Mace Windu's reaction to Darth Sidious revelation.

"Then our worst fears have been realized".

This line was delivered so casually that I did not grasp what on Earth was going on. Sure, I knew the Jedi did not know the Chancellor was a Sith Lord and I knew they had been looking for one, so this just blanked my brain.

From where I am standing the PT is far, far more appreciated now to the point that ROTS is well regarded by some real life movie snobs.

It is not even that this line is bad; just crazy.

WTF?

I felt bad for the guy writing the novel when he had to give credit to this part.

This is just so out there that I think it eserves a thread of it's own unless there have been recent ones.

 

I've always wondered why the hell he didn't press Anakin a bit further on just how he knew Palpatine was Sidious. Mace takes Anakin's word at face value, & is prepared to arrest the highest ranking member of the Republic based on it, but doesn't trust him enough to give him any clear instructions or guidance - prompting Anakin to eventually come to Palpatine's aid.

All it would have taken was:

"How do you know this?"
"He told me, master."
"He's clearly attempting to manipulate you. Don't believe a word he's said. Tell me everything."

Things could have turned out quite differently...

 

I think this line indicates Mace had a definite idea of who the Sith was. His greatest fear may have been that the Republic was being controlled by the Sith, but the fact that Windu never voices his concern about Palpatine is one of the Jedi's biggest missteps. The Jedi had a fear of being perceived as fearful, which is almost understandable.

And as far as Mace Windu using language that would be more considerate of Anakin's feelings in that situation, imploring him not to trust the emperor, it's just not that important or even conducive to the story. For one thing, Sith aren't known to be trustworthy so why remind him? Secondly, Anakin at that point in the story HAS TO BE isolated and very afraid. Mace's selective wording and cold attitude which scream "I dont trust you but I'm not willing to admit it" are perfect for sewing the final seeds of his mistrust of the Jedi order.

 

It's a plot driven by a cast of astoundingly idiotic characters. That's pretty much it boils down to.

 

Mace initially thought that someone on Palpatine's staff, particularly Sate Pestage, was Sidious. I can see how his greatest fear would be that Palpatine himself would be Sidious.

I agree that he should have pressed Anakin for more information though. I've always thought that a few small changes in Jedi attitude in ROTS would have made all the difference in the world regarding Anakin's handling of events. One reason Anakin ran to Palpatine is because he felt isolated.

 

If Star Wars is so stupid, then why are you on these forums?

 

Perhaps simply for the evulz?

Seriously though, I like many parts of Star Wars, but not the PT.

 

I love the PT, and I still think a lot of the characters were astoundingly idiotic, particularly in ROTS. They had to be idiotic so that Palpatine could be smarter than they were.

 

What does that tell you about the characterization and the writing in general? Was it too much work to write intelligent characters. Or would intelligent characters confuse the dumb masses?

 

I don't really think the writing was bad or the characterization and plot were bad per se, I just think Lucas wrote himself into a corner in a lot of places. Palpatine had to take over the galaxy and destroy the Jedi, so the Jedi had to be dumb enough/complacent enough to let it happen. Anakin had to turn to the Dark Side, so he had to be dumb enough to fall for Palpatine's crap, even dumber than the rest of the Jedi, who were at least suspicious of it. And then there's the part about the Jedi doing everything they could to piss Anakin off, but that's another topic.

On the other hand, I think Palpatine's character and his takeover in the Senate was brilliantly written. It could be seen as a political commentary. Be careful how much power you give the government, no matter what your reasoning or what sort of crisis your system is in.

I also think most of the characters were well done because they were complex; the good ones were very flawed, the bad ones, except Palpatine, were somewhat sympathetic (I felt sorry for Dooku in AOTC and ROTS). Not that the OT didn't have its complex characters; my favorite, Han, was the most complex.

 

Writing oneself into a corner IS bad writing. The problem was that Lucas was writing everything backwards. He had the rough endpoint down, but knew nothing about the beginning, and it shows. TPM and AOTC's beginning sound like they were hastily cobbled together a month before principal photography began. Honestly, storytelling can't work from the end backward. The writer tries to push the story too fast to its conclusion. Plot holes emerge, characters are incomplete, and the story just ends up sucking.

As for Palpatine's takeover...I disagree. It was poorly written. It sounded like George Lucas ripped a few political cliches from the headlines of the day and cobbled them together using a surface understanding of politics and its historical context. We're given no real insight into the workings of the Republic, which is also deliberately written as ineffective, because it has to fall.

Honestly, the PT would have been fantastic if George Lucas had simply started at square one and wrote Anakin's story, irrespective of how many movies he needed to cram it into.

 

Agreed. Mace needed to get more info out of Anakin before just jumping into the fire in a vain attempt to remove Palpatine from office. He easily could have done more.

 

It all sounds so simple when you put it that way. But what do you expect from a good elaboration of the dangers of the desire for power (any appropriate transcript of the prequels), aside from a time machine?
I see a simple story of comfort, separation, and a grasping for power in the PT. The rest is as complicated as it ought to be, if not already unnecessarily so.

 

Putting aside criticisms of the rest of the PT, Palpatine's takeover is one of the few things that was around from the very start of SW itself, & was based primarily on what many believed Richard Nixon was up to - & has also happened time & time again through history. Create an emergency situation over nothing (or make it real), terrify the population, rewrite the laws & be cheered as you establish yourself as dictator. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Caesar, Mao Tse-Tung - they were all put in place with the support of the majority.
GL didn't simply take the 'headlines of the day', he took the headlines of history, the patterns that he was genuinely concerned about happening all over again in the USA at the very time he first embarked on creating his Flash Gordon-inspired story.

Padme's line to Bail - "So this is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause" - is one of my favourite moments in the entire saga, because it's something I was waiting for & was finally delivered. GL always emphasised that the Empire didn't take over the Republic - it was the Republic. Apart from a few minor details, the saga has remained relatively faithful to this plotline that was outlined in the prologue of the novelisation of Star Wars, which was first released in 1976.

 

I would not have minded seeing six or so movies on Anakin's story myself, as there are a lot of gaps.

It's one reason I love the Clone Wars TV series.

 

All of the scenes with Palp/Sid were great. The guy did his best with this one too but I could not buy it. Sounded like Mace thought it was kind of interesting but his coffee was getting cold and he liked his coffee.

I like my coffee too. I Understand.

 

I see relatively nothing wrong with the line. We know the Jedi dont trust Palpatine and their suspicions have been rising since AOTC. We also know Anakin has been assigned to basically spy on Palpatine. As has been said here already, The Jedi have correctly begun to fear that The Republic is, in some way, even if only by association alone, under Sith control and that what Dooku revealed in Episode 2 is true.

Why people think the Jedi are shown "dumb" when we understand they have been pondering such things is beyond me. While I think they clearly haven't speculated that Palpatine himself was the Sith - Windu's shocked "a sith lord?!" implies that - does this really make them dumb? It would only have been dumb of them to dismiss, as Obi-Wan says, "something is out of place." and to not investigate further. Not knowing the explicit details of whats occurring is nothing shameful. We know "the dark side has clouded their vision". Equally, it would have been just as dumb to jump to conclusions and assume Palpatine was the Sith with no such instincts and no evidence.

When Windu says "then our worst fears have been realised" I think that has been misconstrued as directly pertaining to the revelation that Palpatine is himself a Sith. As I said, I dont think that was ever something The Jedi pondered. I think it is simply referring to their prior fear that The Sith and The Dark Side was influencing how The Republic was being run. And Anakin's revelation, however more severe it actually is, reveals just that.

As for why Windu invests in what Anakin reveals without much further interrogation, I think a lot of that is about intuition. Anakin's is left in no doubt that Palpatine is the Sith and such certainty transmits to Windu. How you or I would read the situation is slightly moot given the Jedi's powers for inferring such things are of supernatural source.

 

To be honest, Caesar doesn't really belong amongst the list of people you described. The Roman dictatorship was a legal entity during his time and, though he served for much longer than the allotted six months, his term was incredibly peaceful. The man had very few of his enemies killed and there were no large proscriptions. The common people - including Rome's Jewish population - saw him as their protector and their advocate. And to be honest, why wouldn't they? Many of the laws he passed heavily favored the masses. And to top it off, he may never have claimed the dictatorship if Pompey and Cato hadn't tried to back him into a corner, threatening to arrest while after his conquests made most of the Senate monstrously rich. Having the tribune of the plebs expelled during negotiations was enough to rile up his supporters - fyi, you were never supposed to do that. A tribune was held sacrosanct within the walls of Rome. Compare this with Sulla's term as dictator. Yes, the man voluntarily gave up the position, but he had many of the Populares party killed simply for their political affiliation, or their familial ties. The same thing was common during Gaius Marius's seven terms as Consul.

As for Richard Nixon. Already, I'm a diehard liberal, but he wasn't a terrible man compared to other Republicans of the era, and he was a damn sight better than the Republicans of today. His electoral victories were less based on his own popular appeal and more on the fact that the Democrats of the day were so utterly fragmented, not to mention the uninspiring (Humphrey) and damaging (McGovern) candidates they fielded. Had RFK lived, or had someone like Eugene McCarthy gotten the nomination, Nixon would not have sailed into office so easily. And despite his paranoia and Watergate, democracy still lives in America and life goes on. It survived Reagan and it survived Bush too.

Stalin never came to power through popular approval. The Soviet Union was a dictatorship from the start, and it replaced a monarchy that was just as brutal, and in the beginning, Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin were the head guys. Stalin was an unknown party bureaucrat. Through politicking, he managed to fill up the Communist party with his cronies and eventually eliminated all his rivals to become the head. But the Soviet people never proclaimed him leader through a vote, a free one at any rate. The Bolsheviks were actually a minority party in 1918!

Mussolini came to power because the King of Italy was an idiot. The man gathered something like 100,000 Blackshirt revolutionaries who were barely armed and poorly trained and marched on Rome. The King thought it was threatening enough to appoint him Prime Minister...if he had sent in an army to crush them (and the army was completely loyal to the King) then Fascist Italy would have been cons

 

But the point about the dictatorship is still true. I agree with some of the points about those historical figures maybe not being as truly evil, but they weren't exactly running "Happy Land" countries, either.

 

These countries weren't happylands to begin with.

 

Nor was the republic a particularly wonderful, flourishing body as depicted in TPM. Corruption and too much bureaucratic influence leading to a planet imprisoned by an armed federation without any attempt of intervention.

 

Given that Mace clearly states earlier that he doesn't trust Anakin, it is odd that he suddenly takes his word for the most important piece of news in his lifetime. Crap dialogue for sure.

The worst part about that scene is that the other council members just sorta walk on by and get on the ship. Mace doesn't even call them over for a chat. He just decides what they're going to do now and apparently is going to tell Fisto, Kolar, and Tiin mid flight what has happened.

 

Regarding "Mace Windu's reaction to Darth Sidious revelation", I thought it worked... for the most part. What I think would have been a little clearer would be, if instead of Mace saying "A Sith Lord?!", if he had instead said "He's the Sith Lord?!" That way Anakin's awkward need to almost remind Mace "yes, the one we've been looking for" would not have been needed, and Mace himself would have referenced the point that the Jedi have already felt that the dark side surrounded the chancellor, and it was simply that they didn't think Palpatine himself was the Sith lord.

As far as not investigating more, I think Anakin said enough for Mace to know that Palpatine had just told Anakin this, and there was no sense or need to dig deeper. He already knew their worst fears had been realized, and he already knew that what Anakin told him was true. But the mere fact that Palpatine had told Anakin this suggested to Mace that Palpatine trusted Anakin, and therefore Mace didn't want Anakin to go with them. Mace saying "if what you've told me is true..." was insulting, but it was probably not really meant... but "for your own good, Anakin, stay out of this" was definitely meant. The irony is that Palpatine knew that telling Anakin would result in the Jedi coming there to confront him, which was exactly what he wanted.

 

"If what you've told me is true, you will have gained my trust."