I’m not saying it purely doesn’t make sense, I’m saying it paints in broad strokes so the subtlety and nuance lacking in Palpatine is lacking everywhere. It makes as much sense as it needs to.
Besides, real life has made me cynical, and I no longer have any reason to believe that open and obvious evil would stop anyone from being given power.
I’m not looking for subtlety. You can use a broad brush to paint him as charming or a good public speaker with a strong group of diehard supporters. Instead the prequels have a similar issue to Rise of Skywalker, characters motivated by what the audience knows instead what the characters knows. They know we know Anakin falls to the Dark Side and become Palpatine’s apprentice so they don’t actually do a lot of work to set up that relationship or create believable motivation.
Person on twitter picking apart the prequels but as Columbo
I wish James Luceno’s Plagueis was still canon. It does a great job of filling on some of the whys and wherefores of what the Sith do and how they decide to do it.
Ok, so I’m switching my position on CinemaSins-style nitpick reviews of things. They’re good, actually, but ONLY if they’re presented as Colombo interrogating a suspect.
I’m reading the Revenge of the Sith novelisation atm and I might be forced to admit that it’s actually pretty good.
Idk if I like the way the Dooku/ Anakin fight is reframed but the way it approaches the declining popularity of the Jedi (apart from Anakin) as well as the Chancellor’s provocative attempts to assert control over them is rad. About halfway through atm and it’s also good that it highlights that Anakin’s attempts to become a Master (while still inducing petulant reactions in him) is also because he believes it’s one way he can save Padme. That it’s denied to him makes it slightly more understandable for his sudden heel turn later.
Stover’s novelization is the real Revenge of the Sith. I kinda hope they do an episode on it. The character insights are helpful and it’s genuinely well-written.
There’s such a good bit from the novelization (that I can’t find, of course) that takes place between the opera scene and Palpatine’s hard sell to Anakin (it may be added to the front of the hard sell; I don’t remember) where Palpatine says to Anakin some variation of “If this Sith Lord of yours came in right now and said he could end the war, I’d sit him down for a drink and talk him through the particulars.” It’s a nice little stepping stone from “There’s some obscure Sith knowledge that you might be interested in” → “The ends justify the means w/r/t the Dark Side” → “Join the Dark Side and we can save Padme.”
Also while I’m thinking of it, there is definitely some Sith sorcery that can give other people nightmares and Palpatine in Rebels is shown to be acquainted with Sith sorcery, so that’s certainly possible. My understanding of Anakin’s “fatherhood,” though (and this might be from Plagueis, which is no longer canon) is that Anakin is actually Plagueis’s “son”
If the paternity of Anakin’s birth was Palpatine… Ben Solo would be Rey’s first cousin once removed.
Take out the love interest plot they shoehorned in the last 20 minutes of TRoS, which becomes grosser with this theory, and that’s potentially an interesting direction if Luke and Leia were Rey’s cousins and the Dyad that forms with Leia’s son. Would it make Star Wars’ universe even smaller than it already is? Sure.
Personally, I’d find it very funny if Abrams accidentally wrote himself into that particular incesty corner in his attempt to undo TLJ.
The Skywalker-Palpatine Family Tree starts to look more and more like the Habsburgs every trilogy.
We must keep the bloodline pure!!!
Any impressions on the Bad Batch pilot that dropped yesterday?
I thought it was good, especially for a first episode
liked that it takes place right after order 66, can possibly fill in more of the blanks for that period
I liked it, it’s basically more of Clone Wars which I’m pretty alright with. It takes place in a period in Star Wars that I wanted to see more of as well so I’m excited to see more of it.
Is Dee Bradley Baker the best voice actor on the planet? The man is literally the entire Bad Batch and every named clone in Clone Wars and they’re somehow all different characters.
It is fun how the opening of the credits is just, ‘Starring Dee Bradley Baker as The Bad Batch’.
I was relistening to the Revenge of the Sith episode and hearing Ali talk about the memes and YTMND made this old gem come back to my mind. I present for your enjoyment:
I’m watching this episode as Asoka follows Anakin’s playbook and I’m just wondering… man, what if this was a Gundam show? This would end so badly by the end of the run. Asoka would do some crazy move Anakin has done countless times and boom, shot down.
I remember when this show first aired that one of the great dramatic tensions was going to be that Asoka wasn’t gonna make it. She’s not in Episode III. What do you think happened to her being taught by an irresponsible jackass like Anakin Skywalker? That’s super dark, but lots of YA media is willing to go there. Star Wars just isn’t.
But I know for a fact Asoka makes it cause she grows up to Rosario Dawson. Oh well.
I do think Ahsoka’s arc in that show is genuinely one of the strongest parts of the Clone Wars. To go from someone who grows up spouting the platitudes of the Jedi with barely a single original thought in their head to being thrown out of the order and eventually renouncing it is really cool.
She deserves better than being played by Dawson tho my god.
Yeah, Clone Wars was the first Star Wars things I ever really got into and that tension / the general dramatic irony of it being a prequel was a drawing point for me to go so I get where you’re coming from. It didn’t take long though for me to be glad the show was doing something else with Ahsoka. Not only for the great arc NotThePars mentioned, but also cause I think her dying in the show would tie her to Anakin’s personal tragedy in a way that would feel exploitative, simplistic, and reductive. Instead By the end Ashoka exists as a person outside of Anakin as a character that’s really satisfying to see. fwiw I do think the question of what happens to a student of Anakin is explored and becomes central to the story. Ah, the old Clone Wars mantra; Just Keep Watching, It’ll Get Good 
Not a lot for them to work with in this trio of episodes, but I do enjoy the ongoing discussion of how this show reflected americas own feelings on warfare at the time.
Lately what Im wanting from the Star Wars universe is a little more of the metaphysical aspects of the Force. Which I know Lucas was not interested in, he prefered a utilitarian approach to this quasi magic. Lets measure our force outputs with metaclorians. Suprised the series never had force scouters.
Filoni’s much more interested in the metaphysics of the Force than Lucas, in a way that absolutely informs some of the later series of Clone Wars, and then Rebels even more so.
