Read the previous entries to this series here and here.
In the three years between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the Clone Wars have raged on without a clear victor, Palpatine has assumed emergency powers that erode the democratic fiber of the Republic, and the Jedi have narrowed their search for the Sith Lord to Palpatine’s inner circle. In this third movie in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, we see the fall of both the Republic and the Jedi and the rise of the Empire and the Sith.
At the movie's start the Confederation of Independent Systems have launched a massive attack on the Republic Capital world of Coruscant. Palpatine has engineered to have himself captured by the separatists, both politically inoculate himself when he returns and to lure Anakin Skywalker to the rescue to test him against Dooku. The Sith seem to operate under a brutal system in which they are constantly tested against opponents for the honor of assuming mastership or apprenticeship. We see this later on in Return of the Jedi as Vader and Luke are pit against each other by the Emperor. This scene aboard Dooku's ship in Episode III is designed to visually resemble that later one on the second Death Star.
Odds are Dooku knows he’s being tested but does not consider Skywalker a serious opponent. No doubt Palpatine’s money is on Skywalker.
Anakin and Obi-Wan fly their way to Dooku’s warship through hundreds of enemy fighters. Interestingly, Anakin has to be restrained from flying back to assist the clone pilots who are covering him and Obi-Wan. We are clearly shown that his decision to obey Obi-Wan results in the clones death. Even this late in his story, Anakin still is intent on being loyal to those in his charge. It's not about how evil he has become but how good he still is. Leaving these troopers to die is the first of many perceived compromises he is asked to make for the Jedi during the course of this movie.
Obi-Wan and Anakin reach Palpatine and begin a lightsaber battle with Dooku, who knocks Obi-Wan unconscious early on. Anakin and Dooku then battle one-on-one and soon Dooku is overpowered by the younger man. Anakin here has the choice to capture Dooku alive (and bring him to justice) or to kill him (against the Jedi Code). At Palpatine’s urging, Anakin beheads his opponent. Now Palapatine has struck a fatal blow to Anakin’s relationship with the Jedi Order.
"They say we're young and we have no chemistry..."
When he returns to Coruscant, Anakin meets with his secret wife Senator Padme Amadala. She informs him that she is pregnant and almost immediately he begins to have prophetic dreams that she will die in childbirth. These dreams mirror the Force-visions he had that previewed his mother’s death in Attack of the Clones. He soon becomes obsessed with saving his wife.
One has to wonder from where these dreams come. Are they a true Force-vision? Cinematically they are unique in that they are the only dream sequences in a Star Wars movie. And they seem to be direct copies of shots we see at the end of the movie, only overlain with a dark cloudy effect. Also notable is that when Anakin had visions of his mother's death in the previous movie, they were never shown to the audience. He simply described them. Perhaps these visions of Padme’s death are meant to be more presentational because they are not true visions at all.
We never really learn the extent of Darth Siddious' abilities in the movies but he seems to excel at mind powers. Talking about Episode II, I touched on the fact that Siddious has a limited precognition. That he is able to see far enough into the future to know how make things happen for him. Perhaps he saw a possible future in which Anakin caused his wife’s death and was somehow able to send him that image while Anakin was sleeping, thus ultimately causing the possible event to come to pass and creating a great predestination paradox.
In any case, Palpatine takes the bold step of assigning Anakin to be his personal representative to the Jedi Council, much to the Order’s dismay. The Jedi do not like politicians interfering in their affairs and are suspicious of Palpatine by this point. In response, they make the unJedi-like move of ordering Anakin to spy on Palpatine, who is almost a father figure to him. More accurately, they make poor Obi-Wan do it off the record.
Something is rotten in the
imminent the Jedi become even more deceitful and hypocritical. They seem all too willing to break the rules that they have established. The problem is that they just aren’t that good at it. Palpatine can play Anakin like a fiddle. All the Jedi can do is send schlepy Obi Wan to talk him into some ham-handed spying job. They are completely clueless about human relationships and personal loyalty. When Anakin asks Yoda’s advice about his dreams of losing someone close to him all Yoda can tell him is to get over it. I love this scene because it is a great example of how the Jedi Order really does fail Anakin, bringing about their own doom. Perhaps if Qui-Gon Jinn had survived things would have been different...
With Dooku dead, the Republic focuses on General Grevious, his cyborg second-in-command and the defacto leader of the CIS. Obi-Wan is sent after him (and away from Anakin) and he effectively ends the Clone Wars. In an ominous scene, the Jedi spookily gather around a holograph table and discuss
removing Palpatine from power and temporarily taking over the government.
Yoda, doing his best Fred Sandford. "I'm comin' for ya 'Lizabeth!"
The Jedi send Anakin to inform Palpatine of the war's end to see if he will give up his war powers and restore democracy. Instead, Palpatine finally reveals himself to Anakin as a Sith Lord and he tells him he has the power to save Padme’s life. Anakin flees and tells Mace Windu who gathers a team of second-string Jedi Council members to arrest Palpatine/Siddious. Instead Siddious cuts down all but Mace Windu and the two have an epic duel in Palpatine’s office. Anakin arrives to find Mace Windu ready to strike Palpatine down for good and possibly eliminating the only hope of saving his wife.
"Are you ready to rock?"
Anakin protests that killing an unarmed prisoner is not the Jedi way, perhaps still feeling guilty for his murder of Dooku. Here, again, we have Anakin’s fatal flaw: he is not that smart. He needs help navigating complex ethical terrain and the Jedi seem not to be consistent about their positions. Here you have Mace Windu, a senior member of the council ready to strike down a prisoner. Palpatine has been more understanding and accepting of Anakin than all of the Jedi, even Obi-Wan. The Jedi had not wanted Anakin from the beginning and have been distrustful of him ever since.
Mace Windu’s only response is that Palpatine is too dangerous to live, which echoes Palpatine's
words about Dooku earlier in the film. Interesting that Lucas would put the same words in Windu’s mouth as in Darth Siddious. While Mace Windu is certainly not evil, one gets the impression that he has become fanatical about discovering and eliminating the Sith. At this point he would do just about anything if it meant destroying them. This is supported by Samuel L. Jacksons performance and the way he is shot in the scene. He actually looks creepier than Palpatine most of the time.
It is this last act of hypocrisy that finally pushes Anakin over the edge as he cuts Windu’s arm off, preventing him from striking Palpatine and he stands back as the Sith force-electrocutes/pushes the Jedi out the window. Which is not to say that Anakin is against all forms of hypocrisy. He engages in it from now until the end of the movie. It’s just that he is too thick-headed to try and figure out other people’s hypocrisy. Having gone in this deep Anakin swears allegiance to the Sith and becomes Siddious' new apprentice and is tasked with eliminating the Jedi at the Temple and eliminating the leaders of the CIS who are no longer needed in the post war Empire.
Palpatine's most evil plan was to disguise himself as an old British nanny so that he could spend more time with his estranged children. He called himself Mrs. Sithfire.
Padme and Obi-Wan track him down to hidden location where he has killed the leaders of the CIS. After his wife declines to join him in ruling the galaxy, Anakin loses his temper and Force-chokes her. He and Obi-Wan fight it out on the surface of a volcanic planet.
Meanwhile on Coruscant, Palpatine makes a Stalin-esque speech declaring himself Emperor. This is where the movie reveals itself as post 911, Liberal hysteria. Palpatine is a kind of nightmare of George W. Bush: A figure that strips our democracy away piece by piece, creating a police state in the name of security. Lucas claims his ideas about the prequels stem from the Nixon era but the timing and parallels are pretty clear. "If you are not with me, then you are my enemy," Anakin tells Obi Wan, in a very
Bush-like moment.
Yoda, seeking to invoke budget reconciliation to get around Palaptine's filibuster. CSPAN must be much cooler in the Star Wars galaxy.
This is all intercut with a battle between Yoda and Palpatine on Coruscant. It is striking that this, perhaps the climactic duel in the trilogy, takes place on the Senate floor. This is the ultimate political brawl where ostensibly the most powerful forces of good and evil face off. At one point in the fight they are whipping senate pods-literally, the vehicles of democracy-at one another. Yoda eventually concedes this fight-after
all this is Palpatine's arena. It is a fitting climax for a trilogy of movies that are above all preoccupied with politics and the way that democracies go astray. While the original Star Wars movies were often described as modern myths, the new trilogy are modern political allegories.
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