Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? Jon, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life! So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:35] And since we just finished recapping Season 1, we couldn't be more ready to defend our Black Queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

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[00:01:00] The Lorehounds' House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.

[00:01:32] Welcome to the Star Wars Film Fest. We're the Lorehounds, your guides to a galaxy far, far away. I'm David. I'm John, and this is our coverage of the 2005 film Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith.

[00:01:44] In this podcast, we're going to discuss the movie's production plot and impact on the Star Wars universe. Along with some listener feedback, we've also got a little bit of leftover Ahsoka feedback, so we'll touch on those as well.

[00:01:59] Be sure to stick around to the end of the podcast for programming notes about our podcasting schedule for the rest of October and into November. For early access and ad-free episodes and exclusive content, visit us at patreon.com slash the lorehounds.

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[00:02:51] We've also got a discord and you can join the discussion over there. There's a link in the show notes for all of those things. John. David. How we doing? You were my brother, David. I am? You were. You were. I was?

[00:03:09] You were supposed to destroy the dark side, not join it. Oh, wait. I'm on the dark side now? I just wanted to recite Obi-Wan's line. Oh, okay. Got it. Because I kind of thought it was. Oh, right. Of course. I just completely whiffed your attempted humor. I apologize.

[00:03:29] That's all right. It's comfy over here in the dark side. You shouldn't join me. That's all right. I don't think they have many limbs there. No. You know, we've got a really great robotics and cyborg program. But lacking in extremities for sure.

[00:03:45] We can get you a cool mod, you know, cycle bike thing that you could cruise around on when you're battling the forces of the light side. Okay. All right. That was a bad Booka Boba thing.

[00:04:02] Oh, boy. Booka Boba Fett. I struggle to remember it because I have put that in a corner of my memory that is rarely touched. Verifying. We're moving on. So speaking of previous Star Wars action, really quick, Star Wars background?

[00:04:20] Yes. I started with the 77 films, was a pretty big fan of the original trilogy of movies. Never read any of the book books. Read a few comics, but not really deep. And I was not part of the prequel revolution and have mixed feelings on the sequels.

[00:04:45] But enjoying the smattering amounts of the animated series and obviously mixed results on the television thing. So not a deep, deep lore. I've got a flurking at my door. Not a deep, deep lore knowledge, but my strength in the force is gaining every movie show that we cover.

[00:05:08] There you go. Yeah. I think that's a good way to put it. I think we're always learning about this universe because there's people who read every single thing and watch every single thing that's out there.

[00:05:17] I don't think that's us. We have too many universes to keep track of. That's right. Except Tolkien. I feel like I've gotten pretty close to that on Tolkien. But other than that, I mean, Star Wars, I love it.

[00:05:30] I've watched the Clone Wars. I've watched Rebels. I've watched The Bad Batch. Oh, my. And I've watched pretty much all of the live action stuff, too. The only thing I think is I'm missing on screen is resistance.

[00:05:45] And I might watch that eventually, but I heard it was canceled prematurely. So that always that always is a barrier to me when I start something that when I know it's going to end on an unsatisfying note. Kind of yucks your yum.

[00:05:57] Yeah. But anyway, we're here to talk about the 2005 movie Revenge of the Sith. I saw this in theaters with my dad. He took me out of school to go see it because he was excited to see it and he wanted to share that experience with me.

[00:06:12] Very cool. And I remember people were in line in costume. It was really hype and I saw it and it was terrifying because I was 10 years old, but it was also an excellent movie.

[00:06:24] And I think this is I think that experience is what sort of sold me on the prequel era and made me really enjoy it. I know that the first two movies in the prequel era had a lot of issues. I think this one overall holds up pretty well.

[00:06:38] This is overall a good movie. It has its issues, but it overall does what it needs to do. And I think the biggest criticism I can give this trilogy as a whole is other than the random genocide on Tatooine.

[00:06:55] I think that they didn't sprinkle enough of Anakin's dark side tendencies throughout the first two. I think that it felt very sudden for him in the third one to just be like, OK, fine, I'll kill Dooku out of nowhere. That's if you take the movies alone.

[00:07:12] The Clone Wars cartoons have done a world of work to make sure that you understand that throughout the Clone Wars, Anakin was struggling with the dark side.

[00:07:21] Throughout the Clone Wars, he was trying to reconcile being a child soldier with the morals that he's being taught by the Jedi Order. Right. And I'm grateful that the Clone Wars cartoons exist. I think here I want to present both how this movie stands alone in this trilogy.

[00:07:41] I think it's fair to expect you to watch the first two movies, but it's not fair to require you to watch seven seasons of a cartoon. But I also want to talk about what the Clone Wars has added to it as we go. Cool. Sounds good.

[00:07:53] What were your thoughts on it? It was probably the strongest of the three in terms of plot and story. Although it was sprawling at times and felt like there was a lot packed in here.

[00:08:14] The cringiness of what was in the first and second movies, you know, the bits there in terms of the romance was less cringy in this for whatever reasons. The turn does feel a little bit sudden, I guess I would say.

[00:08:34] And as somebody who, I'm trying to think if I've even watched any of the prequels. I think I watched the first prequel all the way through in the theaters when it came out.

[00:08:47] And then with the second and the third ones, I don't think I've ever sat down and watched them end to end like we just did. I've always seen bits and pieces and whatnot. And so seeing this in its complete form was interesting.

[00:09:05] And there's so much that are packed into these prequels that really set up this ability for the larger storytelling that happens in Star Wars. And so I can really appreciate that for these movies, for that aspect of it. You will try.

[00:09:28] There are many books that have extended the universe. A lot of stuff got decanonized and whatever, but really these three prequels are the cornerstone for the rest of the franchise. And so I think I have a new appreciation for the prequels as almost encyclopedic in some ways.

[00:09:49] And yeah, I don't have the nostalgia like I do with 77, but that's a personal thing. That's just like your father took you out. That's a nostalgia point for you.

[00:09:59] So we're all going to have those different experiences, but I can certainly understand this film and what it does on this larger level and how many key moments were in this.

[00:10:12] And then how we get to the emperor, not just how Anakin turns, but how the emperor becomes the emperor that we know later. So it does a lot to connect up the dots. Yeah. And it was fine. It was long.

[00:10:28] It had some silly bits, but it was okay. It doesn't deserve the vitriol. I don't think that the prequels as a child of 77, I think I can put down my hate for the prequels. That's great.

[00:10:47] After doing this run of them and just accept them for what they are, for how they were produced, why they were produced, when they were produced, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:10:55] And one of the things I think, one of the things that helps me in that journey too is also to see Hayden Christensen in his return to the franchise in the modern context with Ahsoka and things like that.

[00:11:10] And that sort of rehabilitation that we've gotten in the storylines and the restoration for the actors and stuff. So it changes in Ahmaud Best and what have you.

[00:11:24] And so putting all of that into fresh context and fresh light, I feel more accepting and a wholeness, a sense of wholeness now. Yeah. I think as my generation has gotten older and has populated the internet more, I think that the prequels have aged better.

[00:11:46] I think that just there's more of us who have that nostalgia factor who are willing to overlook, just like your generation was willing to overlook a lot of flaws in 77, right? Sure. Absolutely. There's some really bad dialogue in the original trilogy. Never mind kissing your sister.

[00:12:00] Yeah. And there's some really weird looking stuff in the original trilogy. It's not all great, but you love what it is enough and you have enough nostalgia for it where you are in on the story and then you are in on the universe.

[00:12:11] And I think that my generation sort of felt that way with a lot of the prequel stuff. Now, I think that overall, the original trilogy still holds up better on a story level than the prequels do.

[00:12:21] But I think that the prequels have a leg up on 77 when it comes to world building. And I think that George Lucas really, really did a great job laying the framework for this universe in the prequel trilogy.

[00:12:35] And honestly, I think the best thing I can say about this movie is it is unapologetic in what it is. It is exactly what George Lucas wanted to do. It is, you know, turn to the dark side. It is soap opera.

[00:12:48] It is, you know, these really big, dramatic points where you have this big duel with Obi Wan. And that's like the turning point of the whole thing. It's a ridiculous duel on top of lava. They can't just move off of it. But it's amazing and it looks awesome.

[00:13:05] And it creates these iconic lines that people quote to this day. And I think that's where the sequel trilogy sort of fell flat for me is that it was incredibly apologetic the entire time.

[00:13:15] The third prequel movie, and I want to save this for then more, but the third prequel movie actively sought to undo the second one. Right. And that, I think, made it a miss.

[00:13:30] It made it impossible to have a satisfying conclusion if you're working against what you've already laid down. George Lucas has his flaws, but he was finishing what he started with Revenge of the Sith.

[00:13:41] And he was really connecting the original trilogy to the prequel trilogy in a satisfying way. There's a unity of vision in the first three, right? And that's not present in the final three. But that's, yeah, we can litigate that when we get there.

[00:13:58] But I agree with you that there's a reason. And in 77, Lucas had only the vision that he had until he came back to make the prequels after episode five and six, I guess is the correct numbering.

[00:14:17] I mean, when he did 77, he didn't even know if Darth Vader would be Anakin Skywalker. Right, exactly. That wasn't a decision made yet. And so from that standpoint, the prequels giving us the world, what are the Clone Wars? What is this emperor? What is all of this stuff?

[00:14:36] And it really does inflate the world. It breathes life into the world in that much bigger context. And you can appreciate the movie from a storytelling standpoint or not, but you can't unplug the prequels from the lore, obviously.

[00:14:55] And that's what gives us the foundation for all these things. Because the books are different authors and just people out writing stuff.

[00:15:03] There wasn't a unification there, which we really feel like they're trying to do right now, what Felonious, the project that Felonious and Favreau are somewhat working on. And God knows what's going on with Star Wars Lucasfilm leadership, but that's a whole other question.

[00:15:20] Well, you know what? I'll say this too. I think that my generation growing up with the prequels helped the prequels reputation.

[00:15:25] It could be that in 20, 30 years, the Zoomers and the Gen Alpha are going to grow up watching the sequel trilogy and love it and quote it all the time and think that it's amazing. And that's great. And I hope that they do.

[00:15:37] And I hope that there's a similar effort. I think Felonious and Favreau, as you mentioned, are doing the same kind of work that Felonious did with the Clone Wars to try to smooth out the rough edges.

[00:15:48] Fill in the story and yeah, right. And create a cohesive, connective structure. Right. Make it feel like the same characters. Right? Exactly. I think that's the biggest complaint you have about Anakin in the prequels. He feels like a very different character from episode two to three.

[00:16:04] I think that, you know, you have Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi feeling very, very, very different from Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. And that was jarring for a lot of people. It was jarring for Mark Hamill.

[00:16:19] You know, he did an interview where he was very against basically what Rian Johnson had him do. And I liked the movie. I liked what they did with Luke generally. I just, there were certain things that I did not like.

[00:16:35] I did not like having him, you know, try to kill his nephew. That was really the big thing is like, how do you have this guy whose whole shtick was seeing the love, the good side in his evil father that the whole universe hates?

[00:16:50] And then he has one premonition and he almost kills him. Well, we'll get to see you got to write those notes down for that film. I know. All right. All right. We can't talk about Luke Skywalker. He's not born yet. Not till the end of the movie.

[00:17:05] So let's do a quick summary. I'm going to do the first part of the movie first and we could talk about that. And then we'll talk about Grievous to the end. I think that's a good cutoff point.

[00:17:14] OK. All right. So Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi rescue Chancellor Palpatine from Count Dooku with Anakin killing Dooku after encouragement from Palpatine. Do it. The Jedi Council begins to suspect. I was like, where's my lightsaber? I killed something.

[00:17:31] The Jedi Council begins to suspect Chancellor Palpatine's motivations after he remains in office far past his term limit. They order Anakin to spy on Palpatine and Palpatine orders the council to allow Anakin a seat.

[00:17:44] They do so, but refuse to grant him the rank of master, which is outrageous. It's unfair. Meanwhile, Anakin has premonitions of Padme's death in childbirth, allowing Palpatine to entice him with the dark side of the force to save her life.

[00:17:59] When Palpatine reveals himself as a Sith Lord, Anakin enforces informs Mace Windu, who brings a team of Jedi to arrest the chancellor. While Palpatine kills most of the team, Mace corners him. Anakin walks in and pleads for Palpatine's life.

[00:18:15] When Windu refuses, Anakin cuts off his hands, allowing Palpatine to kill Windu and anoint Anakin Darth Vader. Darth Vader. Yeah, he's got such a iconic voice, the emperor. I know. Unlimited power. He's got so many good lines in this. He does. He really does.

[00:18:38] You know, the whole, um, I really do love, honestly, the way that he tempts Anakin because a young kid who, again, it's credible for him to think this is going to come to pass, this death and childbirth,

[00:18:50] because in episode two, he sees his mother dying in some way. And then he finds her on Tatooine dying at the hands of the Tuskens. This is a central problem, central issue for Anakin's character, right? Right.

[00:19:09] The relationship with women, the various and sundry aspects of it and how he relates to his mother and his wife.

[00:19:20] And in the social strictures that he's placed under when, as a Jedi, not being allowed to, you know, supposedly being an aesthetic, I guess you would say, you're refusing those sort of delights of being a mortal in a body.

[00:19:38] But I think this goes to this problem that Anakin constantly encounters. And I'm not saying it's of his own occurrence because when he gets placed on the council, but not given the title of master, when he's told by one side to spy on the other side and the other side says spy on them.

[00:20:01] Right. And he's placed in these impossible decisions and these impossible binds. And, you know, he tries to seek solace and counsel with Padme. And she's like, they're there, husband, it'll be fine. Right.

[00:20:17] His master, his Padawan master Obi-Wan is off on other missions and isn't really there to guide him or organize it. It's just nobody knows what to do with him. He doesn't know what to do with himself. And then everybody places him into these impossible positions.

[00:20:36] The only person who really understands him is Palpatine. So no wonder he gravitates that way, because there's a sense of understanding and appreciation and honesty in some regards, even though the ultimate ends are for the dark side.

[00:20:55] But Palpatine can see his potential and wants him to reach his potential. Right. Where everybody else is like, oh, they're there, you know, little Annie, you know, go here, do this.

[00:21:06] Well, I mean, people see the dark side in Anakin, but they only see the dark side in Anakin. Those people Mace Windu. Mm hmm.

[00:21:13] He really does sense the fear and anger in Anakin. He's afraid of it, but he only sees that and he doesn't see the potential to do good. Even the whole like if what you told me is true. First of all, if what you told me is true, really? That's that's insulting right away. If what you told me is true, we'll talk, you know, you'll be on my good side.

[00:21:31] Very disrespectful the whole time. I think Mace is is perhaps the biggest problem on the Jedi Council, just really arrogant and refusing to give Anakin an ounce of respect. Right. Yeah. You know, at the same time, Anakin's acting like a petulant child. It's unfair. You know, you're really going to want to be a Jedi master and yell about it being unfair that you're not.

[00:21:53] It's not very Jedi like of you. Right. Even even Padme, like you're right. He see she sees him as only his light side and that is is her downfall with him. And she sees his dark side too late when she's already in the air with a force joke. But in the Clone Wars cartoon, you see a little bit of the darker side of their relationship.

[00:22:13] I mean, there is this whole arc where this guy is kind of hitting on Padme and Anakin beats the shit out of him, like unprompted, just completely attacks him and like leaves him battered. And the guy kind of covers for him because he knows that Padme loves Anakin. So he's he goes, oh, it's fine. Somebody somebody broke in and attacked me. You know, it wasn't Anakin, but he definitely has jealousy. He definitely has possessiveness over her.

[00:22:41] And he has a lot of these dark side emotions going throughout the Clone Wars that are only getting worse when he thinks he's going to lose her. This is the ultimate loss of her, right? It's not she he can't get her back if she's dead. Right, right. And then they're in both with the emperor and with Padme and Anakin to some degree is we we enter into this thing of longevity and reincarnation and whatnot. But that aside really quick.

[00:23:12] This idea of Anakin's maturity in the Clone Wars, he's a general commanding battalions of troopers. Right. And he's a good and he's a really crafty tactician. He wins a lot of success on the battlefield. Yeah, with war crimes too. Of course. Yeah.

[00:23:36] He does do fake surrenders, which are definitely not OK in war.

[00:23:40] Right. Well, depends on how you how you structure. I mean, we have something called Geneva Convention, but I mean, Ruse to Gare is as long as war is old. So how we how we call it legal or not, that's a different question.

[00:23:55] Maybe Brian is not very light side, I would say.

[00:23:58] Yeah, sure. It's a deception is is is deception. But this idea that he is he's his maturity levels. Right. He is you know, we we go from, you know, Clone Wars cleaning up his not cleaning up, but rounding out his backstory.

[00:24:17] And then they're like, it's not fair. They're not making me a master in here. He is he's commanded battalions and fleets and destroyed. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty. Yeah, it's interesting.

[00:24:55] It's very interesting to see these different worlds being built because you have the Jedi who are saying, well, you got to come to us young or we're not teaching you even if you are for sensitive.

[00:25:02] Right. And in the wheel of time, you have this idea of, oh, anyone who can channel is dangerous if I'm taught. We're at least going to train you how to not kill yourself and others blow up.

[00:25:13] And then we'll send you out if you want to leave. Like if you want to leave. Great.

[00:25:16] If you don't have the power to be an ice to die. Great. But we're at least going to train you how to use this inherent power in you to not hurt people. Right. That's kind of important.

[00:25:25] Right. But meanwhile, with the force is just like now we're just going to leave them out there for the Sith to pick out and win over. You know, right. Or just to accidentally discover your powers and start.

[00:25:35] Right. You know, using them on cause an avalanche or something, you know, like something destructive. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, this this question of Anakin, the maturity, I think, is is interesting.

[00:25:45] But then when he becomes Darth Vader, he's very mature. And then later when we see him in later films and things like that, he is all of that boyhood that that boyhoodness is gone.

[00:25:59] And it's almost like. Is he mature or is he serious? Do you know what I mean? I don't think he is mature. He's constantly like, oh, you insulted my religion for show. You know, he's constantly underestimating enemies and and going on wild chases.

[00:26:17] And I don't I don't know if Darth Vader is just her really interesting. I think he's I think he's just as hot headed as Anakin is.

[00:26:24] He just is monotone, you know, not monotone, but you know what I mean? Like a deeper, deeper, less range in his voice, less joy, for sure. Less joy, for sure. Less like boy like joy. But he I don't think he's mature. I think he's just serious.

[00:26:39] Yeah, it's interesting. He's deadly. He's dangerous. He's he's in command of his powers. But does he have a wisdom that that that expands above above and beyond where he is? Or is he kind of flat? That's an interesting question. And thought about that before.

[00:26:59] Yeah, I mean, he's being kept in the suit that leaves him vulnerable to his master. He's constantly living in the moment of his greatest failure, which is he believes he killed Padme at the end of this movie.

[00:27:10] Right, right, right. And and that's that's how he lives. He lives in this fear of himself of the shame until he's encased in that he's encased in by his he's armored by his shame.

[00:27:23] Right. And then he finally finds out, oh, she I didn't kill her. She died in childbirth. That's a different thing. Yeah.

[00:27:30] Interesting. Yeah, I was kind of also going for a initiation ceremony going from a childhood to adulthood and the way that different cultures and religions have those transitional ceremonies and his is being left for dead by his his master.

[00:27:49] Right, right. His former master. And and that's the graduation of him from childhood to adulthood. Yeah. So even though he's I hate you. Maybe he's not mature in a why in a wise sense, but he's no longer a child either because we don't hear him. He doesn't go stomping around the Death Star and you know, getting mad at Grand Marth talking right you know like you won't let me take my type fighter.

[00:28:14] You blow up that planet. Well, he has authority. He has authority. That's the difference, right? Is is unlike on the Jedi Council where he's had they won't put a single ounce of respect on his name. He is feared. He is and he leads by fear. You know, he he didn't get he did not get authority but through love. And so he leaned into fear and that's how he gained authority over most of the galaxy being on a on the council without being a master to have that position without responsibility to have that authority.

[00:28:43] Yeah, he got a promotion without a pay raise.

[00:29:13] So to have the responsibility but have no authority. That's a failure. That's that's a trap for failure and anyone in that position, no matter what position is is doomed to have problems. And so just like they messed with Ahsoka in a falsely accusing her and then going, oops are bad. You know, they do the same stupid, arrogant thing to him.

[00:29:43] And and serve to bring their haste in their downfall even faster by pushing Anakin to the emperor because they're so blind that they can't even see that the emperor is the the the support for what I mean, they're suspicious of them from the beginning of the movie, but they certainly don't realize the depth of it. Right? No.

[00:30:00] Yeah. And I mean, it's kind of like it's not what you say. It's how you say it. Right. Mm hmm. Surely it is inappropriate for the chancellor to be saying you need to put this guy on the Jedi Council that's meddling with affairs that are not your business. Right. And surely it's justified for them to be annoyed about it. But they shouldn't be annoyed at Anakin. That's first of all. Right. They should be annoyed at Palpatine and push back at him. Not it.

[00:30:27] Right. And as a kid, Adakin is the victim and the person in the middle and all this. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. When you bring out a kid and you don't go, well, we hate this idea, but I guess there's a chair for you, which is basically what makes windows. When do says, all right, child, sit in your chair, sit in the kiddie room. You're quiet. Don't say anything. You know, right. Yeah. You don't have any. You don't have any juice on that. You don't have a voice here. Right. Right.

[00:30:53] It's just like it's just so insulting. It's just so like, come on, man. Yeah. Again, Mace Windu does everything in his power to push Anakin towards the dark side. Right. Right. And Yoda doesn't help. I don't think either. So no, Yoda. Yoda is passive, but that doesn't excuse him. Right. Is he. He really did absolutely nothing to solve this problem.

[00:31:14] He could have been like Anakin, if it were going to be anyone. I'm glad it's you. Right. You know, you are you are very capable. We want to see you go through a couple more things before we grant you the rank of master. You know, we're not quite ready to do that, but it's coming, which Obi-Wan kind of says to him at some point to write. Like, you know, they'll give you the rank of masters. Be a little patient. But no, Mace just completely just like yells at him the whole time. And I guess sit down. I guess sit down. You know, it's just very it's a slap in the face.

[00:31:44] And yeah. The only person who seems to be vouching for him is healthy. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Right. It's it's no there's no surprises there in how things went. Right. So anyway, I think that it's it's very I think Mace was the biggest problem on the Jedi Council. It's kind of fitting that he's the one who gets killed by Anakin's turn to the dark side.

[00:32:11] I know people are like, is he ever going to come back just with mechanical hands? He fell, but we didn't see him die. Right now it's done. Yeah. I hope they I really hope he never comes back because not not just because the character annoys me. I mean, he's he's a cool fighter. I'm not against watching stories about characters I don't care for personally, but just it would be very silly to be like and he fell to his death or did he?

[00:32:37] Yeah, no. And that that cheapens everything and that becomes the world of nothing. Everything means nothing. Right. There's no stakes. There's no there's no meaning behind people's actions because you can just bring anybody back anytime. So. Right. Yeah.

[00:32:53] But you know what? I talk a lot of smack about Mace, but the entire Jedi Council does nothing to help us here. Right. Like even if they're being passive, they're actively they're actively making Anakin feel small and feel like he needs somebody to lift him up. And so all of their passiveness passivity is giving him license to go somewhere else.

[00:33:14] And yeah, we've we've talked a lot about the the not great leadership presented by the the Jedi Council here. They are they are so far underwater here. They're so far away from purpose, from having being able to have clear vision. They're just mired in war and strife and palpy is running game on them.

[00:33:41] Right. So they're they're completely effed and never mind the weird governmental structure of having this independent knight society that like parallel answers to the government, but doesn't. Yeah, it's it's very strange.

[00:33:59] Palpatine was a genius for making them generals in the war because he was able to pin the whole thing on them. Yeah, yeah. Of course, we have to just mention the elephant in the room here, which is that this was all coming out in the context of the Iraq war. And there are some very deliberate parallels with the. Oh, interesting. Hadn't hadn't considered that aspect.

[00:34:17] Yeah. And apparently there was a boycott of Iraq war supporters. They were boycotting the movie because they thought Lucas was too critical of Bush. Oh, they thought Lucas was trying to paint Bush as the emperor.

[00:34:31] Oh, strange. OK. Yeah. Never, never thought that thought never crossed my mind. So yeah, pretty crazy. All right. Let's move on to the next section on Udapau. What's what's what a fun word, right?

[00:34:44] On Udapau, Obi Wan defeats General Grievous after his victory. Palpatine executes Order 66, causing the clones to turn on the Jedi. Anakin does his part by killing all the younglings in the Jedi Temple. Palpatine then orders him to kill the last of the separatists and the Trade Federation on Mustafar.

[00:35:05] Obi Wan and Yoda determine it was Anakin who killed the younglings, and Obi Wan stows away on Padme's ship to get to Anakin on Mustafar. Anakin believes Obi Wan has turned Padme against him and attacks her, leaving her unconscious.

[00:35:22] Obi Wan and Anakin duel, leaving Anakin without any organic limbs and burning on the edge of a lava pool. Obi Wan leaves him to die, but Palpatine arrives and saves him, providing the suit that turns him into Darth Vader. Padme dies in childbirth after naming her children Luke and Leia. Yoda goes into exile. Bail Organa adopts Leia and Obi Wan takes Luke to Tatooine.

[00:35:44] One thing I didn't write in here is, of course, Palpatine uses this as an excuse to cement his power with the Senate. He calls for a vote to turn the Republic into an empire and have him be the Emperor.

[00:36:00] Right. Um, did Obi Wan royally screw up here by not, you know, completing the coup de grace on Anakin?

[00:36:13] Well, actually, I don't think he messed up there. I think his mess up was leaving Anakin alone, not taking him with him and not leaving him at home. The reason Anakin was isolated was because the Jedi Council was insisting on him remaining with Palpatine.

[00:36:28] Right. Right. And so again, the Jedi put him in these vulnerable situations. He's not ready to be master, but he's ready to be a double agent. Are we kidding? And if he's not a master, he's still Padawan. And so he should be with his master.

[00:36:40] He's above the level of Padawan. Yeah. There's an intermediary there. Okay. I didn't realize that. Yeah, that makes sense. That does make sense because that way he could be away from his master. Right. Because Ahsoka is his Padawan at this point, although that's not in this movie really.

[00:36:56] True. Yeah. Complete absence. But yeah, it wasn't created yet. So that's fine. So but the fact that you're going to leave him to suffer and burn, I mean, I can understand that it might be a difficult thing to kill your brother, you know, to finish him off, as it were, the coup de grace.

[00:37:17] But to leave him to suffer, isn't that worse? It is. That's a great point. I thought about that too when I was watching. I'm like, this is not mercy. No, it's not. He's he's in horrible, horrible pain and you're just like, oh, bye.

[00:37:34] Yeah, I think if you if you look at it in like the Star Wars make it make sense way is this is the force working in mysterious ways. Anakin has to balance out the force eventually. He still hasn't done it. Leave him alive for now. Right. And he brings balance to the force again.

[00:37:51] I know I know we talk about the prophecy thing being kind of a weakness of the trilogy rather than a strength, but prophecies and midichlorians, we just don't we don't I think we're moving on in storytelling away from the chosen one sort of thing.

[00:38:09] The very Judeo-Christian savior. But sure, but that's but he's he's actively messing with it. Right. He's actually yeah, he's he's turning it on its head. Yeah. And playing with it and examining it from different angles. So that's but he but he's not coming forward with the story of saying, oh, yes, the chosen one thing, which is all right. Yeah. Let's let's move on from that. And let's divert. You know, let's let's open up our storytelling and get away. Yeah. The mono hero.

[00:38:36] And I think that people have been turning it on its head for a while. Who who is the hero of the Lord of the Rings is the most unlikely person, right? Not the chosen one, but an ordinary person.

[00:38:46] Well, even to the even such that Gollum destroys himself. Right. You know, he threw a through a trick in an accident. You know, he trips or what have you. Because no one would have been able to do it right. There was no chosen one. This was an impossible task. Exactly. If you do it intentionally. And, you know, Frodo and Sam paid dear prices for it.

[00:39:11] Yes. Yeah, there was consequence. There wasn't. Oh, I'm going to get a medal and have my sister wink at me. You know, and everything's funny enough. Just a quick segue. I saw recently on an Instagram reel. Somebody had posted I don't know the creation of this, but they basically showed the medal ceremony without the triumphant music. And it sounds like and I don't know if this is real audio or if it was audio.

[00:39:41] That somebody has layered in. But it's it's like people coughing and shuffling around. And when that's probably yeah, that's probably layered in. But yeah, yeah. But it's so perfect. It's so good. And God, that scene is on. It's hilarious to watch without the music. You're just like, Whoa, the music really, really does a lot here for what's going on. So anyway, sorry to segue that it just no, I think it's I think it's fun.

[00:40:08] I think it's fun. And, you know, what a genius power play for Palpatine to consolidate power here by being like the Jedi. You know, don't ask any questions about them. We had to turn the troops on them because they were they were going to thwart this republic. They were going to attack democracy, which is the same thing that, you know, there.

[00:40:31] Obi Wan is defending similar things to what Palpatine is saying he's defending. Right. So you can use these things. And I think, again, this is going back to Iraq war. What are we doing in Iraq? We're trying to spread democracy to the Middle East. Right. That's what that's what George Bush is saying. Right. We're trying to bring the power. Well, that's the one over there.

[00:40:48] That was the right. That was the messaging, right? Right. That's what I'm saying, right? Yeah. Is that that's Palpatine's messaging. Oh, they tried to overthrow democracy. We need to have something stronger. And you know, you can compare it to the Patriot Act, you know,

[00:41:03] the George Bush Patriot Act or versus, you know, creating an empire. A lot of a lot of criticisms of the Bush administration within this movie. Right. Well, and this goes into, I think a central question that our species is facing right now is styles of government

[00:41:22] and leadership. And, you know, the fact that demagoguery is not is something it's a structure that's being that is developed based on some impulses that we have as a species where in some cases, you know, some people are happy with the messiness of it. And in some cases,

[00:41:47] other people want clear and consistent leadership, even if that leadership is not always in their best interests. I'm trying to very carefully navigate. I'm not a political scientist either. I'm just an armchair podcaster. But this idea that Palpatine uses

[00:42:12] he is a he is really, really good at using the institutions and understanding how to play the institutions and then to include the order 66 code in the software, so to speak, so that when

[00:42:27] he turns it on, the you know, the clone troopers have no choice. That's a brilliant piece of storytelling. It's also from an in world. It's a brilliant strategic and tactical element. And to take your army and flip a switch. And it's incredible. It was incredible foresight,

[00:42:49] incredible ability to plan, incredible ability to understand how that works. And I think that's kind of unique in Lucas's storytelling that there is that that order 66 exists in a storytelling element. And I can't think of it's equal in some ways. I mean, people different people have played

[00:43:11] with some AI stuff. I haven't read all of the Asimov iRobot stuff, and I don't know what might be there in terms of inspiration or source. And maybe there's other stories that incorporate

[00:43:27] something like that. But I'm you know, I'm not always fully read, but I'm sure, you know, maybe if somebody's got an idea about something, I'd love to hear feedback. Like where did order 66?

[00:43:38] What what inspired it? What informed it? What things did Lucas have at his fingertips to be able to create that device? Because it's a it's probably more historical than literary, right? Is

[00:43:50] you rarely in literature see the building of an evil empire. You usually see the fall of it like you do in the original trilogy. Like sure, right. Basically every single fantasy sci fi thing ever.

[00:44:04] And it's very rare to go back in time and be like, well, let me tell you how that happened. How did this get created? And well, it's because we've been stuck in these monomyth things where

[00:44:13] we're looking for the savior to do stuff, right? So sure, sure. Yeah. So it is a I think we can give props to Lucas for that as well as to spin the camera angle around from the point of view.

[00:44:25] And like, how did an evil empire rise? OK, that's an interesting story. And also using conspiratorial thinking as a device here. So Palpatine, the most effective thing he does to secure himself as emperor and say I was attacked. I'm deformed now because of the way that these

[00:44:44] people attacked me. Why do they want to attack me? What are they hiding? Why don't they want me in charge? Let's make sure I'm in charge forever to spite them. You know, and I'm not

[00:44:56] going to make any direct comparisons today, but I think that there's a lot of like, yeah, there's a lot of like, OK, Caesar, why don't they want me in charge? Right. Why? Why don't

[00:45:07] they want me in charge? This big they. And that's that's a lot of how people get won over on this conspiratorial thinking is there is some kind of secret plot against me. Meanwhile, the secret

[00:45:20] plot is on the side of Palpatine in this case. Right. Yeah. Well, that's very interesting. Right. You throw off what you're hiding. Right. You accuse what you are doing. That's a well right. You know, two thoughts quickly come to mind. Two quick segue thoughts. One in Follow

[00:45:39] the House of Usher. I just started watching episode three on the Netflix the other night. I got interrupted, so I didn't finish the episode. But it's very interesting at the beginning of that episode because part of the plot without spoiling anything is on a public relations standpoint,

[00:45:57] how there is an opportunity for the family to gain sympathy among the general public and how to vilify the law enforcement that's sort of coming after them and whatnot. And so this ability to turn that to find a moment of sympathy and then turn that against your enemies

[00:46:20] and having the general public then turn against your enemies as well. So really nice little touch in Follow the House of Usher. But then it's I'm also thinking about I was just listening this

[00:46:29] morning to Maester Anthony on his most recent Electric Bukulu podcast. He's coming up to a break in the season for Clash of Kings and he was talking to a particular professor. I forget the gentleman's name, but they're talking about the prince. And this guy uses the Machiavellian

[00:46:50] writings in direct comparison to Game of Thrones in one of his college classes. And so Anthony read the book, they talk about it and they talk about the power and all of these kinds of things. And so it's also a very interesting sideways conversation.

[00:47:09] Go listen to that podcast real quick because I think it will help us look at... It'll help you as the listener to think about this power structure as well because it's totally like

[00:47:19] flipping switches in my brain about how to use power and what are the tactics and strategies and the things that Palpatine employed of how to turn public sentiment against the Jedi. Masterstroke, right? Absolute masterstroke. Another question I have to follow up on this

[00:47:39] whole idea of power, vulnerability, whatnot is do you think that Palpatine was really cornered by Mace or was he putting on an act for Anakin only? Oh, please help me. Don't kill me. Hmm. Interesting. Anakin, do something. Well, can it be both?

[00:47:57] It can be. And I think it might be a little bit of both, but it's- He lulls Mace into a false sense. I'm going to arrest you, but wait, I thought you were going to kill him. I don't understand. Anyway, whatever Mace's

[00:48:09] mixed motivations are. But he certainly does draw sympathy out of Anakin and then gains that tactical advantage to... But I think Anakin, I mean, sorry, not Anakin. I think Palpatine is constant or Darth Sidious, whatever, this dual nature that he has. He's looking for that moment

[00:48:32] to pivot Anakin, to get him to step over, not just to be cozying up to the power of the dark side, but actually cross the line. Sure. Yeah, doing some kind of irrevocable action, which is killing

[00:48:49] a Jedi. Exactly. And he needs to get him over that line. And then the moment that happens, Anakin is... Darth Vader is wholly subservient to Palpatine. Yes, my master. He's kneeling right away, right?

[00:49:05] Exactly. He's gone. He's too far over. Yep. Dark stuff, dark stuff. Speaking of dark stuff, the younglings, they didn't fare so well here. We know Grogu was among them. We know now after Mandalorian season three. Right. That's right. With what was the... With Kelleran. Kelleran, yes, yes. Kelleran.

[00:49:27] Yeah. That'd be a fun to see. I would love... I think with visions and not... Well, with visions and with... What was the Dooku Ahsoka? Yeah, Tales of the Jedi.

[00:49:41] Tales of the Jedi. I think it would be really great if we told some more of those. I don't need a whole show of Anakin or... Kelleran. My best. Kelleran, thank you. Kelleran back. But I would love a short.

[00:49:55] Yeah. Right? Like leading up to that moment. I don't need... Up to the moment where he gets Grogu. What happens to get there? That would be a fun eight, 12 minute animated short or something.

[00:50:06] That would be. I would also love a what if series on Star Wars, but that's just dreaming now. Hey, Lucasfilm, call us. We're available. We're cheap. We'll be the new Filonian Vabra. We'll do a terrible job. Anyway, the duel. Yes. Let's talk about it. What'd you think?

[00:50:30] I'm trying to recall it. This is the most iconic duel in all of Star Wars. I know. And we were watching... And you're trying to recall it. Well, because we were watching on a live watch. And so I was

[00:50:40] busy chatting as much as I was watching. Yeah. That was a really fun live watch. I hope people come to the one on solo that we do probably in November. Yeah. We had a good time chatting it up. I think when we do these live watches,

[00:50:55] when it's a live watch, I got to pay attention to the live watch. But when it's... I got to watch the movie maybe separate from the live watch so that I can actually absorb the thing.

[00:51:03] Weren't they... They were hopping around on the different skiffs over the lava and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. All of that I can do without. I would rather have a straight up... This is the best duel in all of Star Wars, in my opinion.

[00:51:19] Okay. I'm not going to not give that to you. Show some respect, David. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Fair enough. It will always be my favorite, mostly because of the dialogue. I love it. You were my brother.

[00:51:32] My allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy. Just all of this great stuff going on. Right. Love it. Well, and Lucas had to write that up, right? I mean, he had to... That has to be a crescendo. That has to be a...

[00:51:46] You turned her against me. You have done that yourself. Wow. You have this whole thing memorized. I can quote this whole thing. Yeah. I love it. That's great. And Ewan McGregor, I mean, who could ask for more? Who could ask for more? You even get in this movie,

[00:52:02] I didn't really mention it, but you get Hello There. You get the callback to the original movie. This is a meme factory. Yeah. Oh, do you not know about the Prequel Meme subreddit? No. No. I'm not a big... It's one of the biggest subreddits on Reddit, I think.

[00:52:17] Really? It's amazing. It's just all prequel memes. That's funny. It is. It was very, very memeable. Yeah. So yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about it in that way. Yeah. But I did remember seeing when Obi-Wan pops up there, well, hello there. I'm like, wait, that's a meme.

[00:52:36] Yeah. Yeah. And it's also a callback to Alec Guinness saying hello there in the first movie. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. No, and that goes back to my fact... The fact that I don't...

[00:52:48] I haven't watched this movie A, that many times, nor when I have seen it, it's mostly in chunks. I'll see it for a few minutes and drop out and drop in, drop out. So watching it front to back

[00:53:00] like this is... It's not as burned into my synapses as 77 is. I could definitely quote this a lot more than I can the original trilogy. Right. Yeah. Well, there you go. Especially the duel scene. Especially that. Yeah.

[00:53:16] I mean, it's iconic. I just saw a TikTok the other day that was like... It had the whole dialogue of leading up to their duel in acronyms. It just had the letters and they said,

[00:53:35] if she can read you what this means, marry her. It's just very, very memeable, this area. Right. Very memeable, this scene. Anyway, Padme, one of the dumbest parts of the movie, I'll be honest. She died because she lost the will to live.

[00:53:56] Right. The whole Padme arc is just... She has just done no favors in this whole arc. And in the deleted scenes, she's politicking the whole time. Mm-hmm. She's trying to stop the war from going on. She's trying to solve problems, stay one step ahead of this consolidation.

[00:54:16] She's a freaking senator. She's brilliant. She represented the elected queen of Naboo. I mean, come on. Yep. So yeah, no, just the filmmaking fell victim to the outmoded ideas of gender norms in this. Yeah. So we just can't... What can we do? It's a shame.

[00:54:37] We can headcanon stuff, but yeah, the film is the film. And it was made when it was made, which is... Right. We're moving on. Sure. I've seen some headcanon people have done where it's like the droid just didn't

[00:54:50] know why she was dying. It was an incompetent medical droid. And it's just like, I don't know, she lost the will to live. Her will to live meter is plummeting. Yeah. It was just a crappy medical droid. Yeah.

[00:55:04] Oh man. Yeah, no, and it's a shame because... What's her name? The actress? Natalie Portman. Thank you. Natalie Portman is damn fine actor and just not given the space to do anything with the character.

[00:55:20] Yeah. If you've seen some of our other big movies like V for Vendetta, she's brilliant in that. Just they did not let her have any range in this movie or any of these movies, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. So. Well, I know she's expressed interest in coming back. So... Really?

[00:55:36] Hopefully. Yeah. So hopefully we get her again someday. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. I don't think I have anything else to say about the actual movie, David. I think... Do you want to head into Star Wars feedback?

[00:55:49] Sure. We can do that. Yeah. I just will... I am on record now fully and wholeheartedly without moral reservation and nobody's coached me or paid me to say this, but the prequels are not that bad. Brought to you by Lucasfilms.

[00:56:07] All right, David, I think that you and I are running short on time today. So real life is in shooting. Yes. What we're going to do here is we're going to cut it here and then sometime next week,

[00:56:21] we're going to record a feedback episode because we have a lot of listener feedback for both the Soka and Revenge of the Sith. And these are not short emails. No, they're like... Yeah. There's eight pages.

[00:56:31] Right now. All right. So what we're going to do now is we're going to cut here. We'll record a bridge episode where we do some feedback. Maybe we'll talk about like a fun Star Wars topic or something like that. Yeah, that'd be good.

[00:56:44] Just to tie it together. And anyway, let's cut it here. Let's do our quick programming notes. I know Alicia is back on the Wolshift Dust feed doing... It's happening. Her... Yeah, she's doing a lot right now. She's doing Edgar Allan Poe's adaptation.

[00:56:57] I guess it's not his adaptation. It's an adaptation of his work by Mike Flanagan, The Fall of the House of Usher. She's doing coverage with her sister. She did a One Shot With Me where we talked about the series, which was really fun.

[00:57:09] She did a crossover podcast with Anthony over on... That was an excellent podcast. It was. I listened to it. So insightful. Oh my God. The stuff about Harrenhal and Poe. Oh my Lord. It blew my mind.

[00:57:19] Yeah. So go check out her feed if you want to listen to any of that. And of course, you can check out Maester Anthony's feed, Properly Howard, if you want to catch up on all the remake coverage that he and Steve did recently.

[00:57:31] A lot of fun. You don't have to watch the movies. Get on that. But if you want fresh Maester Anthony and Steve, you can head to the Severance feed, which is also in the show notes and catch their coverage of the first couple episodes

[00:57:43] of Severance Season 1. We'll be joining them for Severance Season 2, and those episodes will only be on that feed. So make sure you subscribe, rate and review if you want to help us get found by more people. And we look forward to seeing you over there.

[00:57:56] For us, David, you're doing Loki Season 2 with Alicia and John, and it seems like you're having a great time. And I'm having a good time keeping up. Yeah. It's a good season. It's fun.

[00:58:07] Yep. It seems like it's a lot better than the secret invasion mess we had earlier in the year. We don't talk about secret invasion. You did on the ad. I listened to the ad.

[00:58:19] All right. So check that out. If you have any interest in the MCU, I think you'll like it. For us, we have all of our... The Lorehounds engine is going again. We got the one shot for

[00:58:29] Fall of Usher. We've got Silmarillion stories, Earthsea should all be out before now. And of course, our interview with Bear McCreary should be live by now. That was amazing. I was so high after that. Very, very good stuff. Yeah. Very, very good episode and a very good interview.

[00:58:47] Made me excited to see what he's going to do next. So check that out. More stuff coming. Lorehounds play is coming. Might be out already. So we have plenty of things for your ear holes, as they say. David, you want to give our patrons a quick thank you?

[00:59:03] Yes. To our Loremasters, Samartian, Cyrus, Mark H., Michael G., Michelle E., David W., Brian P., Nick W., S.C., Peter O.H., Bettina W., Adam S., Nancy M., Labinia T., Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H., Sarah L., Gara C., Eric F., Matthew M., Sarah M., DJ Miwa, Andra B.,

[00:59:23] Kuang Yu, Laura G., Deadeye Jedi Bob, Nathan T., Alex V., Aaron T., Subzero, and Adrian. Thank you all so very much for your ongoing and continued support. Thank you to all of our Patreon

[00:59:36] subscribers. We couldn't do this without you. And thank you to everyone who does give us a listen. I think that's it. All right. Thank you, everyone. Of course, check out the new second breakfast and we will see you on the feedback episode.

[01:00:14] The opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black. John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life.

[01:00:44] So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show.

[01:00:56] The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the lore hounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[01:01:07] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lore Hounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot,

[01:01:23] but probably positive takes. The Lore Hounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin.

[01:01:34] Dragon seeds may experience burning.