Thoughts on Star Wars: Episode III
We finally went to see Star Wars: Episode III. It has been a while since we saw it, but I am just now getting a chance to write my impressions. Please pardon any spelling errors in the names, as I am writing this from memory.
I thought that Episode III was the best of the new trilogy. Episodes I and II were OK, but not what I would call great. Even Episode III does not, in my opinion, come up to the level of the original Star Wars trilogy. But it is well-paced and captivating, a worthy conclusion to the saga, if conclusion indeed it is.
The movie had a difficult premise: to depict the transformation of the good Anakin Skywalker into the evil Darth Vader, and to show how and why he turned to the dark side of the force. As one critic said, we all knew what was going to happen. The only thing that we did not know was the details.
The story succeeds because it is complex and uncertain enough to hold our interest, even as we watch the inevitable unfold. The story involves multiple levels of plot: political intrigue, internal conflicts among the Jedi, conflict between friends, relationship conflicts between Anakin and Padme, and Anakin's personal struggle to come to grips with who he is, how he relates to others, and what is to be his role. It is the story of the willing transformation of a democratic but unwieldy republic into an empire led by an ambitious demagogue. It is the story of the demagogue's duplicity in orchestrating a war and playing both sides for his own gain and advantage. It is the story of a troubled young man, overcome by a combination of his own pride and desire for eminence and his love for and desire to protect his beloved wife. By yielding to his fear, he unknowingly destroys the very one that he is trying to protect.
Chancellor Palpatine, as we all know, is scheming to become emperor. He has orchestrated a war against the Separatists, who are trying to break away from the republic, but is secretly helping them through his Sith apprentice Count Dooku. The Separatists seem to be the remnants of the Trade Federation of Episodes I and II, whatever that was. Palpatine fakes his own capture by the Separatists and Count Dooku to lure Obi-wan and Anakin to come to his rescue. The outcome appears not to greatly matter to him, since he can use whatever happens to his advantage. But he gets what he really wants when Anakin defeats Dooku. We see the next small step of Anakin toward the dark side when, at Palpatine's urging, he kills Dooku, though he knows that it is wrong. Little does Anakin know, though of course the audience does, that a time will come when the scene will be reenacted, with Palpatine telling Anakin's own son to "kill him and take his place at my side." Luke succeeds where Anakin failed.
At the personal level of the story, Anakin falls because of love: his love for his wife Padme. He foresees her death in childbirth and is desperate to protect her. The Jedi counsel him to let go and detach himself, but he will not. He is willing to try anything to save her, and so is open to the suggestions of Palpatine, who insinuates that only the dark side can give him the power to prevent her death, a power that the Jedi do not want him to know about or experience. He even tells Anakin tales of a Sith lord who discovered this power to protect those he loved from death.
We do not know, of course, whether Palpatine was lying about this. And the point is, neither does Anakin. He must make his decision based on his knowledge, experience, and feelings. We feel that what Palpatine said was probably a lie, but Anakin is so desperate for help that he is willing to try it.
At another level, Palpatine engineers a conflict between Anakin and the other Jedi. He plants the seeds of doubt in Anakin whether the Jedi trust him. Desperate for recognition, Anakin chafes at this. All is, of course, for Palpatine's benefit.
The showdown comes when Anakin realizes that Palpatine is a Sith lord and informs Jedi master Mace Windu. Windu and three other Jedi go to arrest Palpatine, insisting that Anakin remain behind. But Anakin follows, driven by fear that if Palpatine dies, there will be no way to save Padme. In a troubling reprise of the scene in which Count Dooku dies, Mace Windu defeats Palpatine and is about to kill him, crying, "He is too dangerous to live!" But Anakin intervenes, maiming Windu, and allowing Palpatine to kill him. Knowing that what he has done is wrong, he nonetheless vows to serve Palpatine, still believing that it is the only way to protect Padme. Anakin begins carrying out his new master's evil program, murdering the Padwan children in the Jedi temple and wiping out the remaining leaders of the Separatists, who think that he has come to help them. At the same time, Palpatine gives an order to exterminate all the Jedi, and it is ruthlessly carried out. Only Yoda and Obi-wan escape.
Now the scene is set for the showdown. Padme follows Anakin to the mining colony where he has gone to kill the Separatist leaders, and unknowingly leads Obi-wan to Anakin. Furious at what he considers a betrayal, Anakin uses his new powers to choke Padme until she passes out. He is harming the very one he has done so much to try to protect. Then he and Obi-wan, former friends, former student and master, fight through a hellish scene until Obi-wan finally defeats him. Unable to bring himself to kill Anakin, and thinking him as good as dead, Obi-wan leaves him badly burned, with his arms and legs burned off and all his hair gone, and flees with Padme. But Palpatine rescues Anakin and has him tended and fitted with prosthetic limbs and a breath mask and helmet.
Padme, heartbroken in grief over Anakin's fall, gives birth to twins and dies. The funeral procession, interestingly, shows her as still pregnant. The remaining Jedi are careful to separate and hide the twins and prevent Anakin from knowing that they exist. Perhaps the saddest moment in this whole sad film is when Anakin, after being fitted with his prosthetics and breath mask, rather pathetically asks whether Padme is all right, only to be told that he killed her. Palpatine, knowingly or unknowingly, helps the Jedi in keeping the children from Anakin by telling him that he had killed Padme when he choked her. Defeated and hopeless, Anakin resigns himself to a life of service to his evil master.
We see, at last, that Palpatine has lied to Anakin. The dark side has no power to preserve life. Instead, its power is to twist, kill, and destroy. While Palpatine's statement that Anakin killed Padme is in its strictest sense a lie, yet in a deeper sense, it is true. Anakin did kill Padme: not by choking her, but by breaking her heart. In his attempts to save her, he has become what made her give up the will to live. He has caused what he dreaded most by trying so hard to prevent it.
To mix stories, Anakin would have done well to heed the words of Galadriel to Samwise when he saw the destruction of the Shire in her mirror and wanted to rush home to save it: "Many things the mirror shows. Some are, some have been, and some may never come to be unless he who sees them turns aside from his path to try to prevent them."
Some have seen a reference to the current political situation in the story: a corrupt leader uses a manufactured war to subvert democracy. It is possible that there is a reference to President Bush and the Iraq war in this, but I doubt it. I suspect that this story was conceived long before that. The story is a universal one: leaders always find war a pretext to increase their power "during the present crisis." Once taken, the extra powers are rarely given up. Consider George Orwell's 1984 and the slogan "War is Peace." Certainly we need to be always on our guard to defend freedom against demogoguery.
There is a message in the fall of Anakin. He did not start out to become evil. The temptation came to him through a desire to do good. Even so, in the story of the temptation of Christ, all three temptations were to take a shortcut way, doing evil in order to accomplish good. Like Adam, and unlike Christ, Anakin took the shortcut. And again, like Adam, he had to wait for his descendent to overcome the temptations and deliver him.
The scenes of the deaths of Count Dooku and Mace Windu anticipate the climactic scene in Episode VI, when Luke defeats his father in front of Palpatine but refuses to kill him as Palpatine orders. This time, Anakin destroys Palpatine to save his son, and so redeems himself.
There are aspects of the story that leave one to wonder. The Jedi are supposed to be able to feel the presence of good and evil in the force. In the original trilogy, Anakin is able to sense the presence of Obi-wan and of Luke. One wonders why he cannot feel at the beginning that Palpatine is an evil presence. Perhaps his powers have not developed enough.
One can see certain events as setting things up in minor ways for Episode IV. When Obi-wan has to grab a blaster and finish off General Grievous, he mutters, "How uncivilized." And Yoda tells Obi-wan that his friend Anakin is gone, consumed by the new Darth Vader. This prepares the way for Obi-wan to tell Luke that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father.
One statement near the end of the film also leads to some interesting speculations. Yoda tells Obi-Wan to take Luke to his relatives on Tattooine to be raised, and tells him to live nearby to watch over Luke. He informs him that while is is there, he will receive training from the spirit of Quai-gon Jinn, who has discovered the secret of immortality.
One wonders whether this means that not all are immortal, but only those who know the secret. It sounds rather Gnostic. It does recall a statement of Obi-Wan to Darth Vader in their fight on the Death Star in Episode IV. The movie abridges in a significant way the statement as it is in the printed book: "This is a fight you cannot win, Darth. If [my blade finds it mark, you will cease to exist. But if] you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
One also wonders whether this statement paves the way for yet another movie about Obi-wan's adventures with Quai-gon between Episode III and Episode IV.
I thought that Episode III was the best of the new trilogy. Episodes I and II were OK, but not what I would call great. Even Episode III does not, in my opinion, come up to the level of the original Star Wars trilogy. But it is well-paced and captivating, a worthy conclusion to the saga, if conclusion indeed it is.
The movie had a difficult premise: to depict the transformation of the good Anakin Skywalker into the evil Darth Vader, and to show how and why he turned to the dark side of the force. As one critic said, we all knew what was going to happen. The only thing that we did not know was the details.
The story succeeds because it is complex and uncertain enough to hold our interest, even as we watch the inevitable unfold. The story involves multiple levels of plot: political intrigue, internal conflicts among the Jedi, conflict between friends, relationship conflicts between Anakin and Padme, and Anakin's personal struggle to come to grips with who he is, how he relates to others, and what is to be his role. It is the story of the willing transformation of a democratic but unwieldy republic into an empire led by an ambitious demagogue. It is the story of the demagogue's duplicity in orchestrating a war and playing both sides for his own gain and advantage. It is the story of a troubled young man, overcome by a combination of his own pride and desire for eminence and his love for and desire to protect his beloved wife. By yielding to his fear, he unknowingly destroys the very one that he is trying to protect.
Chancellor Palpatine, as we all know, is scheming to become emperor. He has orchestrated a war against the Separatists, who are trying to break away from the republic, but is secretly helping them through his Sith apprentice Count Dooku. The Separatists seem to be the remnants of the Trade Federation of Episodes I and II, whatever that was. Palpatine fakes his own capture by the Separatists and Count Dooku to lure Obi-wan and Anakin to come to his rescue. The outcome appears not to greatly matter to him, since he can use whatever happens to his advantage. But he gets what he really wants when Anakin defeats Dooku. We see the next small step of Anakin toward the dark side when, at Palpatine's urging, he kills Dooku, though he knows that it is wrong. Little does Anakin know, though of course the audience does, that a time will come when the scene will be reenacted, with Palpatine telling Anakin's own son to "kill him and take his place at my side." Luke succeeds where Anakin failed.
At the personal level of the story, Anakin falls because of love: his love for his wife Padme. He foresees her death in childbirth and is desperate to protect her. The Jedi counsel him to let go and detach himself, but he will not. He is willing to try anything to save her, and so is open to the suggestions of Palpatine, who insinuates that only the dark side can give him the power to prevent her death, a power that the Jedi do not want him to know about or experience. He even tells Anakin tales of a Sith lord who discovered this power to protect those he loved from death.
We do not know, of course, whether Palpatine was lying about this. And the point is, neither does Anakin. He must make his decision based on his knowledge, experience, and feelings. We feel that what Palpatine said was probably a lie, but Anakin is so desperate for help that he is willing to try it.
At another level, Palpatine engineers a conflict between Anakin and the other Jedi. He plants the seeds of doubt in Anakin whether the Jedi trust him. Desperate for recognition, Anakin chafes at this. All is, of course, for Palpatine's benefit.
The showdown comes when Anakin realizes that Palpatine is a Sith lord and informs Jedi master Mace Windu. Windu and three other Jedi go to arrest Palpatine, insisting that Anakin remain behind. But Anakin follows, driven by fear that if Palpatine dies, there will be no way to save Padme. In a troubling reprise of the scene in which Count Dooku dies, Mace Windu defeats Palpatine and is about to kill him, crying, "He is too dangerous to live!" But Anakin intervenes, maiming Windu, and allowing Palpatine to kill him. Knowing that what he has done is wrong, he nonetheless vows to serve Palpatine, still believing that it is the only way to protect Padme. Anakin begins carrying out his new master's evil program, murdering the Padwan children in the Jedi temple and wiping out the remaining leaders of the Separatists, who think that he has come to help them. At the same time, Palpatine gives an order to exterminate all the Jedi, and it is ruthlessly carried out. Only Yoda and Obi-wan escape.
Now the scene is set for the showdown. Padme follows Anakin to the mining colony where he has gone to kill the Separatist leaders, and unknowingly leads Obi-wan to Anakin. Furious at what he considers a betrayal, Anakin uses his new powers to choke Padme until she passes out. He is harming the very one he has done so much to try to protect. Then he and Obi-wan, former friends, former student and master, fight through a hellish scene until Obi-wan finally defeats him. Unable to bring himself to kill Anakin, and thinking him as good as dead, Obi-wan leaves him badly burned, with his arms and legs burned off and all his hair gone, and flees with Padme. But Palpatine rescues Anakin and has him tended and fitted with prosthetic limbs and a breath mask and helmet.
Padme, heartbroken in grief over Anakin's fall, gives birth to twins and dies. The funeral procession, interestingly, shows her as still pregnant. The remaining Jedi are careful to separate and hide the twins and prevent Anakin from knowing that they exist. Perhaps the saddest moment in this whole sad film is when Anakin, after being fitted with his prosthetics and breath mask, rather pathetically asks whether Padme is all right, only to be told that he killed her. Palpatine, knowingly or unknowingly, helps the Jedi in keeping the children from Anakin by telling him that he had killed Padme when he choked her. Defeated and hopeless, Anakin resigns himself to a life of service to his evil master.
We see, at last, that Palpatine has lied to Anakin. The dark side has no power to preserve life. Instead, its power is to twist, kill, and destroy. While Palpatine's statement that Anakin killed Padme is in its strictest sense a lie, yet in a deeper sense, it is true. Anakin did kill Padme: not by choking her, but by breaking her heart. In his attempts to save her, he has become what made her give up the will to live. He has caused what he dreaded most by trying so hard to prevent it.
To mix stories, Anakin would have done well to heed the words of Galadriel to Samwise when he saw the destruction of the Shire in her mirror and wanted to rush home to save it: "Many things the mirror shows. Some are, some have been, and some may never come to be unless he who sees them turns aside from his path to try to prevent them."
Some have seen a reference to the current political situation in the story: a corrupt leader uses a manufactured war to subvert democracy. It is possible that there is a reference to President Bush and the Iraq war in this, but I doubt it. I suspect that this story was conceived long before that. The story is a universal one: leaders always find war a pretext to increase their power "during the present crisis." Once taken, the extra powers are rarely given up. Consider George Orwell's 1984 and the slogan "War is Peace." Certainly we need to be always on our guard to defend freedom against demogoguery.
There is a message in the fall of Anakin. He did not start out to become evil. The temptation came to him through a desire to do good. Even so, in the story of the temptation of Christ, all three temptations were to take a shortcut way, doing evil in order to accomplish good. Like Adam, and unlike Christ, Anakin took the shortcut. And again, like Adam, he had to wait for his descendent to overcome the temptations and deliver him.
The scenes of the deaths of Count Dooku and Mace Windu anticipate the climactic scene in Episode VI, when Luke defeats his father in front of Palpatine but refuses to kill him as Palpatine orders. This time, Anakin destroys Palpatine to save his son, and so redeems himself.
There are aspects of the story that leave one to wonder. The Jedi are supposed to be able to feel the presence of good and evil in the force. In the original trilogy, Anakin is able to sense the presence of Obi-wan and of Luke. One wonders why he cannot feel at the beginning that Palpatine is an evil presence. Perhaps his powers have not developed enough.
One can see certain events as setting things up in minor ways for Episode IV. When Obi-wan has to grab a blaster and finish off General Grievous, he mutters, "How uncivilized." And Yoda tells Obi-wan that his friend Anakin is gone, consumed by the new Darth Vader. This prepares the way for Obi-wan to tell Luke that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father.
One statement near the end of the film also leads to some interesting speculations. Yoda tells Obi-Wan to take Luke to his relatives on Tattooine to be raised, and tells him to live nearby to watch over Luke. He informs him that while is is there, he will receive training from the spirit of Quai-gon Jinn, who has discovered the secret of immortality.
One wonders whether this means that not all are immortal, but only those who know the secret. It sounds rather Gnostic. It does recall a statement of Obi-Wan to Darth Vader in their fight on the Death Star in Episode IV. The movie abridges in a significant way the statement as it is in the printed book: "This is a fight you cannot win, Darth. If [my blade finds it mark, you will cease to exist. But if] you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
One also wonders whether this statement paves the way for yet another movie about Obi-wan's adventures with Quai-gon between Episode III and Episode IV.
posted by John at 8:22 PM
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