Why I love Star Wars: Episode III

[matril]

This movie tears me into pieces. I can't say that watching it fills me with glee the way the other episodes do, because it's just too heartbreaking. As it should be. If the original trilogy is a traditional hero's journey, the prequels are more like a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. It is the tale of a hero's downfall, of the fatal flaws that lead to his doom.

In Anakin I can see shades of all the big Shakespearean tragic heroes. Romeo - he acts rashly, letting his emotions control him. Othello - his jealousy over an imagined infidelity makes him monstrous. Hamlet - he is tortured by inner doubts and the inability to be sure of the right course of action. Macbeth - his ambition destroys everything of value in his life. Padmé could be similarly compared to Juliet (secret marriage to a guy who gets in serious trouble), Desdemona (unfairly accused of betrayal by her husband) and Opehlia (can't function anymore when the man she loves goes off the deep end). If you want to find Lady Macbeth, though, you'll see more similarities with Palpatine than Padmé.

In any case, the thing about a tragic hero is that they start out good. That's why their downfall is so painful to watch. And it comes about through a flaw that is initially a virtue, only to be twisted into something destructive. Anakin is passionate, fiercely loyal, and determined to be the best Jedi he can possibly be. Through a variety of circumstances and accelerated by Palpatine's machinations, those traits turn into wrath, jealousy, and violent ambition.

But first of all, what a fantastic opening scene! When we saw this at the midnight premiere, our son Luke was just two years old and we weren't sure if he'd be able to sit through the entire movie. Well, as it turned out, he couldn't, but that was only later when the dialogue-heavy scenes started. He was completely riveted during the beginning battle sequence. It's non-stop action, exciting and visually stunning and at times quite funny. There's some great character-developing moments with Anakin and Obi-Wan - Anakin is in his element, flying complicated patterns, while Obi-Wan would just like to get the job done and over with. But they make a great team, and it's clear they've been battle partners many times before. Anakin's stubborn insistence on not leaving Obi-Wan behind is particularly poignant.

Yet the whole daring rescue is a sham, as we know that Palpatine is never in any real peril from the puppets whose strings he holds. His responses to the Dooku/Anakin/Obi-Wan fight are subtler versions of the Emperor's gleeful cackles during the Vader/Luke duel in Episode VI. And how skillfully he plays Anakin. At first, it seems that Anakin has learned his lesson from the brutal maiming Dooku gave him in the last film. He doesn't try to attack him alone; he works with Obi-Wan. But when Obi-Wan is knocked unconscious, Dooku's taunts lead him closer to the Dark Side, and it's compounded by Palpatine's insistence that Anakin kill him. Oh boy, the look on Dooku's face right then. He's just now realized, too late, that he's about to be replaced. A large part of Anakin knows he should have kept Dooku alive to be properly put on trial, but Palpatine is there to soothe his tormented conscience and offer all sorts of justifications for why it was acceptable. Palpatine also knows that Anakin is much more vulnerable without Obi-Wan around to counsel him, and from this point on he will be making concerted efforts to get Obi-Wan out of the way. He doesn't succeed this time, with Anakin's fierce loyalty insisting otherwise, but Palpatine will find another way.

I think Grievous makes a great MacGuffin villain. He's really just a distraction - for the Republic and the Jedi, an excuse to keep the war going even though Dooku is dead, and for Obi-Wan, a wild goose chase to go on while Anakin is left, frustrated and confused, on Coruscant. He's an extreme example of the "more machine than man." Meanwhile, his defeat is temporarily satisfying but ultimately meaningless.

Palpatine really knows how to drive a wedge between Anakin and the Jedi Council. Constantly telling him they don't appreciate him, no one appreciates his powers except good old Palpatine - classic abuser language, isolating the victim from all other supports. Appointing Anakin as his representative on the Council when he knows the Jedi won't make him a Master, thus pushing the wedge in further. Encouraging suspicions on both sides, so that Anakin doesn't trust the Council, they don't trust him, and they're all so busy glowering at each other that they don't recognize the puppetmaster.

It's pretty painful watching Padmé and Anakin's relationship deteriorate as well. Palpatine has made sure he's become hypersensitive at the thought of being used like a tool by the Council, so when Padmé also suggests he talk to Palpatine, he responds with disproportionate anger. He doesn't communicate his problems to her, probably out of fear that the Council might be right about Palpatine, or about him, or any number of anxieties that he's just not dealing with a healthy way. Padmé is right that the war "represents a failure to listen" and that poor communication isn't just happening on a galactic level. It's right there between individuals, between Anakin and Padmé, between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and all over the place in the Senate.

Self-fulfilling prophecies. Ugh. This one's really hard. Anakin tries so hard to prevent Padmé's death he actually brings it about. Straight out of classical Greek tragedies. You can't stop fate; you can't stop the suns from setting. But what if Anakin hadn't turned to the Dark Side? Could he in fact have prevented that dream from becoming reality? "Always in motion, the future is," Yoda told Luke. Maybe if he had said that to Anakin, instead of insisting that he let go of everything, Anakin might have reacted differently. Who knows? Sure, you have to accept the reality of death, but that doesn't mean you can just happily cut off all connections to everyone. Judging from Yoda's anguished reaction when he senses the deaths of the Jedi during Order 66, he wasn't so blithely easy about all his friends dying either.

Palpatine's monologue at the opera is wonderfully chilling. He's starting to steer Anakin toward moral relativism. If you could prevent death, even create life, wouldn't you want to access that power? Who cares if it's called the Dark Side? The ends justify the means. And later, when Palpatine actually reveals himself as the Sith, he has that line that just makes me shudder about "understanding the mystery." It reminds me of Saruman, a good wizard whose studies of the enemy went too far and too deep, until he became himself a servant of evil. Pursuing evil studies in the name of knowledge sounds reasonable at first, but it leads down a path of destruction.

"Are you going to kill me?" Palpatine asks him forthrightly. And Anakin wants to; he is furious at being deceived, probably also recognizing that the Council was right in distrusting him. But he can't stop clinging to the chance of gaining power over death.

He fights it. He neither kills nor joins Palpatine, but leaves to inform the Council of the truth. That's the right thing to do, what he should have done with Dooku, and he wants to be satisfied with his choice. But he can't. Because Mace Windu responds in kind of the worst way. He tells Anakin he'll take care of it, and sends him away. Tells him that if and only if what he says turns out to be true, Anakin will finally have earned Mace's trust. No praise or thanks, just a grim "go sit in your corner and someday I might let you do grown-up things." Anakin probably knows that Mace intends to kill Palpatine. How it must gnaw at him that he's been criticized and mistrusted for so long, only to see a head of the Council go and do the thing Anakin forced himself not to do. And he sits there in the Council chamber, his thoughts inevitably going to the impending fulfillment of his nightmare, the loss of Padmé, and the terror that he's about to lose his last chance to save her. He's wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, but he's also confused and lost and needs someone to talk to him. Instead, he's alone with his dark thoughts.

So he springs into reckless action, arguing with Mace not to summarily execute Palpatine and getting nothing reasonable in return. He attacks in desperation, without deliberation, a bit like Hamlet stabbing Polonius through the curtain. He hasn't fully turned to the Dark Side yet because he's full of remorse. Remorse is a horrible feeling. There's only two ways to deal with it - either acknowledge your wrong and work to never do it again, which is a long, difficult process; or deny that it was wrong to begin with and kill your conscience. Palpatine makes sure to heavily encourage the latter approach. He soothes Anakin, tells him he did just what he should have, and thus promises instant relief from the pangs of remorse. Anakin seizes at it, and begins to embrace the death of his morality. Tells himself that if he can only save Padmé, it will justify everything else. So he does exactly what his Master tells him, clutching at that false promise as a shield against the horror of his choice.

Temptation comes in two forms, I believe. The first is the idea that it's not that serious, it's no big deal. Palpatine lays this on pretty thick for the first part of the film. But the second is more insidious (punny, hah hah). Evil is very serious, it's a huge deal, and once you've done it there's no going back. This is what drives Anakin, I believe, after his initial turn to the Dark Side. He just helped to murder a member of the Jedi Order. Could he ever go back from that? It's too awful. He's past the point of no return. All lies, but he believes them and considers himself irredeemable. Then, as he goes deeper, he begins to revel in it and doesn't want to turn back. It's only several decades later that his remorse begins to visibly reemerge, but he still holds to the notion that "it's too late for me" until Luke helps him see otherwise. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

This is the only PG-13 Star Wars film, but most of its horrors are emotional and psychological rather than visually graphic. Probably the most gruesome part is Anakin's mangled body, which is pretty nightmarish, but a lot of the other stuff is understated, implied rather than shown in all its horrible detail. We see Jedi fall, and it's a kick to the gut, but there's not lots of splattering blood and guts. Just Yoda, gasping in anguish, and the quiet, elegiac score in the background. Anakin killing younglings was horrifying, though we are left only to imagine it while Padmé's sobs provide a emotional backdrop for what just happened.

It's too bad Padmé's role in this film was curtailed so much (I definitely like the deleted scenes on the DVD of her meetings with the founders of the proto-Rebellion) but it's an effective symbol of what Anakin's increasingly unhealthy behavior has done to her. He's not abusive at all in Episode II; he's quite respectful of her space and never tries to trample on her wants and needs and emotions. But over the course of Episode III, he becomes increasingly monstrous toward her. First, he is only distant, reluctant to communicate with her. Then he shuts down her advice and suggestions, refusing to allow her side of the story. And by the time he has committed to the Dark Side, he treats her like a foolish child, only telling partial truths and offering hollow assurances.

And the confrontation on Mustafar. Sob. Anakin has been quite twisted by the Dark Side at this point, so everything Padmé says is filtered through his anger, suspicion and jealousy. He has become the prototypical abuser, and it ultimately leads to a physical attack. Obi-Wan does choose the worst possible moment to show up, of course. The guy means well, but he has no idea how to deal with a Dark Side Anakin. He tries to reason with him, to prove logically that he's followed the wrong course. But Anakin doesn't need accusations; he needs love and concern. Though honestly I don't know that there's anything anyone could have done at that point to help Anakin.

Obviously Obi-Wan is in a bad place too. He's just found out that his apprentice, a man like a brother, has massacred the Jedi at the temple and sworn his services to a Sith Lord. He's hurt, horrified. He doesn't want to kill Anakin. But seeing him strangle Padmé, I'm guessing, fills him with fresh purpose. He probably convinces himself that the Anakin he knew is gone, and now he must fight the enemy. It's the only way he can bring himself to fight against his old friend.

I think Ewan Mcgregor does a fantastic job of channeling Alec Guiness in this film. He was already well on the way in the previous episodes, but it's here that he truly becomes the Obi-Wan we know from Episode IV. From the voice to the mannerisms to the reserved, thoughtful demeanor, he is Obi-Wan, with all his strengths and flaws. One of my favorite bits from him (because it breaks my heart) is when they realize the younglings were killed with a lightsaber and he says "Who?" in this broken voice. "Who could have done this?" Gets me every time. And then of course when he cries out in anguish, "You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!" Past tense. Anakin is dead. He can't stay and watch him burn. Yoda probably would have told him to stay and make sure he was dead. Maybe Obi-Wan regrets that in the years to come as Vader becomes a figure of dread in the galaxy, but I don't think he ever could have taken the final blow to kill him.

I'm iffy on Padmé's death - lost the will to live? I'd rather they had something about her heart giving out; her systems shutting down, because extreme emotional blows can have devastating effects on the body's ability to function, particularly with the added stress of pregnancy - and childbirth doesn't look that way, lying flat on one's back - but I do very much appreciate the intercuts of the twin's births and Vader's birth, her death and essentially Anakin's death. Also, "there is good in him" with her dying breath, an emotional birthright that is passed on to her son. I've always thought that, in many ways, Luke and Padmé are more like each other, and Anakin and Leia, rather than the other way around. But that's probably a discussion for another time.

I was a big fan of Bail Organa after this film. His opposition to Palpatine's ascension, his immediate support of the Jedi when they are betrayed, his determination to do the right thing no matter what - we can see Leia inherited a lot from her adoptive parents as well. And it makes it all the sadder that we know Alderaan will be destroyed.

The Yoda and Palpatine duel was great as well, though of course not as emotionally riveting as the companion duel on Mustafar. Destroying the Senate chamber is a pretty obvious metaphor for Palpatine's rule of the galaxy. And he's in full open evil mode now, cackling and glorying in the violence. No more friendly, mild-mannered Chancellor, no more subtlety. When Yoda gets a genuinely scared look, you know things are serious.

The ending. Ah, the ending. It makes the end of Episode V look bright and cheery. Padmé is dead, Anakin has become Vader, the Jedi are few, scattered, forced into hiding, and the twins who will ultimately bring hope are only babies. But there is hope, and the concluding scenes on Alderaan and Tatooine are perfect. The music, the visuals, the wistful faces and the gazes toward the horizon - yes, yes, and yes. And then I must immediately go and watch Episode VI. It's just too unbearable otherwise.

One more to go!

Comments

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Ian McDiarmid did very well in this one; he managed to sell that speech about creating life to the point where I could feel my neck prickling. Ewan MacGregor was an excellent Early Guinness, but I think McDiarmid was the real standout there. Agreed on Padme's death (though I wish they'd let her live a few more years, to square up with Leia's memory of her in ROTJ). She's under a lot of stress and has a twin pregnancy; even with good medical technology there's still a pretty long list of things that could potentially go wrong, especially since she's flying all over the place trying to save Anakin from himself and probably not rushing to the medical droid at the first sign of high blood pressure, faintness, or any of those things which can mean a pregnancy is about to go haywire. I mean seriously, Lucas, all you needed to do was talk with an OB for five minutes :).

When she was flat on her back I assumed they were doing a c-section. You're flat on your back and totally immobile for those (and when I had mine they had my arms out in the crucifix position, since I still had feeling above my chest and they didn't want my arms too close to my pelvis. I've heard some places don't do that now, though).

[matril.livejournal.com]

Yes, McDiarmid was amazing. I wasn't sure what to expect when he showed up as Senator Palpatine, since he played such a hammy, over-the-top role in Return of the Jedi (though I did think it was awesome that he could play a younger version nearly twenty years later because he was in his thirties in old-age makeup in ROTJ) but wow, that guy can do subtle evil like no one else. So creepy.

I too thought a c-section would make sense, but judging from the extreme pain she's in, she's not numbed at all. Which would be pretty odd for major surgery.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

McDiarmid playing his younger self twenty years later surprised me too, but he totally pulled it off -- one thing I hadn't realized was that in ROTJ he was thirty-nine years old, that is to say, four years older than I am now. That's some *good* makeup. It certainly didn't hurt that he was supposed to look pretty unnatural and of course that hood helped to cast his face in shadow and not show any inconveniently youthful looking hair or anything like that :).

Re the c-section: hmmm, possibly the medication didn't work as thoroughly as it should have? That's happened sometimes, where an epidural only works patchily, and if it were an emergency delivery they just might not be able to wait. Or a different explanation which is less malpractice-like would be that if her heart were giving out (and who knows, "lost the will to live" could be some sort of expression which can also denote "her heart has given up. Literally) she would certainly be feeling chest pain and likely severe shoulder tip pain, which wouldn't be lessened by an epidural since it doesn't numb you that far up. But I've noticed that Hollywood women do tend to give birth lying flat so they don't get slapped with a restrictive rating for showing too much onscreen, so alas, it's probably just that. (I always think "Well, no wonder it's taking so long; get up a little and let gravity help you out!")

[matril.livejournal.com]

I have yet to see a single birth portrayed onscreen that seems realistic. I understand that they can't show graphic detail (nor would I want to see it) but it just seems odd that they don't even try to make it convincing. Surely enough people writing or staging these things have given birth or witnessed births that they know what it really looks like. Eh, maybe the average audience member prefers non-realism when it comes to childbirth. I don't know.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

You know, of all things, the Nativity Story movie had a pretty good one with Elizabeth giving birth to John the Baptist -- she was holding onto a rope and crouching and it was very convincing. OK, so there wasn't as many fluids of various sorts as you'd usually see, but it definitely stood out among the many, many movies depicting an actress's top half flat on a mattress as she groans for a few minutes :).

[matril.livejournal.com]

Oh, now that's interesting - I recall seeing another short film with Elizabeth being pregnant and thinking how surreal it must be for an older actress to portray a pregnant woman. It would be that much more unusual to act out childbirth.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

In this movie she wasn't old old, more like mid-forties -- which if you've married in your teens and haven't had a single pregnancy in the twenty-five to thirty years since, I think could be fairly counted as "old" :).

[matril.livejournal.com]

Ah. The Elizabeth I saw looked more like sixty. Now I think of it, you don't see a lot of specific ages given for Biblical women. Just vague young or old descriptors.

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

This seemed an even more detailed analysis than your last few, and a very fine one to me. Tracing the way Palpatine corrupts Anakin bit by bit every chance he gets holds sort of a wallop just in this summary; the comment along the way about Grievous being a "MacGuffin villain" was one I might not have put that way before, but an interesting one to think about.

"Are you going to kill me?" might well be one of the most "delicious" moments of the movie for me. It always sort of struck me as Palpatine outright taunting Anakin now that his mask has been removed, proposing it at a moment when he knows it'll still make his impending victim draw back from what might even be the right thing to do. Then, after the matter with Mace you analyzed so well, I do sort of see Palpatine telling the just-named Darth Vader to go forth and sin greatly with the vague promise of building great power from that and the unspoken implication that it's become a matter of all the Jedi or himself alone.

At the same time, though, I do keep thinking there's some "remorse" left in Anakin, and this may be where I step into controversial territory. I know that in a real-world abusive situation the victim shouldn't stick around with the thought "I can still help... can't I?", and yet knowing what Luke managed I want to believe Padme had a chance too, that perhaps Anakin had buried his remorse just for the moment on first seeing her come to him. I also want to believe it would be stretching things to say I "blame Obi-Wan for why it didn't work," and yet I do wonder if he wanted on some level to "provoke" something, to give himself clear proof ("as if he didn't have it already," I can imagine being told) his old friend really had been consumed.

Padme's death, I fear, is what still stings for me, remembering how it claimed some people who'd almost made it to the end, even while I just grit my teeth at all the other complaints delivered with a smirk or a sneer and tell myself they're only complaints because the movies are being crushed through the dirtiest filter possible. At the same time, though, I'm also willing to propose it was the medical droid's fault for coming up with an offbeat diagnosis of something it had no frame of reference for. The thought may have just come to me that there's an odd resonance with the midichloreans, in that they inspire kneejerk negative reactions but just may yield to an effort at calmer thought.

In any case, I've told myself that had she lived "for a few years," that might have come across as undeniably giving up, just over a much longer length of time. Even if she'd met some unfortunate accident at that point, it might have still come across as her having "abandoned Anakin," which then leaves me wondering whether this would have implied that since Luke finds some remorse left, the whole marriage between someone gifted with the Force and someone not was a bad idea anyway... Maybe I want to see ambiguities in what's presented on screen and cling to them.

I suppose I've gone from Revenge of the Sith to Star Wars and still found that satisfying, although certainly the "character story" might seem downplayed at that point. Maybe I'm capable of (or stuck with) seeing the whole story in each moment.

[matril.livejournal.com]

I agree that there's a thin line between what Luke does to save his father versus a victim enabling or idealizing their abuser. I don't think there's any easy answer, but it seems important that Padmé says "you're going down a path I can't follow," which presumably means that if she had managed to escape safely, she would have cut off her ties with Anakin, recognizing that she could no longer have a healthy relationship with him. I think she still would have believed there was goodness deep within him, but I don't think she would have tried to draw it out of him at the expense of her safety or her children's. All speculation, but it seems consistent with her character. Luke, meanwhile, doesn't go to Vader just to save him - he's sacrificing himself to protect his friends. He hopes Anakin will re-emerge, but if he doesn't, at least his friends are safe. So he believes, anyway.

One of the things I love about Anakin's fall is that while he is totally and completely to blame for his own choices, you can see how others' choices influenced him. Mace, Obi-Wan, Yoda, all could have responded differently and perhaps helped him. It doesn't absolve Anakin, but it creates lots of interesting "What-ifs?"

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I suppose I'd managed to more or less forget Luke didn't rush straight off to "rescue his father" (although I've supposed that when he's brought on board the second Death Star, he's supposing he's failed at that and only wants to distract Vader and the Emperor long enough for all three of them to be caught in the Rebel attack), and that's a point to ponder. That there seems room for interpretation within a positive viewpoint, though, does give some evergreen freshness to looking at these movies.

Because my first response ran to some length, I managed to forget some points I'd been thinking of before. Your comparison of Palpatine to Saruman when it comes to "understanding the great mystery" was an interesting one, although I guess I've never really bothered to wonder where Palpatine comes from, much less imagined him as "corrupted through good intentions"... while I'm not always interested in "evil because they get a kick out of it" villains, with him it somehow works.

Back when I thought I might have to come up with another Saga Journal essay at any moment, I was toying with the idea of trying to explore how Palpatine manages to make an attack against him a threat to the Republic he's about to rename. (Working title: "I Am The Senate.") It would, of course, have risked commenting on real-world politics.

[matril.livejournal.com]

I guess I hadn't really been thinking specifically about Palpatine's origins, more about the danger of someone who claims to teach that philosophy of "understanding the mystery." It's hard to imagine him ever having good, unselfish motivations. But who knows?

I think the safest thing to do, if real-life political comparisons want to slip in, would be to draw upon historical figures who are generally agreed to be tyrants. Hitler is the old stand-by, but there are plenty of other egomaniacal dictators whose machinations bear a resemblance to Palpatine.

[(Anonymous)]

Episode III often winds up as my second favorite movie of the series, pretty much from the first time I saw it on opening day. It presented scenarios and sequences that I found dazzling and imaginative and it packed an emotional wallop for this old-school (i.e in my 40's) STAR WARS fan. It gave me everything I ever wanted from a STAR WARS film.

In terms of Padme's death, I never had a problem with it. This is mythology writ large across an outer space canvas, but it's still based on ancient mythology and characters often died of broken hearts throughout various myths, it's not unusual in this type of epic story-telling. It's not meant to be a case studied as a forensic file. That being said, it still makes sense from the standpoint of watching her entire world (the Republic, democracy) and almost everyone in it crumble in flames. This would take a toll on anyone in any age, plus after the physical and emotional stress of being choked by your husband.

[matril.livejournal.com]

I think Padmé's death works fine from a mythological standpoint, that she is dealt a spiritual wound that overcomes her. It's problematic only if the line "she has lost the will to live" is seen as suicidal or selfish, like she's just kind of giving up. Which is not in character with Padmé's previously strong-willed nature. I don't interpret it that way myself, but I can understand how it bothers other people. In any case, either way it's a deeply tragic end, appropriate for a character whose fate was inextricably tangled up with the Chosen One's.