Saga Point of view - George Lucas was right not to listen to the embittered fans

Garbage retcons of Lucas's original intent!

Because we don't get a scene of Palpatine actually laying out the plan of how he did everything, this has allowed others to add their own interpretations into the mix. Now with no Lucas, there isn't anyone to right the ship or narrative.


From the standpoint of the movies, the narrative was always clear. Tyranus was always behind everything, which was the point of the reveal at the end of the movie. Which is why we have a line of dialogue that comes out and says that Dyas was dead before he could have ordered the army.

However, because there isn't a scene where Palpatine lays out his entire plan for those in the audience that can't seem to follow AOTC and ROTS, it has allowed others that play in the Star Wars sandbox to ,imo, bastardized the original intent of AOTC and ROTS.

Not including a scene that explains it all for those that couldn't follow what was happening in AOTC, was for me Lucas's biggest mistake of the PT and it has led to others inserting their own theories for the sake of drama and making a nice and easy narrative more complicated.

Even the TCW episode that was supposed to nail it down leaves the whole situation vague and confusing.

 

Well, TCW only really sets out a timeline leading up to Dyas' death. Dooku is still implied to have ordered the army himself, he wanted to 'be Sifo-Dyas'. There's nothing that really goes against AOTC.

 

No, we had a line of dialogue saying that Obi-Wan had that impression. Some people interpreted that as certainty.

It wasn't.

Even before the "no Lucas" era we had EU books that strongly implied the same scenario, and certainly depicted a timeline which at least allowed for its possibility.

That's the thing: AOTC is sufficiently vague that neither TCW nor the new-canon references to Sifo-Dyas go against it. Nothing goes against it.

 

I would agree with you on that, the line of dialogue from Stilman that Dyas was killed so that someone could pretend to be Dyas, was originally for me the nail in the coffin that Dooku needed to pretend to be Dyas in order to order the army. However, the problem arises that Filoni is on record as saying that he believes Dyas was the one to order the army, and now all the other information coming out post Disney sale that says Dyas actually ordered the army himself and was killed after the fact.

 

The cloners in TCW knew Dooku as Tyranus.

 

You and I have been through this before...

The original intent of the movies was clear, Tyranus did it all as Sifo Dyas was dead.

Besides the quote from Lucas himself given by darth-sinister, there was information from Pablo Hidalgo that implied it was dooku, or at the very least Dyas never had anything to do with the ordering of the clone army...

When ROTS was being made and Hyperspace was up and running, Hidalgo did a Q&A with fans while he (Hidalgo) was on set of ROTS. Hidalgo was able to see the script and see all the filming. Hidalgo was asked if the person whom had ordered the clone army was seen on screen in AOTC and Hidalgo replied yes.

I was a member of hyperspace and always participated in those webchats myself, even though I wasn't the one that asked the question. There are plenty of summaries out there of his webchats where you can find it yourself. I believe that TF.N did one themselves, I don't have the link though. Here is a summary from another site:

http://nightly.net/topic/3395-summary-hyperspace-webchat-with-pablo-hidalgo-11-sep/

The part where Hidalgo says we see on screen that whomever ordered the army was seen on screen in Ep2 is at the very bottom of the summary.

Since Sifo Dyas was not seen in Ep2, it wasn't him, leaving only Sidious and Dooku, and from AOTC, we can see that the original intent was it was Dooku...

So...

It was certainty. Impressions can be right just as they can be wrong. He was confused by the information he had just heard, and wanted to make sure he was correct in what he thought because the events (the army being ordered by Dyas and the death of Dyas) couldn't have possibly happened in the timeline he knew.

And everyone knows how Lucas felt about the EU. No need for any more explanation beyond that.

No they don't... If you go back and watch the scenes where Tyranus talks with the cloners, this is what the cloners see:



The above pic is Tyranus, they don't know he is Dooku. In fact in one Episode, after DOoku is done talking to the cloners, with his hood covering his face, he ends the communication, drops his hood and contacts Sidious. Indicating that Dooku was purposely hiding his face from the Cloners!

The Cloners have no clue that Tyranus and and Dooku are one in the same...

 

Since Nute Gunray didn't know that Sheev Palpatine was Darth Sidious, then it is reasonable that the Kaminoans were also similarly fooled with Dooku wearing a hood. Picture the Superman/Clark Kent disguise.

 

Right, the cloners have no clue who the man in the hood really is. They refer to him as Lord Tyranus. Here is the scene I was referring too earlier where Dooku drops his hood immediately after talking to the cloners. It's a clear indication that he is hiding his face from the cloners so they won't realize that he is really Dooku.

 

As if I could possibly do a better job of refuting what you said than what Cryogenic did, I will just add a few points.

Most of us "Lucas Zealots" fully understand that Lucas is not only a filmmaker, but, a businessman as well. A very successful businessman at that!

Why did Lucas make Star Wars, the original Star Wars back in 1977? It was because he was flat broke, and needed cash. He had just made American Graffiti, and the studio was playing games with it, even thinking about releasing it as a made for tv movie, which denied him an income from any royalties he was supposed to get from the box office. So he needed money! He had to make a decision in either to continue forward with Apocalypse Now which had already been turned down by a couple studios (if not more), or to go forward with Star Wars which was a story had been something just in his head at that point. Because Apocalypse Now had been rejected already, he decided to move on Star Wars seeing it as a better opportunity to make money. However, while he was working on Star Wars, the studio finally released American Graffiti (it was released in August of 73, even though Lucas gave it to them in early 73) which became a huge success, and Lucas got a good chunk of cash from the box office... So did he stop making Star Wars even though his need for cash was quelled? No, he continued on, even putting some of the money he just received from American Graffiti into Star Wars because 20th Century Fox was dragging it's feet on committing to Star Wars. So Lucas was putting his own money in Star Wars even though he wasn't even sure he would get any kind of return back from 20th Century Fox on Star Wars!


The decision to make Star Wars was based mostly on a financial need, however, it doesn't discount, or discredit that Lucas's decisions in the creative process were artistic or with integrity. Also no one here is suggesting that Lucas doesn't make movies with keeping in mind that there is an audience watching it. Of course he does. He had budgets for the Star Wars movies he made himself, budgets he wanted to stay under, we see in the TPM documentary "The Beginning" that they talked about the dollars and cents of doing things.

So no, even though you want to believe you are more enlightened than us "Lucas Zealots", you are not! We all realize that Lucas had a very conscious eye on money when making his movies (any of them, not just Star Wars!). Again though, having a conscious eye on finances, keeping in mind what works for audiences when telling the story he wants to tell so as to make sure it is entertaining and he doesn't lose money at the box office, while telling the story he wants to tell, doesn't take an ounce away from any artistic integrity he has when making the movies and telling his story.

Just because he wanted to be successful while being creative doesn't mean he sacrificed his artistic integrity to be successful!

Now onto the John Milius interview....

This assertion is absolutely ludicrous! It's the product of people regurgitating false narratives only because it fits what they want to believe and not the truth of the matter.

I was, up until about 8 years ago, a huge collector of Star Wars toys! I am not an authority on collecting, I do however have a pretty good knowledge of collecting.

First of all, here is what Milius says:

Now, just to get this over and done with right away, I am not calling Milius a liar in that I am not implying that Lucas never said this to him (Milius). However, there is absolutely no context given as to why Lucas says this, or when he says it! My belief is that Lucas says this to Milius in an after-the-fact way to Milius well after Star Wars had become a major hit! it was not said to Milius as a prediction or motivation as to why he says it, but instead Lucas was merely stating a fact that was a result of Star Wars success.

Why? Well here is where a knowledge of collecting comes into play! Prior to Star Wars, Studios made very very little off of toys that were tied to it's movies. There was very little, to any profit in it. This is why 20th Century Fox was more than happy to give up merchandising rights to Lucas, because they felt there was virtually no profit in it!

Lucas himself has stated that he thought he might be able to make a few bucks off of posters and t-shirts. Lucas had no way of knowing that he was going to be able to make money off of toys prior to making Star Wars because there was very little money to be made off of toys from movies. There was no trend there for Lucas to repeat or base this statement off of, especially a statement or prediction of making more money than the Godfather! Star Wars set that bar!

What further disqualifies this assertion is that even though Kenner held the licensing rights, they had no immediate plans to even make toys yet, and they were completely caught off guard by the success of Star Wars. With Star Wars being released in May of 1977, Kenner had nothing, zero in the way of toys for the Christmas of 1977! So that brought about the birth of the Star Wars Early Bird Certificate. Because they had no toys to sell during the Christmas shopping season of 1977, they instead sold a certificate that was a promise to deliver 4 figures, those figures being promised to be delivered between Feb 1978 and June 1978! Star Wars toys didn't start hitting shelves until well into 1978!

So as I said, I could see Lucas saying what he said to Milius as a, post, successful Star Wars statement, and not a pre Star Wars statement of why he was doing Star Wars! It makes sense that after Star Wars was a smash hit and Kenner was churning out Star Wars toys by the truck loads, that Lucas would turn to Milius and say... Hey, I'm making more money off these toys than the godfather made... It doesn't make sense for Lucas to make that prediction or motivation because there was no way for him to know he would make more money off the toys than the godfather, there was nothing for him to point to as a source of motivation to think that way.

As for the porno comment, once again, no context to as why he said it. For all we know it was a bunch of guys sitting around smoking some weed, or drinking beers throwing around ideas of get rich quick schemes... Doesn't take away from Lucas's artistic integrity one bit!

So just like Cryogenic said, your saying that your a Lucas fan is very questionable, seeing as how you always seem to want to talk lowly of him.

As for this, again, Cryo did a fantastic job in his post. However, I just want to add that once again, when Lucas gestures to the audeince and says "the reason that I make films is for you.." You fail to finish the quote! He goes on to say "The Audience Rules!"... The audience! not the fans!

I wonder if I should go back and pull out how many times you say your a person that takes what people say at face value... yet here you want to bend over backwards and avoid full quotes in order to fill a narrative just so you can say that what Lucas said at the People's Choice Awards is a further example of his flip flop, contradicting mentality....

At face value, he is talking about the audience over all, and not just the fans, because he says, the audience!

 

1. When factoring feedback into how to proceed, one should not consider feedback given in the heat of the moment too seriously. Any feedback taken seriously should be feedback given while calm and thinking clearly.
2. Alexrd said the quote below in a different thread, but I'm quoting it here because it encapsulates my feelings regarding the direction of the Star Wars saga. (Bold font added by me.)
   
   I have a list of complaints about previous Star Wars films and wishes for future films, but what I don't want is for the filmmakers to give me a film adjusted to my opinions simply because I voiced them. What I do want is for the filmmakers to think hard about the implications of the choices they make in the course of making the film and how it affects the story that is being told and the saga as a whole. (In fact, for this reason, I actually had very few specific expectations when watching the Star Wars films; if I had any, they usually arose as a consequence of how I believe the saga to be structured. I would be happy to adjust those expectations if given a convincing argument that my understanding of the structure of the saga is erroneous.) If the filmmakers come to the same conclusions as me after giving the matter thought, that's a happy overlap for me, but I think I would be even more pleased if the end result is something that I can say was not what I might have expected, rather, it was better.

 

Where is written that you must have hints? There were no hints in ANH that Vader was Luke's father. No hints prior to RotJ that Leia was Luke's sister. Those movies seemed to work out fine. In any case there are alot of hints as to Rey's origins. Just enough to encourage discussion, but without revealing all of the answers yet.

No they weren't. Lucasfilm is a movie studio, not some guy making amateur movies from his basement. Just bcs it was owned by a billionaire & not a corporation doesn't mean it was not a studio.

It's both. Each trilogy is a 3 part story set within the larger 9 part story. So if you're talking about each trilogy it's appropriate to look at the 3 acts. If you're talking about the Saga, then it has 9 parts.

Where is it made clear in the movie that Dyas was killed before they began creating the army?

Sure so it was arranged in secret. But did Dyas help willingly? Was he in league with Dooku & Palpatine? How was he killed? Did he compete with Dooku to become Palpatine's apprentice?

No, ergo he hired Jango. Nothing more. Anything further than that is guesswork. Which is what we're left to do bcs the movies don't adequately explain the mystery that it set up. It also sounds far-fetched to think that Dooku, a well known Jedi Master just rocked up to Kamino & told them his name was Sifo-Dyas, another famous Jedi Master. What did he do, wear a Scooby-Doo style mask? What if the Kaminoans had bothered to make a phone call to the real Sifo-Dyas, or to the Council?

So? Could he have been lying to manipulate Anakin into thinking he could help save Padme? Is Palpatine a reliable source of information in that situation? No he's not, so how is this a clear answer to the mystery that TPM introduced?? If this is the actual fact of the story then maybe I can understand Lucas not wanting to spell it out. It's terrible. The idea that a Sith Force-raped some random slave woman using micro-organisms is utterly lame, not to mention quite sick.
All of this shows that the PT did not explain & resolve these mysteries. They just dropped some vague hints. If the ST does that with the mysteries it has introduced you guys will be ranting about how terrible that is.

No I don't. Striking a balance between storytelling & commercial realities is a good thing. Acknowledging that isn't talking lowly of anyone. The fact that he wanted to make a tonne of cash out of toys & merchandise isn't a problem either. What are we, communists?

Audience, fans, potato, potarto. The point is he & all commercial filmmakers create these types of films for the audience or the fans. They have to, otherwise they risk flushing hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain. Like I said, this is in contrast to the small films he wants to do in the future, just for himself. This recent Lucas quote is also relevant to the topic:

For good or for bad, George Lucas is no longer directing the Star Wars films or even involved in the writing -- and now the famed director reveals to Vanity Fair that he's glad.
“You go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized, and people try to make decisions about what you’re going to do before you do it,” Lucas explained. “Y’know, it’s not much fun, and you can’t experiment; you can’t do anything. You have to do it a certain way. I don’t like that, I never did. I started out in experimental films, and I want to go back to experimental films, but of course no one wants to see experimental films.”

So he's talking in the past tense about making SW films, particularly the Prequels I'd suggest. He acknowledges that he's never had carte blanche to do whatever he likes with SW. There are commercial realities. The fans & the audience have expectations, & if you go against that too much & make some kooky experimental film that no one else wants to see, there goes a few hundred million.

 

How is this even a mystery? It was never presented as a mystery! Are you forgetting Darth Vader BETRAYED and MURDERED Luke's father? Maybe try watching the movies first then try to present an argument based on actual facts.

I can't even read the rest of your post because of you misinformation and illogical tendencies to LIE, as proven with this quote. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!

 

No but there were questions raised about the circumstances of Luke's father's death. My point was there are hints in TFA about Rey. I can name several. & whether there are or not doesn't mean story mysteries can't be resolved in an interesting way in the following movies.

Read whatever you like. Or don't.

 

Yes, questions raised and answered, with LIES. And it's hard to keep Rey's parents a mystery when you SEE them in the movie...flying away and leaving their precious daughter on Jakku to live a life of servitude to the Pegg. Plus did you see the type of ship they were flying? It was a faulty ship. In the end, Rey's parents are dead beats that left a young girl to fend for herself on a desert planet that wasn't Tatooine. They're monsters, I tell ya.

I will gladly not read what you are writing, or claim to not be reading what you are writing even though I do read it.

 

That's one theory. Another one is that they were being pursued & feared being caught & killed. They dropped Rey with Plutt & hoped they could evade the bad guys & then come back for her when it was safe. It didn't work out & they were killed, but at least their action on Jakku saved Rey's life.
We'll see who's theory is closer to the truth.

 

All I can say is I know who's theory is based on fact and who's theory is the rambling of a mad man who needs sleep. That is the only truth.

Because I have been just messing around this whole time. Muwahaha.

 

Get some sleep then

 

Great posts by mikeximus. And thanks for the shout-outs.

I just wanted to pick this up...

No-one is saying that Lucas wasn't paying attention to "commercial realities" when making Star Wars. I mean, what do you take us for, five-year-olds? I know I love Jar Jar and Ewoks, but c'mon -- not at the same time! Usually.

Straightening up a bit, the issue I'd say we have is with your moribund dwelling on those so-called realities. If you want to "Jedi" or "grok" these films, you have to free yourself of such cheap attachments and move beyond worldly anxieties.

Seriously, though, Star Wars represents a pretty special case of an artist having their cake and eating it, too. The commercial aspects, while ultimately not that important, are just one more part of the sweet, crumbly pie.

Furthermore, there is a lot of Lucas in Star Wars -- business interests, Freudian hang-ups, pedagogic obsessions, the works. He has said as much himself; and it is inescapably true (albeit, abstracted and intermingled with less direct quotes from his own life and psychological makeup).

There are many layers to Star Wars. It is avowedly experimental: experimental, independent cinema, thrust into the mainstream (which is experimental in and of itself). But you do have to be open to that idea, of course.

"When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you."

 

Well I don't even know what we're debating here. Lucas made SW movies with the audience/fans in mind, which he says he found quite restrictive. We can go around in circles arguing about the degree to which he considered audience/fan appeal. Since we don't know it'll just be based on our own speculation & guesswork. Doesn't sound like a particularly interesting topic.

 

Thank you, Mr. Moderator.

 

DarthDownUnder

Kenobi says it in AOTC .

.

 

Here's what Lucas said on the subject.

Paul Scanlon: The film's success should guarantee some success in the merchandising program you've launched.

George Lucas: One of my motivating factors for doing the film, along with all the other ones, was that I love toys and games. And so I figured, gee, I could start a kind of a store that sold comic art, and sold 78 records, or old rock 'n' roll records that I like, and antique toys and a lot of things that I am really into; stuff that you can't buy in regular stores. I also like to create games and things, so that was part of the movie, to be able to generate toys and things. Also, I figured the merchandising along with the sequels would give me enough income over a period of time so that I could retire from professional filmmaking and go into making my own kind of movies, my own sort of abstract, weird, experimental stuff.

Scanlon: So now you want to sell toys and games, and make esoteric films?

Lucas: Yes. The film is a success and I think the sequels will be a success. I want to be able to have a store where I can sell all the great things that I want. I'm also a diabetic and can't eat sugar and I want to have a little store that sells good hamburgers and sugarless ice cream because all the people who can't eat sugar deserve it. You need the time just to be able to retire and do those things, and you need to have an income...

Scanlon: The Star Wars money...

Lucas:...will be seed money to try to develop a store and do the other things that I want to do. I've made what I consider the most conventional kind of movie I can possibly make. I've learned my craft in the classic entertainment sense as well as I think I can learn it. What I want to do now is take my craft in the other direction, which is telling stories without plots and creating emotions without understanding what is going on in terms of purely visual and sound relationships. I think there is a whole world of film there that has never been explored. People have gotten so locked into the story film – the novel and the play have such a strong influence over film that it has sort of become the weak sister. And if the films work, I will try to get them out and get them distributed by whoever would be daring enough to pick them up. Maybe they will be entertaining, it's hard to know at this point. It is in an area that I have absolutely no way of knowing what would happen and that is what excites me. And I have reached the point now that I can say, well, I am retiring. Because I really can retire now.

--Rolling Stone Interview, 1977.

This was after the film came out and was a huge hit. But it wasn't the full reason he did the film. As noted, he had other motives and it did tie into "Apocalypse...Now!" not being made.

Scanlon: The Apocalypse Now that you wanted to do...

Lucas: ...was completely different than the one Francis is doing now... It was really more of man against machine than anything else. Technology against humanity, and then how humanity won. It was to have been quite a positive film. So what happened was I finally got a deal for very little money to develop Star Wars. How many studios had turned it down? Two. And then Fox took it? Fox took it, and it was close because there wasn't any other place I wanted to take it. I don't know what I would have done, maybe take a job. But the last desperate thing is to "take a job". I really wanted to hold on to my own integrity. So I was going to try to write a very interesting project. Right after Graffiti I was getting this fan mail from kids that said the film changed their life, and something inside me said, do a children's film. And everybody said, "Do a children's film? What are you talking about? You're crazy".

You know, I had done Graffiti as a challenge. All I had ever done to that point was crazy, avant-garde, abstract movies. Francis really challenged me on that. "Do something warm," he said, "everyone thinks you're a cold fish; all you do is science fiction". So I said, "Okay, I'll do something warm". I did Graffiti and then I wanted to go back and do this other stuff, I thought I had more of a chance of getting Star Wars off the ground. I had gone around to all the studios with Apocalypse Now for the tenth time and then they said, no, no, no. So I took this other project, this children's film. I thought: we all know what a terrible mess we have made of the world, we all know how wrong we were in Vietnam. We also know, as every movie made in the last ten years points out, how terrible we are, how we have ruined the world and what schmucks we are and how rotten everything is. And I said, what we really need is something more positive. Because Graffiti pointed out, as I said with these letters, that kids forgot what being a teenager was, which is being dumb and chasing girls, doing things – you know, at least I did when I was a kid.

Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology – looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does. Anyway, I became very aware of the fact that the kids were really lost, the sort of heritage we built up since the war had been wiped out in the Sixties and it wasn't groovy to act that way anymore, now you just sort of sat there and got stoned. I wanted to preserve what a certain generation of Americans thought being a teenager was really about – in a strong sense from about 1945 to 1962, that generation, several generations. There was a certain car culture, a certain mating ritual going on, and it was something that I'd lived through and really loved.

So by seeing the effect Graffiti had on kids, I realized that kids today of that age rediscovered what it was to be a teenager. They also started going out cruising the main street of town again, and I went back and did various studies of towns, my own town, Modesto, we checked them out. There was no cruising and then, all of a sudden, it all started up again. So when I got done with Graffiti, I said, "Look, you know something else has happened, and I began to stretch it down to younger people, 10- to 12-year-olds, who have lost something even more significant than the teenager. I saw that kids today don't have any fantasy life the way we had – they don't have westerns, they don't have pirate movies, they don't have that stupid serial fantasy life that we used to believe in.

--Rolling Stone Interview, 1977.

Yes, that's a lot to read, but it shows that there was artistic reasons as well as financial ones.

OBI-WAN: "I thought he was killed before then?"

That and the Sith being revealed as behind the plot.

Dooku killed Sifo-Dyas and then used his name. It's as simple as that. You don't need a film, or even TCW to figure that out. Most of us did without it.

"Yeah, why not?"

Sifo-Dyas was already dead and as Dex told Obi-wan, the Kaminoans kept to themselves. As to a disguise, again, he wore his hood the same way Darth Sidious did when interacting with the Trade Federation. Palpatine was well known, yet they had no clue that a simple hood worked as a disguise.

Palpatine rarely lied to Anakin. He told the truth and let Anakin draw his own conclusions. The beauty of the Sith is that they tell the truth more than they lie, which throws the Jedi off their game. And it is also equally possible that he is telling the truth here. Besides, rape's implied quite a bit in the Saga. From the Tusken Raiders and Shmi to Jabba and his slave girls.

Depends on how it is done. Lucas made it pretty obvious that the Sith created the Clone Army. Lucas introduced the concept of a Sith Lord creating life, which tells us that the Sith may have done this and the Force did nothing.

 

What is happening is Star Wars has fallen victim to Running the Asylum. This is when writers, who are fans themselves, take over a franchise after the original creator has left, often imposing their own personal fanon and retcons. Filoni is a stereotype Promoted Fanboy.

 

Well...if it works.

Really? That sure isn't explained in the film. Sifo-Dyas could've been co-operating with Tyrannus for all we know. In any case it's canon that Sifo-Dyas ordered the clone army himself with no involvement from the Sith. They learned about this, killed him & corrupted his plan for their own purposes: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sifo-Dyas

So what you claim to be simple & obvious is anything but. Dyas was alive when the army was ordered bcs he ordered it. After seeing the movie, most people if they had to guess would assume that the Sith ordered the clones, not a Jedi acting out of good intentions. The movies fail to convey the real story. More importantly Lucas promised in the AotC dvd commentary that we'll learn the real story surrounding Sifo-Dyas in Ep III. So we have a situation where a writer introduces a mystery, tells the fans that all will be revealed in the next movie & then doesn't bother doing so! If that's not bad writing then I don't know what is.

Not according to canon sources like TCW. Dyas ordered the clones himself, Dooku & Palpatine then killed him, secretly funded the program & asked for Order 66 to be embedded. Seems Sifo-Dyas met the cloners when he ordered the clones, so how would Dooku in a hood fool them? When a SW expert like you doesn't know what's going on you know it's been a complete hash-job.

Also, just going from the movie we don't find out who erased Kamino from the archives. Was it Dooku or Sifo-Dyas? Both were Jedi & both may've had a motive for doing so. Maybe Lucas wants us to flip a coin to get the answer.

I missed the Tuskens raping Shmi. Must be in some other version of the film. As for Palpatine, the audience knew him as a master of deception. Yoda tells us that using the Dark Side is all about lies, deceit & creating mistrust. That's the beauty of it. So if you think some tale relayed by Palpatine to Anakin, in the context of manipulating him towards the DS is a sound & satisfactory conclusion to the mystery of Anakin's birth then...we disagree. It's another example of an important mystery left hanging.

Also, if the story is that the Force impregnated Shmi, I might've been on board with that when the Force was just a mysterious "force". However the idea that the midichlorians impregnated Shmi is really awful IMO. Micro-cellular organisms messing around with women's ovaries sounds like a bad episode of Star Trek. Some creepy old Sith Lord acting as their director takes it to an even weirder level. I think I can see why Lucas all but buried this idea.

 

So, even when Lucas gives you a subtle solution to Anakin's birth, you just disagree with it. It's a nice subversion of usual chosen one tropes, by making Anakin actually be created by the villains.