Star Wars/Fridge: Difference between revisions

* Initially, I thought the title "Phantom Menace" referred to the threat of the Sith, and perhaps it does. But watching the movie more in depth, it also refers to Palpatine's scheme, which was all about creating a crisis so that he could become Supreme Chancellor. His original plan was probably

** Um, you realize that "Sith" and "Palpatine" are synonymous? As in the threat of the Sith is actually Palpatine (lord of the Sith) becoming the leader of the Republic..

** Get into the Senate as Palpatine, while getting in good graces with the Trade Federation (and others) via a combination of promises/bribes/blackmail.

** Once in the Senate, take a populist, pro-government stance, favoring policies like the "taxation on trade routes" mentioned in the opening movie scrawl that are guaranteed to earn him the ire of powerful companies like the Trade Federation.

** What if Yoda had just pulled the two humans away? Would Dooku have killed himself to save his boss's plans? Or would he have rolled on him, or tried to escape? The Sith philosophy is inherently selfish; are they even capable of suicide for the benefit of others.

* Upon rewatching all six movies, it becomes clear that Anakin, by and large, was correct about the Jedi: they WERE keeping him back (Ep II showed that Yoda was aware of Anakin's brush with the dark side, if not the slaughter of the tusken in specific); the Jedi HAD compromised their stated values (attempting to abuse Palpatine's favor of Anakin, and later Windu's decision for summary execution instead of due process); and the order's stodgy reliance on tradition and denial of emotion is part of what allowed the Sith to seize power virtually unopposed (for all Yoda's warnings of fear, he'd apparently given Anakin plenty of reason to hide both the tusken slaughter and his marriage to Padme, out of fear of what the order would do). He was only wrong about Obi Wan's personal loyalty. Moreover, not only is Luke successful without Jedi dogma indoctrinated into him, he succeeds despite the manipulations of his mentors: Obi Wan's attempt to protect Luke by hiding Vader's true nature, while well-intentioned, was no longer necessary after the first movie, and outright endangered Luke in the second. Likewise, when Yoda tells Luke that the ideals of the rebellion matter more than the lives of Luke's friends, Luke ultimately rejects this, leading directly to gaining the knowledge he needed to defeat the Sith. Finally, both Yoda and Obi Wan attempt to convince Luke that Vader's evil is monolithic, remembering from personal experience how Anakin's fall led him to murder children and his own wife. When Luke tried anyway, not out of a plan for the rebellion or an abstract philosophy, but out of genuine concern for his father, Luke not only redeemed Anakin, he also proved the falsehood of the Jedi Order's self-denial practices.

** Point of fact: Mace only decided to kill Palpatine ''after'' he carved several Jedi up like a Hibachi chef. The toughest guy he fought, before then, was Kar Vastor, and he was {{spoiler|incarcerated in the Jedi temple, after being charged with crimes against ''civilization''. He nearly destroyed an entire city; he was that dangerous.}} And Mace Windu, the guy who took ''that'' guy down, thinks Palpatine is too dangerous to let live. In addition to that, his strongest Force Talent is [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shatterpoint knowing where to hit things so they break], up to the scale of the entire Clone Wars, and he was looking at the big fat spider in the middle of his web who started it all. ''I'm inclined to believe him''.

* Everybody--and This Troper used to fall into this camp--laughed their collective behinds off when Han Solo stated in ''[[Star Wars]] Episode IV: A New Hope'' that he'd made the Kessel Run "in under twelve parsecs". However, his comment that misrouting the hyperdrive could send one into a supernova or something comparable stuck with him. Eventually, This Troper realized that Han wasn't making up random technobabble--he was stating that his hyperdrive could find more efficient or daring routes!