controlling him. Because the thought Padme and/or his child(ren) were alive was his only reason for living at that point. It gave him a purpose, a goal. Without them, he easily becomes consumed, and thus a true sith.

 

When he sees Padme and talks to her about what happened to him, it seems like he is hiding thigns from her, trying to make it sound to her like the things that he is doing are right, even though he may know deep down they arent. However, once he sees Obi come out of the ship and thinks that Padme has betrayed him, that is what solidifies his fall. To him, his one reason for killing the Jedi in the temple has disappeared.Once he thinks that, it releases much more anger than before, and he lets his regrets go and falls entirely to the dark (Well for another 20+ years anyway).

And this was my biggest problem with the film. When he originally "saves" palpatine, he had a motive (using him to save padme). When he killed the younglings, it was because if he didn't he wouldn't be trained by palpatine. But when he confronts padme, his purpose shifts from saving her to ruling. And I don't think Anakin ever showed a power urge before. In fact, I think he showed a disdain for being in charge. I know some may disagree with this, but I think what he craved before was respect, not to rule. He wanted respect from his peers, respect from palpatine. But I don't think he ever wanted to be "the man".

To have gone from his sole purpose to wanting to save padme to wanting to rule the empire, It seemed abrupt. And it's really the only part of the film that didn't work for me. Had this happened AFTER palpatine informed him that padme had died, then I could see it. But not before.

 

Some of the groundwork was laid out in AOTC in his dialouge with Padme on Naboo.

Also, I personally think it works in this way (bear with me)...
-He sees the real Sidious but consciously decides to follow him for Padme
-He believes once he plunges into the Dark Side, he'll be able to save Padme. ("Only after you kill the Jedi will you be strong enough in the Dark Side to save Padme")
-On Mustafar, he thinks he's ready. He's strong enough to save her ("Only my new powers can do that")
-He doesn't like the Emperor... at all. He can knock him off now and rule with Padme. He's looking for a way to convince her to join him. This is more alluring than, "Be my wife while I serve Satan"
-Now he's burned a bridge with Padme (choking her after he thinks she betrayed him). So, what's left for him? Either serve Sidious who he doesn't like or trust or go with the thought he came up with when trying to convince Padme (rule himself)

 

It's not like the ruling aspect came out of nowhere - as noted above, AOTC contained examples of Anakin's views on politics.

Think through the PT, and you'll see Anakin has never really had a good experience with politics. When Obi-Wan tells him that the Senate is voting Palps more executive powers, Anakin's like "Good, things will get done more quickly".

And you're missing the fact that they DO talk about Padme's death in that scene. Anakin is trying to convince Padme, Padme is trying to convince Anakin. Anakin sees that she's not really buying into her upcoming death, so he tries the political angle - she's a politician, surely she must be tired of the fighting.

I think it totally fits. And don't forget that Anakin's head is swelled with power at the time. I'm sure he feels like he can do anything.

 

I also think he was trying to illustrate that his partnership with Palpatine wasn't going to be permanent.

 

Exactly.

Which is why I think he doesn't think Palpatine is all cool after his Sithly nature is revealed - I think he's kind of resigned to joining Palpatine.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"I'd certainly like to."

Palps is basically a means to an end - plus, he runs the galaxy the way Anakin wants.

 

"It's not like the ruling aspect came out of nowhere - as noted above, AOTC contained examples of Anakin's views on politics. "


But even when Padme directly asks him, "who, you?". His response was, no, of course not, I'm not that wise.

I can buy that he thought the senate was at times ineffective, and that he thought maybe an empire would be more effective. I just don't think he so much wanted to rule himself.

I think what he wanted more than to rule was to be respected. And the lack of respect showed by some of the people around him further fueld that. I don't think he wanted to be on the jedi council and be a master because he wanted to exert power, but because it was a matter of pride to him.

 

Yeah, definitely.

In addition with a B.S. way to save Padme, Palpatine also offered Anakin protection after what Anakin did to Mace. There was no possible way for him to return to the Jedi Temple after cutting off Mace's arm, he would've been, at the very least, kicked out or probably killed. So Anakin used Palps, and Palps used Anakin. It's the perfect Sith relationship, except that Palpatine ended up with the upper hand again.

 

Anakin speaking of overthrowing Palpatine on Mustafar just lays the groundwork for ESB.

"With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy."

 

Alright, before I get back to Anakins fall (and the power/respect thing), because I really need to see the film again (hopefully this weekend) to really form an opinion on that. Right now I'm going on gut initial instinct.

For other topics that were discussed in this thread (I just saw the movie last night, I've literally done nothing all day at work ).

- We?ve talked a lot about how Anakin and Luke were put in similar situations, but Luke reacted differently. In this movie you had a good mirror. Anakin standing over a defeated Dooku, and ultimately killing him, and Luke standing over a defeated Vader, and not. But do you think Anakin and Luke were actually all that different? Do you think Luke didn?t kill Vader because he it wasn?t the jedi way, or because it was his father? Do you think had Vader been of no relation, would Luke have killed him? Didn?t Luke try to kill palpatine, who had no weapon, which was then prevented by Vader?

I?m beginning to believe Anakin and Luke weren?t nearly as different as I believed heading into this movie, but that their situations were different. Anakin had loved ones who drove him to do the things which lead to his falling, Luke had loved ones who prevented him from falling. Because he was certainly close.


- I would have liked to have seen the jador in AOTC as well. Adding that, as well as the deleted scenes (IMO those 2 were better than any of the anakin-padme scenes left in the movie) would have really added to HER end of the relationship.

- I agree with the notion that Mace was beating Palpatine, but that Palpatine then used that to his advantage to manipulate Anakin and put him on the spot. Anakins always had trouble with emotions, so take away his time to think about it logically. Sort of like a car salesman trying to get you to buy a car that day. It really all depends on whether you think Palpatine was seeing things far in the future and able to plan EVERYTHING out, or whether he an incredible opportunist who is able to take advantage of these instances in a moments notice.

- On this topic, I don't like the whole Plagueis thing. It goes in with Palpatine. I like to think that Anakin was made BY the force, not through the force. That he was done to fulfill a destiny, not created to be used for a personal agenda. Plus I think it is another attempt to limit his culpability because he's been manipulated upon birth. Personally, I like it better thinking palpatine saw the opportunity to use him when he was discovered, not that he orchestrated his life.

However, I do think that Lucas' intention is that Anakin was created by a sith.

- I didn't care much for Grevious. Not as much as I would have liked to. I thought there wasn't enough in there for him, and that he seemed cartoony. Not in his animations, but in his mannerisms. That cough reminded me of a guy in duck tales that I used to watch decades ago. And he really had a much smaller role than I expected. I agree that when Anakin and Obi-Wan went to get Dooku, 2 other jedi should have gone and been killed by Grevious.

- I really liked some of the twists in the movie. I'm glad that Anakin, initially at least, ventured to using the dark side to try to master the force and save padme. And I like that, while he made mistakes, he wasn't regarded initially as being pure evil. I loved the Jedi Purge (I never liked the idea of it being carried out solely by Vader), and I liked that Padme died not from physical complications in child birth but just by losing a will to live. I thought it was great seeing anakin have consequences for his action, and it prevents a nice "what if", that had Anakin just made the right decision, the Sith would have been defeated (he could have killed both Dooku and Sidious), the war would have been over, and he and Padme could have lived happily ever after (well, outside of that whole secrecy thing). It gives some weight to him messing up.

- I loved the end, how Anakin ended up losing the duel and Obi-Wan's reaction. Even right before Obi-Wan struck him

 

Agreed, on most of your points.


We'll never know how much Palpatine knows. Did he kidnap Shmi? I don't think so.

Did he "implant" the dreams of Padme dying? I don't think so, I doubt he's that powerful. But Yoda was able to see what Luke saw in his visions of Cloud City, it's possible Palpatine saw something similar to Anakin and decided to exploit it.

I also think it's quite possible that either

(a) Anakin tells him a lot, and he's able to connect the dots,

and/or (b) Palpatine had Padme's apartment bugged.

 

Regarding Luke vs Anakin, how much of Anakin's decision making has been influenced by having Palpatine talk in one ear and the Jedi talk in the other? Perhaps the reason that Luke makes the right choice is because Owen and Beru kept him humble for so long whereas Anakin kept being told that he was the chosen one while the council held him back.

 

One comment that comes up a lot - the pacing of the film. If you watch what's going on in TESB, you'll see a lot going on very quickly. Luke trains to become a Jedi in 15 minutes, then finds out after a vicious duel that Vader is his father. Meanwhile Han and Leia start to fall for each other, then Han is captured and stolen off. A new character (Lando) is introduced, and in 30 minutes he goes from friend to traiter to hero. The last third of TESB is like a sprint to the finish with a million things going on.

Bottom line on pacing - that's why this is a good film that stands with the originals. It is 2 hours of serious plot movement.

 

Sidious ain't a changeling. Pablo confirmed he's human.

His whole keeping his true form buried down is simply with the darkside.

Oh; and I doubt he arranged Shmi's kidnapping, though, once again, in the MAKING OF ROTS, it shows that in the rough draft, DOOKU admitted to Anakin during their duel he arranged his mother's kidnapping. Of course, this might have been b.s. on the Siths' part to infuriate Anakin.

I do think that in Clones, Palpatine saw to it Kenobi was sent to Padme because of the potential relationship between Anakin and Padme.

Anyways, to answer someone's question, in the ROTS novel, Mace VS Palpatine differs somewhat because Anakin shows up while they're still dueling. It's from that point on Mace has the edge. The chapter was pretty dissapointing in my book, because it was COMPLETELY from Mace's POV. However, he believes he feels Palpatine is afraid. After he disarms him, he says "You have been defeated by your own fear." Palpatine replies before blasting him with lightning "Fool! Do you think the fear you feel is mine?!". This of course indicates that it was really ANAKIN's fear, not Palpatine's.

And then it's pretty obvious to us Sidious fakes exhaustion, though apparently not to Mace. He gets played like a fool in all versions of this scene.

The junior novelization explicitly states, apparently (this of course being after Anakin removes Mace of his hand):

"The Chancellor wasn't tired at all!"

***

With all that aside, again, the MAKING OF ROTS answers it pretty clearly.

Mace wins the saber duel. Sidious orchestrates everything else. And even then, it was all an arrangement to get Anakin to turn in the first place.

 

I went to see RotS again yesterday and had a very specific thought at one point. One comment I've read in regards to the story is about how Nute Gunray in RotS seems to trust and be willing to follow Sidious, while in AotC Dooku tells Obi-Wan that Nute came to him when Nute was betrayed by Sidious ten years prior.

Some have explained the apparent discrepancy in a couple of ways. Some say that Dooku in the AotC scene is just lying, so who knows the truth. Others, including myself up to the point of viewing RotS again yesterday, say that Nute Gunray must be made aware of the fact offscreen that Sidious is the reason why Nute's survived several trials in the courts.

While watching RotS yesterday, I came to an interesting different conclusion. I paid particular attention to the dialogue of the scene where Nute Gunray gets the transmission from Sidious telling him that Dooku's death was a needed sacrifice and that Sidious will have a new apprentice soon. This made me think something different happened.

I'm now thinking that indeed Nute Gunray did go to Dooku and tell him about the trouble he had with Sidious in the wake of the events of TPM. I'm now thinking that Nute did this specifically under the instruction to do so by Sidious. One key line of dialogue that made me start thinking this is that in that RotS scene, Sidious tells Nute that Nute's done well. I think Nute thought Sidious was backing the Seperatist war against the Republic, and that one piece of this backing was Sidious providing instruction to Nute on how to get Dooku to join and lead the Seperatist movement. Of course, Nute never realizes that he's being played and that Sidious was just using the falsified statement that Nute gave Dooku about being betrayed by a Sith Lord in order to manipulate Dooku himself. I think Sidious used Nute to get Dooku aware of his (Sidious's) existance as a first step to bring Dooku to the Dark Side.

It's quite interesting how such a seemingly little scene in RotS can change one's entire understanding of the saga.

 

or maybe dooku made all that up to create sympathy to his cause. he's trying to get obi-wan on his side after all.

 

very perceptive, vacant. I like it.

Poor old Nute, did he ever get pwned by Anakin.

 

I have a question for you all.

Now that you know the truth about which twin was born first were your thoughts right or wrong? And if so how do you feel?

 

vacant, excellent. That is so cool