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Black Lushus

One and Only Star Wars Geekiness Thread

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After reading all of theseposts, I think I finally have a good handle on what I think was going on. All of this is subject to change, of course, once I listen to the commentary on the DVD.

 

Palpatine plays his next to last card with Anaking, revealing himself as a Sith Lord but also as the "only" person who can save Padme (and in a nice touch, he never mentiones her being pregnant thus he doesn't know until years later that Vader has kids). As soon as Anakin leaves, Palpatine knows the Jedi will be comig for him soon.

 

Anakin tells Mace about Palpatine, totally wanting to do the right thing. And I think Mace wants to believe in Anakin, so he tells him that if this is right, he'll have earned his trust. Anakin waits in the Jedi Temple, but the whole time struggling with the idea that Palpatine could die and he couldn't save Padme.

 

Now, the crux of the matter...

 

Mace and the Jedi Job Team show up and confront Palpatine, intending on arresting him. Palpatine resists, to put it mildly. It finally comes down to Mace and Palpatine.

 

During the fight, Palpatine senses Anakin's arrival and takes his biggest gamble and plays his last card. He throws the Force Lightning and drains himslef, leaving him at Mace's mercy.

 

BUT... he knows Anakin is right there. I see it as being both ways. Palpatine wasn't playing possum so much as he put himself in a situation where Mace would have him at his mercy. His gamble is that Anakin will interfere.

 

Once he does, suprising Mace because he really wanted to believe in the prophecy (besides, Anakin really is that damn good). Anakin attacks Mace and turns mostly to the dark side. Palpatine gains strength from Anakin's dark acts and kills Mace.

 

Finally, Anakin willingly gives himself to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader.

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but he suddenly couldn't sense Anakin wasn't about to attack him?

 

I just wanted to point out these these are the same Jedi's who couldn't even sense that Palpatine was a Sith Lord in the first place.

 

Secondly, Spiff stole what I was gonna say. I think that when Anakin made up his mind, Mace had little/no time to react to it, and besides, if he moved towards Anakin and took his saber away from Palpatine, he was dead anyways.

 

Thirdly, why does Mace not properly defending himself against Anakin really matter in terms of "Was Palpatine faking it"?

 

Fourthly, I still can't see someone like Palpatine deliberately planning on being in such a vunerable position. As I've said, I think he planned to fight the Jedi, and I think he hoped Anakin would show up and save him, but I don't think he actually sat there and thought "Okay, then I'll let one of the best Jedi's in the galaxy put me in a terribly vunerable position just so I can convince this kid of something", because that makes little sense. I just don't see why someone who had been able to manipulate things so well (mostly from a distance) would all of a sudden purposely inject himself right into the heart of the action, and put his life into someone else's hands, when his plan was *this close* to fruition.

 

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to me that he he planned to fight the Jedi, but got bested in lightsaber combat and ended up in more trouble then he originally anticipated. But then his plan of turning Anakin worked out anyways, so he didn't really care.

 

But maybe that's just me.

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You guys realize we're splitting hairs over a movie that really wasn't that good, don't you?

I'll say

 

I'm still slightly miffed at the whole "Anakin did it for love and not for pure power" shit... that's almost Spielberg-ian in its cop-outiveness

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I'm still slightly miffed at the whole "Anakin did it for love and not for pure power" shit... that's almost Spielberg-ian in its cop-outiveness

 

I don't think it's a cop out at all. Frankly, as a married man, I can see how hard it would be to make that decision. Do something terrible and your wife lives or don't do it and she dies. I can't imagine being able to think about it rationally. Thus the whole point that Jedi should not have attachments.

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I'm referring to how, from the original series, you're lead to believe he just joined the dark side for the sake of pure power, which I always thought was pretty cool.

 

The cop-out then comes from Lucas going "See? He wasn't really evil and out for power, he was just stupid and in love!"

 

Gag

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yeah but he was also resentful by being held back in his progression by both the jedi council as well as obi-wan kenobi...the pad-uh-may stuff just helped fuel his desire for power, made him rush into it without thinking...he ALWAYS wanted power...

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That is true, but they could have just as easily not dealt with the "I HAVE TO SAVE PADUHMAY!" bit

 

Maybe it's just because of the way Lucas protrayed the romance in the first place, which is why I can't accept it...

 

Had Lucas done a better job in that aspect, it could have worked, although this is the same guy who fell back into one of the most derided cliches ever ("NOOOOO!") so I wouldn't trust him anyway

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Well, in Episode 2, wasn't he saying that he should have been powerful enough to prevent his mother dying? Then he blamed the Council for holding him back and not letting him become as powerful as he should have been.

 

So, you could say that his turn started out of a lust for power. Yeah, it's a stretch.

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I can't remember it exactly, but it was a line from Episode 2, the one where he says something about being much too frightened to challenge a senator like pad-uh-may or some shit...it's when they're sitting together in the field (yes that WHOLE scene is cringe inducing)...that line makes me squirm in my seat everytime...

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Just a reminder that Revenge of the Sith comes out on DVD November 1st. Here's an early review.

At the same time, it's been confirmed that Lucasfilm will release new DVDs for Star Wars on the Blu-Ray format in the near future. Do you think that'll swing the balance to Blue-Ray's favor in the next gen DVD wars?

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I think the fact that every major studio but Universal is supporting Blu-Ray either exclusively or alongside HD-DVD has far more to do with it than any one movie, even the Star Wars movies.

 

My guess is that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings will be two of the first big time releases on the HD formats, something to make people want to trade in their current players and buy new versions of all their movies.

 

Luckily, both HD-DVD and BluRay are backwards compatible.

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I guess my question would be, once Anakin knows Palpatine is a Sith Lord, why wouldn't he have reservations about everything he has told him up to that point, including the "I am the only one that can save Padme" ? I mean if Sith Lords are known for being tricky, evil bastards, did it not strike Anakin at all that Palpatine may be lying?

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I guess my question would be, once Anakin knows Palpatine is a Sith Lord, why wouldn't he have reservations about everything he has told him up to that point, including the "I am the only one that can save Padme" ?  I mean if Sith Lords are known for being tricky, evil bastards, did it not strike Anakin at all that Palpatine may be lying?

 

Because Anakin's emotions are clouding his judgement.

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Anybody know what's going to be on the bonus disk from Walmart?

 

From the reviews I read it is a "Star Wars in a Nutshell" thing, also that if you're wishing for new bonus materials and footage that you should pass on buying this.

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So has anyone actually seen this bonus disk?  It looks like you actually have to pay extra for it, at least on the Wal-Mart web site.

 

The Walmart I went to only had it bundled with the Fullscreen version, so I passed on it. It looks like some kind of documentary-type deal, following Luke's story from Eps 4-6, and Anakins story from Eps 1-3.

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