So what is the moral? That it's wrong to do things out of anger? Well it isn't really, now is it? Sometimes it's good to be angry. Anger gets results (witness Obi-Wan after Qui-Gon's death, who kills Darth Maul in a fit of rage and doesn't regret it for a second. You don't see Obi-Wan turning "evil," and the audience isn't led to believe that he did anything wrong, either, because obviously he didn't. But this situation is no different from Luke and the Emperor, except that Palpatine killed billions while Darth Maul killed only one person).

In the hopes of trying to find some of George's intended meaning here, I look to the fight between Dooku and Anakin in the beginning of Revenge of the Sith, which is clearly intended as an homage to the throne room confrontation in Return of the Jedi. But in these two, similar scenes, the motives of Luke, Vader and Palpatine in Return of the Jedi are deep, while the motives of Anakin, Dooku, and Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith are so shallow that you can't sink a toe into them. In this scene, in Revenge of the Sith, we see a very one dimensional fight between characters who the audience doesn't really care about (complete with lame dialogue which, sadly, occurs throughout the film. One word: "Noooooooooooooooo!!"). When Anakin kills Dooku, Palpatine makes an argument so absurd—"He cut off your arm, you wanted revenge. It's only natural"—that not even Anakin, who has the emotional IQ of a two-year-old, should be persuaded that it makes it okay to murder someone.

In the end, despite evoking themes similar to the confrontation scene in Return of the Jedi, this scene in Revenge of the Sith turns out to be completely inconsequential. Not only inconsquential, in fact, but it actually contradicts later events. Palpatine tells Anakin that Dooku is too dangerous to live and must be killed, and Anakin apparently finds this persuasive enough to murder an unarmed old man. Unarmed, haha. Get it? Okay, but later on Mace Windu tells Anakin exactly the same thing about Palpatine, and he has the more compelling case to make that Palpatine controls the Senate and the courts and that he probably is too dangerous to live. But for some reason, here Anakin finds the murder of an unarmed old man unacceptable. La la la. Well, we do know the reason, I suppose—Palpatine, a known manipulator, made some bullshit promise about saving Padme from uncertain death! Because Anakin saw her death in a dream, you see, and, you know, dreams tend to come true.

But back to Dooku. It's unfortunate that they only had Christopher Lee for one day of filming, and thus had to kill him off at the beginning of the movie. It's unfortunate for us, that is, because we are deprived of Christopher Lee and have to suffer through the embarassing CGI character of General Grievous as a result. But perhaps it was fortunate for Lee, a stately actor whose career has escaped the odor of this film (although he didn't escape this embarassment. Sorry Rage). Tragically, the same cannot be said for Natalie Portman, who I love but whose performance in Revenge of the Sith makes me hate myself for doing so. But alas, this is not the time for my rant about Natalie Portman going from a positive role model in Episode II (a determined, pragmatic career woman who is passionate about politics and isn't afraid to pop a cap) to a common, chauvinist stereotype in Episode III of a woman who loses all of her independence when she becomes pregnant (she spends the film fretting, utterly helpless, nervously trying on dresses and braiding her hair while the Jedi Temple burns and while her fellow Senator, Bail Organa, is suddenly as assertive as she should be! At the end of the film, all she wants to do, in her words, is "run away"). Well, looks like I ranted about it anyway.

Then again, Natalie Portman never said she was a role model.

But I digress. I could go on and on about how the prequels are empty of meaning, but it's Return of the Jedi where I'm looking for meaning, here. This assumes that, unlike the prequels, there is some meaning to be found in it. So could it be that I'm missing the point of the confrontation scene in the throne room? Or could it be that, as I watched the film as a child, I never really considered what that meaning was, and now that I have considered it, I find that it really is a crappy meaning? Or could it be that I'm spending way too much time thinking about this when I could be posting? What do you think?

Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here

"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes

Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee: