I called it! I predicted the story arc would end with Ahsoka alive but no longer a Jedi, and there ya go. And I can't blame her. The Council and the Senate were both way too quick to make up their minds. (In fact, I find that rather implausible. Just because they found her in the same warehouse as the nanodroids, they assumed they belonged to her? Didn't they run any forensic analysis of the warehouse to check her story about being attacked there?) Indeed, the Senate seemed so quick to railroad her that I wonder if this was some master plan of Palpatine. I mean, Palps, who was sitting in the role of judge, was himself giving argument for the prosecution! What do they call a kangaroo court in the Republic?
But then, it seems that Barriss was acting against Palps's agendas, since she saw -- rightly -- that the Jedi had been drawn off their path by the Dark Side, manipulated into waging an unnecessary war. So it's odd that Palps and Tarkin were so eager to find a scapegoat.
They certainly pulled out the stops production-wise on this. I was particularly impressed by Kevin Kiner's musical score, which was richer and more memorable than his usual work. More, it sounds like they sprung for a real orchestra in at least the final minutes (I didn't notice before then), which really lent it a more poignant, cinematic quality.
Tim Curry did a decent job of adjusting his voice to sound somewhat like Abercrombie and McDiarmid. But his own distinctive rhythms and habits of speech still came through clearly. I'm not sure he's really the best choice to take over here. Abercrombie was good at playing both the kindly facade and the sinister Sith Lord underneath, but "kindly" isn't a word one associates with Tim Curry's voice. I think Palpatine is going to come off as a harsher character from now on.
Is this the only time we've seen Padme all season?
