Star Wars: The Acolyte official trailer

[Grim Portent]

That he was hired by both sides of the conflict is noteworthy. That the same dude who fathered and trained the entire Republic army was also a hired gun for the Separatists is unusual, not inexplicable for a merc to be double dealing but still strange, to the point where I don't know why Dooku and Palpatine did it.

Jango is established as being the best mercenary around at the time, and one of a small handful who can take on Jedi 1v1, so using him as the genetic template and training planner for the clones is not a bad idea, but as one of the best mercs not using him as a private assassin would be a bit of a waste, while still being something that could be dismissed as a coincidence.

[Mordar]

But the Jedi fail. Since heroes succeed, this must mean either they aren't actually the heroes (a line of thought that requires ignoring like 95% of the explicit text and framing of the movies) or they must have made some big huge obvious mistake. That makes them stupid, and so again not actually the heroes, even though plenty of heroes do much, much stupider stuff and get away with it because the author is on their side. The Jedi lose because they're in a tragedy. That's it. They don't behave flawlessly, but they generally act rationally based on the available information. In a lot of ways they act far more reasonably than plenty of successful heroes in other stories who get away with some next leve moronic stuff just because the heroes always succeed.

...

Don't be Anakin.

While the Jedi are "heroes", they aren't the Heroes of the Story. One particular Jedi is. I think it is worth arguing if the one Jedi is Anakin or Luke. I don't think the PT has a hero...just people (good and bad) that did things...

Further, while I agree this is set as a tragedy (of sorts anyway - it is at least a "tragic background"), it is one that has the unfortunate distinction of also being a prequel, so we know how it ends.

- M

[pendell]

So I have two points to make. First, this plan of action is completely insane based on what the Jedi know, and second, I think this whole search for the mistake line of argument is really rather missing the value of the kind of story the PT is telling.

As to the first argument, I agree there's a lot of hindsight going on here. As in a chess game where you don't see the trap coming until afterwards, then you annotate the moves with the (!) indicator for good move , some ? or ?? for mistakes. Then you can replay and see how the game could have gone the other way.

As towards your second point ... I don't think any of this is inevitable at all, and I think it's a misunderstanding of Anakin's place in the story. Remember he's "The chosen one" who is supposed to "bring balance to the force". His actions, and his alone, tip the galaxy towards good or evil. He's the thumb on an almost perfectly balanced scale. He chose to embrace the Dark and follow Palpatine, turn his back on the Jedi Order, and commit mass murder. This resulted in darkness for the entire galaxy for a generation. His son, Luke, had a similar fulcrum moment with him at the end of Return of the Jedi, and restored the balance, at least temporarily. The prophecy was delayed, but ultimately fulfilled. But in opposing his destiny, Anakin caused a great deal of pain and suffering for others and for himself, personally. Which would have been avoided if he'd sided with Mace in the throne room.

These interchanges shows us that, though the Force sets the conditions, ultimately it's the choices of people that dictate the future of the galaxy. Sometimes it is so closely balanced that a single feather falling on the scale can tip the entire thing. That is why the prequels are a tragedy. A "tragedy" in the Greek sense shows a person reaching great heights only to fall and crash due to their own failures and flaws. It is all, in a sense, all their own fault. A story about an inevitable cataclysm which can't be averted by any human effort isn't a tragedy, but a disaster movie , like "Airport" or "Deep Impact". Star Wars is not that. It is a tragedy in the prequels, a hero's journey, in the OT, and a complete clusterfoo in the sequel trilogy.

More broadly, looking at context, the Prequels are a "it certainly can happen here" dystopia, a cautionary tale that those who live in democracies must be ever-vigilant to safeguard their freedom, even from freedom's self-appointed guardians, lest democracy turn into fascist dictatorship in the blink of an eye. The point of Star Wars and stories of similar ilk (such as The Wave, 1981 ) which came out in the same time was to consider the horrific events of the early twentieth century, to recognize the warning signs which shows the near-instant conversion from democracy to dictatorship , and to either forestall it in its birth or to oppose it when made manifest. It's a story of people seeing beyond the waves of mass propaganda (generated in the GFFA by COMPOR) , then choosing to stand against evil when almost all the galaxy is "thunderously applauding" the New Order. It is about the need for heroism, about the need for courage, to oppose not just external evil but the evil of one's own side.

I remind you that the lines in Ep. III "IF you are not with me you are my enemy ... only the Sith believe in absolutes" -- clumsy as they are , were added by George Lucas as commentary on current events, as he thought he saw in real life shades of what he'd made his movies about.

Star Wars isn't just space opera and laser swords. Lucas didn't care two shillings for the underlying real-world science. But about the interplay of human beings? That he cared a great deal about.

The prequels are a cautionary tale, and there is no point to a cautionary tale if the calamity wasn't avertable at some point. And it was. If Anakin had never gone to the throne room. If Anakin hadn't struck down Mace Windu. If Anakin had refused to kill Dooku. If the Jedi order had sent some other bodyguard for Padme. If the Jedi Order had not gone to geonosis and thus triggered the beginning of the clone war. If, if , if. In any one of a thousand small decisions, small turning points, the disaster of Episode 3 could have been avoided, at least at that time and that place. But it wasn't. That's what makes it a tragedy and a cautionary tale. There's nothing inevitable about it; it directly contradicts the story I believe George Lucas was trying to tell.

[ecarden]

I didn't say it didn't work as a description of the films. I mean that it also necessitates the flaws in the Jedi Order of the time (and most particularly their inability to handle even a nine year old with attachments and help him find enlightenment*) be part of the reason that they fall.

Anakin it's obvious how his fall is tragic, the actions he takes to cling to what he loves destroys those things and nearly destroys him.

But the fall of the Jedi is not just his tragedy, it's their own.

*Imagine how scuppered the Emperor's plan would be if Anakin had Uncle Iroh instead of Yoda and Obi-Wan. Most well adjusted jedi ever.

I don't agree that it does, anymore than it also being Padme's tragedy mean her flaws are part of the reason for her death. I mean, you can make that argument, but I don't really think it works.

I like Avatar too, but I think this massively overstated Iroh's success with Zuko, who, after all turns on him to remain loyal to his father and nation. Sure he shifts back, but to be frank, Iroh's successes are very limited and Zuko very much isn't well adjusted despite years with Iroh.

[gbaji]

On the broader topic of Sifo-Diyas, Dooku and the clone army, I will point out that, from the perspective of the Jedi Council, it is really, really, really easy to view the clone army not as an obvious trap, but rather as providence and the will of the Force. A member of the Jedi Council predicted a coming war and insisted they prepare an army to fight it, he was disbelieved and left.

Yup. I still think a lot of people are mixing up what the audience knows at this point versus what the Jedi actually know. From the Jedi perspective, this looks exactly like "Huh. that crazy future seeing Jedi master we didn't believe, was actually right, and he went ahead and did something to save our bacon despite us not believing him".

If you wish to discuss the flaws in the Jedi Order qua the Jedi Order, sure. If you wish to discuss the flaws in the Jedi Order qua it's role in it's own destruction...

Not a huge deal, but it does feel like you're kinda setting this up where if the flaws aren't relevant to their own destruction then they aren't something worth talking about, but if they are, then we shouldn't discuss them because that is victim blaming and that's not something you are comfortable with.

So what are we allowed to discuss with regard to Jedi imperfections?

If people wish to criticize the Jedi Order, or for that matter claim that it was responsible for its own downfall or destruction, they are obviously free to do so. I think that's very silly and comes from an unwillingness to accept the fact that, as that great sage Captain Picard noted: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”

Right. But if that's the case, then it's not their vault, and thus not "victim blaming". It's just strange because it seems like first you are saying "don't blame them for things that lead to their destruction" and now you are saying "it's silly to blame them for those things, since their destruction had nothing to do with them".

Which is it?

But it does work in Episode 3.

Mace looks down his lightsaber at Palpatine, turns to Anakin and says, "I've become as wrong as he is" and drops his lightsaber.

I don't know if "drops his lightsaber" is something that's going to happen, nor even "I've become as wrong as he is" either. Windu hasn't been secrety manipulating a war, engaging in corrupt politics, having people assassinated, etc. At no point is he ever remotely "as wrong as he is" for merely using force to oppose someone who is himself pretty much the epitome of "someone you should be using force against".

But yes. He could have found that middle ground between "he's too dangerous to let live" and "I'm going to turn into a passive weenie now", and simply done the correct "enforcing the law" thing of ceasing his atttack, holding his weapon at the ready, and demanding the surrender of Palpatine. Yup. We know the courts are corrupted, and Palpatine isn't going to get found guilty of anything here, but that's about the only thing Windu could have done that would be less than trying to kill Palpatine right there, but while still trying to do something about the whole "The Supreme Chancellor of the Republic is a Sith Lord" problem.

Remember, at least one of the major purposes for their being a Jedi order is to oppose the rise/return of Sith rule. So he can't just do nothing at all here.

What now? If Palpatine kills the weaponless Mace just as Mace tells Anakin that murder is wrong, Palpatine is going to lose his hold on Anakin, and his plans will go downhill from there. But if he orders Mace arrested, what then? Even if he officially dissolves the Jedi order, Anakin is not going to go slaughter Kenobi and the younglings at this point. Sure, Palpatine isn't immediately removed from power, but the "Sith Lord" secret is out. And if he tries going behind his "trusted young friend"'s back, Anakin (aided by Obiwan and Padme) is going to figure it out, and then the cat is out of the bag.

I don't think the whole "Sith Lord" thing is out at all. Palapatine simply claims that this has nothing to do with the Sith. The Sith are just some boogieman the Jedi use to keep the galaxy under their "protection" (ie: control), and they're using that to try to engage in a coup. Honestly, at this point Palpatine can claim anything about the Jedi he wants and it'll stick.

I think he simply refuses to be arrested by Mace Windu. If Windu attempts to use force, we're right back in the same "Anakin. Save me!" situation that happened in the film. If Windu does not force the issue, Palpatine waits until he leaves and then tells Anakin about what the Jedi will do next (painting the entire thing in a "they want to rule the galaxy and have lost their way" manner).

Sure, maybe, Palpatine throws much of the Council in prison and officially dissolves the Jedi order. The war is over. There's no more need for an Emperor. There's no wholesale destruction of the Jedi. And there are dark rumors about him. At best, Palpatine now has a much shakier Empire, and much stronger foes.

Nah. He does exactly what he did in the film. He still puts Anakin in a hard "you must pick a side now" position. I'm having a hard time seeing any scenario where Anakin goes with Windu, hears what Windu plans to do next and then follows the Jedi in doing it. Remember, this is the guy who has already learned Palpatine is Sith, told the Jedi council about this, and then still came running to protect Palpatine from the Jedi afterwards. Pretty much anything the Jedi try to do to remove/defeat/kill Palpatine at this point will result in Anakin siding with Palpatine.

Any anything less than that still likely has him turning. Palpatine will immediately execute Order 66. He will send forces to attack the Jedi temple (and will tell Anakin that this is necessary, because the Jedi are surely coming after "us", which if Anakin actually checks, will almost certainly be exactly true). I suppose there are some possible paths this could follow that result in Anakin simply taking off and not taking sides maybe, but that's about the worst outcome for Palpatine. And honestly, along the way, with all of the conflict that's going to be happening around him, the odds that he's never put in a position of "join in killing the people on one side or the other" and having to make that choice (and likely making the same choice he made in the film) just seems very low.

The reality is that the Jedi have to try to stop Palpatine. He's a Sith Lord. It's their duty to stop him. So no matter where Anakin goes after that conflict in Palpatine's office, he's going to discover that his choices are "support the Jedi in killing Palpatine" or "support Palpatine in killing the Jedi". And we know what decision he will ultimately make if forced to do so.

I'm really unsure your timing is correct. Sifo-Dyas did hire the Kaminoans by falsely claiming he had authority from the senate to do so. I don't think your timing on his death is correct though. Boba (Jango's payment) is born in 32 BBY, while Sifo-Dyas dies in 32 BBY.

Yeah. There's nothing to the timing of things to make anyone actually question the whole "The Clone Army was ordered by a former Master of the Jedi Council", just like they were told. When that is correlated with Sifo-Dyas' own visions and warnings about the coming war and need for just such an army (which most members of the council should know about personally), absolutely nothing about this should appear suspect at all. The only minor detail is where the funding came from.

And given the timing, the obvious presumption would be that Sifo-Dyas found someone in the Senate (or connected in some way to the Republic) to secretly fund the program. Ironically, this follows the pattern that Jedi tend to use traditionally anyway. When official channel support is not there, Jedi are trained to find alternative support mechanisms, lean on local resources, etc. We see this done with the Gunguns in TPM. And we see this done repeatedly in TCW as well. So it seems quite reasonable that a Jedi who really wanted/needed to get something done, would find a way to get it done. Again though, the idea that this whole thing somehow got hijacked by the Sith simpliy would not occur to anyone.

I'll say, if you try to apply any sort of actual economic model/understanding to the Star Wars universe it simply won't work. The universe does not make any economic sense and isn't really trying to.

Yeah. I mean, the biggest hole in the whole thing was "how the heck was this funded?". And one might think that this should make one suspicious of whomever funded it, right? Except... the same "this makes no sense" funding exists if we do assume some evil Sith plot behind it too, right? We still have to assume that someone, somehow, managed to fund an absolutely massive cloning and training project, and all of the ships and equipment to support them, yet managed to do this all without actually showing any information in any official bank records, official documents, etc. Dooku is wealthy, but not that wealthy. If one planet could actually build a military that large in just ten years, then there should be a whole lot of armys running around, right?

So the problem of where the money came from is still there either way. The "this is a Sith plot" just has the additional added unlikely factor of actuallly being a Sith plot (in addition to "where did the money come from"). So... Yeah. It's strange and a puzzle, but not something that we should assume should have raised specific Sith based suspicions among the Jedi.

[Mechalich]

Yeah. I mean, the biggest hole in the whole thing was "how the heck was this funded?". And one might think that this should make one suspicious of whomever funded it, right? Except... the same "this makes no sense" funding exists if we do assume some evil Sith plot behind it too, right? We still have to assume that someone, somehow, managed to fund an absolutely massive cloning and training project, and all of the ships and equipment to support them, yet managed to do this all without actually showing any information in any official bank records, official documents, etc. Dooku is wealthy, but not that wealthy. If one planet could actually build a military that large in just ten years, then there should be a whole lot of armys running around, right?

So the problem of where the money came from is still there either way. The "this is a Sith plot" just has the additional added unlikely factor of actuallly being a Sith plot (in addition to "where did the money come from"). So... Yeah. It's strange and a puzzle, but not something that we should assume should have raised specific Sith based suspicions among the Jedi.

So, really important point here regarding the overall structure of the Star Wars galaxy and why the Clone Wars happens: one planet can build a large army in ten years - not an army the size of the GAR, but still a really big army, one capable of besieging hundreds of less militarized planets - and there are a whole lot of armies running around. The Mid and Outer Rims are, in the decades leading up to the Clone Wars, consumed by a constant conflagration of brush conflicts. One well-known example is the Kaleesh-Yam'Rii War, which is the conflict that produced Grievous (who was a Kaleesh warlord), which though it involved only a single star system, included millions of deaths. There are numerous polities in the Outer Rim that are either ruled by warlords, are ruled by independent species that are not Republic members, or are technically part of the Republic but have no loyalty to it and are only too happy to use force against their neighbors when they can get away with it. The whole reason the Trade Federation, Commerce Alliance, Techno Union, and other Separatist constituent bodies have a massive droid fleet in the first place is because they need it to protect their assets in the Mid and Outer Rim from these threats, since they own a huge chunk of the galaxy lock, stock, and barrel. The Republic, not having an army, can't protect these systems and chose to pass legislation to let the corporatists do so themselves - the army the Trade Federation has in TPM is a perfectly legal asset (though as the Separatist crisis intensifies they drastically increase the size of their forces off the books).


As to funding the GAR as a Sith plot, there are at least partial explanations available, though they are primarily in Legends since Disney has not engaged in the issue. Specifically, the Legends novel Darth Plagueis, which while not perfect is quite good and fill in a lot of holes regarding how Palpatine (and Plagueis and Tenebrous before him) set all this up. That novel establishes that the Sith have two big sources of funding: a vast criminal empire (much of which Palpatine abandons following TPM and is later incorporated into Black Sun) and a massive amount of influence over the Intergalactic Banking Clan, which Plagueis controlled via a financial conglomerate, Damask Holdings, of which he was, secretly, the head. The implication is that the GAR was financed primarily through financial chicanery backed up by a small (though in absolute terms quite vast) deposit of hard currency supplied by 1000 years worth of accumulated Sith criminal fortunes.

The TCW Banking Clan Arc (the one with Rush Clovis) supports this, as the clan is involved in decidedly Byzantine dealings and their finances are collapsing because they've made loans to both the Republic and the Separatists to pay for war that aren't being paid back. It is highly likely that the necessary evidence to uncover the origin of the GAR and to trace it back to the Sith - at the very least to Plagueis' alter ego Hego Damask - existed. It is even possible that Rush Clovis found those records when he and Padme infiltrated the main banking clan vault on Scipio, however, those records were transmitted to Palpatine, who could then bury them easily, especially after he framed Clovis and the Banking Clan and seized control over the galaxy's financial system.

Clearly, this is primarily a failure of the Senate, and whatever passes for its banking committee, not the Jedi. It's also a failure of Padme who just, ugh, cannot do anything right despite being the most prominent Senator in the franchise by a substantial margin. Insofar as the Jedi Order makes an error here, it's that they once again trust the Republic too much and believe it is something that it is not.

[ecarden]

Not a huge deal, but it does feel like you're kinda setting this up where if the flaws aren't relevant to their own destruction then they aren't something worth talking about, but if they are, then we shouldn't discuss them because that is victim blaming and that's not something you are comfortable with.

So what are we allowed to discuss with regard to Jedi imperfections?

That's a fair critique. To be clear, I'm neither a mod nor a dictator, you are allowed to discuss whatever you like regarding Jedi imperfections. My preference would be to attempt to disconnect those from the genocide which follows. Like, their treatment of Ahsoka during her 'trial' is bad regardless of whether or not it contributes to Anakin eventually turning on them. Their alleged abandonment of Shmi to her fate is bad regardless of its effect on Anakin. The treatment of clone troopers and taking up of command is debatable regardless of the question of whether it coincided with Palpatine's plan.

Their morality is not dependent upon their final fate--so the focus on how they could have avoided it is odd to me. Like, if they'd all decided, 'hey, we should just join Dooku and rule the galaxy as Sith overlords, it looks fun!' Palpatine would have been pretty screwed, but that doesn't make it an option.

Right. But if that's the case, then it's not their vault, and thus not "victim blaming". It's just strange because it seems like first you are saying "don't blame them for things that lead to their destruction" and now you are saying "it's silly to blame them for those things, since their destruction had nothing to do with them".

Which is it?

Both? I mean, neither of those are quotes, but both can be true, it's just that they aren't about the same mistakes. Like the whole 'holocron identifier of future Jedi, plus crystal to read it,' structure is, in my view, a mistake--but blaming the genocide of the Jedi on it would be silly, given that they get it back and it never shows up again.

Like, a lot of the focus here is on how the Jedi Order could have raised/trained Anakin to not be susceptible to Palpatine's manipulations, but like, Anakin could also have just said 'nah, I'm not going to go murder children and help you enslave the galaxy.' Now, I know why we discuss the former more than the later, there's not much to say about it, but like, this thread is theoretically about the golden age of the Jedi and the Republic and instead is about how they weren't really that great right before they were almost all genocided.

There's nothing inherently illogical, or wrong about that discussion, or that interest. I just tend to find it icky.

[Keltest]

As far as the money trail goes, remember that the banking clans are one if the groups on the Separatist council. Even if they officially claim neutrality, its entirely possible thst there simply aren't any records to follow because of sabotage.

[Infernally Clay]

Imagine how scuppered the Emperor's plan would be if Anakin had Uncle Iroh instead of Yoda and Obi-Wan. Most well adjusted jedi ever.

That's basically what Qui-Gon was, or would have been. He was pretty much everything Anakin needed from a father. To this day I think the biggest mistake that Lucas made with the prequels, which is saying a lot, is not having Qui-Gon fight Palpatine instead of Maul in The Phantom Menace.

Qui-Gon obviously still dies but then Duel of the Fates represents the two paths Anakin could have walked down, the two fathers he could have had, and that fight would be the moment the audience knows "this is when Anakin starts down the path that ends with him becoming Darth Vader".

You could even have Palpatine bash the audience over the head with it if you want, with him proclaiming to a dying Qui-Gon that the Chosen One is now his, and later show Palpatine consoling Anakin and promising to be there for him as Qui-Gon would have been.

[Mechalich]

As far as the money trail goes, remember that the banking clans are one if the groups on the Separatist council. Even if they officially claim neutrality, its entirely possible thst there simply aren't any records to follow because of sabotage.

The absence of records is less helpful, actually, since that ought to increase suspicion rather than defray it. What ought to be in the canon (but as far as I know isn't, in either continuity) is some mention that the Senate investigated and found that the funds came from some combination of private outlays and complex accounting schemes. Sifo-Dyas could plausibly be responsible for the first - he knew Chancellor Valorum personally and moved in high-class circles, he might have convinced some nobles to invest in his 'collective defense initiative.' These can even be real people who are instead subverted by the Sith, like the Takin and Tagge families. The second part could be outsourced to some major crime syndicate - Black Sun most likely - with the funds in question being phantasmal, but the debts made good by Palpatine later on, after he becomes Chancellor. And Black Sun slicers could have submitted all kinds of false payments from phantom accounts to Kamino and Rothana to make this seem real, since the Sith broadly controlled the syndicate.

Such a charade wouldn't hold up to a full forensic accounting investigation, but given both Senate dysfunction and Banking Clan intransigence, such an investigation might well take many years and the Clone Wars finish in under four (at which point Palpatine obliterates Kamino and more or less nationalizes Kuat/Rothana rendering the whole thing a moot issue). Given that the Jedi Order has basically no knowledge of finance and this sort of thing is very much not their responsibility, such an explanation would make their lack of suspicion in this area far more reasonable.

For example we could imagine a hypothetical exchange something like this:
Newbie Padawan: Master, these Venators sure are sleek, but don't big starships like this cost millions of credits? How did Master Sifo-Dyas order thousands for the Republic?
Veteran Master: Donations from patriotic old families, to start, and the rest by borrowing, I believe. A strange business, all number juggling by droids. The Senate has assured us they will get to truth eventually, worry not, the Force leads us down other paths.

Overall, Legends handled the whole issue of Jedi suspicions much better than the Disney canon. It is quite explicit in Legends that the Jedi Order is aware that there are problems at the height of the Republic and they are on the trail of finding out who it is. There's even a whole novel, Labyrinth of Evil, dedicated to this and while Palpatine manages to successfully run out the clock, it's only by the skin of his teeth. If Grievous attacks Corsucant even hours later then his identity as Sidious would have been discovered.

[Errorname]

That's basically what Qui-Gon was, or would have been. He was pretty much everything Anakin needed from a father. To this day I think the biggest mistake that Lucas made with the prequels, which is saying a lot, is not having Qui-Gon fight Palpatine instead of Maul in The Phantom Menace.

I think this would require redesigning Sidious to have some sort of face concealing cover at least, but even then I think it undermines the angle of Sidious as a shadowy conspirator working through puppets from behind the scenes, so I get why it was Maul. I think the stock fan criticism is that Maul should have lived and stuck around is accurate though, and it was pretty thoroughly vindicated by his Clone Wars appearances.

like the Takin and Tagge families.

I know this is a typo of Tarkin, but Takin honestly have an extremely Star Wars alien look to their faces.

Overall, Legends handled the whole issue of Jedi suspicions much better than the Disney canon. It is quite explicit in Legends that the Jedi Order is aware that there are problems at the height of the Republic and they are on the trail of finding out who it is. There's even a whole novel, Labyrinth of Evil, dedicated to this and while Palpatine manages to successfully run out the clock, it's only by the skin of his teeth. If Grievous attacks Corsucant even hours later then his identity as Sidious would have been discovered.

I think Clone Wars is trying to do this, but the same problem the films run into where the plot is meant to be comprehensible to children means it feels like the Jedi get too much to work with.

Something the early cancellation did is that it meant those shoes dropped in the penultimate season, which given that the final season takes place immediately prior and concurrent with the film means you can see it as them getting all the information they needed but not having the time to put it all together. If they'd finished all the episodes they'd planned you'd probably lose that feeling.

[Infernally Clay]

I think this would require redesigning Sidious to have some sort of face concealing cover at least, but even then I think it undermines the angle of Sidious as a shadowy conspirator working through puppets from behind the scenes, so I get why it was Maul. I think the stock fan criticism is that Maul should have lived and stuck around is accurate though, and it was pretty thoroughly vindicated by his Clone Wars appearances.

The thing is, The Clone Wars retroactively justifies it. When Maul started to become a rival, Palpatine took care of things himself. He went to Mandalore personally, killed Savage and then tortured Maul into submission. I know it came out many years after the fact but still, it would have worked in The Phantom Menace just as well as it did in The Clone Wars and it would have added a real sense of weight to what was going on. This must be supremely important for Palpatine to get personally involved.

It's not like the audience doesn’t already know Palpatine is Darth Sidious, so it would have been more powerful if Qui-Gon got separated from Obi-Wan at the end of the movie and finds himself face to face not with Maul, but Maul’s boss. Qui-Gon being Qui-Gon he would immediately clock what’s going on, that Palpatine is playing both the Republic and the Trade Federation against each other to advance his own schemes, but the two of them make it clear that the fight isn’t actually about that. Palpatine’s acknowledgement of Anakin being the Chosen One validates everything Qui-Gon has said up to this point, rewarding his faith in the Force, but the reality dawns on him that they’re not fighting over the future of the galaxy, they’re fighting over Anakin’s future.

Qui-Gon obviously dies, but he dies believing Obi-Wan will protect and raise Anakin as he would have done… except the movie ends on a much more tragic note - the loss of Qui-Gon provides Palpatine with an opening into Anakin’s life, allowing him to become the father Qui-Gon would have been, but the Jedi Council is blind to it.

[Errorname]

I know it came out many years after the fact but still, it would have worked in The Phantom Menace just as well as it did in The Clone Wars and it would have added a real sense of weight to what was going on. This must be supremely important for Palpatine to get personally involved.

Clone Wars came out after Revenge of the Sith, and I do think it's a deliberate choice that Palpatine doesn't take direct action in the trilogy until the very end

Also plot-wise at this point Palpatine is winning the election off in Coruscant. While the heroes are busy with Maul and Gunray, the actual battle is being lost offscreen

[Infernally Clay]

Clone Wars came out after Revenge of the Sith, and I do think it's a deliberate choice that Palpatine doesn't take direct action in the trilogy until the very end

Also plot-wise at this point Palpatine is winning the election off in Coruscant. While the heroes are busy with Maul and Gunray, the actual battle is being lost offscreen

They could have shuffled things around a little to make it work, but the point still stands. It was a mistake to not have Qui-Gon fight Palpatine over Anakin's future.

It would have given the fight that narrative and emotional weight and it would have reminded the audience that this is a prequel and Anakin's fall to the dark side is inevitable but this is the story of how he did and they just witnessed the beginning of that.

[Sapphire Guard]

Qui Gon regards Obi Wan, a super submissive apprentice who apologises for disagreeing with him, as 'headstrong'. An actual headstrong apprenntice like Anakin would have driven him insane.

A TPM Palpatine fight wouldn't work at all. He can't disappear in the middle of his election campaign, and narratively it wrecks the whole thing, where you're supposed to be thinking 'if the apprentice is this scary, how bad is the master?, undermines both Maul and Obi Wan by making their accomplishments less impressive, and making Palpatine less scary by making Qui Gon be able to put up a decent fight.

TPM Maul was perfect as he was.

Maul in Clone Wars had a meta arc about how there wasn't a place for him in the story anymore and followed Obi Wan around because he had nothing else to do. So he kept going around in circles chasing futile revenge against Obi. Great combat, but not great narratively.

I think Clone Wars is trying to do this, but the same problem the films run into where the plot is meant to be comprehensible to children means it feels like the Jedi get too much to work with.

Clone Wars never misses the chance to make a reference, no matter how much damage it does to the wider story. Adding toi what we have with those arcs just cretaed problems that never existed before.

The Clone Army finances are suspicious, of course they are. This works to Palpatine's advantage, because it makes the Senate suspicous of the Jedi and the Jedi suspicious of the Senate, which works to his advantage.

Imagine how scuppered the Emperor's plan would be if Anakin had Uncle Iroh instead of Yoda and Obi-Wan. Most well adjusted jedi ever.

I mean,

Spoiler: Avatar

Show

Zuko does betray him, despite being not half as traumatised as Anakin was. Dunno about that.

I feel like perhaps the audience underestimates Anakin as uniquely fragile. I think he's actually uniquely resilient. He spent the first nine years of his life with a literal bomb in his head, at risk of being exploded or sold away from his mother on his master's whim. His mother died of torture in his arms, and he has repeated nightmares of both her and Padme's painful deaths. I think that would be enough to break most people, regardless of what kind of education they got.

Lots of people have been talking about what 'the whole point of the prequels' are or 'what Lucas intended'. And yet they keep jumping to very different conclusions. Maybe we're less good at mind reading than we think?

[Infernally Clay]

A TPM Palpatine fight wouldn't work at all. He can't disappear in the middle of his election campaign, and narratively it wrecks the whole thing, where you're supposed to be thinking 'if the apprentice is this scary, how bad is the master?, undermines both Maul and Obi Wan by making their accomplishments less impressive, and making Palpatine less scary by making Qui Gon be able to put up a decent fight.

TPM Maul was perfect as he was.

It would totally work. Sure you'd have to shuffle events around a little, probably by making Palpatine's election to Chancellor happen afterwards to really drive home how everything is working out exactly as he intended, but I don't see why it would narratively wreck anything when the point of the fight was always that Qui-Gon and Maul were fighting over who'd get to raise Anakin and it never made any sense it wasn't Palpatine instead of Maul doing the fighting.

Filoni puts it better than I can here:
https://youtu.be/4V5-9__XvPg

I also disagree that it somehow makes Palpatine less impressive. If anything it makes Qui-Gon more impressive because Palpatine would later fight five Jedi Masters at once and win. The fact that Qui-Gon Jinn would do better in a fight against Palpatine than someone like Kit Fisto would be pretty dang impressive and it'd also kinda make you wonder if the Jedi Council was wrong not to send, say, Mace Windu to Naboo to back Qui-Gon up when he told them about the Sith.

[GloatingSwine]

Well he wouldn't be much of a phantom menace if he was around being an actual menace, would he?

[Sapphire Guard]

That was always the point? Are you sure? Dave never worked on TPM,he came in later, and in many respects Dave's view differs from George.

Breakdown 1

Breakdown 2

[Keltest]

If Palpatine was able to just powerhouse his way through all of his problems instead of having to sneak around and outmaneuver them, it would kind of make Yoda look like a fool in ESB when he says the Dark Side isn't actually stronger than the Light.

[pendell]

If Palpatine was able to just powerhouse his way through all of his problems instead of having to sneak around and outmaneuver them, it would kind of make Yoda look like a fool in ESB when he says the Dark Side isn't actually stronger than the Light.

I would argue that , from what I've seen of the GFFA, individual Sith ARE, one-for-one, more powerful than their light-side counterparts. Or at least, have the potential to be. This is because they have such a strong focus on self-actualization which the Jedi do not have. The reason they lose is because, however powerful they may be individually, they don't play well with others. They cheat and betray each other, and their non-force-using subordinates follow their pattern. The Jedi , who are able to trust each other, thus win their battles because they co-operate while the Sith will sometimes use the Jedi as weapons against their rivals. It's why the Jedi are the last ones standing. While they are individually weaker than the Sith, as a group they are far more powerful and effective.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[GloatingSwine]

I would argue that , from what I've seen of the GFFA, individual Sith ARE, one-for-one, more powerful than their light-side counterparts. Or at least, have the potential to be. This is because they have such a strong focus on self-actualization which the Jedi do not have.

I don't think that's really supposed to be the case, it's just a consequence of the dramatic form where the baddie has to be a big enough baddie to make the heroes struggle. Palpatine lost when someone picked him up and threw him in a hole.

The rest of Yoda's quote fills in the rest. The Dark Side is quicker and easier to get powerful with. Jedi have just as much of a focus on self-actualisation as the Sith, but the enlightened path to it is much longer than "grab what you can as soon as you can".

[pendell]

I don't think that's really supposed to be the case, it's just a consequence of the dramatic form where the baddie has to be a big enough baddie to make the heroes struggle. Palpatine lost when someone picked him up and threw him in a hole.

The rest of Yoda's quote fills in the rest. The Dark Side is quicker and easier to get powerful with. Jedi have just as much of a focus on self-actualisation as the Sith, but the enlightened path to it is much longer than "grab what you can as soon as you can".

Maybe. Even so ...
Maul beat Qui-Gonn.
Dooku beat Obi-Wan and Anakin together before losing to Yoda
Dooku beat Obi-wan in their rematch and Anakin beat him only because he started drawing on the dark side during their fight.
Sidious defeated Yoda.
Obi-Wan defeated Anakin , the only solo fight we've seen where the light side unequivocally won.
In the rematch, crippled Anakin defeated an elder Obi-Wan.
Vader defeated Luke.
Luke defeated Vader but only by drawing on the Dark Side.
Rey beats Darth Maul but it's Rey.

Looking through the pattern, we've got a history of individual Sith overcoming individual Jedi. But in all the prequels the Sith are busy scheming against each other just as much as they are against the Jedi; Anakin intends to assassinate Palpatine and take his place, while Dooku had his own plan. I think what we're supposed to take from this is that the weakness of the Sith is their compete inability to trust other people. It means they all die isolated, alone, and frequently betrayed. It's why the Darth Bane created the Rule of Two in the first place; because more than that and the Sith would fall apart with infighting. Weak and flawed as the Jedi are, it is pretty much impossible to have any kind of social cohesion when the Sith are running things. Which is why the Republic stood for thousands of years while Sith Empires had meteoric rises and equally meteoric falls for much of that time.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[LibraryOgre]

Honestly one of the funniest developments in the Star Wars fandom as a whole is that back in 1999-2005, when the prequel movies came out, there were endless complaints about trade negotiations and the emphasis on politics and corruption and all that, because really all anyone wanted to see was more lightsaber duels, and yet here we are in 2024 and it’s the exact opposite. Now the fans don’t want lightsaber duels and it is widely proclaimed by them that the best Star Wars material has no Jedi in it and folks want the prequels to have had a greater emphasis on the politics and the economics of the fall of the Republic.

Well, sure. Now we're all old farts, longing for the Star Wars of our youths, which we have romanticized beyond rationality, and we're "suddenly" a lot more interested in tax policy now that we pay taxes.

[Infernally Clay]

I don't think that's really supposed to be the case, it's just a consequence of the dramatic form where the baddie has to be a big enough baddie to make the heroes struggle. Palpatine lost when someone picked him up and threw him in a hole.

The rest of Yoda's quote fills in the rest. The Dark Side is quicker and easier to get powerful with. Jedi have just as much of a focus on self-actualisation as the Sith, but the enlightened path to it is much longer than "grab what you can as soon as you can".

Palpatine was picked up and thrown in a hole because the idea of giving up all the power in the galaxy because you love someone doesn't even cross his mind. He can't comprehend selflessness or sacrifice. It wasn't that Palpatine was too weak or whatever. He proved time and time again that he could kill Vader with a thought and it was Vader's fear of Palpatine that kept him in line.

Pendell is right in that Sith are typically portrayed as stronger than Jedi and I think it has a lot to do with emotion and letting go of your inhibitions. The Jedi practice a very controlled and emotionally withdrawn connection to the Force and this is presumably why Dooku, for example, never lost himself to the dark side. He drew power from it, yes, but the way a Jedi would.

It's worth remembering that the Jedi aren't after power anyway. The Sith will spend their entire lives chasing after power and training to kill Jedi, but the Jedi don't do either of those things. The lightsaber isn't even a weapon, it's a symbol of the Jedi's connection to the Force, and a good Jedi never needs to use one. It makes perfect sense that the Sith would naturally be stronger warriors given their inclination towards conflict.

[GloatingSwine]

Palpatine was picked up and thrown in a hole because the idea of giving up all the power in the galaxy because you love someone doesn't even cross his mind. He can't comprehend selflessness or sacrifice. It wasn't that Palpatine was too weak or whatever. He proved time and time again that he could kill Vader with a thought and it was Vader's fear of Palpatine that kept him in line.
.

That was the reason for his moment of inattention to Vader and lack of expectation of attack from him, but it's also not some kind of silver bullet that vanquishes an all-powerful foe. A momentary slip towards an overlooked threat whilst he was gloating in triumph was enough to see him struck down. And that's something that would always be a risk due to his personality (arguably the fact that he puts himself at centre stage of the Republic for so long is related to the reason why he goes personally to oversee the trap at Endor, he wants to manipulate people from the shadows but he absolutely also wants to be there in person to watch everyone else lose).

The point is that he isn't actually this overwhelming force 'gainst whom none could ever stand because the Dark Side is just stronger. He dies in a mundane way that anyone capable of lifting a dude 3' off the ground could have achieved, if they were similarly overlooked in the moment (and overlooking those he doesn't consider to be threats is also kind of a pattern, that's also the fate of his ground forces on Endor, he overlooks the Ewoks because what could they possibly do?).

[Infernally Clay]

That was the reason for his moment of inattention to Vader and lack of expectation of attack from him, but it's also not some kind of silver bullet that vanquishes an all-powerful foe. A momentary slip towards an overlooked threat whilst he was gloating in triumph was enough to see him struck down. And that's something that would always be a risk due to his personality (arguably the fact that he puts himself at centre stage of the Republic for so long is related to the reason why he goes personally to oversee the trap at Endor, he wants to manipulate people from the shadows but he absolutely also wants to be there in person to watch everyone else lose).

The point is that he isn't actually this overwhelming force 'gainst whom none could ever stand because the Dark Side is just stronger. He dies in a mundane way that anyone capable of lifting a dude 3' off the ground could have achieved, if they were similarly overlooked in the moment (and overlooking those he doesn't consider to be threats is also kind of a pattern, that's also the fate of his ground forces on Endor, he overlooks the Ewoks because what could they possibly do?).

I don't think anyone is really meant to look at the finale of Return of the Jedi and assume anyone could have thrown Palpatine into the abyss, given the same opportunity as Vader had.

There's actually a fantastic bit of retroactive foreshadowing (I guess that's what you'd call it?) in The Clone Wars, during an arc where Anakin, Obi-Wan, Rex and Ahsoka get caught up in the Zyggerian slave empire and they get surrounded by slavers with electro-whips. The show itself is very, very deliberate here.

It takes one whip to knock out Rex.
It takes two whips to knock out Obi-Wan.
It takes nine to put Anakin down.

Anakin's resilience is frankly absurd and even he died after a few seconds of being blasted by Palpatine's lightning. We cannot attribute what he did to anyone else, because he's just built different. Anyone else would be dead before Palpatine was even a foot off the ground, and it's all the more impressive when you realise Palpatine rigged Vader's suit so that it would provide no protection at all against such attacks.

Palpatine is in fact overwhelmingly powerful and nothing short of the combined efforts of the very best Jedi in the Order could have ever taken him out in a physical confrontation, which is undoubtedly part of the reason why he made sure keep them spread thinly across the galaxy. Even Yoda couldn't stop the guy and barely escaped with his life and nothing needs to be said about the way he toyed with Maul and Savage.

[Keltest]

Anakin died to Palpatine's lightning because it destroyed his life support systems, not because the lightning was somehow super duper powerful. Luke was facetanking it directly literally seconds before and he was fine in the short term.

[Mordar]

I would argue that , from what I've seen of the GFFA, individual Sith ARE, one-for-one, more powerful than their light-side counterparts. Or at least, have the potential to be. This is because they have such a strong focus on self-actualization which the Jedi do not have. The reason they lose is because, however powerful they may be individually, they don't play well with others.

I don't think that's really supposed to be the case, it's just a consequence of the dramatic form where the baddie has to be a big enough baddie to make the heroes struggle. Palpatine lost when someone picked him up and threw him in a hole.

The rest of Yoda's quote fills in the rest. The Dark Side is quicker and easier to get powerful with. Jedi have just as much of a focus on self-actualisation as the Sith, but the enlightened path to it is much longer than "grab what you can as soon as you can".

Pendell is right in that Sith are typically portrayed as stronger than Jedi and I think it has a lot to do with emotion and letting go of your inhibitions. The Jedi practice a very controlled and emotionally withdrawn connection to the Force and this is presumably why Dooku, for example, never lost himself to the dark side. He drew power from it, yes, but the way a Jedi would.

It's worth remembering that the Jedi aren't after power anyway. The Sith will spend their entire lives chasing after power and training to kill Jedi, but the Jedi don't do either of those things. The lightsaber isn't even a weapon, it's a symbol of the Jedi's connection to the Force, and a good Jedi never needs to use one. It makes perfect sense that the Sith would naturally be stronger warriors given their inclination towards conflict.

I think that conversations like this get muddied. I think it is a bit like pop-history Athens and Sparta. "Which is stronger?" can only be answered with a question like "By which metric?".

Combat is one small sliver of the equation. Sith excel at combat because (IMO), they train for combat - both practice and live-fire. They have the benefit of forced evolution. And Dark Side feeds directly into the aggression model of combat. Both combat and Dark Side are optimal paths for quick ascent to power, so they align hand in hand. Couple that with Sith in the "modern" era knowing they are hugely outnumbered and knowing they will eventually come to blows with their adversaries, are very highly incentivized to dedicate maximum effort to mastering combat forms.

The Jedi lack those advantages, but have the benefit of a larger array of trainers, accumulated knowledge on forms and styles, and a much higher catchment for Force users. As such, it makes perfect sense to me that Sith will always have high-performing combatants, but the Jedi will usually have the *best* combatant. Dooku and Maul were all very good in their primes, and both lost head-up against a Jedi. Windu had Sidious on the ropes multiple times - and yes, maybe Sidious was selling a bit - but Windu had him disarmed and at grave disadvantage. Maybe 3 Jedi stood a chance against Sidious (and we had just watched Sidious kill three alert and ready Jedi). Windu was just better. Anakin was just better. Yoda at ~850 years old fought Dooku and Sidious to draws and could easily have won at least one of those fights. So, Average Sith vs Average Jedi I see the Jedi at least a 7-2 underdog. Best on best, particularly on the mythical featureless plain and both prepared, I'm at worst coin flip for the Jedi.

But like I said - combat is a small sliver of the equation.

- M

[hamishspence]

Anakin died to Palpatine's lightning because it destroyed his life support systems, not because the lightning was somehow super duper powerful. Luke was facetanking it directly literally seconds before and he was fine in the short term.

Luke's skull never becomes visible through his flesh as "X-Ray Sparks", the way Mace's did after his hand was severed and Palpatine opened fire again in ROTS, or the way Vader's did through his helmet after he picked up Palpatine.

It's reasonable to conjecture that Palpatine was trying to kill Luke slowly - torturing him to death with "second-tier strength" lightning and not the "first-tier strength" that was used on Mace or on Vader.

[KorvinStarmast]

Anakin died to Palpatine's lightning because it destroyed his life support systems, not because the lightning was somehow super duper powerful. Luke was facetanking it directly literally seconds before and he was fine in the short term.

That's a good point.

Luke's skull never becomes visible through his flesh as "X-Ray Sparks", the way Mace's did after his hand was severed and Palpatine opened fire again in ROTS, or the way Vader's did through his helmet after he picked up Palpatine.

It's reasonable to conjecture that Palpatine was trying to kill Luke slowly - torturing him to death with "second-tier strength" lightning and not the "first-tier strength" that was used on Mace or on Vader.

This seems a better explanation to me, since my thought of "as he aged maybe Palpatine's force lightning lost its 'oomph' and didn't have the same energy" ... but then I recalled how strong 800 year old Yoda was in the force.