Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 418: Crisis on Naboo Discussion Thread

Whether or not the entire plan was engineered by Palpatine was not answered in the episode, so even if these questions are applicable they're also unanswerable, but we don't know for sure if they are applicable. I personally feel it is more likely that he did an indirectly manipulative move like how he got Mace Windu to attempt to assassinate him where he just set a few little wheels in motion and let the plot unfold, rather than a more directly manipulative move like he did when he first got the Trade Federation to invade Naboo and delayed the Senate with parliamentary procedures. I highly he doubt he personally orchestrated The Box scenario, and Moralo Eval takes credit for the plan to capture the Chancellor in this episode (with Cad Bane admitting that it was Eval's plan, but trying to take credit for its execution).

The plan was for all the bounty hunters to rendezvous after they captured Palpatine and Count Dooku was supposed to meet them. They didn't know exactly what was coming next, they were relying on the Count and he never showed. It was later implied that he didn't show because he was spying on Obi-Wan and knew he was in disguise. There was never a decoy, get-captured-on-purpose plan. Getting back to Palpatine's role, I think it's entirely possible he just made the best of the scenario he was presented with by Eval and the Jedi Council.

 

I was under the impression that Dooku motivated Eval to do this and of course in turn Palpatine is Dooku's Master. I don't see how Dooku couldn't have been directed to do this by Palpatine. He wouldn't decide to simply kidnap his Master on his own.

As for Embo his role was to play decoy. In playing that role he must have realized that Republic forces would be coming after them making his chance at escape all but impossible.

Also why do the Jedi, apparently so concerned with protecting Palpatine, all run away from him at the first sign of trouble? Mace Windu already knew that one of the kidnappers was disguised as a Senate Guard because Obi-Wan told him so. They also knew from Kenobi how many kidnappers there were. Why would they then confidently leave Palpatine in the hands of the other guards when they already know at least one guard was in on the crime?

 

From the very beginning of the arc we're told it's a plot by Eval, and at the end of the arc Eval personally takes credit, with Cad Bane acknowledging it was Eval's plan. What you're asking gets into behind-the-scenes stuff about which my or your guess is as good as anyone's. My guess would be Eval took the plan to Dooku and then Dooku told Palpatine about it and did whatever he told him to.

I don't remember exactly what Embo's role was, but I know for sure that getting captured by the Republic was not part of their plan, which is what I thought you were suggesting.

Before the ceremony, when Obi-Wan tells Mace Windu that the kidnappers are disguised as Senate Guards, he also tells him that because of that he needs to double-check and verify all of them before the ceremony starts. Presumably, that double-check and verification happened off-screen, which is why the Jedi were confident that all the Senate Guards in the immediate vicinity were legitimate.

 

Even after, when Octoman makes his move, Obi tells Mace that it was "the guard on the stairs" going after the shield generator. Maybe we can chalk it up to the Jedi getting confused, but to me Ahsoka did a much better job guarding the Naboo Queen than the Jedi did on Palpatine. I find it unlikely that they would simply leave him behind. It seems to me that its pretty negligent of them to do so.

Granted they did the same thing when the bugs tried to bite Padme in AOTC's so maybe that standard Jedi procedure.

 

Obi-Wan tells Mace someone's going for the shield generator, Mace tells Anakin to go to it, then while Anakin goes to the shield generator, Mace goes to Palpatine. Then the cool new alien guy zaps Anakin and knocks him out, Obi-Wan tells Mace that Anakin is down and Cad Bane is still out there so Mace tells the guards to stay with Palpatine while he goes for Bane.

 

Exactly, he leaves Palps in the exclusive care of the guards, even though he knew the bounty hunters were disguised as guards. Pretty dumb of him, it would seem.

And if Embo thought we would simply be able to drive away with Palpatine's decoy and nobody would bother him, he's also pretty dumb. If he had any hope of escaping, there would be no need for the switch, he could just make it out of there with the real undisguised Palps. The only logic in the switch is to use Embo and false Palps as decoys, though that requires them to get arrested.

 

Normally I'd agree, but their conversation wasn't just Obi-Wan telling Mace that the bounty hunters were disguised as the Senate Guards, Obi-Wan also told him to double-check all the Senate Guard who would be guarding Palpatine to confirm their identity. I got the impression that line is in there for a reason and we're supposed to assume that check happened off-screen, although it wasn't that explicitly stated. So assuming that extra check happened, it's not that dumb of a move, and it's certainly nowhere near as dumb as it would have been Kenobi only told Mace about the disguise and Mace did that anyway. There's an extra factor to take into consideration.

I think the bait-and-switch was intended a.) to the make the getaway easier overall and b.) to create a plan B, such that their goal wasn't for Embo to be captured with the fake Chancellor, but that if they were going to get caught they might as well get caught with a fake Chancellor instead of the real one and lose only one other member of their team. It was the backup plan.

 

Well, if they had checked the identity of all senate guards, then the bounty hunters wouldn't be there, would they? If they had not gotten around to checking all the identities, then they shouldn't be trusting any of the senate guards.

 

That's not a bad point. Unfortunately, since we only get some dialogue about it and it actually happens off-screen we can't know for sure. They could have checked all the Senate Guards and the bounty hunters replaced them after the check, or they could have just gotten lazy and/or stupid as you suggest. I'm actually very curious about what exactly happened there, I wish they had a tiny scene or at least line dedicated to explaining that.

 

Bumping this for a new behind the scenes clip from Starwars.com. Its a commentary on the whole Obi-Wan undercover arc, mostly by James Arnold Taylor. Fun to see the voice actors doing their thing here:

Official Site Deception Arc Commentary

 

This is the very reason why I find it so difficult to sit through a lot of the US made documentaries made for the likes of Discovery or the History Channel - half the script consists of recapping the episode "so far" after every commercial break - made more annoying by the fact that over here there are far less commercial breaks so the narrator is just constantly reapeating himself/herself.

My sister used to work in a production company and everyone hated having to write script for the North American edit of the shows.

American TV execs have no faith or respect for their domestic audience.

 

I don't know if this has been discussed already, but Kenobi allowed an awful lot of innocent people to be murdered in order to maintain his cover.

I had been hoping since the escape in Deception that the arc would end with Obi-Wan really reflecting on this and questioning what he had done - with something a little more substantial than a throwaway line.

It was good to see an early version of kidnap scheme to bring Anakin and Dooku into a showdown and for it to Obi-Wan who ultimately saves the day, and not Anakin.

As to the complaints of Mace leaving Palpatine in the care of two Senate guards after having been told the mercenaries were in disguise - it was made clear earlier that the senate guards were getting re-screened by security so it is reasonable to assume that Mace believed these guards had been, which is why they were there - and we can assume that those mercs managed this by in the same way Derrown (that is why they were chosen). As pointed out above, we don't need to be shown, everything, plus we are meant to not know for sure if these guards are mercs, even though we do, but some people won't. . Also, it is kind of symbolic of the Jedi's failing in this war - just like the Council walked into the trap of accepting the Clone Army at face value, Mace accepted these guard as loyal for no other reason than they were there when he needed them.

The holo-disguises were pretty nifty, but something didn't feel "Star Warsy" about them. Obviously there was no way Derrown was fitting into a stolen senate guard costume . Although like the Stealth ship, I guess it is one of those pieces of tech that gets lost in the mess of this wars aftermath.

The Stealth ship, needs to be used again (in an all Clone Arc in the fashion of ABOVE US THE WAVES or WE DIVE AT DAWN) with an explanation for why it doesn't become a wepon for the Republic or the Empire (the cloaking device emitted a lethal radiation or some such).