Star Words: Episode III, Part 21

[matril]

I know I'm going a little out of order here, but I really felt like a lighthearted one last week. It's pretty dark from here to the end of the movie.

The scene wherein Palpatine reveals his true nature to Anakin is so intriguing to me. It's quite understated, especially compared to the upcoming moment when Palpatine summarily slaughters three top-ranking Jedi in a matter of minutes. Here, it's so quiet that Anakin has to do a double-take just to make sure he didn't imagine it. Wait, did Palpatine really just offer to teach Anakin about the Force? Did he say he knew about the Dark Side?

And how intriguing, the words that the Chancellor uses to justify his skewed view of good and evil.

"If one is to understand the great mystery, one must embrace all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi."


So frightfully clever. The Jedi are narrow-minded; there's no doubt of that. Generally speaking, they lack empathy, they make snap judgements. But that doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything. It certainly doesn't mean that the Sith are open-minded and enlightened just because they stand in opposition to the myopic Jedi. But it's easy to see how Palpatine could make that claim -- to lure Anakin in with the idea of greater knowledge, a broader and more comprehensive view of the universe.

There are real-world equivalents of this danger, I believe. Too often people will give voice to truly toxic viewpoints under the guise of providing a more "balanced" version of things. It's an ostensibly good intention that can lead to giving a platform to, say, white supremacism or other hate speech. That's not balanced. It's not enlightened.

But don't worry, I'm not going to delve that much into actual political stuff here. Now let's look at Anakin's reaction. While he's still struggling to process this staggering new information, Palpatine knocks him off balance yet again. Hold on -- he knows somehow that Anakin is trying to save Padmé from death?? Whaaat? You can see Anakin having an internal panic attack even while the scene remains quiet, almost eerily calm. They circle each other slowly, a careful dance. Palpatine has been biding his time for so long; he must be tensing himself to see whether he mistimed this revelation. After all, Anakin is visibly struggling not to lash out and execute Palpatine then and there. But he doesn't. He puts away his weapon. He won't do what he did to Dooku. He'll be calm, measured, and obedient. He'll report him to the Jedi Council.

Palpatine just smiles. It's like he already knows that he has won.

Next, a snarling retort that is infinitely quotable....

Comments

[krpalmer]

I'm conscious myself of the paradox that "the tolerant must eventually be intolerant of intolerance," but in contemplating how this specific line fits into the larger scene I'm aware as well we could be getting into controversial water fast. Anyway, the scene itself has long intrigued me; Anakin "doing the right thing" and promising to report Palpatine wasn't what I'd expected, even as I'd worried whether any scene where he's just "talked" into turning to the Dark Side could ever come off generally acceptable. At the same time, having heard somewhere along the way there were reshoots to add "doing the right thing" does have me wondering about Anakin seeming to begin by inviting the confirmation of his wishes, and if that was somehow "left over from before"... although since then I've at least theorized the suspicions of the Jedi were that the Chancellor was "a hapless pawn to be saved from the Sith Lord," not one and the same. Too, I can contrast Palpatine taunting Anakin about his anger to see him back down with the Emperor taunting Luke in Return of the Jedi only for that to seem to draw him back several times.